Chapter Thirty-Four #2
It felt like minutes passed until Preston finally spoke. “That’s something I wouldn’t share with anyone else in this house.”
I raised my gaze at him, his green eyes fathomless.
“Not your grandmother, not any lingering ghosts. You shouldn’t even have told me.”
The warm water stormed around me as I lowered myself into the bathtub. After Preston escorted me back to my room and I turned the small moth-key in the lock, I went to bed, wrapping myself in the soft blankets. But I woke up shivering, finding it was still dark outside. So I decided to take a bath.
My mind kept circling back to the attic. To the shreds of my mum’s diary. The words kept repeating in my head like a silent chant.
Monster
reate
kness
Oulless
Lia
y mothe
The more I repeated them the less sense they made. I leaned back resting my head on the edge of the bath. It’s been a month since I arrived here, but its felt as though a year had passed. I could barely remember the stale smell of the Drunken Lion Pub, or the faces I used to see every day.
I glanced at the black painted door. On the other side of it, my phone lay in the bottom drawer of my nightstand with one clear text sent to Tony saying I quit. I sent it over two weeks ago, yet it was still hard to believe I would never have to go back there.
I thought of Anhe Fei. I hoped she was alright, and hadn’t slipped on those nasty stairs that always got too slippery in the winter.
I sighed, then took a deep breath and slipped beneath the surface, letting the warmth consume me completely. I kept my eyes closed, my fingers tracing the porcelain underneath me. I was weightless, stuck between two worlds.
Bug?
My mum’s voice soothed my thoughts. Slowly I exhaled the air, and opened my eyes watching the bubbles rise to the surface.
“Bug.” The voice was muffled, but it didn’t come from my memories as I first thought. It was vivid. Real.
I broke the surface, turning the water into an uncontrollable cyclone. The bathroom lamp flickered above the mirror, the warm light blinking at me nervously.
My mum was here. After so long, she was finally here again. Her cheeks were paler, almost blue, and her eyes greyed. But it was her.
“I’m sorry it took me so long to visit you again. I used up too much of my energy last time.”
I could barely breathe, my eyes prickling from the water.
“I—” So many things had happened since we last met, I didn’t know where to start. “I found the book you were looking for. The Tome of Fates. It was in the mausoleum. And I also know about Alex. And Varden…and Hudson.”
“Whoa,” she smiled, softly, her fingers tracing the edge of the bathtub. “Slow down, bug.” I straightened in the water and nodded. Slow down. “Let’s start with that book. Can you show it to me?”
Less than ten minutes later I was sitting on my bed, flipping the pages of the book so my mum could see.
“Can you open it in the middle?” she asked, and I did, holding back my questions. The page was empty. My mum traced the air above the inkless rows.
“Tenebrae vorant tenebrae rapiunt et ex iis regnamus.” Her voice slid higher than usual.
Ink bled slowly across the page, and I inhaled sharply. A smile curled on her thin lips.
“How did you do that?” I leaned closer to the paper, watching the ink settle on it.
“The power is in the words,” she answered, her voice distant with her attention on the words.
Which I couldn’t read. They were written in Latin. I sighed.
“Why didn’t you teach me?” I asked, gulping down the rest of my cold Belladonna tea.
“It’s not Latin,” she said, and my brows knit. “It’s similar, but it’s older.”
I eyed the page crammed with drawings and letters I couldn’t grasp. “Do you understand it?”
“Some, yes,” she paused. I waited for her to continue, and studied the small fringes on her rainbow-coloured sweater. If I tried really hard, I could almost remember her scent. The soft, earthy-herbal blend of geranium and clary sage.
“But half of the words are a blur for me too… It talks about a girl. She’s inked with magic. This book contains something good and something bad along with everything in between,” she translated, her fingers skimming above the page.
“The girl inked with magic?” I asked, and she turned to look at me, her eyes glinting with interest.
“Have you heard of her?”
I nodded. “She’s a recurring character in Tales of Thornhill. I think her real name might have been Agnes. That’s who the first half of this book is about.”
My mum hummed. “Can you turn the page?”
“Does it say anything about the Monster?” I asked, taking in the new drawing.
She didn’t answer, her attention on the book only.
“Because I think it might be back.” I thought of the woman whose sheep went missing. Then at the one we found in that old nursery.
“Oh, it’s back, Bug,” my mum said. “There’s no question in that.”
I stiffened. Her voice was so casual. Wasn’t she afraid at all?
“Was that why you left? Should I leave too?”
She finally looked at me, her grey eyes hard and soft at the same time.
“You have nothing to fear,” she said, her lips tugging into a slow smile. “It would never hurt you.”