8. Chapter 8- August
This is the first time Lenora has ever chosen not to come back.
No. Sarah. Her name is Sarah.
I force myself to hold onto that because names matter now. Names are the difference between a person and a vessel. Between love and possession. Between remembering someone and replacing them.
Sarah stands in front of me with half my face trying to grow beneath hers.
One of her eyes is mine. One of her fingers is mine.
Pieces of my ribs cage her heart. My tooth sits inside her mouth.
My heartbeat stutters beneath her own. And somewhere underneath all of that, the first Lenora is still trying to claw her way through.
Sarah looks like a haunted house built out of people.
And she is still the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.
That thought almost makes me laugh.
Of course it does. Of course even now I find her beautiful. Even when her body is splitting at the seams trying to decide who gets to live inside it. Even when every inch of her is proof of what I did.
“I won’t let her come back.” Sarah’s voice trembles. Part of it is hers. Part of it is mine.
There’s another voice beneath both.
Soft. Old. Familiar.
Lenora. The first one.
I hear her sometimes when Sarah breathes. I hate that I still love the sound.
“What do we do?” I ask.
She looks toward the jars.
Most are broken.
The remaining glass reflects pieces of us across the room. Nine lives. Nine bodies. Nine disasters.
“I don’t know.” She swallows. “But you said the transfer finishes when you disappear.”
“Yes.”
“And then she takes over.”
“I think so.”
“You think?” she quips.
“Everything I knew was wrong.”
“Great.”
“Very reassuring.”
She almost smiles.
I want to kiss her.
The desire comes so naturally it makes me sick. My mouth remembers hers. My hands remember every version. My body still reaches for the same comfort even though comfort is killing us.
Sarah notices. “Don’t.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Liar.”
“Apparently terrible at it.”
Her mouth curves. Then her expression twists as she doubles over.
“Sarah?”
Pain rips through her. She grabs the table. Her shoulders jerk backward. Something moves beneath her shirt. Not one movement.
Many.
Bones shifting. Muscle rearranging.
I reach for her.
She screams. “Don’t touch me!”
I stop.
Her spine arches. A wet tearing sound fills the room. The back of her shirt darkens then splits. Skin presses through the fabric.
Not hers.
Mine.
A section of my back. A patch of skin complete with the small scar beneath my shoulder blade from a riding accident in 1876. Attached to her.
I stare.
She can’t see it. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t fucking lie.” She spits.
“Sarah...” I warn.
“What is it?”
I move behind her. Her skin has opened along her shoulder. The edges pull apart in slow, trembling contractions. Inside, tissue glistens. Something pale pushes upward. Not bone.
Skin.
My skin.
Growing beneath hers.
I gag. I actually fucking gag.
Sarah laughs through tears. “That bad?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“August.” She whines.
“Part of my back is growing out of yours.”
She goes silent.
Then… “Well.” A tiny, strangled laugh. “That’s fucking disgusting.”
I laugh too.
Because what else is left?
Then the patch of skin twitches and my body answers. A section between my shoulder blades goes numb. I reach behind myself. Nothing. Smooth skin where the scar used to be.
Gone.
Inside her.
My stomach turns.
“Every piece you grow...”
“I know.”
“...I lose.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying that.”
She looks over her shoulder. One of her eyes mine. One still green. “For once, I actually do.”
That hurts more than it should.
I sit because my knees no longer trust me.
Sarah lowers herself to the floor across from me carefully.
Her body looks painful now. Too many structures competing beneath the skin.
Her right shoulder is mine. The left is hers.
Her jaw keeps shifting between shapes. Even her fingers twitch with mismatched instincts. “Do you remember her dying?” she asks.
I look at her.
“The first Lenora.”
“No.” I whisper.
“Try.”
“I don’t want to.”
“That’s not an answer.”
I laugh weakly. “You really are you.”
“What does that mean?”
“Every version of you asks the question I least want to answer.”
“Maybe you need to stop avoiding them.”
“Apparently.” I close my eyes. The memory waits. Not hidden anymore.
Just painful.
1897.
Rain. Lenora in bed. Not the bloody snow. Not the molt.
Before. Before all of it.
Her skin is burning with fever. My hands are trying to cool her. A doctor standing near the door.
His expression tells me everything before he speaks. “I’m sorry.”
No.
I hate those words. I have always hated them.
Lenora lies beneath the blankets. Too still. Her breaths are shallow. Her dark hair damp against her forehead. “August.”
I kneel beside her. “I’m here.”
“Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I’m already gone.”
“You’re not.”
She smiles weakly. “You always were a terrible liar.”
My throat closes. “I’ll get another doctor.”
“No.”
“I’ll go to Boston.”
“August.”
“New York.”
“August.”
“Anywhere.”
She lifts a hand. It barely reaches me.
I take it into my grip. God she’s so fucking cold.
“I don’t want to die with you running out the door.”
The words destroy me.
So I sit near her.
She traces my knuckles. “Stay.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” I assure her.
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
Her breathing becomes slower. “No.”
I squeeze her hand. “No.”
She smiles at me. “You’re doing it again.”
“What?”
“Trying to argue about something you can’t win.”
“I can win.”
“Not this.”
“Watch me.”
A tiny laugh escapes her lips then she coughs and blood leaks from the corner of her mouth.
I wipe it away.
She looks at me then reaches up to grab my face but I take her hand into mine instead.
“I love you.” She breathes.
I shake my head.
Her brows pull together.“What?”
“Don’t say that.”
“Why?”
“Because it sounds like goodbye.”
“It is.”
“No. I don’t accept that fate for you…for us.”
“August...”
“NO.”
She starts crying.
So do I.
“I love you.”
“Stop.” I warn.
“I love you.”
“Stop.” I beg.
“I love you.”
“STOP.” I shout as her fingers tighten around mine with the last strength she has.
Then…
Her grip loosens.
“No…” I whisper as I watch her chest.
It doesn’t rise.
I stare as tears fill my eyes.
Wait.
One second. Two. Three.
Nothing.
Something inside me breaks so violently I feel it as physical pain.
I shake her. “Lenora.”
Nothing.
“Lenora. Please baby.”
No, I wasn’t ready.
“Wake up.”
Come on please. Don’t take her away from me.
“Please.”
Nothing.
I scream her name until someone pulls me away.
The memory shifts.
Rain. A black door. My clothes soaked through. A piece of paper crushed in my fist. An address given to me by someone who whispered about a man who could return what death had stolen.
I knock.
The door opens.
Gray hair. Black coat.
That smile.
“How badly do you want her back?”
I remember my answer now.
“More than anything in this world.” I say.
He hesitates. “What would you give?”
“Everything.” The answer is instantaneous.
His smile widens. “Careful.”
“I don’t care.” I rush out. Because I don’t, I just want her.
“You will.” He smirks, tilting his head watching me closely.
“Bring her back.” I beg.
He doesn’t answer right away. He studies for a second longer before saying anything. “She can’t come back from nothing.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Death has already taken the vessel.”
“Then make another.” The words leave my mouth.
Mine.
Fuck.
Take me.
The man tilts his head. “Another?”
“Use me.” I stop breathing inside the memory.
He smiles. “Now that...” His eyes move over me. “...I can do.”
The memory snaps away. I open my eyes.
Sarah’s crying. She saw it.
I know she did.
“Oh my God.”
“I told him.” My voice barely works. “I told him to make another body.”
“August...”
“I gave him permission.”
“You were grieving.”
“I gave him permission.”
“You didn’t know what it meant.”
“I didn’t care what it meant.”
She flinches.
That’s worse.
Because it’s true. I didn’t ask questions. Didn’t care whose body. Whose life. Whose future. I only cared that Lenora wasn’t gone. “I did this.”
Sarah crawls closer. “August...”
“No.” I move back. “Don’t.”
“Stop trying to punish yourself for five fucking minutes.”
“Nine women. At least.” The correction lands. “At least nine women.” I laugh. There’s no humor left. “All because I couldn’t say goodbye.”
Sarah looks at me for a long time. “Then say it now.”
I stop breathing. “What?”
Her face crumples then wipes at her eyes. “You never did.”
“No.”
“You never let her go.”
“No.”
“Maybe that’s why this keeps happening.”
I shake my head. “We don’t know that.”
“No.”
She touches her chest. My heartbeat inside her. “But maybe this thing needs you to keep choosing her.”
“I chose you.”
“I know.”
“Sarah.”
“I know.”
She crawls closer. “This time you chose me.”
My throat closes.
“But I’m not the one you made the deal for.”
“No.”
“She is.”
I know where this is going.
“No.”
Sarah’s eyes fill. “You have to let Lenora die.”
“She already did.”
“No.” Her hand presses over her sternum. “No, August. She didn’t.” Something moves beneath her face. Her jaw shifts. Her brown hair darkens at the roots. Her green eye fills slowly with brown. The first Lenora looks out through her.
For a second. Only one.
But I know her.
My whole fucking body knows her.
“August.” The voice isn’t Sarah’s.
I freeze.
No.
No.
The woman in front of me smiles.
Not Sarah.
Lenora.
My first Lenora.
Her lips tremble. “There you are.”
Every part of me breaks at once. “Lenora?”
Her eyes fill. “I’ve missed you.”
God, no.
I move toward her before I can stop myself.
Sarah’s face flickers back. “NO!”
I stop.
She grabs her own throat. “Don’t listen to her.”
Her voice changes again. “August.”
Lenora.
Soft. Warm. The voice that haunted a century.
“Come here.”
My legs almost obey.
Sarah screams through the same mouth. “NO!”
Two voices. One body. Both fighting.
Sarah claws at her face. “Get out of me!”
Lenora laughs. Not cruelly—sadly.
“You asked for me.”
“Not me!” The skin around Sarah’s mouth splits. Two sets of lips seem to pull against the same flesh.