8. Chapter 8- August #3
I created a ghost and forced it to keep waking. Again and again inside women who never asked to carry her. Maybe Lenora isn’t the monster either. Maybe she’s been trapped too.
“I’m sorry.”
Her face softens. “I know.”
“I should have let you go.”
She cries harder.
“I was afraid.”
“So was I.”
“I thought loving you meant keeping you.”
“No.”
“I know.”
Sarah flickers through. “August.”
I nod.
Then Lenora again.
I touch the face that belongs to neither woman completely. “I loved you.”
Lenora smiles through tears. “I loved you too.”
My voice breaks. “Goodbye.”
The world stops.
Lenora screams.
Not in pain.
In release.
The sound tears through Sarah’s body.
Every light in the apartment explodes.
Glass rains down.
Sarah arches.
The dark eye turns brown. Then green.
Her jaw shifts. Her face ripples beneath the skin. Names appear across her body like bruises.
ELEANOR.
ANNA.
JUNE.
Others.
Dozens. They surface and vanish.
For one terrible moment, voices pour from her mouth.
Crying. Laughing. Begging. Names. Lives. Memories.
A century of women trapped beneath Lenora’s imprint.
Then Sarah screams one word. “GO.”
Something leaves her.
I don’t see it.
I feel it.
A pressure breaks. The second heartbeat inside her chest stops.
Mine.
My own heart stops with it.
I gasp.
Sarah grabs me. “No.”
I smile. Or try to. “I think...” Blood fills my mouth. “...that’s it.”
“No.”
“Sarah.”
“No.”
My body is failing rapidly now.
Not transferring.
Dying. Really dying.
Finally.
Skin loosens from my bones. What bones remain. My hair falls away in clumps. Teeth spill from my mouth. My fingertips blacken.
Sarah holds me tighter. “Stay.”
The word cuts deeper than anything.
I laugh weakly. “That’s how this started.”
Her face crumples. “Then don’t stay forever.”
I look at her.
“Just a little longer.”
So I do.
Seconds. Maybe minutes. I don’t know. Time becomes small.
Her hand in mine. Her face above me. Her tears landing on my skin. “Tell me something,” she whispers.
“What?”
“Something real.”
I think of all the centuries. All the lives. All the horror. And somehow the thing I choose is stupid. “You really do leave one foot outside the blanket.”
She laughs and a sob catches in it. “That’s your big final revelation?”
“Important...historical record.”
“Idiot.”
“Sarah?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m glad I found you.”
Her face breaks. “Even after everything?”
“Not because of what happened.” I struggle for breath. “Because I got to know you.”
She presses my hand to her cheek. “I don’t want you to go.”
“I know.”
“Don’t say that.”
I smile. “I’m sorry.”
“You’re not.”
“No.” My vision dims and her face blurs.
For one second, she looks like every woman, then only Sarah. Exactly as she was in the lobby. Wet hair. Broken umbrella. Annoyed. Alive. “There you are,” I whisper.
She sobs.
I can’t feel my legs. I can’t feel most of my body.
Only her hand.
Her cheek.
The faint pulse beneath my fingers.
“August?”
“Hm?”
“I’m scared.”
I use the last strength I have to squeeze her hand. “So am I.”
“What’s it feel like?”
“Dying?”
She nods.
I think about it. “Quieter than I expected.”
Her lips tremble. “That’s bullshit.”
“Probably.”
She leans down, kisses my forehead then my cheek then my mouth.
Soft. No hunger. No curse. No transfer.
Just…goodbye.
When she pulls away, I can barely see her. “Sarah.”
“I’m here.”
“Stay Sarah.” The words are almost nothing. “Promise me.”
She cries. “I promise.”
“Good.”
My heart beats once. Then it doesn’t.
And for the first time since 1897, I don’ t wake up.
I don’t know how long I’m dead before Sarah realizes it.
Maybe immediately. Maybe she keeps waiting for another breath because that’s what I’ve taught her to expect.
My body doesn’t regenerate.
It deteriorates.
Fast. Too fast.
Years catch me all at once.
Skin collapses against bone. My hair grays, then falls away. My remaining teeth loosen. My face sinks.
Sarah screams my name but holds me anyway.
Even when my skin begins slipping beneath her hands. Even when the body she’s hugging becomes something old.
Ancient.
Finally honest.
Over a hundred years arrive in minutes.
My flesh darkens. Dries. Splits. The smell fills the apartment. Sweet. Rotten. Thick.
Sarah gags into her shoulder. Still refusing to let go. “Fuck you.” She sobs against what remains of my chest. “Fuck you for leaving me with this.”
My skin tears beneath her fingers. A strip comes away.
She screams. Drops it. Then laughs hysterically through tears. “Of course.”
Her shoulders shake. “Of fucking course you molt too.” She cries until there is nothing left. Until my body is no longer August.
Just brittle skin. Bone and dust.
A century and a half finally allowed to decay. And when morning comes, Sarah is still alive.
One heart.
Five fingers.
Two green eyes.
Her own jaw.
Her own scars returning slowly beneath the new skin. She looks down at the place where I was. There’s almost nothing left.
Except one thing.
A tooth.
Small. White. Unremarkable.
She picks it up and turns it over.
No filling. No hole. No label. Nothing strange about it.
Just mine.
Sarah closes her fist around it. And cries. Not because Lenora is gone. Not because the cycle is broken.
Because August is.
And this time…
I stay dead.