Chapter 17
The air was damp and cool when I stepped outside, the scent of moss and roses heavy on the evening breeze. Poe perched on my shoulder, his claws pricking lightly through the thin fabric of my sleeve.
“Come along then,” I sighed, brushing my hand along his glossy feathers. “A walk will do us both some good.”
He gave a soft trill of approval and took flight, a streak of ink against the paling sky.
I followed the winding gravel path toward the gardens, my skirts brushing against dew-pearled hedges.
Unease still clung to me, but I told myself I only needed air, that perhaps Sylum was right.
I just needed something simple, something ordinary to quiet my restless thoughts.
Poe darted from hedge to hedge, his low chatter echoing softly through the maze.
I followed, watching him fly above as I walked deeper into the garden.
For a time, it was peaceful. The late sun bled gold over the moors, tinting the edges of the world in light.
I breathed deeply, closing my eyes to the warmth.
When I opened them again, the world had changed. I hadn’t realized how long we’d been walking until the light started to fade.
The sun had slipped behind the trees, and the gardens lay steeped in shadow. The air turned chill. The wind whispered faintly through the hedges, carrying the distant cry of crows.
I sighed, glancing at the sky’s deepening violet. “We’d best go back, Poe.”
He circled above me once, twice, then croaked low and strange.
“One bone, two shadows. Two shadows, one bone.”
I frowned up at him. “Afraid I don’t know that poem, Poe,” I murmured, my voice light, teasing, though a faint ripple of nervousness moved through me. I’d heard him say those words before, but it wasn’t until that very moment that I realized it wasn’t a line from a poem or story that I knew of.
He wheeled lower, wings flashing in the dim light.
“And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s. That is dreaming!” he cried.
I laughed softly, trying to steady the odd thrum in my chest. “Ah yes, that I do know,” I called, raising my voice as I recited with theatrical flair:
‘And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor—’
But Poe’s next words froze me.
“It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore—”
My steps faltered. I looked up at him, his black shape cutting across the dusky sky. “That’s not the next line, Poe,” I said, frowning uncertainly.
The two verses tangled in my mind—a warning that made no sense, yet filled my heart with a terrible knowing.
The wind shifted, sharp and cold, and the rustling hedges sounded almost like laughter.
I turned, quickening my pace, the gravel crunching beneath my slippers. The maze seemed… changed. The turns were unfamiliar now, the hedges seemed higher, thicker, their shapes distorted by the dying light.
My pulse began to race.
“Poe?” I called, craning my neck to see him. He circled overhead, his cries now harsher, frenzied in a way that chilled the blood in my veins.
“A blood-red thing that writhes from out the scenic solitude!”
My heart leapt into my throat. “Poe, stop it!” I snapped, but he only shrieked again, his voice rolling through the garden like thunder.
A shadow moved at the corner of my vision. I turned sharply, but there was nothing. Then behind me, the soft lilting sound of laughter echoed in the distance.
I began to run.
Branches caught at my gown, thorns nipped at my wrists as I stumbled through the twisting paths. “Which way?” I cried up to Poe, my breath ragged.
He swooped low, his voice mournful now. “Oh, my Lenore…”
“Poe, please!” I begged, chasing his flight through the darkness.
The moon broke through the clouds, spilling pale light over the hedges. I followed it desperately, only to trip over an uneven patch of stone. My knees struck the cold earth.
Footsteps behind me followed my own, slow and deliberate.
I turned. No one. Only the soft sway of leaves.
Then came the laughter again, closer this time, echoing through the maze until it was everywhere and nowhere all at once.
And that was when I saw her.
At the far end of the row, half-devoured by moonlight, stood a woman in a tattered wedding gown. The satin clung to her in wet, clotted patches, the train dragging behind her like a funeral shroud. Long, ashen hair obscured her face, dripping—water or blood, I could not tell.
The night seemed to still around her.
“Elizabeth?” I faltered, my voice strangled.
Her head tilted slowly, unnaturally, her hair parting just enough for the moonlight to find her eyes.
Black.
Hollow.
The radiance of an opium-dream.
Poe screamed overhead, a sound so piercing it cleaved the silence.
The woman began to move toward me.
I scrambled to my feet, the hem of my gown tangled and torn around my ankles. My breath came in sharp, ragged gasps as the earth seemed to move around me.
“Poe?” I called, my voice breaking.
He circled wildly above, his cries shrill and disjointed, panic threaded through every sound.
“Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed by an unseen censer!”
The garden was no longer still. The hedges began to ripple and twist, the shadows along them lengthening into grotesque shapes that writhed and breathed. The gravel beneath my feet pulsed as if something would reach beyond the ground at any moment.
I turned down another path, but the way bent upon itself, closing like a throat around me.
The laughter rose again, softer now, almost tender, as if mocking my fear. It came from everywhere at once—from behind the walls, from beneath the earth, from the very air I breathed.
I stumbled, catching myself against the rough branches, my fingers scraping on thorns. The scent of blood mingled with the heavy perfume of the flowers, sweet and rotting all at once.
“Please…” I begged, pressing a trembling hand to my temple. The world swam, blurring at the edges, my vision swelling and contracting like lungs breathing. “Please stop...”
The hedges shifted, parting slightly before me as if yielding to an invisible hand. Poe swooped low, his wings cutting the air in frantic arcs.
“My Lenore!” he cried.
His voice was a warning and a plea, but my legs would not obey. I turned slowly and there she was.
Elizabeth stood only a few feet away now.
A blade glinted in her hand, catching the faintest slip of moonlight.
“No,” I breathed, staggering backward. “You’re not real. You’re not…”
Her lips parted. What came out was a voice both living and dead. “Man doth not yield himself to the angels, nor unto death utterly…”
My breath seized.
She took another step, bare feet soundless on the gravel. Then she whispered, in that same impossible tone. “Save only through the weakness of his feeble will.”
My body trembled. I screamed, stumbling over the uneven stones. My heel caught in the hem of my gown, and I fell hard onto the earth. Pain detonated at the back of my skull in a hot, blinding burst. The world spun violently, collapsing around the edges.
Elizabeth stepped close, leaning over me until death-rotted breath fanned across my cheek. Her form pulsed—the face beneath the veil rippling between Elizabeth and something else, something raven-eyed and terrible. A skeletal smile curled along her gray lips.
“Lucy,” she rasped, lifting the blade, “he will kill you too.”
Poe’s shriek split the night, grief and terror braided in the sound.
“Nevermore! Nevermore!”
The cry chased me down as the darkness surged forward, folding over me, swallowing me whole just as the blade swung straight for my heart.
Darkness there and nothing more.
**********
“Lucy!”
The voice was distant at first, carried through the fog like an echo from another world.
“Lucy!”
Closer now, roughened with fear.
I groaned, the sound trailing off. The ground was cold beneath me, damp with dew. My head throbbed as though something had split behind my eyes. When I tried to move, pain lanced through the back of my skull.
Above me, Poe’s cry broke the night hush.
“My Lenore!”
“Poe…” I rasped, lifting an unsteady hand. My fingers trembled. The bird circled frantically overhead, wings gleaming against the moonlit sky.
Then I heard it again. His voice, clearer this time.
“Lucy!”
I turned my head weakly toward the sound, the world blurring into streaks of silver and black. “Sylum…” I managed, the name scraping out of my throat.
“Lucy!”
Through the mist, he emerged—his dark coat stark against the pallid moonlight, his hair disheveled, his face drawn with panic. He crossed the final stretch of the hedge row in long, desperate strides and dropped to his knees beside me.
“Lucy… dear God.” His arms slid around me, lifting me gently against his chest. “We’ve been searching everywhere for you.”
I blinked up at him, trying to focus on his face. Fear darkened his eyes and his jaw was set tight. He brushed the tangle of hair from my cheek as his gaze flicked down my body, searching for the source of the blood.
“Are you hurt?” he demanded, voice thick with alarm.
My lips parted, but the truth tangled in my throat. Elizabeth… the knife… the laughter. None of it made sense, not even to me.
“I must have…” I swallowed hard, forcing a steady tone. “I must have fallen and hit my head… how did you find me?”
He exhaled sharply, relief and disbelief warring in his eyes. Then he drew me closer, holding me so closely I could feel the hammer of his heart through his coat.
He glanced up at Poe still circling overhead. “I noticed Poe was gone too. Figured he wouldn’t be far from your side.”
I winced from the pain that shot through my temple.
“I was so worried,” he said, his breath stirring my hair. “I thought I’d lost you.”
I let my eyes drift shut for a moment, allowing the warmth of him to ground me. But then, his body went still.
“Lucy…”
I followed his gaze.