Chapter 28
THE POISONER
The morning light shimmered as it passed through the specks of dust lazily floating through the bedroom.
Something had changed since yesterday, and I wasn’t sure if I liked it.
I could not say that I didn’t miss him, but it scared me.
Something about his vulnerability was uncanny and ill-fitted him.
It made me fear something far worse than the creature itself .
. . It made me fear being wrong about him.
Two years ago, I had nothing to lose—maybe Phoebe—but as I found out, she was never in any danger at all. Now, I have family, property, and a public-facing reputation.
Everything was on the line. It made me all the more hesitant to let anyone have any part of me. I was married to my work, and I would not be taking mistresses.
“Are you awake?” Phoebe crawled over to my side of the bed.
“I think so,” I whispered back to her, glancing over my shoulder.
“Are you busy today?” she hummed.
“Not terribly, only tending to the animals.” I rolled over to my side to face her. “I’d rather stay in bed. It’s gotten so cold. I feel it in every joint now.”
“You need someone to cuddle with,” she teased, wrapping her arms around me.
I rested my chin on her head and closed my eyes.
“I wish we could just lie here all day.”
“We have chores to do.”
“I know. That won’t stop me from wishing.” She shrugged.
After we reluctantly left the comfort of the bed, we tidied up the sheets and got ready for our day.
We made breakfast for the house—blueberry porridge and eggs.
I was not much of a cook, but I could cook eggs.
Phoebe took care of the porridge. I still do not know how she could cook without tasting it herself.
She would make me taste it occasionally to check during her process, but naturally, she seemed to understand how to balance flavors without tasting them.
After breakfast we cleaned, splitting up to sweep the entire house. While Phoebe dusted, I cleaned out the fireplace and brought most of the charcoal outside.
All weekend chores were typically done by sundown.
We spent time in the barn to tend to Duchess and Horse.
They were both a bit dusty since we let their coats grow out so they would not be as cold.
The only downside was that the longer fur and hair would catch every speck of dirt, hay, and dust possible.
“I don’t understand how he gets so dirty, even with the blanket on,” I complained as I scrubbed the curry comb over his coat, each flick of the bristles kicking up debris.
“I can’t say I’ve suffered that same affliction. Duchess is a perfect princess who does not get dirty,” Phoebe laughed.
The stalls were separated by a piece of wood and metal bars starting halfway so that the horses could see each other. Phoebe was in Duchess’s stall, braiding and sewing the hair into little neat knots along the crest of her neck.
“I am tempted to roach his mane, cut it all off so he cannot turn it into a nest for the birds.” I pulled the brush through his tangled hair.
“He would look handsome either way,” Phoebe hummed. “Right, Duchess? Would Horse look handsome if he were bald?”
“I give up. I think I need to go back inside and get my comb for his hair.” I tossed my brush into the wooden box with the rest of the grooming supplies. “You are a mess.” I patted him on the side of his neck, giving him a good scratch high on his shoulder.
The horses were startled by a high-pitched screech, rearing slightly in the stalls.
“Whoa! Whoa!” I tried to calm Horse as he yanked on the cross ties. Phoebe had already left the stall, grabbing the shotgun propped against the side of the barn.
I shoved the stall door to the side to follow, running toward the wood-splitting stump to yank the axe out of it.
Someone was on the ground, the white snow already stained red. A jittering pale thing slouched over the small form.
“You!” I screamed at it.
Its neck rolled, vertebrae by vertebrae, to crane in our direction. Its eyes were undoubtedly human, corrupted, filled with dead blood. Fresh crimson from beneath it drooled in thick streams of saliva as it chattered its teeth at us, its dried lips curling back.
I ran toward it, and it mirrored my actions, lunging at me as I swung, my blade swiping the side of their face. I wasn’t close enough; the blade cut through both cheeks and passed between the upper and lower jaw. The loose flesh flapped to the side, and steam rose from the fresh blood.
It screeched and lunged again, grabbing my axe and tumbling us to the ground. It snapped its jaws at me, blood dripping onto my face as I shoved the axe handle up into its jaws to keep it from gnawing on me.
While the corrupted were human, something about the feral transitory stage gave them something like farmers’ strength—not to be judged by how they appeared.
The firing of a shotgun made my eyes snap shut. Hot blood sprayed over my face, stinging along with pieces of shell that landed in my shoulder and cheek. The creature slumped against me, and I opened my eyes, tracking Phoebe as she ran in the other direction.
I shoved the creature off to chase after her.
My boots slipped and crunched the ice below, the shouts and clamor bouncing off the side of the house and around our open field, only to smack my eardrums again. I had no time for mental checklists, no head counts, hell, I couldn’t even see, everything was moving so fast.
By the time we got to the front of the house, Rebecca and Mary had already taken care of another.
“Are you all right?” I dropped my axe, rushing over to the girls, checking each face. No wounds other than shock.
“Relatively.” Mary ignored me, glancing past and looking more troubled when she saw that only Phoebe was with me.
We were still, the morning quiet again as we caught our breath, gathering our bearings.
Despite the blood covering us, there was no sign of what had just occurred. Birds chirped, the breeze clipped through the leaves of the fir trees, whistling faintly in the distance as the wind zipped over the smooth surface of the snow. Whether it be white or red, it was all the same.
“Where is Addie?” Rebecca panted, clutching her gun as she caught her breath.
Mary paled at the question.
“She is not with you?” Phoebe spoke.
Rebecca elbowed past us and off the porch.
“Rebecca!” Phoebe shouted after her in frustration, but a certain strain in her tone was unnerving.
I jogged after, nearly slipping again as I turned the corner of the house, facing the wide-open field where Phoebe had shot the first one.
Rebecca was headed straight for the red stain in the middle.
No.
I wish my heart would be still.
“Rebecca, wait—” I chased after her.
Rebecca’s legs moved faster, desperately, when she saw the small body surrounded by a red puddle in the distance.
“Rebecca, stop!” I screamed.
My lip quivered as I watched her fall on top of the body, shaking and gripping it desperately. She cupped Addie’s cheeks, checking both sides and then over her torso, as if she were trying to find an injury she could come back from, despite the neck being chewed down to the spine.
The others gathered beside the house, watching the two forms in the distance, highlighted in the white expanse like they were the only things to exist. Sunlight cut through the clouds and shifted over the two.
I was an intruder, a voyeur, afraid of breaking the illusion of one last tender memory.
There was something haunting about the silence before the wail that came next.
The sound that came from our strong Rebecca . . . I would not blame poets for thinking it came from some malevolent being. A sound the forest would remember and tell tales of when the wind carried its sound as far as people were willing to listen.
When I finally took a breath, it only emerged as a sob.
Rebecca sat there for hours, and if we had not forced her inside, she would probably have stayed like that for days. She was practically fused to Adeline by the time we finally peeled her away, the frost beginning to make their clothing stick.
The house that night was the darkest it had ever been. No matter how many candles we lit or fires we started, a grim shadow remained over the household.
We gathered in the living room; no one wanted to separate from the group.
We all settled on sleeping by the fire, but I suspected no one would be sleeping at all that night.
There were somber conversations, though it was hard to take joy in speaking of anything.
I was sure they were all words of anxiety and fear.
Many glances were traded and stolen as I paced the kitchen alone.
All I could focus on was picking off the dried blood from my skin.
Where were all these corrupted coming from?
I needed to gather bear traps, possibly purchase another gun.
I could leave my tools at the farmhouse for the girls.
What if Phoebe and I hadn’t stepped in? What if it had been the middle of the night? What if they had gotten inside?
Hands firmly gripped my shoulders, interrupting my pacing.
“Deep breath, Alina.” Phoebe stood before me, squeezing my shoulders tightly to pull me from my manic state.
“We need more traps, more guns, more defenses,” I rambled. “We can all stay in the house for a while. No one needs to leave. Tell Edith to come home. She shouldn’t be out . . . Wait . . . what if she is h-hurt, too?” I stumbled over my words as my throat strained, refraining from working myself up.
“Breathe, please, calm down for me, all right?” Phoebe gulped, glancing at something over my shoulder.
When I craned my neck, the girls were huddled at the entrance of the kitchen, Mary at the forefront.
“We need to go get Edith—” I began.
“We telephoned the hospital already, it is taken care of,” Mary said.
“That’s good,” I exhaled. “We need to get the knives from the lab and see if John can spare a gun . . . maybe we buy more. I think we need one for every—”
“Alina,” Mary spoke, a sorrowful expression on her face.
She looked as if what she was about to say was going to hurt both of us.
“As a Nest, we have all been talking.” She took a deep breath and glanced at some of the other girls.
She picked at her nail beds and took a minute to build up the courage to look me in the eye again.
I furrowed my brows and glanced at Phoebe, who refused to look at me as well, seemingly aware of what would happen next.
“What is it?” My voice cracked as I stared at Mary.
“We think it is best you take the deal,” Mary said firmly.
“I cannot—”
“While autonomy is one of the three tenets of the Nest,” she spoke over me, standing taller, “we cannot ignore how rejecting this deal would be a great disservice to what we’ve built, our cause, and our survival.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but I could not think of a single word that I wanted to say. All I wanted to do was scream. After all I had done for the Nest, they would throw me to the ground like this?
“I’m not ready.” The pain in my chest was unbearable. “Phoebe, tell them.”
Phoebe said nothing.
“We did not decide this lightly, or out of malice.” Mary adopted an almost pleading tone. “He is promising stability, funding, and safety. Imagine how much good we could do with those kinds of resources. It would put us thousands of miles ahead of where we thought we could ever reach alone—”
“You do not know him.”
“Consider this a sacrifice for the betterment of the Nest.”
I had nothing to argue. Every word that came to my mind was unhelpful.
All I had left was rage.
“Before you accept his deal,” Mary continued, “we want to add our own terms.”
“What would that be?” My eyes narrowed, my nails digging into my palms.
“We want the men on the property moved in for our own protection.”
That was the end of my wick.
I shoved past the crowd and went upstairs, Phoebe chasing after me.
How could they do this? How was it that I was the only one suggesting solutions while everyone looked to me as a last resort?
When we got in the room, I slammed the door so hard into its frame that it shook the house.
“After all I’ve done for this Nest, this is what I get?” I screamed.
“Calm down—”
“Calm? You want me to be calm? Tell me—do you want Luka around the girls? Do you want Silas watching our every move? Luka doesn’t even use venom. It is cruel to ask anyone to feed him.”
“Alina! Quiet down!” Phoebe shouted and rubbed her head. “Let us think about this.”
“I have done nothing but think about this!”
“We won’t let anything happen to you. I won’t allow it,” she said sternly, gripping my shoulders tightly. “At this point, it’s two against many. They are outnumbered, outpowered. Just think about it. We have everything.”
I shook my head, but she jolted me in her grip.
Even in the dark, I could see her glassy eyes. “This is the only way. I don’t know what else we can do.”
“You could have told them.”
“It is not for me to tell.” She raised her voice before choking out, “It is the only option we have yet to exhaust. It will be fine as long as we watch each other’s backs.
You have our loyalty; we won’t let anything happen to you.
Those men would sooner have bullets in them before they even think of insisting on moving a single hair out of place. ”
I nodded and took a deep breath, wiping my clammy hands on my skirt before sitting down on the edge of the bed.
“Next issue—Luka.” Phoebe sat next to me. “Just starve him. There is no faster way to get a rowdy Vipera to cooperate. Father used to do it—”
“Right.” I cut her off.
“As for your marriage to Silas . . .” Phoebe continued, grimacing at the thought. “If his accounts are as good as he says, he is a wallet at best. At worst, we can remove his knees and keep him as a pet.”
I laughed, but my heart was heavy.
“Besides,” Phoebe tried to make light with a joke, “we will be sisters-in-law for real this time.” She laughed, but it was laced with some sense of loss.
I rubbed my face with my hands. I had never been so defeated; nothing was going like I wanted it to.
Where I thought I had a choice before, it was now a demand.
I rose from my seat and collected my coat from the chair.
“Do you want me to telephone him?” She threw me a concerned look.
“No, I have terms to negotiate.”