Chapter 13
thirteen
The sounds in the wood slip like knife points through my ears. Gnashing teeth hidden behind tree trunks, the high-pitched laughter of children morphing into something like a blade on glass. The branches shush above us, reminding me of bare feet over floorboards and the susurration of river reeds.
We wander an endless stretch of needle-sharp trees, red sky, pale moon, and crumbling stone, searching for water. The scent of woodsmoke follows us, as does the constant thought of souls hiding, waiting to beg us for their bones.
A mile back, we passed the remains of some old structure—a house, perhaps.
A low wall crawls beside the meandering path.
Moss, as bright and wet as blood, creeps along the stones, making them appear as living, breathing things.
The smell can only be described as death: a catch of rot, meat left to slurry in the sun.
It turns my stomach, and I sink my hand deeper into my pockets.
We make our way through the towering silver trunks of rowan trees.
Ransom walks beside me, eyes darting nervously between the shadows. He is right to be afraid. Maybe the path will lead us to a long stone table, and the trees will open their sap-dripping jaws and devour us.
Dread blooms in my stomach. I steal a glance at Ransom, but he is as unreadable as freshly fallen snow.
The path winds down a hill. Rocky crags stick up from beneath the crimson carpet of leaves. The trees are so quiet they seem to be holding their breath. Every few steps, I peek up at the branches.
There is a catch of movement. Something like wings but made of shadow. I get the feeling we shouldn’t be here. We don’t belong. A switch of darkness passes overhead, and I snap my neck up.
A raven.
White eyes reel in hollow bone. I inhale sharply and catch my foot on a root.
A smarting pain echoes against the healing cut still scarred on my flesh.
Ransom’s hand closes around my arm, steadying me.
My breath comes hot and serrated, and when I turn to look at him, his face is woven with something more like malice than concern. I blink and the look is gone.
Imagination is a funny thing in the land of the dead. I pull my arm away and brush the hair from my face.
“Thank you.”
“My pleasure.” They are not happy words.
Gone is whatever petty amusement lingered in his eyes in the gardens of Blackbourne Castle. Is this all some terrible mistake? Bringing Ransom along? Coming here myself? Agreeing to marry him?
Worry etches out along my bones, replacing the world around me. We have no plan, no food, no real knowledge of where to go. I search the forest for answers, but there is nothing. Just endless rows of slender trees reaching for the bloody sky.
Ransom is strangely still. I cannot make out the expression on his face. Something between determination and fear, but beneath it lies an emotion I can’t decipher. Like oil in a rain puddle.
I empty my mind of it and glance about the dead branches above us for the skeletal raven, but it is gone.
Not even a trace of feathers left behind.
Instead, a shadow catches in the corner of my vision.
Like the hem of a coat. A wisp of something familiar, but only there in one moment and gone in the next.
I blink it away. The brightness of the moon stings my eyes.
Ahead of us, the woods are just as dead as they are behind. No sound. No change in the deep red light. Only the gentle swishing of the empty tree limbs.
I step forward, fallen boughs snapping beneath my boots. Ransom still does not move.
Then I hear it, a slight rustling, like cloth being dragged through underbrush. The air tightens.
Someone is here, watching us.
Ransom slips his hand into mine, tacky with sweat. His eyes fix on something behind us and blow as wide as harvest moons. My chest constricts, an uneven thrum to my heart, and I turn back.
Above us looms a woman. Or rather, what is left of one.
She seems to sprout right from the forest floor, her dress—if it can be called that—is all twisted shadow dusted with scarlet leaves. Her arms hang heavy at her sides, dragging along behind her, white fingers crusted with earth. The hollow of her throat is nothing but dry bone.
My eyes trail down the length of her. That is all she is beneath the shadows.
A tear in her dark shroud shows right through her ribcage to the forest beyond. Hair as white as a corpse slips around her face in wet strings, and her lips—stained like belladonna berries—part in a pale face.
I wait for her to speak, wait for her to do anything, while fear boils sour at the back of my tongue. But she says nothing, and in horror, I realize she is waiting for me to say the first word.
I open my mouth, searching for the right things to say, trying to string them together in a way that makes sense. But my brain feels like ash, my mouth as dry as dirt. Ransom’s hand is tight in mine, the other snaking to my waist. He might break my bones if he doesn’t release me.
I stare at the woman—the thing—before us. “Are you of Erybrus?”
In all our religious texts, the two warring gods have their servants, their minions. But never have I learned of something described as this. Our fear does not lie in their visages, but in what these creatures might do to our souls if we do not choose the right path.
The creature bends forward, casting murk, blocking out the sallow moon. Her body moves as if there are no bones, but they crack, catch like diamond dust in the dim light. Ransom pulls me flush against him, breath steaming at my neck.
The woman straightens, hair swinging like ropes, and then her lips peel back, exposing nothing but teeth. Rows and rows of teeth like hawthorns.
A true monster of the rowan wood. Not a thing of white smoke, a soul untethered. But something else. Something that reeks of copper and salt.
“Give me your name,” I say, my voice no louder than a breath.
“Adelaide, what do you think you’re—” But Ransom does not finish his question.
Instead, the air fills with the kind of silence that hollows the bones.
The shadow woman’s skin stops stretching, her face stamped with a sort of broken grin.
“We do not have a name,” she rasps in a chorus voice, metallic and bitter. “We have not had one in so very long. But you have one.” A laugh like warped bells. “We know your name. Yes, we know your name, have heard it many times. But we don’t like how it tastes. There is too much blood.”
The woman clacks her teeth, hums a kind of hollow melody, and her tongue spills from her mouth like a long, black worm.
My heart—the gentlest tightening. I squeeze my fist in Ransom’s, letting his warmth radiate up my arm to my chest. The fear at the back of my throat spreads like poison in my mouth. But this is the path I have chosen. This is the way to find Mother. To bring her back from this purgatory.
I take a small step forward, bringing Ransom with me.
“If you are not of Erybrus,” I say, voice shaking, “what are you?”
She does not respond at first, not really. One of her hands slips through the leaves on the forest floor. She lifts it until I can count the boney fingers that rot there.
One, two, three, four, five. She wiggles them.
“She knew you were coming,” the creature says. “But did not think there would be so many others.”
So many others. The words are knives in my head, whittling out space between my bones.
The ghosts? No, they were already here.
Ransom?
My stomach caves. Did my father follow us in?
“Who are you talking about?” I demand. “Who is ‘she’?”
The creature hisses. “So many questions. She did not say the nasty blood would have so many questions.”
Nasty blood. Sickness tremors through my bones. As though my stomach is set to sea, my throat is thick with the need to empty my belly. But I shove it down, make myself ask the question I so desperately need answered.
“Do you know where to find my mother?”
The shadow woman drops her hand, lets it slosh in the leaves. She stares at me with unblinking, milky eyes. And then, her head cocks to the right, as if bent on a hinge. And her smile widens. There are too many teeth.
“Behind you!” she shrieks.
I whirl to search every trunk, every cut of stone, every stretch of crimson left in our wake. Ransom is breathing hot and fast, his palm sweating through the fabric of my dress.
But there is nothing, and when I turn back, the woman is gone.
I drop to my knees on the forest floor, the side of my skull aching, the bell like a weight in the folds of my skirt. Ransom lowers himself beside me, his hands tangled in my hair. I cling to him, the scent of dry gin, dark soil. The only thing holding me to this space of silver and red.
I reach into my pocket.
The bell is still.
I pull it out, running a finger along its brass surface. Why has it gone still? And why did it vibrate in the first place?
“Perhaps we should follow her?” Ransom’s voice is gravelly.
I look to him. His eyes are lifted to the trees before us. Down the lane, past the place the shadow woman disappeared, the forest seems to thin, more milky light streaming in between them.
“Are you insane?” I get to my feet, replacing the bell to my pocket. “We need to find the river. There is no way in hell I am following that thing.”
For a moment, I think Ransom might argue, but he just nods. “Fine. Let’s move. The quicker we find our mothers, the quicker we can get out of the wood.”
He moves ahead of me, boots crunching leaves, but I turn back.
The shadows seem thicker between the trees, like someone has taken a bite out of reality and left only blackened space.
Behind you, the shadow lady screams. Behind you, behind you, behind you.
We run. Run until our throats are dry and our tongues taste like iron. The delicate skin on my foot throbs where the metal embedded itself only days ago. But still I go, chest heaving. Footstep after footstep. Until the trees have thinned and the path is lined in opalescent pebbles.