Chapter 14 #2
Die? Part of me wants to punch Ransom for planting the thought in my head, but the walls seem to be melting, and I am barely able to keep my eyes open.
Bram growls. “We’re going to keep our damned heads about us, Black.
She’s not going to die, not if I have anything to say about it.
” He turns back to me. “Listen to me, Adelaide. Wounds work differently here than back home. Especially if you’re, well, still alive.
You’re going to have to trust me, all right? ”
His words are murky when they spill between his lips, as though they’re coming from deep beneath water. I nod and sink my fingers deeper into Rascal’s warm fur. Feel for his steady heartbeat.
Bram shouts something to Ransom, something I cannot make out, and then Ransom is gone, deeper into the church, a flash of shredded black satin and lace.
Bram’s grip tightens, his fingers so cold. So desperately cold. “Adelaide, I need you to look at me.”
His hands are on my jaw, soft against my cheek.
He turns me to look at him, but through my eyes, he is only mist and color.
If I die here, will I die forever? Rascal whimpers, and Bram swears under his breath.
His fingers go to my leg, and the pain sends shockwaves through me. I scream, and the world brightens.
“I’m so sorry,” Bram says. “This is going to hurt.”
I nod, though I don’t know why. There is something swimming around inside me. Something that doesn’t belong to me, and I want it out.
Out, out, out.
Ransom dashes back into the nave, a knife glinting in his hand. My brain goes sharp-edged. My fingers scrabble on the pew.
“What are you doing?”
Bram takes the blade from Ransom, bends back at my side. He looks me dead in the eye.
“When someone is wounded here, someone more alive than others, the wood latches on. I’ve seen it with animals that slip through by accident.
It desires nothing more than to feed off that life.
It sends pieces of itself inside you, and the only way to stop them from reaching your heart is to cut them out. ”
My throat goes dry, and my heart drops like a brick. But whatever it is—the thing in my leg—I feel it. Inside me. I pull up my skirt and sink my fingers so deep into Rascal’s fur that he claws closer.
“Give me something to bite on.” The sick feeling swims through me again.
Ransom picks something off the ground and sets it against my lips. I bite, the soft leather cover of a hymnal tasting of ash in my mouth. My vision swims. I look at Bram and nod.
Do it. Get it out.
I swear there are tears in his eyes.
The knife slips against my skin, cold as winter wind, and my body bursts. The pain erupts, and I scream, biting down so hard I think my teeth might crack. Bram’s fingers, cold against the lifeblood leaving my body, wriggle into the cut.
I expect them to feel strange, wrong, but instead, they are unnervingly familiar while they grope, searching the tissue and bone for whatever piece of the rowan wood has made its way inside.
Spittle soaks into the moldy binding of the hymnal, and all I want to do is rip the world in half.
I bite down when the pain sears and makes my vision swim.
“Almost done,” Bram says.
Ransom shouts something, but I am not listening.
I am only screaming. Screaming while the pain turns to shock, my body rushing hot, then cold.
Something latches against my skin, inside my skin.
Like barbed wire on tender flesh. I fight the urge to kick my foot away from Bram’s grasp, spit out the hymnal, and cry until my throat runs red.
But I bite harder, and the tears pour hot from my eyes.
“Take a deep breath, Adelaide.” Bram’s voice is calm in the chaos, and I cling to it, allowing it to pull me back from the brink.
I inhale through my nose, filling up all the empty space. Bram pulls. Something gives. I spit out the hymnal and reach for my leg. The blood gushes, and I press down, letting it eke out between my fingers.
In his hand, Bram holds something. Like a worm, but thicker and made of dark ether. It squirms there, flailing its serpentine body against him. He hurries to his feet, runs to the nearest window, and sets it free.
It curls against the glass and shatters it, colored shards raining down on Bram. And then it is gone, twisting into the crimson sky like smoke.
I shake in the pew. Bram walks back over, my blood dripping down his hands.
“Will she be all right?” Ransom’s voice is more angry than worried.
Bram wipes his hands on the stained black of his trousers. “She’ll be fine. Just watch her for a moment. I’ll be right back.”
He nods to me, and then he’s gone, darting deeper into the church.
“Bloody hell.” Ransom is down on his knees beside me now. He fishes in his pouch and pulls out the needle and black thread.
I want to run as far away from that glinting point as I can. But Ransom’s hand is on my knee.
“You’re going to let me sew you up this time, Thorn, or you’ll bleed out.”
I grit my teeth and nod, tears leaking hot from my eyes.
The metal slips into my skin, and it takes every ounce of strength I have left not to scream.
The thread pulls through, rough against my flesh.
Rascal whines, nuzzles closer. Ransom sews quickly, with precision that still surprises me.
He ties off a knot and bites at the excess thread.
“Stay still,” he growls.
Quickly, he takes off the cravat tied around his neck and peels at my skirts. I let him. His touch is fire on the soft skin below my knee. There is no place for decency now. He wraps the fabric like a bandage and ties it tight.
Ransom drops back on his heels, brushes sweaty thatches of hair away from my face. “Ithrandril above, but you’re in a fine state.”
I manage a thin smile. “I’m not sure you’re supposed to swear in a church, Lord Black.”
His hand is tender on my cheek now, wiping the moisture still clinging to my skin. “A church in Erybrus’s realm, in a place where dead things turn into monsters and a hellhound seems like nothing more than a common dog—I’ll take my chances.”
The pain slowly subsides. The pressure of the tied cravat stems the bleeding. I look at Ransom, past the fear that still seems to beat there, to the broken man standing in rot, wishing for his mother.
“I suppose you’re right.”
He smiles, thumb stroking my jaw. “We’ve got to stop doing this, you and I.”
“What?” I ask.
He leans in so close I can smell the alcohol lingering on his shirt. Gin, now mixed with blood.
“You,” he says, “hurt, in need of rescue.”
I laugh weakly. “I am hardly in need of rescue.”
Ransom opens his mouth to say something, but Bram is back in the room, holding a sloshing bottle in his hands. He kneels beside us, blinks twice at the cravat, the hint of black stitches in my skin, blood already leaking through the fabric.
“You did this?” he asks.
“I’m more than a fancy lord in a silk coat,” Ransom replies.
Bram raises an eyebrow and opens the bottle. The scent of heady wine floods the air. “Well, we should still disinfect the wound. Just in case.”
“With what?” Ransom snaps. “Dead man’s wine?”
Bram bends down, shoving Ransom out of the way. “Communion wine is about as clean as it comes around here.” He takes a swig, and the ghost of liquid travels down his throat. Bram catches my eyes, his own blazing. “This is probably going to hurt.”
I reach for the hymnal but then let it rest. The pain, I can take. It reminds me I am alive. I pull my skirts higher and grit my teeth. “Do it.”
Coolness rushes against my wound, then the stinging bite of alcohol against open flesh. I fist my hands and sink teeth into my lip until I taste pennies.
Beside me, Rascal groans. I shift uncomfortably when Bram pulls the bottle away and dabs at the running wine with the corner of his sleeve.
“How long will it take to heal?”
He shrugs. “Like I said, wounds work funny here. Could be a few hours or a few days. The good news is, the leech is out. You should heal right as rain.”
I open my mouth to ask if there is even rain here, in this wood between life and death, and how am I supposed to rescue my mother if I can’t even walk? But I shut my mouth.
Bram stands, and Rascal lifts his head, red eyes glowing at all three of us.
“Strange travel companion, a hellhound.” Ransom glowers at the dog, arms folded.
I look at Rascal and ruffle his ears. He yelps in delight and throws his weight against my ribcage, earning a laugh.
“I think he’s sweet.”
“They tend to wander the wood. I was terrified of them at first, but when this guy came along—” Bram bends down and scrubs his fingers along Rascal’s crown, sending the hellhound’s tail beating on the pew.
“Well, I guess I couldn’t say no to that face.
Plus, he’s good at knowing when there are Haunts around. Keeps a sharp eye out.”
Ransom harrumphs.
Bram straightens, the bottle sloshing in his grasp. “The Haunts should be gone by now, but we should stay here in the church a little longer. Holy ground and all that. Fancy taking first watch of the night?”
Ransom wrinkles his nose and straightens his jacket. “I hardly think—”
“I think the one who ran the fastest without looking back should be the one to take first watch.” Bram’s words are edged steel, and they cut across Ransom’s face, bleeding anger.
“Fine,” he says. “Where should I go for said watch?”
Bram points behind us, toward the doors.
“Sit with your back against those, and if the Haunts come knocking, you’ll feel it.
I’ll take Adelaide back to the vestry and relieve you in a few hours.
” He shoves the half-spent bottle of wine into Ransom’s arms. “You seem like the kind of chap who’d need the stronger stuff. ”
Ransom glares and then wilts beneath Bram’s words, reaching for the bottle. “Fine,” he says. “But I get the hound.”
Rascal whimpers and draws closer to me while I pet the curled fur at his neck.
“Go with Ransom, Rascal.” I gently nudge the hound with my foot. “He promises he won’t turn you into a coat.”
Rascal trots to Ransom’s side, his tail hanging loosely, and Bram offers me an arm.
I slip my hand into the crook of his elbow, still half-surprised to feel the solidity of him beneath my skin.
He is cold, and when I touch him, he flinches.
Almost as if my warmth is something he hasn’t experienced in a long time.
With each step toward the back of the church, my skin sears, and droplets of blood press out against the stitches.
Through a small door, we enter a room with only a single window, half hung in shredded velvet, the walls stained almost black with age.
There is a makeshift cot tucked in one corner, a piling of old hymnals and candles beside it.
On the walls hang dusty candlesticks, milky wax dripping from the brass.
If we weren’t in a place of half-dead souls, I would say it is almost cozy.
Bram leads me to the cot and peels back the velvet covering, which is nothing more than another curtain. I crawl beneath it, my bones stiff, and lay my head on the pillow of leaves tucked into a sack.
It smells like home, like the trees beyond the river. Not this one, this upside-down place of dead and dying, but the true, yellowing trees swallowing the river in Rixton.
Bram settles on the floor beside me, his back against the stone. “I can’t believe you’re really here.”
“What do you mean?” I tuck a hand under the pillow, my gaze matching his own.
“I just…Well, I didn’t think you would come, after seeing me in your room. Thought you’d think it was all a dream or something.” There is a hitch in his throat, and he looks away. “Gods below and above, it’s just been so long.”
My stomach aches when I think about it. This dead man, trapped in this place of rotting souls. “Well, I’m glad I came.”
He smiles at me, a soft kind of thing. “Me too.”
We stay in silence for a moment, the wind outside the only sound. I stare at the ceiling, but it is so high above us I can barely make it out. Father never allowed me passage to the vestry, so everything is strange. Even here in the rowan wood.
“How do you know when it’s night?” I ask, breaking the silence.
Bram looks up at me. “What do you mean?”
“Out there, in the church, you told Ransom to take the first watch of the night. But isn’t the moon always out here?”
Bram nods, understanding. “It took me a while to figure it out after I died. There are moments when the Haunts are more dormant, retreating to shadows. I call it night, though for all I know it could be morning. When they stopped beating against the doors, I figured the evening must be drawing close.” He nods to my leg.
“We could move now if it weren’t for that leg. You should rest.”
I digest the information. Haunts, souls of the dead who have not yet crossed over. Skin morphing into shadow, eyes turning white as marble. The pain in my leg beats a dull thrum.
“Can I ask you a question?” The words leave my mouth in a breath.
Bram nods.
“Why didn’t you flinch when you saw my blackened blood?”
Bram’s eyes penetrate me. Like he can see every vein, every muscle, every bone. My breath catches.
“I have seen my fair share of Reapers these last ten years, Adelaide,” he says. “Their blood is no cause for alarm.”
The words strike hollows into my bones. Reaper’s blood? So, it is true. The air turns hot in my lungs. I am cursed by Erybrus, already sold to his side. But what does it mean?
I bottle the thought and press it to the back of my mind. No sense in worrying about things I have no control over. Instead, I focus on something I can influence. Or at least explain.
“Are you angry I brought Ransom? He’s harmless.”
Bram curls his lip. “A better word, I think, would be useless. He ran from those Haunts.”
“Anyone in their right mind would run from those things, Bram. Did you see them?”
He is silent, one arm thrown over a knee while he studies the nothingness of the wall in front of us. I look around the room.
What a stupid thing it was of me to say. Of course, he has seen them in his ten years of making the vestry of my father’s church—whatever version this is—his home. Alone and running, always fleeing from those creatures. Those monsters in the wood.
I swallow. Have I been seeing Haunts all my life? My monsters of teeth and shadows? A shiver licks my spine, and I snuggle deeper against the rough cot at my back, my leg throbbing.
“I’m sorry. That was a careless thing for me to say.”
Bram does not reply at first and curls up on the floor, the ground his pillow. I should reach out, offer at least the stretch of dusty velvet. But I don’t.
“It’s fine,” he mumbles. “Just get some rest.”
Guilt swarms my stomach. I roll toward the wall and study the black lines drawn in coal. Countless numbers of them trail the stone, and while I fall asleep, I realize what they are.
Bram has been marking each day since the moment he died.