Chapter 20 #2
Dr. Ambrose’s wife stood in front of the door, one hand lifted, her nails scraping down the surface. Once. Twice. Then again. The movement was almost idle at first, then it quickened. Her hand moved faster, the scratching frantic.
She lifted her other hand and clawed at the door with both, fingers crooked, shoulders heaving with panic. The sound tore through the greenhouse—nails catching in the grain of the wood, bending and splitting, dragging downward in uneven lines.
“Nicholas, please!” she begged. “Help me! I can not get out!”
The greenhouse lurched, tunneling and spinning until I was forced to close my eyes or be sick. The air swirled around me and my body was dragged outside itself.
I opened my eyes and found I was no longer standing at the desk.
I was at the door.
My hands were against the wood.
The realization came with a terror so profound I tried to scream. I was inside her, or she was inside me, or the boundary between us had dissolved so suddenly that I was no longer able to tell which body held the panic and which merely witnessed it.
The door loomed inches from my face. The greenhouse behind me was too bright, too hot, filled with that sickly green glow.
My throat burned and pulsed with a deep, crawling agony, as though something alive had been threaded beneath the skin and was now crawling through my body.
It shifted when I swallowed. It dragged against the raw interior of my throat.
It pressed upward, seeking passage, seeking air, seeking root.
Blood filled my mouth. It was thick and metallic, coating my tongue, slipping down the back of my throat until I choked on it.
I tried to scream again, but the sound came out wet and muffled.
My chest heaved. My breath caught. Something moved in my neck, a slow serpentine pressure that made my vision white at the edges.
I clawed at the door.
My nails bent backward with the force of it, splitting and tearing. Pain flashed through my fingers, but panic consumed it almost at once. I scratched harder, dragging my hands down the wood until the tips of my fingers slipped in blood and the torn nails caught in the grooves.
“Nicholas!” I heard myself scream, though the name broke apart in my throat and came out as a strangled, gurgling plea. “Please!”
No one answered.
I struck the door with the heel of my hand, then clawed again, desperate to find purchase.
My fingers were slick. Blood ran down my wrists, warm and obscene, turning the handle into something impossible to grip.
I seized it anyway. The iron was cold beneath my palm, but my hand slid off at once, leaving a dark smear behind.
I tried again.
My fingers slipped.
Again.
The handle turned a fraction, then jerked back as my grip failed.
A sob tore through me, wet and choking. I could not breathe properly.
The vine moved beneath my skin, pressing at the wound, shifting with each frantic pull of muscle.
It moved inside my throat and under my jaw, anchoring somewhere too deep to reach.
My body had become fertile soil, and it was already rooting itself.
I slammed my shoulder into the door, pain exploding down my arm. The handle blurred before me through tears and blood and terror. I tried it again, wrapping both hands around the iron, but my palms were too slick, and the harder I grasped, the more the blood betrayed me.
Behind me, something rustled.
I glanced over my shoulder.
Leaves swirled up from the stone floor and vines reached their skeletal fingers toward me.
I screamed then, the sound tearing through my damaged throat like broken glass.
The world convulsed and I was thrown backward out of her body with such violence that I struck the greenhouse floor on my hands and knees.
I gasped for air, choking.
I still tasted the blood in my mouth and felt the hideous pressure beneath my throat, shifting against the tissue.
A strangled sound escaped me.
My hands flew to my neck.
I clawed at the green velvet with such force that the knot tightened before it gave.
Panic overtook reason entirely. I was still trapped in the dying woman’s terror.
My nails scraped at the ribbon, frantic and clumsy.
I needed to get it out. I needed to tear open my flesh and pull free whatever had been placed inside me before it rooted too deeply to remove.
But there was nothing there.
My fingers trembled against velvet, the ribbon loosened, hanging crookedly at my neck. I adjusted and tied it quickly, realizing what I had done.
I looked toward the door.
The ghost was gone.
The greenhouse stood silent around me, damp and overgrown, the cuttings on the table pulsing softly as though nothing had happened.
I rose on unsteady legs, every part of me shaking, and crossed to the door.
There, on the inner surface, were claw marks.
Dozens of old gouges scarred the wood, some shallow, some deep enough to have splintered the grain.
Dried blood had darkened in the grooves, black-brown with age, and gathered in a stain beneath the handle where desperate hands had slipped over and over again.
I stared until the marks blurred.
Then I fled, limping rapidly through the garden. I pushed through the door into the manor, moving as quickly as my compromised mobility allowed back through the silent house toward the safety of my room.
My ankle screamed with every step, tears of pain streaking down my face by the time I reached the stairs, but I did not dare slow—driven by fear and confusion and the terrible need to reach my room before I collapsed or simply lost what remained of my composure entirely.
I slipped inside my bedchamber, crossed the room and sank onto the bed. My injured ankle throbbed viciously. My breaths came in ragged gasps. The laudanum fog had vanished, leaving my thoughts sharp enough to wound me.
I reached up, whether for comfort or reassurance, I was not certain. The green velvet ribbon rested, still and soft, against my skin.
Nothing moved there. No blood oozed from my own throat. No vine burrowed beneath the skin.
There was nothing.
I sat there in the dark, with my fingers at my throat and my heart beating too fast beneath them, trying to decide what had happened.
Had I imagined it? Had the laudanum dragged some nightmare from the sickest part of my mind? Or was she becoming more desperate to show me what had happened to her?
Was she trying to warn me?
I looked toward the locked door, half expecting to hear scratching on the other side.
Nothing came.
I searched for the voice in my head, but it refused to say anything.