Chapter Twenty-six There by the Grace of God
Chapter Twenty-six
There by the Grace of God
‘Move!’ Sir George’s bellow had Kensa slip back on the puddled floor, shoulder banging against the wall.
Only then did she see what he aimed at, only then did she see Isolde.
Through the open window the hag came, crawling disjointedly on all fours.
Her nightdress was barely there, gaping in frayed smiles and hanging in dirtied hooks about her thin limbs.
She was even more decayed now. Kensa could see right into her chest, to the grey honeycomb that oozed between her ribs and the lungs which shuddered behind them.
Her face was not a face as one might know it, eyes sunken pits, nose half-caved and nostrils flat.
It was her mouth Kensa hated most. It was her mouth and the sound it made.
‘Eaaaaaah,’ the inhale.
Open and straining, one endless note.
‘Eaaaaaah,’ the exhale.
As though she was forever in pain.
The hag eased inside the room, one clawed foot on the windowsill, the other on the floor.
Her fingers clutched at the latticed glass and smudged her filth upon it.
Slowly, her head rotated from Sir George to Kensa to the warm body closest to her: Mr Delavaud.
The curate was awake, had been awake for a while, listening to matters that were not his to know.
His heels scraped softly on the boards; an effort to push his weight back into his chair and create distance between himself and the hag.
As though to leave its notice. As though such a thing were possible.
The hag leapt, springing from the sill and onto the curate.
At the same time, Sir George fired his pistol.
The bullet missed and slammed into the wood panels beside the fireplace, creating a hole no woodworm could rival.
A rank gunpowder smell flooded Kensa’s senses and the shot rang in her ears in one long scream.
It took the hag’s attention. Her mouth halted its bite, teeth – the ones she had left – an inch from the curate’s throat.
She was poised over Mr Delavaud’s chair, legs splayed and toes perched on his arms, pinning them, while her hands hooked his fine woollen clothing.
Quick, this time, she turned her head again and it was Sir George she saw.
Kensa could do nothing. Dread kept her rooted.
She forgot everything. Her bad intentions.
That she had ever been brave. ‘I did this,’ she said softly.
It was her fault. There was piss on the floor.
It could well have been her own with how afraid she was.
A high scream came from the door and diminished down the hallway.
By the time Kensa’s eyes went to its source, all she saw was a nightcap’s gentle fall to the floor: Mrs Howard, a staunch denier of ghosts, who now believed in them enough to run.
‘That’s what I saw,’ barked Sir George, fumbling in his nightstand, reloading the pistol, spilling powder, dropping his shot again and again. ‘It came at me, chased me to the traps.’ Metal balls rattled from his bed, hitting the floor and rolling across its uneven length.
Despite his skill as a marksman, he was not quick enough.
Isolde, in her un-death, was faster. The hag leapt, knocking back Mr Delavaud’s chair, and landed on the bed’s furthest end, directly on Sir George’s feet.
He cried out as the hag’s hands pressed to his thigh, scuttling upwards.
With one swipe, she knocked the pistol aside. It fell with a singular dull thud.
‘Isolde,’ said Kensa desperately.
There was no recognition in her milky face.
How could there be? Whatever had crept into the room with them did not resemble the wise woman.
This was an unnatural being and Kensa could feel a pull around it, her own will manifested – her desire not to be alone – and the Old Ways warped inwards, wrong enough to snag at her joints and hair and teeth.
A rougher pull came, this time from the curate, who dragged Kensa from the bedside.
‘Stay close behind me, Miss Rowe.’ Mr Delavaud fumbled in his clothing and withdrew a small wooden cross.
As he thrust it forwards, he began to pray, quickly.
It must have been Latin, for his words seemed stale to Kensa, a dead-language sound.
He may as well have sung a sea shanty. ‘Is it – is it working?’
‘No,’ said Kensa. ‘Did you think it would?’
‘Not really,’ he admitted.
Sir George strained back into his pillows as the hag eased her face into his.
He had one hand on her swollen neck and the other on her scalp, which peeled hair and skin fragments readily over him and did nothing to keep her at bay.
He was failing. The hag was winning. No strength remained inside him and new blood spilled across the sheets, seeping from his bandaged thigh.
His breathing was hard and he had grown pale again, weak again.
He could not last, not long.
A forgotten instinct recalled Kensa’s bone-handled knife.
As soon as she pulled it from her belt, she sensed its power: the Pact.
It reached to her, its keeper. The tighter she held it, the louder it became, singing to the air around it.
Even that small action, the unsheathing, was enough.
As soon as the blade hit her palm, the hag sensed it, righted herself and turned to Kensa, not in a way any person might turn.
Each part moved separately, foot attempting to step first, chin twisting around, shoulders clicking into place last.
‘Go,’ ordered Kensa. ‘I shan’t have another curate murdered, not so soon after the last.’
Mr Delavaud baulked. ‘I beg your pardon?’
Kensa tugged forcefully at his elbow. ‘Run, I can do this!’
There was no time. There never was. Mr Delavaud was thrown aside as the hag stilted from the bed.
Her strength was unknowable. She hurled the curate off his feet and into the ceiling, leaving him to drop as a doll might when a child is done with play.
Kensa stepped back and the fire nipped at her calves and chewed on her dress.
‘I don’t want to hurt you,’ said Kensa.
Did she have a choice? She held the knife high.
What remained of Isolde flinched, bared her remaining teeth and seemed, at once, afraid. Click. From the floor came the pistol once again, this time in the curate’s hands. He levelled it at the hag, whose strange keening sounds had morphed into one single word:
‘Pleeeeaaaa—’
Arms open, Isolde waited – sunken eyes shuttering closed – for the shot to hit.
This time, it did. Mr Delavaud fired the weapon and his aim was true.
It blew a fistful of matter from the hag’s chest and across the bedspread, Kensa’s cheek, the walls.
Bone, old blood and corrupted honey. And still, Isolde remained upright.
Her bent fingers went to the new cavity and probed the hole with curiosity.
If any expression could be seen on the hag’s features, Kensa would have sworn it was despair.
At living, at standing, at death which would not come.
‘Don’t let her escape!’ Kensa launched herself forwards and never got there.
A hand hooked around her waist and kept her back. Mr Delavaud had a firm grip, one she failed to break. With one talon cradling her wound, the hag fled. She hobbled from the room by the open window and leapt out into the canopy, blurring through the trees the same way she had come to them.
Kensa shoved at the arm that bound her. ‘We need to go after her.’
‘Are you mad?’
The curate would not let Kensa go. He was firm and stronger than he seemed.
It took every ounce of self-discipline, forever in short supply, not to elbow him in the stomach.
Or bite him, though lately there had been more than enough wise women sinking their teeth into the men of Portscatho for her liking.
Sir George released one long sigh – as though all the air that had ever entered his body was being released in one go – and fainted.
Kensa attended to him immediately, the second she was released.
He would live. Exhaustion was his largest fight and though his wound had settled, the binding needed replacing.
‘It will do till morning,’ said Kensa.
‘What in Christ’s name was that?’ Mr Delavaud panted, yet his hand was steady where it held the pistol.
‘She was a friend, once,’ said Kensa.
‘Come again?’ Although the curate was wary, the healer was warier: he was the one with the weapon. ‘Who befriends creatures such as that?’
Kensa could not lie to him. What could she say that he would believe?
What’s more, she did not know if she could trust him – or trust that he would not hurt her.
For that reason, she was as honest as she could be.
She kept to the facts: her mentor was dead and her mentor was not dead, the danger was mounting and their safety was at risk should they fail to contain the hag.
She did mention the Bucka in vague terms, with due respect for his faith, though he did not seem disturbed by the Father of Storms’ mention.
In fact, he nodded, the name seemingly familiar.
‘If I had not seen it, I would not believe it,’ he said.
His long fingers kept possession of the pistol and expertly fetched shot after shot from the ground.
Each round sphere rattled in his palm. In their number, Kensa saw a warning.
Remembered what she had said to him earlier that day.
Men like him had once killed women like her.
Had she told her story well enough or did he hear another within it?
‘I can fix this,’ said Kensa.
Mr Delavaud did not reply.
‘I can do it,’ said Kensa.
Mr Delavaud did not reply.
At last, she confessed, ‘I may need your help.’