Chapter 12 #2
That night, Minerva stood at the edge of the cliff.
The sky above was ominous, dark, bled dry of color and life.
She stood barefoot on wet ground that sloped toward nothingness, her soles slick and numb with cold.
Her nightdress clung to her legs, soaked at the hem.
The wind tore at her hair and flayed her skin, snatching the breath from her lips, leaving her starved for air.
She could not remember walking here, could not remember leaving Cliff Cottage.
Her toes curled instinctively against the icy ground as a gust buffeted her, forcing her forward. As she tried to step back, her foot slid, bringing her to the very edge of the precipice.
Do not look down.
Her heart jerked against her ribs like a wild bird caged.
Do not look down.
Whispers surrounded her, swirling, roaring, snatching her will.
No, they did not surround her. They infused her thoughts from within.
They came from inside, sitting in a place between intention and action, forcing a rift between what she wanted her body to do and what it was actually doing.
She wanted to step back, willed herself to step back. And her feet did not obey.
The whispers lured her to follow their will instead of her own, pressing against the inside of her skull, reshaping her intentions.
She fought it, the effort enormous, like pushing against some vast, unseeable surface that had no shape or form, nothing to push against.
And so, she looked down. Down to the sea below that stretched vast and restless, its surface broken by great white fists of foam. The waves raged against rocks that jutted toward the dark sky like jagged teeth.
Terror suffused her. Her tongue burned with the taste of copper and salt.
With her back hunched into the wind, she lifted her hand to her lips. Her fingers came away red and slick.
Blood.
She stared at it in mute confusion, only then realizing that the world around her had been reduced to shades of black and gray, the crimson stain on her fingers the only color in this gray tableau, so vivid it seemed to pulse with its own light.
She did not know if the blood was hers. She felt as if the body she inhabited was her own, but not.
Something foreign was inside her, wearing her like a garment, moving her limbs as though it had the right.
The thought was so terrible she could scarce fathom it.
Fear crawled through her on centipede legs.
“Don’t,” said a voice behind her. A single word spoken low and calm.
She turned.
A man stood several paces away, cloaked in shadow. She could make out the cut of his coat, the hard line of his jaw. The wind did not touch him. While her hair tore from its pins and whipped against her cheeks, his lay still against his temples.
His posture was rigid, screaming of restraint so complete it bordered on violence.
Shadows obscured his features, clinging to him, heavy and thick. But his eyes glinted as they sought hers, catching what little light the night allowed.
“Come back,” he said, his tone measured, controlled.
She opened her mouth to reply, but her throat tightened, her words locked behind her teeth.
Her heart pounded, each beat jarring and uneven, the rush of her blood loud in her ears.
The ground felt wrong beneath her feet. Clenching her toes against the wet earth, she tried to pull herself toward him, to obey his summons.
But with a howl, the wind surged, forcing her nearer to the edge.
She lifted her hand, stretching it toward him, a silent plea.
He stepped forward only to stop with a sudden jerk, as though he had slammed against a wall where no wall stood.
The impact shuddered through him, his whole body arrested mid-stride, his jaw clenching.
He braced against the unseen barrier, his feet seeking purchase on the wet ground as he drove himself forward.
The barrier held.
Recognition struck her like an axe.
Dashiell.
“I cannot—” He broke off, his hand reaching for her anyway, fingers extended, his eyes locked on hers.
Beneath her feet, the cliff shifted. The world angled away, the black sky yawning wide. She pitched her weight away from the edge, twisting her body to regain balance, arms flung out in useless desperation. The taste of iron and salt choked her, filling her mouth, her throat, her nose.
Dashiell surged against the barrier that held him, calling her name, the sound lost to the wind. His eyes were wide, his expression stripped of the control he wore like armor. Horror dwelt there now.
For an instant, she had the wild, impossible sense that if she reached for him, if her fingers snared his sleeve, he would fall with her. She could not bear that.
Pressure tightened at her temples and the base of her skull, a crushing weight. Lights danced before her eyes, splintering the darkness.
But there, beneath the roar of the waves and the howl of the wind and the air so cold it burned her skin, beneath it all was something else.
Not one presence but two. The first was vast and unfeeling, not cruel or malicious, but devoid of emotion, purposeful in a way that was horrifying.
It had no interest in her suffering. It had no interest in her at all.
It rolled through her with the indifferent efficiency of water pushing through a gap in stone.
The second presence was entirely different, full of fury and grief, malice and anguish. It pressed against the first, struggling against the tether that bound them as one, ragged and desperate and howling with rage.
The two worked as one, forcing their way inside her, indifference warring with a twisted emotion that had once been love, warped now beyond recognition by endless years of rage.
A breath against her ear. A broken, strangled exhale, dense with grief and fury.
It forced its way inside her, twisting her heart, her lungs, until she could not draw breath.
Dashiell grabbed for her. Too late.
She fell.
Terror was all she knew. The wind screamed as the sea surged up to meet her—
Minerva jerked awake. One moment she was falling, the sea rushing up, the wind screaming, and the next she was in her bed with her hands clawing at the sheets and her heart pounding so violently she felt it in her throat.
She lay there and did not move.
The room was dark, the curtains drawn, the sheets clutched in her curled fists. She could hear the murmur of the sea through the walls. These things were true. Real. The dream was neither.
I am in my bed. I am awake.
She whispered the words aloud—once, twice, thrice—willing herself to believe them.
Her tongue burned with the taste of salt and iron. Her nostrils stung, the air pungent and sharp. She struggled to place the scent. Roses, old and neglected, rotting in stagnant water.
She pushed herself upright, arms trembling and for a long moment, she could not move, could only sit shivering, her breath rasping loud in her ears.
The dream had been so real, the whispers worming their way inside her, her feet carrying her to the edge while her mind screamed for retreat.
And the two presences… entities… she knew not what to call them. She only knew the horror of them.
Her fingers went to the pendant where it lay cold against her skin.
Cold. Not warmth or heat.
Cold and still, as though whatever the dream had woken had retreated and left the pendant to its slumber.
Or as though the pendant had spent itself in warning.
She curled her fingers tight and held on.
The silent room offered no answers.
Finally, she rose and crossed to the window, yanking aside the heavy draperies. She could see nothing beyond the glass. But she could hear it. The sea.
Breathing.
Waiting.