Lili Crow - Wayfarer

The storm, its tattered wings flapping, sped away from New Haven, inland over the Waste. Restless, the girl tosses in a narrow bed, just like the cot at the orphanage. The bucket of steaming water, full of grit from the floor, and her mother’s face as she turns to leave. “Keep it for me,” the golden-haired woman says coldly, and she only knows her mother is leaving because the little girl has nothing more to give.

The water sloshes, back and forth. It becomes an algae-choked eye, and the girl . . .

The girl . . .

The girl in the water.

If she isn’t dead, she soon will be. Limp and boneless, she makes herself as heavy as possible. Blue ice and green slime closing overhead, crackling and creaking as it shudders and grinds. A false friend, the ice numbs her while it obeys her enemy’s raging shrieks.

The dream comes back for several nights in a row, then hides for a while. Just when she starts to relax, it jumps on her again. The ice stinging every inch of her, her shoes too heavy, sodden clothes dragging her down.

She had tried so hard, but Mommy had left her behind. Then the letter came, with money, and the train through the Waste rocking and rollicking. Another chance to try, but it was just a chance to drown.

Again.

A splash, a scream, and frozen water shatters above her. She is sinking fast; the oddest part is how it doesn’t hurt. Her lungs burn, but it is a faraway sensation, disconnected. All she has to do is choke, and it will be over. The water will rush in, suffocation will start. Already the blackness is creeping around the corners of her vision. This far down the water is darker, twilight instead of spring noon, and there is a shadow over her.

Fingers wrap in her hair, and now it is the time to struggle. Because if the murderer pulls her out of the water she’ll have to go on living with her, and that is one thing she is determined not to do. There’s a single route of escape, and all she has to do is blow the air out, watch the silver bubbles cascade up. Then icy water will flood in past the stone in her throat, fill her lungs and heart and every empty part of her, and there will be darkness.

In that darkness, peace.

The hand in her hair gives a terrific yank, a spike of scalped pain spearing her skull, dragging her toward the surface of hell once more . . .

Ellie sat up, gasping, one hand at her mouth to catch any betraying noise. For a long terrified moment she had no idea where or who or what she was, and she thrashed against sweat-soaked covers.

The pale blue shell of an unfamiliar room closed tightly around her. Her hair, damp-dried and curling with rainwater, whipped as she tried to look everywhere at once. Condensation frosted the diamond windowpanes, and faraway thunder was a mutter instead of a crashing overhead.

Storm’s past , she thought, but she knew it wasn’t true. Something was wrong, and it had to do with . . .

No, please. I’m tired.

She couldn’t shake away the urgent feeling. So she took stock.

Her chest felt savagely bruised, so did her arms. She was dizzy, and weak. The ringing emptiness in her head wasn’t the aftereffect of charming. Her feet throbbed, crisscrossed with harsh slashes.

This isn’t going to be fun . Compelled, she slid her feet out from under the covers.

It wasn’t the blue bedroom on Perrault Street. It wasn’t her safe little hidey-hole either, though it hadn’t been so safe, had it? Neither was it the tiny gray nest with its water-clear mirror, but that was funny—her memory of the room warped at the edges, fraying as if she couldn’t . . . quite . . . grasp it.

Arachna Portia , Avery’s mother had called it. Relief as she finally figured out where she was: inside the Fletcher charm-clan’s main house, safe and sound.

No place is safe. You know that. You have to go, now.

Why? What was going to happen?

You have to go . Now. Right now. An image rose inside her head, a gray pile of stone with its gate warping, glowing dull red as something nasty bit and ate into the metal. The weed-choked pool in back, its surface green with fast-growing algae. The thought of the pool filled Ellie with unsteady dread.

She hobbled to the small door she’d glimpsed white ceramic through, and was rewarded with a stinging-clean bathroom, every inch charm-cleaned and rippling with the hurried focusing of Potential used to scour and scrape.

A hollow-cheeked, pale-haired girl greeted her from the mirror over the lily-shaped sink on its graceful stem. The bathtub was a cast-iron claw-foot, and the towels were sky blue and obviously little-used. There was no shower curtain, but the thought of more water made her flinch anyway.

The girl in the mirror had been bleached. Her hair was platinum, and slightly wavy instead of sleek. It was longer, too. Her cheekbones stood out, startlingly, and her eyes had been drained of color. They were ice- instead of storm-gray now, as if a puddle of ash had frozen.

I look like Mom. For the first time, the thought didn’t warm her. Her arms ran with fresh bruises, and she carefully pulled aside the ragged gray threadbare silk, all that remained of a beautiful fey-woven dress hung with glittering beads.

Why did Auntie let me go at all? Just to show me I ruin everything I touch? Ellie shook her head. It didn’t matter. Her fingers trembled.

There, right over her heart, was the deepest bruise of all. At its middle, two holes, their edges white and ragged.

Fangmarks.

It came back to her in a crashing wave—the gray head clasped to her chest, the draining sensation, the thing’s ancient face . . . and the sucking sounds.

Ellie found herself on her knees, clutching the toilet as she heaved. There was nothing in her stomach to come up, but she still retched at the memory. Finally, weak and fever-cheeked, she made her hands into fists. Rocking slightly back and forth, she reached for strength, found nothing, dug deeper.

Something’s going to happen. Something I have to stop.

She had nothing. Her hand was naked, only an empty indent in the flesh where her mother’s ring had nestled. Her schoolbag and uniform were at Auntie’s, probably upstairs where the . . . the thing, the arachna , had retreated.

She forced her bare legs to straighten. She had nothing but this rag that showed almost everything she’d been born with, and she had to get out of here. She had to make it to Perrault Street, again, because something bad was going to happen.

No, not just bad. Something terrible.

It’s probably Laurissa. Why should I care? Now that someone on the Council knew about Rita, they’d intervene, right? The grown-ups should handle this. Finally, someone else could do it.

They’ll be too late. Her own sudden certainty was chilling. She shivered and looked consideringly at the towels. Not big enough. She rinsed her mouth with mineral-tasting water, shuddering as it went down the drain with a gurgling, sucking sound, and paused in the door, staring over the room.

Nothing. The curtains were too heavy, the bed . . .

Huh. It was an interesting question—would she look more ridiculous wandering around half-naked, or wrapped in a pale-blue sheet? Like an old Greek ghost, a revenant dragged up and wandering the streets of New Haven. Hil arious, as Ruby would say.

She winced at the thought of her friends. They’d rescued her, right? Except maybe they just should have left her alone. At least Auntie would have made sure there was no pain.

Or would she? What was behind those three locked doors upstairs? Rotting rooms festooned with thin strands of gossamer foulness, each with a narrow bed holding a cocoon of . . .