Kendare Blake - Anna Dressed in Blood

My mom slams my drawers shut. Her cheeks are red and she’s got wet, shiny eyes. She looks about ready to throttle me.

“That thing killed him,” she says. “It can kill you too.”

“Thanks.” I throw up my hands. “Thanks for your vote of confidence.”

“Cas—”

“Wait. Shut up.” I don’t often tell my mother to shut up. In fact, I don’t know if I ever have. But she needs to. Because something in my room doesn’t make sense. There’s something here that shouldn’t be here. She follows my gaze and I want to see her react, because I don’t want to be the only one seeing this.

My bed is just how I left it. The blankets are rumpled and half pulled down. The pillow has an imprint from my head.

And poking out from underneath is the carved handle of my father’s athame.

It shouldn’t be. It can’t be. That thing is supposed to be miles away, hidden in Will Rosenberg’s closet or in the hands of the ghost that murdered him. But I walk over to the bed and reach down, and the familiar wood is smooth against my palm. Connect the dots.

“Mom,” I whisper, staring down at the knife. “We have to get out of here.”

She just blinks at me, standing stock still, and in the quiet of the house there is an uneven creaking I don’t recognize.

“Cas,” my mom breathes. “The attic door.”

The attic door. The sound and the phrase make something in the back of my head start to itch. It’s something my mother said about raccoons, something about the way Tybalt climbed on me the day we moved in.

The quiet is sick: it magnifies every noise, so when I hear a distinct scraping, I know that what I’m hearing is the pull-down ladder being slid toward the floor in the hallway.

I’d like to leave now. I’d very much like to leave now. The hairs are up on the back of my neck and my teeth would chatter if I wasn’t clenching so hard. Given the choice between fight or flight, I would choose to dive out the window, knife in my hand or not. Instead I turn and pivot closer to my mom, putting me in between her and the open door.

Footfalls hit the ladder, and my heart has never pounded so hard. My nostrils catch the scent of sweet smoke. Stand my ground, is what I think. After this is over, I might puke. Assuming, of course, that I’m still living.

The rhythm of the footsteps, the sound of whatever is coming down the ladder is driving both me and my mom steadily toward peeing our pants. We can’t be caught in this bedroom. How I wish that weren’t true, but it is. I have to make it out into the hallway and try to get us to the stairs before whatever it is blocks our escape. I grab her hand. She shakes her head violently, but I pull her along, inching toward the door, the athame held out in front of us like a torch.

Anna . Anna, come charging in, Anna, come save the day … but that’s stupid. Anna is marooned on the damn front porch, and how would that be, if I died in here, ripped to bits and chewed on like a rubber pork chop, with her standing powerless outside.

Okay. Two more deep breaths and we go into the hall. Maybe three.

When I move I’ve got a clear view of the attic ladder, and also of the thing descending it. I don’t want to be seeing this. All that training and all those ghosts; all that gut instinct and ability goes right out the window. I’m looking at my father’s killer. I should be enraged. I should be stalking him. Instead I’m terrified.

His back is to me, and the ladder is far enough east of the stairs that we should be able to get there before he does, as long as we keep moving. And as long as he doesn’t turn around and charge. Why do I think these thoughts? Besides, he doesn’t seem inclined to. As we slide silently toward the staircase, he has reached the floor, and he actually pauses to put the ladder back up with a rickety shove.

At the top of the stairs, I stop, angling my mom to go down first. The figure in the hallway doesn’t seem to have noticed us. He just keeps swaying back and forth with his back to me, like he’s listening to some dead music.

He’s wearing a dark, fitted jacket, sort of like a long suit jacket. It could be dusty black or even dark green, I can’t tell. On the top of his head is a nest of dreadlocks, twisted and matted, some half-rotted and falling off. I can’t see his face, but the skin of his hands is gray and cracked. Between his fingers he’s twisting what looks like a long black snake.

I give my mom a gentle push to get her farther down the stairs. If she can get outside to Anna, she’ll be safe. I’m getting a little tinge of bravery, just a wafting of the old Cas coming back.

Then I realize I’m full of shit when he turns and looks right at me.

I should rephrase that. I can’t honestly say that he’s looking right at me. Because one can never be sure that something is looking right at them if that something’s eyes have been sewn shut.

And they are sewn shut. No mistaking. There are big, crisscrossed stitches of black string over his eyelids. Just the same, there is also no mistaking that he can see me. My mom speaks for both of us when she lets out a yelpy little “Oh.”

“You’re welcome,” he says in that voice of his, the voice of my nightmares, like chewing on rusted nails.

“I have nothing to thank you for,” I spit, and he cocks his head. Don’t ask me how I know, but I know he’s staring at my knife. He walks toward us, unafraid.

“Perhaps I should thank you, then,” he says, and the accent shows. The “thank” is “tank.” The “then” is “den.”

“What are you doing here?” I ask. “How did you get here? How did you get past the door?”

“I’ve been here the whole time,” he says. He’s got bright white teeth. His mouth is no bigger than any man’s. How does he leave such gigantic marks?

He’s smiling now, his chin tilted upward. He’s got an ungainly way of moving, like lots of ghosts do. Like their limbs are stiffening, or like their ligaments are rotting away. It isn’t until they move to strike that you see them for real. I won’t be fooled.

“That’s impossible,” I say. “The spell would’ve kept you out.” And there’s no way that I’ve been sleeping in the same house with my father’s killer this whole time. That he’s been one floor above me, watching and listening.

“Spells to keep the dead out are worthless if the dead are already in,” he says. “I come and go as I please. I fetch things back that foolish boys lose. And since then I’ve been in the attic, eating cats.”

I’ve been in the attic, eating cats. I look closer at the black snake he’s been weaving through his fingers. It’s Tybalt’s tail.

“You fuck — you ate my cat!” I yell, and thank you, Tybalt, for one last favor, this pissed-off rush of adrenaline. The quiet is suddenly filled with the sound of knocking. Anna heard me yell and is banging on the door, asking if I’m all right. The ghost’s head snaps around like a snake, an unnatural, disturbing movement.

My mom doesn’t know what’s going on. She didn’t know Anna was outside, so she starts clinging to me, unsure of what to be more afraid of.

“Cas, what is that?” she asks. “How are we going to get out?”

“Don’t worry, Mom,” I say. “Don’t be scared.”

“The girl we wait for is right outside,” he says, and shuffles forward. My mom and I drop down a step.

I put my hand out across the railing. The athame flashes and I bring it back to eye level. “You stay away from her.”

“She’s what we came for.” He makes a soft, hollow rustling when he moves, like his body is an illusion and he’s nothing more than empty clothes.

“ We didn’t come for anything,” I spit. “ I came to kill a ghost. And I’m going to get my chance.” I lunge forward, feeling my blade part the air, the silver tip just grazing his front buttons.