She pushed open her heavy bedroom door and was instantly hit by a gust of icy wind. Entering the room, Scarlett was alarmed to see that her balcony doors were stood wide open. The yellow glare of the city lights flooded in across the room, illuminating her bed. Her stomach turned as she tried to recall whether she had left them open when she had left for the show earlier on.
‘I must not have closed them properly,’ Scarlett told herself, as she quickly switched on the lamp at the side of her bed. Her room felt chilly now. Though springtime was here, the nights were still chilly and Scarlett felt irritated with herself knowing that she would have to take the time to light a fire to get the room warm again. She walked back around the bed and went to shut the doors. A split second later however, Scarlett found herself on the ground. She had tripped over a dark and heavy obstruction, which lay on the other side of the bed, previously unseen.
As she fell, terror shot through her. She knew for a fact that nothing had been down there before she left for the show. In the second that she fell and impacted on the floor, a million thoughts seemed to cross her mind. What if her attackers had found her and this was them lying in wait? What if more of them were in the next room? Her heart thudded, while her veins flooded with adrenaline, as the fear she had felt that night returned with a vengeance. The lamp that sat on the other side of the bed was weak and unhelpful. It cast shadows over the obstruction, as Scarlett scrambled up and stood over it to get a better look. Breathless and shaking, her heart pounded even faster as she realised what lay on her bedroom floor.
With blood pooling on her light brown carpet, a figure lay clad in black, face down and unmoving. It was a body.
Chapter Eleven
Scarlett trembled, consumed with panic as she grappled with what she should do. Was someone else up here? Perhaps the person who had left the body? What if they were in the next room? She made a dash to switch on her other lights, in order to cast out all remaining shadows.
Biting her lip nervously, she crouched down to the floor, still shaking, her breath coming out in unsteady gasps. The light, prevented by the bulk of the bed, still did not quite stretch down to the floor. Scarlett contemplated running for help. As the man of the house, surely Vincent would know what to do? However something told her to find out who it was first. She didn’t know if this person was dead or just unconscious, but either way they did not appear to pose much of a threat right now.
Taking a deep breath, Scarlett summoned all of her strength to turn the dark, unmoving shape onto its back. Gasping, her eyes widened, while her hand shot up to her open mouth.
“No!” She whispered, shocked and unable to keep breathing, unable to move.
It was him. Beautiful and elusive, like a fabulous dream she once had, long resigned to nothing more than a distant memory, he was now lying beside her bed, eyes closed, skin deathly pale and covered in blood – William Poisonwood. Scarlett leaned over him slowly as disbelief surged through her, her eyes filling with tears.
“No. Not you,” she murmured again, her breath returning, short and shuddering. “William…don’t be dead. Please. You can’t be.” She hunched over him desperately, her hands on his shoulders, as she tried to remember what she should be doing.
‘Check if he’s alive,’ a distant voice inside her head said.
Slowly, anxiously, Scarlett laid her hand over his chest, guessing where the heart should be and waited. She felt nothing, but the rushing in her head and her own beating heart made it impossible anyway. She looked around the room helplessly and then back down at William, hoping for any kind of movement - a breath, a hand twitching, chest rising, but there was nothing. His dark red blood had soaked through the carpet and Scarlett wondered how long he had been lying there.
‘Check if he’s alive,’ the voice said again, with increased urgency this time.
Scarlett’s subconscious was attempting to reign triumphant over her quivering heart. Breathing in again, she tried to steady herself and this time pulled open his torn shirt, pressing on his bare chest. Seconds stretched on for an eternity as she waited, but eventually she felt it. It was lighter than light, a distant beating, barely there, but there all the same.
‘What do I do?’ She thought, panicked and flustered now. ‘Should I move him? Would moving him make it worse? Shall I call for help?’
Scarlett checked for other injuries, but despite cuts and bruises over his body, nothing seemed broken. William’s head was bleeding badly, so she ran to her bathroom, soaked a cloth with warm water and attempted to clean the cut. She couldn’t help but wince as she dabbed at it, though it didn’t seem to be as deep as she had initially thought. William was still unconscious, but she could see now that he was clearly breathing.
The cloth was soon saturated with blood. The bright red colour scared her as the reality of the situation hit home. Scarlett grabbed a pillow from her bed and gently slid it underneath his head. Then she jumped up to close and lock the double doors to the balcony and draw the thick curtains shut. She grabbed more pillows and slid them under the rest of his body in a feeble attempt to make him more comfortable.
The carpet was thin and the floor beneath was cold and hard. Scarlett wished that she could lift him up onto her bed, but she was afraid of hurting him and realised that she was unlikely to have the strength to do it anyway. Instead she covered him up with all of the blankets she could find, throwing open boxes which were filled with Winifred’s musty old bedspreads.
Quickly lighting the fire, Scarlett set some hot water to boil. She dug out a dusty first aid kit from a cupboard in the next room which had been untouched since the days when she was a younger girl with bruises and scrapes on her dirty knees. Praying that it still had everything she would need inside, Scarlett mentally thanked Winifred’s inherent cautiousness when she found it well stocked with thick white bandages and tape. She carefully cleaned William’s head wound again with the sterilised water and bandaged it up to stem the bleeding. The room was heating up now, but William was still cold. Desperately, she piled on even more blankets and waited nervously until colour began to return to his pallid complexion.
Scarlett watched him throughout the night. Still in her evening wear, an emerald green dress borrowed from Rebecca, she sat beside him, past feeling tired and consumed with nothing but worry and fear. William felt warm now, while his breathing had grown more apparent and steady. She vigilantly changed the dressing on his head every so often when she saw that blood had seeped through the fabric, but eventually the bleeding seemed to stop and Scarlett began to hope that maybe he would be okay. She couldn’t take her eyes off his beautiful, serene face and wondered what had happened.
Leaning over him, Scarlett whispered gently, “William? Wake up. You need to wake up.”
Her eyes searched for some sign of him stirring, but still there was nothing. He did not move. Checking the time, Scarlett realised that dawn would be breaking soon. Warily, she snuck down the stairs, praying that nobody was awake to hear her movements. Once in the kitchen, she quickly set about making a large bowl of porridge. She hoped that William would awaken soon and was sure he would be weak and hungry.
She carried as much food as she could on a large tray. Even if he didn’t wake for a while, she could at least heat it up on the fire when he did. Scarlett thought in terms of when, rather than if and she refused to consider what would happen if he never woke up. She grew nervous as she approached her bedroom, afraid that something bad had happened while she had been away. Pushing the creaking door open, Scarlett slipped back in. Looking up, she gasped with relief as she saw that he was not only awake, but struggling to stand and using the bedpost to prop himself up. Scarlett quickly set the tray down on the floor and scrambled across the bed to help William to her mattress, onto which he sank down gratefully. Though uncomfortable and clearly in pain, he shifted about until he was sitting up, finally able to face and talk to Scarlett, who was still kneeling on the bed next to him, concern spread across her face. Breathing d
eeply, William closed his eyes for a long time, before slowly opening them to focus on her.
“I’m sorry,” he said huskily. He looked lost and forlorn and the light had gone out of his eyes.
“It’s okay,” Scarlett replied, her voice soft.
Coming back into herself, she ran and poured a glass of water for William and gently held it up to his dry lips. He swallowed tiny sips at first, which gradually grew bigger until he had swallowed the whole glass. Now that he was slightly hydrated, he seemed to grow more alert and was able to focus better.
“Are you hungry?”
He nodded slightly, wincing in pain at the movement. Scarlett picked up the porridge and a spoon, then slowly fed him small mouthfuls which he took appreciatively. As his energy grew, she gave bigger mouthfuls until he had finished off the entire bowl. He then lay his head back on the hard wooden headboard and closed his eyes again.
Scarlett worked quickly, moving the empty glass and bowl back onto the ground and picking the pillows up off the floor to rearrange them around William. She put one behind his head and one behind his back, then gathered up the blankets and covered him again, before noticing that the fire was dying out and so set about refuelling it. Once this was done, she looked around for more things that she could do to help. Glancing back at William, Scarlett saw that he was watching her, his eyes half closed, and so she clambered onto the bed beside him.
“Are you still hungry? Do you want more food?”
He slowly shook his head.
“What can I do?”
Again he shook his head and closed his eyes with a light sigh. Despairingly, Scarlett dropped her head into her hands as tiredness overwhelmed her. She had not slept a wink the entire night. She watched as William slipped into what appeared to be an excruciating and distressed sleep. He winced and trembled. Scarlett felt useless.
Her own head now hurting, she poured herself a glass of water and snuck out onto the balcony to regroup her scattered thoughts. For a moment, she watched the airships as they juddered across the city, then downed her water and took several deep breaths of the morning air. The whole thing still felt like a surreal dream to her. With one fall her entire universe had been tipped upside down.
Discreetly, Scarlett slipped back into her bedroom to check on him. He seemed to be sleeping more peacefully now, but the room had grown hot and muggy, so she drew back a curtain and opened one of the doors, before grabbing a book and settling down next to him on the bed. Scarlett tried to read. She tried to focus on something else, anything, but she couldn’t. She nibbled on her nails nervously, ate as her hunger grew and tried to read again, but found that she was reading the same line over and over, unable to put the words together into something that made sense.
Scarlett sat with William for hours. Lunchtime came and went, and after leaving another tray of food in case he woke up, she made an appearance downstairs with Rebecca and Winifred in order to avoid raising the suspicions of the household. Late afternoon set in, and upon returning to the fifth floor, Scarlett was alarmed to see that the bed was empty. She looked all around, under the bed and out on the balcony to no avail. Returning to her room however, Scarlett was relieved to catch William limping out of the bathroom. He gave her a wry, almost embarrassed smile as she watched him climb back onto her bed.
“Are you okay?” She asked.
William nodded, looking down ashamedly, unwilling to meet her eyes.
“I’m so sorry, Scarlett. I had nowhere else to go,” he replied, barely above a whisper.
“It’s fine. It’s okay, really. I haven’t told anybody that you’re here.”
He coughed uncomfortably and held his head in his hands for a few seconds. Looking up at her, William finally made eye contact. “Thank you.”
“Where are your parents?” Scarlett asked, her voice filled with concern.
He sighed and closed his eyes again. “They’ve been taken. My parents and my grandfather.”
“What? How? Are they…are they okay?”
William nodded. “They’re okay. I think so anyway. A few weeks back we were invited to meet with the Silverwall City Council. There was some trouble a while ago and they said they wanted to meet with us to try and build bridges and attempt to work everything out. I thought it was suspicious from the beginning, but I didn’t think they would attack us and take us prisoner. That’s not how it’s supposed to work. I tried to fight them off, but there were too many of them. They took us to the prison and…” He swallowed angrily as he tried to catch his breath. “It’s not right. This isn’t how it happens.”
“How did you get out?”
“I ran for it at the first chance I got. I scaled the walls and came back to Poisonwood. I slept in the forests, scavenged for food and begged for it from some of the Outsiders. Some were kind. Some chased me off. But I got here. They found me though. They had sent men on ahead to find me. They entered the city and waited. The other Shadows had no idea. They knew who I was right away and beat me. I had barely enough strength to escape and I lost them. They’ll be watching my house though. Everyone knows where Poisonwood Manor is. I couldn’t have gone home. I think they know where the Academy is too, so I was worried they might be staking out the area. I’m sorry. I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go.”
“What would have happened if you had gone back to the Academy? Surely the other Shadows would have fought them off for you?”
“Yes they would have helped me. But I didn’t want anyone to get hurt. Not for this. It’s not worth it. And I didn’t want them to find out where we are based. I was half conscious and…well, obviously I wasn’t thinking straight. I’m sorry.” William dropped his head in shame.
Unable to respond, Scarlett nodded timidly.
“I need to rescue my parents, but I can’t until I get my strength back. I need to tell the others so that we can go in and get them.”
“I could go to the Academy myself and explain what has happened. They could come here for you.”
William shook his head vigorously. “They’ll be watching. Civilians don’t come into the Academy and they know that. They would follow you right back to me. I’m sure of it.”
She swallowed nervously. “So what are you going to do?”
“I’m not sure. I need to rescue my mother.”
“Will she be okay?”
“Prisoners are kept there for months, years even. My mother is strong. I just don’t understand how they could kidnap the entire Poisonwood family and not expect a war. Well, that’s exactly what they’re going to get.”
“Calm down, you’re too agitated.” She put an arm on his shoulder. “You can’t go to war like this.”
William closed his eyes. “I hate this,” he muttered to himself.
“Let me help you. What can I do?”
“I just need to regain my strength and then I can fight back.”
Scarlett looked down at him, saturated by anxiety. “Perhaps I could visit the Council and let them know? Maybe they could inform the Shadows and they could go in without you?”
William shook his head again. “They’ll know already. They won’t do anything. They’ll hold vague negotiations that come to nothing. That’s it. Trust me.”
“Even for Walter Poisonwood? They wouldn’t send the Shadow Army in for the man who practically owns the city?” Scarlett asked in disbelief.
“No way. That’s not how they work. The council is made up of shrivelled old men who don’t know how to do anything other than negotiate. And they aren’t even good at that.”
“I’m so sorry," said Scarlett, consumed by sympathy and sorrow. “I’m sorry that everything is corrupt. I’ll take care of you. I promise.”
“Thank you,” William said, his dark eyes set on her own. He was both serene and on fire at the same time. Scarlett could see that he never stopped thinking.
“Just focus on getting better now. Try and shut the world out for a while?” She suggested pathetically.
“That may prove
to be rather difficult.” He paused. “I need rest. I have to heal. Then I can figure things out.”
That afternoon, Scarlett set up the bed in the room next door, which had been her room originally when Winifred had lived up there. She helped move William over and settled him into the bed once he had eaten again. Waves of tiredness now hitting her, Scarlett ate also, before filling a bucket with piping hot water and scrubbing at the floor in an attempt to remove the thick bloodstains on her carpet.
She scrubbed as best as she could, but eventually frustration and exhaustion got the better of her and she curled up in her bed, completely drained. She slept long and deep, though it was disrupted with dreams of darkness, fire and heavy rain. She awoke with a start, struggling to recall who she was and the events that had led her to this point. Sitting up, she realised she wasn’t alone in the room.
“This is just terrible. I can’t believe I did this,” a voice said as she focused, still trying to remember the previous day.
Scarlett looked to her right, rubbing her eyes sleepily. William was kneeling down on the floor, a fresh bucket of soapy water by his side.
He looked up at her guiltily and spoke urgently, “I’m sorry for waking you. I tried to be quiet. I woke early and couldn’t stand all this blood on your floor. I noticed that you tried to clean it and I felt so bad.”
"Will,” she said, shaking her head as she climbed out from beneath the bed covers, “you should be resting. Go back to bed!” She ordered, trying to keep her tone as gentle as possible.
“No,” he stood frustrated, a foaming brush in his hand. “I can’t just leave it there.”
“Yes you can,” Scarlett insisted, as she stood up and removed the brush from his hand. “Don’t worry about it. It really doesn’t matter to me. Honest.” She looked into his doubtful eyes.
The Shadow: The Poisonwood Shadows Book One Page 8