by Jasmine Walt
Even with the window coverings, the room is still quietly bright, and I smell the wet earth on a breeze that permeates in from outside. It must have rained again, but when? I came home and fell asleep only hours ago, and it hadn’t rained all night. The tweeting of birds reminds me of how dark my life has become, and I try to ignore their tune.
Although the muslin sheets block the direct rays of the sun that reveal my wings, they still tingle along my spine. I don’t know what I would do without the kindness of natural light. William said the shade of the trees in the forest would be enough to protect me, but I cannot get there without taking the open path, and I cannot risk the dangers of the sun on my flesh.
The sun, over enough years, can shrink the Ankou to the size of the dragonfly.
That’s what William had said, and I don’t want to be the size of a dragonfly. I won’t even try to imagine all the awkward stages I would hit in between.
I should be freezing—there’s no fire for warmth, and yet, the temperature feels more like a mild autumn day. Another benefit of the Ankou, perhaps? I wonder if I’m even still myself anymore.
At that thought, I glance to the heart-shaped birthmark on my wrist, gently caressing it with my finger. Did Abigail always have this, or did I bring it with me? I slip on a long dress that covers my arms all the way down past my wrist, hiding the mark.
Does William have such markings? Last night he had seemed so...flawless. Would my skin have that same golden glow in the moonlight now? I felt even more like I could trust him now. Even with his intense gaze, I hadn’t felt threatened by him, and my instincts are rarely wrong. But my instincts also told me the beautiful young woman with the pear-green eyes—Tess—wasn’t very fond of me, and I still can’t understand why.
What if I’ve made a mistake? If I’m on the wrong path, then I’m getting further from Anna instead of closer. At the same time, where was I before they came along? I was alone in this cabin with no direction, no hope whatsoever. They know a lot more about my situation than anyone else I’ve spoken to since arriving. Or arriving again?
I bite the inside of my cheek, considering, and the pinch reminds me of a woman. A mother. My mind flashes to a lady with a large sun hat and tendrils of graying hair. Rose’s mother. My mother. This must be one of those fragments. Mama would certainly chastise me this time. Impulsivity and impatience lead to counterproductive choices, she would say. But something niggles in my stomach, telling me she had no business giving me advice.
A droplet of water plunks my scalp. The ceiling above has a spot of rotted wood and another droplet of water forming. I stick a pan on the floor to catch the water, then inhale deeply.
Where are William and Tess? They had said they would be here when I woke. I close my eyes, trying to remember exactly what was said. They had mentioned it was best I live my days here for now, to avoid people looking for me, but that I should spend my nights with them, training. So that must be it: they would meet with me tonight.
I sigh and turn to the cupboard for the water William had insisted I store. Heaven help me, I can’t stop thinking about him. My palms get sweaty and my heart rate picks up just remembering how I felt while talking to him, how I felt every time he touched me, even though I’m certain there were no intimate intentions on his part.
Parched, I swig from the ceramic jug; it’s been years since I’ve had water clean enough to drink, and I wonder how William and Tess have managed to provide me that. New questions fire in my mind. How long will the war last? How long will I be needed here? When I return to Anna, will I still be bound to the night and the shadows?
Perhaps there is another way I can get back to her. Some way faster and less dangerous. In the meantime, this is the only path I can follow—my only hope. I set down the jug of water, then pick it up again and take another swig. I can’t seem to shake the nervous energy stirring inside me. I just want to find out what I’m meant to do and be done with it. Tonight cannot come soon enough.
Someone knocks at my door.
“Hello?” I call.
“Abigail!” Verity sings my name, her voice muffled by the wooden door. “Let me in!”
I don’t want to let her in. I’m scared of what I’ve become and scared what Verity would think if she knew. But I know she won’t leave well enough alone, so I grab the black hooded cape given me by Tess and tie it on. She says it can help cloak my wings from the vision of humans, though it will do nothing to protect me from the potential effect of the sun’s rays.
When I open the door, the blinding brightness of the mid-day sun swells in the doorway. Verity’s short, curvy frame hurries past me, the late winter air breezing in behind her. It doesn’t chill me as it would have before, but the sunlight creates pressure on my bones.
It seems someone has carved a crucifix on the front of my door. I sigh and close the door quickly, spinning toward my friend with my palms pressed against the wood behind me. “Good day, Verity.”
“Good day.” Her mousy brown hair is a bit stringy and her eyes look more muddy than tea-colored today. She places a basket with a loaf of bread on the kitchen table and turns toward me with a smile. “Thought you’d be interested in a shared breakfast, though I fear all I have is bread three days past.”
“I still have the berries you brought me. Please, sit.”
“Still?”
I nod, pointing to them.
She grins, but her skin is grayish and there are bags under her eyes, so the smile seems strained. “You know me,” she jokes, “can’t see my own hand unless I hold it in front of my face!”
Her smile fades, slowly melting from her face. She’s staring at something across the room. In two strides, she’s standing in front of a table covered in jars and a mess of paper and brushes. I join her at her side to see what she is examining. It’s painting I made the day before William and Tess had called me to the woods.
“That’s you,” I say, as though it’s not obvious by her name painted at the top. “I painted it with winter berries and charcoal. Do you like it?”
She shakes her head, turning slowly to me. After a moment, she gives a half smile. “It’s beautiful, Abigail, but please, get rid of this one and make me another.”
“You can have this one.” I take the painting off the cluttered table and hold it out toward her.
She steps back, her hand jumping to her chest. “You should never write a person’s name in red, Abigail. It’s terrible luck. Terrible. Please, I’m sorry, please just get rid of this and make something else.”
I drop the painting to my side, biting back tears. I nod, but it doesn’t feel natural. “I—I didn’t know.”
Verity takes my hand and smiles upon me warmly. “Oh, no, please don’t be hurt. It’s beautiful. You didn’t know.”
“Of course.” I shrug, taking a deep breath, and set the painting back down atop some dried wildflowers. “It wasn’t my best work anyway.”
“Don’t be silly,” Verity says. She turns around, shuffling through her apron, then spins back toward me and reaches her short arms up to loop something over my head. I look down. She’s made me a necklace...with a rabbit’s foot on it. I try not to shudder.
“Give it a little rub whenever you need good luck. Perhaps it’ll even bring a child your way,” she says with a wink.
A child. The words are cold on the air, sharp on every inch of my skin. I already have a child. But Verity doesn’t know that, wouldn’t understand that.
“Thank you, Verity,” I say as sincerely as I can. Poor rabbit. I take the necklace off and tuck it in a box on my windowsill. “It’ll be safer here, I think.”
I hope to never see it again.
Verity frowns, but it’s fleeting, and before I know it she’s across the room and reaching for the muslin sheets covering my window.
“For heaven’s sake, Abigail,” she says.
“No!”
Verity snatches her hand back and gives me a long, assessing stare. “Well—” With the back of her l
ong dress sleeves, she pushes some stray strands of hair from her forehead. She looks harried. “Maybe you have the right idea, putting those sheets on your windows. Keeps out the chill.”
“You seem a bit...busier than usual,” I say, turning toward her. I purse my lips as I look her over. “Are you well?”
The smile Verity offers appears forced. She waves me off.
“What happened?”
“It’s nothing, Abigail. You’re always concerning yourself with me. What I want to know is how you are doing.”
I narrow my eyes. She’s hiding something. I just feel it, as though I’ve always been able to sense such things about people. “Did something happen in town?”
“Let’s not talk about the town,” she says, her voice almost painfully sing-song now. “We can’t concern ourselves with them.”
I inspect her more closely. She’s not wearing her dream catcher necklace. I creep closer, examining her. A thin red mark shows on the sides of her neck, and I step around her to see it continue to the back of her neck, behind her pinned up hair.
“Verity...” I say, but it’s more of a concerned breath the way it leaves my mouth.
“Abigail, please, don’t worry yourself with this.”
I shake my head, nostrils flaring, anger boiling up inside of me. “Who took your necklace?”
She licks her lips quickly—nervously—and offers another of her false smiles. “I can make another one. I shouldn’t’ve worn it outside anyway. It’s fine, really.”
“No, it’s not fine!” I say, dropping my hands to my side. I can’t stop myself from the frantic anger swirling in my chest, and it scares me. My hands are balled so tightly that my nails press numbing crescents into my palm. “How is that fine? Someone took that off your body, and clearly it was not with your permission!”
The smile she offers now is one of pity. Perhaps I seem unstable, perhaps Verity thinks I have completely gone over the edge. “You are always worried about me, Abigail, but what of you? You shut me out and tell me nothing.”
I take a step back, not liking how she is turning this around. It’s true, I like to keep to myself. I know it has something to do with my life before, and I wonder if that is where my anger comes from. But that’s different. I’m not as though I’m hiding any of Abigail’s life from her.
Verity’s eyebrows are drawn together, and her hands clasp in front of her lap. “Why haven’t you been answering your door? Why have you stayed locked away in your home for so long? What is going on with you?”
Locked in my room for so long? All I do is sleep? I just saw her yesterday! She may be crazier than the settlement imagines I am.
“I’m so hungry, Verity. Let’s just sit and eat.”
She nods and sits at the table, clearing a place for plates. A fresh smile lights her face as though our conversation up until this point never happened. I don’t know whether to be thankful or worried. It takes me a few minutes to find the plates; they are hidden behind some pots and a jar of preserves that Verity made for me some time back when Abigail was just Abigail, and not me, too.
I sit across from her, hand her a plate, and watch as she scoops a handful of berries on her dish. The overripe berries mush and stain her palms red. It’s not until that moment that I notice the Mort standing in the corner about ten feet away, in my direct line of sight. I hadn’t seen it come in with Verity, but I know it wasn’t here before she arrived.
This Mort is a woman with coal-black eyes and dark hair. It does not flee from my stare—does not even acknowledge that I see her. The way she peers at Verity with increasing intensity unnerves me. I can see her more clearly than I’ve seen Morts in the past, but still she appears shadowy, her essence washed out, the colors muted by darkness except for her gleaming black eyes and the ghostly, wolfish-fangs poking against her bottom lip.
William had said this would happen—that becoming Ankou would enhance my Seer abilities.
“What is it?” Verity asks.
I force my attention away from the Mort. “I’m terribly embarrassed,” I say. “My home is quite the mess today.”
“Oh, I’m not worried about that,” Verity says. “But I still worry that I’ve not seen you in a week. All is well, I hope?”
Shock momentarily holds my tongue, but I harness my confusion. “Verity, were you not just here yesterday?”
Her eyes widen. “Heavens no, Abigail. I hope you do not talk to others as you do with me. There’s enough being said about how you showed up out of nowhere all those years ago.”
I reach for the bread. “Why would that matter now?”
“Your memory, Abigail. That is what worries me. Reverend Parris’ daughters, well, they have not forgotten the day you arrived here, and your appearance has done you no favors.”
“My...appearance?”
“Your hair, Abigail! As deep a red as Adam’s first wife, Lilith. The sign of offspring born of unclean sex. Red, the color of sin, the color of the forbidden fruit. And God forbid you tame those unruly locks—when is the last time you took a brush to your hair? Given all this recent talk of witchcraft...well, perhaps it’s best you’ve been lying low.”
The town had thought I was a witch, or does she mean they do now? I pull forward a lock of my hair, as red as fresh blood. “But Verity—”
“No, no. None of your excuses today. Just be careful. And for heaven’s sake, answer your door when I call on you. A week is far too long to leave an old woman like me to worry.”
Had it really been a week since I last saw Verity? I could’ve sworn it was just yesterday—just last night that I met William and Tess in the woods. I am not sure who is confused—Verity or me?
Unsure what to say, I smile at her thinly. I busy myself preparing my plate. The mold on the bread is not too bad today—it only branches out at one end of the loaf. But as I attempt to rip the spoiled section off, the mold disappears. I hold my hand over the end of the bread and try to distract Verity’s attention with a smile, but it’s too late.
“How did you—” She shakes her head and reaches for the bread. “May I?”
What else can I say but yes? I swallow and nod.
“Oh, Abigail.” She sighs the words as she turns the bread over in her hands. “This is—this is a miracle. How did you...?”
“I didn’t do anything,” I say quickly, defensively. “Why, what did you think you saw?”
Shaking her head, she breaks the bread and sets some on each of our plates. “I’m not saying anything, so don’t you worry.”
Verity believes in magic, possibly more than me. She’ll probably spend the next few days trying to produce the same results with her herbal mixtures and quiet chants. But that doesn’t mean she believes in spirits and time travel and Ankou. She allows me some quiet time while we eat.
I know Verity wouldn’t say anything, but something in my stomach tells me Morts don’t care about what someone would or wouldn’t do. And this Mort, now five feet away and leaning in as if to listen more intently, leers at my dear friend.
My eyes tear and my throat closes up. I avert my gaze and shift in my seat; I don’t deserve her kindness. My head throbs with the idea that I need to get back to Anna, but that Verity needs me, too. I can’t just leave her, not until I know she’s safe. She’s one of the few people I’ve ever been able to count on.
Thanks to William and Tess, I now know what these Morts are capable of. Will the Morts take Verity the same way they took my family, using them to hurt me, or will they simply just feed on her life, slowly destroying her health until she’s gone forever?
Her time is running short. My heart beats rapidly and unevenly in my chest, and it’s hard to breath. Pulling air into my lungs feels like breathing in needles. I smile, hoping Verity won’t notice my trembling hands or pick up on my strained breathing and erratic heartbeat.
I don’t want to freak her out, nor spook away her friendship, so I won’t tell her what I’ve seen. That won’t help anything. I keep my mouth shut an
d look at Verity as though there is no Mort looming behind her, though I vow to myself that I will find a way to save her.
She’d once told me I remind her of a daughter she lost to typhus many years ago. She’s been my only friend, my only companion, and she’s always protected me. But now I feel it is my duty to protect her.
My mind swirls around visions I can’t stomach to repeat. I’m hearing Mama’s voice now. Warning me. ‘That imagination of yours is a dangerous thing, Rose. It’ll distract you—cloud your judgment. You need to just stop it right soon as it starts, that’s what you need to do.’
But that’s not what I need to do now. I may have an overactive imagination—it might even hurt me at times—but Verity is in danger. And it’s right then that I realize how much this woman means to me.
“Now what do I do?” I mumble to myself under my breath.
“Are you all right, Abigail?” Verity asks. “You’re so tense.”
I clear my throat. I can’t think straight to politely end our time together, so I walk toward the door and say, “I’m so glad you stopped by, Verity.”
She takes the cue, edging toward the exit. Part of me wants her to stay, so I can try to protect her, but I don’t know how to. Not yet. William and Tess never made it that far in explaining my abilities as an Ankou. The best I can do is get her out of here so I can figure all of this out. There has to be a way to help her before I return to Anna.
“It was nice to see you,” Verity says slowly, stepping out the door. “If you need anything—”
“Thank you, Verity,” I say. “I’m just...so tired.”
I close the door and lean back against it, hating myself for the way I handled the whole situation. I press a hand to my stomach; I feel woozy. Guilty. Scared.
As soon as the sun sets, I need to seek out William and Tess. I cannot wait for them to come to me. Verity needs my help, and for so long as I am trapped here, I will do everything in my power to protect her.