Sweet Unrest

by Maxwell, Lisa

  “That should about do it.” She glanced over at Alex’s prone body. “You aren’t gonna be able to mess in my business as long as your soul is bound to this little man.” She went to the hearth and hid the figure beneath the stone.

  As she turned back to his body, her pleasure in her accomplishments, and her anticipation, were clear. Grasping Armantine’s locket tightly in her hand, she smiled darkly. “Whoever you was, you aren’t gonna be no more. No one’s ever gonna know you’re even gone. They’ll just think you ran off with your little mulatter girl and not bother with thinking otherwise.”

  She went back into her cabinet and pulled out a larger skein of red thread. “The spirits been telling me an opportunity was coming. I didn’t know the meaning, but ol’ Thisbe wasn’t stupid enough to ignore the signs. So I got myself ready. I made them the sacrifices they require, and I waited.” She patted the skein of thread, still talking to Alex’s nearly lifeless body. “The spirits did me a great honor when they gave me sweet little Lila. Her blood sang to me while I took it,” she said, tapping the crimson thread again.

  “So now I’m gonna do you a great honor, mon-sir. I’m gonna take real good care of this here body of yours. And you”—she began at his feet and started to wrap the thread around him—“you are gonna help me live forever.” She worked methodically until his entire body looked like it was encased in a red spiderweb, chanting in the strange language the entire time she worked. When she reached his head, she tied off the string and chanted a final invocation.

  She cut him again, then, this time deeply and on the other hand. Carefully she collected his blood in her palm. It pooled in her cupped hand, seeping through her fingers and dripping to the floor. When she could hold no more, she dipped a wizened finger into it and traced it across her brows.

  She repeated the process until her face was obscured by a mask of Alex’s blood. The whole time she was painting her grotesque mask, she chanted, and as she chanted, a strange metallic buzzing grew until it was a solid wall of frenzied vibrations filling the air with a song of death. Then she filled Armantine’s locket with Alex’s blood and fastened it around her neck. The liquid that escaped trailed a dark path down into her loose dress.

  The air in the cabin grew hot and thick. It pulsed with a sinister energy as Thisbe began to change. Her shoulders straightened. Her arthritic fingers uncurled. Her cloudy eyes cleared. Her hair lengthened and darkened into the mane of a much younger woman. The blood sank into the deep creases lining her face, smoothing the ashy skin as it disappeared.

  “No.” I said the single word over and over in an attempt deny what I was seeing, who I was seeing the old woman transform into before my eyes. It was a face I recognized easily, and when the transformation was complete—when her age had melted away and revealed the youth beneath—I wondered how I’d never recognized the similarities between the two faces before …

  They woke me up when I started screaming. I was weak and disoriented as I came out of the dream, but one thing was clear. “Not Chloe,” I gasped as the world came back into focus. “It’s not Chloe.”

  “Do you know who it is?” Alex asked.

  I nodded. “And I know where Thisbe put your body.”

  Thirty-Four

  “We can find another way, Lucy.” Even as we made our way to Thisbe’s cottage, Alex was still trying to talk me out of my plan to try and trick Thisbe into handing over the photograph.

  “We’ve only got one shot at this, Alex. It’s now or never if we’re going to save my brother.”

  As we walked through the forest, I gathered the small sticks I planned to use as kindling to build a fire. Mama Legba had told us it would only be a matter of minutes, maybe seconds, before it would be clear to Thisbe that the doll I’d tucked into my backpack wasn’t the real charm. We needed to be ready to destroy the picture as soon as we had it, and, as Mama Legba assured us, fire cleansed all.

  We arrived at Thisbe’s cabin before sunset, and I started the small fire near the edge of the grove. Once it was burning, Alex left me and went to the spot by the pond where we’d agreed he would wait, out of sight. We didn’t want to take any chance that Thisbe might sense him and not follow through with the deal. Whatever was to happen, I would have to do it alone.

  As the sun dipped below the trees, she emerged from the woods at the edge of the pond. Up until that moment, I hadn’t really known who would come. I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved that it wasn’t Chloe, or terrified because Thisbe had finally decided to stop hiding.

  She didn’t rush across the field. She walked toward me slowly, like she was leading some invisible procession, forcing me to wait like a supplicant in the uneasy silence of the clearing. Apparently she still had a thing for drama. I couldn’t say I appreciated the suspense. Finally she stood across the fire from me.

  “Mina,” I said coldly. I could see Thisbe’s features in her face so easily now, but the shock of realizing Mina was less than human and more than monstrous hadn’t quite worn off. “I see you left Chloe at home today.”

  She smirked. “I wouldn’t leave a task this important in the hands of someone else, especially not a child.”

  “You brought the picture?” I ignored the pinpricks of fear that were setting the fine hairs at the nape of my neck on end.

  She nodded and pulled out a rolled-up piece of paper. It was tied with the now-familiar red thread.

  “I want to see it,” I told her.

  She hesitated and I thought she would refuse, but then she began to work the thread off. She pocketed it before unrolling the print. She held it close to her chest as she showed me T.J.’s bright smile

  “You bring my charm?” she asked.

  I nodded and pulled out the old sack—luckily, I hadn’t burned it with the charm.

  “Take it out of there,” she directed. “I want to see, too.”

  My hands shook as I pulled out the tiny figure. It was the moment of truth. In the next few seconds, I would know if I would be able to save my brother. Mama Legba had assured me that the charm was similar enough that Mina—Thisbe—shouldn’t be able to tell it wasn’t the original until she had it in her hands.

  She nodded when she saw it, like she approved, and I struggled to keep my features from broadcasting the victory I felt I’d just achieved.

  “I want the picture.” I was pleased to hear how calm and steady my voice was. We were close to freeing T.J., and that knowledge gave me the strength to keep going.

  She sneered. “I’m sure you do, girl, but you’re not getting anything until I get what’s mine.”

  “The picture first or this goes into the fire,” I told her, holding the charm up, ready to throw it in.

  “You wouldn’t.” Her anger and fury turned the air cold as a strange wind started to whip around me.

  I ignored it and focused on the only thing that mattered. “How much are you willing to bet?” I asked, trying to keep my voice level. “Are you willing to throw away your chance to get this back? Are you really going to risk it for a boy who means nothing to you? T.J. can’t give you anything, Thisbe. Are you willing to let Alex go?” I took a step toward the fire and watched her eyes flash in anger. “What would that mean for you, Thisbe?” I asked, poking at her like a tiger in a cage.

  Her lip curled, and a low inhuman growl sounded from deep in her chest, but I didn’t let myself flinch.

  “Are you running out of his power now that I’m in control of him?” I sneered with all the hatred and contempt I felt for the woman, for the thing the woman had become long ago.

  She hesitated, and I could tell she was trying to figure out a way around me, so I lifted the charm higher, prepared to throw it. Her eyes flashed, not with a look of resignation but with a hate so sharp and furious it was almost a physical thing in the air around us. It made me realize I hadn’t really understood the evil we were dealing with until that moment, but I also knew my bluff had worked. I let that minor victory give me the strength to continue.

>   “We’ll do it at the same time,” I told her, knowing I’d pushed far enough. “You put that picture in the fire, and I toss you the charm.” I spoke with a casualness I didn’t feel. “A life for a life, Thisbe. Ready?”

  Her lip curled in a feral growl. There was something no longer completely human about her. She was letting me see behind the façade she wore as Mina—to the real Thisbe. To the monster that lurked inside.

  “On three,” I said. Her face hardened, but I saw enough desperation in her features that I knew I had her where

  I wanted her. “One. Two. Three.” I waited the fraction of a second for her to release the picture, and then I tossed the charm. Straight into the fire.

  Mina howled in anger and dove for it, shoving her hands into the flames to try and retrieve the charm. I watched until I was sure the paper was curling up in the flames, and then I ran.

  It’s done, I thought as I raced across the field toward the trees—toward Alex—with the cold wind whipping around me like an angry breath. I needed to make it to the pond. Mama Legba had built up protection charms in the clearing for me. It was far enough away, she said, that Thisbe wouldn’t be able to sense them from the grove. If I could just get to the clearing, I’d be safe.

  It’s so close, I thought as I darted between the trees. I could see the light from the clearing filtering through the branches. I ran as fast as I could, refusing to let myself to trip over branches or limbs that got in my way. I was almost there.

  So close, I thought as the pain ripped through my arm. So close, as I fell into the sunlight and the world went black.

  Thirty-Five

  I came up out of the darkness slowly, buoyed up into a gentle light in what felt like a negative exposure of the Dream that had terrorized me for so long. But as I drifted to the surface, the pressure around me increased. Its smooth coolness pressed against my feverish skin, holding me still but unmoored in the semi-darkness. The pressure grew and grew, until finally my ribs couldn’t withstand it any longer and I was forced to draw the thin, unstable air into my lungs. The shock of its coldness cut through the thick fog in my brain, and I broke through the surface finally, opening my eyes in the dim, waning light.

  I was in the clearing, but my eyes had trouble making out what I was seeing. The usual jewel tones of the wildflowers circling the pond were ghostly impressions of their former vividness. The once-verdant trees were a sallow, burned-out ochre. And the whole clearing moved in and out of focus, like I was trying to look through my dad’s thick glasses or gazing at a world through murky water. I thought for a second I was dreaming. The whole scene had the same washed-out look that I saw through Armantine’s eyes. In my dreams, though, I didn’t feel this overwhelming pressure, like some invisible force was squeezing me out of my own skin. And my dreams didn’t echo with the unbounded silence that surrounded me.

  As I became more aware of my surroundings, I also realized my head was propped against something warm and firm—a leg.

  “Lucy?” Gentle hands stroked my hair back from my face. “Lucy, love, come back to me.”

  “Alex?” I looked up into his eyes and was relieved to find he wasn’t faded like everything else around me. He was as vivid and real as he’d always been—his golden hair tumbled over his smooth brow in careless disarray and his vibrant eyes were filled with concern. And then he touched me and I forgot everything else.

  Gently, like I was spun from the most fragile glass, he traced the pad of his fingers across the curve of my cheek. It was more than a whisper of warmth this time—it was human and real.

  “There you are,” he said to me. His relief was overwhelming.

  “You’re touching me,” I said, confused and numb and buzzing with the immense pressure all at once.

  “I am.” He smiled at me. “I never thought I would know what this would be like.” His voice was rough with emotion as he felt my cheek again, and I turned my face into the warmth of his palm. “You did it, love,” he murmured. “You freed him.”

  I closed my eyes and let that knowledge settle over me. It was over. My brother would be okay, and this moment with Alex—surely this had to be my reward.

  I let myself enjoy it. He smelled of the familiar bergamot and sandalwood, but under it was the faint aura of something that reminded me pleasantly of the faded pages of old books. “My dreams were never like this before,” I told him.

  “You are not dreaming, Lucy.”

  I opened my eyes in confusion at the regret in his tone. “Of course I am. I couldn’t feel you if this wasn’t a dream.”

  He wasn’t smiling, though, and the look he gave me sent a trickle of cold dread through my happiness.

  “Unless I’m dead. Tell me I’m not dead, Alex,” I whispered.

  “You’re not dead, love. But you were hurt.” He gently touched my upper arm, and I saw for the first time that my shirt was stained dark over a painless wound. “The witch shot you.”

  I looked under my shirt at the wound. It had been bandaged and didn’t seem to be bleeding. Since it didn’t hurt, I decided not to worry about it. I had other questions that were more urgent at the moment. “Where are we?”

  The pond had always seemed to me to be somehow separate from the land around it, but now, with its faded trees and washed-out flowers, it seemed almost otherworldly. Then there was the pressure. I’d almost forgotten it the instant I realized Alex was real, but as I tried to focus on the world around me, I felt a strange pull, like a thousand angry fingers pinching at my tender skin. It was a constant ache I couldn’t shake.

  “You are in the place between your world and the next, love.” He frowned. “But you cannot remain here long.”

  “I don’t want to go yet,” I told him. I’d done what I meant to do—I’d saved my brother, and now I finally had Alex, which was something I hadn’t imagined was possible. But the pressure against my skin was a constant ache. And the colors—I suddenly realized what it must have been like for him, to spend more than a century stuck in this place. To never really be in the world, always on the other side of some murky veil. Still … “I could stay.”

  “Lucy, you must not.” He brushed his fingers through my hair again and looked down at me with enough regret that I began to worry. Maybe he didn’t want me here after all. Maybe he had changed his mind.

  I sat up. “Why not? You’ve been here for ages. I If I stay, you wouldn’t be alone any more.” I reached out a hand and hesitantly touched his face. It shocked him, but then he smiled and I couldn’t help but smile back. He watched me carefully as I meticulously explored every angle and curve of his face. As Armantine, I’d never been so brave, so determined.

  When he’d had enough, he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me up onto his lap. “How you tempt me, ma chère,” he said, nuzzling my neck so I could feel his warm breath on my skin. The pleasure of it made me forget the dizzying pressure and the washed-out eeriness of the world around us. “I have waited so long for you.” I could feel him trembling, just as I was.

  He dipped his head slowly, giving me plenty of time to back away, and then gently pressed his lips to mine. It was a chaste brush at first, skin against skin, but I felt the touch clear to my core. His warm breath washed over me, his scent surrounded me, and I was lost.

  If I’d had any doubts, the moment his lips touched mine they were gone. All at once, I remembered—but this time the memories weren’t Armantine’s. They were mine. This time, I didn’t hesitate. When he started to back away, I pulled him closer and deepened the kiss.

  Everything about the moment was utterly familiar, and yet there was something new about it—his body had seemed so much larger when I was Armantine. Then, he’d overwhelmed me, but here, in this body, my own body, I felt like his equal. But more than that—kissing Alex was a revelation. It was more than simple excitement or arousal coursing through me. It was the bone-deep comfort of finally—finally—being where I belonged.

  I would have stayed there forever if he hadn’t pul
led away first. “Lucy,” he said slightly breathless against my lips. He trailed kisses down to my neck, my shoulders, and then buried his face in the curve of my neck, inhaling me as I’d inhaled him. “Lucy, you have to go back.”

  But I was sure now that there was no need for me to return. I angled my neck so his lips could reach me. “We could be happy here, Alex. Here in our clearing, by our pond. We don’t need anything else.”

  He tried to pull back, but I wouldn’t let him. My hands roamed across his shoulders, down the lines of his back, as he continued teasing the delicate skin on my neck with soft kisses. I memorized the way he felt under my hands. I could have this forever, I convinced myself. It would be worth feeling like my body might implode at any moment, worth never seeing any true color except for the green of his eyes, if I could just be there with him.

  “It would not be a life, love,” he said breathlessly, and then reluctantly disentangled us. “This is just a kind of limbo. You have to go back.”

  “And leave you?” I shook my head in refusal. “Never again, Alex.”

  “Lucy,” he said, his eyes full of regret. “Even if you could stay, I love you too much to see you waste away here.” He kissed me again, softly this time, like he was saying goodbye. “And even if I wanted you to, you cannot stay here. When your body dies, you’ll go on to the next place.”

  “But you’re here,” I told him stubbornly.

  “I’m here because Thisbe is keeping my body alive somehow. Remember? She’s using the darkest kind of magic to preserve it. Your body will die, though, Lucy. Think. I need you to remember.”

  I didn’t want to remember, though. My memories of before were hazy and growing more indistinct by the moment. They didn’t matter. All that mattered was here. Now.

  But I could feel that steady pull again, even as I tried to ignore it. Something strong tethered me to that other place.