by Sarah Diemer
Is this how I got out before, before they killed me? Didn't they know? Didn't they board it up? But even if they boarded it up, I could move through the boards, through the floor itself, as I've moved through doors, through walls…
Careless of them, not to nail dead birds to the floor, as well.
There’s a basement. I remember a basement.
I’m too panicked to slip through the floor now, to concentrate, to calm. I pry at the boards until my fingertips begin to bleed. But there—one pops up, and I push it aside, reaching under to take up the other two.
Footsteps.
I still my breathing, peer out under the edge of the door, see Matilda’s pointy-toed boots there, pausing before the locked door. But she pauses for only a heartbeat before she turns, begins to pace back in the small hall outside the room.
I edge back the third board, and there’s enough space for my body. A trail of musty air wafts up from below, and I shove my feet and legs through, and I drop into the darkness.
It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust. Overhead, light filters down on me, but here, below, everything else is black as ink.
Now that I know what I am, my memories are coming back in small, uncontrolled glimpses. I knew about the boards, triggered by the birds’ bodies, and I knew about the basement, triggered by the boards.
And now that I’m in the basement, I remember what we Sixers used it for.
A shifting sound, feet against dirt. A grinding sort of hiss. And then they stagger into view, into the light.
They are Sleepers. I repeat this to myself over and over, to displace the rising fear: They are only Sleepers. Their bodies are decayed, and some are almost transparent, these Sleepers gaunt and gray, their skin like thick dead flesh. But they are not dead, not physically alive or dead, because they are only spirits—as we all are, trapped in a perfect illusion that makes us appear a certain way, a way we are not.
In truth, these souls are not grotesque and emaciated. Beyond Abeo City, they are spheres of light, golden, glowing.
I am the one who’s hideous through and through.
These Sleepers are on the verge of vanishing… They look unwell, failing, because they are almost all used up.
The girl standing before me has no hair. She reminds me of Florence: the brittle way she moves, stepping forward, hobbling because she doesn’t have the strength to walk in a straight line. Her tattered dress hangs off of her like ribbons, and when she gazes at me, she has only one eye.
I can feel all that she is, the very essence of her—her energy—leeching away into the earth beneath her feet.
Feeding the Sixers, my sisters, Bird and me.
She will become nothingness before nightfall. I know that the moment I look upon her, and I know other things, too. I know that she lived in Black House. I know that she sold her hair for Nox until she had none left; she Memmed every memory of her life... And then she Faded away.
But she didn't, not really. Like the Harming Tree, Fading is a myth.
When everything she was had been sold, exhausted, she became the property of the Sixers. And the Sleepers saw her Fade, but only because she disappeared to reappear here, to be used and devoured completely.
She is so afraid. She trembles, as the others crawl up or stand up or kneel beside her, watching me in the darkness, their eyes dimly shining.
I gulp down my tears, curl my hands into fists.
“You are one of them,” says the Sleeper before me, the girl who is almost gone. I can’t deny it, so I don’t. I stand very still, and then I nod stiffly.
“Yes,” I whisper.
“You are the youngest,” says an older man, skeletal and wilting like a dead plant, his eyes milky. "The youngest Sixer.”
“Yes,” I whisper again. The truth is a blade, slicing open my heart. I can’t deny what I am, now that I know.
The girl holds out a hand to me, lips trembling. “You were kind to me.”
"W—what?" I stare at her.
“Don’t you remember?” she whispers. “When you escaped? You opened the door for us, to the outside. Before they killed you,” she says, voice soft. “We know they killed you. They laughed about it when they came back home… We heard their voices through the floorboards."
I shake my head. "If I opened the door, then why—"
"We are too weak, not fast enough, you see. We couldn't even climb the stairs. But it was a kind gesture, all the same.”
I don’t know what to say. I breathe out, press my fingernails into my palms.
“Will you save us now?” the girl whispers.
I stare at her, at her decayed body, at the illusion that looks so real.
She can’t be saved. She will become nothingness too soon; I can't stop that. But there is such faith and trust in her face, in her voice.
“I’m one of them…” I say, voice cracking, but she steps forward, head shaking so hard, I can hear the creak of the bones in her neck.
“Don’t talk to her, Estella,” croaks one of the older women, curving away from me. “She’s right. She's one of them. You’re wasting your breath.”
“I’m not,” says the girl, her fingers curled toward me. “She’s different.”
“Do you know how many people have come through here?” asks the old woman, leering at me. The others watch me with glinting eyes, unseeing or seeing, it’s impossible to tell. “Do you know how many souls you’ve eaten? How many your sisters have?”
I run my fingers through my hair, press my fingers against my face.
“And yet…” says the girl, inching forward again, “you tried to help us. Will you try again?”
I watch her carefully, my hands shaking. I curl my fingers into fists again so that I don't betray my fear.
“I’ll try,” I tell them, then, forcing strength into my voice. “I’m so sorry. Please… You can’t forgive me. You can’t possibly. But I’m going to try.”
The girl breathes out, closes her eye, sags a little. “Through there…” She points.
There’s a door above a staircase, cut into the earthen wall.
“The Sixers can go through the doors,” whispers the girl. “We cannot. Not anymore.”
“I’ll come back for you.” I gulp down air, spread my hands. “I’ll be back, I promise. I’ll get you out of this.”
I follow the rough stone staircase and push through the door with my hands, step through the splintered wood as if it’s made of air.
I find myself in a long, dark corridor illuminated with jars of Wisps along the bottom edges of the walls. I crouch down beside a jar for a moment, reach my hand out to touch it. The Wisps are souls, too, but they’re worthless souls to the Sixers, animal souls, I remember. Hardly a morsel, a bite.
I touch the glass with a long finger, feel the Wisps bump up lazily against it, sharing their warmth.
I think of Bird's butterfly, and I rise, shaking.
At the other end of the room, there’s a sharp scraping, a rustle of metal against metal. Chains?
I walk forward, breathing in and out, almost panting.
There are cages. Cages three times my size, scuffing the ceiling of the hallway. And there are boxes. Wooden boxes and crates, filled to bursting with feathered darkness.
At the end of a row of empty cages, I pause, gaping in horror.
The last cage is occupied.
There are chains looped around its skeleton legs and around its skeleton wrists. There is a chain about its neck, and an iron band that’s clamped around its beak. And its wings, once monstrously huge and shimmering black, are only bones now, for the Snatcher—the Snatcher trapped in the iron cage—has been plucked clean, its feathers filling the crates and boxes that surround it.
It watches me out of skull hollows, pinioned to the bottom of the cage, plucked and trapped and imprisoned.
I crouch beside the cage, can barely breathe as I kneel next to this being that looks like a monster, but isn't. It is my perfect opposite.
It watch
es me, and I feel such pity for it, such sadness. I press a hand to the floor, feel the earth below siphoning off energy, and I know then that my sisters are feeding off of our relation, this not-Snatcher. They will feed off of it until it is nothingness, like the poor souls in the basement.
It watches me, unable even to crack its beak. Might it speak, if it could open its mouth? Edgar said he encountered a Snatcher once that seemed as if it were trying to speak to him…
I remember them, the not-Snatchers, gliding across the sky, so beautiful that sight of them stole your breath. Their broad white wings streamed with light, their glowing faces so lovely, they looked like gods.
"Once," I whisper to the soul in the cage, "I was beautiful, too."
Tears seep from my closed eyes. Nothing I say can make up for this creature's pain, for its torture. For the great blasphemy its imprisonment has been. I tap the place over my heart, and I hold out my hand, through the bars.
The Snatcher gently, so gently, touches a sickle-claw to my outstretched palm.
I'm weeping.
There's no time for weeping.
I stand, wipe my tears away, touch the bars again, shaking my head.
Beyond the cage are steep, creaking steps. I run up them without looking back, pressing my shoulder against the doors at the end, pushing through them.
I burst through a back door out into the forest, awash in light from the setting sun.
I don’t look back. I don’t look back at the house that I built, that I was imprisoned within, that has imprisoned countless others. I don’t look back when the bloody sunset slips away, when the gray lines and jagged edges of the trees become shadows that house a multitude of Snatchers.
I don’t look back when I hear beaks click open, when I hear the shrieks and screams, when the air is filled with the slicing rush of black-feathered wings.
I know that they will not touch me. Though my skin crawls, though the ghost of fear moves beneath my bones, I am not afraid as I run through the darkness of this manufactured night. Of course time moves wrongly here. How does a devil measure time? It doesn't. The artificial sun, the artificial sunset and sunrise and night and day. All of it, lies.
Somewhere, the Sixers stalk through this night. They are looking for Bird, and so to Bird I run, to her church beneath the trees. There are lights on in the church, lights from the Wisps that Bird has gathered. And the door is open, when I reach it, when I vault up the steps.
But Bird is not there.
I gulp down air, lean against the solidity of the church walls. Have the Sixers taken her? Did she know they were coming? She must have known. She must have left, must have run.
Please, I hope you ran.
If they have her, if they kill her, will I feel it? Will I die, too?
I press my fingers against my wrist, in the place where Bird gripped me. Though it isn't, my skin feels solid, real. I’m still here, now. I still have time.
Bird is quick and clever. They might be chasing her, hunting her. But she could hide from them, as she's hidden all this time.
I stare back into the deep darkness of the forest. Up above me, the Snatchers are roosting in the trees.
They are watching me.
And they watch me run to Abeo, their bones ghost-white lanterns in the dark.
Chapter Seven: Meant
The streets of Abeo lie as dark as my thoughts as I run, boots beating against the rocks and rubble. I fly through the wall, angling towards Mad House.
On the porch, I stop, pause, picking twigs and leaves out of my hair, before I step forward and pass through the door.
The jars of Wisps are smaller here than at the Sixers' house. It’s a strange thing to notice as I make my way along the hall, headed toward the great room where the Sleepers gather.
But there’s Charlie, sitting on the stairs, still as stone, staring at me with her eyes red and round and her mouth open.
And Charlie runs down the last steps, and she puts her arms around my neck, and her shoulders move in a single, wracking sob. “I thought you were gone,” she whispers, holding me so tightly that I don’t know where she ends and I begin. “I thought they’d taken you, Snatched you. I thought you were gone…”
My head is against her shoulder, and I can feel the sob that moves through her body, can feel her warmth against me, her hands at my waist now, pulling me close, holding me tightly, as if they’ll never let go again. And a breath escapes me, and a single tear slides down my cheek, hot as scorched earth, because she thought I was gone forever, Snatched, and she’d mourned for me.
The truth is far worse.
She steps back, then, holds me out at arm’s length; our eyes lock, both of us breathing hard, both of us crying.
Can she see the change in me? Can she see the monster in me?
But her gaze is soft, soft and brown. Affectionate. Warm.
She doesn’t know what I am. She doesn’t know what I’ve done, the pain I’ve caused or the souls I’ve ended. I have brought souls to nothingness. I have destroyed—for the sake of satiating my selfish hunger.
I should tell her now. I should pull away, cut these threads between us…
But when she curls her fingers around my hips, when she draws me forward, I put my arms about her neck as if I’ve done it a thousand times before. It’s Charlie who dips her head down to meet mine, pressing her lips against my lips.
It’s Charlie who kisses me.
And I kiss her back, because she is beautiful and good and kind and the best soul that I've ever known, that I could ever know. In all of my life. In all of my existence. I take this kiss because she gives it freely. And what comes after will be pain, all of it sharp, deep pain…
But I will keep this loveliness: the taste of her lips, how soft they are, how gentle but hungry; we are, the two of us, melded, connected, for these stolen heartbeats.
I will keep this memory for as long as my forever lasts.
She takes a step back, mouth closed, her eyes searching mine, her face radiant, joyful. “Oh, Lottie,” she says, and her words crack, and there are tears in her eyes, and I can’t bear that joy, the love in her face, her smile—no, it's wrong—and I falter, move away, eyes downcast.
“Lottie?” she asks, voice trembling, but I take another step back, and then Violet is on the stairs, coming down, but Charlie doesn’t care. She comes forward, clasps her hands with mine. “Lottie, what is it? What’s the matter?” she whispers, lips parted with so many words left unsaid.
“I have something to tell you,” I whisper, looking up at Violet, avoiding Charlie’s searching gaze. “Can we go somewhere quiet?”
Violet glances meaningfully at the empty hall, but Charlie angles her chin toward the stairs, squeezing my fingers, and we walk up them and toward the room they gave me my first night here.
How long ago and far away that night seems.
My limbs are heavy, weighted by the burden of truth. I swallow down my tears, my regret, my deep ache, and I climb the steps with Charlie holding my hand, my fingers limp in hers. We reach the top of the stairs, and Abigail scuttles down the hall below, holding a lantern of Wisps aloft.
“Charlie, the Sixers are here,” she says, voice soft, low. “They came in through the kitchen entrance. They’re looking for…" Her eyes flick to me. "For Lottie.”
Charlie’s gaze is sharp, eyes wide, mouth open, but she whispers down to Abigail, “They can’t find her. Tell them she’s not here.”
“They’re saying they must search the Safe House, Charlie,” says Abigail, eyes dark and haunted. She shakes her head woefully. “They’ll find her.”
“Why are they after you? What did you do?” Violet hisses at me, but I’m shaking my head, fear crawling up my spine with clicking claws. It can’t be over before it’s begun. It can’t be. How did they find out so quickly?
“There’s a balcony, off of my room,” says Charlie, voice soft, putting her finger over her lips and motioning to Abigail to return to the Sixers. “Stall them
,” she hisses after her, and then places her hand at the small of my back, pushing. “You can climb out, down a drainpipe to the ground.”
“Charlie, the Snatchers—” begins Violet, but I shake my head.
“They won’t bother with me,” I whisper. Violet’s eyes are wide, and she stares at me as Charlie and I run past her, through Charlie’s door and into her room.
Florence is in the corner, squatting there, rocking back and forth, back and forth; she looks up when we enter. “Florence, honey, you’ve got to be quiet, okay?” Charlie breathes, putting her finger over her lips again. “Can you be quiet for me, honey?”
Florence’s head is cocked, watching us. She makes no indication that she heard Charlie’s question, that she even understood it. She’s more gaunt than she was before, if that’s even possible. She looks as bad off as the girl in the basement, the last scrap of hair on her head sticking up at a wilting angle, the tatters of her dress doing little to cover the bones that stick out from under her skin.
I know now that Charlie was right; the Harming Tree is only a superstition, after all. An invention of the Sleepers, a desperate scrabbling for hope, and for some measure of control over their sad existences.
“Stay here,” Charlie whispers, pointing to the floor where Florence crouches. “Stay here.” Then Charlie takes my hand, pulling me through the room and to the window draped in black.
“If the Snatchers come,” she whispers, peeling back the dark curtains, peering into the night, “run as fast as you can toward Black House and—”
“They won’t take me, Charlie,” I say, my words catching, folding in upon themselves. I swallow, steel myself. “Charlie, I have to tell you—”
I can hear the stairs creaking, bodies moving over them as quietly as they can. My eyes widen; Charlie opens and shuts her mouth, then shakes her head.
“They won’t take you,” she murmurs, as if to comfort herself, and opens the window soundlessly. “Here…” she breathes, taking my hand, and I crawl over the windowsill, out onto the balcony beneath.
The night air is still, quiet. Above me, on the arch of the roof, a Snatcher watches my progression, wings arched, claws hooked into the roof tiles. Waiting.