Hopelessly lost, I decided to walk toward the sun. Sooner or later I’d get to a fence. I sidled by another line of crops just as a breeze whizzed past my ear. But it wasn’t the wind. Silas had been waiting for me on the other side of the row—he’d swung the board at my head and just missed my cheek. I had no idea if it was a scare tactic or if he’d gotten unlucky with his strike, but I wasn’t willing to wait to find out. I took off running as fast as my tired legs would carry me.
“Come back here, Bethan. I just want to talk!” Silas shouted behind me. He took another swing at me with the board, a horrible laugh bubbling from his throat.
“No. NO!” I wished Gran were with me then, even under the guise of the wind, but she’d been so weak from crafting the wax doll, and she still had to attend to Mander. She couldn’t be in two places at once, nor could she bleed herself into her grave.
It was just me with Silas on my heels, and he clearly enjoyed having me to himself.
“I’m afraid you are on your own.”
“Did the others lie down and let you carve them? Did you think I would?”
He swung the nail board again. The nails tangled in the wool of my skirt, and he jerked on it, destroying my balance. I sailed forward, striking the cold earth hard enough that my teeth clenched down on my tongue. I tasted coppery blood in my mouth, some of it slipping past my lips to dribble down my chin. The impact forced me to drop everything I’d been carrying as well: the knife, the cat fetish, and the wax doll scattered to the ground around me.
I wailed as Silas’s weight landed on my back, pinning me. I tried to crawl out from under him, but his hand found my hair and he jerked my head back as he had the night of the blood moon. I clawed at the dirt under me until my fingernails broke. I bucked and snarled, feeling more animal than human in my desperation to get away from him. When Silas flashed his shiny pocketknife by my eye, all I could do was writhe. I sobbed and heard the sound echoing through the wheat.
“Feel familiar, Bethan? Are you remembering now that you belong to me?” He ground himself against me to emphasize my vulnerable position.
When I stretched for one of the wheat stalks for purchase, Silas swung his knife down. The blade penetrated skin and fat and muscle, passing through the gap between my arm bones and digging into the hard earth below, staking me to the ground. The pain was excruciating. I screamed over and over, hysteria blinding to anything except the awful burn ransacking me from wrist to shoulder. I reached over, trying to tear the knife from my forearm, but Silas grunted and slapped me upside the ear.
“I don’t think so. Maybe I’ll use your knife on the other arm. That ought to keep you out of trouble long enough.”
His hips undulated lewdly, making it clear what he meant to happen after I was splayed. I let out another scream, and Silas clamped his hand over my mouth to silence me, the other reaching for my abandoned knife.
My bladder twinged with fear. He’d pin me to the ground, use me, and kill me. He’d leave me for the crows, just as he’d promised to do to Martyn.
Martyn. I’d failed him.
It is over. It is done.
A howl blasted from the wheat beside us.
I jerked my head up in time to see Tomašis throwing himself at Silas. Tomašis hadn’t run. He hadn’t abandoned me to yet another bout of Silas’s cruelty. He’d found us in the field, and he’d followed my screams. He’d come for me without being told he had to.
Tomašis wrestled Silas onto his back and pinned his shoulders to the ground. Freed, I tried to slide the pocketknife from my arm, but it didn’t come easily, and I left it alone for fear of opening a wound that wouldn’t clot. I clapped my hand over it as best I could to stop it spewing, bright crimson oozing out from between my fingers to cascade over my skin.
The boys rolled around like furious cats beside me, dirt and fallen leaves glued to their clothes. I looked around for my knife, worried that Silas had it still and that he’d use it on Tomašis. For all that Tomašis had wronged me before, he’d come to my aid when he hadn’t been asked. He didn’t deserve a stab to the gut for learning his lesson.
I crawled across the ground to get to the fallen cat fetish and doll. The magic had been good to me throughout my ordeal, and I wanted to try to invoke it one last time, to see if I could get it to come when I needed it most. If it didn’t, Silas would surely come for me when he was done with Tomašis, and weak as I was from my wounds, I didn’t stand a chance. The fingers of my right hand were slick with blood from the knife impaled in my wrist, so I had a hard time gripping the smooth wax of Gran’s creation. It fumbled from my hand to strike the ground.
Behind me, a snarl, a series of thuds, and another bellow.
I didn’t see how Silas had escaped Tomašis. I only felt Silas’s weight as he landed on me yet again to drag me down, back to Hell. I collapsed to my knees first, and then, as he wrapped his arms around me in a bear hug, I fell forward, onto my chest, leaving me prone, Gran’s wax doll trapped beneath my body. Silas scrambled to get a better hold on me, trying to crawl atop me, but a lucky kick that connected with his chest allowed me to flip over onto my back for the moments he reared away.
It didn’t last long. He lunged again.
“Enough of you, witch. Enough of this!” he shouted. I raised my hands to ward him off, protecting my face, and he grabbed the pocketknife in my arm, giving it a hard jerk. The pain bowed my back from the ground and my vision exploded. The wound oozed, drenching me and my clothes and the ground beneath me. I bucked up at him, I rolled and kicked, but no matter where I went, he was there—pinching, scratching, hitting, hurting.
“I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you!” His fingers manacled my good wrist and pinned it down. I wriggled again, screaming for Tomašis, but it was just me and Silas, alone, and I was losing the fight, especially as Silas reached for the pocketknife again and tore it from my wrist. The bubbling torrent was so dark it looked black.
I was certain I was doomed to fall to the boy who’d ravaged me, who’d stripped me of my innocence and forced me to do heinous things in the name of righting his wrongs, but then something remarkable happened. My blood touched the wax doll. I’d bled so much, it had pooled beneath me, and one touch, one single drop against the wax fetish, quickened the spell. Fire exploded beneath me, a blaze that seared my skin and felt like it would burn me up and leave me a pile of cinder in the wheat.
Of course. Gran’s blood, Silas’s seed. I needed to tie myself to the ritual somehow. I needed to bleed for it.
And now it’s mine.
Ecstatic fury sizzled through my body, a mix of pleasure and pain I’d never before experienced. The burning engulfed me from head to toe. The hand not touched by my birthmark glowed like moonlight. The other was as dark as a starless sky. It was so intense, I screamed—a raw, primal scream, like Gran’s at the caravan fire.
Hearing it, Silas lifted his head to stare at me, awe crossing his face. His distracted state allowed me to buck him off, my flailing digging the wax doll into the dirt.
There was a crunch above me and Silas screamed.
I didn’t understand at first—Where was the pain coming from? Why was he grunting and swearing and shivering?—but then I noticed that his grip on me had gone slack because one of his arms bent at a wrong angle, like invisible hands had gripped it and snapped it in half. Blood seeped through his shirt, the tear in the fabric above the elbow exposing a raw, jutting bone with jagged edges.
“How? How!” he demanded, his free hand reaching up for my throat and squeezing—but without a second hand, he didn’t have the strength to choke me. I wiggled again, bucking and kicking in an effort to force him off me, and there was another snap that promptly birthed another howl.
It’s the doll. It’s crushed beneath me and it’s crushing him.
“Stop. Stop!” Silas shouted, his spittle splashing my face. Like his spit in the field, I thought, and it infuriated me. I put both of my hands against his shoulders and shoved as hard as I could, despi
te the pain in my forearm. He gasped, his pupils stretching big enough to swallow the brown irises. He increased the pressure on my throat, his thumb digging into the soft column and adding another bruise to my museum of injuries.
“No. NO! You will not hurt me anymore,” I rasped, flopping down on the doll beneath me, on purpose for the first time. Silas bellowed just before the third crack sounded, his screech ending on a muffled wail. Something was wrong with his face—it looked like a foot pressed down on it, his lips and cheeks spreading as if under a great weight.
His skin reddened. His eyes bulged.
The pressure is mounting.
“Get off me!” I tried to shove him aside, but Silas either didn’t listen or couldn’t listen. He wheezed for air the doll denied him, his red skin darkening to purple. He was suffocating, and with no fight left in him, he grew heavier atop me, his body a dead weight that I was too weak to move by myself.
“You’re killing yourself, you fool!”
Is that bad?
Silas was a threat to me. He’d beaten me, he’d assaulted me, and not a minute ago, he had every intention of killing me. If I managed to escape him, take the tip of his nose, and banish him, I couldn’t trust that he’d stay away. He wanted me, claimed me as an object that was his, and he would come for me again and again.
Gran had taken Cam’s life for far less than Silas’s crimes. Could I do the same? Could I simply wait for Silas to be the architect of his own demise? Could I lie there and let the pressure of our bodies steal his last breath?
Yes. Yes, I can.
I was more like Gran than I ever realized.
I peered up into Silas’s face and went slack, allowing our combined weight to finish what he’d started. He trembled. He sweated. I watched the whites of his eyes go red. I watched him twitch and drool, his mouth snapping at the air like a dog hunting bees. He gasped for breath that wasn’t there before he shuddered one last time. Silas’s panicked gaze met mine. We shared a look—mine dispassionate, his accusing and desperate—before he collapsed atop me, never to move again.
Taking the tip of Silas’s nose was easier than I anticipated. Gory, yes, but quick. My knife bit through the soft flesh and severed it with efficiency. I didn’t bother with gloves; I already looked like I’d drowned in blood. I’d go downstream and dunk myself and pretend that I wasn’t forever mochadi.
Finished, I glanced over at Tomašis. He pushed himself up from the ground, his movements measured and communicating hurt. He’d watched me wriggle out from under Silas’s body and then take my tithe, never saying a word. Silas had punched him in the ear during their struggle. It had swelled to an impressive cauliflower already, and would likely be twice as big by morning. It explained how Silas had gotten away from him to attack me again—Tomašis was too disoriented to intervene a second time.
“Did he stab you?” I demanded.
“I…I’m fine. No stabbing.”
“Good. Then go home and get yourself attended.” Tomašis wobbled on his feet, casting a last glance at Silas’s form before shambling down the wheat path and out of my sight. He was injured, but it was nothing life-threatening—his mother would be able to patch him up easily enough.
I looked back at Silas’s corpse. I willed myself to find some satisfaction in what I’d done. I’d ensured Martyn’s revival, and I never had to fear Silas or his cronies again. Silas’s things would be burned so his spirit couldn’t haunt me. My life was about to improve in many ways. The piece of flesh between my fingers was the physical evidence that I had overcome all of my obstacles.
But there was only despair.
Silas had shattered a part of me that I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to rebuild. Killing him hadn’t changed that. I’d spent so much time focusing on Gran’s magic over the previous days, I hadn’t allowed myself to consider what the assault truly meant….
No, not assault. Rape.
I couldn’t say such a word aloud. I’d feared censure, feared shame. I’d feared so much for so long. But I had to be honest with myself in my head and my heart. With Silas gone and only Martyn’s ritual left to finish, there were no distractions left to protect me from the hideous reality of what had been done to me.
Once more, I thought of what would happen when I returned. For the first time since we’d concocted our bloody vengeance, I was forced to ask myself what I’d do about Martyn if and when he came back to life. I didn’t want him touching me—now, or maybe ever. Gran stroking my hair had been enough to make me shudder, and Martyn had always been affectionate and bold. Now, such attentions would turn my stomach.
That didn’t mean I wouldn’t see him brought back, of course, but it did mean I didn’t want his flirtation. I had scrubbed Silas from my body, but I wasn’t sure how or when I’d scrub the terrors he wrought from my memory. There were some parts of me the river would never reach.
I have to give myself time.
I pushed myself to my feet, leaving Silas’s body to cool upon the ground. It was possible Mr. Woodard would tromp through that particular wheat field on that particular day, but the likelihood was that someone from my clan would collect Silas long before then. The chieftain wouldn’t leave his youngest’s corpse for the carrion birds. There’d be a good and proper funeral. Silas didn’t deserve it, but I wouldn’t deny any family their grief.
Not wanting any passing gadjos to see my bloodied condition, I cut over the fence to walk through the middle of the caravan. I didn’t have the knife out, but people still gawked at me like I was armed. I stopped to look at them, tired and miserable and achy from the top of my head to the tips of my toes.
“It’s over,” I said to those who’d listen. “I never want to have to do anything like this again. I don’t want to hurt anyone. I just want to restore the diddicoy. Then I can go back to being me…to being the Bethan you know.” So much had changed that I didn’t know if that was even possible, but saying the words—admitting that the magic was not a burden I was willing to bear—lifted a tiny bit of the weight from my shoulders.
I wanted to live a life free of blood prices and pain, and making that decision afforded me a small, weary smile. I would not be drabarni—at least, not that kind. Maybe there would be a place for my healing medicine one day.
“Maybe one day you’ll forgive me,” I told my people. “Maybe one day, when I am healed, I can be a healer as well.”
Some people acknowledged my words with a slight nod. Others did not. I couldn’t win all of them over. All magic had a cost, after all. Perhaps their fear was my tithe. I had Gran to support me, and as long as she lived, she’d be my loyal champion.
I skirted the feasting tables and started toward home. Approaching the vardo clearing, I spotted the chieftain speaking to two of his advisers by the southern paths, their heads bowed together, their voices low. I wondered about them for the first time—the three elders had been old friends, together and talking since I could remember. Were they, perhaps, the same boys who had run my father into the river so many years ago? Were Mikel and Niku the Brishen and Mander to Wen’s Silas?
The chieftain lifted his head and glanced my way. He saw me standing there, covered in blood and clasping something in my fist, and fear and horror crossed his face before settling on crushing sadness.
He knows.
“The scarecrow’s field. I don’t know where, but he’s in there. Perhaps Tomašis can show you.”
Despite the chieftain’s scheming, despite his having betrayed the pledge he’d made to serve Gran for life, I’d prevailed, but as the older man ran a weathered hand down his face, struggling to hide his grief, I didn’t feel victorious. I just felt tired.
I walked past the men to climb the vardo steps, my hand hovering over the latch. I glanced behind me, raising my voice so it would reach their ears. “Gran saw everything in the scrying bowl. Expect to see her soon.”
Wen’s agony over losing his son was replaced by the same terror I’d seen on Silas’s face right before he’d died.
He backed away from me, then started to run.
I opened the door and stepped inside, depositing the cat fetish, the knife, and the wax doll on the bureau. Gran was busy cleaning, scraps of bloody bandages heaped in with the tattered remains of my skirt, all ready for the fire. Perhaps the catharsis I longed for was found not in the river, but in the purging flames that would rid us of so much soil.
“I am proud of you,” she said.
“I’m not.”
“I know, and that makes me sad for you.”
She looked better than when I’d left her. The bandage on her arm was new, pristine and white. The color had returned to her face, her weathered cheeks sporting a red flush. This brought me relief, at least.
“Mander will live. He lost much blood, but given time and rest, he will prevail. The family asked if he could remain for the duration of his recovery. I said that was fine, but that he has been banished for his crimes and must leave when I deem him well enough to travel. They agreed to the terms.” She glanced at me and flinched, motioning me over to the iron pot where we’d burned the rest of the offerings. “Leave the nose and go to the river. I will burn it while you wash, and then we will wake your yellow-haired man.”
“He is not mine, but thank you.”
“No, not yet, but he will be yours one day.”
I was reaching for the towel and soap, and that stopped me cold. I looked at her, but she kept scrubbing the table, grunting with exertion. I could see her profile, though, and she wore a tight smile.
“What?”
“His thread is woven into your tapestry. I have seen it, and it is beautiful. Not now, perhaps, but one day, when you are recovered. He is patient, as all good love is patient. It pleases me.”
The Hollow Girl Page 20