“Done,” he taps my knee before folding his hands.
“That’s it? You’re going to do it? I’ll need a list, a directory or I don’t know, a picture gallery to go with it…” My mind races with the possibilities.
“No, I don’t have that kind of patience, and, to be honest that wouldn’t benefit me much. When I spot one walking by, I’ll touch you, and it’ll open your spiritual eyes. They’re blue in nature.”
“Blue? What color am I?”
He smiles and gives an easy laugh as he gets up and reaches behind an old small shed.
“You, my love, will have to see that with your very own eyes. But not now.” He pulls two large, dirty wings out—giant—at least six by five feet each. I lay my hand on the soft downy wings. Bird wings, dove wings, real freaking wings. I can’t break my gaze, I’m so mesmerized.
“Here.” He clips them to the back of my top. I hold up the front so I don’t accidently expose myself from the weight of them.
Marshall helps me on the horse and instructs me to lie with my chest against its back. He arranges my hair so that it’s dangling all over, careful not to cover my face. I can feel the weight of the wings pressed against my back. They feel like a small body taking a nap between my shoulders. It feels so good like this, comfortable, natural.
He takes a million pictures, all with me locked in the same position. I don’t offer to do anything else other than lie there and blink.
***
After, I get dressed, and he leads me to the main house. Surprisingly the interior is quite normal, no death wings, or dragons, or anything else the outside might have implied.
“I’m going to help Brielle with her equations now.” He says it so matter of fact I almost believe him. “Make yourself at home. I’m aware you’re going to prowl. Try not to steal. I don’t look too kindly on thieves.” He averts his eyes as though he knows this too is inevitable.
Brielle giggles all the way upstairs.
It’s interesting. The house looks so common like a normal family could live here. No eerie heirlooms, no relics from the past, just plain everyday crap you see in people’s homes. I riffle through drawer after drawer, looking for anything that might incriminate him.
I slide open the drawer to the silverware with no real interest. A small crowd of screams emits from somewhere below then dulls out as I close it. I open the drawer again, and I hear the scream of a tiny crowd. I slowly shut the drawer, and the screaming muffles.
“What the?” I slide open the drawer to examine the silverware, and the noise stops. Faces. On each knife, fork, and spoon, a startled screaming face is etched into the handle. Weird. I comb through the stack, each one looks different—one of a beautiful girl, one of a disheveled man, each one more unique than the last. A knife catches my attention. The face would not have been so recognizable if it weren’t for the shag of wild metallic hair—it’s Ezrina. The image of her hanging from a noose a few weeks back blinks through my mind. She looks decidedly horrific, and the piece sets a wild shiver though me. I go to return the blade to the drawer, but end up burying it in my purse instead. There’s something mysterious about it, and I want more time to examine it later. I want to dig deeper into the drawer, but the mystery of the others unnerves me.
I riffle through cabinets and desk drawers—bills, checkbooks, old magnifying glasses, nothing of any great interest.
About an hour later, Brielle sails downstairs glowing like metal that was left in the fire too long.
“Thanks Mr. D.,” she says as we head out the front door. She trots over to the Jeep and stops to rummage through her purse for the keys.
“You find anything interesting?” He asks.
“Just one thing.” I don’t bother telling him what it is.
“Remember our little deal?” He twists his head down in my direction. He’s fresh from the shower, and the strong scent of soap clings to him.
“Yes.”
He reaches down and picks up my hand and sends a welcome vibration sizzling through my body. He kisses the tip of my middle finger and nods towards Brielle.
I look over and see her waving.
She’s blue.
28
Peril
Sunday after church, when Carly and Carson offer to hang out and drive me home, I don’t hesitate to take them up on the offer. If I have to listen to Tad balk about his ingrown toenail for another minute, I’m going heave all over his newly cleaned upholstery. Besides, I’m hoping I could get them to drop me off at the bowling alley, so I can tell Logan all about Brielle. It’s something I want to share with him in person.
Carson and Carly are both really nice. I guess Carson has totally overlooked that whole drama thing with the spiked lemonade. She said it was no big deal, and it wasn’t the first time she was called out on something stupid like that. She even apologized for my accidental foray into drunken debauchery.
They sit in the front seat and chatter amongst themselves on the drive home. I try to interject an opinion or share a thought, but mostly I’m overlooked.
“So where we going?” I ask as Carson turns down a dirt road that looks pretty endless. “You can just drop me off at the bowling alley. I know you guys live on the other side, so it’s no big deal. Gage can give me a ride the rest of the way.”
Hard silence slices through the air like razorblades. A heavy feeling settles over the three of us, and suddenly it doesn’t feel like a Sunday drive with friends anymore.
“Um, I can…” I try again.
In one quick motion, Carly twists her blonde head around.
“It’s a short cut,” she barks. The perennial kindness has evaporated, replaced with a cold anger that’s layered with something more malevolent.
Trees stream by—fog fills in the forest. It gets progressively darker the deeper we roll into the woods.
“Looks like we’re here.” Carson pulls into a narrow clearing that barely affords her the space to turn around and abruptly slams on the brakes.
“Shit!” I say as my face pushes into the passenger’s seat.
They eject themselves from the car simultaneously and open the door for me to get out on Carson’s side. It’s ice cold—damp as a bath. Carly snatches my cell from out of my jeans and sends it sailing into the thicket to our left.
“You bitch,” I say, taking a step in the direction of my now absent phone.
“Takes one to know one.” Carson shuts my door and gets back in the car.
“Tell Logan I said hi,” Carly says before ditching into the passenger’s seat.
Carson starts the engine and rolls down her window.
“I’d threaten you not to tell anybody, but we already know you’re a little snitch.” She turns the car around in a fit and misses me by inches.
“Have a nice hike!” Carly shouts out the window as they speed down the trail. A plume of dust follows the tires, filling the air with the sweet scent of earth.
Great.
I head off in the direction of my phone. Shadows fall from every direction. Thick branches weave themselves into a luminescent tapestry overhead, and I can hear the distinct baritone chirp of a bird emanating from behind.
It’s him. A tall black raven bends the bough of a low evergreen branch. His head twitches incessantly before settling its hollow eyes in my direction.
“Get Gage!” I shout, but it doesn’t move. Or was there some motion I’m supposed to do? I tap my lips then point hard towards the west. Nothing.
The soft crush of pine needles awakens the silence. A black shadow from up above, screams through the air. It’s the raven disintegrating in the thick blanket of fog, I hope, going to find Gage.
The sky dims, the clouds shift and tumble until it’s evident that the storm due for tonight is going to land sooner than anticipated. Another loud crushing noise emits from deep inside the forest floor, this time the distinct sound of crunching leaves, snapping twigs. Something heavy this way comes—a person, maybe a Fem.
My chest
heaves as a steady stream of vapors drift in and out of my nostrils.
If you scream in the forest with no one around, do you really make a noise?
A cold sweat breaks out all over my body as I try to still myself and listen. I scan the ground manically for the phone. With my luck, it got caught up in a branch.
Footsteps—oh my God. It takes everything in me not to pass out.
I force myself to propel forward, taking in quick erratic breaths. My ears pulsate with the rush of adrenaline, deafening me with fear.
The footsteps quicken, stemming from the total pit of darkness to my left. I try to strain my eyes into the black hole. It’s like looking into the mouth of a deep and unknowable cave. I start to run, still staring in the direction of the footsteps, until I smack hard into an object with the back of my head. I jump back with my hands splayed out to protect me.
A shoe.
I look up.
I hit a shoe, attached to a body, attached to a noose…
A piercing scream escapes from my throat so primal it lights up the forest with a series of disruptive echoes. I back away and hit something hard that sways when I touch it. I turn around to find another body strung up on a tree. A locked scream lodges in my throat as I twirl for an escape. The forest is dotted with dangling corpses. Grey bloated flesh, pulling apart from the cinching of the noose, dripping blood with flies dousing them like black blankets.
If fear were an animal, a person, a thing, I could only hope to kill it. There is no escape from this paralyzing psychosis. I take in uneven breaths as I stagger in a lopsided circle.
Someone grabs my fingers—cold icy hands. I turn abruptly to see a familiar mass of red untamed hair, wild crimson eyes, skin as pale as snow, lips like a paper cut—Ezrina.
She clasps my hand. A quick band of metal falls like a silver rainbow over the inside of my left arm.
I struggle to get out from her grasp, pushing violently, as she hacks into my elbow with military precision.
I try to pull away and let out a scream.
She plunges the blade into the joint of my elbow and gives a wild yank.
With our fingers still interlaced, she clutches my disconnected bloodied arm close to her chest. She gives a peaceful smile. Then disappears.
The entire forest returns to fog and shadows, not a body on a tree—only me and my lifeblood quickly evaporating. The raven circles high above my head, it disorients me.
Footsteps trek forward—it’s Gage.
He stops to take me in. His face blanches out of all color, riddled with shock.
“Can you call my phone?” I ask, right before I black out.
29
Together
I vaguely remember being jostled around in Gage’s truck, him apologizing for being stubborn and not getting Logan, because he could have used the extra help applying pressure to my wound.
A cool hand squeezes my cheeks. The distinct odor of something strong pulls me into consciousness. I try to get up on my elbows, but I’m unable to move, there’s something strapped across my chest.
“Am I at the hospital?” I gasp for air. My eyes flutter open trying to force the world into focus.
“No. You’re here.” Dr. Oliver’s voice washes over me in waves.
I’m here… where’s here? I look back and forth at the cold sterile room.
“I’m at the morgue?” A shrill panic rattles through me. “I’m dead?”
“No.” He pats my forehead with a cool damp towel. “Are you in pain?” His forehead ignites in a row of deep-set wrinkles.
I shake my head. It smells disgusting in here, like catsup. I hate that smell.
“Are you going to be sick?” He holds up a small pink basin.
“No. But I need to sit up.” I feel dizzy, but I manage to withhold that tiny detail.
He pushes a pillow up under my head and squeezes another one under my back, unbuckling the belt that was holding me down.
“Oh my God!” I scream when I see it. The upper half of my arm bandaged out three times its size, the tip of it immersed in a tub of ice. “It’s gone.” I hiss. My fingers, my hand—it’s as though every memory I’ve ever had of my now absent appendage flashes through my mind and suddenly I’m grieving a long lost friend.
“It’s going to be OK, Skyla. Worse case scenario we can’t replace it.”
“Replace?” I’m dazed.
“If the transplant doesn’t take, we’ll have to get you to the hospital. But don’t worry about that, I have all of the instruments here to undergo the procedure. One of the Celestra gifts is selective restoration. Because you’re pure, you have a unique ability to heal—to reanimate—on occasion.”
“Reanimate.” I take in a deep breath and let it out in full. “Where are they? Logan and Gage.”
Something’s not right. They should be here with me. I remember the forest, the bodies, Ezrina and that peaceable smile with my arm tucked into her chest. I blink hard trying to erase the image from my mind.
“They’re in the cemetery.”
“What are they doing in the cemetery?” The words come out pressured, fearful.
He snaps on a pair of bright blue latex gloves and looks over at me as though I should know.
“They’re digging up the body.”
***
“Hey.” Teeth glimmer above me. I can’t make out the mouth, the face. My eyelids feel as though they’ve been pasted shut. “It’s me, Logan.”
I force myself to look up. His face is illuminated, over exposed from an ultra bright light, and for a second, only his eyes and teeth are visible. The powerful spotlight snaps off and I can see him better.
“You did great,” he assures me. “You’re going to play softball by spring.” He reassures.
“Christmas.” His uncle chimes in from behind.
A surge of adrenaline takes over, and I become fully alert.
“I want to sit up.” I spit the words out fast.
Logan and his uncle help prop me up on pillows. My entire left arm is bandaged, this time right past my fingertips.
Oh gross. Oh no.
Vomit rises to the back of my throat, but I manage to stave it off.
“Whose…” I’m afraid to formulate the rest of the question.
Gage emerges from the other side of the steel doors, and his entire face opens up with pleasure when he sees me.
“You’re doing great.” He says gliding in next to me. “I just got off the phone with your mom.”
My mouth falls open.
“Don’t panic. I told her you were doing some cheers, and your back went out and that you might have tweaked your elbow. I had my mom talk to her and say she’d chaperone us, so you don’t have to go home tonight.” A devilish smile digs into his left cheek.
“Oh.” I shift onto my right elbow. “So when she goes to look at my elbow that I tweaked, how do I explain the rotting flesh hanging off it?”
“You won’t.” Dr. Oliver slides over on his chair. “You’re going to be able to use your arm in a couple days. The flesh has already begun to heal, tissue’s good as new.”
“Whose tissue?” I look from Logan to Dr. Oliver. “Whose tissue is good as new?”
“The best match for you is another Celestra.” Says Dr. Oliver. “We had a few to choose from depending on the progress of the decomposition.”
Logan wipes the hair off my forehead and tucks it carefully behind my ear.
“So who’d you choose? Whose arm do I have?”
Logan eyes round out as he looks at me.
“It’s Chloe’s. You have Chloe’s arm.”
30
Life
Logan’s Aunt Emma has the downstairs guest bedroom all ready for me. Gage helps me move into the center of the queen-sized bed and helps prop up the pillows behind me. The room glows a gentle cream with a small floral border that circles around the room just under the ceiling.
Logan comes in with a tray of fresh baked cookies and a tall glass of milk that Emma
baked when she heard I was coming to stay.
“If there’s anything you need, press this button.” She hands me a portable intercom. “I’ll be upstairs. Goodnight.” She waves before leaving.
“Thank you.” I feel surprisingly normal, save for the fact my left arm is bloated and immobile. Dr. Oliver strapped it to my chest in a splint. It really does look like I’ve just sprained my elbow.
“So, tell me what happened.” Logan lowers his voice as though he were trying to lure the details out of me.
“Carson and Carly…they offered to drive me home from church. They seemed nice and friendly until they dropped me off in the middle of nowhere and pitched my cell phone into the forest.” I look over at Gage trying to offer an explanation for my bizarre remark earlier. “Then there were these bodies hanging from the trees, and I was scared spitless,” I pause. “The next thing I knew, Ezrina was slicing through my flesh and, poof, she disappeared.” I turn towards Gage. “That’s when you came.”
Logan climbs on the bed and scoots in towards my good side.
“Fems.” He says mostly to himself. “As for Ezrina, she doesn’t come unless she’s called.”
“She sure came when I first got here—hung herself out my window, then took me to the chop shop.”
“That’s because the Counts summoned her after they stole your blood from the lab.” Logan picks up my hand and traces small round circles on the soft flesh of my palm.
“So who called her this time?” Gage directs it at Logan.
“Counts—they want me in pieces.” It’s obvious I’ll never be safe.
“No.” Logan shakes his head. “There’s something more specific. Besides you’re with Gage. As long as you’re not an active threat, they’ll let you live. They have some backwards code of ethics they work from.”
My left arm feels light and tingly. I try to twitch my fingers—Chloe’s fingers, from inside my bindings, and they move.