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“I’ll have to go in first,” Jay says softly.
“What?” I exclaim. A flurry of wingbeats emerge from the trees. The whole forest seems to take in one giant breath.
“Shhh,” he shushes me, finger to his lips. “You have to be quiet.”
“But we’re not in the Veil,” I say.
“But we’re definitely surrounded by things that have escaped,” he says, just as I hear something rustle in the bushes. A raspy, wet breath.
“Ada,” he whispers and takes my hand in his. “You need to listen to me very carefully. I have to go into the pond first. I have to be the first out the other side. If you go first, they’ll see you. I can make you . . . invalid.”
“Invalid?” I’m not sure I like the sounds of that, even though if you have to be invalid anywhere, Hell is a good start.
“They won’t see you if you stay quiet. We’ll have to communicate otherwise but they won’t see you if you just stay beside me and don’t make a sound.”
“But what if they do see me?”
He grimaces. “Then we better make sure we can find the nearest portal out of there.” He lets go of my hand and walks toward the pond. He glances at me over his shoulder. “As soon as my head disappears into the water, you follow. I’ll be there, I promise.”
I can’t believe I have to walk in there. What if I drown? What if I get to the other side and he’s not there?
“How can you promise you’ll be there waiting?”
“Because I can,” he says. His eyes grow tender. “Ada, you can do this. Just think about your mother. Walk into the pond, hold your breath and go under. Think about her the whole time. Imagine her face, her voice, her smell. Hold her to you as close as you can and do not, do not let go, no matter what.”
Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god.
I can’t.
I can’t.
“If you want her back,” he adds, “you have to.”
I have to.
I nod, my mouth gone dusty with horror.
“I’m very fond of you, you know,” he says softly.
I’m not sure if this is Jay’s equivalent of telling me he loves me but I’ll take it.
“Fond enough to wait for me?” I ask.
“Always.” He looks behind me, eyes fixed on something in the forest. “Now we have to hurry. Don’t dawdle here too long, come in right after me. As soon as my head is gone under, step in and don’t stop moving.”
“Why, why?” I ask but it’s too late, he’s striding into the water like a man on a mission, the water quickly rising from his shins to his thighs to his waist as he approaches the middle.
I make the mistake of turning around to see what he was looking at.
There is a woman hovering at the edge of the trees, on all fours, naked and pale as milk, the moon tinting her red.
Long black hair hangs around her face.
No eyes at all, just smooth, taught skin.
A smile full of shark’s teeth.
She can’t see me but she’s watching me all the same.
Waiting.
I turn around just in time to see Jay go under, the pond swallowing him whole. There’s one ripple and then it stops and it’s like he never went in there at all.
A gurgle spins me back around. The woman is crawling toward me, upside down, like the scene from the fucking Exorcist, scuttling fast like a crab. Her mouth snaps open and shut with sickle teeth, a piranha.
I have no choice.
I practically jump into the pond, splashing in the ice cold water that takes my breath away, disorients me, freezes me in place. It’s like jumping into a frozen lake, hypothermia just minutes away.
I don’t have minutes.
I can hear the woman splashing into the water after me. If she’s like a crab at all, it won’t slow her down. I can imagine her fish mouth closing around my calf, the teeth going all the way through flesh, muscle, bone.
I manage to lift my leg, then the other, numb stumps I can’t feel.
I go and go and go, the muck of the bottom pulling at my shoes just like the lake did. It too wants to hold me here so the forest can suck me in, eat my soul and turn me into whatever this woman’s been turned into.
A creature that even Hell didn’t want.
Now the water is at my chin, my mouth, then my nose.
I’m almost under.
And she’s right behind, her snapping mouth at my ear.
This is it. I shut my eyes.
Then the bottom drops beneath me and instead of floating, I freefall.
Straight down underneath.
But it’s not so much that I’m sinking, as my ears pop and the darkness envelops me.
I’m being pulled.
A hand around my ankle.
A hand that isn’t Jay’s.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I can’t breathe.
