She.
In the corner of my eye—vision blurred from its wrinkled rotting—something glimmered. I turned my fleshless head to look. The skeleton next to me had something in its mouth. A glint of something metallic pierced the darkness between its broken teeth. I turned and reached out with my rotting, moss-clothed arm and creaked the skull open. Inside the mouth was a key. Another Yale key, but older than mine. I checked the next skull, prying open the teeth, and it, too, held a key, though older again this time. The eating on the top of the pile stopped and the creature went silent. Arms still rotting, ligaments barely holding my bones together, I searched through the other skeletons around me. Each one held a key in their mouth. I kept searching until I came to a smaller skull still partly fleshy, with a birthmark over one side of the face. Inside the brown glop between his shrunken lips was another key. Every skull around me held a key, getting older and older as if going back through time. Square-head keys became small brass keys became sturdy iron keys became simple picks of metal became a slab of wood.
All these bodies. All of them suffered the same thing I was suffering now. This wasn’t just me. This was something bigger. Something older.
A screech came from the top. Then a spark of light caught the corner of my eye.
The old woman from the pub sat in her wheelchair at the base of the pile.
Only now she was awake. And watching me.
I reached out to her, offering the key in my hand.
Help me, I thought, as loud as my brain soup would allow, I want to stop this, but I don’t know how.
The old woman huffed.
“Enough,” she said to the creature on the pile. She’d barely raised her voice and yet it shook the trees and rang through the hill of bones.
The shadow screeched then scampered away into the darkness.
I turned my withered skull to face the old lady.
Now she was sat by the fire of The Curtyard. In her lap she had a spool of red thread. She wrapped it round her finger, pulling a scarlet end through the loop.
My bones were barely holding together.
“Time we had a chat,” she said.
Then she pulled the knot tight and I woke.
CHAPTER 38
I was woken with a nudge. Cold, I rolled onto my side. It was freezing. I must have left a window open.
“Here.” A voice spoke gruffly. “Are you alive?”
Barely, I thought. Everything ached with cold. I became aware of a god-awful stabbing pain in my hand.
I pried my eyes open. A woman in leather boots and a wax coat leant over me. A quiff of reddish curls shook in the breeze.
Can’t even rot in peace, I thought.
“If you’re not dead,” she said, “then you’re trespassing in my orchard.”
Achily, I looked around me. Sure enough, I was lying between two rows of stout trees, pink blossom dotted among the leaves. No skeletons. No skulls. Just roots and hardened earth. I must have passed out here after running away into the woods.
“I’ll give you some time to gather yourself,” the woman said, not unkindly. “But if you’re not gone in an hour, I’ll be calling the police, alright?”
I tried to answer, but something caught in my throat. I gagged. The woman backed away in disgust.
“For God’s sake, get some help,” she muttered then stalked away down the row of trees.
I fished about in my mouth for what I’d choked on. With my good hand, I pulled out my house key covered in spit and phlegm. And the curved needle, still attached, still brutal-looking. Especially now as it sat in my painfully swollen palm next to the black-blood-crusted tear between my thumb and forefinger. It was a small miracle I hadn’t swallowed the thing, let alone choked.
I remembered all the skulls with the keys inside them, then lay back down on the earth.
What happened to me? Another hallucination perhaps. A fever dream brought on by everything from the last few days.
