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Elijah, getting closer. Walking stiff-legged. Strangely.
There was no wind in the meadow. Why was there no wind?
Now I stand alone mid the flowers
Alone.
While they mingle their perfumes
o’er
thy
tomb.
A fly landed on Addie’s cheek. She slapped as it bit. Sickly wine-dark blood pooled in her hand. Unnatural. Unnatural. The flies were everywhere, and her brothers and mother were all dead, she knew. Had died during the War Between the States. The war…
And Elijah?
Elijah was nearly to her. Nearly to her with his lips that had once kissed her so sweetly. Nearly to her with his sharp teeth bared like a rabid dog’s when it growls and, no, that couldn’t be right, and mercy, but it was suffocating in the meadow—why was there no wind? The nickel gleam of Elijah’s face was no angel’s glow but the glare of raw bone peeking through ragged holes in his decomposing skin. Maggots had infested the filthy wool of his gray uniform.
(He’d gone to fight.)
Black flies swarmed the still air around him.
(They would marry after the war, after the war, they would marry.… )
The flies crawled across his rotting skin and cold lips because Elijah was dead, was dead, had been dead for sixty years. And just before her dead lover reached out to grab her hair, Addie screamed.
She hitched up her skirts, turned, and ran back toward the white clapboard church in the distance with the black wagon hearse drawn by six white horses out front. Behind her, Elijah was still coming, and there were more dead with him: Spirits who had not been content in death. Some who wanted vengeance. Some who had dealt violence in life and whose bloodlust had never left them. The petty, the empty, the lost, the grudge-holders, the desperately lonely, the weak. Husks of souls who had made bad bargains with the man in the stovepipe hat. Whatever the cause that kept them from eternal rest, these spirits were in thrall to him. Just like Elijah. But Addie had seen to that. She’d made the deal that had cursed her lover. She’d wanted him to rise from the dead, and he had, in his Confederate grays, and now, now she realized the folly of it all. How wrong she’d been. How wrong they had been. Elijah, dying for a bad cause. Addie, resurrecting what needed to stay dead.
Addie ran past the hearse. The skeletal driver tipped his hat. “We’ve been waiting for you, Adelaide.”
With a cry, Addie stumbled back. The church doors opened and she ran inside. But there were no pews, no pulpit. She had glimpsed this place once before, on the night she’d made a deal with the man in the hat. This was his land, the land of the dead. A jaundiced moon hung above the twisted fingers of dead trees, stripped of all life. The sky had been emptied of stars.
“Good evening, Adelaide.” The King of Crows sat upon a throne of skulls. Beside him stood a sad woman whose dark brown skin erupted in feathers. Her eyelashes twitched—feathers. He had cursed this woman, too, Addie knew. She’d entered into a bargain to save her boys, and he’d made her his shape-shifting messenger between worlds, part woman, part crow. This was Viola Campbell. Mother of Memphis and Isaiah Campbell.
Perhaps they could help each other. Help the Diviners before it was too late. But when Viola tried to speak, it was only a squawk, just before she coughed up a small frayed tuft.
“Adelaide Proctor. Did you think the King of Crows would not come to collect on a bargain?”
The King of Crows. There wasn’t enough power in any world for him. His greed was as insatiable as his cruelty.
“Let me go. I’m just an old woman of no use to you.”
“But you might be of use to them.”
“They’ll stop you.”
“The Diviners.” The King of Crows laughed. “What fun I shall have with them. And with you.”
“What do you want?”
The King’s dark eyes reflected no light. “Everything.”
“You want to remake the world in your image, like a malevolent god?”
“Your world created me. I am born of your want and greed and neglect. Your death wish. And I shall come to collect. Keep dreaming, Adelaide Proctor. For when you finally wake, you shall be one with the land of the dead. Another hungry spirit in my army.”
