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because then no one would be here to hate them. But I can trust
you to do that.”
Arthur grabbed her shoulder, forcing her attention back on
them. “Tell us.”
“Alden thinks he’s the only one the boy will talk to. But the
boy and I, we’re kindred spirits. A cage of iron” — she paused and
gestured at her body — “or a cage of unbreakable flesh. Both
trapped. And so he talked to me. He gave it to me.” Her expression
lost its dreamy quality and became something clever and sharp.
She reached into a pocket sewn onto the front of her dress and
pulled out a scrap of paper, indecipherable writing in a dark brown,
rusty-looking stain on the paper.
Blood.
“What is that?” Thom whispered.
“This is the way to the path. The unending path. I stepped
onto it once, and I wish more than anything I could find a way off.
Will you make that step?” She looked at him, her gaze piercing, as
though she would see into Thom’s very soul.
“You mean . . . that could make us immortal?”
“Only one. I’ll only change one of you. And then you have to
help me.”
“What about Minnie?” Cora asked.
“If you’ll help me sleep?”
Cora nodded solemnly. “We will. I promise.”
Mary reached around her neck and pulled on a string. Out of
the front of her dress came a pendant, the dark green beetle.
“We mad
e them, you know. So none of us could hurt the others.”
She stroked the pendant. “But there are so many ways to hurt
someone, aren’t there?”
