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“Do you remember?” she asked.
“Remember what?” I replied helplessly. He was coming. We didn’t have time to chat.
She shook her head sadly. “Listen,” she said, and she grabbed both my hands.
The hum in my bones, the sound I had almost stopped noticing, swelled and swelled, growing so loud it made my teeth ache and my skull feel like it was splitting. I opened my mouth to scream, but the sound that came out was something else entirely—a sound like the clamor of birds.
My feet went out from under me on the slippery rocks, and then I was falling. Light and dark broke around me, warring for dominance, and then I hit something—hard—and the darkness won.
15
I WOKE UPwarm, which was the only good thing about my circumstances. My eyes felt crusty, and the idea of opening them was exhausting, so I took an inventory of myself instead. What I had: pain, a lot of it, shooting in jagged pulses from the back of my skull to the base of my spine. What I didn’t have: clothes. My bra and underpants were still on, wet but warm, but the rest of my skin was in direct contact with whatever rough, woven blanket was covering me.
A blanket seemed good. People generally didn’t cover you nicely with warm blankets when they were intent on bludgeoning you to death.
I couldn’t hear anything but the omnipresent ocean. It was muffled—I was obviously indoors—but close. I could smell it, the salty tang of the ocean air, but that was everywhere on Bitter Rock. Along with the ocean was the smell of woodsmoke.
Nothing for it. I forced my eyes open and found myself staring up at the wooden beams of a ceiling. Not very informative. I pushed myself cautiously upright. My head throbbed and my back gave a spasm of protest, but nothing seemed broken and I didn’t immediately pass out, which I assumed were good signs.
The room I was in was tiny and wood paneled. The smell of the blankets told me the narrow bed hadn’t been used in a long time. There were clothes folded at the end of the bed. An old, soft gray sweater, a long brown skirt, socks that looked bulky and wonderfully warm. I pulled them on eagerly. I felt a bit braver with something between me and the outside world, even if it was just wool. By the time I was done getting dressed, my aches and pains were working themselves loose. My fingers found a hole in the cuff as I stole my way to the door.
Unlocked. I let out a breath, tension easing out of me. The room beyond wasn’t as cramped as the bedroom, but it was built on about the same scale, woodstove and table and fireplace crammed together. My clothes were draped over a rack near the woodstove. A heavy coat hung on a peg by the front door, and blue curtains covered the windows, blocking the light so only the glow of the fireplace illuminated the interior. There were only three doors: one to the outside, one open and leading to a tiny bathroom, the last to my right. Another bedroom, maybe.
How had I gotten here? I’d dreamed— No. My mind grabbed at that nearly sane explanation, but I shoved it away. It hadn’t been a dream.
I moved farther into the room, and my gaze snagged against something on the mantel. Small shapes, arranged haphazardly. Ihad to draw close in the dim light before I could be sure what they were.
They were birds. Two dozen, maybe, none of them with a wingspan bigger than my palm, carved out of pale wood, their throats painted with a single red patch. Terns. Some had their wings stretched to the sky, others pointing straight up, still others tucked neatly at their sides. I reached out, running one tentative finger along the proud crown of one bird’s head. Like my mother’s and Abby’s, they were simple, but something in the pose of each one gave it a spark of life. No two were exactly the same.
There was only one place left to explore. I crossed to the closed door. It wasn’t latched, and I pushed it lightly with my fingertips. It swung inward with only the whisper of a creak.
It was another bedroom, and it wasn’t empty. A man stood with his back to me—a massive man, shirtless, the whole of his back covered in a blue-black tattoo: a snarling bear, claws raised to swipe and rend. He had a shirt in his hand, clearly in the middle of changing. A floorboard creaked under my foot, and he turned.
And then I screamed. It washim. Mikhail.
I jerked back, hitting the stone mantel. One of the wooden birds clattered to the ground. Mikhail held up those giant hands. “Ne boysya,” he said. “It’s okay.”
I looked at him. Really looked at him.
This wasn’t the man who had attacked me. He looked nearly the same—graying, curly hair, thick limbs, bristling beard. But his eye—the man who’d attacked me had two bright, angry eyes. Mikhail had only one clear eye, the other scarred over, pale and sightless. The way the other man had held himself, it was like hewas all body, all meat and momentum. This man hunched, like he was used to intimidating people by his sheer size and he didn’t like it.
“Please,” he said. His accent was thick, his voice pleading. “I won’t hurt you.”
“Okay,” I said. It wasn’t much, but he looked relieved, almost like he was the one who’d had cause to be afraid. He lurched, and I startled, but he only grabbed one of the kitchen chairs and pushed it toward me.
“Please, sit. You are tired,” he said.
I didn’t move. “What’s out there? What were those things?”
“They are—” He gestured, swiping his hand in the air over his face. “Gosti. The Visitors. Not usually so dangerous in the daytime, but...” He shrugged. “Not always.”
“I saw you,” I said. “You attacked me.”
He shook his head. “No. That was not me. They look like us, but they are hollow.”
“He—” I put a hand to my throat. It was tender where he’d choked me. I flinched at even the light brush of my fingers across it. I’d been lucky.
“Prosti menya,” he said. I stared at him blankly, too weary to ask what it meant. He let out a sigh and picked up his shirt from where it had fallen, pulling it on.
