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So had Bryony. At least, at first. I’d even thought that maybe, just maybe, she was starting to genuinely like me.
I still had the charm she had given me, resting on my bedside table. I crushed it against my palm as I curled under my covers and drifted off to sleep.
—
I dreamed of Harrow. I endured the dirt, my dream-grave, the struggle against the pinning weight of the earth. Tonight, a new figure walked the halls above me, carrying a candle that loosed fat, shimmering drops of wax. They flowed over her fingers and cooled there until it looked as if her skin was melting. As she walked, she whispered.
“A little cut, dear, just a little cut a little cut you won’t feel it hardly feel it just a cut, and then you’ll see, oh you’ll see, you’ll look, you’ll behold.”I stood in the hall in front of her, and her eyes,unfocused, drifted to me.“It was a gift we gave her. It was a gift. But now she won’t stop looking at me. Her eyes are everywhere. I don’t want her to see me. I won’t let her look at me.”
She walked past. I spun slowly as if drifting in a breeze. I started to follow—and something stabbed into my palm. I lifted the hand to my lips instinctively, and as the taste of blood touched my tongue, the hallway shuddered—and then solidified again, empty now.
I was standing in the middle of the hall, but there was no woman. Just me, barefoot and in pajamas, clutching Bryony’s charm in one hand. That was the hand that was bleeding, from a small puncture at the base of my thumb. I’d been sleepwalking again.
My hands and feet were already covered in soil, my fingernails packed with it. A line of dirty footprints trailed out behind me. But I was still inside—or had I come back in?
I was definitely awake now, at least. The pain in my palm proved that. But what had woken me? I untied the neck of Bryony’s charm. There was the sprig of yellow flowers, and there was the dog’s tooth. The tip of it was red with blood.
“Score one for the witch,” I muttered, and bound it up again. My fingers kept slipping, my adrenaline tipping over into true fear. I was alone in the dark in the house, and I didn’t know where I was in the labyrinth. I tucked the charm back into the pocket of my pajamas and tried to get my bearings. I should get back to my room.
Or should I?
I hesitated. This was my chance, I realized. If I wanted to knowwhat happened on these midnight jaunts, this might be my only opportunity. I could keep going. Or hide in the nearest room and wait for morning and not get eaten by angry ghosts.
No ghosts at Harrow.Come on, Helen. Keep it together.
I started forward. My head was full of visions of shadowed forms lurking behind me, hands reaching out to grasp at me, eyes peering out of every keyhole I passed—but I saw nothing. Heard nothing but the groans and sighs of an old house. I stood at the intersection of two halls, fear giving way to frustration. My hammering heart calmed to a steady gallop.
Then I heard it. A cough, phlegmy and liquid, and then a slowdrag... slap.Whatever was making that sound, it was between me and the exit.
In all my midnight wanderings, I’d been unharmed. Wet and cold, but nothing worse. And I had to know. Ihadto know. I repeated that to myself as I forced one near-paralyzed foot forward, then the next, with every nerve in me screaming that I should run. I turned the corner.
At first, I couldn’t make sense of the jumbled thing before me. It looked like a heap of rags. Then it resolved into a body. A man. His limbs were twisted into brutal angles—one arm trapped beneath his torso, the other flung out to the side. There was no way he could be alive—his back had to be broken, his joints ripped and twisted. But then he moved. One hand reached out and grasped the floor. His legs heaved. His torso dragged along the ground. One twisted foot slapped the floorboards.
For an instant, I thought,This man needs help. But as soon ashe moved, I saw my mistake. He wasn’t hurt—he waswrong, somehow.
I retreated silently, praying he hadn’t noticed me. I stepped back and back again and fumbled for the nearest door—to get something in between me and that thing.
Drag, slap. Drag, slap.
Quietly, I eased the door open. Slipped through. Eased it shut again. I stood there holding the knob, terrified to release it in case the click of the latch gave me away. I wanted to gasp for air, but I forced myself to breathe in tiny breaths, shallow, silent.
Drag, slap.
Something moved in the darkness of the room where I hid. A hand reached past my face and pressed against the wood of the door. A whimper slipped from between my lips. The hand and arm were jet-black and stretched to obscene proportions, too long and too thin, and shedding scraps of shadow like molting skin. I could feel a presence towering behind me. I did not turn, staring forward with the stubborn logic of the child who doesn’t check under the bed because then the monsters will be real.
Drag, slap.
Then silence.
The crumpled thing had stopped right outside the door, and the floorboards at my feet creaked as it shifted. The doorknob twisted under my hand.
The thing shoved from the other side, the impact juddering through my grip but not moving the door even a centimeter as the shadowed hand lay unmoving against the wood.
These weren’t figments. They had substance. Had flesh. They were real and they werewrong, and I knew in my core that they could break me apart if they wanted to.
Thump.
And then the silence again.
