Font Size:  

“But if he’s dead—” Desmond started.

“There’s no way that he was the only one that was in on all of this. Eli knows everything about Vaughan history,” Bryony said. “He would have inherited, if he wasn’t gay.”

“Great, we’re ahomophobicmurder cult. This gets better and better,” Desmond muttered.

“Iris had the confession letter. I think she stole it so Caleb wouldn’t find out what Leopold had done. Because she knew he’d stop them,” I said.

“What do we do?” Celia asked. She was scrunched up, her hands tucked inside her long sleeves as if she wished she could vanish entirely. “Could you just run?”

“I don’t think I could,” I said. “Harrow would find a way to draw me back. And if I did, what then? The Other gets out? Iris and Eli come after me? They get desperate and try killing some other poor girl? We need a solution, and it’s not just running away. We need a different way to contain the Other.”

“Or we need to set it free,” Bryony said. She stood from her perch.

I didn’t want to argue the point. Not right now. “The truth is we don’t really know what that thing is, or what it wants, or what it would do if it wasn’t chained up.” I took a deep breath. “I think we need to talk to it.”

“That didn’t go so well before,” Desmond pointed out.

“Because it’s been lobotomized. I think—I hope—that we can help it think more clearly. It’s been here the whole time. It remembers the people who have lived here—it uses their faces for figments, it echoes their words. It can tell us what we need to know, I’m sure of it.”

“Tell us what to do,” Celia said earnestly. “We’ll help.”

“We need to gather the bones,” I said. “The bones of the other girls that have been buried. I know where Roman buried Haley Cotter’s bones. I can find the others.”

“It’ll go faster with help,” Bryony said.

Desmond was looking straight at her. “Can I talk to you a minute?” he said suddenly. She looked surprised. “Alone,” he added.

Bryony’s brow furrowed. “All right,” she said slowly, clearly puzzled. She followed him off into the woods a ways. I could still see them, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying. It looked almost like they were arguing.

“Maybe we should tell them,” Celia said. She fidgeted with her sleeves. “Your mom and Caleb, I mean. They could help us.”

“Not yet,” I said. “Once we know more. I don’t know how they’ll react, Celia. I didn’t know how you would react either. I know this all horrible. I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t make it horrible. You just showed us what was hiding here all along,” she said, but a tear slipped down her cheek.

Tentatively, I reached out to her—and she stepped into my arms, burying her head against my shoulder. She cried quietly, so quietly that I thought she must have practice at it, shedding tears so that no one could hear. I didn’t know what to do except hold her, and so I did, listening to her stuttering breathing, wishing I knew what to say. I closed my eyes and held her and let her hold me, and it wasn’t enough, but it was something.

Desmond and Bryony were coming back. Neither of them looked precisely happy. I couldn’t imagine what it was the two of them had to talk about on their own. Celia released me, stepping away and scrubbing at her cheeks with her sleeve. Neither Bryony nor Desmond commented, politely averting their eyes.

“Everything okay?” I asked, shifting away from Celia so she wasn’t at the center of attention.

“Again, murder cult, so no,” Desmond said. “It’s a solid plan. Gathering the bones, I mean. I’ll help.”

“Me, too,” Celia said with a sniffle.

He put his arm around her shoulders, tucking her in against him protectively. “I’m going to get Celia back to the house. We can get started in the morning,” he said. He wasn’t asking permission. They headed back together, leaving me with Bryony.

“What were you two talking about?” I asked.

“You,” she said. I blinked. “Desmond is concerned about my intentions toward you.”

“You’re not serious.”

“Don’t worry about it, Rabbit,” she told me with a strange little smile.

“Are you all right?” I asked her, catching her hand. “What it said in the journal, about Annalise being the witch...”

“All it means is that she could see the dark soul. What she did after that was her decision, and anyone who would help lobotomize a young woman is a monster,” Bryony said, jaw set. “I’m not her. She’s not me. We all get to decide who we are, and I’ve made my choice. Have you?”

Source: www.allfreenovel.com
Articles you may like