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“I didn’t ask that out loud.” He looks at me sideways. Then as if a realization dawns on him, his blue eyes expand. “Shit.” His throat bobs. “You’re that voice,” he says. “You’reher.”
“Who?”
The man looks me up and down, as if seeing me for the first time.
You can hear me.
My eyes stretch when I hear his voice, loud and clear, despite his lips not moving.
“H-how are you doing that?”
“Shit,” he curses again. The man clears his throat and tucks his gun away, then digs into his trench coat. He opens a silver case and plucks out what looks like a cigarette, except it’s all black. Pressing it between his lips, he lights it with a silver lighter, inhales, and then puffs out a large cloud of smoke. It doesn’t smell like an ordinary cigarette. It's scent is sweeter, like maple syrup and spices.
“You’re her,” he says, nodding. “You’re that other voice in my head.” He gives his head a shake. “All this time I thought I was insane.”
This conversation is starting to feel real, and it’s weird, so I say, “Maybe we’re just dreaming?”
“Trust me,” he rasps, pulling from his cigarette thing again. “This is no dream.”
“What do you mean?”
He drops his eyes to my foot, and I look with him at the caked dirt and blood. “You’re bleeding. Follow me.” He walks past me toward the castle-like home.
I hesitate a moment as he marches away without looking back. I peer over my shoulder at the forest that was behind us, then toward whichever exit he pointed at that I still can’t make out, and figure it’s probably best to follow him than to wander around, lost. I don’t know this man, and I don’t know where I am, but he has shelter…and possibly a phone.
He also has a gun, I think to myself.
“Don’t worry about the gun,” he calls out, still walking toward the castle. “I won’t use it on you unless you make me.”
Twelve
CAZ
I don’t trustthis woman, and yet I’m leading her into my house. I’m clearly losing it. But I heard her voice…heard it without her lips even moving. That’s the voice from my head, now in the flesh. The voice has a face and a body and a bloody heartbeat. The voice breathes and hums. It’s her, I know it is, but what the hell is she doing here? Or better yet, how did she find me?
I open the front door, leaving it wide so she can follow me inside. I carry myself down the marble foyer, past the dark columns wrapped in vines, until I’m in my kitchen. There’s a bell by my backdoor and I pull the rope down, ringing it twice.
When I glance over my shoulder, the woman isn’t there. I march around the corner, and she’s standing in the middle of the foyer, gawking at one of the portraits on the wall.
“What the hell are you doing?” I demand, and she turns her head to look at me.
“Is that you?” She points up at the painting from Aunt Maeve—the one she had done for me when I first built this place. Black horses with manes of fire, and a shadowy man ridingone of them toward total darkness. The horse the man is riding reminds me of Onyx.
The woman turns to look at me, awaiting an answer.
“Come to the kitchen,” I order, giving her my back. She appears this time, and I tell her to sit at the table.
“Any chair at the table?” she asks, pointing at the twelve-top.
“Would you please just sit?” I grumble, and she does, taking the chair closest to her.
I’m glad when I hear footsteps and Della appears. She smiles at me, light wrinkles forming around her eyes and mouth, and says, “You rang for me, sir?”
“Yes, Della.” I gesture to the woman in the chair. “I need you to stitch her up. She’s bleeding on the leg. Where, I don’t know, but the sooner it gets done, the sooner I can send her off.”
Della focuses on the Willow woman, and her smile stretches even more. “Of course, sir.” Della walks to the Willow woman, grabbing her hand and helping her stand. “Right this way, dear. I’ll have you all stitched up and ready to go.”
“Do you have a phone?” the Willow woman asks.
