There was a voice in the darkness. It slipped through the shadows to find her ears.
“Get up, love. Get up or the rains will kill you.”
Grace opened her mouth and cold water flowed in. It slipped over her parched tongue, leaving behind a gritty aftertaste. She gagged, the convulsion pulling her into a sitting position as she struggled for air, water pooling around her.
“That’s something, anyway,” the voice continued. “I’ve listened to more than a few unconscious drown slow, not even knowing they’re dying. The rains slip through the walls down here and the reaper comes quiet with them.”
Grace’s hands sank into the floor, mud squeezing between her fingers as she pushed herself against the wet stone walls, panicked breaths wheezing into the pitch-black.
“It’s all right, it’s all right,” the voice said again, low and smooth. “I’m not going to hurt you. Even if I should want to, there’s bars between us, love, and more than that. My conscience is stronger than they, and you’ve got the smell of young flesh about you.”
In the darkness all she could tell was that his voice came from the right. She pushed herself away from it, her feet digging into the muck for traction.
“Shhhh, shhhh,” her fellow prisoner went on. “Don’t get yourself out of sorts. Lose your breath and you’re likely to go over into the wet again. Calm yourself. Sit still and let me learn from the air you’ve brought with you.”
Shivering and streaked with mud, Grace found the corner of her cell. Pressing herself against it until her shoulder blades dug into the rock, she heard a deep breath from his direction, then silence. Seconds later, an exhalation, followed by another audible intake.
“Now then.” His voice reached for her again across the black, drawing her head up from her chest, where it had begun to sag in weariness. “Yours is a story whose events happen more often than are told. Tales like these belong to the black, do they not? Where they can’t be seen or heard. But I can smell it out quick like the devil.
“You’ve got the smell of man on you, faded but there, a scent still strong enough to tell that it matches your own, like to like. Fresh blood—I imagine even you can smell that, all coppery in the back of your throat—but I can say where it’s come from and know the harm done to you. And the babe . . .”
Another sniff, this one soft and delicate.
“Gone to the permanent darkness now. Sorry, love.”
A fought-for breath stuck in her chest, and Grace forced it outward, then another in, to keep herself going. Her arms crossed in front of her empty belly, their duty failed, nothing left to protect. A sob stuck in her throat, lodging itself halfway on its path to the dank air.
“There’s the blood of another on you, though. I smell a spatter or two, underneath your own. You didn’t come down here without a fight, did you? And who was your tormenter?” An inhalation, this one drawn deep inside of him as if his lungs were digesting the air.
“Ahhhh . . . Heedson, you are a vile thing.”
Grace rested her head against the stone wall, letting the cool fingers of the stone sink into her temple as his words flowed over her, drawing her into a deep calm.
“There’s your voice, love. It’s small and cold, tucked down under all else. I can smell it, like a river stone it is. Smoothed out and polished into a nothing it’s jammed down under something else . . . something hot. There’s a touch of brimstone in you, there is. And it’s putting up the smoke that’s got your voice trapped underneath.
“And the smoke and the—” Another sniff. “The sweat. Your anger sweated you out. It’s gone and opened up all your pores, and I can smell that dainty lavender soap you used to use, though I imagine it was a good long while ago.
“What a shock you’ve had. Taken from that world into this. You used to move about in light and lavender, with the laughter pouring from you, and now it’s all blood and darkness, with your throat closed so tight your own breath is choking you.”
The truth of his words wrapped around her, and Grace gasped for air, letting it out in a deep rush as if to release the smoke he spoke of and give her voice freedom.
“That’s right, keep doing it. The in and the out of the air. Your lungs know the job, know it well enough to do it without being told, and likely won’t stop even if you want them to. You’re alive, girl. And it’s been a good long while since I’ve had an interesting person in the darkness with me. And you’ll stay alive, for Falsteed is not about to let those that have the brimstone in them die while he’s near. No, not me.”
There was a scraping noise of wood against rock and something nudged against her foot in the filth. “Grab the end of that, and feel about on the wall in the corner. There’s a bit of rock that sticks out just enough to rest the board against. I’ll put the other end on my knees and take the weight of you on myself, for the night. You’ve got to get out of the muck, your lower parts anyway. There’s dirt and filth ankle-deep everywhere down here. The last fellow that had that cell was none too gracious about using his bucket. That’s not only mud you’re wallowing in.”
Grace felt around for the board poking at her toes and found the ridge in the wall easily. She felt the other end of the board lift along with her as she put it in place, rain trickling over her fingers. Her hands came away with the sweet smell of outdoors, only slightly fouled by the cellar walls. She pressed her hands against her face, the rainwater cooling her swollen eyes.
She sat on her makeshift bench and felt it settle on Falsteed’s end as he adjusted for taking her weight on his knees. Grace curled into the corner of her cold darkness, resting against the wall and feeling the rain seep through the rocks. Her eyelids sank and she felt her jaw fall slack right before sleep brought the darkness from outside into her mind.
As she settled into its comfortable grip she heard Falsteed’s voice once more. “Dear child, do you even know all the rage that is inside you?”