In the loft of the carriage house, I kneel in the darkness, buckled over in a sudden onslaught of pain.
My upper back churns and burns, as though a dozen fists are pushing beneath my skin in a frantic fight to rip through my flesh. My poet’s poem for Elmira drums in my head, but the words and the rhythm provide no relief, and in fact, the more the poem beats against my brain, the harder the fists struggle to break through my skin.
My dress tears above my shoulder blades.
I groan, so confused, so scared.
“Do not panic, Raven Girl,” says Morella’s voice from somewhere nearby, and a lantern flares to life.
I dig my forehead against the floorboards and grunt through clenched teeth, my molars rattling, aching. The air thins. The pain heightens. The fists punch with a ferocity that makes my ears ring. I rise up on hands and knees and arch my spine, and the loft shudders and creaks from the violence of my shaking.
All I can do is moan and pray for a swift death, and the moment I believe I’ll collapse, my back bursts open with a satisfying surcease of my agony. Something flaps into the air behind me.
I drop to my stomach, exhausted, drenched in sweat, still inexplicably confused. A blanket of feathers falls against me.
Morella crouches down in front of my head. The light of her lantern swings across the backs of my closed lids.
“Lenore,” she says in a voice that intrigues me enough to open my eyes. “I’ve never seen such ravishing feathers as these.” Her own feathered head nods to something behind me, and she guides me up to a seated position, despite the buttery consistency of my body.
I manage to twist around, and my lips part in shock at the sight of my shadow on the wall—the image of a girl with a bald head, yes, but from her back there now rises a pair of wings.
Voluminous, voluptuous wings, varnished in the velvety sheen of night.