November 17, 2020
72 days until the Crimson Eclipse
There were days when the wind was so cold.
Days like these always follow the cruelest nights. The kind of cruel nights that shook me, and for a split second, I felt like a little girl again needing the comfort of my mother. It didn’t take long for this ache to shrink and for my strength to return, but this ache didn’t leave me. Not entirely. It moped inside me like a sad, dark cloud.
I killed a woman. Soon, Augustine would return to the cell and find Lena in a bed of her blood with her wrists slashed in a peaceful sleep at last.
The only way to keep my promise to her and save Mom was to kill Kane, and Cyrus had become a thing standing in my way. If Cyrus or anyone else caught me during my efforts, they’d take me to the Wicker Man. But it was a risk I was willing to take. So much was riding on Kane’s death. If I didn’t move forward with the plan because of this sudden arranged marriage, then I would have wasted the majority of my life.
I descended the attic stairs to the second floor and dipped into my bedroom. Outside my window, daylight crowned the ocean.
To fight the chilling temperatures, I dressed in layers. My vintage coat, a cotton pullover, and a tank. My steps were quiet as I left the cottage’s premises through the gate and down the stone stairway.
Gray was the sky, black was the sea, and white was the beach. The only sound during this time was the crashing waves, the whistling wind through the cliff’s edge, and the faraway cry of a gull. In the distance, the lighthouse beam on Bone Island cut through a blanket of fog, the horizon blurring like a somber oil painting.
I walked along the snow-capped beach stretching across the east end of Weeping Hollow when about thirty feet down the shoreline, a strange object partly wedged between rocks bobbed in the shallow waters.
The closer I got, the larger it was—a coffin-shaped box about seven feet long, three to four feet wide, covered in muck and barnacles, debris floating with the tide surrounding it.
I chanced a look around, and no one else was nearby.
I took cautious steps closer, broken glass crunching beneath each step and water splashing up my legs, spilling into my boots and soaking my ankles.
It wasn’t black muck but spiders blanketing the box.
Hundreds of black spiders.
My insides curled, my shoulders tensed. I kept my gaze on the box, afraid of it leaving my sight, as I leaned to my right to pick up driftwood.
The large stick was heavy in my hand as I scraped it across the top of the box, spooking the spiders. They all scampered away like ants would do after their home was disturbed, revealing a glass enclosure underneath.
With water sloshing in my boots, I crouched down to get a better look, then swiped my palm across the grime-caked glass to see what was inside.
Behind two holes in a burlap sack were a pair of eyes sealed shut by frosted lashes.
It’s a coffin. The driftwood slipped from my hand as I fell back with my heart punching through my chest. I looked away, then looked back at the coffin to ensure that it was still there and that my mind hadn’t played tricks on me. That the morning fog hadn’t played tricks on me.
The coffin was still there, and a winter breeze rushed past me as I gazed at it.
Another wave came, pushing the coffin up and over on its side when a man’s body broke through the glass enclosure. His limbs sprawled over rock and his covered head was submerged in water.
Whoever it was didn’t move.
I should run. I should tell someone.
Everything I should do rattled in my mind, but my body didn’t listen.
My feet didn’t run in the opposite direction.
Instead, I found myself going to this stranger.
I didn’t know what made me do it, but I had to be sure he was dead.
I picked up his hand, and his wrist was cold and heavy between my fingers.
I closed my eyes, waiting for a pulse.
Then there it was. A weak, spaced-out thump ... thump.
“You’re alive.” My harsh whisper sprang the rest of my body into action.
I hooked my arms under his and used all my strength to turn and yank him from the water. Every coming wave gave me leverage to pull as the sea pushed us both to the shoreline. Once my spine hit the snow-covered sand, he fell on top of me with all his weight.
I removed the burlap sack from his head and tossed it into the ocean.
Beneath the sack were delicate features on an enchanting face.
Then, from blue lips, the stranger coughed up water, the sea spilling from the corners of his mouth.
He took a breath, fingers curling around my leg.
He took a breath, holding on to me.
He took a breath, sinking in my arms.
He took a breath.
I melted, holding his head close to my chest as dizzying relief filled me, and I squeezed my eyes closed to fight the sudden strange emotion. His fingers relaxed, his hold loosened, and I opened my eyes again.
He was unconscious. But he was breathing.
I looked down the length of him.
Spiders were crawling onto our boots and up our legs.
In a frantic, I kicked to get them off when another wave came.
One much bigger this time.
In my twenty-two years of waiting, the wave was stronger than ever, wrapping around my ankles, grabbing the man, grabbing me, trying to pull us both into its current. I clung to the rock and clutched his body close to mine until the desperate wave passed, taking the spiders with it, collecting them.
The sea left us shivering from the frozen water-world I’d saved him from. His skin was as cold as ice, and his unusual clothes were stiff from the frost. He wore linen pants and a shirt that was stained with fresh blood.
I turned him slightly over, seeing a large, jagged piece of glass wedged into him under his ribs. A dreadful breath escaped me, and I looked around, not knowing what to do next.
Behind us was the cave that hid in the bend of the cliff.
I laid him on his back, stood, and grabbed his wrists, trying to pull him.
He had to have been close to two hundred pounds, and it took every bit of strength from me. The snowy beach felt like quicksand, and each time I looked back, there were still so many more feet to go. I dug my heels into the sand, sucked in a breath, and yanked until I was gaining traction and leaving drag marks in my wake.
Once inside the cave, my arms felt weak and heavy, but I still managed to free him of his wet clothes down to his undergarments. There was no time to make sense of anything or think about whether the man was dangerous. Glass protruded from his bloodied flesh, and if I did nothing, he could die.
If I ran for help, the Order would take him away.
They would only save him to kill him.
Kneeling at his side, blood pounded hot and fast in my ears, imagining him surrounded by people he didn’t know who were shoving him inside the Wicker Man. I could smell the ghastly scent of gas and burnt wood, and just before the fire touched his feet, he’d give me a helpless look. One that clawed my insides until my cold heart bled. Why didn’t you help me? he’d whisper. And I wouldn’t know what to say because the truth didn’t make sense to me anymore.
Because I was doing what I was told.
The sight of his striking features caught my gaze, and my bottom lip trembled. The thought of the Order taking and killing him instilled terror inside me. A different brand of terror I’d never felt before.
At last, the sea had given me something in return.
I had to protect him. I was his only chance, so I couldn’t tell anyone.
I studied the angle of the glass in his side, knowing there was no time to run back to the cottage for supplies. I could pull it out, but he’d bleed to death without something to close the wound. The only way to heal him was through magic.
Mom once told me how much power water possessed, and the human body was made up of at least sixty percent of it. I’d never accessed the kind of magic it would take to save him, and I didn’t know if I had it in me. There were still a few more months until my twenty-third birthday when I would ascend, but even if I could heal him, that magic was forbidden. And Lena’s punishment flashed in my mind.
If I used magic, and Augustine found out, would he burn my brain to a crisp before I had the chance to save Mom? Was this stranger worth the risk?
I studied his stone-cold face, his glacier-blue lips, something telling me that, yes, he was worth it. After what I’d done to Lena, I couldn’t let him go, too. I had to help him, or at the very least, try.
“Okay, okay,” I chanted, slipping out of my coat. I wrapped one of the sleeves around my hand so I wouldn’t cut myself, gripped the glass, and pinched my eyes closed as I yanked out the sawtooth piece.
The stranger lay unconscious as blood gushed out. In a hurry, I tossed the glass aside and pressed down on his wound. Warm, thick blood slipped under my hands and between my fingers as I summoned any power buried deep inside me.
Outside the cave, the ocean’s waves crashed around shallow rocks, and I became mesmerized by it, allowing the sea to shape my thoughts and guide me. I tasted Her brine on my lips and breathed Her in until a song emerged from within and rolled off my tongue. I squeezed my closed eyes tighter, imagining his body repairing from the inside out.
My song surrounded me.
My mind felt dizzy. My arms went numb.
But I didn’t open my eyes or let go of our connection.
Not until my body gave up on me, and all I saw was black.
It didn’t happen all at once.
First, there was the sound of a beating heart thumping in my ear, then I felt the slow rise of a chest against my cheek. Lastly, the taste of brine coated the inside of my mouth and tongue, my gums numb from it, as if I’d swallowed a mouthful of ocean water. It took a moment for me to blink my eyes open again. When I did, I found myself in the cold, damp cave, snowflakes leaping and spinning like tipsy ballerinas just outside the opening.
My mind then settled on a single thought. The stranger.
And everything came rushing back.
I lifted myself off his chest, and his wound had been repaired from the inside. Blood still seeped from the gash, but it wasn’t heavy and not enough to kill him. I pushed out a relieved breath.
“I can’t believe I actually did it,” I confessed as if he could hear me. “I’ve never done that before.”
If the Order ever found out that I’d used my magic in the open—on a stranger—I could be executed, and I’d never felt more alive than in this moment.
I’d done something extraordinary, and I couldn’t tell anyone.
Not even my sisters.
The man lay unconscious with a staggering pulse.
I looked around. “I’ll be right back.”
It only took a few minutes to return to the cottage, and once inside, I slipped a blanket from the closet and clothes from Dad’s drawer. I grabbed water, medicine, and matches. The house remained quiet, with everyone still asleep, and I quickly shoved all the essentials into a basket before slipping back into the morning.
The horizon was a blanket of soothing sapphire and ivory next to my racing mind. My feet plodded through the sand back to the cave as I thought about how crazy this was. I’d spent over ten years plotting the death of a man I’d known my whole life, only to save a stranger, someone I didn’t know at all.
Once I reached him, my knees hit the sand at his side.
I tried to keep my thoughts at bay while pouring alcohol. What are you doing, Adora? my mind repeated as I layered the wound with medicine. But something kept me anchored here, caring for him, unable to stop.
Mine, my heart proclaimed as I wrapped a bandage tightly around his torso. The sea gave him to me.
I couldn’t help my eyes from flicking back and forth at the sharp edges of his face and the wound. His lips were still pale blue, and his skin was still cold to the touch. He was frozen as if winter had wrapped him in its arms. He needed warmth, so I struck a match to start a fire.
It was strange that I didn’t spare a second to think about it, and how I stripped off my clothes and pulled the heavy fur blanket around us to trap our body heat inside. His eyes were still closed when I rolled him onto his strong side and pressed our bodies together for warmth. I was tall, five feet eight, but he was much taller yet still curled into my body in a way that told me he needed me. He was harmless and hurting and needed me.
He trembled in my arms, so I curved his head into my neck and rubbed his back, trying to bring color to his muted skin.
And there we were, two bodies clinging to each other before a fire.
An hour passed as we lay like this, wrapped in the cocoon I’d built for us.
Strange cold lips hit my neck, and the icy tips of his hair scratched my cheek. We stayed like that until his chilling breath came out in long, even strokes.
Outside, snow pitter-pattered against the white shore.
A hesitant fall, like the sky wasn’t ready to let go.
“It’s okay,” I whispered in a comforting way. The sound was odd coming from me. Motherly for someone who had killed a woman less than twenty-four hours earlier. I pushed the thought away. “You’re going to be okay,” I said again, my hands sliding across his ridges as I admired his face.
For now, he was alive.
He, whatever his name was, would live.
And after a while, the fire heated the small cave.
I swiped his defrosting white hair from his forehead, imagining his name and where he’d come from. William or Foster, possibly a painter from the other side of the Atlantic who jumped ship to come to America for a new beginning. From Paris, perhaps—if the stories were true. A traveler in search of something more.
The ocean dripped from the tips of his hair and down the sides of his face and neck. My eyes followed its pathways.
He was an unread story of tragic-black lashes, wolfish-white hair, and delicate blue lips. He was the horizon in winter.
The fire’s blaze was a hot breath on us as I admired how his chest expanded and caved with every strong breath he took with mine. As if my every breath encouraged his. His body hadn’t stopped trembling, though, and his fingers clutched on to me like one would a pillow.
It was painful. In a way, for both of us.
After some time had passed, he thawed into a cold sweat.
Droplets beaded his tight pale skin and slid down my naked breasts that were pressed against his chest. He had lips too sensitive for a man, and I wanted to feel them beneath my fingertips. Of course, I didn’t. Lying naked with a strange man had only been to save him, I’d convinced myself. But the need to touch him was for different reasons entirely, and that somehow felt like a breach of integrity, like taking something that didn’t belong to me.
These anxious thoughts pushed me back in my clothes. Afterward, I returned to his side while he slept under the blanket beside the fire, watching the snow fall onto the beach through the cave’s opening, waiting for him to wake.
There was a possibility that this stranger could open his eyes, and darkness would ignite within them. The chance of him being a witch hunter who’d come here to hang us from trees like ornaments in Town Square crossed my mind, too.
This thought made me uneasy, and I looked him over to see if there was an indication of trouble outlining his silhouette.
There wasn’t.
His landscape was a blank page awaiting a new story to unfold.
This man was an adventure. Quite possibly a dangerous one.
With that, a prickle of excitement blossomed down my spine.
Either way, the night was coming, and I couldn’t stay to find out for sure. If I didn’t return to the cottage before dark, Ivy would break the rules and leave the house after curfew to look for me.
I left water bottles at his side and pulled the blanket tightly around him.
It was up to him to make it through the night.
And I wondered if, on this night, it would be him that the Shadows would choose.