Marion followed the bone cry’s path through the Kingshead Woods, her palms bleeding, preparing herself to die.
It seemed to her the most logical decision to make. There was no need for anyone else to die but her.
She had cut open her palms with a knife she’d stolen from Grayson’s kitchen, and now she wandered through the woods, smearing her hands across the trees. The Collector, she hoped, would catch her scent. She would be irresistible to him. An extraordinary girl, right? He’d hunt her, and then, ignoring the bone cry rattling in her ears, urging her to run, Marion would let the beast grab her. Once in his clutches, she would tesser. She would think of the snow-covered beach, the strange lavender sky, and bring them both to that obscura, hidden somewhere in the deep of the world.
And if he killed her there—which, of course, he would—then, well, she would die.
But no one else would. And then he would be trapped there, banished, hopefully for years.
It was the most logical decision to make.
As she trudged through the trees, the dissonant metallic whine ringing in her ears, Marion told herself that this decision was not only logical; it was the fate she deserved, for failing to keep Charlotte safe, for not suggesting other places for them to live, for not immediately sensing the horrible truth about Valerie Mortimer. It was also, maybe, a little bit brave.
She did not feel brave.
She closed her eyes, shutting out the sights and sounds of the woods so that the only thing she knew was her own body—blood roaring, heart pounding so fast she feared she might scare herself to death before she even found what she was looking for, and the call of the bone cry.
She almost started to run. It would be easy, to run, to hide in some dark hollow until someone else took care of the situation. Someone mightier.
Marion opened her eyes and returned to herself—feet planted in the mud, wind-bitten trees bowing over her like naked hags foraging in the weeds for hidden dark treasures.
“Go out a hero,” she muttered, limbs shaking as she started climbing up a ridge woven through with roots and crested with scratchy brush. “Isn’t that what people always do in the movies?”
She wiped her sleeve across her face, stumbled over a knot of weeds. It would certainly feel more heroic if she could stop crying.
God, how long had she been searching these woods? Dawn was still a ways off, she thought. The world inside the woods was dark and muted, painted in shades of graveyard gray and rot brown. Every tree looked the same, and the bone cry was a loud, uninterrupted drone banging against the sides of her skull, a persistent warning.
Where was he, then?
Marion stopped in a small clearing, not fifteen feet across, and threw up her hands. “Where are you? Huh?” she shouted to the trees. “Come get me, you sick bastard!”
As if in answer, a scream pierced the night.
Marion whirled, searching through the dark woods.
It came again, and this time it said a word, and this time Marion recognized the voice:
“Marion!”
Her mother.