Can I fall back in love with Brom if I’m in love with Crane?
Can I love both men?
Will they let me?
There are too many questions and my heart and body feel too exhausted to tackle any of them.I settle farther into the tub so that the water is at my chin.The bathroom window shows the gray mist flowing past, the light dulled, and I feel my eyes flutter closed.The warm of the bath slows my pulse, lulling me into a state of deep relaxation.
There’s no sound at all except for the sound of my breath.
The faint beat of my heart.
The sound of the water splashing gently against the tub.
Rhythmic, constant splashing.
Why is the water in the tub still moving when I’m staying completely still?
“You let my husband touch you here,” a voice hisses.
My eyes fly open to see a woman’s head between my legs, dead white eyes staring right at me.
I scream but hands come up from underneath me in the tub, wrapping around my mouth and chest, and start pulling me down into the water.With sickening clarity I realize that I haven’t been lying on the bottom of a copper tub but instead on a woman’s spongy body.
Water goes up my nose as I’m held under the surface and I’m thrashing back and forth, pure animal panic surging through me.
She’s trying to kill me.
I’m going to drown here.
With a surge of flustered power I bite the fingers she holds across my mouth.The bones snap with a sickening sound, bloodflowing into the water, tasting like foul pennies as it goes past my lips.
“He read my memories and used them against me,” the voice says as if she’s at my ear now.“Do you know what kind of man he is?Do you know what he did to me?”
Somehow I manage to elbow her, her hand slipping away from my mouth, and then I’m scrambling over the side of the tub, water rushing over the sides, and then dropping down onto the floor in an awkward heap.
A hand reaches out and grabs my ankle, trying to pull me back in, nails digging into my skin.
I scream, twisting around to see the woman, her gray hair hanging off her in ropes, her decaying skin flayed open to show maggots underneath, the empty hole for a mouth and white eyes that seem to consume me whole.
“You cannot love a man like that,” she hisses.“Ichabod will never let you leave!”
“Marie?”I manage to say, remembering Crane’s late wife’s name.
She drops my ankle in surprise.
Then smiles, that gaping black hole spreading across her face until all her features are swallowed by it.
She slowly stands up and starts stepping out of the tub.
Heaven help me.
Just then I hear the door in the bedroom open and Crane’s faint voice, “Kat?”
“Crane!”I scream.“Help me!”I get to my feet just as the door opens and Crane and Brom come running inside.I collapse intoCrane’s arms and look over my shoulder but the bathroom is empty.The bathtub is still.The water on the floor is the only sign there’s been any disturbance.
“What happened?”Crane asks.
“Th-there was a woman,” I stutter, unable to catch my breath.“A dead woman.She was right there, I swear to you.”
