“Fuck,” I say faintly. “I ventured into Wormsloe while you were gone. I didn’t make an offering of food, but I may have spoken the Barrow-Man’s name.”
Beresford looks stricken. “How the fuck do you know his name?”
“My father knew it, from back when he made that failed bargain. He kept the name on a slip of paper inside the vial the Barrow-Man gave him. When Papa ran off with the tinsmith, he left the vial behind among his things.”
Beresford’s voice holds a deep note of rebuke. “And you thought it was a good idea to walk into a corrupted forest and speak that name aloud?”
“I was desperate for information!” I snap, glaring at him. “I used the key, saw the bodies—I sawBeresford, and I realized that you were something unnatural. I thought maybe you and the Barrow-Man were the same entity, until he chased me through the woods. I think today was the first time he realized that I’m involved, that I’m the one who’s been stealing his test subjects.”
“You say he chased you?” Beresford’s hands curl into fists and a thunderous frown overtakes his face. “If he fucking touched you—”
“He didn’t. I never actually saw him, it was more like his presence pursuing me. He was controlling the forest, too, making it attack me. I would have died if some of the demons hadn’t helped me escape.”
Beresford nods. “They are grateful to you.”
“I don’t know why. It’s not like I have any control over my power. All I ever tried to do was suppress it.” I rub my eyes, sighing. “If I had known those creatures were suffering—if I had understood—”
“Don’t distress yourself,” he says gently. “Their imprisonment was never your fault, and their freedom was not your responsibility.”
“But my emotions were involved somehow, weren’t they?”
“We may never know for certain, but I have a theory that to make the transfer work, both you and the creature in the Under had to be emotionally vulnerable or psychically exposed at the moment of transfer. Thanks to your sensitive nature, you opened the door many times. Whether you meant to or not, you provided a way out for many tormented creatures.”
“And in the process, I made a mortal enemy of the Barrow-Man,” I say wryly. “I got the sense that he doesn’t want to kill me. He wants something else.”
“Revenge for all the frustration you’ve cost him, for all the wasted labor,” Beresford says. “He may want to conduct experiments on you as well, to figure out how your ability works. I will never give him that chance. We’re lucky that you didn’t complete the ritual, but I won’t risk you being this close to him any longer. We’ll have to leave this region.”
“Leave the house?” I exclaim. “But I just moved in here, and it’s so beautiful. Besides, you said he can’t physically come through the Barrow without the ritual.”
“Notyet,” Beresford says darkly. “But I know him. He will devise a way to reach you. I must take you far away, where he can’t touch you. I’ll have a coffin made for the real Beresford’s body and I’ll mark it with the requisite symbols to preserve him. We can bring him along so I can maintain my connection to this form. The other bodies can remain here behind the blue door, or we can bury them, as you suggested.”
He’s talking about abandoning his entire collection, something that, judging by our conversation, means a lot to someone of his species. It’s inexpressibly strange that I not only understand the implications of that sacrifice, but that I’m touched by it.
Is this love? The ability to hear someone’s truth and accept it at face value? To take it in, adjust one’s perspective, and become reconciled to the new reality?
Or is it delusion? Am I fooling myself by thinking that Beresford and I could still have a future together?
He’s literally inhuman. An entirely different species from me. A being from an alternate realm. At his core, he is that quivery, wild, cat-like, shadow-thing that I shepherded out of my family’s home last winter.
Yet somehow, he is Beresford, too. And he is the wolf, and whatever is left of Grandmother.
If we are who we choose to be, if we get to decide how we want to exist and present ourselves to the world, then I have to accept his choice. I must view him the way he sees himself, as the person he wants to be for my sake and for our future.
He’s standing quite still, watching me. Waiting for me to finish processing my thoughts.
I take a long breath, lay aside the sofa pillow, and clasp my hands in my lap. “I have another question. You said you take the memories and skills of the people whose souls you devour. What about the torture and murder that you say Beresford committed during his lifetime? How can I be sure that you haven’t become too much like him? What if he’s a greater part of you than you believe? How can you even know whoyouare, when you take so many others into yourself?”
“I take their memories, their learned skills, and their knowledge, not their personalities,” he says earnestly. “I am informed and instructed by them, and yet I remainmyself. Underneath every form I have taken, in every body I haveassumed, there lives the spirit that adores you, the soul of the being who would shred himself into bloody fragments for you if you demanded it. No matter how tormented or starved I might be, no matter how many times you might break my heart or your word, no matter how many memories of violence live inside my mind, I will never hurt you. Believe it.” He leaves the couch and drops to his knees in front of me. “Tell me you believe it.”
“I want to,” I whisper.
“This is my body now, and it belongs to you.” His hands clasp my knees. “This is my face, the face of your husband. I’m yours. But if you cannot love me as Beresford, I will take any form you desire. I will be anyone.”
“That’s so wrong.” I place my hands over his. “That isn’t what I want from you. I thought I could live in a marriage with secrets, but I can’t. Trust is important, yes, but I need honesty too. Honesty is the ground in which trust should grow. We tried to do it backwards because we were afraid of losing each other.”
“Afraid is too weak a word.” He tangles his fingers with mine. “Terrified is more like it. That’s why I ordered you not to go through the blue door. I thought if I told you the truth, you would reject me, despise me, and hate me, and I could not fucking bear that. And I was afraid that if I left the house, you might take Beresford’s body out of that room and break my link with him. I’ve never been so strongly connected to a form, and the thought of losing it was unbearable.”
“Why leave me the key at all, then?”
