I nodded in thanks. “Tea sounds good.”
Moxie came and lay down in the doorway, refusing to enter the room even when I coaxed her with treats.
“Come on, girl, it’s okay,” I said. “It’s safe. The bad thing is gone.”
Moxie eyed me warily, refused to budge.
My mother’s breathing began to change. It became louder, amechanical-sounding hum, like a far-off engine getting closer, cutting out and starting up again.
Her eyes snapped open. They were so dark they looked black.
“Who killed Cock Robin?”she singsonged quietly.
I let go of her hand, jerked away.
Moxie stood up in the doorway, growling, hackles raised.
No. No. No.
It couldn’t be.
The room seemed to get smaller around us, darker; the bedside light flickered, dimming like the bulb was about to go out.
The temperature dropped.
“Impossible,” I whispered, standing.
My mother grinned up at me, a forced and hideous grin. “Think you can get rid of me that easily? Stupid girl.”
“Azha?” I said, the word coming out like a gasp, a final breath.
“Maybe,” she whispered, her voice weak. “Maybe there is no Azha. Maybe I’ve just been fucking with you all along.” She stopped, catching her breath, closing her eyes. “Maybe you’re just going crazy, Alison. Maybe your family is right.”
My mind spun. Was it possible?
I heard a buzzing, a softthump, thump, thump. I turned and saw thick-bodied, fat flies gathered on the dark pane of glass at the window. And through it, I was sure I saw a figure, a face with a long snout, dark beady eyes—Olivia’s Rat King. But as I watched, it became my own reflection.
“Where’s my stone?” my mother demanded, spittle flying, eyes open wide again. She reached out, grabbed hold of my arm with bony fingers, her grip viselike. “What have you done with my stone? I need it.”
“It’s gone,” I told her. “Far, far away where no one will ever find it.”
She sank back into the pillows, panting. She let out a little moan. “It hurts, Ali Alligator. Oh God, it hurts!”
I reached for the morphine. Teresa had switched her from pills to liquid, since she was having difficulty swallowing, and she opened hermouth for me like a baby bird while I trickled drops onto her tongue. I didn’t count them.
The flies thumped at the window. The lamp flickered, then went out. The only light came in through the open door from the hall.
My mother licked her lips, then smiled up at me. “You’ve already failed.”
No. I was not going to let Azha win. She didn’t have the stone. She had nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide. She was weak and scared. I could feel it.
“I bind you, Azha,” I said. “By the power of earth, air, water, and fire, I bind you.”
“You’ve always been a stupid girl,” she said. “A cruel girl. I know what you did to that blue jay. How you left it there in the well to die. Do you know how it suffered, Alison? In pain, starving, unable to fly?”
I reached into my bag there beside the chair and pulled out the knife, Descender. The knife my mother, my true mother, had given me, had taught me to use.
I hope that you will never need it, but one day you may, and you need to be ready.
