He fisted the grain sack, the very thing that had become a part of me, like an organ I could not survive without, like my beating heart. And once my heart was gone, I was nothing more than the monster they claimed me to be.
Above, the blue blood moon passed through a rare eclipse, lighting the sky in a crimson glow as though the night had popped a vein and was bleeding too.
With his fist full of my grain sack, I inhaled a rich breath and faced the eclipsed moon hanging in the night sky. I thought of the face my mind had created, desperate for comfort, for my fictional thing to hold me. On my knees, I didn’t look away from it, shutting out the rest of the world until it was only us two, my only friend and me, and I thought to myself, could she see me, too?
Don’t let me go, my mind whispered.
Then he ripped off the sack.
CHAPTER 6
ADORA
The Sullivan Cottage
November 15, 2020
A faceless moonhung in the sky.
It was nothing more than a faint silver ring facing a different world, out of reach, comforting arms elsewhere, wherever it needed to be. Though I’d seen the moon like this many times, on this night it somehow, like a door, flung open my heart, breathed across my bones, and haunted my soul.
While it had its back to me, the new moon was guarded by stars. Some dimming and dying—a midnight graveyard. Others bright and alive—a work of smashed art.
I couldn’t tear my eyes away.
“Adora,” Ivy called. “Close the window.”
I flinched, breaking free from my stupor, and closed the window, locking out the wind that felt like an icy eternity. It was time.
Even though Ivy was angry with me, she began to sing to me while I lay wedged between her and Fable on the attic floor. Like Mom, her voice was a balm to my restless mind, and each night she’d sing it kept me from sleepwalking in the middle of the night.
The sage we’d burned drifted in the air, black candles flickered on the antique furniture, and black salt circled the pile of pillows and blankets. We’d done this ritual each night since the Shadows came, knowing it couldn’t keep us safe. The Shadows were unconquerable, but we found a sort of comfort in our new nightly routine. It gave us hope.
After Ivy and Fable fell asleep, fear never allowed me to close my eyes. But even with my eyes open, the nighttime could still take on sardonic faces; scornful smiles, sneering eyes, and sharp fangs gleaming from the dark corners of the attic. I clutched my silver chain against my chest and rubbed the metal prong with my splintered finger, my gaze latching on to Dad.
He was sitting at a table by the window with a giant magnifying glass, constructing a topsail schooner ship to fit inside a glass liquor bottle. Each time a scream penetrated the window, it aways caused Dad’s fingers to flinch. I wanted to squeeze my eyes closed but never could. Every cry hit me in the chest.
There was nothing we could do to save them.
A sort of selfishness consumed me, silently thanking the Shadows for not choosing my family. So far, they’ve been kept safe, and I didn’t know how long that would continue.
And for the first time, I wished the Shadows would take me to grant me freedom from this marriage. That way, I could die knowing Ivy still loved me in the way a sister should. Since my plan was falling apart, it seemed to be the easiest way out.“The Shadows took her,”Dad would tell the neighbors.
“Just before her wedding? What a shame,”they would say.
My poor sister,Ivy would think.She died young and refused to marry Cyrus until her dying breath. Why couldn’t I see that until now?
A smile coasted along my lips just before a gut-wrenching shatter pulled me from the mattress. I sat up fully in bed. It was the kind of ringing shatter that, as soon as you heard it, you knew was a sound that could never be forgotten. One that would haunt the silence.
Dad and I exchanged panicked glances.
It sounded as if it had come from next door. “What was that?”
“I’m not sure,” he whispered, but I didn’t trust his tone. It was sad. Knowing.
Then another clamor came.
Itwasfrom next door.
