I got to my knees, my heart racing in my chest. “It’s Mrs. Madder.” An image of Mrs. Madder standing on her porch steps—the place I’d left her—entered my mind. “We have to help her, Dad. She’s all alone.”
The look on Dad’s face stopped me. His jaw was fastened tight, and he flexed it with wide eyes that saiddon’t move. Then he slowly shook his head.
Another scream pierced the attic walls and ripped past us.
I jumped to my feet and beelined for the attic door.
I didn’t know if the scream was because of people from the westside or the Shadows. I didn’t know, but I had to get to her. If it were desperate and dangerous people from the west side, and she died because I’d been rude and said horrible things only hours earlier, it would all be my fault.
Before my hand could touch the doorknob, Ivy’s arms came around me and pulled me back. Dad, like a shield, slid in front of me to block the door, arms stretched out and his tall, slender frame as solid as a steel pole.
“Let me go!” I clawed at Ivy’s arms, trying to kick her away from me.
I imagined Mrs. Madder locked inside her dream. In my mind, the sound I’d first heard was her bedside lamp crashing to the floor after her body fell out of the bed, bumping into the nightstand. I imagined five tall, black ghosts surrounding her unconscious silhouette.
Mrs. Madder’s scream ricocheted. I’d imagined them having her in an invisible chokehold and forcing her to see the fears she had buried in her soul. Maybe it was a fear of birds, their black inky wings flapping, the sound of wind slapping against her ears. Or maybe it was the fear of someone breaking into her home, like the westside coming in with bats and knives and tying her to a wobbly wooden chair. Then I imagined them beating her senseless.Leave no witnesses behind, one of them would say.Dead people can’t talk.And with the last blow, I pictured one leg of the wooden chair snapping in half, sending Mrs. Madder to the ground. They kicked and used their bats repeatedly until she could never talk again.
The thought of it all threw my body forward at Dad, but Ivy yanked me back. “There’s nothing you can do, Adora, stop!” Ivy screamed with her body pinned to mine. Tears flowed like desperate rain on my shoulders as she cried.
Mrs. Madder’s terrifying screams thrashed in our ears and mixed with the chaos.
Fable was crouching in the corner of the room with her hands over her ears and her eyes squeezed shut.
I tried to unlatch Ivy’s hands, but she was much stronger.
“Let me get to her!”
“No, I can’t let you do that.” Her voice was weak, and she squeezed me tighter against her chest. I kicked backward, my heel colliding with her knee, but Ivy didn’t buckle. “I know, Adora. I know you want to save her, but there’s nothing we can do.”
Dad didn’t move from the door. He didn’t drop his hands.
Fable’s eyes didn’t open.
Ivy didn’t let me go. She wouldn’t.
I shouted and fought, and she would not let me go.
The four of us did all these things, and it carried on like this until Mrs. Madder stopped screaming.
And when all was quiet, I turned quiet too.
But anger roared inside me, pulling tears until I found myself clenching my fists to keep them at bay. My fingernails sliced open the scabs, and blood was wet inside my palms, but I kept squeezing. My tears clung to my lashes. They never fell. They just hung there like jeweled ghosts.
“I’m so sorry, girls,” Dad chanted, coming from behind and stroking the back of my head. “I’m sorry it has to be like this. The Heathens should have never broken that damn curse.”
CHAPTER 7
STONE
age eighteen
Stockbridge, Massachusetts
Year of 1858
There wasno reason or need to complain or make Mother’s life any more troublesome than it was already. She had not deserved a son that was born cursed. Therefore, I had committed to being loyal like she had been loyal to me on the day we’d escaped the Adirondack Mountains.
Mother had survived my face after Bly took off my mask. She knew all too well what my curse was capable of and found safety before it had a chance to kill her. As for the rest, my parting gift was a graveyard full of dead bodies. Including Chayton, who did not deserve my wrath.
