Bitterbloom.
Their white petals velvet soft, yellow centers like an egg drop. They were Mother’s favorite. But they shouldn’t be blooming. Not now, with winter so near at hand.
“Please, Adelaide.” Clara reaches toward me. “You are so missed. Hester, Liza, Finn…we would all love to see you.”
The names are knife blades in my back. Hester Samuels, the mayor’s daughter. Liza Thatcher, the woman who stole Clara’s heart when we were all of thirteen. And Finn Adler, the blacksmith’s apprentice who, until only days ago, was promised to wed Lilith Corley in the spring.
“They do not wish to see me,” I say, ashamed of the pity the words seem to seek before they even leave my mouth.
“Of course they do! Many of us wish to see you, Adelaide.” Clara takes a step closer. “You do not deserve to be locked away like you are. You’re no longer a child.”
I grit my teeth. While I may no longer be a child, I am still tethered to this patch of earth. Still searching for the one thing that might cure whatever makes me ill. Which might compel me to be right and whole again.
The love of the only parent I have left.
I turn to the line of rowan trees on the far side of the graveyard, intent on establishing that I am done speaking. Somewhere behind the clouds, the sun tips above the silver-barked wood. Mist claws at my back, drips idly down my cheeks.
“Adelaide.” Clara’s voice trills, but my eyes stay focused on the shifting trees, the shadows undulating between the trunks. “Addie, there is something I wish to tell you, something I—”
But her words are swallowed by the drumming of my own heartbeat in my ears. It comes on swift, rocking me backward, sending me crashing to my knees in the mire. Clara is by my side at once, but it is no use.
The monster has come.
Pain breaks out along my skin, a roaring forest fire of sparks. It shoots through me, peeling my mouth open in a scream, piercing the mist around us.
“How can I help you?” Clara shakes my shoulders. “Addie, you’re scaring me!”
Bones near breaking, I lift my gaze to the tree line. The sight laid bare before me chills my blood.
White smoke billows out from between the trunks, morphing in ways my mind can barely comprehend. My body seizes, and I drop to my side. The mud slips cold against my arm, soaking in through my bodice.
Clara is screaming, but I can no longer make sense of her words. The smoke draws closer.
Agony rips through my body. I reel to my back, arching against the pain. My arms curl like fern fronds at my side. I gasp for air, and my muscles wrench with a curdling scream.
I am going to die.
The smoke ebbs and flows, drawn to my screams, which only grow louder. Torment floods my body. My heart stops in my chest, pitches against its cage of bones, beats again. Hard. Like it’s made of iron.
There are voices in the mist somewhere above. Only fractions of sound while the smoke advances and the scent of sulfur assaults my senses.
Clara is calling for help. The ground shakes with the rush of running feet.
No. They cannot see me like this.
I try to rise but find my legs utterly spent, and I crash against Clara, screaming.Alwaysscreaming.
The smoke is so near now. So hungry. I do not know what will happen if it touches my body, but something tells me I would sooner taste death than know what it is feels like to be caressed by my monsters.
I scramble backward, mud and bitterbloom petals grinding into my palms. More hands are at my shoulders, and I release another scream.
“Do not touch me!”
Please, gods above and below,do not touch me. I cannot hurt anyone else. The fear rips down my sternum, making me sick all over again. I cannot be the one killing these girls. The edges of my vision feather black while the smoke coalesces before my eyes. Reaches, reaches…
Adelaide.
My name, whispered by a voice human but not. I look around, yet the features of the villagers’ blur together. Clara becoming Liza becoming Hester becoming a hundred people whose names I forgot long ago.
