A cryptid born into this world would need every weapon and advantage it could get, in order to survive. And the longer my pregnancy lasted, the less convinced I became that I would see my child grow up.
Claudio and Genni were a rare and fortunate exception to the rule that Zy and her children exemplified. Which meant that the odds were not good for my baby and me once she came out to greet the world.
“You should lie down.” Gallagher’s voice was a rumble from the shadows on the other side of the kitchen. I hadn’t even realized he was there. “For the baby, if not for yourself. There’s nothing you, or any of us, can do for him.”
“Yes, there is.” I drained my mug and set it in the sink. “We can sit with him. We can be with him—be hereforhim—for as long as he has left.”
Gallagher blinked at me, seeming to consider. Then he nodded. “I’ll get you a chair.”
My redcap warrior carried two of the kitchen chairs into the living room and set them near the couch. Miri and Lenore each followed with two more, and we formed a semicircle around the sofa, some of us in chairs, some—like Genni, in wolf form—curled up on the floor. We didn’t say much. Rommily mostly sobbed quietly and stroked Eryx’s muzzle while Lala sniffled next to her.
The minotaur’s eyes were closed, and if not for the flinch with every breath he took, I might have thought he was asleep. But the pain wouldn’t allow him even that mercy.
Then, in the middle of the night, he opened his eyes, and though they were filled with agony, they were entirely lucid. He gripped the back of the couch in his huge hand, and when it became clear that he was trying to sit up, Gallagher stood to help him.
Eryx snorted, an expression he often used to punctuate statements he agreed with. But this time, the sound had a ring of imperative to it. Of request.
“What’s wrong?” Gallagher said with one hand on his friend’s shoulder. “What do you need?”
The minotaur tried to stand, and fresh blood soaked through his bandages. Rather than let him hurt himself further, Gallagher helped him up.
“Where are we going?” Claudio asked, sliding under Eryx’s other arm to help support his weight. “What do you need? Water?”
Eryx shook his head, and even that small movement seemed to compromise his balance. Then he shuffled one step forward. Toward the front door.
Mirela and I seemed to come to the same conclusion. Her eyes fell closed. Mine watered. Gallagher’s jaw clenched, and I realized he understood, as well.
Eryx knew that if he died on the couch, we’d never get him out of the cabin.
“You don’t have to do this.” Claudio’s voice was little more than a whisper as the minotaur continued toward the front door with his help. “Why don’t you lie down?”
Eryx snorted. And took another step.
It took several minutes for him to shuffle his way through the door and down the steps, with help from Gallagher and Claudio. From there, he headed for the nearest tree, where they helped him sit with his broad back against the trunk.
In the light spilling from the front door of the cabin, the minotaur’s skin was slick with sweat. Blood still seeped from his bandaged wound. His eyes were both yellow and bloodshot. And I suspected he was burning up with a fever. Heedless of all that, Rommily sat next to him on the ground, curled up with her legs tucked beneath her and her head on his chest, careful not to touch his stomach. He lifted his arm to wrap it around her, then he rested his huge bovine muzzle on the top of her head.
Sensing that the end was near, we gathered around the tree. Miri and Lala held each other, with Genni whining at their feet, her tail twitching miserably in a bed of dead leaves. Zyanya wrapped one arm around my back. Lenore pressed close on my other side, and the three of us—sisters in fugitive status for nearly a year—watched as Eryx took a shallow breath, his exhalation stirring Rommily’s hair.
Then, as the oracle sobbed on his chest, the mighty minotaur took his last breath.
June 1991
Aspider crawled across Rebecca Essig’s left shin. Squealing, she jumped up from the bare concrete floor and flicked the bug off, then used a tiny loafer from the box of shoes to smash it.
Two hours. Seven spiders. No little purple dress.
With a sigh, she tossed the shoe back into the box. It was half of a pair that had belonged to her brother, John, when he was eight or nine years old, and like all the other shoes in the box, her mother had refused to throw it out or give it away because he’d worn it in his birthday portrait.
In most matters, Natalie Essig—at least the woman she’d been before a monster had turned her into a murderer—bowed to logic and reason. But sentimentality ruled in the venue of childhood clothing. Every fall when the Essig kids got new school clothes, Natalie had sorted the previous year’s clothing into categories including throw away, give away, hand-me-down or keep. The “keep” box held clothes her kids had worn during important events, like the taking of a toddler’s first steps and the loss of a first tooth. And any outfit worn in an important or a professionally taken photograph.
Rebecca and her father had agreed that Natalie’s nostalgia ran amok in that particular department, but Laura had loved looking through the old clothes and mentally pairing them with pictures on display all over the house. That was what Rebecca chose to remember as she went through box after box, in search of the little purple dress.
After the FBI had explained that Rebecca’s only surviving sibling was actually a surrogate, Grandma Janice had given away all of Erica’s toys. She’d burned all of Erica’s clothes in a barrel in the driveway, where the entire neighborhood could see. And she’d destroyed every picture of Erica that didn’t also contain other members of the family.
The only exceptions to the surrogate purge were the clothes in the “keep” boxes, and Grandma Janice had only kept those because most of them were hand-me-downs that Laura and Rebecca had also worn. Including the little purple dress.
Rebecca had worn the dress on her first day of first grade, in 1978. Four years later, Laura had worn the dress on her first day of first grade, in 1982. And four years after that, the surrogate masquerading as Erica had worn the little purple dress on her first day of school in 1986. Just thirteen days before she’d somehow made Natalie and William Essig murder their own son and daughter.
