She flinched.
That was why he’d made her get the wine bottle, she realized belatedly. It was a cover, like the blustering anger—or the superficial charm. In his twisted, self-serving way, he’d been trying to help her. How nice of him to inform her of that before sending her back down the staircase in the dark alone, to the place where her sister was buried.
(you won’t get a better ally than me in this house)
God, she was so fucked.
“What should I do with this?” she asked weakly, holding up the dusty bottle of Riesling. Focusing on the one problem that would be easy to resolve rather than the thousands that wouldn’t.
“I suggest you enjoy it.”
His voice was cold and distant—nearly angry. She set the bottle down on the floor as he left, ducking beneath the tapestry to return to his own room. She watched him go, disconsolate. She had been going to ask for her phone back but his change of temper had changed her mind.
I should have asked for his help with the laces, she thought, reaching for them. He had tied them rather tightly and it took quite a while for her to reach them and then work the knots loose.
She took another one of those awful, ice-cold baths and then brushed her teeth by candlelight and then crawled into the bed that still smelled like sex and cedar. Breathing in the scent of what they had done, Nadine stared at the window.
She had failed Noelle already. And now, she was failing herself.
???????
“Your blood will water the hellebore and your flesh will mortar these walls.”
The house was made of bones. The wallpaper was flesh. Everywhere she walked, the soles of her feet were sticky with blood and ash. It was a house full of ravens, but the ravens had teeth, and when one of them snapped at her, she saw the shape of an eye rolling down its gullet like a pearl.
(Sometimes they turn on each other)
“No,” she whimpered.
“If you can’t fly like a sparrow, you will cook like a deer.”
“No.” She backed from the heat. “I’m not a deer.Noe.”
Her backside hit something hard and she screamed, bucking when a hand clamped over her mouth.No, no, no, she cried, mouth working. No longer sure if it was her sister’s name she was saying or a stark denial of her terror. “No,” she sobbed. “Please.”
“Go back to sleep.” The voice at her ear was familiar and despised, but she was almost relieved to hear it now. He took his hand from her mouth and smoothed it gently over her the front of her shirt. “It’s just a dream, little sparrow.”
Just a dream.
“Just a dream,” he repeated. “Daddy’s here.”
She tensed when his hand smoothed down over where her shirt ended at her bare thighs. “I hate you,” she whispered, even as she felt a burst of warmth between her legs.
He paused. “That doesn’t matter,” he said at last. “Sleep, my sparrow. Sleep with me.”
You watch me sleep?The words fell from her lips on a whisper, and she wasn’t sure if he heard, although she felt his fingers stroke higher, in a way that felt painfully familiar.
“No,” she said again, shifting against him; but he pressed harder and kissed her, making her hips lift unconsciously as an entirely different kind of protest left her mouth.
With a troubled sigh, she closed her eyes and sank back against what felt like a man’s chest in the darkness. His hand dragged over her cheek, tracing the shape of her parted lips.
“Good girl.”
???????
It was terrible, Nadine thought, how excited the Cullravens were for the festival. The energy burning through them—it was almost sexual. Those townspeople out there had no idea.
The road was cleared now, which she found out only because she had overheard Nathaniel discussing the import of the real deer with the game wardens on the phone. Before abruptly veering in the opposite direction, remembering Cal’s warning, she heard him say, “The roads are plenty safe now; they’ve all been cleared.”
