She bit her fist and cried, her tears wetting the soil as she curled up in a ball around the sword she had never deserved. Perhaps she was already dead and this was her hell—to watch her family die around her.
Then, from deep below, something began to claw its way up through the dirt.
Chapter Thirty-One
Lee
Lee’s bloody hands pried at the closet door, but Sen had blocked it with the dresser, and he was too dizzy from blood loss to move it.
“No!” Lee screamed, slamming his good fist against the door, bloody handprints streaked across the wood. “Sen!”
The police sirens wailed again, their lights blaring through the windows. His father had almost managed to open the door, having punched through the paper to undo the lock from the outside.
Sen is dead, Lee thought.No, worse than dead—gone.Of course, she always had been dead. But he’d seen her for what was probably the last time—he was going to jail and would never return to this house, even if Sen’s ghost did.
He shivered uncontrollably from lost blood, his pulse racing in his ears. Before his father could find him, he hurried out the back door. He tried to step off the porch but fell instead to his knees in the dirt, the impact jolting his bones. He could barely feel his limbs anymore, but he managed to drag himself underneath the porch, into the cool darkness that Sen had shown him on the day she killed the spy.
This is where I will die, he thought, lying corpse-still in the dirt.Here, on the same day as Sen, in another world.He didn’t know if the blood loss was enough to kill him, but he prayed it would. He tasted earth and salt and death on his lips, heaving out a breath that he hoped was his last.
A cold hand slammed over his mouth.
Lee’s body felt very far away, so he could hardly stir as the fingers pressed hard to his face. The hand smelled of rot, the flesh spongy and moist against his lips. Lee gagged into it, but the hand only pressed down harder. His heart raced, but he was too weak to move, could only remain trapped in this coffin beneath the house.
Another hand gripped his shoulder, forcing him onto his back.
His mother.
Jagged lines sliced across her white face, like she was a puzzle piece someone had haphazardly put back together. Her curly hair was matted with blood, one of her eyes shadowed with a violet bruise.
For so long, Lee had wanted to see his mother again, no matter how broken she was. But now, with his body numb from shock, he could only stare up at her and struggle to breathe. There was so much he wished he could say, but he could no longer feel his lips.
His mother whispered a single word, and though Lee didn’t hear a sound, he felt it deep within his bones.
Dig.
Then the hand pulled back, and his mother was gone. Lee was lying alone beneath the porch as footsteps thundered above him.
Come back, he thought, but the word never reached his lips. Still, if this was what his mother wanted, he would trust her.
He sank one hand tentatively into the dirt. It parted for him, so soft and cool against his skin that for a moment, all the painin his left hand evaporated. The dirt gave way easily beneath his touch, like it wanted him to unveil its secrets. He dug faster and faster, and soon the hole seemed to yawn wider on its own, swallowing him in soil.
Where is James Baldridge?he thought.
He dug, and dug, and dug.
With his next handful of dirt, the soil suddenly grew wet. He scooped up a handful of cool water, then another, then another. He was no longer digging through dry dirt, but wading through mud.
I heard that a river was diverted deep under this land, Hina had said.A narrow stream that leads to the sea.
A world away, in a different time, Sen heard something scratching at the earth beneath her. Like a stray animal pawing at the back door, the sound came again and again and again, relentless, desperate.
Warmth began to bloom in the dirt. The soil softened beneath her, hugging her bones.
She should have felt scared. But instead, all the death and blood and pain just beyond the porch felt a thousand miles away. She had only ever felt this way around one person.
Lee, she thought, pressing her palm against the dirt. She grabbed a handful and it parted easily for her, the hole gaping wider. The soil grew wet, water rising up around her, holding her tight like the arms of the sea.
Soon, both Lee and Sen were floating in brine, the real world a distant sky overhead.
