The scream has left a mark on the air, clearer to me than any before it, as if the person’s grief has manifested into a visible trail.
I find myself turning, not in the direction of Boston, but toward New York City.
It isn’t the first time I’ve visited this city, but it’s the first instance where I’ve gone alone.
It’s also the first time a trail of pain has led me to Central Park.
I’m wary of how exposed my position will be once I descend from the cloud cover. There’s an increased chance of being seen by humans in this city. New York doesn’t seem to sleep—a fact that’s made more real by all of the nocturnal supernaturals who are out and about in the middle of this night.
Steering well clear of those beings, I use the trees as much as I can to cover my descent while I drop all the way to the ground.
The trail of pain draws me toward one of the statues that sits ahead of me next to the path I’ve landed on. The statue consists of a group of connected stone forms depicting a girl, a rabbit, and a small man wearing a top hat. They’re sitting on top of a large toadstool, which is currently dripping with liquid that smells like alcohol.
A woman stands beside the statue, her chest heaving and arms hanging loosely at her sides. She’s dressed in old pants and a threadbare shirt while her feet are bare like mine—certainly an unusual attribute.
She grips a half-empty bottle of whiskey in her right hand while another bottle lies on the ground at her feet, tipped on its side and too empty to leak.
The broken shards of what looks like a third bottle are scattered across the toadstool and the path near the woman’s feet.
Without acknowledging my approach, she gives another scream and throws the bottle she’s holding against the rabbit.
Glass shatters, and shards spray in all directions, joining the debris already littering the ground.
Her cry echoes in my ears, a nearly perfect match for the sound of rage that dragged me from my sleep.
It looks like she’s working her way through bottles of alcohol, smashing them one by one against the statue. I imagine she’ll pick up the one on the ground next.
I pause on the path, carefully considering how to proceed.
Until this moment, I was certain of the way forward, the same way I would approach every crime—identify the wrongdoer and bring them swiftly to justice.
But this woman…
She’s alone. Certainly isn’t threatening someone.
Oh, what to make of her?
Pain ripples out from her in agonizing waves, so strong that they reverberate within the air around me, the kind of grief that only a Fury can sense, particularly because thepoweralso emanating from this woman is intense.
She is far more than the picture of poverty she portrays, but…whatis she?
It’s unusual and slightly worrisome that I can’t tell what kind of supernatural she is.
All I know for sure is that she’s the first mystery I’ve encountered in the last eight months.
Tears drip from her eyes as she drops to her knees, seeming not to care about the broken glass even when she lands on a chunk of it.
Nor does she seem to care about my presence.
Her voice is a broken mumble. “I will never forgive myself.”
I approach her carefully, picking my way between the broken pieces of glass, studying her intensely. I’m not worried about cutting myself on them. My meandering path is giving me time to think. Trying to determine her supernatural status is like chasing an unraveling ball of string.
There are so many threads.
I sense the power of a witch along with the power of a dryad, but neither of those explains the sheer vastness of her power.
When I’m five steps away from reaching her, I inhale another scent. It’s charred and burning.Hellish.
