They’re not real.She clenched her fists until her nails dug into her palms.It’s the forest’s trickery.
The gig paused, but Elspeth made no move to unstick it. She shrank into the mule’s side, eyes squeezed shut.
Breathing deep, Charlotte climbed down with the cloak tight around her and her cane in hand. The voices whispered in her head.
You can’t save us. Why did you let me drown? You’ll never find me. You should’ve saved them.
Clenching her jaw, she touched Elspeth’s shoulder. Elspeth jumped.
“Elspeth?”
Elspeth shook her head.
“Not real,” she muttered. “Not real, not real, not real.”
“No,” Charlotte agreed. “No, they’re not real. Come, now.”
She’d never seen Elspeth like this. Even when mummified fingers had been dragging her into the mud, Elspeth had been sarcastic. Realizing she had the sickness had made her uneasy, but she’d gone about her business anyway. Now she pressed against the mule like she hoped to melt into him. At the back of the gig, the horse whinnied.
“Elspeth.”
Charlotte gripped her shoulder, but Elspeth shrank away. Charlotte let go.
Voices crowded her head. She barely heard herself when she spoke, but she fought to keep her tone calm and gentle.
“Elspeth, it’s all right. It’s me. I’m here.”
Elspeth eyed her warily. “Are you—are you real?”
“Of course I’m real,” Charlotte snapped.
You should’ve savedthem,the voices taunted her.You can’t save them.
Faces melted in and out of trunks, but Charlotte focused on Elspeth. Elspeth who was flesh and blood, Elspeth who annoyedher, Elspeth who had plenty reason not to like her but looked after her anyway.
Charlotte touched her back. “Of course I’m real. You feel that, don’t you?”
Elspeth swallowed but nodded.
“I don’t know what you’re hearing,” Charlotte said, “or what you’re seeing, but it’s the forest playing tricks on us. That’s all. That’s not real. I’m real, Elspeth.”
John’s face appeared in a nearby tree. Charlotte’s heart stuttered. The long lashes, the high cheekbones, the chin and nose like Sasha’s—
You left our children,he said mournfully, and he faded away.
Charlotte squeezed her eyes shut, her grip tightening on her cane.In for four, hold for four, out for four.
“It’s not real,” she repeated irritably. “It’s a trick. Of course it’s not real.”
Elspeth’s fingers curled around hers. “You’re real.”
Charlotte let out a breath, forced her eyes open. “That’s right. Come on, now. Let’s take a step forward, all right? That’s it. Now another one. And once more.”
A step at a time, she walked Elspeth through the trees. Elspeth kept one hand clenched tight on hers and the other on the mule’s bridle. The mule snorted but, to Charlotte’s relief, neither he nor the horse seemed subject to the same trickery as the women. Voices sounded in Charlotte’s head, but focusing on her own voice—“Next step, that’s right, now another”—and helping Elspeth dampened them. Whenever another face appeared before her—Sasha, Jonas, Arthur, her mother, her father, her husband, a patient she had failed to save—she squeezed her eyes shut, tightened her grip on Elspeth’s hand, breathedin hold out,and snapped, “It’s not real.”
The spot over her left eye jabbed her, threatening a migraine, but she gritted her teeth and squeezed Elspeth’s handand limped onward. Her joints ached with the coming storm. Normally, Charlotte ignored her pain, until she couldn’t; now, she focused on that, too, because the pain at least was real.
Through the trees, she glimpsed indistinct whiteness. She sucked in a breath, hoping it wasn’t some new danger.
