Page 42

The trembling made my teeth chatter. I was hot and cold, craving stillness but shaking violently.

It all came out of me in shuddering heaves—bitter dark bile that took the muscles of my abdomen and wrung them out. Sounds left my throat that I didn’t know I could make. It had the old, earthy taste of the forest floor and the grit of sand, and it left in a fury, like it had taken up residence and was being evicted by tea.

I lost time inside it. There were stretches when I was sure I was going to die and moments when I thought I would live, and the two states alternated without me having any say in it. At some point, lying on my side, I pulled a towel from the rack and the rack came with it, landing with a thud against my head. I didn’t see stars this time. I saw a supernova that splintered me.

When there was nothing left in my stomach, I no longer knew where my pain and thoughts and sweat began or ended. The overhead light was so bright I cowered from it. I lay on the bathroom mat with my cheek against the tile and the towel over my eyes, and the cold surface was the only good thing in my life.

By the time I could lift my head, a watch I’d left by the sink said it was eleven forty-eight. I’d been there for almost three hours.

I crawled to the shower, turned it on, peeled off my pajamas and sat in it. It was cool. I needed it. I needed to feel something that wasn’t fear or bathroom tile or the inside of my own mouth.

I crawled to bed on my hands and knees with a head that felt too heavy for the rest of me. Even my eyeballs hurt. I slept naked, the covers up to my chin. Sleep pulled me under like a dumbbell around my neck.

I don’t know when the sleep paralysis came. Sometime before dawn, because the room was dark.

The figure was at the foot of my bed, black and feathery, and taller than the ceiling should have allowed. I couldn’t move. I was bolted still by muscles that refused to respond. I didn’t know if my eyes were open or closed, or in some middle state that was somehow both.

The thing—the tall black shape—wasn’t moving. It wasn’t breathing. But it was definitely watching me. It was thinking about me. Its hands were thinking about my neck.

I told myself it would be over soon. That my body would catch up to me. I dreamed I woke up to daylight, then realized that was just a dream, and that I still hadn’t escaped the shadow man standing over me. This happened so many times, I lost count. I’d never really been counting, in fact. I’d been hoping those hands, that seemed to be made of smoke, didn’t close around my neck.

And then my body came back to me. I sat up gasping. The figure was gone, and the room was mine again.

I fell back asleep, and the dream came almost immediately.

I was standing by the fire, the black sand of the cove in the distance, under moonlight that was much too bright, because there were three moons in the sky. The white dress was flitting around my legs, and the floral crown was on my head. My feet were bare.

A man was walking toward me. His tuxedo was wet, as if he’d walked right out of the surf. His steps were slow and deliberate, like he was at his own wedding. He was handsome, in a generic, forgettable way.

But then he was right in front of me, and a veil was in his hands. He lifted it over my face. It smelled like earth and salt and smoke and the bitter bile I’d exorcised from my own stomach. He smiled at me. His teeth were normal, at first.

But I didn’t want that veil over my face. I couldn’t breathe under it. I lifted my hands to wrestle it off my head, but my fingers were webbed into lace. I looked down. I couldn’t tell if it was cotton or seaweed.

He didn’t like that I’d fussed with the veil. When he frowned, his face turned the color of rotting meat and electric eels. His flesh fell away, and underneath, there were roots and sinews and tapeworms. His eyes went glossy black.

His mouth opened, much too wide. Wider than his face. Behind his rotting black teeth was an enormous, worm-riddled throat. It was filled with wildflowers, bird bones, and wedding rings.

He coughed, and the flowers fell in a torrent from his mouth, cascading over my dress. Then, in a final sputter, he coughed up a small collar with a little bell.

It gave a little tink, and I woke up.

Chapter Fourteen

When I got out of bed at seven, I’d already been awake for two hours. My body felt hollow.

The night before came back in hideous pieces. Between the meeting with Damian, the retching and writhing and the nightmare, it took me ten minutes over strong coffee and a slice of toast to stitch it together.

The realization that it had all really happened was bad. Really bad.

The fact that I now had to face Vivienne was worse.

Part of me wanted to pack a bag and run. But distance wouldn’t erase what Damian had told me the day before. The highway miles wouldn’t silence the sound of Bram’s bell, still ringing in my head. And they wouldn’t fix my frustrating, painful situationship, which, I admitted as I dumped my coffee mug in the sink, was upsetting me more than anything Aurora had done around that fire.

I made sure the shadow token was still in my purse with a paranoia that can only come from spending the night exorcising a demonic force from your intestines. It was still there.

I drove to Vivienne’s house watching the cars in my rearview mirror. I counted how many blocks they stayed behind me. At a traffic light, I gave myself a stern talking to.

You’re being ridiculous. Calm down.