We drove through foggy tree-lined corridors, over a swift flowing black road, past postcard-perfect nineteenth-century bungalows. Only a few cars were out this morning, white beams of light that appeared suddenly, heralding the approach of another living being. Then the other car would pass and the dreamlike landscape would once again turn gothic, almost as if the entire village had slipped back in time. Once we were finally back inside the cabin everything was normal, raucous and chaotic and normal. Sam bounded from room to room, playing with Tucker, chasing a ball, stopping to drink from his bowl and then dashing off again. All was forgiven. The horrid muzzle had been taken off. Tucker laughed and tumbled and almost broke a lamp.
Just like it used to be.
Before.
I made lunch for Tucker, then paused beside my laptop, glancing at the papers on the desk. I stared at the splash-panel sketch of that creature in the woods. Could this be the same beast that had broken into the cabin last night? Whatever it was, it had never actually hurt me or the dog. Scared me witless, but that was all.
Could it be the same creature I had seen when I was a little girl?
I grabbed my iPhone and shot some photos of my sketches, then attached them in an e-mail to my agent. The description of the project was brief, just a hook and a few potential titles. Nightshade. Nightwing. They’d probably already been used, but it was a start. Then I took a closer look at the drawing. The trees weren’t right. Neither were the bushes or the undergrowth.
I glanced out the window.
It was almost one o’clock. The fog had thinned a bit and it didn’t look like rain or snow. I could hike down to the creek, take some photos of the surrounding woods, get a better idea of the setting, and still be back in time to make a late lunch for myself.
If I was really lucky, I might see that thing again.
Might even get a photo of it this time.
Chapter 23
River of Black Silk
Ash:
Down in the human world—where the seasons spin like an unending wheel—there, a car drove through the fog, headlights like glowing eyes. Tires crunched gravel, a door opened, then closed with a hollow metallic thud. It was like the sound of battle armor, chain mail and clanging swords, reviving violent ghosts of the distant past.
They were home. Maddie and her boy and their dog.
There had been no rabies. No dangerous strain of wild venom flowed through my daughter’s veins. I knew that already, had made Driscoll search for the papers before the moon finished her journey. Elspeth was safe.
For now.
My daughter lay curled on her side, wounded arm propped on a pillow. Her Darkling skin faded while she slept and all of her features turned human: pink flesh, dark lashes, lips the color of poppies, hair like a river of black silk. Right now she looked almost exactly like her mother—a human that I should have avoided. Instead, I had given in to my hunger and drunk so deeply of her dreams that no one else had been able to satisfy me.
And now, because of my transgression, I wondered what would happen to Elspeth. What Darkling or human would ever love or care for her, bewitching creature caught between two worlds—
Bewitching me even now. Making me forget how much I despised humans.
“How is she?” Sage landed with a gentle thump on the widow’s walk, then stood in the doorway to my room.
“Sleeping,” I answered, as if it were a horrid thing. “Why didn’t you tell me that she sleeps?”
Sage moved closer, her long dress whispering. “You wanted me to tell you what you already knew? That your daughter is half human?” Silver eyes glimmered, stared through me.
“Why didn’t you teach her to hunt?”
“We did.” She crossed the short distance to the bed, feet not touching the ground. A detail she forgot about from time to time.
“She didn’t mask her scent,” I said. “She could have been killed—”
“But she wasn’t. You were there to save her, to teach her. It’s time, brother.”
“No.”
“Elspeth is different from us. Her bones are heavier than ours.” Sage knelt beside the bed, ran a gentle hand over my daughter’s hair. “She can only fly for short distances and then she has to rest. Sienna and I took turns carrying her on the flight here. She’s not strong enough to return. This must be her home now.”
“I told you. The humans—they won’t accept her.”
“They’ve accepted you, my love.”
“It’s not the same.” I turned my back on her, brooding, remembering, wishing I could change everything.
“The humans haven’t accepted me,” I confessed then as I watched another car make its slow approach through streets drenched in cloud.
“They fear me. To them, I am a beast.”
Chapter 24
The Land of Nightmares