The Scar-Crow Men

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO




JENNY IS STILL ALIVE.

Grace woke with a start. She was still caught up in her dreams, visions of shadowy figures, and a man with a shimmering head like the moon, and, oddly, her sister Jenny calling to her across a vast expanse of water. Jenny, whom she had not seen since she was a girl, but who still seemed as young and vibrant as the day she disappeared, though her eyes were filled with desperation, and, perhaps, fear.

It was a silly thought, she told herself. Just a dream. Nothing more.

And as that notion faded, she was struck by another. She felt a chill run through her entire body.

She was not alone.

Rigid with fear, the young woman lay on her back on her hard bed. A shaft of moonlight fell through the window across the linen sheet lying loosely over her white nightgown. The rest of her chamber was in deep shadow, but she was convinced someone sat on the stool next to her bed.

Grace could sense the presence looming over her, and smell a hint of musk, but more troubling to her, she discerned a faint, wet smacking in the stillness of the room. Fighting back the rising panic, she strained to hear.

Lips, she thought. The smacking of lips.

Someone was eating.

The young woman shuddered. Flee! the voices in her head screamed. Save yourself! Her heart thundered, but she stayed calm, telling herself that if she made a sudden move the intruder could kill her before she was halfway across the chamber.

With an almost imperceptible movement, Grace eased her trembling hand through the dark to the small stool on the other side of the bed where she had left her comb and looking glass. Her fingers closed on the cool silver handle of the mirror and she brought it back up steadily.

The wet smacking sound now seemed as loud to her as a tolling bell.

Behind her fear, the young woman felt sickened. What was it eating?

Grace thought of lashing out with the mirror and then escaping in the confusion, but her curiosity was getting the better of her. She had to see. With a smooth, gentle movement, she eased the looking glass into the moonbeam and tilted it so the milky light reflected across her bed.

Her chest tight with apprehension, the young woman snapped her head round to see what was caught in the glimmer.

In her plain, grey nightgown, Elinor, the Queen’s maid of honour, was hunched over like a bird of prey, talons curled. Her eyes were wide and white in the moonlight, her hair a wild, wispy mane.

Grace shrieked.

The older woman leapt to her feet, knocking over the stool, and lurched out of the chamber with the door banging behind her.

Sitting up in her bed, Grace covered her face and tried to calm her racing heart. She told herself Elinor must have been sleepwalking, although every sign had suggested the maid of honour was wide awake. But the younger woman was troubled most by what she had seen her friend doing in that brief flash.

A lock of Grace’s long, well-combed hair had been clamped between the maid of honour’s thin lips. She felt the end of the strand, still wet with saliva.

Elinor had been eating her hair.