My name, written in blood, chains me in place.
The wind picks up—cold and brutal. It slaps my face with dampening locks of hair and tugs at the shirt in my hands like the insistent ploys of a ghostly toddler. When the downpour of cold rain hits—drenching all the way to my scalp and through my clothes—I still can’t move. Not until I see the white rose petals cleansed, the red script smearing into streams, the words erasing, yet leaving me nauseous in their absence . . . violated and confused.
Lightning breaks—dangerous veins of electricity ripping the sky. In the forest, a tree sparks with glowing embers, its branches shorted-out circuits falling to the ground. Three seconds later, thunder shakes all around me.
The storm is too close. I need to find cover, and the academy is all the way across the footbridge and on the other side of the garden.
My only option is the chapel. I scoop up my bloody shirt and the white roses, because I’m convinced they’re a stage prop with a mechanism in their stems that pumps out red ink through the petals, like we once used in a play during my sophomore year. As I lift them, I realize that each petal’s edge is fringed with deep red to form a duotone bouquet. Even when I scrape the edges, the contrast remains. It’s the natural color scheme. I once saw roses like this at a plant nursery in Texas. They’re called Fire and Ice. I must have been too panicked earlier to notice their uniqueness.
After placing them atop my uniforms in the tub, I slosh through shallow puddles and mud-slicked moss toward the ominous building.
The sky darkens to a bruise that resembles evening more than noon. Intermittent bursts of lightning shift the landscape around me—fractured images of decaying gravestones, a sagging garden, and blowing leaves. I clamber up the crumbled steps to the chapel. My gloved fingers reach for the door, then jerk back as the serpent-shaped latch seems to slither and writhe away from my hand. I struggle to catch my breath.
It’s made of tarnished brass . . . it just appeared to move because of the crawling shadows generated by the lightning.
My attempts at logic are the only thing keeping my courage afloat. I can’t let myself consider that underneath the howling wind and scraping leaves, I heard a hiss when the sky lit and the latch moved; or that even with a mechanism inside their stems, how could the roses manage to bleed a legible rendering of my name?
My heart pounds in my chest, competing with the thunder, as I study the latch. Having spent time with my dad outdoors, I have no phobia of rodents, reptiles, or insects. What’s freaking me out is the fact that metal shouldn’t move like a living thing. Gnawing on my lower lip, I grip the brass serpent to open the door. The rusty, wet hinges give slowly, like old bones, creaking and grinding as I force them open. I thrust the stainless-steel tub inside. It hits the floor with a metallic clang, prompting another hiss like the one I heard earlier.
A dangerous scatter of lighting forces my feet forward. The wind shuts the door behind me. I inhale, acutely aware of the stifling darkness.
Shoulder blades pressed to the wooden frame, I stand in place—the black surroundings heavy as a blanket on my head. The sounds outside dull to near silence: muted raindrops and muffled wind. My clothes drip onto the stone floor in a disturbing rhythm.
The scent of dank stone, wet roses, and dust permeates my nostrils. Lightning blinks through the jagged stained-glass windows, painting prisms of color along the walls. Something shuffles in the shadows, and a jingle follows—like the tiniest bell.
Gooseflesh spreads over me again. I scoot away from the door-frame, flush to the wall, until the sensation of vines weaving in and out of the stone juts through my sweater between my shoulder blades.
“Hello?” I attempt, my voice a shrill echo.
The jingling erupts again, then stops just as fast, as if it’s driven by movement.
“Who’s there?” I shout this time.
I regain enough presence of mind to search for the book light clipped to my sweater. The gloves make my fingers stiff, so I peel them off to flip on the dime-size bulb. I rotate the long, skinny neck so it casts a spindle of light twelve inches in front of me. My eyes begin to adjust. The room takes on a dusky haze, everything blurred to indiscernible outlines beneath the beam at my lapel.
I’m about to brave walking around when something attacks my feet. Yelping, I snag my fingers in some ivy on the wall to stay upright. A vine slices the inner bend of a knuckle, prompting a sting tantamount to a paper cut. I pop my finger in my mouth to ease the throb, tasting blood, but I’m unable to think beyond whatever is still wrapped around my ankles. Every muscle tensed, I jerk my left leg and nudge it loose.