A knife.
Rayburn slammed the rubber end of his cane against my shoulder, pinning me to the floor. I tried to kick at his knobbed knees, to take the old geezer down with me, but it was like the rest of my body wasn’t listening to my brain. Grandmother’s tight face was swimming in front of mine. A look of total disgust, worse than what she normally wore when she looked at me, slipped into place. She took the knife in her hand.
No! a voice bellowed in my ears. Not this night, nor any other!
A ferocious wind came ripping down through the open door at the top of the stairs. It threw a shrieking Aunt Claudia halfway down the stone steps and devoured every candle flame. We were in darkness.
Everyone was screaming now. Feet pounded the ground in rolls of thunder, making the floor shiver and moan. Something wicked sharp drew across my left arm, just below my elbow, and I let out a scream of pain that sent the dogs upstairs into a howling rage. Agony filled the wound like hot wax, burning my skin, my veins, my bone.
There was this explosion of movement over my head. The reeking smell of sweat and pine flooded my nose, just as a blur of white went flying two inches from my face. The collision sent Rayburn and Grandmother down into a knot of wrinkled old limbs.
I kicked my feet out, using them to roll away. The knife skittered off, clattering against the tile. I stretched an arm out, reaching for it to fend off the other monsters, when a pale hand darted down to pick it up.
In the dark, I couldn’t really see the stranger’s face. I only recognized him from his stink, and the way his oversize white shirt puffed out around him like a dandelion. The heat came off him like an overworked lamp. I pushed myself up onto my hands and knees to crawl away—because it’s one thing when it’s your family that’s trying to put you six feet under, but I wasn’t about to let a stranger gut me. Not when I needed to find Prue.
Instead of the stab of burning metal I expected to feel through my spine, two hands came down to grip the back of my uniform blazer. That was the only warning I got. Next thing I knew, I had been tossed over the stranger’s shoulder like a sack of rice.
“You okay, kid?” The words made the man’s narrow shoulders vibrate. I couldn’t speak and the guy couldn’t see me nod, but the fact that I was breathing seemed to be enough for him.
The smoke detector and sprinklers switched on at once, turning panicked yells into gasps at the sudden attack of frigid water.
“You!” Grandmother yelled through the hiss of the sprinkler. I couldn’t see her face, only the family members stupid enough to still be standing around on the stairs, staring. I didn’t see her at all, not until the man turned back toward the stairs and began to run.
Rayburn was knocked out. Grandmother struggled to shove his weight off her. Every hair on her head was standing straight up. The water had stopped, but the hissing hadn’t. And I didn’t understand why, until I looked down.
I was losing it. My brain had up and left the joint. It must have, because I was literally smoking. The water on my clothes evaporated, rising up from my skin and jacket in white steam. It was like someone had cranked up the temperature to a thousand degrees. I was breathing in gulp after deep gulp of air that smelled like cooked meat, smoke, and rotten eggs.
Flee, the same prim voice rang out in my mind. Flee, Maggot. I will aid thee this once.
I think the stranger must have heard this—he had to have—because he launched himself forward at cannonball speed. Several hands reached out only to scream as soon as they touched me. Their palms were blistered, as if I’d burnt them.
By the time we reached the top of the stairs, the smoke in the dungeon hid most of the wreckage. Faces floated into sight, only to be swallowed again by drifting gray swirls of it. The very last thing I saw before the emergency lights cut back out was my grandmother, fighting to get to her feet on broken high heels, her white dress nearly black with soot and filth.
“Do not take that child!” she screamed.
The buzzing strength seemed to go out of me with the next deep breath I took. All of a sudden it was impossible to keep my eyes open. They felt so heavy….I felt so heavy.
Wake up, I commanded myself. WAKE UP! The stranger’s grip on the back of my knees went tight as he kicked a door open. My lungs flooded with cold, clean air, and my eyes stung with tears. I needed to find Prue, I couldn’t leave without Prue—
No. The voice was echoing and sleek all at once. Definitely not older than me, even though his vowels all curled and rolled in a strange way.
No, the voice continued. Now we shall rest.
And it wasn’t like I had a choice about it. The words boiled up between my ears, locked inside my throbbing skull, and I dropped into a deep, dark sleep.
The enormous black cat, a panther, paced toward me, each claw ticking against the ground. Awaken the singing bone, awaken the singing bone, it purred into the darkness, tail curling like a question mark. Green eyes tracked me, but I couldn’t move, couldn’t so much as flinch. It felt like I was caught in someone’s damp fist, and it squeezed tighter each time I took a breath. And then the cat did something I didn’t expect, something it never had before: the light inside the creature’s eyes flared to a vivid, molten green.
And then it fled.
What is the singing bone? I tried shouting, but my mouth felt like it had been sewn shut. I couldn’t move. Just tell me….Just tell me…just—let—me—wake up!
WAKE. UP.
The words bellowed through me, bouncing off my brain and shooting awareness through me. My left arm felt like it was covered in open sores, and moving it a little—waking the sleeping limb back up—made me taste puke. I kept my eyes squeezed shut, trying to take in one deep breath after another, but the scratchy blankets were wrapped too tight around me. I kicked them off, twisting to get away from the smothering heat.
The breeze coming through the window was blissfully cool and dry, carrying a hint of smoke from a nearby fireplace. Mom must have been baking a pie downstairs again, because cinnamon mingled with a hint of lavender, spicing the air. Somewhere nearby, kids were laughing, the wheels of their passing bicycles crunching a path through fallen leaves. A dog barked after them, but was drowned out by the sound of a passing car.
I breathed out a sigh as I turned over onto my stomach, pressing my face into the pillow. The knot my stomach had tied itself into finally released.
I was home.
Safe.
Okay.
It had been the nightmare to end all nightmares. But it had only been a nightmare.
And then, I opened my eyes.
And stared into the perfectly round, enormous yellow eyes of a black ball of fluff.
“What,” I wheezed out, “the crap?”