20 – 5
Jeremiah Morrow is a man in pieces, shattered beyond repair by the point of a crossbow bolt; a monument to the endless devastation of grief and the lengths gone to escape it. His efforts took a kindly, laconic barkeep and put a bitter, vulgar drunkard in his place. Mine took a proud, dutiful daughter of her people and replaced her with me.
He saw this. He understood it. He must have; why else would he let me in? Why else would he ignore the bared knife in my hand and the crescent-moon cuts scabbing on my face? There is no other answer.
Which is why him saying, “Let's get y' cleaned up,” comes as such a surprise.
I stare at him.
He yawns. Sways a little. “You're cut t' shit,” he swats the air near the side of his face, “don' wanna get all infected.”
He was supposed to hand over the spade, let me leave without another word. “But –”
“Spade c'n wait,” he grumbles, turning away. He stumps towards the kitchen. “Whatever th' hell y' need it for c'n wait, too. C'mon.”
He wasn't supposed to care. I'm shocked enough to follow him for a few steps before sense reasserts itself. “It really can't.”
He stops, filling the open frame leading to the kitchen. Points a bloodshot eye over a broad shoulder. It looks me over, from crescent-cuts to blood-stained blade. “What'd you do?”
I grip the knife so tightly that it hurts, pain keening up from my swollen, bruise-purple finger. I don't understand; why is he caring? “It's not – ”
“Not my business?” He turns. Looms. “Maybe not, but it's – my – damned spade, so if you wanna borrow it,” Shrugs, “that's m'price.”
Why?
It sits on the tip of my tongue, bitterly mixed with the remnant taste of vomit. I cage it behind my teeth and give my assent with a sullen nod. His beard, grown wild and unkempt, twitches. He turns again, disappears into the near-pitch darkness of the kitchen. I can only see a faint outline of his form as he moves within it, followed by the shuffle-scrape of dragging feet and the snap-strike of a match.
Then, light; an orange bloom wavering in the pinched hold of large, trembling fingers. The fire dips into a lantern's oil-soaked wick, igniting it. The kitchen's darkness is pushed back, driven into its furthest corners, to reveal a mess of empty bottles. We're surrounded by them, each one reflecting the light of the lantern like a sodden, saddened star. He hasn't been trying to escape the devastation of grief, I realize.
He's been trying, and failing, to drown it.
“Oh,” it leaves me in a little breath, drawing his attention. Shame colors and twists his face.
“Not had much chance t' clean up,” he sweeps a near-dozen bottles from the table into his arms and jerks his chin at the chair, “Siddown, I'll be righ' back.” Then he flees.
I set down the knife before myself, forcing my fingers to release the hilt one-by-one. I'll have to clean it, find a whetstone for its keen edge. I should check the Windrunner's corpse before I bury it. I should take the sheath, too.
There's a distant splash of water and the slap of a wet rag falling to the ground. A muffled curse follows.
Trace the flat of the blade with my swollen, bruise-purple finger. The crust of dried blood flakes and breaks beneath my fingertip. It had been easy, hadn't it? Five wounds and done with, so much easier than everything else.
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My hands are shaking. I am shaking. I can't stop, no matter how hard I curl up against it. Press my brow to my knees and breathe, as deep and slow as I can. Jeremiah's return is heralded by the slosh of water and the shuffle-scrape of dragging feet. He sets something down on the table in front of me, what must be a filled bucket beside me. I smell soap.
“Here y'go.”
I lift my head. Open my eyes. It's a mirror, a small oval of shine-polished brass held upright by little clawed feet at its base. In the corner of my eye I see the bucket, the washrag, and the bar of soap bobbing within it. Jeremiah leans against the counter, but most of my attention is taken by the girl I see in the mirror; a girl I don't recognize as me.
- - -
Her eyes are dull and listless, shot through with reddened veins. An angry red crescent-cut scabs beneath, a comet with a tail of sweat, dirt, and blood that streaks across the bridge of her narrow nose. Snot crusts at a beak-like tip that looms over a mouth formed from pale, wormy lips. She touches the vomit dried in the corner with a finger stained from nail to knuckle with dried, flaking blood. I taste sour and iron when I touch that same spot with my tongue. The lantern's light washes out what little color remains in her sallow skin. The Windrunner's bruise stands out all the more because of it, a dark sprawl across a long, horse-like face.
This girl isn't me, yet she is. We blink together, her and I. Our chests rise and fall with the same breath. Our faces tighten with the same wince as a wet, rough-spun rag, lathered with soap, is dragged over hours-old cuts. I'm not her, yet she is me.
The rag comes away filthy, of course. I dip it into the bucket and wring it out, brown-flecked water spilling lukewarm over my hands. I blink, and the water is not flecked with brown. It's not water at all, but red, hot and viscous.
I blink again. The rag falls from limp fingers into the bucket. The splash-and-plop draws Jeremiah's attention. “Y' alright, there?”
Nausea swirls in my belly, rising bile up my throat. I seal my jaw against it, make a wall of tongue, teeth, and pale, wormy lips. Breathe harshly through my narrow beak of a nose. Shake my head.
He grunts. “Puke if y' gotta, jus'...do it in th' bucket, alrigh'?”
I shake my head again. Sweat breaks out across my brow. I won't be puking in the bucket. I won't be puking at all. One harsh breath after another until the nausea recedes, until I can take up the rag once more without my hands shaking. I return to my task, done only so I can get that damned spade in return.
I can feel Jeremiah's regard; see it, in the corner of my eye. He might be a drunk now, he might be drunk now, but he's no fool. “Who was it?”
Quite against my will, my hand spasms, dragging the scab from one the crescent-cuts behind my jaw. I hold the rag to the fresh seep of blood and look away from the mirror. My words are quiet, my voice hoarse when I answer, “A Windrunner. I – Milo told us they were here and...he wanted us to leave. To – run –.” I look Jeremiah in the eye. “I didn't want to run, I wanted to – to kill them. So I found one, or...he found me. I took him up into the hills, and then...” I swallow. “I killed him. With his own knife, I killed him.”
At the word 'Windrunner', Jeremiah's eyes flashed with a lightning-strike of anger. A thunderhead began to brew in the lines of his brow. “Good.” His praise is a quiet growl, come from a mouth twisted by a snarl.
I nod. Drop my eyes to the knife. My knife, now. Clear my throat. “He's still up there. Dead. That's – that's why I need the spade. To...bury him, before he's found.”
Jeremiah rolls his eyes. “Why didn't y' jus' say so?” Before I can respond, he shoves away from the counter and leaves the room, tossing, “Wait here,” over his shoulder. He crashes around a distant room, soon returning with spade in hand. “I'm coming with y', an' before y' try arguin', remember: it's – my – damn spade, so...”
None of this is happening how I thought it would. He wasn't supposed to know. He wasn't supposed to care, even if he did. Why did I tell him? Why does he care?
Why do I, instead of arguing anyway, nod? Why do I give in without a fight and lead him to the front door of his house?
Why does him saying, “Heard there were four of 'em,” send a shiver down my spine?
“Three now.”
He laughs, dark and hateful. “Three now.”
We pass through an empty Amberdusk town. Street-lamps gutter in their glass balls, lit well before sunset. Their misshapen circles of light shrink and shrink and dim, until their only purpose is to mark where the shadows begin.
At some point, the road becomes a narrow, rutted lane. At some point, it starts to rise into the hills. At some point, my eyes begin to blur with tears. Three to go.
Coda
Clarke lay on a cold, empty bed, curled around the pillow Zira normally used. She's been gone all afternoon and most of the night. Milo wouldn't look for her, Adelaide couldn't, and as for Clarke herself?
Clarke herself couldn't either. She didn't know what she'd find, or who. Would it be the Zira she first met, the one who saw how lonely she was, and dragged her into a dance? Would it be the Zira who laughed with her in the shelter of a wagon bed as rain fell down around them? Would it be the Zira who kissed her, shy and sweet?
Or would it be this new Zira, this cold and distant girl with dark, hollow eyes and murder in her heart?
Clarke squeezed the tear-stained pillow, eyes aching and throat sore. She didn't know what or who she'd find, so she chose not to look. Coward, she lashed herself, coward!
She wanted to leave. She missed Valdenwood, the Valdenwood that had only existed for a short time, the Valdenwood where she had a friend in Edith, something more in Zira, and a mentor in Agnes.
She wanted to stay. She loved the Thorngages, their kindness, and how they had welcomed her into their home not once, but twice. She loved them as the family she'd never had.
She didn't know what to do, so she curls tighter around the pillow and chooses to do nothing. She hates it, she hates herself, and she hates Zira; all at once, all just a little.