In the Shadow of Blackbirds(40)

A minute or so later, something sank down beside my right hip on the bed. The mattress let out one of its accordion moans. A pair of legs settled beside mine.

I opened my eyes.

My breath caught in my throat.

Stephen sat next to me trembling, sweating.

I could see him.

He slouched against the wall in a sleeveless undershirt and trousers a burlap shade of brown. His hair hung in his face, disheveled and grown since I saw him in April, and he held his head in his fists. “Oh, God, Shell. Please make them stop.”

My voice escaped me. I wanted to lift my hand to see if I could touch him, but I worried I’d scare him away. I managed to say one word: “Stephen?”

He wouldn’t move at first—he just held his head and shuddered. Then something gave him a start. His shoulders flinched like he had heard a gunshot, and he dove down next to me, pressed his cheek against mine, and squirmed closer.

I stroked his hair above his left ear. “Why can I feel you?” A smooth lock slid between my fingers with the crackle of static. His face was covered in clammy sweat that dampened my skin. “I can feel you. Are we both half-dead?”

“They’re killing me.”

“It’s all right. Nobody’s here.” I wrapped my arms around him and clutched the soft folds of his cotton shirt. His breath warmed my neck, and his heart drummed against me as if he were still alive. My own heart galloped like a quarter horse. “Nobody’s here, Ste—”

He gasped and peered over his shoulder.

“What’s wrong?”

“Oh, God.” He pushed himself to his elbows. “They’re coming.”

“Who?” My eyes flew to the wall, and I imagined for a moment I caught the shadow of a large bird soaring across the golden paper.

“Oh, Christ.” Stephen crawled all the way on top of me, knocking his knees against mine. “Keep me with you.”

“How?”

“Let me be a part of you.”

“How?”

“Let me inside.”

My shoulders tensed. “What do you mean?”

“Close your eyes.”

Another shadow flitted across the wall behind him. My eyelids refused to budge.

“Close your eyes.” He cupped my cheek with his trembling hand and breathed the scent of burning candles against my face. “Please. Close your eyes and open your mind to me. Help me stay with you.”

“Will it hurt?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m scared.”

“You’re safe. I’m not. Help me.”

At those words, I shut my eyes. He pressed his mouth against mine and kissed me in that urgent way of his, guiding my lips apart with his own, tasting of smoke and fire. My head went dizzy and buzzed with a violent hum that grew more deafening with every second. I couldn’t move beneath him. I couldn’t breathe. The oil lamp’s flame blew out beside me, which made the dizziness worse, like someone was spinning me around and around on a swing in a pitch-black room. Stephen no longer felt like Stephen but a massive weight I couldn’t lift. Lights flashed in front of my face—blinding, fiery explosions that singed the air and clogged my throat. Hungry eyes watched me from the corners of the room, ready to come closer. My wrists and ankles burned with the bite of heavy rope. I was going to die. Oh, my God, I was going to die.

“Get me out of here!” I freed my mouth and tried to get up. “I don’t want to be here. Get me out of here.” I kicked and fought and struggled, but the bindings dug farther into my skin. Everything burned—my wrists, my lungs, my nose, my stomach. All I could do was shriek and writhe in the black, black world.

A pair of hands reached around my shoulders.

“No! Don’t shoot me. Get me out of here. Don’t kill me.”

Someone scooped me upward, as if pulling me out of water.

I broke through the surface and gasped for air, a light shining bright against my eyes. My room came back into view. My oil lamp glowed beside me again.

Aunt Eva’s face hovered in front of mine, as pale as moonstone. She gripped my shoulders and stared at me as though she didn’t recognize me. “Mary Shelley? What were you screaming about? Are you all right?”

I fought to catch my breath and looked around the room—the last thing I wanted to see was any creature with wings and a snapping beak—but there was nothing with us. My skin dripped with sweat, and my bones turned as heavy as when I had returned to my flesh after the lightning strike. My eyelids weighed a hundred pounds.

“Mary Shelley?” Aunt Eva pressed her icy hand against my forehead. “Do you have a fever? Is it the flu?”

“No.” I fell out of her hands and collapsed against my bed. “No. It was something else. It’s as bad as what he said. It’s worse. What were those eyes?”

A thermometer jabbed me in the mouth. I tried to fight it at first, but my aunt held me down and wedged the glass beneath my tongue.

“You’re talking like you’re feverish.” She stared at me. “Either that or that séance went to your head. We should have never left the house tonight. We should have never gone inside that trashy room with that cheap-looking girl.”

My aunt’s spectacles blurred until the two lenses expanded into four wavering bottle caps. My eyelids closed. I fell asleep before she could even take the thermometer out of my mouth. My brain simply slipped away, and I was gone—completely gone without a single dream—for the rest of the night.