Gallant(24)

The subtle creak of the door drifting open.

Even though she turned the lock.

Olivia holds her breath as bare feet whisper on the wood behind her, and then, a body lowers itself onto the other side of the bed, the mattress denting with the weight. Slowly, she wills herself to turn over, sure that it is only a trick of her tired mind, sure that the room will be empty and she will see—

A young woman sits on the edge of the bed.

She is older than Olivia, but not by much, her skin sun kissed, ribbons of brown hair spilling down her back. When she turns her head, candlelight dances across her high cheek, her narrow chin, tracing the angles and lines from the portrait that morning. The ones pressed here and there into Olivia’s own face.

Her mother looks over her shoulder. A smile flickers across her face, all mischief. And in that moment she is young, a girl. But then the candle shifts, and the shadows cut the other way, and she is a woman again.

Her fingers slide over the sheets, and Olivia doesn’t know whether to reach for her mother’s hand or retreat, and in the end, she does neither, because she cannot move. Her limbs are leaden in the bed, and perhaps she should be afraid, but she isn’t. She cannot take her eyes from Grace Prior, not as she climbs onto the bed, not as she lowers herself beside Olivia, not as she curls herself in like a mirror, reflecting the angles of her daughter’s limbs, the bend of her neck, the incline of her head, as if it were a game.

Her bare feet are stained with dirt, the same way Olivia’s were before she soaked away the soil, as if she’s been running in the garden. But her mother’s hands are delicate and clean, as her fingers graze the air over the bandage around Olivia’s palm, worry flitting across her face. Her hand drifts up to Olivia’s cheek.

The touch, when it lands, is warm, the gesture gentle. The candlelight doesn’t reach the sliver of space between their bodies, and her mother’s face is dark, unreadable. But Olivia can see the shine of her teeth when she smiles and leans in and speaks.

Her voice is soft, familiar, not high and sweet, but low and soothing.

The faintest rasp, like gravel, in her throat.

“Olivia, Olivia, Olivia,” says her mother, as if it’s an incantation, the last words of a spell, and maybe it is, because just like that, she wakes up.

There is a dead thing in her bed.

The candle has gone out. The room is pitch black, and yet Olivia can see the ghoulish figure, nestled there, the way her mother was, one rotting hand still lifted to her cheek.

Olivia’s limbs have come unstuck, and she recoils, scrambling back, not realizing how close she is to the edge of the bed until it disappears beneath her and she tumbles off the side, landing hard on the wooden floor. The pain is enough to clear her head, and she surges to her feet.

But the ghoul is already gone.

Olivia lets out a shaky breath and lifts her good palm to her cheek, holding in her mother’s touch.

But that part only happened in the dream. The things she sees cannot touch her. They are not really there.

She paws through the dark, finds a box of matches and a fresh taper. Light strikes and blooms, shadows dancing as she takes up her sketchpad and pencil and begins to draw. Not the ghoul of Grace Prior, but the woman she was in the dream. Quick, rough lines, the pencil hissing as she tries to capture not so much her mother’s face but the softness of her touch, the sadness in her eyes, the way she said her name. Olivia, Olivia, Olivia. Her pencil scratches across the paper, racing ahead of the fog, the forgetting.

She’s halfway through the sketch when someone screams.

The pencil skips, the tip breaking as Olivia twists toward the noise.

She has heard screams before. The shrill shout of children playing games. The injured howl following a broken arm. The terrified yelp of a girl waking to find insects in her bed.

This scream is different.

It is keening.

It is shuddering breath.

It is a strained and desperate sob, and Olivia is already on her feet, hurrying toward her bedroom door, trying to pull it open. She panics for an instant when it holds, before remembering the small gold key. It turns with a click, and Olivia plunges out into the hall, half expecting the screams to halt the moment she crosses the threshold.

But they keep going.

A door hangs open down the hall, the pool of light on the floor filled with moving shadows, and she can hear Hannah and Edgar now, the struggle of bodies, and she realizes who is screaming the same instant she reaches the door and sees Matthew thrashing in the bed.

The screams resolve into words, into pleas. “I can’t leave him. I can’t leave him. WHY WON’T YOU LET ME HELP HIM?”

His eyes are open, but he is somewhere else. He doesn’t see Hannah, whispering urgently, her hair wild, doesn’t see Edgar as he fights to hold him down, doesn’t see Olivia standing wide-eyed in the doorway.

“It is just a dream,” soothes Hannah. “It’s just a dream. It cannot hurt you.”

Her mother’s promise pouring out of Hannah’s mouth, but the words aren’t true.

He is clearly hurting.

A wretched sob escapes his throat, and it is unnerving, to see her cousin like this, split open, the vivid red of him laid bare. He looks so young, so scared, and Olivia tears her gaze away from the bed to the rest of the room. To the tray of food he barely touched, to the shutters latched tight beyond the glass, to a sharp-edged shape against the far wall, a sheet cast over it.