Whichwood(22)

Every mordeshoor was born with two skeletons: one they wore under their skin, and another they wore on their back. It was a symbol of their dual life and the death they carried. The spare skeleton was carefully stacked and bundled into a ceremonial sack where the bones would grow and age just as the mordeshoor did; the second skeleton was as much a part of their body as was their nose, and they could never leave home without it.

Laylee hurried inside to retrieve them, leaving behind her heavy helmet as she did. Once she’d hoisted the bone-sack over her dented shoulders, she pulled her scarlet hood up over her head and drew in a deep breath. With every step she took, the steady cloc cloc of clattering bones would alert the world to who she was.





I FEAR THIS WON’T END WELL





For all her careful planning, Laylee didn’t need to go far to find what she was looking for. She heard voices almost as soon as she approached the main road, and all she had to do was follow the sounds until she came directly upon them. Alice and Oliver were sitting on their bottoms in the snow—which would have been curious enough—but more curious still: they were not, in fact, alone.

Laylee was stunned.

She hadn’t actually expected Alice and Oliver to bemoan her absence, but she was still surprised to find they’d moved on so quickly. And of all people in Whichwood they should move on with, it had to be Benyamin Felankasak.

Laylee didn’t actually hate Benyamin, but she was feeling territorial at the moment, so she fancied she hated him. When she was feeling more charitable she would tell anyone that Benyamin was a nice enough boy; in fact, he was her only neighbor on the peninsula, and she’d grown up going to school with him. But she’d always thought him a dumb, hapless sort of young person who spoke with an optimism about life that assured her only of his naiveté. She found his excessive smiles and eager friendliness repugnant, and she couldn’t understand how anyone else could feel differently.

Regardless: Alice, Oliver, and Benyamin were engaged in—what appeared to be—a diverting conversation, and Laylee frowned, her eyebrows furrowing, as she felt the familiar pinpricks of envy. It wasn’t a fair reaction, as Benyamin was a boy with his own long list of troubles; and though she shouldn’t have begrudged him this unexpected kindness of strangers, she couldn’t, at present, remember how to be generous. Instead, she was frozen in place, her eyes burning holes into the head of Benyamin Felankasak, when Benyamin—standing some dozens of feet away—finally looked up, evidently aware of her gaze.

He jumped half a foot in the air.

Laylee cut a formidable figure standing in the snow, and Benyamin was right to be startled. She was a vision in scarlet: her long, heavy robes a stark contrast to the pure white of the drift piled up around her. She was livid, hooded, and, in the time it took Alice and Oliver to turn around, storming toward them, her cloak billowing like a curtain of blood in the wind.

Once she was close enough to see their faces, Laylee was beset by a twinge of remorse. Gone in an instant were their smiles and happy conversations; no, now Alice was panicked, Oliver was pale, and Benyamin was bolted to the ground.

Laylee greeted her peers with an insouciant nod of her head and even managed to shrug back a flush of mortification when Benyamin looked directly into her eyes. (Benyamin, you see, was the only person present who knew her eyes were not supposed to be gray.)

Laylee looked away and quickly tugged her hood forward, further concealing her eyes in its shadow, but she couldn’t undo what he’d seen. He was still staring at her when she next lifted her head, but his gaze was no longer fearful. His eyes were now soft and sad, and though his pity was somehow infinitely worse, Laylee couldn’t help but feel a sincerity in his sympathy, and she knew then that he would protect her secret.

So she touched her forehead and nodded.

Benyamin closed his eyes, touched the back of his hand to his own forehead, and bowed.

It was the ultimate gesture of respect.





Alice and Oliver had no way of knowing what had just transpired between Laylee and Benyamin, but Laylee had at least stopped scowling, which Alice took to mean that things couldn’t have gone too badly. This was all the assurance she and Oliver needed in order to get back to the business of things that concerned them:

“Right, good then,” said Oliver, directing his words toward Laylee. “I’m glad to see you’re feeling better.”

Laylee stared at him and said nothing.

Oliver cleared his throat. “You are—feeling better? Aren’t you?”

Laylee resisted the impulse to roll her eyes.

Now that she was back among the living, Laylee found she vastly preferred the company of her dead. She couldn’t believe she was going to ask these people for help.

“I’m fine,” she said coldly.

And then, remembering that it was in her best interest to finally stop hating everyone, she cleared her throat and said, with great difficulty, “I mean—I meant to apologize . . . for running off like that earlier. It was . . . I may have overreacted.”

Silence.

Then, all at once—

“Not at all,” said Oliver, who was inexplicably pink around the ears. “It was—yes—it was a very difficult evening—”

“Of course!” cried Alice, all smiles. “And we’re just—oh, it’s so good to have you back!”