CHAPTER 164

CHAPTER 164
ONCE AGAIN 

Her bedside candle had burned away to a stump. Melted wax dripped in ribbons across the wooden tabletop, hardened like a congealed vein. Emerald remained silent, her knees up against her chest, her gaze fixed upon the window. upon where the woods began.

She hadn't budged in hours.

The butler tapped once, twice, then came in. "You haven't eaten again."

She never replied.

He set down the tray on the earth, the ceramic clinking more loudly than it should in heavy air. Soup. Stale bread. Hot tea with a sprig of soothing herb he was able to obtain that wasn't frozen or magically corrupt.

He stood for a moment, hoping she would see him. When she did not, he went over to the window and looked for himself. "There was nothing going on last night."

"No, this one's even more terrible."

Worse

Emerald spoke quietly. "When something's looking at you at least you know where to direct your gaze."

He frowned. "Did you see something again?"

"No." Her gaze never faltered. "However, something did notice me."

Her butler stood over her. The candle flared up, hissed.

"Why are you asking?"

Finally, she stood up to him.

There was something beneath the garden, she told me. "It's not a space. it's a mouth."

He was taken aback.

I waded into it once. Not far." She paused. "But I felt. whispers in the earth. And I think. I think it sensed me."

She stood up from her knees, her blanket slipping from her shoulders. The white markings that had once been upon her arm were nowhere to be found now, yet the dull ache remained beneath her skin, a sense that something had been written deeper than skin.

I did not come back," she said. "I had wanted to. I still want to. Something is different."

The reedy voice of Butler. "Changed how?"

I'd had dreams about roots. Winding themselves along bones. Plunging into memories not her own. She stared at her palm. "And in last night's one. I heard her."

He didn't need to ask who.

Emerald closed her eyes. "Lena told me, 'Don't allow him to bury you where he buried me,'"

His gaze darted in the direction of the window. "Don't listen to her."

"She isn't entirely wrong," Emerald whispered. "Joel holds secrets. He had a penchant for keeping secrets within plans for war and maps."

“He’s defending you.”

"Or preparing me," she said again, gazing out at the window. "For something I won't be leaving behind."

There was a strained, tense silence between them.

She whispered once more, "I have to return."

The butler whirled about. "Not at all

I wasn't asking permission.

His voice hardened. "If you ever set foot in it again ."

"It'll happen anyway." Her eyes were calm. "I'd rather see it coming."

The butler was shaken. "Please, miss. Joel expressly told me not to.

Emerald broke in. "Did he tell him to stop you? Or just to watch you?"

He stopped.

"I thought so." She retrieved the coat that was lying across the bed. "I'll remain out in the clearing. I will not go underground. At least, not yet."

His mouth opened, then closed.

She pulled her coat tight about her, her hands shaking once to finish fastening her last button. "If something happens to me," she said, "don't follow."

He protested, but something in her face brought him up short. A tension not one of defiance. but of inevitability.

I'll be back, she said more softly. I promise.

He watched her step out the front door, scraping boots against the frost. Here, the melting and refreezing had so thoroughly done its work that the earth was slick, a sheet of glass. No fresh tracks. none except hers.

There was a grey sky, laden with unshed snow, as Emerald approached the trees.

It was not marked where she went, but her body remembered. Beyond the bent birch. Through thinned-out pines. Under thorny covering where a month before had not been. The clearing stood in front of her.

They visited a lot.

It hadn't grown.

Not yet.

But it had  shifted.

The once-straight path bent inward. The trees at the boundary bent inward. And where once inside was empty space, a figure now stood.

Not.  a tree.

Winding. Grand. Its dark black bark, red-veined designs throbbed like glowing coals.

Her breath quickened.

There was nothing here beforehand.

It throbbed at its root. And at its root, in a hollow, something glowed. dimly and yellow. A memory? An illusion?

She stepped forward.

As she stepped inside the spiral, air became more dense. Her ears popped. The world became quieter.

Each step felt like wading into deeper waters.

She reached the edge of the tree and knelt down next to the hollow.

There, on a bed of moss. rested the head of the garden statue. The head Joel had hidden. Its smoothly chiseled face remained serene, but moss clung to its jaw line like a cluster of skeletal white fingers, and its eyes were open.

She extended her hand. Touched it.

Her pulse rose up her arm.

Emerald

It was not her voice. It was not her own.

It was older.

Deeper

Would you like to know what you're becoming?

Her breath hitched.

The tree groaned.

The statue broke.

A seam gaped in the forehead of rock and a brilliance spilled out. fleeting, gold, piercing. And within the brilliance, visions flowered in the back of her mind.

Joel standing over a grave. Not Lena's. A new one. No headstone.

His shouting in the woods, hands full of blood.

him carrying her. Emerald. limp and bleeding, back to cabin

A flash of red petals. Falling back. Back into her skin.

Then, darkness.

She collapsed back with a gasp, her lungs constricting.

Light vanished. The statue was whole again.

But her hands. her palms now bore new small black symbols. They squirmed slightly, ink not yet dry.

Thereafter, she

And ceased.

Across from the clearing, at the edge of the spiral, stood a figure.

Not Joel.

Not Lena.

But a woman she had never met.

Tall. Wrapped in white.

Eyes are black.

Emerald blinked, and suddenly, the woman had vanished.

The garden remained.

The pulse of the tree slowed.

Em outpoured and escaped.

As she returned to the cabin, the sun was going down. Her breath was fogging, boots wet, hands still dirty. The butler stood by the porch, eyes narrowed with alarm, mouth pursed to reprimand.

And upon seeing her face.

I notice marks.

and kept silent.

Walked quietly by him. Entered the cabin. Closed door.

There, she moved soundlessly like a specter to a mirror in the hall.

She took off her gloves and held up her hands.

They curled inward in a circular form.

A seal.

She remembered Lena's voice again.

It chooses its host. Not its victim.

Emerald looked at her reflection. And whispered, "I think I said yes.”