Hester had welcomed the goddess into her flesh then. When the time had come to consume her husband, she did so with relish. In the days and weeks and months and years that followed, she often imagined she still felt bits of him within her-warming her. Powering her. It had been a moment of sublime connection and it told her that she had been right all along. She was a devotee of a great and true faith.
Abigail's gambit had been brilliant. As soon as Hester lost control of Yidhra, she could no longer guide the goddess to her designated target. The power had to rebound on its commander. The girl had good instincts and she would make a skilled leader in time. She regretted that she couldn't tell Constance that she was proud of her granddaughter.
But Hester would not speak with her own voice ever again.
As the great god-void moved into her body, she split immediately. It was as easy as a zipper, spilling out shafts of light. She felt pain, but it was pleasant, like probing a tender place between your teeth, or rubbing away a stubborn knot in your shoulder. Hester was changing, but it was what the faithful could hope for. She was a vessel for the sublime, to be changed as the consciousness saw fit.
Describing Yidhra as a consciousness was a human invention. The being itself, if it was even alive, was nothing so prosaic. It was to humanity what humanity was to a housefly. The changes that the goddess wrought in her were uncontrollable, unknowable, and unstoppable.
Hester felt her body growing. Her limbs stretched, combined. New muscle and bone sprouted from the old. Energy flowed in from the other side, spurring her new mutations along. She felt structures growing inside of her for some unimaginable purpose, even as her lungs deflated, withered, and joined the other tissue inside of her.
The weakness of her limbs was gone. The pain in her joints, also gone. Every stigmata of age was replaced by the arcane strength of this joining. She felt young, vital, powerful, and beautiful in ways that she had never felt before. She wanted to give a whoop of exultation, but her voice was swallowed up in the change.
Hester Thorndike's mind was ripped apart shortly afterward, consumed by the great deity that shared her skin. Her soul labored on in gleeful madness.
88
Outnumbered
Williams and Jenkins were already down. Mr. Harris could not tell if they were dead or alive. The apostates had given better than they had gotten, but in the end, the thralls had overrun the group and pushed them out in front of the church. Mr. Harris regretted that he could no longer see inside the church to know if Abby was still all right.
The fight against Bertram had been brutal. The thrall had known no hardship in his time with the Thorndikes, but he was older than Mr. Harris and he had grown strong in his age. Mr. Harris had only just managed to knock the other croatan unconscious.
Mr. Harris and his men could not win the fight. They were never going to break through the line of defense; there were just too many thralls.
Mr. Harris could not help Abby.
"Treach!" he called to the school janitor. "We have to go!"
The other croatan nodded. They were the only two left standing. Soon they were running, a mob of the Daughters' thralls hot on their heels.
89
Against Her Blood
Abby watched in horror as the serpentine monster that had been her grandmother whipped its great tail around and screeched its victory to the skies. The church had emptied; the Crows had been drawn out by Mr. Harris and his small group. The hanged men had chased out the remaining Daughters and vanished. Abby wasn't certain if they had returned to the other side, or if they were pursuing the fleeing Daughters, or if they were waiting for another command. Sindy had stayed behind. She freed Bryce and Nate from their bonds with trembling hands, then helped them limp over to where Abby still clung to her mother's unconscious body. They dropped to their knees in a grateful huddle, clinging to each other, and to sanity, in the face of the godhead incarnate.
The tentacles of the creature's flesh touched Abby's cheek. They were dry and raspy like snake scales, but immediately became as wispy and insubstantial as cotton candy. She felt them moving along her face, toward her mouth, eyes, nose, and ears. Abby tasted the burnt cinnamon on her tongue, overpowering now. The stench of peat wafted through the church.
Abby opened her eyes.
Yidhra, the Mother of All Daughters, the cannibal serpent goddess, was inches from her. Its face was huge; much larger than Abby. It regarded her. As their eyes met, Abby felt its power inside her.
"Abby!" a distant voice called. Was it Nate or Bryce? She couldn't tell.
The massive black serpent rose up, so immense that it nearly reached the vaulted ceiling of the church. Its distorted face resembled a Thorndike-probably thanks to whatever influence Hester had held with it before she'd utterly lost herself.
Abby's mind was cracking. Even buttressed by her daughter and friends, she was still only human. Her rational mind was not constructed to withstand the incongruence of these events. She was on the verge of tipping into the safety of insanity. She was plummeting into nothingness.
Another contraction burned through her, rescuing her. It pulled her back from the precipice one last time. Her daughter would not allow her to yield. She would not allow her mother to surrender her existence before it had even begun. In the face of the obliteration and the seemingly bottomless power of Yidhra, Abby clung to the dignity of her mortality and howled her defiance.
Her daughter would be born.
The serpent recoiled in frustration, denied final asylum. It blinked its ageless eyes in reluctant admiration and then it opened its terrible maw.
"I will come for you, daughter. Yidhra does not forgive. We are eternal."
The great serpent began to tear away into pieces that smoked and evaporated into the air. There was no longer a human soul providing her an anchor. The scaled flesh of the goddess had nothing left to keep it in this world. Abby clung to her friends and mother as the afternoon sun speared the serpent's body and burned it away to nothing.
Abby buried her face in her mother's hair as Hester's body dropped onto the altar and was still.
Epilogue
Constance had delivered the baby. She had, in fact, insisted to be the one to bring her granddaughter into this world. Sindy had held Abby's hand and blathered encouragement about breathing and pushing. Bryce and Nate had stood guard outside the church doors until Verity Thorndike's sobs echoed through the forest. She looked exactly like Abby had, down to her shock of red hair and her bright green eyes.
They'd all sat together in the church for some time, basking in the warmth of new life, unsure about facing a world that might not belong to them anymore.
Eventually they went about the business of rebuilding their lives.
Hester's funeral was a week later. The coroner officially declared her cause of death a heart attack. Her coffin was full. There had been no investigation. Constance still had enough influence to see to that. She had recovered from her experience in the church but she seemed less interested in playing the role of socialite. She traded in her designer clothes for a ponytail and yoga-pants, and spent her days rolling on the floor of the den with her grandchild and her nights cuddling on the couch in front of the television with Abby.
The Daughters of Arkham had been quiet since the debacle at the church. Abby only saw the ones she went to school with on a regular basis. They all steered clear of her and her friends, but it was difficult to miss the hatred in their eyes. They hadn't tried anything yet, and Abby was not interested in striking the first blow. Let them plot and lick their wounds, she thought. She had more important things to tend to.
Somehow, she'd managed to finish out the school year fifth in her class. She looked forward to a long and quiet summer, one where she could spend more time with her mother and daughter. She still didn't know who Verity's father was, but her new doctor assured her the baby was quite healthy. Neither Bryce nor Nate seemed terribly pressed to figure out the answer just yet. They both seemed to
enjoy the warmth allowed by the ambiguity of their odd relationship.
Abby closed the nursery door behind her and smiled as she thought about Verity's most likely fathers hanging out together. She never would have imagined them being anything more than tolerant of each other. But now... everyone was full of surprises, she supposed. She had just reached the top of the staircase and was heading downstairs to meet her mother when heard a strange sound. Like a thump, or maybe a footfall.
It had come from the nursery.
She had a vision of her daughter falling out her crib. She spun around and broke into a run.
She threw open the nursery door in a panic, expecting to see her poor daughter sobbing on the floor. Instead, she saw a diminutive woman with ageless skin sitting in the rocking chair beside the crib. She cradled Verity in her arms. There was a swashbuckler hat on the floor beside her. She looked up as Abby entered, tiny crinkles appearing around her twinkling eyes as she unleashed her giant barker's grin.
"And a pleasant good evening to you, your royal ladyship. Is a pleasure to see you again."
"Captain Virginia?" Abby was confused and enraged. "What in the hell do you think you're doing? Take your hands off my daughter!" Abby lunged forward but powerful hands grabbed her from behind. She screeched and flailed in desperation, but the grip was too strong. "Let me go! Give me my daughter!"
"I'm sorry, Abigail." Abby froze. She knew that voice. She slumped in his grip.
"Mr. Harris? What are you-? Why!"
"It is time to honor our deal."
Captain Virginia rose from the rocker, her face still split in a horrific, ghoulish grin. She lifted the sleeping baby in her arms and held her aloft. Moonlight glittered through the strands of Verity's coppery hair.
"All hail... the American Princess."
End Book One
Table of Contents
-H.P. Lovecraft, The Dunwich Horror
1
The Night of the Carnival
2
Bryce
3
Not The Most Funhouse
4
First Day of School
5
6
Accelerated Track
7
In Plain Sight
8
Long Walk Home
9
The Shadow Ones
10
History in Biology
11
12
Late
13
The Ride
14
The Test
15
Unexpected
16
Positive
17
Swing Set
18
Back to Normal
19
Halloween in Arkham
20
Home Remedy
21
Coffin Manor
22
Harwich Hall
23
Eleazar Grant
24
Culmination of the Dream
25
Alone
26
The Unexpected Visitor
27
Home Again
28
Part of the Job
29
The Hanged Men
30
Meet Cute
31
The Dreaded Conversation
32
A Single Drop of Blood
33
The Trail
34
The Procedure
35
Two Mothers
36
The Report
37
The Hidden Door
38
Into the Dark
39
The Suspect
40
Cake
41
Bound by Secrets
42
It's Beginning to Look
43
The Iron Supplement
44
Heir Apparent
45
46
The Call
47
Christmas
48
Making It Work
49
Back to School
50
Small Town History
51
The Truth Comes Out
52
Duncan Koons
53
The Missing Man
54
The Great Arkham Fire
55
The Condemned Man
56
Arkham PO Box 23
57
Always an Option
58
The Strange Case
59
Happy Birthday
60
A Surprise Gift
61
The Coffin Concern
62
Welcome to the Daughters
63
Rest for the Wicked
64
The Fresh Grave
65
Broken Engagement
66
An Alliance
67
Shifting Tides
68
Mean Girls
69
Medium Rare
70
Communion
71
Unlikely Allies
72
Frozen Out
73
In Distress
74
Hester's Study
75
Contact with the Enemy
76
The Middle of the Night
77
Missing
78
Sindy's Choice
79
I Choose Family
80
Found
81
Escape from Harwich Hall
82
Captured
83
To the Church
84
The Mother of
85
The Cavalry
86
Brothers in Death
87
We Are One
88
Outnumbered
89
Against Her Blood
Epilogue
Mother of Crows: Daughters of Arkham - Book 2 Page 36
