by Emma Hamm
She would never allow a butcher to stain her porcelain skin with his corrupted hands.
“Maybe,” Leo interrupted Pitch’s thoughts, “you should let her go.”
“And subject her to the world? No. She will remain here with me. There's no telling what would happen if she becomes overwhelmed.”
“Would it?”
“The magic will consume her sooner rather than later.” Pitch turned on his heel, returning to his office with a heart heavy as stone. “She will stay safe with me.”
Chapter 3
Her spine pressed against the solid wooden door. She slid down until the thick Persian carpet cushioned her fall. She was completely limp.
Silent sobs wracked her frame although they did not to shake the door. Lydia wouldn’t allow that. He couldn’t know how afraid she was. How much she worried for her own safety.
She had decided a few weeks ago that she did not want to die. Pitch had left the house and not returned for such a long time that she was certain he would not come back. So she left the sanctuary of her room and explored. There were many odd things in this strange house.
But there was no escape.
Her head thumped against the door as tears slicked the soft curves of her cheeks. She was so tired. Everything ached.
Lydia still wasn’t certain what he had done to her. Some kind of plague? Some illness that made her unable to fight back against him. Or this place.
She tried to catch her breath, but found herself unable to. Even lifting her arms to brush at the tears was impossible. She heaved a breath that lacked oxygen and opened her eyes.
“I’m going to die here,” she whispered to the still room.
Her desire to live had never been stronger. Deep inside her being, something else was growing.
She could feel it hidden underneath her ribcage, something alive tucked between her lungs. Lydia could not describe it. It wasn’t a heartbeat nor the thump of life. It was a coil of what she could only refer to as magic.
And it was spreading. The longer she remained here the more she felt it grow. It sparkled like champagne through her veins and made her feel like she was glowing. Along with those moments of effervescence, there was pain.
Blinding gnawing pain that grew until she wanted to scream. The inner marrow of her bones ached. Parts of her body she didn’t know existed throbbed. There was nothing she could do to stop it.
Lydia wanted to blame it on the man made of shadows. Her kidnapper. The man who haunted her nightmares.
Pitch.
Yet, sometimes when she looked at him, there was a spark of memory. Lydia replayed the moments in her mind. As he told her that she had named him, a memory rustled and flooded her with strange images.
Sparkling starlight. The quiet lapping of water against a rocky shore. And a whisper into the darkness.
Pitch.
Her eyes snapped open, and she gasped. There was danger down that path.
Face crumpling in pain, her body bowed forward as her hands curled inwards. She could no more force her muscles to release, any more than she could stop the sun from rising. Lydia wheezed as her body bowed without her consent. She remained locked in that position until she forgot how to count or even what time was.
“Ah!” The soft cries of pain continued until the episode stopped.
She lay upon the floor in a pool of her own sweat, wondering how long this one had lasted. A few minutes? An hour? A day?
Tremors ran like aftershocks down her spine. She swallowed past a tongue thick and dry.
“Help.” A tear slid down her cheek. “Help me.”
No one came to help her. No one ever did.
Thousands of heartbeats later, she dragged herself to the bed. Hand over hand, she pulled through the thick carpet until she heaved her aching body upwards. Her breath sawed out of her lungs and made the air taste like blood.
It was almost cruel to have such a comfortable prison. The bed was like a cloud beneath her. The pillows cushioned her aching skull, spiking a new level of hurt she hadn’t thought possible.
Her eyes rolled back into her head as she sought the peace of oblivion.
“Come on, mouse.”
The words rang in her head. She wanted to tell the person to be silent. Such loud words were unnecessary to wake her.
“That’s it. Let go of the Dream World.”
Stop, she wanted to beg. You’re hurting me. But the ringing voice didn’t say fighting words. Why would words hurt if they weren’t jagged edged and slicing?
“You should have let me know you were so far gone,” the voice stung like whiskey poured upon an open wound. “I would have helped you.”
A tear slid from her eye before she could catch it. The trail sizzled upon her overheated skin. Her dry throat clicked as she tried to speak. Her eyes drifted open with great difficulty.
Darkness hovered above her. Shadows and ink swelled in great waves, obliterating all light. All that was left was a pale face with faint lines of a frown.
She ached. Her head felt as though it would split in two.
“I don’t want to die,” she croaked.
His expression was fierce as thunder on the horizon as he gripped her arms tighter. “I will not let you die. Not again.”
God help her, but Lydia believed him. Was this Stockholm Syndrome, she wondered? Could this be the beginning sign she was becoming dependent upon him even though he was planning on killing her?
She could not make hide nor tail of why she was here. Why he had dragged her to the end of the earth only to leave her alone? She had grown weary.
Lydia was tired of hiding traps all over this house when she had yet to see him ensnared. She was tired of aching. But most of all, she was tired of fighting.
As though he understood, Pitch raised a hand to press against her forehead. His palm was cool as night air after a storm. Relaxing as the soft patter of rain on the roof as twilight descended.
“Let me take your pain from you,” he murmured. “Let it feed my shadows.”
So she did. Lydia didn’t know how she knew what he wanted. There was an ingrained knowledge buried deep within her which understood what his words meant. She let go of the tight control she held over her pain.
He pulled it from her. The shadows all around him grew stronger and more wild. They pulled in inky strands at her hair and hands. But they did not hurt. They eased her torment.
She could breathe again. She sucked air into her lungs, stinging and sharp.
“Thank you. Thank you," she said the words as a hymn.
“You should have asked me sooner, mouse.” He stroked damp strands of tangled hair off her forehead.
“I don’t think I can trust you.”
“Humans are so fragile.”
He did not insist she could trust him. In some way, Lydia understood what this meant.
“You didn’t do this to hurt me, did you?” Her words were not a question, but a statement.
This strange man was opening his pages to her. Leather bound, worn, and ugly as sin, the journal of his mind smelled faintly of dust and ancient pages. But she could see inside him now.
“No.”
The canopy around her bed was white and gauzy, and he still blocked out all light. She could only see him and the vastness of the universe hidden within his shadow.
“What is happening to me?” she croaked.
“Are you ready to listen?”
Lydia nodded.
He shifted upon her bed. She hadn’t noticed how he was perched upon the edge of the mattress. Now, his hip pressed firmly against hers. He leaned forward until his elbow propped him above her. His hand remained soothing against her forehead while his thumb stroked her temple.
“Her name was Sil, and she was a goddess.” He began. “I do not say these things because I was fond of her. There are few between dimensions who can call themselves such, and she was one of them. A goddess of light and song. She was the power between space. Everlasting vibrancy witho
ut color or name and filled with movement.
“She stepped in my dimension and brought with her the knowledge of everything. For in the space between thought, there are the infinite possibilities of time.” He tucked her hair behind her ear. Lydia watched as he coiled a long strand of her white hair around his thumb. “She knew every step of every life. Every tiny circumstance that may or may not happen.”
“That sounds impossible,” Lydia interrupted.
“So I thought. But she was not special just for her vast power. She was special for the endless well of knowledge she could contain. Her mind could follow the webs of future times down every line until she knew the right raindrop to flick into a pool that could cause a waterfall of response. She was, in a word, magnificent.”
“What happened to her?” she asked.
“That is for another time.”
“Is she really gone then?” Lydia wasn’t certain why the question stuck in her throat. “I can’t hear her.”
“I believe she is,” he nodded, his gaze remaining fixed upon her hair. “Even I have trouble admitting that. And for me, she has been gone for much longer.”
“Then why am I hurting so bad?”
“The magic she left behind for you is too strong for your body to contain. It is turning you into something else, so you can contain it. You’re very important.”
Lydia swallowed hard. “I don’t feel important.”
“You will become very important. Sil left this magic for you to complete her work. You will finish her prophecies. Guide us to the correct end so this world does not meet the same fate as mine.”
Lydia should have known speaking with him would put another nail in her coffin, just like all the holes she had punched into his home.
“That’s a lot of pressure,” she told him.
“I do not worry. She never would have chosen you if she did not believe you could do this.”
“What does finishing her work entail?”
“Finding the webs of time, traveling down them, ensuring that from this point on, we save the world.”
Her heart stopped. “Save the world?”
“Both Sil’s world and mine fell prey to the same folly. Fear. We breed war and violence until our people see only in black and white. We wish to prevent it here. War came to this realm in the form of a Void who is controlled by puppeteers who care very little for the humans who were here first.”
“Like me.”
Pitch nodded. He unraveled the strand of her hair from his fingers. “Yes, like you.”
“It is a lot.”
“I never said it wasn’t, little mouse.”
“I’m not a mouse,” her nose wrinkled. “And that’s a rude nickname.”
“What would you have me call you?”
“Lydia.”
She stared into his dark eyes searching hers. It was almost as though he did not know how to respond to such a request.
He dropped his hand and gently laid her hair back on the pillow. “Lydia.”
Her head was spinning with all the knowledge she needed to process. Saving the world. Finding threads of time and space. But even more than that, how much his touch comforted her.
“I would like to rest,” she told him.
“Then rest. I will stay with you until the pain passes.”
“I can’t sleep if your hand is on my head.”
“If I remove it, the pain will return.”
That was the better alternative, she realized. She couldn’t think with his hand upon her skin. He was too much. He was the overwhelming night sky, and she lay bare upon the ground.
Lydia licked her lips, but could not stand to watch the way his expression tightened. The pain was better than this. She raised an aching hand to grab his wrist.
She caught herself on a barrier between them. Smooth, warm, and slightly furred, it was startling and alien.
She traced the strange protrusion back to her own head. The small nubs of hard bone, encased in softness, and attached to her skull. They hid in her hairline, just behind his hands.
Gasping, she tried to lurch upwards, but he caught her. Pitch held her hands away from the strange new additions to her body.
“Easy,” he called to her. “Do not be afraid.”
“What are they?”
“You are growing too agitated. You will hurt yourself.”
“Tell me!” she shouted.
Her weakness was overwhelming. She did not need him to press her back toward the pillows. Her body fell limp without his assistance. Now that his hands were not upon her forehead, she felt how shattering the next episode would be.
“They are a gift,” but his voice was shaking.
“A gift?” She spat the words at him. “I’m turning into a monster!”
“They are just horns-”
“Just horns? I don’t see you with horns. I see nothing but shadows in your form, do not tell me horns are nothing! I am human!”
“Not anymore,” his voice shook with what she swore could have been pain. “Not anymore, darling. You are something much more than that.”
She wrested her wrists from his grasp. She dragged her fingers over horns nearly an inch in length. Twin peaks upon her head marked her as one of the hosts. A creature, no longer a mortal.
Lydia thought she had prepared herself to come to terms with a possession. She thought she understood what that meant. Now, she knew she was wrong.
“Get out.”
“I should wait until you are resting-”
“Get out!” Her scream echoed in her skull. “Get out! I don’t want you here! Get out!”
Sobs rattled in raw anger as his darkness fled from the room. They pulled through her body and rocked her soul. She was lost. Not in the night, not in the wilderness, but in the prison of her own body which was no longer hers.
Lydia cried herself to sleep in pain, feeling foreign in her own skin.
Pitch ran fingers through his unruly locks of hair. Every time a surge of magic caused her pain, he could feel the yank of power at his navel.
She had yet to come down.
She needed him. In a way no one had needed him in a very long time. Yet, he could not go to her. She feared him, didn’t trust him, thought he had turned her into a monster.
Why hadn’t he told her she wasn’t a monster?
Instead, he had been too factual. He had expressed no concern in the changing of her body, nor any ability to understand her turmoil. Of course she was uncomfortable. He did not remember ever having been something other than himself but she? She had been human her entire life.
The idea of horns growing upon her head was not welcome. He shook his head and closed the door to his office behind him. She would not like all the changes that were likely coming with it.
Pitch had hoped that she would take after many of the humans which had magical creatures inside of them. They had experienced very little change in their physical forms. But he had always underestimated the strength of Sil’s powers. She had already foreseen what would happen.
Sil would want to replicate herself in this human girl. Pitch snorted as his fingers danced upon the leather bound spines. Lydia would fight tooth and nail against her magic until she either lost or died. If only she would allow him near her again, then he might be able to help.
She did not want his help. Every time he walked toward the door, he could hear swears and pillows thrown with surprising force.
He could have busted through the weak wooden door and forced her to accept his help. But that would only take them steps backward, and Pitch had always moved forward with a single minded determination. Anything else felt wrong.
“And what shall I read tonight?” he murmured as his fingers trailed across his beloved books. “Perhaps XXIV?”
This was one of his favorites. Though a slim edition, the leather well worn by his fingers, it held secrets unimaginably wonderful.
A quiet thump made him still before he heard the unmistakable accompaniment
of a feminine cry.
His heart stopped. She could not be hurt. She could not take the last piece of Sil he had.
Physical form gave way to shadows as he dissolved, slid underneath the door, and rushed toward the sound. His shadow pooled in the center of his home, taking form once more. He stood next to the piano and heaved in a breath as he glared up the stairwell to the highest story.
She was holding onto the banister. Her bicep was shaking with the force of keeping her body upright. Pitch could see the way her nightgown moved as her knees trembled.
Her glares might have turned him to ash if she knew her own power, he admired her for that.
She would be fine, he realized. This was not a woman who would crumble under something like magic. It would bend to her will, not the other way around.
“Where. Are. They?” Her growl was impressive for a woman incapable of standing.
“What is it you speak of?”
“You know what I’m talking about.”
He lifted a single dark brow. He did know what she was talking about. But the trickster part of himself wanted to hear her say the words. So he did not respond. Instead, he waited.
She grew more upset as the seconds ticked by. The tips of her ears turned red and her bottom lip trembled. “The mirrors, Pitch. Where are they?”
“I had them removed.”
“You what?”
“They are no longer in the house.”
“Why would you do that!” Her shout echoed, but he knew she understood why he had taken them.
Her body was undergoing even further changes. She could feel those changes all she wanted, but he refused to allow her to look. Just touching the nubs of her horns had caused her to go into a panic.
The last thing she needed to see was the pale tint of her skin, how the color had drained from her body until she was a ghost of her former self. She did not need to see how large the horns had grown, nor how thin she had become.
Pitch had known the transition would be difficult. But he had never thought it would tear her apart.
