“I’m sorry,” she said, sitting back, “but I don’t understand. All this seems like...like a terrible dream! I keep thinking I’ll wake up.”
I couldn’t imagine how bizarre the evening must have seemed to her. “Magic is real, just as I tried to tell you earlier today. To summarize, Whyborne, Christine, Iskander and I are trying to keep the world from being plunged into darkness and humanity destroyed. Mrs. Creigh, Vernon, and Marian are on the other side.”
“I already explained—oh never mind,” Creigh snapped. “And I’d say it’s clear Marian isn’t on anyone’s side but her own.”
“She wanted revenge,” I said. “For Benjamin’s death.” I looked at Ma, but she wouldn’t meet my gaze.
“No man is worth that much effort,” Creigh said with a sniff. “Power is far more reliable.”
“Shut up,” Christine said. “Griffin, I don’t think we dare seek shelter with the Reynolds. I don’t want to draw more trouble on them.”
“Agreed.” I tried to think. “We need somewhere relatively secure, where we can lie low and let Whyborne recover.”
Ma cleared her throat. “The boarded up jewelry store?” she suggested tentatively. “They had all kinds of fancy alarms and locks when they were open for business. It ought to be secure.”
“Brilliant, Ma,” I said. “We’ll have to take the wagon elsewhere and abandon it, so as not to draw attention. And the horses as well.”
“Then what?” Creigh demanded. “That isn’t much of a plan. We need to stop Marian! Didn’t you hear her—she was talking about feeding on the vortex itself. If she reaches Widdershins, she’ll spread the infection beyond the ability of anyone to control.”
Whyborne’s hair was soft beneath my fingers as I brushed the spiky locks back from his face. “If we’re to stop her, we need Whyborne. Which means we have to wait for him to wake up,” I said. And refused to give voice to the lingering fear that he might not wake up at all.
~ * ~
While Christine drove the horses and cart away, Creigh and I carried Whyborne upstairs to the small suite of rooms above the store. The previous owners had taken the more portable items with them when they left, but abandoned the larger pieces of furniture, including the bed. The fact that there weren’t enough people left in Fallow to have stolen any of it drove home how close to the edge the town truly was. No wonder Tate had been desperate enough to become entangled with the Fideles.
Ma followed us upstairs and lingered, even when Creigh declared her intention to go down and wait for Christine’s return. Although I knew I should keep an eye on Creigh’s every movement, I couldn’t bear to leave Ival’s side. There were no sheets, so I stripped off my filthy coat and laid it over him.
He didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Didn’t stir.
“Is he going to wake up?” Ma asked. She looked worn out from the last few hours, her gray hair come half out of its bun, her dress smudged and dirty.
“Yes.” I stroked his cheek tenderly, not caring what she thought. Not caring about anything but him.
“How do you know?”
“Because the other option is unbearable.” I sat back not knowing what, if anything, I owed her. Not after what she’d done. “You sent Benjamin the letters.”
She dropped her eyes. “It was wrong of me.”
It was more than wrong. It was monstrous.
She’d let her own pain blot out any possibility of his. Clung to her hurt to deny that he was capable of feeling anything.
What would the Mother of Shadows say, if I could speak to her now? She wouldn’t agree with what Ma had done, that much I knew. The umbrae lacked the capacity for such cruelty.
“Why did you do it?” I asked. “Did you truly blame Benjamin for what we both did?”
Ma flinched. “I didn’t see how you could...you were always my little boy. So sweet and loving, and never gave me a lick of trouble.”
My lungs felt filled with glass, every breath sending slivers deeper. “And if I was able to desire men as well as women, then what? I couldn’t be sweet or loving? Couldn’t be a good person?”
“You heard the preacher the same as I did,” she said raggedly. “The men of Sodom were wicked. Not like you at all. So I figured it must have been the Walter boy. He tempted you into something you’d never have done otherwise.” Her breath caught, a quiet sob. “But then we came to Widdershins, and found out you were living with this one, and...and...”
And she could no longer imagine I had no desire for men. That Benjamin had somehow seduced me, convinced me to commit a sin I would never have considered on my own. “And you realized just how wrong you’d been?”
“No! I mean, I already knew. Back when Benjamin killed himself.” She put her face in her hands. “But once I realized you were still...that you’d chosen...”
She’d felt even guiltier. “Men, Ma,” I said tiredly. “I like men and women, both. I’m more inclined to men, but I won’t pretend women leave me unmoved.”
“Then why not marry?” she demanded, dropping her hands to stare pleadingly at me. “If not your cousin Ruth, then someone else? Why...this?”
She made it sound so easy. As if it wouldn’t hurt to ignore my true nature and pretend to be something else. But I didn’t even know how to begin to explain that to her, so I said, “Because I love him. More than anyone or anything in the world.” I wrapped my left hand around his. “Because Ival is my husband, and I honestly don’t care if you find the very idea blasphemous. I swore vows before God I consider sacred, and if the rest of the world doesn’t understand, the fault is in them.”
“But—”
“No.” I was done with this. Done with arguing; done with defending myself. “You talk about the parson and the men of Sodom, but God doesn’t hate me. God made me this way, and I don’t care what anyone else says.” I stroked a lock of Ival’s hair back from his forehead; predictably, it immediately sprang forward again. “God didn’t make you torment a man who didn’t deserve it, who already had enough pain in his life. Didn’t make the newspapers print insinuations about him, or the ladies of the town refuse to socialize with his wife, or any of it. You chose that yourselves, you and the rest of Fallow.”
“Griffin...” she trailed off.
“I love you, Ma, and I’ll always be grateful you took me in as a boy. But right now, I need you to go.” I leaned forward, pressed my forehead against Whyborne’s arm. “Keep an eye on Creigh if you like, and shout if she does anything suspicious. But at the moment, my husband is my only concern. I hope you can understand that.”
Chapter 31
Whyborne
I opened my eyes and found myself lying on an uncomfortable bed, in a strange room. Sunlight streamed through a dirty window, illuminating a million motes of dust floating slowly through the air. There seemed to be no blankets on the bed, as there were no curtains on the window, but Griffin’s coat lay over me.
My head pounded, and my mouth tasted like ash. Where was I? How had I gotten here? I cast my memory back, trying to bridge the gap. Vernon at the farm...Griffin bound to a scarecrow...hands gripping me as foul water was forced down my throat...
Then rage. And magic.
Oh God.
I sat up sharply. “Griffin?”
He’d been sitting propped against the wall, perhaps dozing. His head jerked up at the sound of my voice, however, and his eyes widened. An ugly bruise decorated his jaw, and dried blood crusted in his hair, but he moved quickly to my side.
“Ival?” He caught my hands in his, his eyes searching my face desperately. “How are you feeling, my dear?”
I swallowed; the sides of my throat felt as though they stuck together. “Thirsty.”
“Here.” He splashed water out of a canteen into a tin cup, then passed it to me.
I drank greedily, washing the taste of ash from my mouth. “Where are we?” I asked, passing the cup back to him for more.
He didn’t answer until he’d refilled the cup for me. “Inside the aba
ndoned jewelry store. We thought it would be the most secure place to hide, with the best locks on the doors and windows. I don’t know if you recall the wagon ride...?”
I shook my head.
“I’d be surprised if you did. To make a long and frightening story short, we took Tate’s wagon and fled. Marian is in control of the entire town, after providing corrupted food for the community dance. Creigh apparently decided throwing in with us was the only way to save her skin; she’s currently downstairs, under guard by Christine and Ma.”
Oh God, poor Christine. “Iskander?”
Griffin looked away. “We had to leave him behind. After we brought you here, Christine drove the horses and cart to the Reynolds farm, warned them to leave, and gave them the wagon to take with them. Once she came back, I ransacked the general store for supplies, and we took refuge here before dawn.”
“I see.” I pressed my fingers into my aching eyes. “Won’t the theft at the general store arouse suspicion?”
“Ordinarily.” The grim note in his voice made me drop my hands and look at him again. “Except the town is deserted. I think Marian has everyone occupied with bringing in the last of the harvest to be loaded into the train cars.”
“She means to continue Creigh’s plan, then?”
“Or a version of it.” Griffin shook his head. “We think she wants to go to Widdershins and feed directly on the maelstrom. With its power, there’s no limit to how many infected she might create. Might control.”
“Dear God.” How were we to fight her? We had to stop her somehow, had to rescue Iskander and find some way of removing the corruption from him.
Griffin moved to sit beside me on the bed. “Ival?” he said softly. “You don’t recall the wagon ride, but what about before? In the field?”
I shrank into myself. The things I’d said, while the power of the arcane line sang through me...I’d sounded like some sort of cheap stage villain. “What do you mean?” I asked in one last, feeble attempt to stave off the inevitable.
“You were able to-to burn away the corruption from yourself, and in the reservoir beneath the earth,” he said. “By drawing on the arcane line.”
“Yes.” I stared down at my hands, at the lacework of scars covering the right. “The rust is a parasite. It feeds on arcane energy. But only in measured doses.”
“The way a man needs water to survive, but can still drown in a lake?” Griffin asked. “Or a campfire can keep you alive in the cold, but being set on fire will kill you?”
“Something like that,” I agreed.
“And when you burned away the corruption,” he went on, “you said...things. You seemed not entirely yourself.”
I wished that were true. The problem was I’d been entirely myself. I’d felt the rest of the maelstrom, distantly, through the line.
Had Persephone sensed my anger last night? Some unexplained flash of rage, that this crawling parasite would dare attack us?
“Do you remember the day of Christine’s wedding?” I kept my gaze fixed on my hands, because I couldn’t bear to look at his face. “When I asked if you thought me human at all?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him nod. “Yes. I said after the things we’ve seen, that it didn’t matter.”
“You were wrong,” I said. My heart ached, but I owed him the truth. “It matters a great deal.”
I confessed everything: what I’d experienced that night. The confirmation that the maelstrom did indeed collect people.
That it had collected him.
And that Persephone and I were a part of it, fragments of the maelstrom’s inhuman sentience, given form. It wasn’t a matter of us being human or even ketoi.
We weren’t even people at all.
When I finished, Griffin’s hand closed on mine. “Ival...I saw you.” He sounded strangely awed, when he should have been horrified. “In that moment after Bradley’s body crumbled, and yours was lying stabbed through the heart. I saw you. And I didn’t understand at the time why my shadowsight would reveal such a thing...but it makes sense.” He laughed, a short sound of amazement. “I once said you are magic. I was far more right than I realized.”
How could he not understand? “Griffin, listen to me! This isn’t something—something wonderful.”
I looked at him at last, only to find him smiling at me. “I disagree,” he said simply.
I’d failed to explain. In my cowardice, I hadn’t shown him clearly enough the wreck I’d made of his life. “Listen to me,” I repeated. “You encountered the umbra in Chicago, and it changed you.”
“Which was in no way your fault,” he pointed out.
Why did he insist on focusing on the wrong details? “But that...that should have been the end of it! No more magic. No more horror. After you left here, you should have gone somewhere safe. Somewhere that made sense for a man starting his own private detective business. Boston, or New York, or Baltimore...but you didn’t.”
Griffin swallowed. At least he wasn’t smiling any more. “The arcane line in the fields. The same one the rust fed on. The maelstrom...sensed...me through it?”
At last he seemed to understand. “Yes, but it’s worse than that.” I bowed my head, because I couldn’t bear to see his reaction when he realized this final truth. “Even then...you might have gone free. You weren’t the only person within the maelstrom’s reach who had been touched by an umbra or some other monstrous thing. There were others it might have collected.” I took a deep breath, fighting to keep my voice steady. “But it didn’t. It chose you. I think it knew, somehow, that you’d—you’d see me. See past the walls I’d built around my life, my heart.”
I buried my face in my hands in despair. “You should never have been involved in any of this,” I confessed. “All the fear of the last few years, all the narrow escapes, all the pain and horror...you wouldn’t have suffered any of it if not for me. It’s all my fault, and I can only pray you don’t hate me.”
Chapter 32
Griffin
I sat beside Ival on the bed, holding myself very still, while his words sunk in.
Years ago, when Miss Lester first suggested to me that Widdershins collected people, I’d dismissed her words. Over time, though, I’d come to believe her correct. Something had drawn me to my Ival’s side; God’s will, perhaps, or divine providence.
And maybe that was indeed the ultimate truth. Surely a semi-sentient magical vortex could fit into God’s plan. But all my hopes for God’s will were abstract, pure faith, whereas this...this was something solid. Something I could hold onto as a fact.
The maelstrom had chosen me.
I remembered with searing clarity how broken I’d been when Pa brought me back to Fallow. Even when I’d left again, the pieces of myself had felt held together with spackling paste and cheap glue.
I’d been at my very worst. My lowest point; hurt and fractured, my nights shattered by terrifying fits. Wounded, body and soul.
And that was when it chose me. Because in whatever inhuman way the maelstrom perceived the world, it saw worth in me even then. Even when no one else had.
Even when I hadn’t seen it in myself.
Ma had needed to blame Benjamin so she could keep loving me. If she admitted the truth to herself, it meant I wasn’t the son she’d believed me to be. That I was imperfect. But Widdershins didn’t care about perfection. Widdershins knew its own.
And maybe that was the real secret: its own were the flawed, the broken, the wounded. But they—we—I—had value even so.
My eyes burned, and I blinked rapidly. “Thank you,” I whispered.
Ival looked at me as if I’d lost my mind. “What?”
I didn’t know how I could adequately explain what it meant to me. “Maybe it chose me because I could see you, but it had to see me first.” I swallowed against the thickness in my throat. “It saw me, and it chose me, and it brought me home.”
He frowned slightly. “It didn’t bring you to Fallow, Griffin.”
“Home. Widdershins.” I took his hands, and he didn’t pull away. “You.” I met his gaze, let all the raw emotion that I could express show. “Don’t you understand? Ma and Pa chose me from the orphan train, but when I proved to be less than perfect, they sent me away. I spent most of my life trying to earn my place, trying to deserve it. To be worthy of choosing. The perfect son, the perfect friend, the perfect detective. And I failed.”
“Griffin, no,” he said alarmed.
“Hush. Let me finish.” I brought his hands to my lips and kissed them. “I failed Pa when I couldn’t make myself stop wanting men, and he put me on a train to Chicago. I failed Elliot and the Pinkertons when I screamed about monsters, and they put me in an asylum and forgot about me.” I drew his hands against my chest, over my heart. “You said the maelstrom might have taken others, but I was the one it chose. It wanted me, for who I was. And that means everything to me.”
Ival blinked rapidly. “But...if you’d just gone to Boston instead...”
“I’d be safer? Perhaps. But I wouldn’t have found my home. I wouldn’t have found you.” I stared into his dark eyes, trying to make him understand by force of will. “Perhaps Widdershins needed me for its inscrutable purposes, but I needed it, too.”
He looked flummoxed. “But...it’s a horrible murder town!”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Well, I’m sure no enormous magical vortex is perfect, my dear.”
“You’re...” he trailed off, apparently unable to decide precisely what I was. “I thought you’d be hurt, or angry, or...I don’t know.” He shook his head. “I don’t always understand you. But I love you, Griffin. I’d do anything in the world just to make you happy.”
“You do make me happy, Ival. I love you, too.” I tugged him into my arms, and our lips met.
I’d meant the kiss to be gentle, but he responded with desperate passion. How long had this weighed on his mind? At least now I understood the mood that had gripped him since July, his desperate attempts to take every responsibility on his own shoulders. How could he have possibly imagined I’d be angry? That I’d hate him? My own husband?
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