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
Mother of Crows Page 37
