A Fierce and Subtle Poison - Samantha Mabry Page 0,74

She was wearing a pale, apple-green sundress. Its hem fell to her ankles. The wind continued to swirl, but the fabric of her dress didn’t rustle; the ends of her hair weren’t picked up and tossed around. She was soaked even though the rain seemed to bend and part around her.

She wasn’t Marisol. She wasn’t Sara.

“Water.” Her voice was a chorus. “He’s by the water.”

The girl took a single step forward, toward me, away from the trees. Isabel called out my name, and my head whipped toward the sound. I felt the disappeared girl come close. Her breath was cold and smelled like cinnamon. I would ask her questions: What’s your name? Who misses you? But when I turned back toward her, there were several feet between us again.

She opened her mouth. Isabel’s voice came from it: “Lucas!”

I took a stagger-step forward before turning and running to the front of the house, where Isabel was attacking the door with a large, jagged rock. She struck the lock once, twice, and on the third time it broke from the wood frame. The wind caught the door, and it immediately swung inward, spraying rainwater into the dark room. Pieces of paper scattered, and small, unidentifiable objects skittered across the floor. Something large and solid tipped onto its side and rolled across a hard surface. For a split second, it was still. Then: the firecracker-pop of glass breaking.

Isabel and I tumbled inside, and I pushed the door closed behind us. Because of the broken lock, I had to stand with my back against the wood. In the relative quiet, a brew of smells hit my nose: ammonia, bleach, dried sweat on unwashed skin, the unmistakably sweet stench of rot.

“We’re too late,” Isabel declared.

I nearly conceded, but then the sound of fabric rustling came from one of the beds, followed by the gasp of a child startled out of sleep.

“Hello?” I called out.

I dragged a squat table in front of the door to hold it in place. Grabbing a lit lantern from the ground, I held it up to the closest of the twin beds. The head of a small dark-haired girl emerged from underneath the covers.

“Celia?”

I rushed forward, but Isabel smacked her palm against my chest. “Don’t touch her!” She dropped her hand and leaned in. “You don’t know what she’s like anymore.”

What she’s like: near death, full of poison, a small and fragile monster. Just like Isabel.

I approached Celia, scanning her face and what I could see of her arms for red rashes or white blisters, but there was no sign of her being sick or hurt. Leaves weren’t shoved under her bedcovers, pressed against her skin, or threaded through her hair.

I let out a yelp of victory. I couldn’t help it. I’d done it. I’d beaten the police and a mad scientist and a curse and a storm and a goddess who makes storms, and here Celia was, alive and seemingly well, right in front of me. It was so brilliant.

I crouched down at Celia’s bedside, and Isabel appeared over my shoulder, holding another lantern.

“You remember me, right?” I asked.

Celia nodded.

“Are you okay?”

Celia’s eyes sparked with amusement as she watched the water drip from my clothes onto her bed. “You’re wet.”

I smiled. “Yeah, I know. We got caught in the rain. Here.” I pulled the wolf charm from my pocket and placed it in her hand. “You lost this.”

“Where’d you find it?”

“She found it,” I said, motioning over my shoulder to Isabel. “So you feel all right? Are you sure? No stomachache? No itchy skin?”

Celia shook her head.

“You really think she’s fine?” Isabel asked.

“She seems like it.”

“Still . . . We should get her out of here. Quickly.”

Isabel went off to inspect the rest of the room. First, she leaned over the unmade bed next to Celia’s, running her hand over the mattress. Past the beds, a crude divider made from an old sheet was hanging from hooks in the ceiling. Isabel pulled it back, revealing a cot with a neatly folded blanket placed across its end. An overturned crate served as a makeshift nightstand, and books and journals were stacked at least two feet high on it. Fastened to the wall over the cot was a rough-hewn shelf filled with more books, along with what looked like a wooden cigar box and a photo in a frame. Isabel picked up the photo and looked it over, her eyes revealing nothing.

“What’s wrong with your hand?” Celia asked me. “Did you hurt