The mirage of the estate in Buffalo quivered and broke. The whispers grew uncertain, muffled, conversing with themselves.
Maybe, she thought. They weren’t wrong. She’d been adrift in a storm for years, moving from place to place, brief harbor to momentary port. Sometimes people would take her in. Then they’d get what they wanted from her and cast her out again. And she survived.
Like a weed, the voices brayed in her ears.
And Seelie smiled.
She dug faster. Harder. The mists churned in confusion. They’d tried to tear her down; instead, they’d given her a second wind. Clods of dirt flew with every strike of the shovel.
“I read a lot of books,” she said. “I trade when I’m couch-surfing. Never sure what I’m going to read next. One time, I swapped Sartre’s No Exit for a book on gardening. Do you know what a weed is?”
The whispers fell silent, pensive.
“A weed is any plant that grows in a place where it isn’t wanted. Any plant. In a yard of perfectly manicured, bland grass…a single rose, standing alone, can be considered a weed. Keep throwing rocks at me. All you’re doing is reminding me of who I am.”
They let her work in peace for a while. The fog faded, almost vanishing. She thought she was in the clear and then the whispers surged back again, scrabbling at her ears like fingernails screeching against a chalkboard.
You’re going to be eaten alive. They’ll tear you to pieces. Slowly. You’re going to die screaming.
She didn’t know who “they” were. She hoped the voices were bluffing.
And when you die, we’ll take your soul. The things we’ll do to you…
The threats became images, flooding her brain. Visions of torment, of violation, grainy snuff-movie footage stretched into eternity. A power drill whined in her ears. Seelie squeezed her eyes shut, but that just made the pictures worse. She opened them up again and stared at Aislin’s grave. Dig, she told herself. Just keep digging.
Last chance, they told her. Put down your shovel or face the consequences.
She fought the torrent of mental filth with her own imagination, weaving a waking dream for herself. In her mind’s eye she was back in the house on Sorority Row, back with the coven’s sacred dead. The burning of her arms, as she leaned into the shovel, became the ache of holding up a pair of heavy books.
Perseverance. That was the second key to success. Eliza Bowen had taught her that.
“I’m not sure if this is appropriate language for a proper young lady, but…” Seelie raised her head and called out to the graves, to the withered trees, to the bleak night sky. “Let’s do this. Either bring the hammer down or fuck off. Pick one.”
The voices quivered with confusion. Serpentine hissing, a many-mouthed beast locked in argument with itself, deciding how to attack.
“If you could have stopped me, you would have done it by now. You only win if you can talk me into giving up, and I won’t. I’m calling your bluff. Bring the doom and death and eternal agony, or take a hint and go away.”
She held her breath.
And the warring whispers faded away. A cold night wind gusted between the tombstones, silent save for the ripple of grass and the scatter of dead leaves.
She got back to work.
* * *
Seelie struck the earth and drove the spade deep. She wrenched the rough wooden handle back. She hoisted the heavy dirt and threw it aside. Then she did it again, and again.
By three feet down, the blisters had set in. Her hands were raw, scraped and torn by the shovel’s haft, and she left smears of blood along the wood. Every strike, every heave of the shovel brought fresh agony like razor blades slashing against her palms. By four feet down, her arms had turned to jelly. She only had the strength to lift a fraction of the dirt clods she did before, and smaller loads meant she had to dig even more.
I can’t, she thought, I can’t, and it became a mantra. She pushed through the pain, through the exhaustion, and transformed the words in the burning cauldron of her heart. I can. I will.
Stray dogs howled in the distance. She kept digging. The cold night wind took on the stench of rotting fish. She kept digging. Head down, driving deep, she didn’t notice she wasn’t alone.
“Who are you?” asked a curious voice.
She looked up and saw the figures, five of them, squatting in an uneven ring around her trench.