Page 89 of Shadows of Perl

“Aren’t you?”

She turns the ring on her hand. “Your father stood in that cigar lounge, worrying about the same things, when you were down there. Adola’s a big girl. I let her wait, as long as she wanted, to be sure she was ready. She will be fine.”

I untuck my shirt.

“If she doesn’t come out soon, I’m going in there to get her.”

My aunt’s jaw tics, but she says nothing.

Thirty

Quell

When the starting horn blows, I’m already in the forest.

But nothing looks the same as it did when Adola led me to the guesthouse the first time. I find the worn path and follow it. Fog wreathes the thick nest of trees. Cold simmers beneath my skin, my toushana awake and ready. Trust my instincts. Focus on what I want. Beaulah’s words urge me forward. I pick up my pace to a light jog.

Voices echo in the distance. A thud, proceeded by grunts.

I still. Toushana coils in my chest, snaking its way through my arms, and when I open my hands, a cloud of darkness is there. I abandon the trail but follow it from a distance, keeping an eye on its winding bends, looking for Della or Charlie. By the time my throat burns from the cold winter air, I still haven’t spotted the guesthouse. Did I make a wrong turn? A pair of glowing eyes appears in the distance and it stops me dead in my tracks. Easy now. Calm. I stand firm, but when I blink, it’s gone.

I’m about to keep going when a husky voice not unlike Charlie’s pricks my ears. A coppery scent hits my nose. Besides the burial, I wonder what other terrors Beaulah has them face in there. I never asked her. Heavy footsteps plod in my direction, and I watch as an unfamiliar pair dressed in House robes trudges through the forest. Thick ropes are slung over their shoulders and red-stained sacks drag behind them. Whatever is in there reeks of blood. I can hear Beaulah’s voice in my head. The path to a breakthrough is paved in fear.

They walk past without noticing me, then veer off the path. When they’re out of sight, I find the trail again. Howls and rustling leaves send a chill up my spine. But there is no sign I’ve been followed. I jog until the path abruptly ends. Every intersection of the woods looks like the one before it. My heart rattles with panic. Charlie knows his way around these woods better than anyone. I need to find that guesthouse, fast. I pick a direction and sprint.

The woods thin. Up ahead is a clearing with a sprawling, oversized oak, its tall, thick branches sweeping the ground. I slow, realizing I’ve gone the wrong way again, and a shrill scream rips the air.

“You have to pile it all in, you fool,” someone says. “Can’t make it too easy to get to the finish line.” The hardness in his tone renders me straight as a board. I hold in a breath, listening. But I only hear the scrape of metal, followed by a dull thud. Then another scrape and thud in a steady motion.

Scrape.

Thud.

Scraaaape.

Thud.

The commotion pulls my attention in that direction, as I try to make sense of the eerie sounds. Beneath the oak is a man holding a giant shovel. He shoves it into a mountain of dirt, using his shoe to deepen its scoop. Then he heaves the dirt into a hole—a grave—in the ground. Another man beside him watches.

Someone is buried alive under there.

“That should be good.” The one holding the spade unties the bloodied sack slung over his back. He spills chunks of raw meat around it. I swallow but remember that these guys aren’t going anywhere. I turn to tear myself away, to keep looking for some sign of the guesthouse, when the men pick up their shovels and jog past me.

“The girl’s next.”

Adola.

Where are you going?!

They stop and squint in my direction, and I realize I said that out loud. I step into the moonlight. “What the hell are you doing in here?”

“You’re leaving them here!” I look for other men hiding in the brush, but there are none.

“We’ve got other graves to dig.” He checks his watch. “You should get out of here.” They rush off in opposite directions with their shovels and half-filled sacks. How will Adola escape? She has got to be pushed out of the nest someday. Maybe the sheer terror of it will awaken something ferocious in her like it did in me. And if it doesn’t?

A sudden scream.

An explosion of dirt and ash.

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