Page 51 of Rainshadow

He wasn’t, though. As Flora followed Sylvia down the hallway into the basement, a basement protected by a dark, heavy, metal door, she felt a terrible chill. She had chased Sylvia, but now she followed her at a distance, unsure of how she would do what she knew she needed to. Sylvia descended the stairs at a quick, youthful clip, like she wouldn’t, couldn’t slow down, or she might not keep going.

The basement was damp, smelled like mildew, and Flora thought that she could hear the crashing of the sea against the walls of the stone cliffside not very far away. The only light came from yellow motion sensor lamps that had turned on when they descended the stairs. She watched, feeling terror and helplessness swell in her like an ocean wave, as Sylvia marched, determined, over to the dark mass in the center of the already dark room.

Flora had been expecting a coffin, but this was more like a large wooden box that brought to mind an old-fashioned steamer trunk. There were even some stamps and labels on it, some very old, like Ethan had been using it for travel for a very long time. It gave Flora a horrible, creeping, wormy feeling starting in her belly and moving through her whole body.

“Uhhngh…” Sylvia groaned like an animal as she tried to lift the lid.

Flora only watched. Sylvia looked back at her as though considering asking for help, remembered that Flora came not to help her but to kill her, and went back to lifting. Flora watched as vacantly, as passively, as if it were a movie playing on a screen in front of her.

Finally, with a squealing creak, the lid of the trunk opened.

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Sylvia looked down at the figure in the trunk, and her face displayed nothing, no emotion. Flora, frozen, watched her so closely that for a moment it seemed like they would both stand there for eternity, Sylvia gazing down at Ethan, Flora staring across the room at Sylvia.

“I had one life,” Sylvia said, her voice cracking, but still cutting through the din in the basement, the sound of the sea. “I had one life, and you stole it from me!”

She strengthened as she spoke, and Flora watched as she raised the stake, steadied it over Ethan’s still heart. She raised a horseshoe over it, a big iron one, with plenty of weight to drive the stake through the soft flesh and into whatever lived there below his fragile bones.

Just as she was about to drop the weight to drive the stake, steadying herself with a breath, Flora ran at her. She threw her whole weight against Sylvia, who was taller and on a good day probably smaller than Flora. Sylvia, who had been caught up in her moment of triumph, was completely surprised, but only for a moment. They began, there on the floor of the basement, to fight.

“Give it to me,” Flora screamed, reaching for the stake and pinning Sylvia, who was underneath her on the ground.

Sylvia, whose mouth was open and eyes were bright, battered her, her long arms swinging wildly, doing anything she could to regain the upper hand.

“You fucking idiot!” Sylvia shouted. “We were almost free!”

“I won’t let you,” Flora growled, balling up her fist and laying a solid, horrible punch across Sylvia’s strong, pretty jawline. The sound of the impact made Flora sick, but not enough to stop fighting. She was pretty sure, at this rate, that if she gave Sylvia the chance, she’d be dead. Sylvia had stopped wanting to save her. No. She had decided to fight for her own life. She had decided, stupidly, to survive. Flora snickered at the thought, then savagely hit her again.

Sylvia, tall and strong, recovered, then rolled as hard and as fast as she could, swinging an open hand across Flora’s face, hitting her so hard that she was utterly shocked, rolling to the basement floor in a spinning daze. Sylvia got up then, and tried to run toward Ethan’s trunk, but Flora rolled, grabbed her by the ankle. Sylvia kicked hard, landed her boot in Flora’s face. Then, looking at Ethan, then Flora, she turned and ran up the steps.

For a second Flora closed her eyes, took a moment, then realized what was about to happen.

“No,” she screamed, and peeled herself up, wiping her bloody nose on her sleeve and launching up the stairs.

Sylvia dragged open the door, ran out, and tried to shut it. She was trying to lock them both inside. If she did, she could burn down Rainshadow. Flora slammed her shoulder against the door, using all of her strength and weight, and it burst open. Sylvia gave her a look of both disappointment and contempt as she backed away, but turned and kept running. She ran out of the house, sure-footed and fast, leaving the front door wide open and swinging, then down toward the barn.

There were three ways to get into the barn. There was the primary door that the horses went through, which had an automatic button on the inside, the back door closest to the house, and the door to the arena. Flora knew that Sylvia would go straight to the back door, and that’s exactly what she did, loping like a deer over the yard as Flora scurried after her, already a little breathless. She knew Sylvia must be exhausted too. She watched as Sylvia ran into the barn through the back door, slamming it behind her. She probably locked it.

Flora stopped, stood, thinking.

She couldn’t open the big barn door without the clicker, like a garage door, and they usually kept the arena locked. She couldn’t imagine what Sylvia was going to do. Then, the big barn door, very slowly, began to open.

Flora stood, waiting, her heart thumping. Zeta, probably spurred by a whip, exploded out, but she was riderless and wild-eyed, her hooves thundering. Flora had to stumble back to get out of her way and keep from being trampled. Then, she heard the arena door slam open, and she knew that Sylvia was going out that way, likely on Mithras. Flora ran into the barn and found Mars breathing violently in his stall, tossing his head. She grabbed his reins off of the backroom wall as quickly as she could, nearly stumbling as she threw open the stall door and forced the bit into the frothing mouth of the terrified animal.

Later, she would reflect that it was pure adrenaline that gave her the strength to mount Mars at a run, without a saddle or stirrups. She had never done a single pull-up before, but somehow, she dragged herself onto his back, clinging with a death-grip to his withers as he rocketed down the hall past the other horse’s stalls.

She rode around to the arena door and heard the thundering beat of Mithras’s hooves. Flora looked for Sylvia, but it was dark,misty, and there was so little light left. It sounded like she went to the cliffs, where it would be hard to hear her or see her.

Flora twisted in the saddle as she rode, pulling up on the reins, to the cliffside. She felt her confidence grow. Sylvia may be a better horseman, but Flora knew Rainshadow, knew every cedar and fir tree, every rock or little stream, every tendril of green-gray moss. There was almost no light now, but Flora closed her eyes, held her breath, and listened. She heard it—the sound of hoofbeats. Sylvia was heading for a copse of trees on Rainshadow’s west side, in the little wood that Flora knew so well. She had to be. Flora could see it all in her mind’s eye as perfectly as if it were daylight, the tall trees, the little gully, nearly invisible to horses. She pressed her heels into Mars’s flank, eyes still closed, and rode. She knew what to do. She knew where to drive Sylvia, knew that if she made her run fast enough, she wouldn’t see the danger in time.

She let the horse carry her, frantic and panting, let the cool, misty air slip around her like velvet. She felt what she wanted from the horse, and he responded. She opened her eyes, and for a moment she saw Sylvia, her black hair streaming, the horse that conveyed her like a pale ghost. Sylvia was more beautiful in life than Flora even was in her own dreams. It wasn’t her ethereal beauty, though, that stunned Flora, it was her incredible pride. She thought of Ethan calling Sylvia passionate, and she saw it then. Sylvia burned from the inside out, she combusted with furious energy that Flora could only witness and never possess. What gave her that pride? It wasn’t beauty. Sylvia didn’t care that she was beautiful. It wasn’t her skill. That came from the passion. It wasn’t even money, her beautiful clothes, or even Ethan. What could it be? Whatever it was, it came frominside of Sylvia. Did that mean, somehow, that Flora might have it too?

For a moment, Flora imagined she could have that same fiery intensity, could stir the world around her the way Sylvia could. Despite everything, Flora felt a wild surge of love for her in that moment, and felt inspired instead of threatened, and wished she was riding beside Sylvia instead of trying to overtake her.

“Sylvia,” she said, almost called out. The name was a ghost on her lips.

And then she heard the horrible snapping sound, and then she heard the scream.

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