Page 38 of Gothikana

She bit her lip and fidgeted with the strap crossing her chest, bisecting her heavier breasts in a way that was severely uncomfortable but necessary.

‘You sent your letter?’ he asked quietly as they edged near the end of the town, houses growing sparser with every passing mile.

‘Yes. Your errand went well?’ she asked, not understanding the very polite way they were suddenly conducting a conversation about something so mundane. It felt odd, new, but not entirely bad.

‘Yes.’ He swerved the car round the first curve as the incline began. ‘I take it Mrs Remi told you about the local legends?’

Corvina, who had been looking out the window at the view — a window he had rolled down for her without her saying it — turned to him. ‘You know Mrs Remi?’

‘Yes. I’ve been to the post office often enough,’ he supplied, driving confidently through the worsening weather.

‘What do you think about the Slayers?’ she asked him, curious to know his thoughts on the legends.

A side of his mouth tipped up slightly. ‘Those ruins in the woods you like so much? They’re called Slayers’ Ruins. People say that’s where they used to bring people, where they were found’ — he slowed as the elevation increased — ‘and where they were killed.’

Wind whipped through the car. ‘How many of them were there?’

‘Seven, I think,’ he replied.

‘But there are fifteen unmarked graves,’ Corvina pointed out. ‘I counted.’

He smiled slightly. ‘Interesting, isn’t it? If you believe the local legend about those graves being theirs, then who else is buried there?’

Corvina nibbled on her thumb, thinking.

He chuckled darkly at her silence. ‘The graves are empty, little crow. Don’t think too much about it. Anyone who’s followed the investigation knows that.’

Corvina ignored the view outside for a moment, watching him, his muscled forearms exposed under the sleeves that were pushed back, his skilled, wonderful hands mastering the car like he mastered the instrument he loved so much.

‘What’s your interest in the investigation?’ she asked him quietly, needing to get a sense of his involvement in any of it.

He smiled but remained silent, leaving her even more confused.

The first fat drop of cold water hit her cheek. Corvina gazed out the window. They had driven up high enough on the mountain road that nothing but a thick white cloud of fog blanketed everything below them. Above them, the skies turned an angry purple and grey, darkening everything enough to make the headlights seem like the only light.

A loud boom of thunder rumbled all around them, and the skies burst open, pouring their wrath down on the earth.

Mr Deverell cursed, slowing to a crawl as she rolled her window up on her side quickly.

‘Shouldn’t we stop?’ Corvina asked cautiously, looking to see him entirely focused on navigating the road.

He shook his head. ‘The storm is coming in too strong. We’ll roll right down if we stop now.’

She swallowed once, her heart beginning to pound as her knees began to shake slightly. ‘But—’

‘There’s a space up ahead for turning around,’ he informed her, shifting gears as the car groaned and the wind howled. ‘It’s relatively flat. We just need to get there before the storm worsens.’

Corvina nodded and stayed silent, letting him concentrate on getting them to safer ground, her mind whirling with the tempest outside. Is this what her mother had meant in the nightmare about a storm and a devil keeping her safe — this silver-eyed devil and this storm? Or had she meant something else? More importantly, how did her mama in her dream know about any of it?

After what felt like hours of crawling up the mountain at a snail’s pace, fighting against the onslaught of the wind and the rain, Corvina saw a little flat space to the left, almost enough for a car to park. She watched as Mr Deverell expertly manoeuvred the huge vehicle into the space and turned the ignition off. As the vehicle went dark, he slumped back in his seat, gripping the sides of his neck and letting a breath out.

He cracked his window down an inch, cold wind assailing the insides of the car even through the small gap, and opened the dashboard, bringing out a pack of cigarettes.

‘You mind?’ he asked, and she shook her head. God knew the stress had been enough to drive anyone up a wall.

He took one out and placed it between his lips. His hand shuffled items in the dashboard, his agitation growing as he couldn’t find the lighter. ‘Fuck!’

Corvina brought up the bag she’d settled between her feet, unzipping it and scrounging in it for the box of matchsticks she always kept with her. Finding the small cardboard box, she took it, picked a stick, and struck it against the side.

---