Page 23 of The Flesh Remembers
The chanting resumed, and the participants began their ministrations again, their hands and mouths reigniting the fire that had started to burn out. Eleanor’s body arched as pleasure overwhelmed her, but her eyes remained fixed on the effigies.
They were no longer lifeless. The red thread glowed faintly, pulsing in time with Eleanor’s heartbeat.
Blackwood leaned closer, his lips brushing her ear. “If you choose wrong, you will shatter him. James will return broken, his spirit warped by the darkness you allowed to take root. But if you hesitate, you will lose him forever.”
Eleanor moaned as the pleasure coursing through her built to an unbearable crescendo. Her body was trembling, her vision blurring, but the weight of the decision pressed down on her like a vice.
The effigies seemed to stare at her; their hollow eyes filled with silent accusations.
Her climax tore through her with a scream, and she reached out, her fingers brushing against one of the effigies. Its glow intensified, the red thread unravelling and weaving into her hand.
The second effigy began to writhe, its features twisting into something monstrous as it absorbed the darkness pouring from her.
The room fell silent as the ritual ended, the air thick with tension. Blackwood’s gaze was unreadable as he studied her.
“You’ve made your choice,” he said softly.
Excerpt from the Diary of Dr. Eleanor Ashcroft
I can’t justify myself anymore, not my choices or actions. I’ve sunk into a darkness I can hardly face, all for James. Why can’t I let him go? I survived losing my parents, but James is different. I can’t accept a world without him.
The truth claws at me, demanding I confront it, but I resist. If I look too closely, I might stop and stopping means losing him forever.
Blackwood’s cult has taken everything from me, marked me in ways I can’t undo. Whether souls exist or not, mine is surely damned. But none of those matters. Whatever he wants, I only care about bringing James’s back wherever this path leads.
Tearing Down the Veil
The clinic pulsed like a beating heart—not Eleanor’s, but something else's. Its pulse was an electric thrum that reverberated through the stone walls. Eleanor moved deliberately, her bare feet brushing against the cold floor. Her body was already alive with anticipation, the silver disk at her throat buzzing faintly, teasing her senses.
It had been days since the last partial awakening, but the memory lingered: James’s cold hands gripping her hips, his lips crushing hers in an unholy imitation of passion. The man she loved was trapped in that decayed shell, and every step she took brought her closer to freeing him. She hoped.
Eleanor had now moved into the clinic full-time. However, it was not something she had expected to do. Eleanor had tried to leave after the last failed reanimation process. Shehad packed her small satchel and made her way through the corridors to find the way she had first come to the clinic, which seemed like a lifetime ago. When she had finally found the door, it was locked up tight with no way to open it. Eleanor at first thought she might search for another way out and make a run for it back to her townhouse across the city. But, in the end, Eleanor simply returned to her room within the clinic and sat at the small desk. She was trapped here in more ways than one.
Ultimately, she wrote a letter to her housekeeper, Mrs. Allen, to advise her that she was going on an extended holiday and was unsure when she would return. She would wire her two months' wages to start, but more if she extended her stay. She just asked that Mrs. Allen to check on the house once a week until she returned. Eleanor sighed and wondered if she would ever see Mrs. Allen again.
As Eleanor walked, her dark green dressing gown rustled behind her, the velvet flaring out as she descended the stone corridor. Eleanor allowed herself to think of James as she loved him, his boyish grin and soft blonde hair that would always grow unruly throughout the day, no matter how many times he tried to tame it with a comb. Usually, Eleanor would not allow herself to think about their time together when they were happy and felt nothing but love and hope for the future. The pain of that unlived life was too great for her. But now, Eleanor took a single sip of the beautiful memory of James and his love for her, fully feeling the exquisite anguish of love and loss together in a single rush of emotion.
The thought of how much he had loved her when she had felt certain no one would ever love her again and then losing that love made it all the harder to bear. She stifled a sob and stopped to lean against the stone wall, her eyes blurring from the tears that threatened to fall. No, she could not fall apart now; she had too much work to do. So, Eleanor put the sweet, painful memory away and conjured another, only thismemory was all pain. No gentle, hopeful whispered words of love, just raw, unfiltered anguish.
They had gone for a picnic in the park on a beautiful sunlit afternoon in spring. Mrs. Allen, the housekeeper, had prepared enough food to feed a dozen or more, and Eleanor recalled how they had laughed about it, unaware of what was to come.
There had been a commotion that caught their attention. Two young men were fighting, a young woman beside them screaming to stop. One of the men was bigger and stronger than the other and was pummelling him mercilessly. Eleanor had suggested that James try to intervene and offer medical assistance as one of the men appeared near unconscious from the beating. James never saw the knife the other man had pulled from his pocket, and as he had lunged to strike his opponent, James had moved forward to render aid, and the knife blade sank into his abdomen.
The man had fled after stabbing James, who lay bleeding heavily and clutching his abdomen. Eleanor screamed as she ran towards him, an unfathomable desperation filled her as she knelt by her fiancé and began to unbutton his waistcoat and shirt so that she might see the wounds. Eleanor saw a deep puncture in James’s belly, and he was bleeding heavily, and at that moment Eleanor knew. She was a doctor; she had seen such wounds before and knew the outcome. Death. James was going to die. There was no way to prevent it. The wound was fatal, and as James wearily gazed up at Eleanor, tears slipping down his cheeks, she could see that he knew it too.
“El,” James whispered as she cradled his head in her lap. “Dear, sweet El.”
“James, James,” Eleanor whispered, wiping the blood from his mouth with her handkerchief. “You’re going to be alright, James, yes, you’ll be fine. Just fine.” Eleanor’s tearsfell in a steady stream from her cheeks down onto James’ bloodied body as she continued to say the words over and over again like a mantra, as if her words alone could keep him alive. “You’ll be fine. You’ll be fine. You’ll be fine.”
James took her hand and brought it to his bloodstained mouth and kissed it. “My darling, I’m afraid there’s no help for it. You and I both know it.” James’s voice was growing weaker and more unsteady. “I’m done for.”
Eleanor let out a loud wail of despair as James’ beautiful sky-blue eyes began to flutter and then fell closed. His breathing became more laboured and shallower.
“No, James, no! You cannot leave me. You cannot leave me here alone! James! James!” Eleanor sobbed now, throwing herself over James’ prone body, his blood mingling with her tears. Eleanor thought she would follow James into death at that moment, for surely no one can feel such pain and live. The searing hot pain of loss and grief filled her body until there was no more room for it, and the only thing she could do was to scream. Eleanor screamed and screamed, her despair seemingly endless. That man may as well have ripped Eleanor’s heart right from her chest with that same knife. The pain was so great, she feared it would consume her, believing that surely, she too would die, unable to bear the agony of a world without him.
Dr. Fairfax met Eleanor in the anteroom, his face pale and drawn. His hands trembled as he adjusted the dials on the ledger’s control console, the pages glowing faintly under the dim light.
“Eleanor,” he began, his voice shaking. “We need to talk before we proceed. The ritual tonight… It’s beyond anything we’ve attempted before.”
