Page 8 of The Flesh Remembers
Excerpt from the Diary of Dr. Eleanor Ashcroft
I loved James. I love James. And yet…
When Blackwood’s lips were on mine, my body sang. When Frye touches me, I feel sick. But my thighs still ache after.
What does that make me? What kind of woman lets herself burn at both ends when the one man she wants is cold and buried?
No, I’m doing this for him. I’ll crawl through filth and flame if it means I hear him repeat my name.
But what if I’m starting to like the filth?
He gave me a silver pendant that they want me to always wear. It's a silver disc with a strange symbol etched into it, something he called the Alchemical Triangle.
Blackwood said the symbol was tied to purification, destruction, and transformation. I don’t know that I believe a symbol has such powers, but I confess that I have felt odd since putting it on. Part of me wonders if my unnatural desires for Blackwood are related to it. It seems ridiculous that a piece of jewellery could have such an effect on someone, but I can feel a hum from it. A vibration. It feels warm against my skin.
I am reasonably sure that my mind is playing tricks on me. I am looking for ways to justify my inexcusable disloyalty to James today. I do not believe in magic. I believe in what I can see and touch. But I mustn’t let Blackwood or the others know. I will follow their plans if it gets me what I came here for. If it gets me James.
Something Lurks Beneath the Floor
The clinic was silent. Too silent.
Eleanor had awoken sometime past midnight, though she could not recall falling asleep. The lamp by her bedside still burned low, casting a sickly green glow through the room. Her fingers drifted to the pendant at her throat. It throbbed—not pulsing like a heartbeat butvibrating, like something inside was scratching to get out.
A strange hum sounded beneath the floorboards. Low, soft… rhythmic.
She swung her legs over the side of the bed, the cool floor sending a jolt up her spine. The hum grew louder. It was almost melodic now, like a chant heard underwater. Shetiptoed to the corner of the room, crouching where the sound was strongest. She pressed her palm to the wood.
James.
She held her breath. The word hadn’t been spoken aloud… but ithadbeen heard.
She pressed her ear to the floor. Static burst against her skin, warm and tingling. And then the voice came again.
“Ellie… You wore red the night we first made love. You spilled brandy on your collar and I licked it off you in the dark.”
Her eyes widened. No one else knew that memory.
“James?” she whispered, trembling. The pendant burned against her skin.
She should have run. Should have called for Marian, Frye, or Dr. Fairfax. Instead, she stayed on her knees, pressing her chest harder to the floor as though she might melt through and reach him. Her pulse thrummed as she held her breath, waiting.
The voice turned low. Velvet. Hungry.
“You begged me that night, remember? You said you wanted me inside you before the storm passed. You wrapped your legs around me like a noose.”
Eleanor gasped.
Suddenly,pain.
A bite.
Not imaginary. Real.
She staggered back from the floor, clutching her side. Her nightdress was torn. And on her hip, a crescent of red puncture marks bled gently. She touched them, heart galloping.
No one was here.Yet someone had left teeth marks.
The floorboards beneath her creaked. Not from her weight. From something… shifting underneath.
