Page 16 of Saint, Sorrow, Sinner
Underneath each syllable, an old, refracted noise filled her skull. Throaty and guttural. Bellowing, trilling, moaning.You sound like the ocean,she wanted to say.You belong in a museum.It was prehistoric, reverberating from the ghost of a great, hulking thing. Sweat beaded on her forehead. Nightclothes clung to damp skin. Sophia hated recognizing such an irrevocable sound.
Extinction pressed against the chasm buried in her body, silent to everyone but her.
To hear the dead was to reach through time. Next, she might catch the echo of the great comet, or the pitter-patter of rain before the flood, or the slip of Eve’s teeth against an apple.
Sleep came and went, shooed away the second Sophia opened her eyes. She didn’t remember going to bed. Didn’t remember anything except the dream—was it a dream?—replaying on a loop. Orangeflowers, incense smoke, and Kimberly’s snapping jaws. She stared at the ceiling and brought her hand to her chest, plucking at her father’s crucifix.
Somewhere far away, she slid into another body. Pushed into cold, stiff skin the same way one might fit themself into a new glove. Heavy, dense bones. Atrophied organs. She stayed there for a moment, holding the gold cross, entranced by the incorporeal experience of possessing something, someoneelse.
Run,Kimberly snapped, lurching through her memories. The hand she should’ve called her own went taut, closing around the jewelry.Run.Sophia’s breath shot from her, lungs suddenly seized, limbs suddenly shackled.Run.Death filled her mouth like curdled cream. She couldn’t unlatch her knuckles from around the crucifix. Couldn’t stop applying pressure.
Someone had taken hold of her. She wasn’t inhabiting but being inhabited.
Sophia tried to yell. No sound surfaced. She tried to yank her hand away. Her grip tightened. Skin split. Bright, brilliant pain splintered. Blood welled in her palm.
“Let me go,” she whispered, then again, rallying strength. “Let me go!”
The bedroom door swung open.
Sophia sucked in a sharp breath and shot forward, scrabbling off the bed. She extended her quivering hand, holding a small pool of warm blood, and lifted her gaze, staring at Tehlor Nilsen. Lincoln stood in the hallway behind her, peering over the witch’s shoulder, and Colin’s voice erupted from the bathroom,what’s going on out there,while Bishop peeked around the doorframe.
Thick, syrupy blood filled Sophia’s mouth. She swallowed it, ignoring the sticky rivulet dribbling down her chin.
“Something’s inside me,” she croaked. “Like, someone just...”She gestured to herself with her clean hand.
“Possessed you.” Juniper’s voice appeared before she did. The psychic touched Tehlor’s biceps and stepped around her, striding into the bedroom. She tightened her satin robe and shook out her wrists, as if she’d swatted a spiderweb, before snatching Sophia’s knuckles.
The movement jarred her. Sophia tried to yank away but Juniper tightened her grip. Blood smeared Juniper’s hand, and her deep, chestnut eyes sparked. Gold veined her irises. Much like Bishop, the psychic exuded ancestral strength. Her hair rose, as if stirred by slow wind, and her lips moved around a soft, barely-there incantation. Her presence snuck into the tiny wound on her palm and flowed freely through her body, nipping at veins, marrow, and ligaments. When Sophia tried to retract her hands, Juniper made a disapproving noise.Ah-ah,like her mother.
“The dead are like mice,” Juniper said. She slid her hand into Sophia’s, aligning their palms. The blood between their skin spilled, stringing toward the floor. “They get trapped in the walls. Make noise at night. Chew through pipes and wires.” Her energy was a comfort, intrusive and steady. “But once they’ve been seen, they go quiet for a while. They hide.” She squeezed Sophia’s hand and inched closer. Juniper’s ethereal magic bent against bone, crept upward, climbed vertebrae.
All at once the noisy chatter hushed.
Sophia hiccupped on a laugh, halfway to an elated sob. “How’d you—”
“It isn’t permanent,” Juniper assured. She cleared her throat and unclasped their hands. The gore from Sophia’s wound left a shiny crimson streak on her palm. “Get dressed. We’ll talk downstairs.”
Sophia glanced at the small puncture. Stigmata.
“I have bandages.” Juniper tossed the statement over her shoulder and exited the room, brushing past the quartet of onlookers in the hall.
Gunnhild scampered across the floor and placed her small paws on the top of Sophia’s left foot, blinking and twitching her nose. Sophia stared at the rodent while Tehlor said, “I got this,” shooing Colin, Bishop, and Lincoln. Tehlor closed the door and folded her arms. A black long-sleeved dress clung to her small frame, paired with clunky heeled boots and an assortment of jewelry. She ran her thumb along an amethyst shard dangling from a silver chain.
“You okay?” Tehlor asked.
Sophia crouched and stroked Gunnhild’s back. She’d never touched a rat before. “What does power feel like? Actual power?”
The witch shifted her gaze to the ceiling. Long wheatish hair fell over her shoulder. She hummed thoughtfully. “Control,” she decided. “Sort of. Like, I wasn’t completelyincontrol at the revival, but I called the shots. Fenrir gave me the juice; I did what I wanted with it. Fast car, good driver. Loaded gun, skilled marksman. Make sense?”
“Do you think I could ever get that with...”She opened her unmarred hand. Gunnhild sniffed it then wandered back to Tehlor. She straightened, sighing at the sight of her bloodied palm. “Whatever’s inside me? Is it even an access point, or a deity, or—”
“No, and no, and no,” Tehlor said. “Sorry, honey. It’s a curse. Point blank.”
“Isn’t a cure just a blessing sent with malice?”
“Yeah, and I don’t think you want to find out whatmalicetastes like. My gods like me alive. The Breath of Judas needs you dead to survive. You do the math.”
Sophia shifted her jaw back and forth.
