Page 58 of As Many Souls as Stars
‘That is… a good idea,’ Esther admitted. ‘Thank you.’
Miriam stretched out her hand. ‘Now. The grimoire.’
Esther hesitated. She’d been holding the book when she’d been underwater—she would’ve expected it to be waterlogged—but in her hands, it looked as pristine as if it had been bound yesterday. Some charm, she supposed, imbued in it by its creator.
Perhaps she’d been underestimating the grimoire’s value. Was this not the sum of all her family’s work, all their secrets? She knew it held information about the curse; it might hold information about its breaking, too.
‘Why do you want this?’ she asked Miriam. ‘What will you use it for?’
‘You needn’t concern yourself with that.’
Esther took a step away from her, the marshy ground sinking beneath her feet. ‘I could use it too, you know. To break the curse.’
Miriam’s eyes somehow, impossibly, grew darker, and her face hardened to stone. Esther felt the hair on her arms stand on end.
‘Esther,’ Miriam said, warningly. ‘Give it to me.’
‘I don’t—’
‘Give it to me!’ she snarled, and it sounded less like a shout than a clap of thunder, her hair rising around her face as if blown back by wind, her features half consumed by shadows. And Esther saw, in the centre of her chest, a curious, swirling blackness—a void that seemed without end.
‘What—what are you?’ Esther asked in horror, the hairs on her arms standing on end. ‘What is that in your chest?’
‘My chest?’ Miriam asked. ‘Oh. That is my soul—or lack of it, I suppose.’
But you must have a soul, Esther thought, recalling Thomas’s words.All creatures have souls.
It was not the time to argue the point. Instead, she said, ‘You are no witch, Miriam Richter. I ought to have realised that earlier.’
Miriam gave her a pitying look.
‘It doesn’t matter what I am, my dear,’ she said. ‘Your last hope; your greatest regret. It doesn’t matter, because I am all you have.’
I am all you have.
Esther felt the truth of that in the marrow of her bones. How often had she wished to find someone like the monster standing before her? Someone immune to the cruelties of the curse, the cruelties of Esther’s own heart, her hostility and her regrets. No one had ever accepted her as Miriam had. No one else ever would.
That realisation felt miraculous and terrible. It was a cauterisation, a cure that hurt more than the wound. And Esther found, suddenly, that all she wanted was to go to bed.
‘Take me back,’ Esther asked the shadows.
‘No—!’ Miriam snarled, reaching for her. But she was too late. Esther had already disappeared, the grimoire still in her arms.
Esther slipped inside the townhouse enshrouded in darkness, invisible and intangible. It was too late to ask the servants for a bath, so she looked down at herself, at her mud-stained gown, bedraggled and waterlogged,and paid a sliver of soul for the chance to be clean. The shadows draped over her: the fabric of her dress brightened; her hair dried. When she lifted her wrist to her nose, she even smelt faintly of lilies.
The salt was on her windowsill, just as Miriam had said. It was invisible, but Esther ran her finger over the surface and felt a minuscule, jagged ridge. The grains didn’t shift at her touch. Esther realised they had been glued down, but it would be easy enough to scrape them off with a nail or needle. And it would be just as easy to slide into bed, and leave Miriam’s request unfulfilled.
A shape formed in the darkness outside, then hopped closer to the windowsill. It was her Little Shadow, feathers oil-slick dark, head tilted to watch her.
Esther managed a hesitant smile. ‘I have you, also,’ she told the bird. ‘My dear friend. Forgive me for forgetting that.’
The crow ruffled its feathers.
Esther pressed her finger more firmly against the salt. The crow hopped closer, tapped the glass of the window gently with its beak. She watched it, considering the darkness of its eyes, and the familiar glint of intelligence within them.
She knew that darkness. She had known it her entire life.
Realisation fell as softly as a shroud. Esther didn’t even feel surprised. She just felt tired: as tired as if she’d never slept at all, as if she’d been awake for centuries.
