Page 100 of Malady

The footsteps draw nearer, and I tighten my grip, edging around the beam until the man comes into view.

“Don't you dare come any closer!” I shout.

The poor creature shrieks, flinging his cup into the air as he stumbles backwards into a stack of hay bales. Ale splashes across the straw, and he throws both arms over his face.

“Please!” he cries. “Please, don't hurt me!”

I stop dead. Now that I can see him properly, there's something horribly familiar about the man huddled amongst the hay, though his face is thinner than I remember, and he looks as though he hasn't slept properly in weeks.

“Ralph?” I whisper, lowering the pitchfork a hair.

Ralph Smythe cautiously lowers his hands, peering up at me from behind a strip of linen tied over his nose and mouth. The cloth is soaked in vinegar, its sharp, sour smell reaching me even from several paces away. He's broader in the shoulders than he was ten years ago, and there are little lines around his eyes that weren't there when we were young, but I'd recognise those watery hazel eyes anywhere.

Oh, I remember Ralph. I remember him picking burrs from my hair behind the tithe barn, and the way he'd turn up at my door with two plums in his pockets every summer, insisting they'd fallen there quite by accident.

“Hello, Ophelia,” he whispers, his eyes darting towards the iron prongs still hovering near his chest.

I lower them another inch. “What on earth are you doing here?”

He blinks. “Well, it's my father's barn.”

“Your father's—” I glance around at the straw beneath my feet, then back at him. “Oh. Well, what am I doing in your father's barn?”

“Your doctor brought you,” Ralph explains, cautiously hauling himself upright. He brushes the straw from his tunic, though he keeps a wary eye on the pitchfork in my hands. “Last night, it was. He's up at the house now, seeing to my father's foot. Something is growing between his toes, and your doctor offered to treat it in exchange for letting you stay.”

I stare at him, trying to imagine Iscairn examining some poor man's mouldy toes after everything that happened in the crypt.

“Well, that's very generous of him, but doesn’t that mean we’re in Oakhaven? I thought the whole village was under quarantine.”

“Aye, it is.” Ralph shifts uncomfortably. “But your doctor was quite convincing, you see. They weren't going to let him through at first, what with you coming from Beswick and all, but he had a few words with them, and they soon changed their minds.”

“A few words?”

“Aye. I don't know what he said, but one of them started crying.”

Oh, for pox’s sake.

The barn door creaks behind us, followed by the sound of boots crossing the straw. I turn to find Iscairn stepping inside, fully dressed in his scorched black cloak, his wide-brimmed hat settled on his head. His carved bone mask is securely back in place, the amber lenses catching the pale morning light as he surveys Ralph's dishevelled appearance and the pitchfork still clutched in my hands.

“Ophelia,” he says pleasantly. “I see you have made yourself at home.”

The pitchfork slips from my grip and lands in the straw, and I’ve barely managed to say Iscairn's name before he turns his attention to Ralph.

“Your father's foot has been cleaned and dressed,” Iscairn informs him. “He is to keep it dry, and I would strongly advise against putting those filthy boots back on until the skin has healed. Now, if you would be so kind as to leave us?”

Ralph nods eagerly, mumbling his thanks as he hurries towards the door. He leaves the spilt ale where it is, along with a hunk of bread wrapped in cloth, and I watch him go with growing guilt. I ought to apologise. Perhaps I could catch him before he reaches the house, though the moment the barn door closes, I find myself staring at Iscairn instead.

His mask. He's wearing it again. He'd taken it off in the crypt. And now it's back on, but Ralph had looked absolutely petrified when he saw me, and⁠—

Oh, Christ.

My hands fly up to my face, fingertips pressing around my eyes before feeling along my cheeks.

“Why was Ralph so frightened? Do I have the eyes? What’s wrong with me?”

Iscairn sighs. “You look perfectly normal, Ophelia. For now. When you feed, or look for what you mean to take, they will darken as mine do. In time you will learn to call it and let it go again.” He tilts his head. “Ralph was frightened because you were pointing a pitchfork at him, and I had already informed him that if he failed to provide you with a blanket and his finest ale, I would discover precisely how many of his father's orchard plums could fit inside his windpipe.”

My mouth parts, hands still pressed against my cheeks. “You threatened to choke him with plums?”