Page 118 of The Shade of Things
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I was swimming.I shook my hands free of droplets but they stayed wet. Almost sticky. No, I didn’t like this water. It was too cold. I tried to get out, but I couldn’t find the shore.
Hadn’t I just been in a forest? Why did I smell fresh cut wood?
Someone called my name, and I followed the voice, but a snake popped up, its forked tongue hissing. I swam as fast as I could, because the shadows would save me, but I became tangled up in writhing snake bodies like kelp, dragging me down to the bottom.
I fought and fought, but they were so heavy that I gave up. I giggled because one of them seemed to be wearing a brown plaid shirt, but the water claimed me, and I went under.
Finally, I woke up, lying on the stone slab covered in socks, with Pyotr standing over me, twisting his hands.
“Stabbed with tree,” he said. “Not good.”
I lifted my bloodstained shirt. My gut was fully healed without even a scar, but my heart felt like it had been stitched to the outside of my chest and scoured with sandpaper.
“How did you find me?” I considered staying where I was, half-buried, letting socks land on my head, but I sat up, dislodging the pile onto the cave ground.
“Shadow came.”
“Delilah?” The gargoyle nodded. Had I sent her out like a flare? “Did you heal me?”
“No.”
I pressed him but he wouldn’t elaborate, and I got the impression he was scared to say more. Regardless, I wasn’t about to question my luck.
“How long was I unconscious?”
“Three hours.”
Good. Sadie and Eli wouldn’t have to know what had happened.
I gasped. I’ll take good care of her, bubeleh. Sadie. I jumped up, frantic. “I need to go home. Now.”
Pyotr searched my face, but made the narrow green door appear. He handed me a bag of socks. “Here. From before.” He narrowed his eyes, then added one more.
I ran out of there, not stopping until I startled the shit out of Eli by stepping into his living room and calling his name.
He bolted up from the sofa, where he’d fallen asleep like he often did in front of the television that now showed some old sitcom rerun. His brain, however, hadn’t caught up to being fully awake, and he blinked at me blearily a few times until my blood-covered shirt registered. He jumped to his feet, his T-shirt bunched above his boxer shorts. “Who’s dead?”
“No one.” Pushing past him, I sprinted up the stairs, needing to see Sadie.
She was out cold, twisted almost horizontally on the mattress, the covers wrinkled up around her. Asleep and safe.
I rested my head against the door.
Eli tugged on my hand. “What happened to you?”
Putting my finger to my lips, I went downstairs and sat on his sofa. “It was a misunderstanding. I’m fine.”
“Yeah,” he said sarcastically. “You totally look it. What the fuck?”
“It doesn’t matter.” I pushed through my fatigue to figure out what day it was. Friday. “Keep her home from school today and this weekend. Don’t let anyone, and I mean anyone, in to see her.”
“Is this about her magic? About yours?”
“No. It’s…” I pushed my fingers into my hair. If I told Eli what Tatiana had done to me and how she’d threatened our daughter, he’d go after her. Even if he didn’t, he’d never forgive her.
I didn’t blame him. Were I in his shoes, I wouldn’t either, but he didn’t understand how our shared history had done a number on both my boss and me. Despite months of working together, of me saving her life, and her giving me opportunities to be a stronger more confident woman, in that moment at the tree, we’d both assumed the worst of each other.
