She hauled him out by force, he managed to steady himself barefoot on the bank, his body too light and too yielding. She didn't look back at the house until they were halfway to the porch, him dragging behind her like some revenant she'd conjured up in a fever dream.
The front door wailed as it opened sounding louder than usual, as if the house itself objected. Rain swept in behind Arabella and the half-conscious boy she dragged across the threshold. The storm lantern flickered wildly, casting twisting shadows that danced across the foyer's warped floorboards and water-stained wallpaper.
Lisette stood at the top of the stairs in her nightdress, arms crossed tight across her chest, rosary clenched in one hand.
"What is that?" she hissed.
Arabella let the boy's body sag onto the floor tiles. "A gift. Or a curse I think but either way, he's mine now." She declared airily.
"He's marked," Lisette said, voice shaking. "Look at him. Look what's on his skin."
Arabella's gaze dropped. The boy was curled like a dead bird, his back against the wall, eyes still open and fixed on her. The lantern light caught something etched on his collarbone: a sigil, not a scar, nor a tattoo, but something deeper. A carving healed over by time. It looked older than the boy himself.
"I want the fire stoked in the old guest room. The Blue Room," Arabella said, brushing past Lisette.
"You'll bring rot into this house." Lisette nervously yelled at her.
"I'm surprised it hasn't beaten me to it."
Lisette didn't move.
"I said stoke the fire, Lisette. And bring bandages and spirits for his wounds. Also burn his rags. He'll wear mine until something better arrives."
At last, Lisette begrudgingly descended the stairs, muttering in Creole. She passed the boy slowly, making the sign of the cross over him.
Arabella crouched beside him again.
"Can you walk?" She asked, but he still kept mute, just staring at her.
"I suppose we'll find out."
She slipped her arms beneath his and helped him stand on his feet, he staggered once, then leaned against her, almost too easily. He was warm now, not from life but from her own heat.
"You've ruined my floor boy," she whispered, not without affection. "I do hope you're worth the mop."
He didn't smile. But his eyes, locked on hers the entire way up the stairs, glimmered with something unreadable.
It isn't fear or gratitude nor confusion.
But something bigger… recognition.