Arabella retired to her room, the air in her bedchamber felt thick, like breath held too long. Arabella lay atop the covers in her silk robe, eyes fixed on the ceiling where the shadows of tree limbs danced like skeletal hands. The storm had quieted down, but not ended, the rain still whispered against the glass like someone tapping politely, begging endlessly, to be let in.
Sleep would not come no matter how she tossed and turned.
She tried taking absinthe again. Just a sip. But it tasted of memory now, bitter and too green, like the moment before a wound opens.
Somewhere deep in the house, a floorboard groaned.
The sound wasn't unusual. The Saint-James estate was a rotting thing, old bones creaking in protest of time. But tonight, it felt closer and more deliberate.
She pressed her hand to her chest, to the scar just above her breast, an old burn no one else knew of. It flared, yet unprovoked.
She turned on her side, pulled the sheets up, and forcefully shut her eyes.
She fell into a dream, In the dream, the water was black.
She stood waist-deep in it, unable to feel her legs, she felt chains wrapped around her thighs, coiled up like serpents, and dragged her down. She gasped but the water rushed in, sweet and burning. Her body flailed, light disappeared above her and then, out of nowhere a hand broke through the murk.
It tightly closed around her wrist.
She thought it would be Elias.
But it wasn't. It was Jonah.
But he isn't the boy from the swamp, he has the same face, but somewhat older, crowned in a halo of bubbles and silt, eyes open and glowing faintly. His grip was gentle, almost reverent. But he did not pull her up.
He pulled her deeper and the chains tightened more.
Her lungs screamed.
Then darkness overtook her.
Arabella woke with a gasp, bolting upright.
Her chest heaved. Her sheets clung to her skin, damp with sweat or so she thought, until her fingers brushed the edge of the mattress.
Wet.
She looked down.
The floor beneath her bed was soaked. A thin line of water snaked from the open balcony door… all the way to the threshold.
And there, in the faint moonlight, just inside the doorway, were bare footprints that looks nothing her hers.
She stared curiously in a daze.
The prints stopped a few feet from her bed. No exit. No return. Just presence.
The wind lifted the edge of the curtain, and outside, the garden rustled like something watching.