9. Chapter 8

Time passes once more. I am unable to keep track of the days as I have ignored most of my meals and slept away the hunger instead.

This time, the scraping of wood on the bars signaling mealtime stirs me from sleep. As the servant brings me a slop of what can only be porridge with sausage, she pushes it between the bars, nearly spilling it over as the tray hits the ground. This gets my attention. I sit up from the cot, propping myself up on my arms as I watch the woman"s body tremble as she takes sight of me.

Her startled eyes meet mine before she leaves as fast as her small legs will carry her, mumbling under her breath, a prayer. "May evil be swept from my veins," She whispers to herself. I watch her as she basically sprints to the end of the hall. She then gestures with her left hand, two fingers held to the bottom of her chin. She slides them out, extending her arm. An ending to her prayer.

I hum away the silence because when the world grows quiet, the Shadows appear. Some prisoners join in on my song, and some curse at us to stop.

Men are released, and others fill their spots. When the melodies are done and the room grows cold once more, we all settle in for bed. Again, footsteps make their way towards my cell.

If I am not mistaken, those footsteps belong to Kirian. They are heavier than the guards that usually stalk the hallway. I sit up and brace myself for another line of questioning. But when I stand and take a tentative step towards the sound. Nothing. No one is there, but the footsteps continue. They come right towards me, the sound right at my feet, on the other side of the metal bars.

This place is starting to play tricks on me. The confinement. I haven"t seen the sun in so long. I"ve never let myself be still for this amount of time for fear of the darkness consuming me. I suppose it"s finally happening.

Almost falling backward, I desperately pull the thin blanket from the cot around my shoulders to conceal myself from the weight of someone"s eyes on my neck. I rock myself back and forth, head resting on my knees as I pull myself close.

What I see and hear cannot be trusted, I do not know of the things that my mind can create when pushed to the edge. It"s all in your head. If it"s not, at least if I die in here, no one will have found out that the madness was starting to take hold, I"ll never have to go crazy or get those same looks that I received from Kirian, no one will have to feel bad for me that I was never able to be normal, like them.

The Shadows sneak into the cracks and crevices of the flimsy blanket. Their whispers make their way to my ears, just as they did that night before I found Father. They took me there, somewhere I did not want to go. This time I will not let them.

I pull and twist, ripping the blanket from their grip as they try to pull it from my body. "Leave me alone," I tell them. They do not listen. "Get off me," I whisper to them. They whisper back sweet promises of escape and the sun on my skin. The voices are slow and soft, as if they are talking through honey.

The Shadows soon grow long black arms, their fingers pick at my clothes and blanket, pulling me along with them, but I cannot go in every which way they take me. The feeling of weightlessness starts in my chest. Then, my body feels like it will melt, turning me into the liquid along with them.

I swing my feet over the side of the bed to anchor myself to the ground. When I look down, my feet are in a puddle of black. I nearly scream as I try to pull them out. They do not let me go.

There, on the other side of the bars, where the footsteps stopped, but there was no person to occupy the sound, lay another puddle, the same dark circle of black that pools around my feet. Come, they say again, so close that it"s getting hard to decipher their voices from my own.

"I will not go with you," I say as I finally yank the blankets from their clutches. My knees nearly hit my chest when they release me. "Leave me alone," I say again.

The Shadows are mine. Therefore, they should yield to my command. Although it has not worked so far. The demand comes out louder than I intended. The man next to me stirs, grumbling to himself.

"Shh." The springs beneath him let out a squeal. When I hear his nearing footsteps end, his fists are pounding against the wall. "We are trying to sleep, dammit." The Shadow"s arms shrink, and their teeth are no longer bare.

Finally, they slither back into the shape of the things around me. I push my face into the pillow, covering the sounds of my sobs until I fall into sleep.

My sleep is full of lulling voices and invitations into the abyss. I dream of a beast, one with the eyes of Father. Its long-pointed teeth nearly touch me as it snarls and growls. Something warm drips from my forehead and onto my white dress that flows to the ground.

My skirt whips violently in the wind, along with the tangled braids in my hair. I wipe at the liquid that has now seeped into my eyes. My fingertips come away coated in red, blood, my blood. It stains the beautiful silken fabric in patches of red.

The beast circles me before lying at my feet. Beyond his body is a door, I go towards it stepping over its rancid decaying body. The silk covers the beast like a sheet over a corpse, the hem of my dress only growing as I walk so as not to uncover its body.

When I finally turn around, there is only a long hallway of white silk with red stains. The beast"s whimpers and whines are distant. I do not turn around. I do not feel bad for it this time. I do not uncover its body to mend its wounds or warm its body with a fire.

The further I walk, the less I can hear its snarl or smell its foul odor.

White sheets cover me, blocking out the light from the lanterns. I shove them off of my body with all my strength, still in a daze from the nightmare, thinking that I had somehow become the one trapped beneath the fabric. My stomach again threatens to expel its contents as I sit up. The thundering of my chest becomes steady once I take in my surroundings. Still in the jail, men shuffle around, and the familiar hum of my neighbor fills my ears. The melody stops when the springs beneath me squeak at the shift of my weight. "Your nightmares keep me awake at night." His voice is barely above a whisper.

"I"m sorry," I say breathlessly. Sometimes, my neighbor and I hum somewhat of a duet. But aside from that and his late-night complaints, he has never tried to speak to me before.

His humming continues but is soon cut off by the banging of an opening door which echoes through the room. Mealtime. I look down at yesterday"s dinner as it still sits on the floor, some of it eaten by mice or other critters that live in these walls.

When the jingling of keys and the shuffling of feet make their way past the prisoners, they begin shouting.

The clinking of wooden bowls and the slosh of porridge hit the ground. One of the empty bowls rolls over in front of my cell. "Daimon!" someone shouts at the guards. "May evil be swept from our veins," they tell each other, reciting the same prayer as the servant as she left my cell. I make my way to the bars and peer out at the chaos. The prisoners bang on the walls, and my neighbor hits our shared wall at the same tempo as the footsteps on the ground.

"Settle down," the soldier commands as they approach. One looks at me. He smiles with rotting teeth and a crooked grin.

This causes an uproar, the shouts grow louder, the pounding more intense. The only one who does not curse at them is the man next to me. He must have grown bored of the commotion. He continues his humming as the guards come stand in front of me, the cell that was once empty across from mine opens with a heavy turn of its lock. When the guard slides it open the men seem to settle back into their spaces.

Two soldiers hold a bloodied, skinny man up by his shoulders. They release him with a shove, and the man falls face-first onto the cold floor. He doesn"t even try to catch himself. I can"t see his face, but a yellow glint shines from his neck when he rolls over with a groan.

My mind goes blank. I stand there for a moment longer, in shock.

Not beast, hardly even man, he seems to have decayed since I last saw him. It wasn"t all that long ago, mere days in fact, that I had seen him standing there with Kirian, his face full of color, his cheeks filled and his eyes bright. Now he is gray, dying. His blood-soaked shirt sticks to his small body so much so that I can count every rib on his side. I take a few steps back on wobbly legs. No, this can"t be happening.

There is no way that he could get to me, and I know that. Still, I retreat into the cell, pushing myself into the corner so that there is no way he could see me. Father lets out a groan of pain. I hear the squeak of springs as he finds the bed.

Then, the guard with crooked teeth takes another peek at me, sticking his head between the bars. He finds my eyes as I sit on the floor, cradling myself, trying to calm the wild thoughts by rocking back and forth on my tailbone. "Family reunion," he laughs before walking away with the others.

Every rattle of chains, every turn of bodies on beds and whispers between inmates sends me into a paranoid frenzy. I cover my ears, remaining in the corner, the smallest that I can make myself.

Tonight, I will be getting no sleep, something that Father does not seem to struggle with. His heavy breathing rhythmic with the sound of slumber since he lay on the bed this morning.

If their intention is to break me, they have done it. What was once a hairline fracture is now split, entirely down the middle, unrepairable. Sobs escape my body, ones that had been stuck in my throat since the day that my sisters left me. I wish for a way out. Please, please, please. I ask the air around me.

As if on command, the Shadows make their appearance. They lean close to me, cutting off the little light this place has. They once again continue their incessant pulling and prodding at my clothing. I no longer have the energy to swat them away. When I do not acknowledge their touch, they give up but do not disappear. Instead, they lay a blanket of black around my shoulders, and its heat radiates through me. I didn"t realize I was shaking so severely until my body relaxes as my temperature rises. My temple hits the wall. I thank the Shadows quietly before I am lulled to sleep.

When I awake, I forget where I am, nearly tripping over my own legs in an attempt to stand. For a split second, I thought that the Shadows had taken me away somewhere.

No, the walls become familiar as I remember the events that unfolded the night before. My stomach aches and growls with hunger.

Flattening myself against the wall, I begin to walk towards the bars. I am able to hear the sounds of my humming neighbor as I move. He is in a good mood, unlike the rest of us.

A disagreement between a guard and the man who occupies the first cell has me moving even slower. Their argument ends with the slam of a door. There is no winning when you"re in here. My neighbor"s rumble of song gets louder as I slide closer to the hall, making sure that Father cannot see me. When I reach the corner, I take a few deep breaths to prepare myself for what I might see.

When I reach the bars, I"m startled as a warm hand grips my wrist around the wall I share with my neighbor. I nearly scream, but if Father wasn"t awake, he surely would be if I did, so instead, I pull away, but the man is stronger than me. His song cuts off abruptly as he pulls me towards him. I use my other hand to claw at his flesh, but he does not budge.

"No one is there." The man"s grip strengthens with his words. Father is not here? How could that be? Unsuccessfully fighting my way out of his grip, I stick my neck out slightly to see if my neighbor"s words are true.

It"s empty.

My shoulders fall instinctively, and the man must feel it because he uses the opportunity to pull me once more.

When I look down at his hand, there is a tattoo on the inside of his wrist—an eye—not just any eye, the same one that was on Claire.

"You"re one of them. Let me go." My frail voice does not deter him.

"Ah, yes, and I know who you are as well." He tells me.

"And who is that?" I spit in anger, my voice course from heaving. I know the answer. A witch.

"What all of Stone has been waiting for." That"s not what I was expecting.

I think carefully about what to say next. "What exactly have you all been waiting for?" I ask him as politely as I can with his hand still wrapped around my wrist.

"Not I." he lets out a huff that I think is a laugh.

"Then who?"

He pauses momentarily before the door opens again, letting out a long squeal from its hinges. "Choose your side carefully." He releases my arm, sending me falling backward. Then, he begins his song again.

I rub at the red mark he has left on me. "You"re mistaken. I am not who you think. I am no one." the words come out breathy, desperate. The humming continues as the guards pass his cell and go straight to mine. They unlock the door. Two push their way into the space.

I look between them before they grab each of my arms and haul me out. I look over at the man in his cell, who leans against our shared wall, ready for my gaze. His gray hair is disheveled. His once broad shoulders sag as his body rolls forward as everyone"s does with enough time. He gives me a nod of his head before disappearing from my view.