Page 88

And my mum’s been in the ground for well over twenty years.

I remember snow blowing through my bedroom window as Gideon screamed about the Devil, and men coming up the stairs carrying burning wood. Iscairn turned to shield me, the flames catching his cloak, and I can still smell the scorching cloth as somebody dragged me away from him.

“Iscairn?” I whisper, trying to look into the darkness. “Iscairn, please.”

A cough catches halfway through my next breath, rattling so deeply in my chest that I can’t seem to get any air around it. I curl against the stone as another follows, then another, each one scraping painfully through my throat until something warm and unpleasant rises into my mouth. I swallow it down, gagging at the taste, and lie there trembling while my lungs struggle to settle.

Leon swung a burning chair leg at Iscairn’s face, and he caught it with his bare hand. I remember that. I remember him shouting for Matthias to let me go as I was dragged down the stairs, the flames spreading through the shop before they hauled me out into the snow.

I remember looking back. I remember calling for him.

“Oh, pudding. Whatever are you crying for?”

“He’s gone,” I manage. “Mum, I think they’ve killed him.”

“Who’s gone, my love?”

“Iscairn,” I choke out. “He was trying to help me, and they set the house on fire, and I don’t know where he is.”

“Oh, my little Ophi-pop. Never mind him just now. Mum’s here, isn’t she?”

I want to look at her. I want to turn my head and see her face, but the darkness is too thick, and there’s nothing but cold stone and moss.

“Can you get up for me, sweetheart? Come on, pudding. Let me have a look at you.”

“I can’t.”

“Oh, I know, my darling. You’ve had a dreadful time of it, haven’t you?”

I manage the smallest of nods.

“That’s my girl. Come on, then. Let’s see if we can’t get you up.”

I try to move my hand towards her again, but my blackened fingers only scrape feebly against the wet stone. They don’t even feel like a part of me anymore. They’re just dead things attached to a dying body.

No. Come on. Just a little further.

I press down again, pulling my knees beneath me, but a sudden tightness catches behind my ribs, and before I can stop it, a savage cough sends me pitching forwards onto the stone. Something thick and wet comes up my throat, and I gag as I spit it onto the floor.

“Mum—”

Another cough cuts me off, bringing something warm trickling between my fingers as I press a hand over my mouth. When I pull it away, a dark splatter stains my palm, and the wet tang filling my mouth tells me enough.

Oh, please. Not again.

I lower my cheek to the stone, breathing carefully through my open mouth while the rattling in my chest slowly settles.

“Mum,” I whimper. “I can’t get up.”

I reach towards the wall, dragging my fingers over the masonry in search of something to pull myself against.

I pull my chin up, searching for the sky, for the round opening of the well. But there are no clouds above me. Only a narrow slit of iron grating set high in the foundation, through which a sliver of wintry daylight spills down over crumbling mortar and the curve of a stone vault.

This isn’t right.

A faint murmur reaches me from somewhere overhead, growing into a low chorus of voices. I can’t make out the words, but I know the rhythm of them well enough.

Praying.