Bones by Eli Easton

Author:Eli Easton [Thomas, Eli Easton;Jamie Fessenden;Kim Fielding;B.G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Published: 2014-10-16T04:00:00+00:00

I WAS closing up the doors to the veranda later that night when I saw a shape perched on the railing in the dark. I froze and felt a frisson of terror wash through me. I knew that shape even though I hadn’t seen it in ten years. With trembling fingers, I pushed the slatted doors farther open so the candlelight from inside fell on the familiar form.

The bird’s black feet were wrapped around the top rail, and it was hunched in on itself, its white and blue feathers ragged, a smear of blood on one wing. Its red eyes stared at me fixedly. Its black beak opened in a silent caw.

“Everyting well?” Jaz asked, coming up behind me.

“Send for Tiyah. Hurry,” I ordered, my voice quaking.

I didn’t move until she arrived. I stood and stared at the bird, and the bird at me. I’d wondered, over the years, what would happen if the bird ever came to ill. Would I sicken and die with it? Was my fate and the bird’s irrevocably linked? It had not been an easy road, these past ten years, but we had made a place for ourselves, Richard and I. I did not want to lose it, or him.

Tiyah appeared at my left hand. “Yes, Missah?”

“It’s the bird.”

“Yes, Missah.”

“Is it…?” I couldn’t finish that thought.

She pushed my arm from where it had been frozen on the handle of the door and moved quietly past me. She approached the bird, but it didn’t look at her. It continued to stare at me.

“Oiseau doux. Oiseau bon. Give it to me.” She held out her hand to the bird, palm up.

The bird shuddered so violently, I startled, sure it was dying right then. But it stayed on its perch and bent its head toward her palm. With two heaves of its chest, its open beak dripped a trail of bright blood and then something slithered from its gullet into her hand. It was the thing, the blood-rich blob that the bird had swallowed all those years ago.

I put a hand over my mouth to hold back a cry of horror.

“Oiseau bon. Vous êtes libre. Allez-y,” Tiyah crooned to the bird.

It raised its ragged wings weakly and flew off, its flight uncertain. It was dying, that much anyone could see. And it had come to return what was mine. A clammy nausea suffused my body.

Tiyah turned to me, the thing in her hand. It was smaller than it had been, the size of a small egg now. It was redder too, more flushed with blood.

Involuntarily, I took a step back. “What…. What happens now?” I asked, my voice weak and my hands slick with sweat. I felt light-headed, as if it was I who was dying instead of the bird. Or maybe I was dying with it.

Tiyah said nothing, just stepped close to me, her dark eyes serious. She held her open palm and the object up to my lips.

I closed my eyes and shook my head in a harsh jolt.

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