The Secret Skin by Wendy N. Wagner

Author:Wendy N. Wagner [Wagner, Wendy N.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781952086298
Publisher: Neon Hemlock Press

8

The snick of the bedroom door opening woke me. I rubbed sleep’s confusion from my eyes, the pattern of darkness resolving itself into shapes. Feet padded in the hallway.

“Abigail?”

I switched on the light, bringing clarity to the emptiness of the floor. Only Pewter sat in Abigail’s blanket nest, his eyes dark, the crooked stitches of his mouth uneasy.

I found my robe on the foot of my bed and stepped into the hallway. No light or sounds from the bathroom to my left. My bare toes dug into the rasping wool of the runner. “Abigail?” I whispered again.

Downstairs, a door clicked open. I hurried to the staircase.

“Is everything all right?”

I waved back at Lillian, not sure how to answer. The bannister groaned beneath my hand. All around me the tiny noises of the house seemed to shift in tone and pitch, their intonation higher, tighter, more excited than usual. Abigail never woke up in the night. The house knew it.

Shoes sounded behind me, but I didn’t look back. I cut through the main hallway to the sun room, running now. I hadn’t heard the shush and drag of the French doors, but I knew it was coming. The house moved as it had in the bathroom that first night, the wood groaning and popping its message, the taps shrieking their song of deliverance.

The French doors slammed shut ahead of me. I grabbed the bronze handles and yanked. For a moment they resisted. Then Lillian was beside me, her hands pushing down on mine with a power outsized for her slight body.

The doors burst open and I stumbled out onto the brick patio. The rain had stopped for the moment, but clouds still obscured the sky, and the wind pushed against me with cold, hard hands.

“Abigail?”

Lillian grabbed my arm. “There!”

My heart lurched. Abigail twirled in a circle beside the white fountain, her nightgown’s hem ballooning around her legs. I leaped over the boxwoods, running toward her. She spun away, the wind pushing her down the path toward the sea view.

“Abigail, wake up!”

Lillian gave a shout of pain, and I risked a glance over my shoulder. The climbing rose, the neatly trellised pink one, had caught her around the leg just as it had this morning.

This time, I didn’t stop for Lillian. The sea roared below us, hungry and angry.

The craggy limb of another, thicker rose bush caught in my dressing gown and I yanked free. Why hadn’t the gardener pruned the damned things?

Abigail spun, wobbled, hit the line of boxwoods and ricocheted, wind and sleep spinning her farther down the path, farther from me. The low line of white balustrade lay only a few feet beyond us, one more turn in the brick path. I pushed my legs faster, the bricks rasping on my naked feet.

Then the rain began, a fierce, cold rain like claws raking my body. I skidded on dirt become mud. I flailed a moment, my eyes fixed on Abigail’s small form. Then I was upright, arms pumping, going over the hedge to block Abigail’s path.

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