What the Dead Know (Into Shadow collection) by Nghi Vo

Author:Nghi Vo [Vo, Nghi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Amazon Original Stories
Published: 2022-11-14T16:00:00+00:00

When Maryse awoke, there was a fresh chill in the air that told her it was nearly dawn. The tip of her nose was as cold as ice, and she hissed quietly as she peeled herself off Vasyl, who barely moved.

I should probably sneak back to my room, but didn’t they say there was a toilet on this floor?

The fireflies were down to a dull glimmer, most of them dead, and Maryse helped herself to Vasyl’s oil lamp instead, lighting it with his matches. Barefoot, she found the earth closet easily enough, located at the far end of the seminary, the part that backed up to the garden, which she supposed made sense. She used the facilities, and she was just trying to find her way back to the main part of the school when one of the doors opened and a man stepped out. Maryse blinked as she remembered him, the one with the mustache, the one who had asked after Hell.

He looked disheveled, still in his clothes, and there was a packet of papers in his hands. She moved to the side of the hall, giving him ample room to pass to the earth closet, but he was still watching her, an intent look in his eyes. There was a calculation, some equation that involved a foreign woman who didn’t speak English, and then his gaze sharpened like a spike. He saw her look at the letters in his hand, and his face hardened. Something had been decided, and her stomach lurched.

“Come here,” he said imperiously.

Maryse was not waiting around to find out what for. She spun on her heel, dropping the oil lamp to run down the hall. Apparently the man had been confident she would obey, which won her some distance. Then she could hear his steps coming after her, soft and padded like her own, and a new fear gripped her heart.

He doesn’t want to be heard, she thought, plunging down the hall. Whatever he is doing, he doesn’t want to be heard.

She couldn’t get her breath to shout. Instead she put everything into increasing the distance between herself and the man, whose footsteps and wheezing breaths sounded closer with every passing moment.

There was a faint gray light in the air, just enough for her to see that the hallway ended in a display of dress dummies, overlooked by a row of windows too small and high to escape through, even if she thought she could open them. With only a moment to make the decision, she veered into the leftmost room, hitting the door so hard that it almost rebounded into her face.

She got around the door and threw her weight back against it, just in time to catch the man’s hand in the jamb. He uttered a strangled cry, and she slammed it on his fingers again. For a moment, she thought that he would withdraw and she could lock the door or secure it somehow, but instead he only bulled forward.

No, no,

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