When I opened my mouth to scream again, something cool poured through my lips. It was bitter tasting, and I wasn’t sure where it came from. If it had anything to do with the shadows dancing around me, I didn’t want it, no matter how good it felt in my dry mouth. So, I spit it out.
She won’t keep anything down. I’ve been trying for half an hour.
The voice was familiar. Faint but familiar.
Try again, another voice said. The last thing Catherine needs is for her sister to take ill, as well.
Charles. I knew that voice was Charles, and once that information came to me, I could remember the first voice belonged to Nurse Gray.
I strained to open my eyes, trying to wake up, and I heard the voice remark on my movement. It encouraged me to try harder, to press beyond the exhaustion that weighed me down. I needed to tell them what I’d seen, what had happened.
When my eyelids finally fluttered open, I saw Nurse Gray and Charles standing near my bedside. The nurse was standing the closest, with Charles just behind her. When I opened my eyes, he didn’t move or rush to my bedside, but looked to the nurse.
“Miss Beckingham?” Nurse Gray asked, lightly touching my shoulder. “You are safe and well. Do not panic.”
Those words were rarely uttered to people with no reason to panic, so they did little to comfort me.
“You are in your room,” she continued. “Charles and Camellia are here. You’re safe.”
I blinked several more times, my vision clearing, and then tried to sit myself up in bed. Immediately, my joints protested, and I groaned.
“You fell,” Nurse Gray said, not sounding entirely certain. “You have a lot of scrapes and bruises, but no breaks as far as I can see. It would be best for you to stay still and rest. I have this medicine here that should help you—”
“No.” My voice was dry and hoarse, but sharp. I shook my head even though the effort made my brain crash against my skull. “No, I’m fine.”
“Hardly,” Camellia said, finally stepping into view. Her brow was creased with concern, but she looked almost annoyed with me. “I’m covered in enough blood and mud to prove it. You are not fine at all.”
The memory of crashing into the arms of the person standing in the doorway came back to me, and I remembered Camellia’s voice. She must have been the person unlucky enough to catch me fresh from my sprint across the moors. I looked down and saw the dried mud on her dress, and despite everything I’d just endured, the sight of it nearly made me laugh.
That feeling, if nothing else, brought me back to myself. It cleared my head and helped me remember what was important.
The truth.
“I saw something. I saw—”
“Shadows,” Charles finished.
I turned to him and frowned. “How did you—”
“You were talking in your sleep,” Nurse Gray said. “Ramblings and nonsense. You didn’t know what you were saying.”
She spoke authoritatively, as if she knew what was in my head better than I did. I didn’t appreciate it.
Ignoring her earlier warning, I used my weak, bruised arms to lift myself to sitting. My muscles agonized over the movement, and I didn’t want to think about how much worse I’d feel in the morning.
“Well, I know what I am saying now, and I saw shadows. On the moors.”
Camellia rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, not bothering to hide her disbelief. Charles, however, looked stricken. His eyes were wide and sad, turned down at the corners, and his hands twisted in uncertainty in front of him.
“You were screaming when Camellia found you,” he said. “You barely made it into the house before you collapsed. I’m not sure now is the time to talk about what you think you saw.”
“What I know I saw,” I corrected him. “I was delirious when I made it to the house because I’d run so far. I was exhausted. But I remember very clearly the reason I ran.”
Camellia leaned in to her brother, but did not bother to lower her voice or whisper. “This is exactly what happened with Catherine. Perhaps, whatever affliction this is, runs in the family.”
Anger reddened my cheeks, and I turned on Camellia, my eyes narrowed. “What affliction would that be, Camellia? Because as far as I’m aware, no one has quite cured whatever it is my sister has come down with. Could that be because there is nothing to cure?”
Charles extended a hand to calm me. “No one meant anything hurtful, Alice. We are just trying to make sense of this.”
“Then let me help you.” I slammed my fists into the mattress and met each of the three nervous sets of eyes in the room. “Listen to me. Hear my story. When I’m done, you can decide whatever you want, but I won’t allow you to discuss what could be happening without listening to what I experienced first.”
Once again, Camellia looked bored and annoyed, but Charles nodded. “That is fair, Alice. What did you see?”
“I took a nap this afternoon, and when I woke up, I needed some fresh air. So, I went for a walk before dinner. I followed the trail that you, Charles, marked as being safe, but it was more difficult than I anticipated.”
“Could we please move on to the part that made you run screaming into the house?” Camellia asked impatiently.
“Camellia,” Charles warned her.
She shrugged. “I’m sorry, but we don’t need her to recount her entire day. Just the part that is necessary for the story.”
I ignored her to the best of my ability and carried on, telling them about the smoke and the chanting. I told them about the dark figures I saw through the trees.
“This sounds like a children’s frightening story,” Camellia said, clearly exasperated. She turned to me, hands pressed together. “I’m sure you think you saw these things, Alice, but can’t you hear how insane it sounds?”
Suddenly, I understood
