Poison Princess

basement. I nearly chuckle.

Instead, I say, “Tell me about your mom.” My tone is kindly and concerned, even as I’m thinking, If you like bad boys, little girl, then you’ve found the baddest of them all.

“I’ll tell you the rest.” Another abashed look. “But, Arthur,” she says in that soft drawl, the one that makes my heartbeat race, “the same warning as before applies.”

15

DAY 214 A.F.

STERLING, LOUISIANA

It was time.

A pitcher of water shook in one of my hands. In my other fist, I squeezed a clean length of bandage.

Still I hesitated, dreading what I was about to see. And I hated myself for being a coward.

The voices that hounded me—with their repeated chorus of twisted threats—quieted to a low, manageable buzz. As if to let me suffer the next twenty minutes with my mom all the more.

No distractions, no interruptions . . . “Bastards,” I muttered. “Rot in hell, every single one of you.”

Deep breath in. Out. Showtime.

With a breezy demeanor, I sailed into Mom’s darkened room, placing the pitcher next to the washbowl on her dresser. “Good morning. How’re you feeling?”

A ray of sun peeked through a broken louver on the hurricane shutter, highlighting her face. She looked so tiny in her big canopy bed, a shadow of the woman she’d been before the Flash. Her gaunt cheeks were much paler than yesterday.

If she truly had an internal injury like she thought, then that meant more of her blood had been collecting in the mottled, pulpy bruises beneath her elastic bandage.

“You ready for me to change your dressing?”

If I cried at the sight, I was going to hate myself forever. If I faltered in any way . . .

When I sat beside her on the bed, she raised her hand to cup my face. “How are you doing, honey?”

My bottom lip almost trembled. How badly I wanted to talk to Mom, to tell her all the things on my mind.

I hear more than a dozen voices. If I sleep, nightmares torment me. We’re on the last of our food stores. Even now, I’m shaking from the effort not to ditch your room and run outside to scream into the wind with frustration. Our horse is dying of starvation. You’re getting worse.

Are you dying?

Instead I said, “How am I doing? The best. Today is pea-soup day.” My performance fooled no one, but I was determined to sell it. “So let’s see what we’ve got here.” I spread her arm across my shoulders, gently helping her to sit up while I stuffed pillows behind her.

Perspiration beaded her face—from her effort not to cry out in pain? We were both actors in our roles. And worse, we both knew it.

I started unwrapping her bandage, found the material damp with sweat. Every morning, I changed her dressing. Ever since she’d been attacked.

A week ago, she’d ridden out to check our dead neighbor’s well levels. One of our water pumps was spitting sand, sounding like a straw at the bottom of a milkshake. So she’d decided to investigate, going out alone early one morning when I’d been asleep. In the note she’d left, she’d pointed out that Allegra could barely carry her, much less both of us, and she assured me that no Bagmen would be out in the daylight.

As long as she had her salt and made it back before sunset, she’d be safe.

Neither of us had even seen a Bagman, except in my drawings. At first I’d been petrified that they’d overrun us, but months had passed with no sighting. So I hadn’t gone hysterical when I found her note.

To keep myself busy, I’d done a thorough cleaning of the house. I couldn’t stand the ash that accumulated over everything, grew sickened if I let myself think I could be breathing someone’s cremated remains.

As I’d been working, Mom had been miles away—stumbling upon three Bagmen in a pump house.

Two of the things had been licking at a wellhead. Another had stood between her and the door. It’d knocked her salt from her hand, so she’d charged, tackling it into the sun, both of them tumbling down cement steps. . . .

Now as I unraveled the first layer of bandage, I remembered how I’d listened to her tale, dumbstruck by her bravery. The badass Karen of old had made it home—without a single freaking Bagman bite, just a couple of bruised ribs.

Or so we’d thought.

Second layer of bandage. Like an idiot, I’d wondered if the attack might not be a good thing, a catalyst to jar her back to her ballsy ways.

Third layer. This task was testing me in ways I wasn’t ready for.

Where had that thought come from? Shame on you, Evie.

Shame. On. You.

Final layer. Don’t you dare gasp at the sight. Don’t inhale a breath. Calm. Act like it’s better.

Reveal. I clamped my lips together to hold back the surge of vomit in my mouth. Swallow it back down, you stupid coward with your stupid shaking hands.

The wound was hideous.

At first the injury had been just a cluster of bruises. Then it’d turned squishy. Now it looked tight, a sack of blood about to burst. Like a tumor growing out of her side.

The bandage was doing nothing but making me feel better—allowing me to think I was making a difference.

“It’s . . . better today,” I choked out. “I really think so.” With wobbly knees, I crossed to the antique pitcher and bowl—the ones we’d previously used as quaint decorative pieces. Now back in service.

As I wet a cloth to clean her skin, I took a moment to collect myself, gazing in the mirror at her room’s reflection.

This space was also a shadow of its former self. The burgundy and cream décor, the rich silk wall hangings, and the lace of her canopy bed were now all drab, the colors muted.

Despite my best efforts, ash continued to steal inside, steeping everything we owned. Layer by layer, that ash was erasing what we’d once known, erasing who we were.

I broke my stare, meeting eyes with Mom. Oh God, she’d been watching me when I was unguarded! Shame on you, Evie.

Had she caught a glimpse of the helpless frustration churning inside me? Of course—her eyes were glistening with unshed tears. But she said nothing, playing her role.

“Let’s get you cleaned up,” I said brightly, determined not to be helpless. Because wasn’t that just another way to say useless?

Exactly as that Cajun boy had once described me. Bonne à rien. Good for nothing.

As I washed Mom’s torso, I realized he’d been right. I couldn’t cook, sew, repair, or hunt the vermin and snakes that had survived. I was a clumsy and inefficient caretaker.

Never in the history of mankind had there been a better time not to be useless.

But I wasn’t going to be for long. . . .

Once I’d finished cleaning her up and rewrapping her torso as best as I could, I said, “Mom, I’m going out to