Page 54

A shadow in the mist.

Jeremy Polk, stepping out of the mist, a body in his arms. He carries her as if she weighs nothing, as if her substance has been carved away with her flesh. Hereyes are open. One can almost see the faint movement of her lips, the murmur slipping between them.

Jeremy Polk, through the gate, lowering the girl to the ground. Her extremities blur, break apart, dissolve, the undoing already reaching her wrists, her ankles.

Jeremy Polk, the gate closed behind him, leaning close to the vanishing girl, as if she is whispering in his ear.

Jeremy Polk, his jacket discarded before him, no sign that the young woman was ever there.

The gate. The mist. And in the mist, the beast, four amber eyes glowing, ink-slash antlers branching up to impossible heights. Crows wheel around its antlers, like bits of its shadow fraying free, wheeling, diving back to merge again. It stands oddly. Swaybacked, as if it must lean backward to balance.

The beast, one long, long arm stretched out. The hand ends in craggy, matte-black spikes, not proper claws but more like burnt wood hacked into points, that tear free of the mist. It’s pointing—like the girl pointed—straight at Jeremy. As if it knows him. As if it is not done with him.

The beast, turning away. The crows dive and swoop in its wake, and the mist follows, seething back from the shore, the water, the dark and lonely trees.

The gate. The mist. And nothing else at all.

14

JEREMY KNEELS WHEREhe set the woman down, his hand braced against the stone. His jaw is clenched in anger, but the anger isn’t directed at anyone. At the road, maybe, the thing that has devoured her—made her vanish into a cloud of black ash, into nothing.