Page 128 of Grim

My fingers tremble as they stroke the letters, as though each spot of ink holds an ocean of memories. Unbidden—and I thought impossible—a single tear jumps off my cheek and lands on the page, blurring the words.

Visions of that old stone prison, of the stench of that place, and the crippling feeling of regret overwhelm me. I slam the book closed in my hand in a futile attempt to shut out the past.

The smoke and the screams echo inside me while the one thing I cannot remember continues to haunt me. Madeleine’s last words.

I look over to the peacefully resting Rue, then back to the book in my hands. I open it to the other folded page.

“‘But the future must be met, however stern and iron it be.’”

I smile sadly as I continue my one-sided conversation with a ghost from my past. “How right you are, Maddy. How right you are.”

Then I close the book and toss it unceremoniously onto the edge of the bed.

From somewhere in the house, an ancient clock chimes the top of the hour.

SeekandYeShallFind

Idon’t know how long I’ve been lying here.

Time feels like a thread that’s unraveled completely, tangled around my limbs, caught in my throat, dragging behind me like a frayed scarf. The walls have stopped creaking. The house—this strange, sentient thing that once groaned and shifted and sighed with me—has fallen silent. Even the wind outside, which used to whistle through the shutters and rattle the old glass, seems to have vanished. It’s like everything knows. Like the house itself is holding its breath, waiting.

Or mourning.

I try to move, but my limbs protest. Every muscle aches. My lungs feel too shallow for this body. There’s sharp pressure behind my sternum, like grief and gravity fused into one unbearable force.

Kane is gone. Another vital piece of me stolen, another sliver of my traitorously weak heart torn asunder.

The worst kind of separation because the distance remembers. The other soul still exists, but not for me. Not anymore. He’s somewhere in the OtherWorld, and I’m here, entombed inside my own body.

My story’s end has been foretold by the cruel twins, Fate and Time, while Kane and I have been cleaved from each other, just as he separated souls from bodies with his blade at that bus accident.

He promised me he would be here now.

Yet I am alone.

Not completely alone, but without him, which I am now realizing is worse than being alone. Because it holds the ache not of a mere emptiness, but a chasm that was once, momentarily, full. And that is when the void is truly felt.

I breathe as best I can. Each exhale a countdown, every heartbeat a drummer’s march, one step closer to its coda. I can feel the inevitability of it all.

I try to sit up. My bones feel like they’ve been carved from ice and left to melt inside my skin. It takes more energy than it should, but I do it anyway. Because I haven’t given up yet.

But before I lose myself to all my maudlin musings, I am comforted by the sight of a friend.

Seek.

He’s curled beneath the window, knees tucked to his chest, his too-big coat wrapped around him like armor. He looks smaller than usual tonight. He’s staring out at nothing.

And for a long moment, I think maybe he doesn’t know I’m awake.

But then he speaks softly without looking up. “I had a sister once.”

His voice sounds more mature than I have ever heard it.

“She was a couple years older than me. She wasn’t my real sister, not by blood, but she pretended. For me. When I first arrived at the orphanage, I could barely speak, from fear and on account of my being so young and all. I did not have many words, certainly none good enough to describe my feelings.” He shifts, pulling the coat tighter around himself. “But Sophia didn’t need my words. She hardly even gave me any of her own. She just poured out kindness. I could feel it coming off her and wrapping around me like a blanket.”

His fingers twitch against the fabric of his coat.

“I must have been standing there like a mouse in a shoebox, eyes as big as saucers. Sophia came right up to me and offered me her hand. I took it and squeezed, tight as could be. ‘Come on. Let me show you where you’regoing to sleep.’ She spoke so warmly to me. Always made me feel safe.