Page 18 of Grim

In my chest beats a love that’s unspoken.

Carry your memory in this cage of bone.

The heart we share means that I’m always home.

I finish the memorized passage and take a moment to try to unscramble my warring emotions. My gently falling tears mingle with the gently falling rain. Missing this man hurts so much. What has always been emotional pain takes physical form in this moment and stuns me out of my reverie. There is nothing metaphorical about the sharp stab that spikes in my heart. The erratic beating of my chest sends me into a panic attack.

The immediate sensation hits hard, like a punch behind my breastbone. I fall forward with a gasp, hand flying to my chest.

“Oh fuck. Fuck.”

It’s not a pinch anymore. It’s a vise. It’s a warning bell.

It’s my body telling me,This is happening.

I press my palm flat to my chest and then drag it across to my shoulder, trying to ease the pressure. It only spreads. Fire under my skin. My breathing quickens, but nothing fills my lungs.

Panic continues to rise.

“What’s—” My voice shakes. “What is this? Owww.”

I curl sideways into the wet grass, rain slicking down my neck, cold mixing with heat, the thunder overhead so loud that I feel it in my teeth.

My vision blurs.

“I—I don’t—”

I want to go back. I want to go home. However, I no longer know where that is. My body feels foreign. Like it’s closing in on itself. Like every cell is packing up and leaving without me.

“Not yet,” I whisper. “I still have—I haven’t finished—”

Another sharp pulse in my chest. My arm goes numb.

I turn my head, straining to see my father’s stone through the curtain of rain. It’s the only one still upright. Still whole.

I think of his voice on the boat, of the calm way he’d teach me how to steer when the waves got rough.

“Now remember”—I recall the advice he gave me as a girl with the nickname only he ever used—“OO-bee, if you ever need help and you’re too far out, use the radio and call out one word—Mayday.”

“Mayday,” I croak now, rain filling my mouth. “Mayday. May—” The word dies on my tongue. A stillness sweeps in behind it.

And then nothing.

FreeWillComesataPrice

The Present. Again.

I’ve earned my stripes. Stitched them onto my coat through centuries of servitude. But I’m feeling reckless today. Culmination of ages of mind-numbing repetition perhaps, but I’m not following the ledger this time. I’m not crossing Rue Chamberlain. Not yet anyway.

Not because I care or because I’m some sentimental fool.

I’ve been going through the motions for centuries, and I want to see what happens when the motion stops.

So, here I am—ankle deep in weeds, standing on soggy soil outside a Victorian manor house that looks like it was sketched by a madman with a laudanum addiction. The place looms against the dark ominously. The kind of house that feels like it’s watching you back.

Behind it, the family cemetery broods. Wrought iron fencing curves around the graves like ribs around a broken heart. The headstones are crooked, leaning into the earth like they’re trying to lie down for good. Moss and time have all but eaten the names off their faces. Ivy curls upward from the roots, as if it were trying to pull the dead back down.

The air stinks of damp rot and copper, like something freshly unearthed and bleeding. Thunder grumbles above me, not a warning, but a witness.