Page 136 of The Sister's Curse

Bits and pieces of consciousness slipped in and out of my grasp. I felt Gibby’s fur winding in my hands, saw Nick’s face above mine. I heard sirens and saw the nausea-inducing flash of lights. I had to close my eyes to that brightness.

At some point, Nick and I were separated. I floated in a white room where I was urged to stay awake. It took a long time for my head to clear, and I asked for Nick.

He came to my bedside, looking very hungover. He held my hand. “They said you’ve got a bad concussion. But they’ll release you to me.”

“Is Gibby okay?”

“He’s fine.”

“How are you?” I asked, pushing hair from his eyes.

“I’m okay,” he said. “Just bumps and bruises.”

“What about Monica?” I asked quietly. I held my breath.

“They flew her to the university hospital for vascular surgery. She survived surgery. She’s going to live.”

I didn’t ask for details. Not now. For now, it was enough for me to know that Monica was going to live.

A worry mark creased his brow. “What happened there, at the Hag Stone, after we left?”

“I went for a swim,” I said. My body was covered with a plethora of scratches and bruises. I had a concussion—debris must have struck me in the head at some point. My head ached in time with my pulse. I wanted to believe that the feeling of being one with the Rusalka had been just that—a head injury.

But I wasn’t sure.

Nick exhaled. He didn’t ask further questions. Maybe he didn’t want to know.

No cops came after me at the hospital, and they weren’t waiting for us in the parking lot. Nick, Gibby, and I went home after spending the night in the hospital’s blinding fluorescent light. Nick turned on the news, which was showing footage from the worst flood in the county in a hundred years. Copperhead Valley Solvents had flooded, and the Copperhead River was burning in lurid red flames. The National Guard had been called out. Dozens of houses had been destroyed, and more than twenty people were missing. Curiously, the Greenwood Kingdom Church caught fire before being plunged into floodwater. The newscasters speculated about whether the fire was caused by lightning or purposefully set.

I fell into bed and slept immediately.

I dreamed of the riverside, of bodies bobbing in the water. And I saw Jasper wading into deep water toward Dana. She opened her arms to him, and they disappeared beneath the black water.

An iridescent blue glaze of pollution gathered on the water’s surface, but I knew it couldn’t touch them in the blackness below the waves.

—

I awoke in my own bed, feeling unusually at peace. Gibby lay across my stomach. He was awake, his doggie eyebrows twitching with worry.

“You’re such a good boy,” I told him, patting his side. “Thank you.”

I got dressed slowly. I stared at my calf. It didn’t hurt like it did before—there was a different kind of pain. This felt like a surface, clean pain, not a bone-deep throbbing hurt. I peeled the bandage back and looked at the wound. It was red, not green. Maybe the antibiotics had finally kicked in. Or maybe the Rusalka was satisfied.

Maybe.

I didn’t know if Viv and the girls had summoned a spirit that took Dana’s face, or if Viv had practiced some kind of necromancy that brought Dana herself back for revenge. With Viv gone, I would probably never know if Rusalka had always been there, expressing her power through various women. And what about Viv? Would she take on the role of Rusalka now?

I had felt Rusalka. I felt her, and I felt me, and I felt the intersection of us. We were both killers. I had to admit, at last, that I was one. When I looked at the awards on my mantel, it was like looking at an alternate reality. While Rusalka hadn’t stayed, she’d awakened something in me that I hadn’t felt for a long time, not since I was a little girl running through the woods.

Freedom.

I went out to the front porch. The fox was there, in the midst of the ruined garden. I offered her a piece of bacon. She smiled at me, took it gently, gulped it down, and slipped off into the woods.

Nick had made breakfast: scrambled eggs, bacon, and waffles. We ate in silence, until I broke it.

“I want to see Monica,” I said, though I knew I wouldn’t be allowed to drive.

“I’ll take you,” Nick assured me. “My friend at the hospital in the city says she’s awake, off and on.”