Page 99 of These Eternal Bones

A small, wide, pale-eyed woman stares back at me. “Can I help you?”

“I’d like to speak to–”

“Who is that, selkie?” A familiar musical voice finds me. My heart shudders in my chest.

“Come away from the door, my love.”

“Hush. Perhaps it’s another supernatural.”

The small woman, about the same height as me, tilts her head. “No, mistress, it’s a human.”

A human.

My chest and lungs ache, tears budding in my eyes as I stare behind her, willing the voice to speak again. I take a weak step forward when a mop of copper colored curls the same shade mine used to be pulls the doors wide.

Molly?

My attention snaps toward the jarring man lording behind her, silken things wrapping over her flesh. It's him, the vampire. It’s all real…

She…she hasn’t aged a day.

She doesn’t remember me.

It hurts for a moment before I realize I look quite a bit different from what I once did. I was a little girl the night she left. A child. She taught me how to look at the bright side.

I’d kept doing it.

“Do I know you?” Molly asks.

I laugh, blinking tears frommy eyes. “No.”

“You came all this way, my god. You must be exhausted.” She slips through the tendrils, which seem to displease him greatly, her gown made of stunning embroidered silk. She pays him no mind as he growls and fusses.

A tamed beast, indeed.

I stifle my laugh at that.

She offers me an arm, and for once…it feels right to accept it. “Come inside.”

I nod, following her in, only for my eyes to widen at the inside of the castle. Not so much the décor, but the beings that fill it. An overly large fox lounging on the bottom of a step. It eyes me eerily before languidly getting to its feet. Very put out to be moving, but sticking close to Molly. Another woman with odd, pale, bluish skin walks down the hall, and soon after that, I lose track of all the different creatures. My heart is pounding by the time we settle in a sunroom filled with dead flowers, all in various stages of decay. Like someone keeps trying to grow them, my bet is on the broody, dark-haired one.

Molly speaks first, while I eye the odd faint dark veins under her skin. “Most of the townspeople don’t venture up this far.”

I nod before sucking down a glass of water. “They seem like a stuffy lot.”

She laughs. “But you’re not.”

“I was once, then I changed. My name is Remmy.”

For a moment, I wait, wondering if she’d recognize me, but she only smiles. That same warm smile I remember from my dreams. It’s brighter and happier than I’d ever seen it.

“It’s nice to meet you, Remmy.” Something about those words heals a part of me I hadn’t realized was still broken, mends a bone that had never set right like mother used to say. My bottom lip wobbles,just a bit. “You’re welcome to stay here if you need, as long as you don’t mind the company.”

I eye the man towering toward the entrance of the room, scowling in my direction, but he seems mild enough. My brow quirks as he’s joined by another…shirtless man, odd burnt orange hair dipped in black. The man with the tendrils glares at him to but only barely, like a reflex.

“Don’t mind them, they linger.”

My brows shoot wide as her cheeks flush, barely. So much so, you’d miss it if you weren’t staring. She downturns her eyes, something she’s always done, looking up from underneath her lashes.

I nod, worried my voice will betray my emotions if I speak, as she places her hands on mine. “Truly, you’re welcome here, if you don’t feel up to the trip back down.” My eyes find the light scar on her finger. There’s a matching one on mine, but I keep it under the table, hidden in my lap. I take in the room again, figuring this magical, beautiful town would be the perfect place to say goodbye.