Darkness Girl: Trickster God

Chapter Thirty-Three: The Thing That Looks Back

Regan carefully lowered her feet to the floor and tested her legs. They felt brittle, like her bones were made of blown glass, but they held. She gripped the headboard of the bed to steady herself and gently ran her hand across her bandaged stomach. She could feel a sharp ache where the flesh was slowly beginning to knit back together. 

It was an overcast morning, and diffused, grey light spilled across the rumpled bedspread that had been her world for the last fifteen days. She looked at the bed with distaste as she picked up the clothes that Sarafina had left on the bedside table. There was a pair of jeans with rips at the knees and a black tank top with words 'bad gurl' sewn onto the front in silver sequins. 

Regan sighed. 

As she changed into the clothes and ran her fingers through her hair, Regan felt her strength returning. She still felt weak as a newborn kitten, but at least she could stand without swaying. 

Regan listened at the door for a second before she carefully opened it. She found herself in a short corridor lit by a small skylight. The house was made of heavy brick with solid wooden floors that bore the scars and scratches of generations of feet. There were framed pictures of a small family hung at irregular intervals along the wall with colours that were beginning to fade and give the people inside them a ghostly, unreal quality. The pictures followed the length of the corridor to where it dropped away into a staircase. Regan walked past them with barely a glance. 

As she reached the stairs, Regan put her hand on the wall to steady herself and lowered herself onto the first step. She moved carefully, not yet fully trusting her legs to hold her weight. A little way down, the stairs reached a small landing and made a right angle turn. Regan paused on the landing. There were voices drifting up from the floor below. 

'Ashcroft keeps asking when you're coming back,' said a boy's voice. 

'I'm dealing with private issues,' said Sarafina calmly. 'It will take as long as it takes.' 

Regan could hear running water and the clink of dishes in a sink. There was a faint smell of coffee and burnt toast. 

'It would be easier if you'd just tell me why you disappeared suddenly. I can help you.' 

'I'm sure I mentioned that the issues were private.' 

'Is it something to do with Gareth? Has he been around again?' 

The sound of running water suddenly stopped. 

'Just tell Ashcroft I'll be back soon,' Sarafina said curtly. 

Regan padded down the stairs and stopped on the last step. She was in an airy, rustic kitchen with oak cupboards and a wooden bench that looked like it had been hewn from driftwood. On one side of the room, a set of glass sliding doors opened out onto a weather beaten porch and let in a soft breeze. Sarafina was standing behind the solid bench at sink that was full to the brim with soap bubbles. She was wearing a pale blue skirt with a green halter top and a pair of bright yellow washing gloves, and looking pointedly at a boy with sandy hair who sat at a small wooden dining table with his back to Regan. Eva sat next to him, dropping marshmallows into a mug of hot chocolate with the intense concentration of an engineer building a suspension bridge. 

Sarafina looked up when she saw Regan coming down the stairs and a slightly harried expression crossed her face. 

The boy turned to follow her gaze and looked surprised. He had a slight build that was artificially broadened by the heavy grey jacket he was wearing. There was a silver badge in the shape of the shield on his right arm and a sword sheathed at his side. The handle was carefully wrapped in crimson binding that looked like it had barely felt the touch of human hands.