A TAIL OF NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE: Salt and Ashes

As far as I can tell, we're in some kinda abandoned farmhouse. That's a big guess, though, since the Tengu keep me from leaving my room.

Mirabelle keeps telling me what's gonna happen to Kon and how I can't do anything about it. She gives me just enough food and water to keep me alive. When she thinks I'm healing too fast, she breaks my arm. She does other stuff to remind me that I'm her prisoner and ... I don't wanna talk about that.

Let her keep thinking I'm defenseless. There isn't much glass around, but there is some from discarded bottles and broken windows. I pull what I can into me, like I did back when I was staying at Toby's. It wears me out and I have to be careful that nobody notices what I'm doing.

Whatever she does to me is nothing compared to what'll happen to Kon if Mirabelle gets her to break her Black Moon oath.

******

I spent most of my life worried about that night. Now, it's THE day. THE day that Mirabelle finally wins. THAT day that Kon dies in agony.

If I fail, I tell myself. IF. But if I attack Mirabelle and even manage to take her out, her Tengu will rip me apart before anybody will be able to help me. I'm not strong enough to take all of them on. I'm not going to be the reason Mirabelle wins. I want to be the reason she doesn't leave the meeting place alive.

Even if I don't either.

The morning passes and I secret away more glass, pulling it through my skin.

Sometime late in the afternoon, Mirabelle gives me some weird clothes that I'm supposed to wear to the meeting at sundown tonight. They look like something out of Colonial Williamsburg. There's a cream-colored waistcoat with gold embroidery on it and tons of gold buttons and a white shirt that goes under all of it. I'm supposed to wear this heavy coat that's sapphire blue over it. It's so bright, I half-expect for it to glow in the dark. And you guessed it, MORE buttons. It had to take people HOURS to get into this stuff! I have ten minutes. At least the pants are pretty simple and I can just pull them on when it's time to go. The boots she gives me don't go with the outfit. They're made of black leather and go up to mid-calf.

Even after I ask her to, Mirabelle won't leave me alone, even to dress. Yeah, let's keep this nice and awkward.

"Why can't I go in jeans and a t-shirt?" I ask her when I start pulling on the shirt.

"Be thankful I've chosen this for you. After all, I've always had a preference for bindings and leather."

Why couldn't I have died in the cave with Tulip?

******

The Junk Man uses his illusions to make an old, rusted truck into a carriage that the Tengu pull. I'm not sure how far we go, but we end up in a huge field surrounded by gnarled trees. Judging from the twisted trunks, a lot of magic stuff has happened here. Mirabelle goes to a specific spot that's a few feet away from a patch of ground where nothing grows. She's very careful to stay where the grass is green and not the part that's scorched and black.

And then we wait.

The hours stretch on until the sun melts into the horizon.

This is the one time I don't want to see Kon. Mirabelle and I stay in the middle of the field. I'm sitting on the ground because I'm too weak to stay on my feet for long. She stands next to me, her hand cupped around the back of my neck. The Junk-Man's hunched up behind her.

The Tengu bring two weird-looking lantern things that look like metal jack-o-lanterns with jagged teeth. They put one beside me and the other next to Mirabelle. The light pouring out of them drives the oncoming night back to the woods' edge.