My grandmother told me of how the sea healed people, so keeping the sick closest to water meant its magic was easier to access. Until the Blue Sickness, it was hard to believe how a chill in a person's body took their life. Even when we received the occasional tradesman or politician, I balked at their stories of poisonous waters and winds that wiped out towns.
Now, as I walked along the cobblestone path to the hospital, my hair a knot of curls from the unrelenting wind, I wished I listened closer for ideas on how to stop such things without the ultimate sacrifice.
Tucked along a winding path leading to the harbor, Tesfaye Hospital was a small building at the edge of town that overlooked the bright blue waters of the Astorian Sea.
The Shadows gifted us with good health and long lives, but of course, accidents happened. Babies still needed a place to be born, and small ailments—a sneeze when winter receded—an upset stomach from too much fish—too much time in the sunshine—required treatment. But I wondered if the hospital was isolated out of superstition. If you could not see such serious sickness—if you did not think about it—your health would remain pure.
I shared my hypothesis with Father when I was seven, and he scolded me. Damn near struck me if it weren't for Mother and Gwenyth's intervention at his seemingly irrational anger.
"Words have power," Father seethed. "Speak of something and it may come true. Good or bad."
That all but confirmed it.
Pausing at the gate, I stopped to take in the chipped white paint and faded signage. It was a stark contrast to the ornate buildings in town, as though its neglect and secrecy were the product of guilt or resentment.
Makeshift tents lined the back of the hospital. Initially, people died too quickly for the beds to be full. But now as patients began to stabilize, space was running out. The inside space was utilized for mothers, the elderly, and minor treatments. The tents, ironically blue in coloring, housed Blue Sickness patients, including Kian.
Untying my scarf from my neck, I wrapped it into a proper covering over my nose and mouth. Though the Blue Sickness struck at random, the covering eased the tension in my chest when I pushed the thick flap away and stepped into the second-most feared part of Hunting Hollow.
I remembered the words of the priests in the last sermon I attended at the Shadow Temple.
"While the world suffers under plagues and blight, by the grace of our Lords and Ladies, we are cured by simple acts of worship," the priest said. Kian had just fallen ill. For the first time in my life, the Great Hall felt empty. "A single drop of blood on the altar; a promise to the land and its masters that our souls belong to Them; a sacrifice of strangers and kinfolk alike."
A foolish choice, I was beginning to think. No matter how much the town or priests insisted otherwise.
Kian's cot was at the back of the tent near an open gap meant to be a window. My hands shook as I approached him, and I knelt at his side, a tear slipping down my cheek. The last time I saw him, I promised to return with a cure. When I saw that he remained exactly as he was when I left, I felt small relief. No sign of blue in his light brown coloring. No wheezing. No coughing fits.
He was stable, asleep, and alive.
An awful, wet gurgling cough came from the other side of the tent. I gritted my teeth.
I tried my hardest to block out the sound. "I'm sorry," I said.
I failed miserably. I felt like my failure made everything worse.
And then suddenly, without control, the words tumbled out. I recalled the way I dodged the manor staff and Guard when I escaped into the forest. How the forest seemed to know where I was and set a trap accordingly. My encounter with the Shadow and his wolves. The horror at the gates. The more I spoke, the hotter I became, until I sat back in the grass, pulled my covering aside, and gasped for air, as though reliving it.
The weight of a gaze prickled the back of my neck.
"Did that happen to you? Truly?" someone asked from behind me.
Scrambling to my feet, I whirled around to see a petite girl standing two cots down with medicine balanced on a tray, a white covering on her nose and mouth.
"Oh," I breathed. "Maeve. I'm sorry. You startled me."
"I should be sorry," Maeve Tesfaye said, setting the tray down on the table between two cots. "I overheard you say Shadow and I couldn't help but listen."
Straightening, I stepped to the foot of Kian's cot and clasped my hands behind me, eyeing the droppers of medicine glowing in the light of the tent. One year older, studying under her physician mother, Maeve was one of the first people to notice the Blue Sickness. With the help of her mother, she assisted with the medicinal concoction that stabilized many of the patients, including my brother.
"I wasn't quite," I said with a small laugh. No, I practically shouted the story for all to hear.
"Do they know?" she asked, referring to the Great Council. "About your encounter with a Shadow?" Her long, beautiful curls were tucked beneath a scarf. Her smock was covered in dark stains from iodine and what I feared was blood.
"Of course, they do." That secret, Daphne's warning, and Mr. Robert's death lived and died in those chambers. Something told me the idea of another Hollow Ball floated through the Shadow temple and into the council chambers for weeks before the night at the gates. Our misfortune simply solidified it.
Maeve moved closer. "It was a silly question, I'm sorry."
"I take it your grandfather keeps Council matters to himself?" I asked, referring to Alastair Tesfaye.
Maeve studied the damp grass. She had a tranquil patience to her, like the still waters of a gray lake, waiting to take the burden of secrets upon it. But the crease between her brows said such patience wore thin these days. "Yes."
His orthodox ways were second only to Ethel Fontaine. Maeve's insistence on the Blue Sickness' presence in Hunting Hollow was central to the secret coming to light. Many saw it as disrespect to the authority of the Tesfaye Family, even now.
"And?"
"They've decided that my service to our people does not stop here," she said gravely, gesturing to the cots beneath the tent. "My grandfather said he went to the temple to pray for clarity and Shadows showed him a vision that I have been Chosen. Ironic, isn't it?"
My chest hollowed. Maeve's younger sister was my age. At eighteen, she would have been the ideal choice if it weren't for Maeve's defiance. "Your own family would punish you for telling the truth? For trying to save us in the first place?"
"My grandfather's word is law in that house." She looked down at her clenched hands, the patterns of cream and light brown skin winding up her bare arms in delicate patterns. "I hope the family regrets it into eternity. That peace will never be upon them for attempting to bury the truth. No matter how many times per day they pray."
"You sound like you're cursing your family," I said softly, fearful someone or something might hear her and grant such a terrible wish.
"We're already cursed," she murmured, her blasphemous words making my heartbeat kick in my chest. "We live here."
"Don't let Them hear that."
"Why?" she asked, icy rage coating her words. "What are they going to do? Take my soul? I have nothing to lose, Hayley. But they have everything."
* * *
Maeve's words clattered through me long after I left the hospital. Instead of returning to Castellano Manor, I found myself walking toward the beach, my soul in great need of its healing waters. The thick, salty air felt suffocating, and I paused before the sand, frightened the itch in my throat was something worse.
The Sickness won't get you now, a voice in the back of my mind huffed bitterly. Your soul is much too valuable.
I wanted to scream. The dreadful pit in my stomach made my mouth sour. A sharp pain crackled over the top of my head. And through the breeze and the gentle squawks of the seagulls, I heard it: a tremulous song that started with mismatched notes, like uncertain fingers tapping on piano keys, echoing as though it came from the cliffs.
My body tightened at the familiarity of the mismatched tune, and I twisted around. Behind me, the onyx mountains glistened, the immortal forest standing like rows and rows of soldiers waiting for their general's command. My eyes traced Hunting Hollow's pristine lines. In front of me, the sea grazed its fingers along the sand, beckoning me with its trappings and horrors.
The most beautiful prison in the world, I thought. And even as I covered my ears, the song continued. The nightmare flashed before my eyes in warning. Pressure formed behind my eyes when an ancient voice rose from deep in my soul and whispered,
Remember.
I remembered my nightmare.
Remember.
I remembered Dorothea's warning.
Remember.
I remembered Gewnyth's sacrifice.
Remember.
The pressure behind my eyes worsened when another memory bubbled to the surface—and another sharp pain across my skull fractured it. I twisted back toward the sea. But before I could—through the haze and the voice drumming through my mind—my eyes found the spot where the forest met the sea at the cliffs that circled the harbor.
At the top of the cliff, in robes of billowing smoke and darkness, stood a Shadow.
Remember, the voice repeated.
"I—"
But before I could speak or scream or cry, the Shadow disappeared, and I turned on my heels and raced across the path, desperate to get away.
* * *
Any idea about what it is that Hayley needs to remember?