Cursed by the Light for Loving the Dark novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: The Feather

I woke up in a strange bed with someone sitting beside it.

It was Odile, with a tray on her knees and a cup of steaming tea.

"Good morning," she said. "You slept for ten hours. He wouldn't let anybody wake you."

Sunlight came in through lace curtains.

It was a guest room in the old Pruett house, with a quilt on the bed and a vase of wilted lilacs on the table.

My arms ached from the wrists to the shoulders, and the black lines ran higher than they had the night before.

"Drink," Odile said, and put the cup in my hands. "It's chamomile, with honey. I made it myself."

I drank, because my mouth tasted of ash and blood.

It was good tea.

"Hold out your arm."

She took a small jar from the tray and unscrewed the lid.

Something that smelled of cold smoke and mint went onto my wrist, under her thumb.

The pain went out of my arm.

I stared.

"That's very good," I said.

"My mother's recipe. It numbs it. It doesn't cure it, so don't get excited."

She did the other arm, and the burning stopped there too, much faster than I'd have expected.

I was grateful, and a little ashamed to be.

"Why are you being kind to me?" I asked.

"Because you're dying," said Odile, "and it's sad."

She smiled, a little crookedly, and wiped her thumb on a napkin.

"He didn't sleep, you know. He sat in the hall outside your door all night with the door open. I told him to go to bed, and he told me to mind my business."

"That sounds like him."

"It does," she said. "I'm going to find you something to wear to the fitting."

She went out, and I sat for a moment in the quiet.

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