He Destroyed My Youth, Killed My Child, Now He Begs, But I Am Gone Forever novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: Silver in the Sheets

I should have driven home that night.

I knew it while Linnea was showing me to the guest room at the end of the east hall.

But I had seen a stone with a wrong date and a boy with wolf eyes, and I was not leaving until I understood both.

"One night," I told her. "In the morning I want the burial ledger and the old healer's notes."

"The healer's notes are in Beatrix's study," Linnea said. "And Beatrix keeps that room locked."

"Then I'll ask for them."

"Yvaine." She hesitated in the doorway with her hand on the frame. "Eat something. Sleep. Don't drink anything from the main kitchen unless I pour it."

She said it lightly, and I should have asked her what she meant.

I only thanked her, and she went.

The room was small and clean, with a quilt on the bed and one window that looked out over the cedars.

I washed my face and took off my boots.

Then I lay down on top of the covers in my clothes.

Five years in that house had taught me never to sleep deeply under its roof.

I lay there for an hour with my eyes open.

Every time I closed them I saw gray-green eyes turning gold.

At some point the cold in the room made me pull the quilt up and slide beneath it.

The first sting was almost nothing, a pinprick on the inside of my left forearm.

The second one burned all along my arm.

I threw the covers back and stared at my arm.

A red line the width of a thread ran from my wrist to my elbow, and it was blistering as I watched.

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