Chapter 22: The Sleep

The miller's cart carried him home under three horse blankets and a sheet of tarred sailcloth.

Eight men walked beside it in the sun, with their caps in their hands.

I rode in the back with his head on my knees and the black hand in my lap.

I did not look at the ash on the kirk steps again.

Morag put him in the niche behind the wine racks herself.

"He's in his bed," she said.

"Now you will go up and sleep."

"I'm staying."

"You'll do as you're told, lass, or I'll fetch the shotgun."

I slept an hour on the cellar stair with my back against the wall.

At dusk I was waiting.

The light went out of the stair, and the key stood in the lock, and nothing moved behind the iron door.

I waited for the click of the key.

I waited until the window upstairs was black.

I waited until midnight, and then I put my hand on the door and went in.

He lay in the niche as he had lain all day.

His face was carved wax.

I knelt, and I said his name, and he did not answer.

I took his black hand and held it against my cheek.

"Niall," I said.

"It's nightfall."

"Wake up."

The sight took me, gentle this time.

I saw the black on his wrist and the black in his blood.

The dead part of him, and how fast it went when he slept without feeding.

I saw it climb another inch each dawn.

I saw what happened if I did nothing.

Then I saw the other way.

I pushed up my sleeve and cut a line across my wrist with the pocket knife Morag kept on the cellar shelf.

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