Page 66 of Tangled at the Root
I’m crying when she finishes, Genevieve sounding just as choked up. It’s probably my imagination, but when she’s done, the walls seem to slowly expand and contract, heaving out a low sigh.
We spend a few minutes in silence, letting the emotions wash through us. Then we turn, hand in hand, and walk up into the sunrise.
The house has never looked this bright. The curtains and windows are wide open, letting in a cool, refreshing breeze. The sun’s up and out, casting its warm glow into the sitting room. The missing emergency openings on the burglary proof bars are back in their spots, the doors sitting in their rightful places. I’ve gotten so used to the blank, seamless walls that seeing the doors back gives me a little jolt of surprise every single time.
The cleansing ritual had worked.
“Is it weird that I miss it?” We’re in the kitchen, now, trying to figure out what to eat for breakfast. Well, an early lunch; the cleansing ritual might not have taken as long as last time, but it had still taken a few hours. Genevieve is standing in front of a cupboard, staring into it with indecision. “The house being sentient, I mean.”
We’re still rain-kissed and in our night clothes, our feet bare. I’d gone straight to cleansing the house the moment we’d come in, then cleaned us up a bit with the eshé. We’re still going to need a proper shower after, but we’d just been too hungry to wait.
The house seems to have gotten its sentience not only from the eshé of my previously enslaved ancestor, but the eshé of Genevieve’s mother’s and grandmother’s combined shannkos as well.
My ancestor’s eshé, poisoned by years of hatred and suffering, had bled into the house—it had been the rot I’d sensed tangled into the house’s own eshé, only given sentience when Genevieve’s mother’s shannko had also tethered itself to the building, her grandmother’s shannko eventually joining the fray and forming this twisted, cursed spirit that had only further complicated it all.
Now that all those things are gone, the house has returned to the neutral silence of an inanimate object, all its personality—it’slife—gone.
“Genevieve?” I prompt when she doesn’t respond.
Her hands are on the counter, knuckles clenched and protruding. Everything about her is strangely silent. Still.
The hairs on the back of my neck stand.
Predator!
My heart starts to race. A part of me had wondered about Genevieve’s hunger; there isn’t and has never been a deal with a dagbato to quell it, and my ancestor, along with whatever special property had made her heart so rich the legbajus only had to feed once every ten years, is gone now.
It’s only been a few hours—less than a day—and her hunger is back again.
“Genevieve.”
One of her fingers twitches.
I swallow thickly. My eyes dart to the back door, which we’d left wide open, almost as if—despite my successful cleansing and the house losing its sentience—we’d still been afraid, despite everything, that if we shut it, it would disappear.
When I glance back at Genevieve, my breath catches in my throat. She’s twisted her head around almost three hundred and sixty degrees, her eyes completely black with two red dots in the middle, staring directly at me.
Fear shoots through my bloodstream like an addictive drug. She reads my intent before I’ve even finished thinking it.
“Don’t.” Her voice makes goose pimples burst to life on my skin. It’s gravelly. Hair-raising.Inhuman. “Don’t you dare, Rosemary.”
One heartbeat.
Two.
I’m holding my breath.
Three.
I bolt out the door.
What am I doing? What the fuck am Idoing?
This isn’t a dream. I’m able to manipulate the eshé to speed up and cloak my movements as I dart around the back of the house. The back gate is still sitting open, and I eagerly speed through, disappearing into the trees.
This isn’t a dream. My bare feet actually hurt. Sweat has drenched my face, neck, chest and back in seconds. The rain had dropped the temperature a bit, but the air is still hot and humid. My lungs strain. The sounds of the forest seem muted, everywhistle through the trees—every creak of a branch and snap of a twig sending the fear and adrenaline in my veins pumping harder.
I slip and cut my feet on wet rocks and fallen branches. The sting of the cuts as they heal only adds to my excitement.
