Page 31 of Tangled at the Root
“She says your family—especially the women—are born with a generational curse,” I continue stubbornly.
Genevieve stiffens, jaw clenching, her expression guilty. At first, it seems like she isn’t going to say anything, like she’s going to pretend I hadn’t just spoken.
I’ve given two of my secrets—even though they’d had to be pulled from me—and shestillrefuses to give me anything back. It hurts.
When she finally speaks, I soak up her words like a sponge.
“It’s not a curse.” She’s staring me down, like if she does so hard enough, I’ll back off. I’m never backing away ever again. I’m done fighting this. “It’s—” Her jaw clenches again. The pain in her eyes is insurmountable.
“I know,” I say because she can’t. “Iknow. She—your grandmother said you’re … changing. That years ago, your family had made a deal with a dagbato, and now, if you don’t uphold your end of the bargain, its promise—its deal to make—”—you human. I can’t say it. She looks too raw. “Its eshé on your family is … fading.”
“Upholding the deal is the entire reason I’m here,” Genevieve says, her voice strangely flat.
I’d suspected as much. I sit up straighter, like she’d take me more seriously if I do. “I want to help.”
It takes a moment for her to catch my meaning.
“No.” She sounds alarmingly calm.
“The deal with the dagbato demands a sacrifice,” I say, one eyebrow lifted.
“No,” she repeats, then, still with that terrifying calmness, she stands and begins to leave.
I follow. The candy had helped with the blood loss and pain from my death, but my stomach rumbles, reminding me I haven’t eaten today.
“So, what’s the plan? Snatch a random person off the street?”
“Yes. Exactly.”
I inhale sharply. “Just like that, abi?”
“Just like that,” she mocks.
There’s something wrong. She sounds so—what is she hiding from me? “You’re really ready to kill an innocent?”
At the bottom of the stairs, she spins to face me. “And killing you would be different, somehow?Better?” She continues before I can respond, “In exchange for our humanity, the deal with the dagbato demands a sacrifice every ten years for every memberof my family until we die. As far as I know, I’m the last living member of my family, and I plan to let this shit die with me.” A knife twists viciously in my chest when she references her mortality. “So yes, I’m ready to do whatever it fucking takes.”
“That’s even more reason why you should use me.”
“I saidno.”
“But killing someone every ten years—”
“Stop acting so concerned when you want me to do the same thing to you—”
“I literallycan’tbe killed, Genevieve; that’s the entire point!”
“Stop pushing, Rosemary.” Her eyes are entirely black.
My chest heaves. I feel strangely warm. Despite the black pit that her eyes have become, I can feel the weight of her stare, the sheer hunger behind it. A rush of self-consciousness washes over me when I feel myself growing hot between my legs.
Genevieve’s nostrils flare. She takes a stumbling step backward, at the same time that an inhuman growl vibrates in her throat.
And I’m definitely getting wet, squeezing my thighs together.
“Your grandmother believes the dagbato is here,” I blurt, trying to divert her attention. I don’t think it works. “That’s why she contacted me. She says that somehow, over the years, the dagbato has sewn its eshé into the eshé that birthed the house. The deal your ancestors made acted like a tether, keeping it here. It should never have left the crossroads in the first place; I don’t know how it did.
“She said the dagbato killed her. It’s probably the thing that killed me. The house is fighting it, but the demon is going to wear it down eventually. Your grandmother believes it wants to absorb all the house’s eshé and use it to gain free reign to let it keep killing indiscriminately.”
