Page 54 of Tangled at the Root
My ancestor was wrong. Giving myself—giving myheartto Genevieve has nothing to do with any hang-ups I have about my gift. It has nothing to do with saving humanity or the rest of theworld. It even has less to do with keeping Genevieve from losing herself.
It’s entirely and completely selfish.
I want her. I want to have her, in every way possible; to have myself as tangled up in her as she is in me. I want heraddicted—to look at absolutely no one else. To taste no one else, the way she’s only tasted me.
And, deny it as I might, I know my ancestor is right about one thing I’ve been refusing to think about since the moment I’d caught Genevieve sneaking in through the back door, drenched in blood. Something I’d confirmed when she’d tried to get the house to hold me hostage when she’d decided to give herself up to the dagbato.
The house obeys her, as much as it obeys the shannko and its own eshé.
She could’ve left anytime she’d wanted. She could’vecommandedit to letmeout, and it would have listened. Consciously or subconsciously, she hadn’t even bothered to try simply because a tiny part of her—the raw,animalpart of her—had wanted to keep me trapped.
But it’s that very part of her that calls to the same animal in me.
Because the house had listened to me, too.
We’ve both been pretending to be oblivious, our heads stubbornly shoved in the sand, like if we refuse to acknowledge the power we both wielded over this twisted thing, then the truth of our desires—in all its crude, perverse, and all-encompassing glory—wouldn’t be exposed.
Here I am, with absolutely nothing holding me back, with no walls keeping me closed in—the gates are wide fucking open, and I’mstillhere.
I still want her.
I still want now.
I’m calm, my breathing steady. Lightning flashes. Thunder booms. The roar of the rain has turned harmonious instead of discordant.
I start at the tips instead of from the roots; I think of our present, instead of mine and Genevieve’s shockingly entangled pasts. I think of our recent reunion, the time we’d shared in uni, and the empty years we’d spent apart—I think of the Genevieve I know and love; monster, human, or not.
Beneath my bare feet is the steady thrum of an ancient, familiar eshé, one I finally know the source of.
Before I go searching for the love of my life, there’s one last thing I have to do.
15: STOLEN MEMORIES
Something jolts me out of sleep. My eyes fly open but I don’t move. Rosemary is curled up on the bed with her back to me, her breathing deep and slow. My eyes have already adjusted to the darkness, but I don’t see anything out of the ordinary. Outside, it’s drizzling, my keen senses picking up the distant sound of thunder. The rain is finally here, and it’s going to be a heavy one.
I glance through the darkness once more, all my senses on alert. I can’t see or smell anything. But … there’s something here. I can feel it.
I glance at the archway leading to the kitchen, then remember Rosemary had warded that room, too. If there’s anything nefarious here, it’ll be in the foyer, just where Rosemary’s boundary ends.
When I move, I do so slowly and quietly.
I’m flat on my back, looking up, when I come face to face with the pale, ghostly form of my mother.
She grabs my jaw and forces it open. I’m just as fast, grabbing her other hand before she can shove those fingers into my mouth. The position we’re in gives me a sickening vertigo—a strange sense of déjà vu.
Something wriggles in her grip; a maggot, fat and stubby, squirming between her thumb and pointer finger. Its pale yellow body is dotted with specks of black that look like mould, bits of its flesh bubbling pink with infection. My chest heaves with a gag.
I might’ve been just as fast as her, but her ghostly form is ten times as strong. She holds my jaw open effortlessly with her left hand, and her right barely budges as I struggle against it, gripping her wrist so hard the bones should have shattered.
She stares emotionlessly as she finally succeeds in shoving that hand inside my mouth. My body bucks off the bed. The maggot wriggles its way down my throat, blocking my airway for a few panic-filled seconds and making me heave desperately, my eyes watering and my throat filling with bile.
My mother’s shannko clamps my jaw shut and holds it closed until she’s sure the worm has completed its descent.
I immediately start to lose consciousness.
“Rosem …” I croak. She’s still breathing, still deeply asleep.
The rest of her name is lost as my vision darkens, then I’m gone, plunged into the depths of memories I hadn’t realised had been stolen.
