Page 47 of The Thirteenth Child
“Have you a better idea? Will you bludgeon them to death? Strike them, as your father struck you? The kitchen is in shambles, but I’m certain a few of their knives are still sharp. You know which veins to open if you want them to go quickly.”
“Merrick!”
He rolled his eyes. “Make up your mind, girl. Do you want their sickness plaguing the world, infecting everyone it touches? It matters very little to me. Their lives come to an end either way.”
“Thenyoudo it,” I snapped. “You’re the god of departures and the grave. You are the great and feared Dreaded End. If they’re trulymeant to die, then by all means, performyourcharge well.” I mimicked him, throwing my hands toward the bed in a mockery of his sweeping grace.
His eyes darkened and his mouth curled into a dangerous snarl. I knew I’d struck a chord within him, but I wasn’t prepared for the full onslaught of his anger.
“How dare you presume to tell me my duties, mortal.” His voice was smoke and sulfur. The red of his eyes flickered like banks of coals and bursting embers. I could feel the ground shake beneath the tremor of his bass. “You think yourself on par with me?”
“Of course not,” I said, immediately bowing my head. It wastoo terrifying to look at him when he shed his usual affability. It was impossible to forget the true measure of his might when rage coiled so close to his skin’s surface. “I don’t understand what’s happening. I’m seeking to understand.” I reached out and placed my hand on his forearm, trying to form a connection with him, trying to remind him how small and weak and so very vulnerable I was. “Merrick…Godfather…Help me. Please.”
He released a low growl and turned away, leaving the bedroom, leaving the house, leaving me. I was too scared to follow.
I glanced back to my parents, expecting to see twin expressions of horror on their faces, expecting them to cry and moan and beg for their lives. But they’d slipped into a dazed state of near sleep. Papa’s eyes were half open, gazing listlessly out the window. Mama whimpered like a fox crying out in the night as something terrible plagued her dreams.
I put my hands on her face once more.
Now that I was prepared to see it, the skull wasn’t as shocking.
It rested almost perfectly over her face, giving a ghastly glimpse of everything that lay beneath her skin. As I stared at the glowingridges, the illuminated bones, it was easy to believe Merrick. This skull wasn’t a suggested treatment, a cure waiting to be carried out. It was an omen of impending death.
Mama winced again, sucking in her breath, and I could hear a distinct rattle within her chest. I removed my hands, letting the skull fade away, and took in all the details I hadn’t noticed before.
They were sick with the sweats, it was true, and I had no doubt that everything Merrick had predicted would come to pass. The plague would spread from them to my brother, from my brother to his bride, from her to her family, and so on and so on.
But there was more wrong here than just that.
The sickly pallor of her skin, the yellow cast that spoke of something gone dreadfully wrong. Bile was building up in her system, Papa’s too, and I grimly thought back to the bottles strewn about the cabin.
I’d read of cirrhosis of the liver, knew that in its later stages it caused stomachs to distend as fluid built up, knew it brought on jaundice and confused drowsiness, knew it made it difficult for blood to clot.
Papa’s gums were still bleeding from when Mama had struckhim.
“It hurts, Hazel,” Mama whispered, her lips barely moving. “It hurts so much.” She clawed at the filthy sheet covering her, trying to free herself from its confining hold, and as I eased it away from her, I spotted what she was trying to show me.
Her nightdress—nothing more than a tattered collection of cotton threads frayed past the point of use—had ridden up, exposing her thighs. She raised the hem even higher, gesturing at the mass protruding from her abdomen. It looked obscene, as round as a baby but poking out from the wrong spot. Beneath the yellowed skin, I could see a network of veins pulsing.
“Help me, Hazel,” she whispered.
I ran a tender finger over the bulge and she let out a shuddering groan. Her fingers curved into claws and she scratched at the mattress, trying to get away from my gentle pressure.
“I don’t…I don’t know how to treat this,” I admitted, feeling helpless.
“You do,” Merrick insisted from the doorway. I’d been so focused on the growth in Mama’s stomach I hadn’t heard him return.
“Help us, please.”
On the other side of the bed, Papa fought a wave of coughs that left his frame hunched and the bedding soaked in a bright swath of red. I looked away, unable to stomach the way it splashed out ofhim.
I looked instead to Merrick, my fingers already straying to my bag. His face was full of sorrow, but he nodded encouragingly.
Tears pricked at my eyes, sharp as needles. “When?”
No one answered, but they didn’t really need to. I could feel the hoofbeats from Remy’s carriage pulsing through my veins, drawing ever closer. It didn’t matter if he was days away or only hours.
It needed to be done and over with.
