Page 63 of Such a Feral Little Lamb
“You know how it all started, don’t you?”
“A virus. An outbreak. Everyone knows about that.”
“No, that’s not it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, that’s not how it started. It started here.”
“I—What?”
“I told you, we have magic. It’s in the land, has been for centuries. Someone here, they tried…” He sighs. “They tried to bring back someone they lost. Raise them from the dead.”
I shake my head. It doesn’t sound real, but I’veseenMason’s magic. My eyes dart back to the bag, still sitting in the centre of the room, and when my legs shake, Mason wraps an arm around my middle. I saw Otto’s shoulder. They didn’t bring him back from the dead, but they stopped him from creeping closer to that edge.
“What happened?”
“The ritual backfired. Spread. Brought back all the dead here, brought back magic from deep in the earth, and carried the curse out into the rest of the world.”
“But we—” I shake my head. “We didn’t have people bursting out of their graves. I know that for sure.”
“No, no. They pulled it back. As much as they could, but by then… the damage had been done. Pulling back the ritual split the curse from the source, leaving a crumb of it in all the newly awoken dead.” His eyes dart to the bag just like mine did a few seconds ago. “It’s why we can cure it and ensure they won’t turn. Once the curse is gone, a person dies and stays dead.”
“How do you know this?”
“We all know it. We all know it started here.”
“And this—the necromancer?”
“Gone. Long gone.”
“So they couldn’t have taken Dane? They couldn’t have donethat—” I gesture at the bag.
Mason shakes his head.
I want to sit down, but there’s nothing here to sit on. And Mason is suddenly animated. He snatches up the bag and slings it over one shoulder, though he’s careful about it, before he grabs Otto’s hammer, too.
“Why wouldn’t you—Why didn’t we know this all along?” I ask.
Except, maybe Dane knew something. He was the first of us to bring up that it might not be a virus. That something here wasn’t right.
“Come on,” Mason says. “We’ve searched all we can. Let’s go back.”
Chapter Eighteen
Bythetimewemake it back to the church, I’ve moved past sadness and into anger. I know a lot of it is down to frustration. No one else has seen any sign of Dane, as far as I can tell, and I leave it to Mason to tell the other townspeople what we’ve found because I know it’s going to be difficult enough to break it to Rae and the others.
I’m angry at Mason, too, for not telling me everything about the town days ago. Clearly, Dane was sent to look for something here. The fact that we were sent so far away makes sense now.
What was he looking for? The necromancer? Mason says they’re long gone, but maybe that isn’t true.
Would Mason even know?
I storm into the empty church. Mason lingers with the others for a moment, but Emma is by his side when he comes closer.
“Did you know?” I ask her.
She blinks in surprise but doesn’t miss a step. “Sorry?”
