“Yeah,” I said, looking at the thick sliver of wood sticking out of my stocking. “I think it’s just a splinter.”
“A big one,” he said. “Here, let me. I get them all the time.” With a pinch, he pulled it out, leaving behind a hole in my stocking that quickly ran all the way up my leg.
Embarrassed, I shifted, trying to cover it with my skirt.
“Your legs,” he said, staring down at the thin line of flesh peeking through the black nylon like a seam. “I’ve ruined them.”
“Just the stockings,” I whispered. “Not the legs.”
We both moved to stand up at the same time, our fingers tangling together on the floor. Startled, I jumped back, only to knock the bedpost, sending a shower of dust onto our faces.
I gasped, and for a moment, everything went still as the dust coated our hair, our eyelashes, our shoulders. Blinking, I opened my eyes to see Noah, covered in gray powder as if he were the ghost of the farmer who’d owned the house. “I’m sorry,” I tried to say, but instead let out a cough, and we both collapsed onto the floor, laughing.
“It’s in my eyes!” I cried, tearing as I pressed them shut.
“Here, let me see,” Noah said. I could feel him bend over me. He touched my eyelashes and wiped away the dust. My breath grew shallow as he moved down to my cheek, his hand gentle. And then I felt something graze my lips. It was warm and wet and soft. I hadn’t been kissed in so long that I couldn’t tell if it was a kiss or just his fingers running across my mouth. Except it was different than just a touch. The time seemed to stretch, and I could almost imagine tasting him, smelling him, feeling his warmth against me.
As he pulled away, something trickled down my face. It might have been a tear; I couldn’t tell. And then Noah’s hand was on my cheek, wiping it away.
Neither of us said a word. The room was so silent I could hear my heart beating. When I opened my eyes, everything was just as before: Noah kneeling in front of me, his hair coated in dust.
But before either of us could speak, the temperature in the room seemed to drop, and I felt something descend on us, as if frost were creeping through the entire house. A cool stream of air coiled up through the heating vents. Noah had felt it too, and was staring at the doorway, his eyes suddenly alert.
I gazed out the window. The water that had been dripping off the edge of the gutter had now hardened into icicles. I‘d felt this before. The Undead. But this time, it wasn’t Dante.
Soundlessly, I stood up and watched, as Noah did the same. We didn’t need to speak; we were thinking the same thing. We crept along the side of the room. When Noah thought I wasn’t watching, he wet the edges of his lips. Had he kissed me? Had it been real? Averting my eyes, I looked at my face in the mirror. It was dusty and hollow, as if it were an older me, an ancient me from a past life. If it had been a kiss, it must have happened in a different world, when we were both different people.
Once in the hallway, I could hear voices coming from downstairs. Closing my eyes, I tried to count how many there were. One by the window. One by the door. Another two at the kitchen table. Four more outside, by the barn. A handful more in the field. The only way to go was left, down the hallway.
Cautiously, I took a step, and then another, and another, until we reached a room on the other side of the house. Turning the knob, I pushed the door open and went inside, Noah at my heels.
We found ourselves in a narrow, dank room, with low ceilings and a narrow staircase going down the side. The maid’s room. Except, instead of being furnished like a proper room, it was filled with toys. Worn toys, chipped and broken, as if they were lifetimes old. Plastic trucks and Matchbox cars and marbles and jacks were scattered across the floor. I stepped around them carefully, gazing at the room. What was this place?
I was about to lead us down the narrow staircase and out the door, when we heard more voices. They seeped through the heating vent like frost. I crouched down and listened. There were dozens of them, talking and laughing and fighting, their voices high-pitched and playful, almost whiny. They were children; boys, no older than twelve, for their voices hadn’t dropped yet. I tried to make out what they were saying, but it was all chatter.
I was about to turn away when a deep voice cut through them, speaking in Latin. It sounded like a boy—or rather a man—around Dante’s age, maybe older. The room went silent. My lip trembled as I waited, but when he spoke, all I could make out were words here and there:
“The Nine Sisters.”
“Name in the mailbox.”
“Hold her and wait for us to come.”
“Serve the Liberum.”
Soundlessly, I stood up, willing my heart to beat softer. My eyes darted about the ceiling. The Liberum. Was the deep voice one of the Brothers? Were they employing Undead children to help them find the secret of the Nine Sisters?
I glanced out the window to where the taxi should have been waiting for us, but it was gone.
“What is he saying?” Noah mouthed.
“We need to get out,” I whispered, so softly that I wasn’t even sure Noah heard me.
But how? We were miles away from civilization. Without realizing it, I backed away from the wall, trying to distance myself from the voice, but I had forgotten that the floor was cluttered with toys, and lost my footing on a train set that wound around the room.
It happened too quickly for me to catch myself. I stumbled, my arms flailing as I reached out for a desk. I was too slow, and fell to the floor with a loud thump, the toys beneath me scattering across the room.
I didn’t move until everything had settled. The house went still. Noah’s eyes were wide as they traveled from me to the open door and the shadowed hallway beyond.
From somewhere in the distance, I heard the light pitter-patter of footsteps. They seemed to be coming from nowhere and everywhere, like rain falling on the roof. The sound was low at first, and then grew louder, like dozens of tiny feet running up the stairs.
I felt them before I saw them: a rush of cold, as if I had just fallen into an icy lake. Goose bumps rose over my skin as they got closer, closer; the cold air enveloping me, wrapping itself around my throat until it was so tight I could barely breathe.
A pale figure emerged from the darkness at the end of the hall, running toward us. Another followed behind him —a flailing white thing—followed by another, and another. They were moving so quickly and so strangely, their limbs thrashing as they ran.
Noah’s voice boomed across the room. “Come on.”
Taking his hand, I pulled myself up.
We clambered down the narrow back stairway, my feet so close to Noah’s heels that I thought I was going to knock him over. At the bottom was another long hallway, lined with family photographs and doors. On the other end I could see the windows of the kitchen, and beyond that, a back door.
We began to run for the door when I saw a white blur moving toward us from that direction.
Noah skidded to a stop, the oriental carpet bunching beneath our feet as I slid into him. He turned to me, his breath quick. Above us, I could hear the boys running through the maid’s room, the ceiling sagging slightly beneath their footsteps. They were getting louder, closer.
“What now?” I said, searching the hallway, looking for a way out.
Noah ran to me just as an Undead child emerged from the stairwell, his eyes a cloudy gray. They didn’t move as he turned about the room like a dizzy child listening for our sound. He couldn’t have been older than six. I watched him, taking in his worn pants, his bare feet, his wild hair; then I realized that he was blind.
Two others stumbled down the stairs behind him. Their eyes were clearer, more focused, tilting their heads as if trying to figure out what I was.
I felt Noah behind me. “Why are they staring at us like that?” he whispered.
“They’re just interested,” I uttered, cringing every time their blurry eyes met mine. “They’re only children, remember? They don’t know who we are. Just don’t let them see—”
“Shovel!” one of them said in Latin, pointing to the small trowel sticking out of the inside pocket of Noah’s coat.
Slowly, I walked backward toward the line of doors, hoping one of them led to a way out, when I felt a tiny hand on my leg, tugging at my skirt. Startled, I fell down, the carpet rough against my legs as the boy crawled on top of me, his small body smudged with dirt as he grabbed at my face. Arching my neck away from him, I covered his mouth with my hand, flung him off of me, and stood up.
Noah was a few feet away, kicking off three small boys, all barefooted and shirtless. Pressing my lips together, I pushed through them, pulling them off of Noah and dragging him out. They grabbed at our ankles as I turned the knobs of the last door. It was pitch-black inside, and dank. A basement, I thought, staring down at the cement staircase. Just then, an Undead boy wrapped his hands around my leg. I pulled Noah through the door, taking the Undead boy with me.
The boy clung to my stockings, his tiny fingers pressing into my thighs as I stumbled underground. I tried to kick him off, but he grew breathless, desperate, grasping at my skirt, my arms, my hair. Before I could catch myself, I slipped, crying out in pain as I toppled down the stairs, the cement bruising my back.
I felt the boy’s face close to mine, his breath cold against my cheek. And then we hit the ground. The unfinished floor scuffed my knees, and the boy’s grip grew loose. Peeling him off of me, I scrambled away and watched his cloudy eyes grow bloodshot. They rolled back in his head. I gasped as he twisted his neck one way and then the other, as if in pain; faster, faster, until he was writhing on the floor.
Noah grabbed my arm.
“Wait!” I said, staring at the boy’s slim body, his button nose, his chubby cheeks smudged with dirt. “He’s dying. We have to help him.”
“Leave him!” Noah said.
“He’s just a child!” I said.
“He isn’t anymore. He’s a monster.” Before I could say anything else, Noah took me by the waist and pulled me toward the back of the room. It was a long stone basement filled with bales of hay and rusty farm equipment.