hand, he followed.
Annabelle led them to the top, through the shadows. She lifted a heavy piece of fabric and opened a door behind it. He stood in the doorway as she dropped the tapestry behind them and moved into the middle of the room, switching the light on as she did so.
He blinked in the harsh glare as the light glinted off rows and rows of glass jars. He stared, trying to understand what was laid out in front of him. It didn’t make any sense.
“I’ve been collecting it,” Annabelle said self-consciously.
Taking a few steps closer to the nearest jar, he leaned over to examine it. The same ash he’d seen outside filled the jar halfway, a white label with numbers obscuring some of it. Manning didn’t know if it was strange she collected it. It couldn’t be any stranger than the fact that it was somehow connected to him.
He opened the lid and stuck his fingers inside. Pulling his finger out, he licked them, just with the tip of his tongue. The ashes burned in his mouth. He felt her staring at him. When he looked over at her, his tongue still extended, he smiled sheepishly.
“They’re your ashes…I guess,” she said, struggling to keep her expression neutral.
Quickly he screwed the lid back on and put the jar back where he’d found it. He cleared his throat self-consciously and ran his fingers through his hair.
“I just…” he started to say, startled when the words actually came out.
Annabelle frowned and took a step closer.
He tried again. “I thought it seemed like the right thing to do.” His voice was raspy and somehow, he knew, it wasn’t the voice he should recognize as his own. A strange thought to have.
She shook her head, confused. “Do you think-” She didn’t finish the sentence, cutting herself short.
Manning didn’t know exactly what she meant to say but he had an idea. Grabbing the jar he’d replaced, he turned to go, heading back down the stairs. He could hear her traipsing behind him at a distance.
The idea was half-formed, a wisp in his mind. All he knew was that the ash was important somehow. It didn’t make sense to him but since he’d woken earlier that night, nothing seemed to make sense.
“The sun-”
“I can feel it,” he said, interrupting her.
He stopped when he got to the door that led out of the house. He didn’t know if he intended to go out when the sunrise was so close. His body rejected the idea but he didn’t know what he was supposed to do with the ashes. The fresh air would have helped stimulate the idea brewing in the back of his head.
Turning in place, Manning began to pace, the jar heavy in his hand. He wanted to toss it from hand to hand but was afraid to break it. Even with as much ash as he’d seen upstairs, wasting even a pinch now seemed criminal.
Annabelle watched for a moment but soon left, disappearing into the pink room he’d seen earlier. It was her bedroom, he knew. Somehow the cream lace, the pink walls and the dark, antique pieces suited her. She moved sluggishly like she’d held on as long as she could. He could feel the same sluggishness tug at his awareness.
In one step, his body had turned away from the door, away from the pacing. Reluctantly he entered the blue bedroom. The room that was somehow his. It felt like his as he stood in the middle of it, heavy blue curtains blocking out the night and the coming day. He put the jar of ash down on the bedside table, not wanting it to go far. Then he collapsed on the bed and couldn’t remember the transition from awake to asleep.
But in seemingly no time at all, he was awake again. A quick glance at the bedside table reassured him that the jar was still there. It hadn’t gone anywhere while he was sleeping. He grabbed it, dwarfing it in his hand and swung out of bed. He could hear Annabelle in the kitchen, rattling around. It was a domestic sound and one he oddly appreciated.
“Good morning,” she said when she saw him. He combed his fingers through his wild hair, trying to tame it.
He couldn’t repeat the words to her, his throat blocked. She didn’t even notice, her back to him as she prepared tea. He turned away, unscrewing the jar of ash. Taking a small pinch between his fingers he tossed it back into his throat, grimacing at the taste, feel and idea of eating ashes. His own ashes. It burned going down.
Spinning back around, he tried again. “Good morning.”
It came out much smoother than anything he managed last night and Annabelle finally turned to look at him. There was a hint of suspicion in her eyes though her smile seemed genuine enough.
“Feeling better?” she asked, holding out the same blue mug he’d had the night before.
He stuffed the jar into his back pocket, wrinkling his nose at the tight squeeze, accepting the mug with his free hand. The steam rose up into his nose, the scent of honey thick and sweet.
“Feeling a little knocked out from the sleep,” he admitted.
She smiled, a sweet smile that curled the edges of her lips. “The tea should help.”
He took his first gulp, not bothering to test the temperature. It wouldn’t burn him. The run of hot liquid fell down his throat, coating his insides. He shivered and grinned. Annabelle watched before taking a small sip of her own tea.
They moved slowly towards the kitchen table where he naturally slid into the seat at the head. She followed, sitting on his right hand side.
“What do you think’s going on with the ashes?” Annabelle asked after a moment spent enjoying their tea.
He put his mug down, curling both hands around the sides, soaking up the warmth as he considered her question. Instead of answering it immediately, he asked a question of his own.
“What do you really know about me?” His voice, still not what he knew it should be, was a ragged tenor.
He saw Annabelle’s brow crease. “I know what’s strange about you,” she said at last. He gestured for her to go on and she did so, haltingly at first. “You don’t eat. That’s the first thing I noticed when you staggered into my life. You wanted to be clean, warm, dry but you never wanted food. Even now I’ve never seen you eat.”
“I’ve not seen you eat either,” he told her.
“I just don’t do it much in front of you. Besides, you’ve seen me eat in the past, you just don’t remember,” she said, dismissing his point. “But until the tea, I hadn’t seen you put anything in your mouth.”
He frowned, knowing that what she said was true. He didn’t eat, didn’t feel the urge, knew he never would.
“What else?” he asked, impatient. He wanted all the pieces of the puzzle. None of them were making any sense yet.
“You sleep during the day, avoid the sun but then there’s always that one day…”
“That one day?” he prodded when she stopped.
“That one day when I can’t bring you back inside. The day you leave. You stay outside until the sun comes up and I don’t know where you go. All I know is that you leave a shadow of ash behind in the grass where you were.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it,” she said, nodding sharply. “You’ve never really told me anything about you. Recently you’ve seemed to know even less than me.”
He finished the tea in one gulp, trying not to slam it down on the table as he rose. It didn’t seem like enough, what she told him. There was more to this than either of them knew and he was frustrated not knowing the basic facts of his existence.
Outside, the night air cleared his temper. His feet instinctively took him back to where they’d been the night before, standing over the ash. Sinking down into the grass on his knees, Manning searched again for more of the ash. But by this time, it had fallen further into the soil, impossible to separate from the dirt.
He reached back and took out the jar from his back pocket. Without even thinking it through, he took off the lid, discarding it in the grass, held the lip of the jar to his mouth and dumped the ashes down his throat.
“Manning!”
He could hear Annabelle behind him but it was too late, he’d swallowed. Th
e ashes were in his system. He convulsed on the ground as the thick powder struggled to get down and stay down. It hurt and his skin blazed, his eyelids burned, flashing red, yellow, orange, white in front of his eyes. His ears roared and he twitched uncontrollably.
If this was death, he didn’t like it. All his thoughts were focused on making it through but he could feel the ashes penetrate and it hurt. It felt as though they’d entered his bloodstream and were slowly remaking his body from the inside out. Dimly, he heard Annabelle crying, though he could feel her hands on his skin, his hot, burning skin. Then he stopped hearing and feeling altogether.
*****
Afterword
Born in the Mouth of an Angel is a serialized fantasy suspense story. Keep looking for the following installments. If you enjoyed, or have something to say, please leave a review!
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Also by the Author
THE SWAMP CHILDREN
Novels
A Swamp of Bones
A Swamp of Souls
Novella
Things in the Swamp
Short Stories
Swamp Familiars
The Swamp Witches
BORN IN THE MOUTH OF AN ANGEL
Books 1-5
Omnibus
SHORT STORIES
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Just Another Customer
The Problem of Carl and Louie
Patience, Violence and the Red, Red Moon
The Twisted