The first thing I was aware of when I woke up was an acute pain searing through my abdomen in hot stripes, as though I’d been branded with a pitchfork. Despite the scorched feeling, I shivered severely, convulsively. The dark room slowly appeared in misty patches, dizziness fuzzing the periphery of my vision, until I eventually realised I was not in my own bed but in Lottie’s.
Then I realised it wasn’t just my stomach that was killing me; it was my head too. Like I’d slammed head first into a brick wall.
‘Arghhhhh,’ I groaned into the almost-black, and seconds later Lottie’s little bedside lamp flickered on.
‘You’re awake,’ she said, voice filled with an emotion I couldn’t quite place.
Her hair was still in French plaits, but only vaguely; there was a halo of soft blonde frizz where strands had worked themselves free. She was sitting up on the strip of floor between our two bunks, rubbing her eyes, and I could see she’d made herself a bed out of coats.
My watch said it was half five in the morning. I’d lost even more hours this time.
Through pain-clenched teeth, I asked, ‘Why am I in your bed?’
Lottie grimaced, then gestured to my own bunk. ‘Um, you bled through yours.’
My mattress had been stripped of its sheets, and there was an almost perfectly round patch of dark maroon blood in the centre of the springs. The sheets balled up at the foot of the bed were sodden, and the entire room smelled metallic, despite the half-cranked window.
I held a hand to my stomach, and was surprised to find soft, warm bandages instead of open wounds. ‘Dare I ask . . .?’
Lottie’s lips pressed into a flat white line, and again I couldn’t read her expression. ‘You did it to yourself, after I left you alone.’ Was that disgust on her face? Or pity? Which would be worse? ‘I patched you up as best I could when I came back in.’
Unable to stop myself from trembling, I muttered, ‘Fantastic. At least I didn’t hurt anyone else.’ A pregnant pause, in which I thought of the dead cat in the woods. ‘I didn’t hurt anyone else, right?’
She looked like she was about to say something, then decided against it. ‘Well, you threatened to stab me if I called an ambulance. But otherwise, no.’ She didn’t look at me. Was it a lie? Had I actually hurt her? The thought was profoundly awful.
‘I was capable of words?’ I asked quietly.
‘Yeah. But the voice wasn’t your own. It was too low, too hoarse, too . . . monstrous. Like loose screws were rattling around in your throat.’
I flinched away from the words, but no subsequent anger came.
I’d fought back the darkness with the tincture. For now.
I heaved myself up to a sitting position, but the wounds on my stomach complained viscerally, panther claws dragging through my middle, and I lay back down. Inside my bruised skull, my mind was back to oppressive blankness, and was currently assessing the situation with an unnerving clarity. ‘How did you get me under control?’
‘After I came in to check on you the first time – didn’t go well, by the way – I waited outside until you eventually tired yourself out.’
‘So I cut myself? With what?’
Lottie hugged her knees, the dark green Sevenoaks hockey joggers she often wore to sleep bunched up around her ankles. ‘My pocketknife. The one I used to give you my blood. I couldn’t get it out of the room. I think we should go to the hospital. I tried my best to disinfect your wounds with the antibacterial wipes in my first-aid kit, but I can’t guarantee I did a great job.’
My heart panged in a wholly unfamiliar way. ‘Why did you look after me?’
She swallowed hard, and then took a drink of water from the tumbler sitting on her desk. ‘Because I’m a good person. That’s what good people do, which is maybe why you can’t understand it.’ The words were neither cold nor fiery; perhaps tinged with a shade of jest, but I couldn’t quite parse it out. Either way, she was much calmer than she should’ve been.
Instead, I just nodded. ‘I deserve that.’
There was a long, uncomfortable silence while we both sorted through the questions helter-skeltering through our minds. Outside, a bird cheeped despite the fact it wasn’t yet dawn. The scent of rosemary and wild garlic floating through the window was a balm, and I sucked in lungfuls of the cold, fragrant air.
Lottie broke the quiet with a fearful whisper. ‘Alice . . . what thefuckhave you done to yourself?’
I shook my head. ‘I didn’t . . . I didn’t think it would work. The first time. It was just an absurd ritual I found in a library book.’ I dug my fingernails into my palm until they made crescent moons. ‘Do you believe me? That it was a ritual? This whole supernatural thing . . .’
She nodded slowly. ‘I do.’
‘Okay. And now . . .’
‘And now.’ She rested her chin on her knees once more. ‘We’re going to figure this out.’