Waiting For Sunrise - The Books Of Beginning AU

29. Darker Yet Darker

The room Miss Sallow showed them to was comfortable, if clearly not often used. There were two beds, but Kate knew, even as the surly housekeeper left them alone, that Emma would spend the night pressed into her side. 

The girls stripped down to their bloomers and camisoles, leaving their shirts and trousers draped across the back of a chair, to be retrieved in the morning. Their shoes were lined up against the wall with similar neatness. And as for the green book, the one that had caused so much trouble, and yet was absolutely necessary if they wanted to retrieve their brother, well, Kate tucked it between the pillows and the headboard of the bed. Then she pulled back the covers and slid over to give her younger sister enough room.

"Thanks," Emma said, settling under Kate's arm. The younger girl pressed her feet against her elder sister's calves, instinctively seeking out her warmth. She paused for a long moment, then added - "Kate?"

"Yes?"

"I'm scared." Indeed, she must be, to admit her fear so openly, without hesitation. Under normal circumstances, getting Emma to admit that she was afraid was like pulling teeth. "Michael... Who knows what that witch will do to him if we can't stop her, first."

Kate stroked her sister's hair. "We're going to get him back. I promise you, Emma. We're gonna bring him home."

Emma believed it. Despite their terrible circumstances, despite their desperation, despite the fact that trust was a dangerous and difficult thing, she believed Kate fully. Because for Kate to promise something meant it must be true. Kate always kept her promises.

"We'll get him back," Emma repeated, determined as ever. She nestled into her sister's side. "I love you, Kate."

"I love you too," Kate said automatically, instinctively. "Get some rest."

"G'night."

Soon, Emma's breathing turned shallow, and her worried young face was smoothed out by the gauzy veil of sleep. Kate watched her fall into slumber, occasionally brushing a hand across her furrowed brow and her choppy chestnut hair. 

She herself couldn't fall asleep. She laid her head down and tried to close her eyes, but every time she did so, all she could see was Michael's frightened face, and those terrible Screechers with their rotted skin. Just the memory of their screams made her stomach twist uncomfortably.

Some time had passed, perhaps an hour or two, when Kate found herself sitting up with a start. She had been laying there, beside Emma, just watching the moonlight filter through the clouds and the curtains and the windowpane, when a shiver of foreboding ran up her spine. She looked around the room frantically, but there was nothing lurking in the shadows save two pairs of dusty boots. Her heartrate gradually slowed back to normal.

Out of sheer instinct, she reached behind her pillow and pulled that damned emerald book from where it had been wedged. The leather cover was warm beneath her pale, calloused fingers. It felt strangely familiar, though she had no idea why that was.

She opened the book and watched the silvery light of the moon pour across the blank pages, making them look otherworldly and rippling. The parchment crinkled as she flicked through empty page after empty page. It must have been incredibly stiff, when it was first put together, but had been weathered down to something more flimsy with age.

Kate was about to put the book away and force herself to at least attempt to sleep (though she knew that such efforts would be futile, when her mind was racing with thoughts of her brother stuck in the past, and of the rest of her family - save Emma, of course - miles and miles away in the city) when something happened. Her fingers were resting lightly atop one of the open pages in the middle of the book, and all of a sudden they were trembling, as if little bolts of lightning were making their way through her veins. And then, quick as a match being lit, an image swelled in Kate's mind, one that she had never seen before and yet knew completely.