All The Dark Places

29. All The Dark Places

    Stepping out of the shower, Rosalind wrapped a towel around herself and stopped to look in the mirror. She was changing. That much was clear. Her arms were more toned. Her thighs were thicker with muscle. Her face was leaner. Still, there was a softness about her that had not completely disappeared. It was that way with most of the people in the village. Softness was vanishing. Scott, who had always been more fit than most, was even leaner and stronger. Slender and willowy Ivy now looked gaunt. She noticed that Noel looked well fed and wondered what the source of his health might be. Surely he had made some arrangement with someone besides her to have extra food. No one was starving yet, but it was getting close to the bone and if they did not get the greenhouse done and replant it would be a long hard winter. Hannah was already in her bedroom when she emerged from the bathroom in a towel.

"Ah, Jesus, Hannah! You scared me."

"Sorry. I should knock, huh?"

"Yes. Yes you should." She quickly grabbed the cotton pants and tee shirt she had gotten on the road trip to find Ethan's rifle. Hannah turned her back as she dressed.

"The carpenters say we have enough wood to make a greenhouse, but only if we take down the old cabin at the North-East of the castle grounds."

"There's a cabin?"

"Yes, at the other side of the lake. It's old, and no one lives there. It was gonna be torn down anyway, but we can use the wood and the glass windows. They said we could also get glass, pipes and some other things for the greenhouse from the..." She stopped, her eyes narrowing. "What is that?"

She looked down, following the girl's gaze and saw a tiny metallic creature skitter across the floor and under the bed. She jolted and grabbed Hannah, pulling her out of the room.

"Hannah, stay out of this room, OK?" Rosalind quickly shut the door, locking Hannah out.

Frantic, she searched the room for something to capture the creature. This one was small, no bigger than a thumbnail in body with long legs the length of her fingers and so thin they were needles. A wooden jewelry box with a removable lid etched in Celtic knot work graced the writing desk. She picked it up, weighing its sturdiness. It was hearty wood, unlikely to break easily. If she could only trap the creature under it...

Crawling across the floor, she smashed her hand down hard onto floor planks, trying to startle the creature.

"Come on out, you little bastard," she mumbled, spotting its tiny blue lights as small as pin-pricks in the darkness under the bed.

Her heart thumped. This is stupid, she thought. One bite from that thing, one sting, and she had no idea what it would do to her. Still, she had to try. She wanted to know what it was, how it worked. She saw it again; it's blue light luminescent and blinking. It crawled over the planks and down into a nick in the wood, vanishing under the floor boards. A chill creeped over her skin. She would have to sleep in that room, with that... thing. Sliding the jewelry box to the edge of the bed, she stood up and rubbed the bridge of her nose.

"You're breeding, aren't you? Is this one of the babies? My God, you're multiplying. Is that what's happening?"

Toby would never let her near the one he caught. He had dissected it and killed it by doing so. It's innards a strange mixture of mechanical parts and organic matter. Toby was ham-fisted and was more interested in destruction than study. He had mutilated the thing and then taken it out to the lake, tying it into a burlap sack with stones and sinking it's remains in the depths of the lake. She watched with contempt as Toby rowed the dinghy back to shore with a grin on his face and a triumphant whooping call. She backed away from him, for the first time fearing Tobias Bracks. So, they lost their specimen and now another was in her room, taking up residence under her bed. Determined to catch the dreadful thing, she ran down to the kitchen to find a glass mixing bowl and something to wrench the floorboards up.