Charity begged for release, so in the AM, they made careful love beneath the blanket. Linda’s skin buzzed when she thought over the map of Charity’s pleasure. Charity’s skin prickled when Linda sucked on her earlobe. Charity’s left leg twitched when Linda ran her hand along the back of her knee. And Charity was never satisfied before a total of three orgasms had wracked her breathless.
Charity was a fast learner when it came to Linda, too. Linda hadn’t needed to tell her that she liked her nipples sucked to a hard point then flicked, or that she needed sweet words whispered into her ear to climax. Best of all, Linda didn’t have to instruct Charity in the art of making her feel beautiful. Charity’s admiration was apparent in the way she looked at Linda in the faint morning light, the way she said “Morning, love.” The way Linda caught Charity throughout the day staring when Linda rested her eyes.
After making love, Linda carried Charity downstairs like an old bride, and they returned to wakefulness with two cups of old Earl Grey tea. They waited as long as they were able to have a breakfast of old jerky, rationed for their remaining days and a few beyond. They spent their afternoon in a daze, both from the love chemicals that lit their brains and from the hunger that rumbled their stomachs. Lunch was hearty: a protein bar from Deja’s stash. They snacked on the few remaining grocery items in the fridge: hard pretzels with leftover mustard, thin slices of lunch meat, the rest of the potatoes.
For dinner, Linda picked wild onions and mushrooms from the front flower beds and brought them to Charity at the dining room table, where Charity picked through and eliminated the toxic varieties, then instructed Linda in which spices to use before Linda cooked them into a dinner broth.
“Thanks for helping with the food,” Linda said as they sipped it down.
“You’re welcome,” Charity said.
“It’s lovely.”
“You’re nice to me.”
“You’re nice,” Linda said. “To everyone.”
Charity squeezed Linda’s hand. They sipped in silence.
“We’ll get out of here,” Charity said. “Together. And then we’ll go away, me and you. We’ll go get our little house in a medium-sized town.”
“How do you feel about cats?” Linda asked, suddenly aware she had never asked.
“I love them,” Charity said. “What’s your cat’s name?”
“His name is—”
Deep inside the manor, glass shattered, a window broken somewhere. Linda jumped from the table and ran into the foyer. The stained scene littered the floor, sharp shards that kept Linda from stepping too far into the room. But from where she stood in the entryway, she saw enough. A darkness had descended on the manor, and it wasn’t a storm. A branch quivered through the hole in the pane, its twigs flexing like fingers. Outside, the forest had advanced to the manor’s walls.
In every room, branches tapped as though asking for her to let them in.
Linda didn’t have to tell Charity what she’d found. Instead, she offered her girlfriend a hand, and together they fled through the manor to the stairwell made of stone. There, they hid from the trees’ assault.
“Our little house.” Linda laughed through the tears that snuck down her face. “Tell me more about what you’ll cook for me.”
“I’ll cook the world for you,” Charity said. “Bulgogi, with meat fresh from a local butcher shop. Chili on the first cold day of the year. You can give me your recipe. Soft Tofu stew on the second cold day. I’ll bake you birthday cakes, any flavor.”
“Vanilla, with chocolate icing.”
“Vanilla with chocolate icing. Sponge as soft as you’ve ever tasted.”
“Like a cloud.”
Charity grasped her hand.
“Like a cloud, of course. I’ll make you patbingsu. And ice cream, with basil and blackberries from my garden. A feast of sugar.”
The walls groaned.
“I would kill for some sugar right now,” Linda said.
Outside, a branch crept against more glass, the sound of its scratching like a nail down a chalkboard. They didn’t pause to guess if the creature that Deja had become could hold this one back.
“We may have to—” Charity said.
“Tell me more,” Linda said.
“I’ll make you jerky from scratch. Fresh salads, with fresh tomatoes and arugula and snap peas. I’ll make our bed every morning. I’ll make you a garden with flowers that die every winter. I’ll make you a life, Linda Meadows.”
“I’d like that,” Linda said. “I’d like that very much.”
Chapter Forty-Seven
Sabrina
Sabrina was through being selfless.
As she rode away from the manor and its stench of death, navigating the motorcycle down the dangerous mountainside and through muddied paths, she thought of her mother. It was the only way she could keep going once the adrenaline faded: remembering her mother’s gift to her, the resolve Sabrina had felt when wrapped in Tristan’s arms. His words to her in the walls.
In the general store parking lot, she dismounted and hobbled inside, ignoring the look of shock on the cashier’s face.
“I need a ride,” Sabrina said. “To California.”
The man recognized the wild expression and the injured posture and offered the woman an ambulance instead. “You need some medical assistance, hon,” he said, his rural Oregon accent muddling his words.
“I need a goddamn ride,” she said.
Finally, he offered to take her, and she instructed him to take her to the nearest police station. In the stranger’s backseat, she dozed, dreaming of Tristan’s face in the manor walls, of his drawl as he told her that it was her he wanted, not Marion. When she arrived at the police station, she informed the officers that Charity and Linda were trapped at Matrimony Manor, and that there had been murders on the premises. The sheriff scanned her up and down and smirked.
