Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 100859 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100859 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
My lewd thoughts surprise me, and I immediately shove them away and force myself to pay attention.
“It took me a long time to figure it out too,” he goes on. “When you give your energy to someone alive, it’s not so noticeable, not to the one giving it. When you give it to someone dead, completely devoid of life force, well, that’s a hard one to miss. Nonetheless, I decided I would be better off as a teacher. I’m told I made the right choice.”
I mull that over as we continue walking out of the courtyard and away from the buildings. Eventually, the gravel gives way to dirt and a layer of fallen leaves, red, orange, and gold, that ring the shoreline of the lake. Strands of mist hang just above the water like cotton ribbons.
We stand beside each other, our shoes sinking into the earth slightly, and stare at the lake. Its surface is black, reflecting back the surrounding forest like a nightmarish version of itself. I have to look away after a while, as if the lake would pull me under if I didn’t.
“So why haven’t you been feeling yourself?” I finally ask.
He stiffens, and when I glance up at him, I see a muscle in his jaw tick. “I’m afraid if I tell you, you’ll think less of me.”
He cares if I think less of him? The admission makes my stomach flip.
“I don’t think that’s possible,” I admit quietly, giving him a shy look. “After all, you just told me you have the power to make the dead come alive, and I don’t think I’ve ever admired you more.”
He stares at me in surprise, then furrows his black brows together. “Ah. Well, that’s good to know.” He licks his lips and turns his attention back to the lake. “I haven’t been sleeping well since I got here. At first, I thought it was because I haven’t been allowed my drink or my drug.”
“Your drug?”
“Opium,” he says, then eyes me, reading the concerned look on my face. “Don’t believe the things you’ve heard about the opium dens, or joints as we call them in the city. It’s a good drug, and it does a lot to calm the mind, bring you peace and harmony. But your aunt Leona was adamant that I stay sober while at the school, and, well, let me tell you that withdrawing from opium isn’t very pretty. So the first few weeks I was here, I was barely sleeping, tossing and turning all night, just praying for a pipe or a tincture. Alas, I had no choice but to deal.”
“That certainly explains a lot,” I say. Smoking opium? I had heard the stories of men overseas and in the bigger cities smoking it in lurid dens, but I had never pegged someone as proper as Crane to be one of them. It was a dangerous drug; he should know that.
He certainly has many sides to him, I think. What else does he keep hidden?
“One would think,” he goes on, stooping down to pick up a rock from the shore. He peers at it and turns it over and over in his hand in a rhythmic motion. “But that isn’t what’s been bothering me. It’s what’s been happening to me in the middle of the night.”
A chill coasts down my neck, and I pull at the edges of my sleeves, wishing I had gloves for warmth. “What’s happened in the middle of the night?”
He steps away from me and grasps the rock in his hand and then, with a burst of power, whips it across the surface of the lake, where it skips six times before sinking. Ripples slowly expand. “I’ve been waking up in a cold sweat, which might be part of the withdrawal, and then hearing my name being called. Or someone crying.”
I shiver. “That’s unsettling. Is it your neighbor in another room?”
“It’s a woman’s voice,” he states, bending down to pick up another rock. “And in the men’s wing, no women are allowed. Of course, I thought perhaps it was Professor Daniels having an affair with the school nurse or something to that end. But that never explained why she called my name. So of course, I assumed it was Marie.”
“Who is Marie?” I ask carefully, ignoring the strange taste of jealousy when I said her name.
“My ex-wife,” he says. His expression is blank.
My brows raise. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were married. Are you…divorced?” I glance down at his hand as if expecting to see a ring, even though I know he doesn’t wear any.
“Widowed,” he says, winding up and skipping another stone across the water. “She died.”
“I’m so sorry,” I say again, feeling like my words can’t mean enough. The poor man.
“Mmmm,” he murmurs with a small nod, watching as the ripples spread. “Yes. She died, and, well, sometimes I hear her voice in the night.”