Lullaby (The Fable Series, Book 2)

Chapter Thirty One

I'm struggling through darkness.

Far from all light, and love, and life.

Death has swallowed me whole.

Gasping for breath, I struggle against the black embrace of the ocean, bindings of frozen ebony velvet that hold and smother me, pulling me down, down, down.

Far below, the bus falls through the shadows; far above, a maelstrom of shattered glass dances through the water.

My body is tired.

Thrashing wildly against the tide, I gasp for breath, and take in a lungful of burning saltwater.

As I choke, their faces emerge out of the gloom.

One by one, like drowned silvery moons, the pallor of the drowned.

A girl with a shard of glass embedded into her eye socket; a boy with half his face missing. Ms. Blyth with a gaping hole in her throat. Mia with her head haloed in crimson blood; Evan watching me with a sad smile. They reach out to me, clammy fingers grasping my hair, my hands, my legs.

The hands clamp down, and we descend.

I don't resist.

In that moment, I stop fighting.

I can rest.

Together, we'll drift on the icy currents forever.

I'm ready to let go.

And yet...

Yet...

Even in the darkest night, there is the memory of light.

"Ashling."

A voice distant as the moon, soft as rumbling thunder in distant hills.

I hear my name, and I know I'm not alone.

I break free of the hands that hold me, the hungry ocean that seeks to devour me.

I fight the current.

Wheeling blindly through the sunless starless gloom, I seek something I cannot describe, cannot even imagine.

Somewhere out of sight, there is someone waiting for me.

Someone calling me.

I hear her voice, echoing over the glacial swirls, eddying through the shadows.

Wake up Ashling, she cries.

WAKE UP.

"Wake up, please Ashling," Kitty sobs.

Her voice is coming from just above me, maybe only inches away.

My whole body aches, from my head to my toes. I feel like I'm lying down against a hard surface.

There's a throbbing pain in my forehead, like someone drove a burning hot needle into my skull.

I open my eyes a sliver then close them again, the bright sunlight burning into my brain.

"I should... have... known," Kitty blubbers in-between sobs. "After she told me. I should have realized. I never thought... it's so obvious.... of course the ocean... I'm so bloody stupid."

I feel a drop of wetness fall to my lips, tears salty as the sea, briny with her regret.

"No one's blaming you Kitty," a voice says calmly to my right. Elliot. "But you have to tell us everything. What's going on?"