Sleep of Death (Charlotte Westing Chronicles) (17 page)

Chapter Twenty-Seven

“Lock the door, Sierra!” I shout as I clatter—more carefully this time—down the front steps. I take the barest second to note that the blood puddle is still not on the second step and I take heart that, at the very least, I’ve changed
something
. “Call the cops!” I add. I’m not afraid of watching the police drag Daphne away anymore—I’ve seen my mother dead in a pool of blood at her hand; they can have her.

But
in the meantime, I can’t just let her go. As tempting as it is to let the February cold bring a final end to her rampage, I couldn’t live with myself if she hurt another person. I can already imagine tomorrow’s headlines—“Grisly Murders Haunt Town for Second Time This Winter.” What the news won’t say, but should, is that for the second time this winter, it’s my fault.

But may
be I can keep the body count to two.

And so I follow Daphne’s footprints into the woods,
slowing down just long enough to look for a decent branch to wield—knowing I’m going to need it. Daphne’s strong—stronger than a ten-year-old girl has any right to be—and I wonder if something takes over inside her head and drives her body to do more than it ought to be capable of. Everything I’ve seen points to that, and I’m not ashamed to admit it terrifies me. I need to assume it’s possible and be prepared for the worst.

I see a half-broken limb
touching the ground just off the path and I step to the side to twist it off of the tree trunk. The frosty bark bites into my palms and already the cold is making me stiff—never mind the fuzziness in my head that hasn’t gone away since I smacked it so hard on the porch. But with the branch lifted over my shoulder like a baseball bat I feel a tiny bit safer.

The footprints continue along in the standing snow and I follow them
to where they disappear in a small clearing.

I’ve seen this clearing before.
It’s where I’m supposed to die.

My breath is loud as I spin around, trying to look all directions at once
, the spindly branch held aloft. The snow and the hint of sunrise make it bright enough to
see
, but everything has a hazy, washed-out quality that plays tricks on my eyes.

A rustle
from behind and I whirl about, but don’t see anything.

An animal hiss sounds in my ear as
fire shoots through my arm; I spin away as a knife slices through the air, missing my throat by the barest of margins. I stagger backward and put my hand to my neck, feeling wetness there.

But
it doesn’t sting. I’m not cut.

Appalled, I real
ize in an instant that it must be spatter from the wound on my arm. But there’s no time to consider that. Daphne’s small body is on top of me and I grab for her hands, feeling the knife bite into my palm before I manage to grab hold of Daphne’s wrists.

The
n she’s off me and twisting out of my grasp, running away before I can reach out for her ankles.

She’s smart. She knows I’ve got the weight and she’s got the speed.
My wounded arm throbs painfully as I push to my feet, trying to hide the fact that I can’t see anything for a few seconds as my vision darkens—my bruised skull trying to drag me down into unconsciousness—and then slowly fuzzes back to life.

Luckily,
occasional sightlessness is something my Oracle training has taught me to conceal.

After a few more seconds I can
actually see again instead of just peering around, pretending. It’s still hard to accept that I’m terrified, from head to toe, of a ten-year-old—but I am. My bluff has kept me alive, but I’ve lost her again. There are sprays of blood dotting the snowy ground, but they point in three different directions and there are too many footprints to follow a trail.

My right arm is
weak and I can feel cold, coagulating blood soaking through my denim jacket. Maybe she knows that if she keeps me on the run long enough—gives me enough small cuts—I’ll simply bleed to death in the snow, just like Mr. Richardson. The idea that a ten-year-old child might think of such a thing is chilling, but underestimating her is what got my mom killed.

I won’t
make that mistake again. This is the only re-do I’m going to get.

Please, Sophie. Please be okay.

“Daphne!” I don’t shout, but I inject an urgency into my words that I hope she hears. “You don’t have to do this.” I screw my eyes closed for one second and prepare to lie my ass off. “Nothing terrible has happened yet. I know you killed your parents, but I also know what they were doing to you. I know about the closet. I know that you get locked into your room every night. I’ll tell the cops. I’ll help you.”

I almost choke on
my words. The pile of evidence I thought pointed to abuse, that might simply have been two concerned parents’ ways of coping with Daphne’s obviously serious problems.

A
chill breeze gusts through the clearing and I pause to listen for movement, but hear nothing. I don’t want to play hide and seek; she has the advantage there. And I don’t want to lose her. If she gets away from me before the cops arrive, more people might get hurt—or killed. It feels weird to be standing in a chilly clearing, hoping against hope that a killer would rather murder
me
than escape.

It
feels much less weird to hope I can prevent her from doing either.

But how?

I feel a warm pulsing on my chest and my hands rise, almost of their own accord, to touch the necklace there. The focus stone.

But what the hell am I supposed to do with it? I grip it in my freezing left hand—my right feels too weak and I cri
nge to think how much damage Daphne did with that glancing blow. The stone is warm and glowing a deep, dark red.

I hate red.

What can I do? I’m certain I don’t know the full powers of the stone, but in addition to bringing others onto my supernatural plane, I do know that it allows me to choose certain unlikely futures—like slowing Smith down when he tried to flee at the train station, or shoving the cops away from me when they Tased Daphne. But I’ve only ever used it in desperation; I don’t really know
how
to use it on purpose.

That, and I can’t seem to find Daphne
. I have nothing to focus
on
.

As though in answer to my thoughts, a
giggle sounds from behind and I whip around. Except that a stick breaks on the other side and I spin again, then have to stagger to a tree to hold myself upright as sparks flicker before my eyes. I
really
hit my head hard. Time is not on my side.

“Daphne!” I call again, desperate now and unable to hide it. “We can fix this. I know you’re scared
, but—”

“I’m not afraid.”

With a gasp I turn, and there she is, standing in the center of the clearing. Her eyes are filled with that unnerving calm, that inky blackness. It makes my spine feel like jelly, and I’m glad I’m next to a tree so I can lean against it when I sway.

She stands
there, barefoot, seemingly untroubled by the cold, in a too-big shirt flecked with blood. She doesn’t move a muscle—just stands there. Her hair is still wet from her shower and I can see the ends have already frozen. Even if whatever is happening inside her head keeps her from consciously registering the cold, hypothermia can’t be far away.

The
bloody knife is clutched in her hand, brandished in front of her, and even if I thought I could move quickly enough to get to her without passing out, I wouldn’t be able to avoid getting stuck with that knife.

I grip the focus stone even harder and fix my eyes on her
so she can’t disappear from sight again. Grasping for the memory of the last time I used the stone, I picture a future a mere thirty seconds ahead of this moment and see—
will
—Daphne walking forward and handing me the knife. Not her choice;
mine.

I pour every
drop of energy I can muster into that scene and stare at Daphne with what must surely look like hostility, but I have to risk it. My head starts to ache with the effort but I clench my teeth and hold my focus.

Daphne takes a step forward.

Then two.

Confusion clouds her face and erases that flat intensity
, which improves my confidence immensely. A buzzing pain begins to spread from the back of my head and I feel my knees weaken, but Daphne is still walking toward me.

“Stop it! Stop it now!” Her scream is
like carpentry nails being spiked into my eardrums; I flinch.

Don’t close your eyes
.

And somehow, I manage to keep them open.

Daphne is almost to me and even though she squirms with every step, struggling to tear herself away from the future I’ve chosen for her, her iron will almost too strong for me to bend. Almost. She’s holding out the knife. I just have to be brave enough to reach out and take it.

Brave enough
and
steady
enough. Even though it’s a future I chose, watching her walk toward me with her knife-hand outstretched is enough to curdle my blood. And I can’t let go of the pendant, which means I have to let go of the tree and take the knife with my bloodied arm.

When the knife is
within my reach I take a breath and lock my knees. I pull my steadying hand away from the tree and am beyond relieved when I manage to remain standing. I reach for the knife, but Daphne has both hands clenched around the handle. I have to wriggle it out of her fingers, already slick with blood.

“Give it to me,” I order, trying to wrangle it away with one hand.

“I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!” she shrieks, her voice inhuman.

Almost, almost.

She lets out a long, wordless scream and it does me in. The pain radiates in my skull and I put both hands to my head.

T
he spell is broken.

She leap
s on me, knocking me over as though I were the little girl instead of her. One tiny hand grasps my neck with surprising strength, and the other raises the butcher knife high in the air. I push one bleeding hand out to deflect the blade, grasping with the other for my pendant.

Daphne stops, poised to strike her killing blow, fighting
my powers, her tiny muscles shaking visibly, blood dripping onto my shirt from her mouth, where she must have bit her lip deeply in her struggle to resist.

T
hen, slowly, inch by terrifying inch, the knife approaches my throat.

Daphne is winning.

Desperately, I release the focus stone and twist away, but I’m not fast enough. A scream of agony rips from my lungs and my vision goes red as Daphne’s butcher knife sinks into the meat of my shoulder, beside my collarbone.

             
Summoning every ounce of strength I can muster, I ball my right hand into a fist and clock her across the face.

H
er weight comes off my chest with a sickening
thud
. I push my head up, knuckles smarting, fire licking down my arms. Daphne sits, stunned, at the base of a tree, her hands covering her face. A broken, little-girl sob escapes from her mouth. I draw a noisy breath, but I haven’t won yet.

Before I can let myself think too hard about it, I grab the handle of the knife and yank it out of my shoulder
. Another scream pierces the air and only distantly do I recognize it as my own.

I can’t see, I can hardly move,
I’m bleeding from multiple cuts; I’m going to have to fake it. I roll to my knees and do my best to simply stay upright, pointing my knife in Daphne’s general direction. “You’re
done
, Daphne,” I hiss. I’m so tunnel-visioned that I’m effectively blind, but everything rests on my not letting her know that. “It’s over.”

I hear her crying, the little girl sound again. Like she really is a normal kid with an
owie.

I can’t afford to believe that. My arm stretches in front of me, knife aimed at a
child, and I do my best to look threatening. “Show me your hands.”

For a second I think she’s going to cooperate, but abruptly she’s scrambling away from me, first on hands and knees
, and then sprinting, barefoot, through the trees.

She’s getting away!

And there’s just no way I’m going to catch her.

But I stagger
after her anyway, following more by sound than sight, occasionally stumbling into branches, sharp twigs scraping at my face. I’m almost to the tree line when flashing lights start interfering with my vision again.

“No,” I whisper,
forcing myself to take a few more steps before falling to my knees. But it’s not in my head this time, and now can I see well enough to look around me and realize Daphne’s mistake.

She went back
out the way I came in.

Back to my house.

Right into the arms of the cops my aunt called. I stay where I am, kneeling in the snow, watching as two cops grab Daphne and force her facedown into the snow in my front yard.