The coach I heard last night is a little brougham. Dr. Morant has no driver and so he takes the reins himself, after bustling me inside.
“Lie low,” he whispers. “If she sees I am taking you, she will stop us.”
“Your aunt.”
He hesitates and then nods. “Yes, my aunt.”
I do as he says. I lie on the seat, my head beneath the windows, and he sets out at a clip that has the horse’s hooves smacking the hard-packed earth. When I hear the croak of a raven, I stop breathing, my heart thudding.
“A medical emergency in town. Now, shoo.”
Another croak, and then the raven seems to fly off.
That was not how my sister talked to her cat.
I squeeze my eyes shut. It does not matter. I need to get out of here. The sun will be gone at any moment, and Dr. Morant will be in mortal danger.
“I would ask you to stay until you are healed,” he calls down. “I wish that to be clear. I am not the brute who will imprison you, but nor am I the callous beast eager to cast out a woman in dire straits. If you will explain more, perhaps I can resolve this fear of yours.”
I do not answer.
He grunts and picks up speed again, the clatter of hooves making it impossible to speak more. Then he yanks on the reins.
“Whoa, there. Please remove yourself from the road, sir.”
I scramble up, even as everything screams for me to stay down, hide from whoever is in the road. It cannot be my pursuer. No one else can see him. He will strike from thin air, and Dr. Morant will be—
My gut twists, and I let out a whimper.
Dr. Morant continues, “I do not know who you are, sir, and I use ‘sir’ as an honorific I doubt you deserve. Remove yourself from the road or I will ride through you.”
“You can see me?”
That voice makes my insides spasm, and I do leap up.
“Of course I can see you. You are standing in the road. Move aside. Now.”
“Give her to me.”
“I am a physician attending to an urgent situation in town. I am alone.”
“I can smell her. The stink of her fear.”
“I will count to three, and then this horse will trample you.”
The man laughs, low and ugly. “No horse can trample me.”
Dr. Morant hies the horse forward, and I let out a sound between a scream and a yelp. I shove open the door and jump without looking. One boot catches inside the moving coach, and I fall hard, that foot twisting before coming free. I shove to standing, ignoring the blast of pain as my ankle folds.
“Here!” I shout. “Do not hurt him! I am here!”
There is a sound. The sound I have heard too many times, and a howling sob rises in me, fear and fury roiling together. It is the sound of shock and pain that his victims make as he attacks.
“Nooo!” I scream, stumbling forward to see . . .
My pursuer lies on the roadside, and that sound came from him. The coach is ten feet ahead, Dr. Morant leaping down, unharmed.
My mind reels, but I shove past my confusion. I do not care how my pursuer came to be on the ground. I only care that Dr. Morant still lives.
“I am here,” I say to my pursuer, as I limp toward them. “Do not hurt him.”
Dr. Morant says, “If this is the man you fear, Edie, then I might suggest that he needs to be hurt.”
I shake my head. “I am telling him not to hurt you. Please go now. You have delivered me to him, and I will do as I must.”
My pursuer is on his feet now, rocking slightly, as if getting his bearings. I blink at him. He is back to his human size, several inches shorter than Dr. Morant.
My pursuer lunges at Dr. Morant. I scream and run, hands extended, knowing it will do no good. He can touch those in the living world; we cannot touch him.
Except my hands hit him square in the back, his body solid beneath my fingers.
He wheels on me, and in a blink, Dr. Morant is between us.
“Go now,” Dr. Morant says.
The man only looks at him, his head tilted.
“You can see me,” the man says.
“Of course I can. You are standing right in front of me.”
My heart hammers, and I want to scream for Dr. Morant to go. Get in his coach and flee. But the words will not come, held down somehow by the faintest strand of hope.
Hope that something has changed.
That here in this strange forest, something has changed.
“Step aside,” the man says. “I will not ask again.”
“Good, because this entire conversation has become tiresome. I do not know who you are or what you want with this young woman, but frankly I do not care.”
“She—”
“Did I say I do not care?”
The man charges. I spring toward them, but my ankle twists. Dr. Morant only puts out a hand to hold my pursuer back.
The man slashes for Dr. Morant’s throat, and my mouth opens to scream that I will do whatever he asks. Yet his fingers are only fingers. No claws to rend and tear.
Dr. Morant grabs my pursuer’s wrist, and the man lets out a grunt of shock at the physical contact.
Not only can the doctor see the man; he can touch him. For a wild second, I fear Dr. Morant is the same thing. A ghost.
Yes, a ghost that can drive a coach. A ghost that is solid and breathing and warm. When he treated my forehead, his hands were not the cold fingers of death, as my pursuer’s are.
I do not know the answer to this riddle, only that Dr. Morant is alive.
The man wrenches as if to throw Dr. Morant over his shoulder. Before now, he has had the strength to do that and more. Yet Dr. Morant only twists his wrist, bending the man’s arm up at an unnatural angle.
And then the ravens come.
Last night, their wings were like thunder. Today, there is not even a whisper of sound. Suddenly, they are there, swooping at the man, who falls back, such shock on his face that if fear did not steal my voice, I might laugh.
“Come,” Dr. Morant says, taking my elbow. When I limp a step, he scoops me up over his arms, which would be terribly gallant if he did not grumble about it.
Before I can object—nay, before I can think to object—I am beside him in the driver’s seat. I look over at my pursuer, lost in that writhing whirlwind of black birds. Then, as quickly as they came, they wing away, leaving nothing behind.
I stare at the spot.
“Wh—where did he go?”
“Ran off, I should think,” Dr. Morant says as he starts the horse. “For a moment, I thought I might need to engage in fisticuffs. Not how I intended to spend my evening.” He looks down at me. “Back to Raven’s Moor, yes?”
I nod dumbly, still staring at that empty space.
A raven lands on the coach as Dr. Morant turns it around. He glances back.
“Yes, yes. I appreciate the help. Thank you very much.” The words hardly sound appreciative, but the raven croaks and flies off with a flick of a white tail feather.
“You . . . can speak to them?” I say.
He arches a brow as he turns the coach on the narrow road. “Do you speak to birds? If so, please tell me what they say. I would be most curious.”
He finishes the turn and the horse trots off for home. “I have heard of birds that will learn simple language, but ravens are too clever to do anything for our amusement. They understand my tone. I could have said ‘Leave your teeth in the door, dear poppet’ in the same way and they would have understood they were being thanked.”
I am quiet until I cannot help myself. “Ravens do not act like that.”
“Do they not? How many have you known?”
He hies the horse, and I sit in silence until the distant lights of Raven’s Moor appear.
Then I say, “You are not going to ask why that man is pursuing me?”
“Does it matter? He is very clearly a brute, and that is answer enough.”
“I killed him,” I blurt.
He glances over, dark brows rising nearly to his hairline. “Then apparently, I have met the living dead. Most interesting. I have heard tell of such things, but never encountered it.” His tone gentles, just a little. “You thought you killed him, Edie. Clearly you did not.”
I go silent again before I say, “Are you not going to ask why?”
“Why you thought you killed him? Presumably you shot him or otherwise knocked him down and believed him to be dead, which is a mistake that can happen, for those who are not physicians.”
“I mean why I killed—tried to kill him.”
“I am certain you had good reason.”
I do not know what to say to that, so I am silent for the rest of the journey.