Author: Ashley Townsend
Category: Nonfiction
Go to read content：https://onlinereadfreenovel.com/ashley-townsend/page,28,105060-chasing_shadows.html
“We should do something.” Edith began moving toward the stairs, but Sarah stood frozen, chilled by the girl’s shrieks and weeping; she sounded terrified. But what had frightened her? A better question would be who had tried to warn her off with that shot?
The shadows shifted in a familiar way, and the back of Sarah’s mind registered what was going to emerge before she was able to make out the cloaked figure crouched in the darkest corner below the stairs. While everyone was occupied with seeing to the girl’s needs, the Shadow rose slowly and then dashed up the staircase, taking the steps two at a time. His hasty retreat had drawn the attention of the staff below—a woman cried out, a few servants called for him to stop, while the rest stared in disbelief at their first glimpse of the elusive vigilante.
Edith gasped and jumped out of the way as he came barreling up the stairs, green cloak flying madly behind him like a cape, bow drawn, hood pulled low to mask his features. What was Will doing? Sarah hadn’t thought he could be this careless, nor would he shoot at an innocent girl, even if it had simply been to warn her off.
She jogged a few steps after him down the hall, ignoring Edith’s protests behind her. “Will, stop!” He kept running and did not acknowledge her hiss. Her steps momentarily faltered as she realized her mistake in calling him by name if someone overheard. People were clamoring up the staircase, shouting.
Suddenly, he turned on her, bow raised, an arrow resting against the frame as he pulled the string back with a quivering hand. Maybe she had been wrong in assuming that he had intended to miss the servant girl. Sarah felt a knot of dread form in her stomach when she realized that this man was not Will.
Another warning shout filled the hall from behind, startling both of them. The Shadow’s hand jerked, releasing the string. Instinct kicked in and caused Sarah to dive mid-run just as the arrow sailed overhead. She glanced up from her flattened position on the rug, hands burning from catching herself on the rough fabric.
Though his face was cloaked in shadows, his body language—arm held out stiffly as if still clutching the string he’d released, fingers trembling—told her that he was frozen in shock. Then he turned and ran from the shouts and cries of alarm.
Sarah kept her eyes focused on him as she rose on shaky legs and took off in his wake, unwilling to lose sight of his back. Accosting her and impersonating Will had just made this personal. Now she was ticked.
Adrenaline pumped her arms and kept her legs moving, eating up the distance between them as his heavy disguise weighed him down. If she could keep close to his tail, he wouldn’t have enough time to load and draw his bow before she was upon him.
“Stop!” she called. Not that he was going to halt and give himself up to the girl chasing him, but she wasn’t working logically anymore.
The Shadow moved down the long corridor and ducked into one of the rooms. Sarah followed him as fast as her tired legs allowed and saw his cloak disappear into the connecting room. She managed to keep up with him for another room and saw him dart off to the left in the hall ahead, but the maze of corridors and rooms that he seemed to have memorized had her completely disoriented. By the time she reached the hallway, he had already disappeared.
Starting off down the left section of the corridor, she skidded to a stop at the faint echo of a table overturning behind her. Whipping her head around, she spotted a door slamming down the opposite direction. She was sure he had come down this way and silently cursed the secret passages he seemed to know so well.
Sucking in a deep breath, Sarah broke off at a dead run, following the muffled sound of his retreat. She threw herself into the room and ran in the direction she thought the noises came from, side burning. She found herself in a completely unadorned corridor that she assumed was at the back of the castle. How far had they gone? She whipped her head around in both directions and spotted him at the right end of the passage. The intruder stopped abruptly, throwing open a narrow door and launching himself inside. The door slammed closed behind him and was jarred open again.
Sarah skidded to a stop in front of the opening, gasping. The tight spiral staircase was shrouded in shadows that evolved into total darkness. No sounds came from within, save a dull and haunting whistle that she hoped was the wind and not the false Shadow taunting her from below. Frozen in indecision, her mind conjured up images of what the darkness held, and they were plenty disturbing to keep her from following. But he had gone down there, and each moment she spent thinking about it was another minute lost.
Hurried footsteps brought her head around, and she saw Terrance, the man who’d hired her, running unsteadily down the hall. “I tried to keep up. Did you lose him?” he gasped, leaning on his knees as he fought for breath.
Sarah frowned, knowing that she probably had by now. “I’m afraid so. He went this way,” she said, pointing down the stairs and hoping he didn’t urge her to follow.
Terrance called the man a vile name that caused her eyes to widen. She was even more surprised when he hurried back in the direction he had come. “Quickly!” he called behind him. Sarah jogged to keep up, her legs starting to feel like Jell-O. But if the man knew of a shortcut to wherever the false Shadow had disappeared to, then she could push past the cramp in her side to find answers.
She was confused when he led her back to the main staircase where the majority of the indoor staff had congregated.
“Move!” Terrance shouted, elbowing people out of the way to make room for the both of them.
Sarah’s knees nearly gave out at the image before her. A hand covered her mouth as she gasped, freezing in horror before her legs quivered and she dropped to her knees beside the crumpled form.
Edith lay in a puddle of blood, face devoid of color, hands stained with a mixture of her own blood and the ash she hadn’t yet rubbed off. Her mouth worked when she saw her, causing Sarah’s eyes to fill with tears. She choked on a sob, her hand hovering beside the arrow protruding from the prostrate woman’s abdomen, knowing that removing it would only make things worse.
Some of her senses returning to her, Sarah pressed shaking hands around the stem of the arrow, wondering why no one had thought to stanch the flow of blood that had already created a murky red puddle on Edith’s uniform.
“Get help!” Sarah screamed in a frantic voice. A few onlookers scattered, though most remained with forlorn or pitying expressions. She turned back to Edith, whose eyes, pooling with tears, were focused on her. “You’re going to be fine,” Sarah choked out. There was too much blood! “The doctor’s coming” Then she remembered that the physician was in prison. Would there be a replacement?
She tentatively put more pressure on the wound, feeling sick when sticky liquid bubbled up from beneath her palms. Oh, God!
She whispered her reassurances in a quavering voice. “Help’s coming.” Her stomach roiled in panic and revulsion at the sight of so much blood. A skinned knee usually made her insides quiver, and the sight of thick red liquid flowing over her knuckles was enough to make her pass out. Pressing her lips into a tight line, she tasted the acidic tang of her own blood in her mouth. Edith needed her; she would not panic.
Edith shook her head weakly, as if she knew the outcome. But Sarah refused to believe there was nothing they could do to save her. God, please! She realized that she had whispered it aloud, and the desperate plea seemed to encompass the intuition of all present, no matter how much they might wish to believe otherwise.
With waning strength, Edith reached up to touch her tear-stained cheek. “I understand . . . now,” she rasped, throat working convulsively with the effort to speak. Sarah tried to quiet her, telling her to save her strength for when the doctor arrived. But whatever it was seemed too important to let it go unsaid. “I . . . wanted . . . to tell you.”
Sarah shook her head, confused by her mutterings. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She knew she sounded frantic, but she couldn’t help it with the light fading in Edith’s eyes and the flow of blood beneath her fingers
slowing on its own.
The hand of the dying woman dropped from Sarah’s face. Her chest rose less frequently, and her eyes began to droop. Sarah’s own widened in alarm. “No! Edith? Edith, stay with me! What about your boy, your husband? They need you.”
Edith released a sigh and met her eyes one final time, the corner of her mouth tipping almost imperceptibly. The look on her gray face was a mixture of joy and sadness. Sarah would never forget her face in that moment, nor the look of longing that burned feverishly in her eyes. “I am going . . . to them.”
Confused, Sarah’s searched her face for the answer, and fresh tears pooled in her eyes when she realized her meaning. She tried to control her sobs. “Oh, Edith. Why didn’t you tell me?” Now Sarah understood the haunted, faraway look in her eyes all those times. How had they died? Edith had mentioned that she’d suffered at Cadius’ hand when he doubted her loyalty. Was it possible that the death of her loved ones had been the consequence she had alluded to?
By the time Sarah blinked to clear her vision, Edith’s head had tipped to the side, eyes once bright with life staring dully at the wall. The small smile was frozen in place, now a sick parody of angelic joy on her lifeless face.
Sarah started, becoming aware that blood no longer pooled beneath her hands. She shook her head, unwilling to believe that Edith was gone, and pressed harder on the wound, as if she could replace the blood lost. “No. No, no, no, no!” She knew she sounded hysterical, but it wasn’t really her anymore, just a young girl weeping over a friend. The girl’s lips quivered as rivulets of sorrow and pain and guilt ran down her cheeks unchecked. No one tried to pull her from the body.
Sarah’s throat constricted as she realized that she had just referred to her friend as “the body.” But looking at Edith’s pale face now, there was no denying that there was no life, no soul left in this vessel: She was already gone.
Desperate, Sarah started screaming for help, though she knew it was useless. “Get someone, get the doctor! Edith, please. Please come back!” Nothing. No light returned to her eyes.
Pulling her quivering, bloodstained hands back, Sarah tentatively touched Edith’s cheek with shaking fingers. Her skin was cold. When she pulled back, she realized that she’d left a smudge of blood on Edith’s alabaster cheek.
Choking on a horrified sob, she held the back of her wrist against her lips to keep herself from screaming as she stumbled away. In the back of her mind, she registered the sounds of sobbing, her own horror and sorrow mingling with that of the others in a terrible song of agony that she imagined would forever haunt her dreams.
Now that there was room, some of the men moved in to hover over Edith’s body, discussing what arrangements needed to be made in hushed tones.
Sarah shook her head, blocking them out. “I’m sorry,” she whispered brokenly, eyes trained on Edith’s still form, though her friend could no longer hear her. If she had listened to Edith and hadn’t chased him, hadn’t ducked . . . Sarah swallowed, backing towards the staircase and cradling her bloodstained hands against her chest.
“Sarah? I heard screaming.” She turned to find Damien staring at the terrible scene. He looked tired and had dressed in a haphazard fashion, shirt un-tucked and half-buttoned, his usually perfect hair tousled and sticking up on one side. His cheek was still creased from his pillow, and the mark curved as his bleary eyes widened when he caught sight of Edith’s gray face. “Is that . . .?”
Sarah blinked at his horrified expression. He’d heard screaming? Had that been her, or had she imagined that?
When he saw the state she was in, his eyes registered alarm and he gripped her arm as he took in the blood dripping from her fingers. “What happened? Were you hurt?”
She had never heard him sound so angry, or as close to angry as the sweet man could be, but Sarah had no idea how to answer the protective concern in his eyes. Her mouth moved as she worked up an answer, but all she managed was a strangled sound. Wordlessly, she was enveloped in his warm embrace, arms wrapping around her. Sarah couldn’t remember ever being held so tightly, as though she would disappear if he let go.
Shaking, she held her bloody palms between them, sure she was ruining his pristine white shirt. But Damien hardly seemed to mind as he stroked the back of her head, crooning softly into her hair, unintelligible words that reached her aching heart. His tenderness and the comfort she felt from him was too much in that moment, and Sarah felt something crack inside of her—internal walls pressing in until she could no longer draw breath in Damien’s tight embrace. She was suffocating!
She had to get away from here, from the stench of blood and sorrow that clung to her hair, her skin. She struggled free, though Damien grabbed her wrist to stop her, face twisting in concern. The front of his shirt was smeared with Edith’s blood.
With a final glance at what remained of the woman who had taken her under her wing, Sarah did the only thing she could do in that moment.
She broke away from Damien, ignoring his calls, and ran like death was chasing her. And in a sad way, it was.
~Chapter 26~
She stumbled blindly through the dark forest, wind stinging her cheeks where the trails of tears and blood had dried. Dusk had quickly turned to night in the woods, and whatever modicum light remained was obscured by the heavy canopy of trees and gnarled branches, eclipsing the woods in near-darkness. Sparse moonlight found its way into the open spaces, giving the snow-capped trees a ghostly glow.
Sarah swatted branches out of her path, sending a powdery shower of snow behind her retreating form. Thorns and fallen twigs grabbed at the hem of her dress, and she yanked her skirt free, ripping the fabric. She stood, huffing in place.
Before, she had been focused on getting out of the castle and away from the reality of death. But now that the initial panic and hysteria had lessened some, her head began to clear in the cold night air. Was she lost? Nothing looked familiar in this disorienting darkness, and she spun around, eyes nervously sweeping the forest. From this distance, the tallest towers of the castle could still be seen through the sparse breaks in the branches.
Wrapping her arms around herself, she shivered as the adrenaline from her run ebbed. Her dress did nothing to stave off the freezing temperatures in the dense forest that received little warmth from the sun. The foolishness of her actions was not lost on her, but she couldn’t spend another moment there, with the smell of her friend’s death lingering. She had used some snow to rub as much of Edith’s blood from her hands as she could, but it wasn’t enough.
Sniffing back her tears, Sarah shuffled onward with no real destination in mind, but the pain in her chest lessened the further she got from the castle looming just over her shoulder. If she kept sight of it, she could find her way back. Not that she wanted to.
Something cracked dully, echoing through the woods. Instinctively, she jumped behind a gnarled pine, breathing heavily as she strained her ears for any noise past the rapid thumping of her own pulse. The sound came again a moment later, and then again, evenly timed, a swift thwack. Slowly, Sarah pushed away from the tree and took a few tentative steps up the hill toward the sound of an axe slicing through wood. But civilization meant possible shelter . . .
She continued on hesitantly, nerves shot, jumping each time the axe came down, until the forest was abruptly behind her and she reached the top of the rise. She took in the outline of the small cabin, the thin cloud of smoke puffing up from the chimney, and the dark form beside the house. A piece of wood was tossed onto the growing pile stacked against the side of the small home.
When the man turned to place another log on the chopping block, his face was illuminated by the lantern’s glow. Sarah let out the breath she had been holding, wondering if she had meant to come here all along. Maybe she hadn’t consciously gone this way, but she knew that even after everything, this was where she needed to be. Maybe Someone else had thought that, too.
Her teeth had begun to chatter, and she pulled her arms tighter to warm herself,
pushing her forearms painfully into her stomach. Still, she was hesitant to approach him in the dark while he wielded that axe. Not that he would ever use it on her, but she felt too anxious and jittery to think rationally.
Will glanced up abruptly, examining the line of the forest as if sensing her presence. He squinted past the small circle of light into the darkness. “Who’s there?” he called. His grip seemed to tighten on his weapon.
Swallowing, Sarah stepped out of the shadows slowly, giving him plenty of space until he could see that she was just a girl. She bit the inside of her cheek as the shaking intensified—fear and exhaustion were taking their toll on her nerves. She choked back tears at the comforting sound of his voice, but couldn’t help wondering if she should have come at all after their disagreement.
Stopping outside the circle of light, she contemplated bolting for the forest again and then immediately shook her head, her mind feeling heavy and muddled. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have come.”
“Sarah,” he breathed in surprise, taking a step forward at the quavering note in her voice. “Are you all right?”
Her arms pulled tighter, protecting herself from the cold and the images that pressed in. “Um, I just—there was—” How could she explain what had happened? Why had she thought he would want to hear any of it? She unconsciously retreated a step in her insecurity.
Will laid the axe on top of the stack of wood and shot her a wry glance. “I won’t use it, if that’s your concern.” He grabbed the lantern from the woodpile and held it up to better see her. His indigo eyes widened as he took in her appearance. He seemed momentarily frozen and then was instantly before her, concern etched into every line of his face. “What happened? Are you hurt?”
Damien’s exact words, yet coming from Will they felt different somehow. Tears clogged her throat, and it pained her to speak. “It’s not my blood.” Her voice wavered, and she bit her lip to keep the tears in check.