Dividing Earth: A Novel of Dark Fantasy Read Online Free PDF Page B

stepped on a clump of puke; bits of food and liquid fought between her toes. Upstairs, Kurt Cobain’s muffled and indistinct voice fell to her, a broken voice descending from the top of a well.
    Then she saw Grady. She was asleep on the couch, her head on Mike’s lap. She wore only her bra. He was shirtless.
    Mary rubbed her eyes. Her heart was a timpani. She stepped over and around sleepers, crossed the porch, nearly tripped down the steps, then was at the street. She turned, as if in need of a picture of the place to burn it on her memory. The dark house seemed to rear up, the screen door slapping against the jamb like the jaw of a predator. Then the world breathed and leaves skittered across the porch, taking flight in her direction.
    Mary ran.

Chapter Three: Sarah
    1
    Once they’d pried the wagon from the mud this morning, Sarah knew it wouldn’t last much longer—the wheels were far more wobbly, and the spokes more brittle, than Papa was ready to admit. She only hoped they reached Tempest by nightfall. But this was a precarious hope, as were all hopes on the plain—there were only the three of them and a team of oxen yanking a rickety wagon through the dust, dirt, and mud. Sarah didn’t want to think about being stranded out here. Winter was coming.
    At least they’d left The Five Points far behind. Of course, she’d had the same thought after they’d fled Salem. Although their kind’s blood— Old blood in a new world, she sometimes thought—had been thinned out over the years, enough purity remained that Sarah feared they’d never rest, that it was only a matter of time no matter where they landed before they heard that dreaded word: Witch.
    * * * * *
    She had wanted a simple, quiet day. Indeed, after her display last night she’d wanted to spend the day in the back, riding with the supplies.
    It started after supper. Her stomach had been rough for an hour or more, and she had left her tent to take a walk. She thought the night air might do her some good, but instead her belly tightened. When clouds darker than the night sky rolled over the plains, though, she decided to head back. Even if the sky was only innuendo, she knew to be in bed—this land was nastier than back east, and with less warning.
    She nearly made it back when the cramps lifted. She stopped, stared down at her stomach. One moment pain, the next nothing. She chuckled, got moving again, but then wet trickled down the inside of her legs. It ran down her calf and her feet and onto the ground. She stepped back. The moon illuminated black dots of liquid. She spread her legs slightly and whatever was dripping from her spotted the ground.
    Spears of lightning stabbed at the earth, but she couldn’t see them clearly; everything she saw shook and jumped, as if she were still sitting in the wagon and suffering the endless bumps of travel. The low voice of thunder followed, but to Sarah this was a distant sound. Her hands shook. She crouched down, ran a finger through what was now a small pool of the black—or was it red?—liquid, and held her finger under her nose. She shot up at the smell, broke into a run and yelled for her mother.
    “What is it?” Mama asked, appearing beside her tent.
    A few feet away Papa rose, his eyes bleary with sleep. He ran a hand through his long black hair, sweeping it from his face. It lifted and spiraled in the quickening wind.
    Sarah parted her legs; a dark liquid was smeared over her thigh. Mama’s eyes followed hers. After a moment, she smiled, took her by the hand and led her off.
    Papa ducked back under the buffalo-skin tent.
    Once they were out of earshot, Mama laid her arm over her shoulders. “Congratulations,” she said. “You’re a woman.”
    * * * * *
    Sarah hadn’t slept much. Between the cramps and the embarrassment, she couldn’t shut her eyes. So she wanted a quiet day, but after they packed up the wagon and yoked the beasts, her father chuckled, staring at the wagon’s rear left wheel.