Page 2 of Her Cruel Dahlias
Raucous laughter spilled from the crowd. The sound wasn’t aimed at Cricket, but it felt as though they could see through the curtain to where she’d hidden herself, that they were all laughing because they could see her fears, her grief. Cricket’s wretched heart thrummed faster, aching to shatter her rib cage.
She peered at her hands and squinted to focus on her curiosity. A bead of perspiration slid down the back of her neck, and for the first time, fluttering wings seemed to caress her arms. She watched as her hands turned translucent, the ivory bones beneath her skin exposed in the dim lighting.
“Come on, Cricket,” she pleaded, a small smile tugging the edges of her lips. “You can do this.” Even though Mistress Eliza had foreseen her curiosity, Cricket hadn’t entirely believed it to be true. Yet now she was unearthing it.
Something clawed beneath her skin, as if insects were begging to make their way from the deepest depths of her being. Cricket’s lower lip wobbled when she studied her arms, where not red spots dotted them, but black. She glanced down at her stomach, her legs, finding the same dark-shaded spots there too. Black roses?
A flower bud broke free from her bicep before its petals burst open—a dahlia, black as night. Cricket gasped, her body shaking as fright spread through her. More dahlias tore through her flesh, and she couldn’t stop her trembling. She was unable to halt the tormented thoughts that rushed forth at the sight of them—so like the dahlias placed along her dying body.
“Stop,” Cricket whispered to herself while balling her hands into tight fists to draw the devilish things somewhere else. But they wouldn’t disappear from her sight. She stared in horror as she grasped a velvety one at her wrist and attempted to rip it away. Pain shot through her, and she clenched her teeth while the flower remained.
With shallow breaths, she let her feet carry her forward as the clawing beneath her skin continued. She looked up, and her gaze locked onto Zephyr, who was now alone, his eyes widening in surprise.
“Cricket?” he rasped.
“I don’t know what’s happening!” she shrieked. And she knew he couldn’t help her—she needed to find Mistress Eliza.
Cricket spun on her heel and fled out the back entrance of the tent to find Mistress Eliza. But the necromancer was already gone. The cool breeze tickled Cricket’s flesh, and the torches flickered against the starry night.
The clawing turned painful as if thorns were buried inside her muscle and sinew. Zephyr rushed out of the tent, searching the night for her, and Cricket ran, not wanting him to see her as a monstrous garden of dahlias, a reminder of a murderer who had once left the same flower behind.
Cricket remained in the shadows behind the carnival tents, avoiding the crowds as she bolted toward Mistress Eliza’s caravan, all the while pleading with the flowers to go back to the depths from which they came. But the dahlias’ only answer was to ignore her. For more to unleash their heinous selves as the wind wrapped its delicate hands around her.
The world surrounding her spun when she entered the caravan area, where a few performers laughed while she darted past them, seeming to believe this was all a jest, a performance.
“Cricket, just stop!” Zephyr shouted, his voice inching nearer.
She skirted between the painted caravans, when her foot caught on a rope and she toppled forward. Cricket caught herself just as she was about to strike her head against the ground. Sharp pain radiated up her arms, and she couldn’t see a single sliver of her pale skin. Another flower bloomed inside her mouth, on her tongue, tasting of death.
A whimper tore from her throat as she pushed herself up from the ground, but she fell again, her eyelids fluttering from exhaustion. Pressure ignited on her lungs where yet more flowers bloomed, consuming her. She could feel the torturous things everywhere. When she attempted to scream, only a hoarse sound escaped her mouth.
A shadow knelt beside her, and she looked up to find Zephyr looping an arm around her to scoop her up.
As Cricket turned her head toward a caravan, an oval stage mirror propped against its side caught her attention. But not the object itself—her image reflected in the glass. She gasped, her lungs weighted. Large black petals unfurled from her skull, covering her entirely, all but her eyes, which were wide and full of panic.
“Breathe,” Zephyr said, his voice steady as he held her close.
I can’t, she tried to get out, but the words were trapped in her mouth, her chest tightening. The crackling flames of the torches dimmed as dahlias slipped out from her eyes, darkening the carnival. Her body slumped against Zephyr’s firm chest, and she was too tired to fight, her oxygen stolen away by the vicious flowers.
Chapter Two
The sky above darkened to a deep gray, and Cricket needed to hurry home before it poured. She didn’t want to ruin her new shoes, or at least more than she already had.
Cricket had finished walking her closest friend, Anika, home from the carnival, and as she left, she couldn’t stop thinking about the performances. How every year she would go as soon as Mistress Eliza’s Carnival came to the city and opened, to be the first to catch a glimpse of each of the curious and alluring acts. Necromancers were even more rare to find than witches. The story was that the performers were all brought back to life after suffering a violent death, that their curiosities were indeed real. However, they all looked as though they’d never experienced such a terrible fate, especially Zephyr.
She thought about him, her favorite of the performers, the way he winked at the audience as he juggled swords. The sensual smile that spread across his lips when he would press a leaf against his tongue before thick green vines grew from wherever he wished, sometimes his arms, other times his torso or back. They didn’t need a single flower blooming across them to be beautiful. He was perhaps a couple of years older than her nineteen years. Stop thinking of him. Bram was the one courting her, a man whose kindness she had fallen for nearly two years ago.
As small drops of rain pelted her skin, Cricket drew to a stop and stared up at the storm-filled sky, letting the rain fall into her eyes. She didn’t worry about rushing home any longer, not when she remembered how much her younger brother, Felix, had loved this weather. He passed eleven years ago at the tender age of four from the plague, yet she still thought about him every time it rained, the way his laughter would echo. She wondered what he would’ve looked like now if he’d lived, if he would’ve enjoyed coming to the carnival as much as her. He would’ve turned fifteen a few weeks ago.
A twig snapped behind her, and before Cricket could glance over her shoulder, hands wrapped around her throat, fingers squeezing like a steel trap. She writhed as she fought to escape the stranger’s clutches, but the person’s grip didn’t slacken. They finally spun her to face them and shoved her against the nearest tree. Her gaze met two brown eyes and a young man’s face she recognized. She’d gone to school with him, but they never once talked to one another. His name was Clancy.
Why, she mouthed as her breath was cut off, her muscles weakening. Cricket’s knees buckled, and Clancy lowered her to the ground, almost delicately, like a doll made from straw.
“I just want to see what it’s like to murder someone. You could’ve been anyone,” he cooed, his eyes sparking with madness and glee.
Cricket mumbled a curse, her limbs like jelly. She felt the press of a cool steel blade between her clavicles, and she jerked upward as the knife pierced her flesh, then ripped down to her navel. Pain coursed through her, shattering her entire being.
As she peered up toward the sky, at the dark clouds, drops of rain hit her eyes. Then two shadows appeared, onyx dahlias, coming down from Clancy’s black-gloved hands. Two more pressed into her palms, then one tucked inside her mouth. She didn’t have the strength to spit it out while she lay broken and dying.