Hemlock Veils (45 page)

Doc felt her over, examined the wound, and then checked her pulse. It looked as though he contemplated chest compressions, but then stopped, lowering his shoulders. “Mr. Clayton, I…I’m sorry. I just think it’s too late.”

Henry shook his head; there was nothing he could say. No one could argue with death.

Chapter 27

An excruciating, debilitating pain weighed Henry down. Elizabeth’s absence was everywhere, suffocating him. Her pale face and her body, smeared in blood, swam in his vision, and he refused to believe it, refused to believe she was gone. She couldn’t be, since she was the only reason he was living.

He found himself gently shaking her shoulders again, kissing her on the cold mouth, willing her lips to return the kiss. He couldn’t breathe, the night sky and trees and everything in existence falling down on him, all at once. Arne pulled him away from her when Henry began giving her chest compressions, since Doctor Ortiz hadn’t. “I have to,” he argued with Arne. Henry shoved him away, too easily, and didn’t look to make sure he’d landed safely, for he was back at Elizabeth’s side, giving her mouth to mouth then pumping her chest again.

“Henry!” Arne snapped. “She’s gone!”

Henry shoved him away a second time. Again, he gave her chest compressions. Her blood painted his hands up to his wrists, coagulating in his arm hair. It was an awful sight, her blood.

Her blood.

Their
blood.

He rocked back, his mouth falling open. The realization took his breath. He’d never thought it a possibility, since he’d always assumed only he could break his curse, but he
hadn’t
broken it. He had a Curse Breaker. He and Elizabeth, bound together by love, were now bound together as Cursed and Curse Breaker. According to the stories, they were physically, chemically one—two lives dependent on each other. The story of Absolon and Elvire wasn’t one Henry had made himself familiar with, but he knew enough: the woman who brought bread to an abomination, then saw him for the man he was. Elizabeth was Henry’s Elvire, her coffee as Elvire’s bread.

“I know what to do,” he rushed, searching his body for any open wounds. But for the first time he realized he had none, his body made whole in his permanent transformation.

His eyes fell on the pocket knife attached to the doctor’s belt. “Doc, your knife,” he demanded.

Doctor Ortiz hesitated. “Mr. Clayton, I…”

With impatience, Henry ripped it from the doctor’s belt, flipping it open with even more impatience. All in attendance gasped.

“Henry,” Arne reprimanded, taking hold of his arm.

“What will you do to her?” Doctor Ortiz asked in panic.

“Not to her, to me.” He met Arne’s eyes. “Our blood, Arne. We don’t have much time. If I hurry, then maybe I can—”

“Save her,” Arne finished, enlightenment lifting his brow. With a nod, he released Henry’s wrist.

Before Henry could mentally prepare himself for the pain, he sliced the knife deep into his palm. It stole his breath, made his hands tremble. But he could handle the pain. He’d experienced far worse, even just tonight. Henry ignored the unsettling noise of repulsion and disbelief from the crowd.

He positioned his hand over the open wound in Elizabeth’s chest and made a fist, squeezing. His blood drizzled into hers and ran down his wrist, even emerged from between his fingers. As he used his other hand to rub his blood into hers, mixing them desperately, the doctor groaned.

“Mr. Clayton, this can’t be good.”

Henry’s eyes shot to him. Through his teeth he said, “She’s already dead, Doc. If she’s dead anyway, what harm am I causing her?”

Doctor Ortiz lifted his hands, and Arne said, “It’s all right. He knows what he’s doing.”

Henry looked back to his task, panic beginning to overtake him. Did he really know what he was doing? It was ridiculous, thinking his blood had anything special enough to save her. He exhaled sharply at the anguish in his heart, the one that reminded him he’d lost her. “Come on, Elizabeth,” he whispered close to her face, still mixing their blood. His eyes caught fire again, her ashen face swimming in his vision. “Please. We’re one now. You have to come back.” A sob escaped him and he touched her face, gently, trying not to smear blood on her cheek. She was beautiful even in death, but the inner beauty that made her shine had disappeared, and it racked his body. He bowed his head on hers, weeping.

Then the sound, so faint he swore at first it was his mind playing tricks: a subtle intake of breath, low and raspy. He lifted his head, scanning over her, but her eyes hadn’t opened. “Elizabeth,” he rushed, touching her.

Another inhalation.

This time Doctor Ortiz heard it and bent to her, the whites of his eyes bright. “Holy Mother of God.” He checked her pulse, counting. Warily, he looked at Henry. “I don’t know how it’s possible, but whatever you’ve done, Mr. Clayton…”

“Is she…?”

“She’s alive.”

***

Still lifeless, still pallid.

Henry stared at Elizabeth.

She breathed with difficulty, but had a pulse. Her stab wound had healed over, too, more quickly than his own wounds used to heal. Only the slightest scar remained.

He sat in a carpeted chair beside her bed, in one of the only two examination rooms in the clinic, resting his clean and freshly bandaged hand on his knee. He’d been here for over two hours; they all had.

He’d carried her here shortly after her first breaths—and after many cries of joy from his neighbors, regardless of the fact that they had no idea how any of this was possible. Doctor Ortiz had ushered the crowd out of the waiting room adorned with posters about allergies and childhood vaccinations, pushing them out the entrance and into nighttime air, where they watched through the glass.

But hours had passed and nothing about her condition changed. She hadn’t so much as twitched a single muscle, hadn’t so much as flitted an eye beneath her lids. She was gone but here at the same time. Henry had even tried mixing more of his blood with hers, but it was too late.

After Doctor Ortiz had finally convinced him his blood would do nothing more for her, he stitched Henry’s hand and Arne left to retrieve his clothes. He sat beside her now, fully clothed and clean, and curse-free. Yet he felt worse than ever. He couldn’t move his attention away from her face, afraid to miss the moment she would wake—
if
she would wake. He willed it, sent her mental messages, praying that because they were one, she would receive them, wherever she was. And he tried not to doubt, tried not to wonder if her brain wasn’t alive while her body was because he had waited too long.

Earlier, Regina had sat with him, her hand on his and her arm around his back, and this, her willingness to comfort, had surprised him. How any of them were at ease with all that had happened—how they’d been so accepting of the revelation of his deepest secret—was a marvel. He’d been the monster, the one they’d always feared; yet here they were. The rest of the town, even Nicole, still waited outside the hospital, all with candles, Arne had said. Henry hadn’t gained the courage to look himself. He couldn’t face them, not yet. He couldn’t face anyone but her.

However, Taggart had come in twenty minutes before, just after Regina had left. He’d been the hardest person for Henry to even think of facing, aside from Brian, who according to Arne was nowhere to be found. When Nicole had gone looking for him, she discovered that even his house had been emptied, as though he’d packed up and left in a hurry. Perhaps this town, and all its magic, was finally too much for him. It gave Henry a slim measure of peace just knowing Brian was no longer here, that he wouldn’t have to control his impulse to kill him for the way he’d tied Elizabeth to the tree.

Even getting past the way Taggart had handcuffed her would be difficult, no matter how much he understood why, or how sorry he was for the loss of Sheppy.

“Mr. Clayton…” Taggart had begun. A sobbing sound came from his throat and he cleared it. “I didn’t know…”

“I know,” Henry said, never looking up at him. He watched Elizabeth’s eyelids instead.

“I just wanted to say that. I’m…so sorry. I was only doing what I thought was best. I didn’t know.”

For some reason Henry’s eyes burned and as they welled, he pressed his lips together. Still, all he could say was, “I know.”

After a long moment of silence, Henry’s eyes traveled to the wet, muddy soles of Taggart’s boots. Those boots left Henry alone again.

He sat alone now, too. How many people still waited outside, praying, as Arne said they were doing? The door opened then and Arne stepped through.

“Did they go home yet?” Henry asked him.

Arne shook his head. “They won’t, not until you come out. They’ll wait forever for you.”

“They’re not waiting for me, Arne. They’re waiting for her.”

“Then come out, talk to them. You’re you again, Henry. You don’t need to hide anymore, and they’re waiting to accept you.”

The simple action of shaking his head took all his energy. “I can’t be me without her.”

“You can. And she’ll still be here when you get back. I’ll even wait here with her.”

“They can manage.”

“It’s not them I’m worried about. It’s you who needs
them
. They’re a support system. They care, they love Elizabeth. After tonight…we need to pull together.”

“After what they did to her…”

“Henry, they were frightened. They didn’t know what to think.”

Arne was right, but Henry didn’t see the point. He stood anyway, studying Elizabeth before turning away from her for the first time since they’d arrived at the clinic. “You’ll stay with her? You’ll tell me the moment anything changes?”

Arne nodded.

With a sigh, Henry left the exam room and approached the glass doors. He hesitated when pushing them open, every head turning to him. There were so many, more than had been in the mob, and candles burned everywhere—even into the street and in front of the small church across it, since there were too many souls to fit in the clinic’s parking lot. The way every eye watched him, anticipating his words, left him momentarily beyond speech.

“She…isn’t awake yet.” Some shoulders slumped. “But I have hope,” he added, his voice catching on the last word. He shoved his hands into his pockets and cleared his throat, looking to the walkway. A single azalea lay on the cement, pink like the ones Elizabeth had planted last month, but it had been trampled by her supporters’ feet. It wasn’t one of her flowers, he knew, but still it insulted: on the ground, disrespected. “I won’t give up on her,” he finished with hot resolve.

“Nor will we.” It was Anita Thurman, holding a candle in one hand, her other fidgeting with the golden cross around her neck.

Henry nodded, and after a long moment, he cleared his throat again. “I suppose tonight was a shock.” A few chuckles arose, surprisingly. “There are many questions I can’t answer. But I assure you, it’s all behind us.”

“It’s all behind
you
?” Nicole asked, somewhat reluctantly, and when he met her eyes, he felt sorry for taking her so long ago.

Swallowing, he nodded. “Yes,” he answered in a small voice. “And…I’m sorry.”

Regina neared, touching his arm. Her always round eyes were even rounder—open, free of criticism. “
We’re
sorry.” Nods and murmurs of assent lifted all around. And the way Henry’s tear ducts leaked was so unexpected he looked down, again clearing his throat. This time he didn’t have the mental energy to hold it back. Before he knew it, Regina’s arms were around him, and his were around her. Then other arms joined, the arms of a community, coming together for him, for Elizabeth. He couldn’t fathom how they could be so supportive after witnessing such impossible things; perhaps Elizabeth wasn’t the only soul who could understand after all. He wasn’t deserving of it, but he absorbed it; because with these arms and these faces, he felt
something
. He felt home.

When he pulled away from Regina, Eustace patted him on the shoulder, and immediately, at the touch of his hand, Henry thought of Holly Farrell and how distraught Eustace had been when she’d left Hemlock Veils forty-nine years ago. All because of him.

“Eustace…” he began, not knowing what to say.

Eustace smiled beneath his shaggy, coarse beard, making the many wrinkles around his eyes deepen. It said he had forgiven him. “We
all
love you.”

Henry chuckled for the first time since becoming an un-cursed human again. His old friend, now his new one. It all felt strange, and so liberating. “Thanks, Old Man. For being her friend, for welcoming her here. You were the first.”

“She’s a fighter, Henry. She’s always fought for you. She won’t stop now.”

Chapter 28

Elizabeth sensed Henry’s presence in a way she never had. His determination to hold onto her was strong in this place—this transitive existence. She did still exist somewhere, as though in waiting, but not a single one of her senses graced her. Nothing to hear, nothing to see—not even darkness or light. Without the help of her physical body, she couldn’t feel her surroundings—if indeed her surroundings were in physical form. She had only the warmth and the feelings inside her. So while in death’s waiting room, she allowed herself to revel in her soul’s tether to Henry one last time.

His presence, she realized, was
all
she sensed here. As though it had become a molten sea, she swam in it and it was inside of her at the same time, flowing through her limbs and in her veins. It was love, a comforting familiar home, and it was him. She was with him and she wasn’t. Somehow he sustained her, and even if she couldn’t feel this warmth—this love, this presence of Henry—the rest of her soul’s existence, she would be okay with that. Because nothing filled her with more rightness than knowing his suffering had ended.

She’d saved him; she felt it. She remembered nothing after their goodbye, his beastly face above and his thoughts shoving frantically into hers, telling her to live. She had fought them away, pushed them from her awareness, because with them filling her, it was impossible to give up.