My Husband Dies Every Midnight

The One Who Remembers

Elena ran until the chamber was nothing but a blur, until the wet stone underfoot and the tightness in her chest merged into one consuming sensation. Nathan's hand was a tight grip at the small of her back; behind them stretched an echo of the blind woman's laughter, wet as the floor.

"Keep moving!" shouted Maris. "Don't stop!"

Black water had already reached their ankles when Elena realized with a sinking heart that it was not water at all. It clung to her skin with malevolent interest, and the pit behind them writhed and heaved. A sound came up from within the darkness, a deep vibration that made Elena's ribs tight with the memory of it.

The tunnel ahead opened into a throat of rock. Nathan drew her forward, practically lifted her over the rough opening as Lila stumbled after them, her camera bag catching against her ribs.

"Where does this lead?" he demanded.

"I don't know!" Elena shot back, her voice frayed. "Just tell me where to go!"

The passage bent sharply; then the group found itself at a crossroads. One path led upward, the other downward. Maris halted abruptly, her face white. She looked as if she'd heard something.

"Which way?" Elena asked.

Maris did not answer immediately. Her eyelids were heavy, her lashes resting on the swells of her cheeks as if she were in prayer. Then suddenly she opened her eyes.

"That way," she said at last.

Nathan frowned. "How do you know?"

"It's where the hollow is," said Maris. "The way out is up."

"The hollow is beneath us, but the exit is above," said Maris.

Elena gave him a sharp look. "How do you know that?"

Maris' lips pressed together. "Because they made this place to lead miners astray." He turned toward the passage leading upward. "And to keep us down, too."

Elena did not ask what he meant. The blind woman's laughter had fallen away, and a deep, uneasy silence had taken its place in the tunnels.

They climbed. The passage opened into a narrow stairway, hewn roughly from the rock. Water trickled over the stones and gathered in the folds of fabric at Elena's waist. She stared fixedly at the back of Nathan's shirt, at the dark line of his spine, because she could not look back. Something was coming. She could feel it in the very marrow of her bones.

"I hate this," said Lila. "I hate this so much."

"Good," said Nathan. "Join the club."

The staircase opened into a small chamber with a vaulted ceiling. At the center of the room was a stone altar, upon which had been placed a rusted lantern, a broken bowl, and a bundle of moldy cloth bound with twine. Maris went still at the sight of it.

It was the sight that made her face change.

"It was mine," she whispered. "All of it."

"What?" said Elena.

Maris crossed the room, her steps slow and measured. "I left this behind. I thought no one would follow."

Nathan regarded her closely. "Why would you leave anything for us?"

Maris reached out and untied the bundle, revealing a small, water-stained book and a brass key shaped like a heart. "This was my journal. I left it here because I thought no one would follow."

"It was your journal?" said Elena. "No, it can't be." She peered more closely at the book. The writing inside was in her own hand, but the words were different from those in the journal she carried. These passages were fresh, the edges of the pages not frayed. Margins were filled with names and dates; some she did not recognize. Among them were lines in Maris' familiar, cramped script, and one section was underlined several times with such force that it tore through the page:

The one who remembers will be chosen.

Elena felt a chill creep up her spine.

Nathan reached for the book, but Maris drew it back as if shielding it from him. "Not yet," she said.

"Then when?" said Nathan.

"When we understand," she said, her voice barely more than a whisper. "Because I think the Warden will be choosing Elena's successor soon enough."

The room seemed to constrict at the sound of her name. Elena took a careful step forward. "What are you talking about?"

Maris met her eyes and said nothing for a long moment. When she spoke, there was no fear in her voice, only raw truth. "The curse will not be chosen at random. It will always follow memory. The one who remembers becomes the bridge, Elena."

"A bridge to what?" asked Lila.

"To everything the city has buried," said Maris. "The hollow. The Warden. The thing that it was keeping from us all."

There was a thudding sound from the tunnels below. Then another.

"We are not alone," said Nathan.

No one disagreed.

The sound came again. It was growing louder, as if something was climbing the passage behind them with steady, deliberate strides. Elena's skin prickled with unease. The blind woman was still out there somewhere, lurking in the deep tunnels. Perhaps there were others like her. Other things.

"How many of them are there?" asked Lila.

Maris closed the book and pressed it tight against her chest. "More than you want to know."

Nathan swore under his breath. He looked at Elena, all frustration and determination folded into a single, resolute expression. "We keep moving. Whatever this is, we'll finish it."

Elena wanted to believe that. She really did.

But then her wrist burned fiercely. The charm. She looked down to see the blue-white light of it, the clock-like face glowing with enough warmth to cast a strange, pale light across her skin. Maris' eyes went wide.

"It is reacting," she whispered.

"To what?" asked Elena.

Maris came closer, her voice hushed. "To the book, to the key."

The heart-shaped key was lying in the dirt beside the altar. Elena reached for it without thinking, but the moment her fingers brushed against the metal, the chamber turned to ice.

A voice spoke in her head, though she barely registered the words. It was more feeling than sound, a sensation that ran straight through her veins: You were always the one.

Elena gasped and fell backwards. Nathan caught her before she hit the floor.

"Elena!" he said sharply. "What happened?"

She could not answer him. Because the room had changed again, or rather, it had gone back to how it was before. The rough walls of the chamber were no longer stone but wet earth. The ceiling was gone save for the black sky above. The altar had become a circle of blackened rock, and Maris herself stood there, her face pale and streaked with blood. Behind her, someone else was pressing a key into the side of a rock formation.

Wait. No. Before her. Because the young woman looked up over her shoulder with wide, frightened eyes, and Elena knew with terrible certainty that it was Maris, though she was clearly not yet an adult. Her voice was strained and fearful as she spoke.

"Elena, if you find this, it means that I have failed."

Elena gasped as the vision tore away from her. Nathan's hands were tight on her shoulders, keeping her upright.

"Talk to me," he said. "What did you see?"

Elena met his gaze and swallowed hard. "I saw your mother," she said at last. "In this very room. She was here years ago."

Maris looked as if she had been struck. "Then it is open."

The thudding coming from the tunnels had grown louder. Lila turned toward the sound, her expression one of alarm. "Can we not do the emotional revelation right now and get out?"

For once, Elena wished she could share in the sarcasm. But before she could say so, the book fell open in Maris' arms. It moved quickly, one page turning after another, until it paused on a passage she did not recognize. Fresh ink smudged across the page, as if the writer had barely set it down.

Elena leaned closer. Her name was written at the top of the page, and then, beneath it, one line was forming slowly, letter by letter, as if she were watching it happen.

If you are reading this, the hollow has chosen its next key.

Her blood ran cold.

Then the next line appeared, one word at a time.

And the next death will not be Nathan's.

The chamber behind them groaned ominously. Whatever it was, whatever creature was hunting them, has found the stairs.