Shifting on his slippery shoulder from the sudden turn, I clasped at air. “No! You can’t do this! Enosh, please! Not a grave! No! Orlaigh is the liar! Njala’s baby was nev-ghh… mmh—”

My lips refused to part.

Mumbles died against leather.

He’d gagged me.

Sharp and piercing, dread stabbed into my belly and deeper, as though my bladder wanted to give. Panic pounded inside my chest like a heart shaped of fear, jumping with each step Enosh walked toward… Where was he taking me? Outside?

I blinked against the white and black floaters in my vision as I bounced, shook with each of his quickening steps, and shifted around until the stab wounds on my belly burned beneath the motion. My focus melted with my never-ending surroundings.

Bone. Stairs. Bone. Bridge. Bone.

Corpses.

Behind me, children funneled in from the hallways. They ran after us, their little bodies in different states of decay, but they all had one thing in common.

Shovels.

The children dragged the white bone spades over the ground, the crrr-sh-crrr louder as they passed us. No, this could not be happening. Not a grave!

“Have I not been a lenient husband, keeping the rot from you? Containing my anger, regardless of your many transgressions?” Enosh carried me through a corridor of darkness and out into the chilling lick of the night. “Oh, little one, I have warned you. So many times, I have warned you, but my wife does not listen.”

My body stiffened into stone as my senses sharpened. The sweetness of spring flowers wafted around my nose in all its mockery. Moisture settled on my exposed calves, right beneath the tight clasp of Enosh’s arm. Where was I? Oh my god, what was that noise?

My ears pricked at the hrk of shovels digging into dirt. Close. Closer. When Enosh suddenly stopped and turned slightly, I saw it.

Numb panic soaked into my muscles, disabling my lungs, drowning me in a sea of righteous fear. Beside me loomed a deep black grave, empty aside from the few children who still climbed out to line beside the others along the gaping hole.

“Ghmmm!” I hammered my fists against Enosh’s back and waist, tossing and thrashing until the wounds on my belly screamed. “Mhmm… mmm…”

Enosh jumped into the grave, making me toss on his shoulder with such force, I barely registered how he lowered me onto the damp, cold ground. Somewhere, an insect buzzed. Something slithered around my ankle, wet and cold.

No, I had to get out of here. Had to—

“Shh…” Hand pressed to my sternum, Enosh pinned me into the dirt, letting a root poke against my neck as he brought his lips to my ear. “Seventeen days and nights is what you still owe me. The grave shall be your fire, all-consuming. Rot shall be the lick of its flames, biting into your flesh.”

“Rkhh!” I squirmed beneath his hold and, when he loosened it, I wrapped my arms around his neck and clamped my legs around his waist. “Hkmmh… mmh…”

“Let go of me.”

I held him tighter, clinging to him until my joints burned and the pop of knuckles resonated in the night. No, I would not let go. Would not let go. Would not—

“Even now…” An exhale sputtered from his lips with the same violence as his fingers trembled on my chest. “Even now, I want to take you into my arms… the cold, lying corpse that you are.”

Nothing happened for long moments. Neither of us moved as dirt rilled from the walls of my grave or came down in clumps where the children lined its edges. Was he… hesitating?

A spark of hope.

Please hold me!

I ran my hand from his neck into the weight of black hair still damp from the spring, pulling until his temple pressed against mine while he continued to kneel over my body.

No, he would not do this.

Not to me.

Right?

Enosh slid his arm under my back, not lifting me, though I sensed in the tension of his hand that he considered it. “How blessed you are to hate me so.”

Stricken with fear, I shook my head ever so slightly. Oh, I wished I could hate him the way any normal, rational woman would if she found herself in a grave beneath her undertaker. But I was not normal, for I was dead. And I was not rational, for my unborn child was likely alive.

“If only I could bring myself to hate you,” he whispered, his voice chillingly absent of any emotion, “perhaps then this age-old heart in my chest would not ache so at what I must do.”

His arms retreated.

My limbs slipped off him.

Panic pounded my head.

No. No. No!

He effortlessly climbed out of the grave, leaving me behind with my mind stunned. I trembled so violently, my limbs flopped about uncontrollably. Would he truly bury me alive? No, Enosh would not be this—

Something hit my eye.

I clenched both shut, swinging my hands to my face to rub the burn from them. But the assault continued with each shk of a shovel, followed by a patter of dirt raining down on me.

Nausea swept from my stomach, biting along my esophagus, only to trap itself inside my mouth. Oh, my god. He was burying me alive! No. No. No no no!

When another chunk of loam landed heavily on my chest, I turned around. I struggled myself onto swaying legs. Out. I needed out!

The dirt came faster from all directions, creating piles around me that seeped into my shoes, caught between my toes where it rubbed and itched. Each time I looked up, more of it hit my eyes, blurring the outlines of the children lining my grave.

In my panic, I clawed, dug, and scratched at the wall of compacted earth. I had to climb out. Had to—

A nail broke off, the flesh beneath too dark, and turning darker with each second. I stared at it as my stomach shifted, writhed, and swelled. Rot. I was rotting.

He was rotting me!

I screamed, but only grunts made it through the leather.

I waded toward a corner to try it there, but I kept on slipping, ripping off chunks of loam, helping with my burial.

Master, my mind wailed and screeched. Master, please!

My stomach heaved and my chest convulsed, amplified by the biting stench of decay that blew from my nostrils at each panicked exhale. Gravity abandoned me and I fell on my arse, my legs halfway buried in damp, cold dirt.

More came from above, pelting down on the roof of rotting arms as I buried my head underneath them. Back and forth, I swayed in a self-consoling manner, humming an old lullaby as my mind stiffened in the clasp of madness.

The shk of shovels and the thud of dirt faded against the comforting sound as my lips stumbled over the words. “…a-and the b-b-babe with the ro-hoasy cheeks… mmh… da da mmh… and fell to s-sleep. And if the babe’s still w-warm come morn…”

My voice faded away.

A gulp hiccupped from my lips.

My parted lips.

What was happening?

Detangling my arms from around my head, I brought a hand to my mouth, letting a dirt-caked finger stutter along my bottom teeth. My gag was gone. But how?

I glanced down at my finger, letting the moonlight glint off a nail already regrown with only a faint smear of blood remaining around its bed. Where was he? Should I look?

Carefully, so carefully, I allowed my gaze to drift upward. The shoveling had come to a stop, leaving the children to stare down at where I cowered in a grave half-filled.

The fine hairs along my arms rose at the eerie silence. It couldn’t be trusted. Shouldn’t be trusted. Seconds passed. Minutes. Maybe hours.

Where was he?

Did I want to know?

My diaphragm convulsed, trapped between the dread of sitting in this grave and the fear of what would await me outside of it. Had he left? Had this just been a lesson? Or was the true lesson waiting up there if I dared to climb out?

My eyes wandered to the pile of dirt at the edge. I could if I wanted to. Did I want to?