wispofathing

Bo-Kate Wisby’s back, and she’s done cut off your father’s extra fingers.

Curnen had passed through the rest of Berklee’s phone call in a daze, but that one sentence had stuck fast, and it circled round and round in her head. Bo-Kate Wisby. Bo-Kate Fucking Wisby. The bitch shouldn’t even have been able to get back to Cloud County, let alone done something that caused so much damage. But then… the writing had been on the wall for a year. Ever since Rob had sung Rockhouse’s dying dirge. Ever since Curnen herself had torn Rockhouse’s throat out with her teeth. It had been only a matter of time.

And she couldn’t even say she hadn’t felt it coming. Every time she played or sang, she had had to fight harder and harder to keep from singing or playing “Edward” yet again. Even now, the song was pressing against her mind. It was the only thing she could hear, it was the only song that would come out. The night wind had been crescendoing from a whisper to a roar at her for the better part of a week.

It would happen tonight. She knew it. But she wasn’t fully ready to admit what it was. Only that she couldn’t go home tonight. Her roommates were humans, they wouldn’t understand.

Winter and Phouka? She couldn’t bring this kind of darkness to their home. Fin and Willy? Her throat closed just thinking about it. Fin, maybe, if they were still separated, but… she couldn’t show this to Willy. She couldn’t.

And so her feet and the rising howl of the night wind directed her to a certain bookshop around closing time.