Tithe by Holly Black Page B

wide as they would go. She could smell the pungent green of the grass she stamped as she rose. She could smell the sharp chill of the air as she spun, full of car exhaust, of crumpled leaves, of smoke from some distant leafpile burning. She could smell the rot of desiccated wood, the spoilage of the hoards that ants piled away for winter. She could hear the churning of termites, the whine of electricity in the house, the wind rustling a thousand paper-dry leaves.
    She could taste chemicals in the air—iron, smoke, other things she had no names for. They played over her tongue in dark harmony.
    It was too much. It was overwhelming. There were so many sensations buffeting her, too many for her to filter out. She couldn’t go inside the house like this, but right now she wanted to; she wanted to burrow under her blankets and wait for all-forgiving dawn. She wasn’t ready for this—it had been a whim, her curiosity.
    What did she really look like?
    She should go back now, back to the swamp, confess all, and let the Thistlewitchexplain what she’d just done to herself. Kaye forced herself to take a few quick breaths without thinking what they tasted like. She was fine, better than fine, she was fucking supernatural. All she had to do was walk back to the swamp and not touch any of her skin on the way.
    But once she started, she knew she couldn’t walk. She was running. Running through the backyards of houses, hearing dogs barking, and her legs wet from unmowed grass. Running, through a parking lot, mostly empty, where a boy pushing carts stopped to look at her, and into the lot behind, and the sweet reek of trash, where she stopped, panting, and held her sides. There it was, the thin disguise of trees and the small river that flowed through it.
    “Spike! Lutie!” Kaye called, frightened by the breathless gasp of her own voice. “Please …”
    Nothing answered her but silence.
    Kaye staggered down the hill, her boots sinking in the mud. The eggshells were gone. There was only the stink of stagnant water. The shattered bottles shimmered like jagged jewels through her new eyes. She stopped, awed by the beauty.
    “Please, Lutie, someone …”
    No one answered.
    Kaye sat down in the cold mud. She could wait. She would have to wait.
    ***
    Kaye stretched and turned. The leaves over her shifted and blew with the morning wind. Drops of cold water tapped her cheek, then her arm, then the lid of her one eye. Kaye sat up. Her eyes felt hard and her lips were sore and swollen.
    There was a green sheen to Kaye’s skin when she turned her arm against the light. Her fingers seemed too long and curled fluidly with a new fourth joint, coiling like snails when she made a fist. She brought up her other hand, where the skin had come loose last night. Beneath it, her skin was a dusky emerald.
    No one had come. Another droplet spattered her bare leg, and she jerked upright. Her nightgown was filthy, and she was shivering, even under her sweater.
    Biting back tears, Kaye folded her arms around herself and started walking. She couldn’t go home—not yet, not when she knew she wasn’t the girl who belonged there—but she had to get out of the rain. At least Janet couldn’t call her a liar this time.
    She stopped in a parking lot and twisted the side mirror of a car toward her so that she could see her profile. Her hair was matted in a nimbus of twigs, wet with dew, and she saw that her skin was shadowed with the lush dark green of moss. Not a stain, but a tint, as though a veil of green lay over her. Her ear was longer,sticking up through her hair to the top of her head. Her cheek, sunken and sharp, and her eye, slanted and black, all shiny black, with a pinpoint of white pupil. Like a bird eye or a single bead.
    She reached up and touched her face. The skin tore easily, revealing a strip of grass-green skin.
    Her hand hit the mirror, spiderwebbing the glass, and surprising her. Ignoring the pain in her wrist and the damp burn of blood on