What Blood Leaves Behind (The Poison Rose) by Delany Beaumont Page B

smell, speak, think like Jendra or William or Emily or Stace or me.
    Then one of them comes up to the cage behind me and slaps its hand hard against the bars. I wince and try to curl tighter into myself, hugging my legs, scrunching my chin against my kneecaps. It’s grown so quiet that all I can hear are the hisses and pops the bonfire makes and the sound of wood toppling in on itself.
    More of them move in. They’re not breathing heavily. They’re not winded. I see the dim outlines of hands pressed against the bars, black shapes looming over me. The thought of one of them reaching in to grab me is unbearable.
    As if reading my mind, one of them breaks the silence by saying, “You’re not going to try to pull her out, are you?”
    “God no. Touch that thing? Disgusting.”
    There’s a clap of hands loud enough to be cymbals crashing. “ All right!” It’s a female’s voice as sure of itself as a general. There’s a pause and I imagine the speaker peering around at the others, demanding their attention. “It’s decision time. I want suggestions for how we’re going to dispose of her.”
    There’s chatter, laughter. Then someone close to her says, “We should take her back to the river, Moira. Throw her in.”
    Moira. That name. I remember hearing the others on the bridge say about her, She’s going to take over.
    “We should have just built the fire on the bridge and cut the rope. Imagine what she’ll go through, sinking to the bottom trapped in that cage.”
    They’re giving voice to the nightmare I had been living with all day while I hung suspended above the water. It occurs to me, Why didn’t they just cut the rope instead of putting me through all of this?
    Moira says, “That’s one option—”
    “Just throw her on the fire,” another voice shouts. “In that cage…”
    “Beheading. I like beheading.”
    Moira laughs, a sour little laugh. “All right. There’re a thousand things we can do. I think we should let her out first. I want her to see Gideon. I want her to know why we’re doing this to her. I want her to see what she did. Agreed?”
    “And then the fire?” someone asks.
    “I like that idea,” Moira says. “Burning her like a witch.”
    “A heretic, like Joan of Arc,” a male voice says.
    “Not like Joan-of-freaking-Arc,” Moira spits back at him. “She’s a witch if she’s anything.”
    “Some people thought Joan of Arc was a witch.”
    “She’s just a plain, freaking witch. End of story,” Moira shrieks. Her voice is unnaturally loud, like it’s amplified. It makes my ears hurt.
    There’s another pause and I imagine Moira looking around to see if anyone is going to dare contradict her. “Children!” she calls out at last. She has grabbed a torch from one of the other Black Riders. By its light I can see her beckoning those waiting near the bonfire forward—the normal ones, the ones like me.
    I stare at her, not realizing I’m doing so. I both want and don’t want to see her clearly. It amazes me that I’m actually frightened of getting a good look at her face after all I’ve been through. But I have a feeling the faces of these creatures must be altered, twisted in ways I can’t comprehend.
    I catch myself staring and turn away but before I do I see that Moira, too, is averting her eyes from the torch’s glare. I get a glimpse of jet black hair framing the pale moon of her face, black lips and dark eyes but the shape of her nose, her mouth is indistinct.
    The normal ones hesitate. I see them shuffling around, exchanging glances in the glow of the bonfire. Finally they start to slowly approach. I can’t tell how large the group is but I get the feeling there are more of them then there are Black Riders. Maybe fifteen, twenty kids my age. They move a little closer to the Black Riders and stop.
    Moira says impatiently, stamping her foot, “One of you better get your ass over here now. Bring the key and open this damn thing.”
    I see the group pushing a