The day after Gideon Nav’s birth, the town of Drearburh, TX saw her mother hanged from a Lyctor’s Tree, that her soul should be condemned to oblivion and her bones dance eternal as punishment for a crime so terrible no one’s ever dared mention it again. But this morning at dawn the sheriff found the tree struck by lightning, her noose cut, and her bones gone. Gideon can’t lay hands on her mother’s old repeating rifle, either. Something has compelled the dishonorable dead to hunt, and Gideon, a ranch hand with a decent sword arm but no idea where to start, needs help. Enter Sister Harrowhark Nonagesimus, a nun more interested in bone magic than offering spiritual comfort, and a childhood terror of Nav’s. She might be a great help if they can get along for five minutes, and if Gideon can convince her to stop obsessing over why the Western, Central, and Union Pacific Railroad Companies seem to be forging track with bone dust and quenching it in blood.
this is my contribution to the locked tomb big bang 2021! big thanks to my betas eviefrie and antiv3nom, and my artists cornedbeefyness, thedragonconsumes, filthyratdad, and punchsomeoneforme-willyou!
accompanying art
my artists had access to the full outline, so some pieces were inspired by chapters yet to be published, but there are no real spoilers in them and they're all GORGEOUS. please take a look!
★ gideon and harrow at a gallop by cornedbeefyness
★ harrow explains the facts (ch 3) by filthyratdad
★ a punishing pursuit (ch 6) by punchsomeoneforme-willyou
★ gideon says goodbye to a friend (ch 7) by thedragonconsumes
★ a reunion in the river (ch 9) by thedragonconsumes
[begin ID: a digital, colored drawing depicting Crux, holding a young Harrow in his lap. Crux’s face is bone white. His ears, around his eyes, and the tip of his nose is black, with defined cheekbones. He has grey, slicked-back hair, has a skull on his shoulder, a black, long-sleeved shirt, and black pants, underneath a grey robe, with grey boots. His shirt has ribs from a rib cage painted on the front. The rest of his skin is light. Harrow’s face looks like Crux’s, with the rest of her skin also light. She has short, black hair, and is wearing a light grey shirt and pants, and white socks. She’s wearing a necklace with bones on it, and is creating a skeleton hand. The background is a large, dark blue oval, surrounded by a black border, and glowing white accents. end ID]
My piece for @pinkit ’s fic “We Must Not Be Strangers” as part of the locked tomb big bang 2021, it was an absolute blast to do and I hope y'all enjoy
Harrow’s eyes were wide: lightless pools with shock waves rippling through them, as though a rock had just been thrown through them. Gideon knew hers probably were, as well. Everything had gone numb, and all she could do was stare, motionless, as Harrow blinked twice, hard, as if slamming a pair of shutters closed—and then, instantaneously, her face was utterly blank.
“A pleasure to meet you,” Harrow said, stiffly. And then—slowly, jerkily—she lifted her hand and reached forward towards the front seat.
The highlight of every single day of Gideon Nav’s high school experience has been checking off one more box on the countdown calendar until graduation, when she can free herself eternally of both Catholic school and Harrowhark Nonagesimus in one fell swoop. For years she’s been dreaming of the moment she can walk out the doors of Saint Anastasia High one final time, looking back only to give Harrow a wink and the bird over her shoulder on her merry way to Canaan University.
So she’s kind of a whole lot less than thrilled when Harrow ends up FOLLOWING her THERE.
[read on ao3 here]
Presenting: my piece for @tltbb! Featuring gorgeous art from @adoras-hair-poof and @cal-adia, and with many thanks to @saltwaterconfessions for all the helpful feedback along the way!
It’s finally posting day for the @tltbb and I couldn’t possibly be more excited! What a great time this has been! Shout out to the event hosts, and also to @queensabriel and @melli4uhbees, who have been the best artists a girl could ask for!
Summary: Once upon a time, many, many years ago, Harrowhark's great-great-grandmother, who had herself lived an unnaturally long life, told her that their family was descended from that one wicked snake that haunted the Garden of Eden, that the family Nonigesimus were more serpent than man. At the time, Harrow had thought she was joking, just a senile old woman weaving mindless tales. She knows better now.
Trigger warnings: Suicidal thoughts, lots of talk of death.
READ ON AO3
1
Is your soul prepared?
Harrow isn't sure how the sign got onto her property. It's been there for years and years, the nails rusting, the white paint chipping, the wood rotting beneath it. The sign is as tall as she is, and double as wide as she can stretch her arms. It's sinking into the mud, though, like everything else in this damned place, standing crooked enough that it might just topple over in a strong breeze.
Is your soul prepared?
The words were wrought in bright, angry red once, but they're an ugly brown now, the color of old blood. It's oddly fitting.
Hooligans, Harrow thinks, but she can't be sure. The sign is large, and its post is set deep into the soft earth. Would just any rowdy local boys be able to do such a thing? Would they have any inclination to pass on such a message? She'd been the target of their little pranks before, but such an effort from boys who hadn't the cleverness to not wet the front of their trousers when they took a piss? It seems unlikely. They’ve always been more the type to leave dead animals hanging on the gates. The sign is too civil.
It was the church that planted the sign, she's sure. The Ascension Parish Southern Baptist Church had been after her for years, all the way up until it had caught fire and burned to the ground in 1912. Fingers had pointed at her for that, too, and even now, she occasionally wakes to find God is watching or Repent now! or Open your heart to God! painted across the front gates.
Removing the paint gives her something to do, she supposes. Is it really so bad?
Is your soul prepared?
Harrow has considered removing the sign more times than she can count, but it's not as though any other living soul sees it. Why bother? It's not as if her family's sinking home is the only site of such signs. There are others like it scattered all over the bayou, ones of this seemingly standard size, smaller ones tacked to chain link fences, even huge billboards. God sees all, they proclaim. Jesus saves. Hell is real.
Of course Hell is real, Harrow thinks with a roll of her eyes. She lives there, after all.
Hell's End is the name of this area, a name given by her great-great-grandmother when the family had first arrived in the States all the way from New Zealand. It was to be the end of their long and dangerous journey west, the start of their Heaven on Earth. How wrong she had been. How wrong they had all been.
Harrow is one of the very few who dare to come near this part of the swamp now. The brackish waters part around her feet, and the heels of her elegant boots leave no prints in the mud. The gators go scurrying away at her approach, and high in the moss-draped trees, the cicadas fall silent.
The snakes, though, make no move to flee. They watch her with their bright, slitted eyes, and they bow as best as they can. She is one of them. She offered an apple to Gideon, and another to Alecto, apples of forbidden, carnal knowledge. She is the snake in the Garden of Eden given human form, and she is the mistress of this particular bayou.
Once upon a time, her great-great-grandmother, who had herself lived an unnaturally long life, had told Harrow that their family was descended from that one wicked snake, that they were more serpent than man. At the time, Harrow had thought she was joking, just a senile old woman weaving mindless tales.
She knows better now.
This wickedness is in her blood. Her parents had tried to fight it, but Harrow has long since given in. There's no use in trying to deny who she is.
The wickedness is as much a part of who she is as the swamp is.
The Nonagesimus family have always been the masters of this bayou, back since the 1750s when the house and its great iron gate had sprung seemingly overnight from the mud. That was centuries ago. Harrow isn't sure of the year anymore, but she is certain that it's high summer now. The children should be catching fireflies and the old biddies should be sipping sweet tea on the porch while their husbands talk about the weather, but Harrow is the only Nonagesiumus left in all the world, and the sinking mansion sits quietly in its watery grave, waiting to claim her as it has all the others.
Her family is long gone.
Harrow, with her twisted magic and her unnatural tastes, is all that remains of her once-great, once-powerful family.
The irony of it is enough to choke her, to send her hundreds of dead relations a-spinning in their graves. Or spinning in their coffins, at least. There are no graves here.
2
Though the closest towns are lively and New Orleans isn't terribly far away, there is no music in Hell's End.
There was, once upon a time, a lovely harpsichord in the parlor, but Harrow used it as firewood ages ago. Her mother had been an accomplished player, and she had taught Harrow to play, too, but Harrow couldn't bear the sound. Even in dreams, it breaks her heart.
There was an old gramophone once, too, but it met a similar fate. One too many times, it had come alive in the night, likely by Pelleamena's hand, and Harrow had thrown it from the top gallery. She still steps on its splinters from time to time.
The closest thing Harrow can bear to a song now is Ortus's low humming, though she's not sure it's a hum at all. It's a purr, almost, like that of a cat, a soft, comforting sound. It's the sound of his aura, she thinks, gentler than ever in death.
On occasion, she joins in on the hum, letting it rattle its way up her throat and down through her chest. It's a tender, deep sound, and she worries sometimes that it will shake her apart if she lets it.
Sometimes she thinks she wouldn't mind shaking apart. She could sift her way down through the warped floorboards, down into the manor's sunken foundation and even lower, drifting down, down, down.
Maybe she'll sink all the way into Hell. Maybe Alecto will be waiting for her there, her dark, dark eyes full of longing and anger. Gideon won't be there, though, Harrow knows. Hell is the last place Gideon belongs.
Harrow, though, belongs there. A witch, a homosexual, a murderer. Where else would she belong?
3
The wicker chairs set out behind the house are sinking and rotten, but the ghosts don't favor the back, and so Harrow often finds herself sitting there in the low evening light. Her legs are crossed at the ankle, her wide-brimmed hat pulled low, a book resting open in her lap, though it's too dark to read it now.
The mosquitos are a choking cloud this time of year, buzzing thick in the air, carrying diseases on the wind. They have taken too many of Harrow's kind already. She swats at them with her lace-gloved hands, but they're never deterred. Stubborn things, she thinks. They're the only swamp creatures that don't seem to fear her.
It has to do with her blood, she's sure. There was wicked magic in her veins from the day she was born, and they can smell it, even now, long after she's been bled dry. Though they hover around her like a plague, there's nothing left in her for them to drink. She used it all up trying to bring back her parents, her family name, her old life, her dead lovers.
But they're all gone now, and her magic can't bring them back. Not in any way that matters.
Her parents are gone, interred in the grand white marble mausoleum out behind the house. It's sinking into the swamp, like everything else is, a few centimeters every year. The doors can barely be opened now. When Harrow dies, there will be no way for her to join them in the tomb. Maybe that's for the best. Maybe she doesn't deserve to be with them. They certainly wouldn't welcome her, not after all her disastrous attempts to bring them back.
She doesn't deserve to be with Gideon in death, either, though no one to this day seems to know exactly what became of her. For all Harrow knows, Gideon is in some gator's belly. Had been, anyway. No one has seen her in decades. No one is even looking anymore. Not even Aiglamene is looking anymore. Gideon was murdered, Harrow is certain, likely by the church itself. The worst things always happen to the best people.
And then there was Alecto. A predator, yes, but Harrow's predator. There isn't a day Harrow doesn't regret drowning her, but there was nothing else to be done about her. She was mad. She was inhuman. She was everything Gideon wasn't, and Harrow had taken comfort in that for a while. But Alecto had ripped poor, sweet Ortus limb from limb in a fit of rage, and her drowning was a far easier death than she had deserved.
Alecto sits on the fence at the edge of the property most days, her dark, empty eyes staring off into the distance.
On particularly gloomy days, Ortus joins her. Even dead, he can't bear to be alone. He's more a great mass of shadow than a true figure, weak even in death, but Harrow would know him anywhere. Her heart aches when she sees him. The sad, tremulous smile he gives her makes her want to die.
But after all she's been through, is there anything that doesn't make her want to die?
Is there anything in the great, wide world that makes her want to live?
If there is, she hasn't found it.
At this point, she doubts it exists at all.
She doesn't live now, anyway. She just survives.
4
Slowly but surely, the Nonagesimus house is sinking into the mud.
It's been sinking for years, of course. It started the day Harrow's parents died.
Died.
It's too gentle a term. They didn't pass away in their beds, old as the hills, their souls well-prepared, as parents should. They didn't go peacefully. They didn't just die.
Pelleamena and Priamhark hung themselves from the high branches of the cypress tree that had been growing just inside the gates since before the gates had even been erected. Harrow had been the one to find the bodies, the one to cut them down, the one to lay them to rest in the family mausoleum.
Her being the one to read their note was by far the worst of it.
You bring shame on us, it had said. It had been scrawled in her mother's elegant handwriting, and her father hadn't even bothered to sign it. Harrow often finds herself wondering if he even read it, or if he had found Pelleamena's body before Harrow had and followed his wife to the grave of his own volition.
It was Harrow's fault either way, and to this day, after all these decades, she carries the weight of it on her back. It weighs so much that she can barely stand upright, hunched like an old woman in her wanderings. She would be an old woman, were it not for her magic. This eternal life is her punishment, and she deserves every single second alone.
Her parents were ashamed of her, and probably had been for most of her life. Even as a child, there was something wrong about her. They had tried and tried for more children, but alas, she was the only one to make it to birth. Their only daughter, they whispered, the blood witch. Their only daughter, the necrophiliac. Their only daughter, the homosexual. Their shame had driven them into the arms of Death, and their precious child had played witness to it.
She should have seen it coming from a country mile away, but she hadn't. She had been too busy trying to resurrect Gideon and kill Alecto to notice their downcast eyes and trembling mouths. She hadn't noticed how they had wasted away until she was cutting them down from their twin nooses.
Harrow supposes it doesn't matter. Even dead, her parents are with her now.
They stand silent most days, pacing the sinking house's top gallery, staring out over the swamp with their dark, sunken eyes and their sewn-shut mouths. Dead men, after all, tell no tales. She's made certain of that.
Though they can't reply, not in words, she does talk to them sometimes.
Today, though, she's more focused on the foxfire darting through the trees. This is no swamp gas, she's sure. She's intimately familiar with that particular sight. Instead of the usual blue, this light is violet, and it moves slowly, ambling through the trees without a care in the world.
There's someone down there, Harrow realizes.
The question is, is this person living or dead?
5
It isn't alive.
Harrow isn't sure if it's human, but certainly is not alive.
She meets it outside the iron gate, her hand resting against the metal, as if its narrow bars can somehow protect her from this strange half-dead girl.
"Hello," it says. Its smile is sharp and fanged, its voice a rasping whine, like dead tree branches scraping a window during a storm. It takes Harrow's hand in its golden right one, presses its soft, bluing mouth to her knuckles, and Harrow can feel the coolness of it through the lace of her gloves. It's prettier than it has any right to be, despite its wasted appearance and its pallid skin and the deep, dark shadows beneath its eyes. "Have you been waiting long?" it asks, catching her eyes with its own.
Waiting? Harrow doesn't wait. She takes. The only thing she's waiting for is death. Perhaps, she thinks, this is Death. "Who are you?" she asks, slowly, stupidly. Her voice is rough from lack of use, the croak of a frog more than the voice of a witch. It's oddly fitting.
The other woman, tall and pale as a ghost, laughs at her, and the sound is the knell of church bells ringing on a foggy morning. They're funeral bells.
Hear the tolling of the bells -- Iron bells! Harrow thinks. She pulls her hand away, wraps her arms around herself. What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!
It asks, its voice low and seductive, "Who do you want me to be, Harrowhark?"
Harrow bristles. No one has called her by her name in years. She doubts anyone even knows her name anymore. Only old Aiglamene would remember, if she even remembers anything. This time, Harrow asks, "What are you?"
The eyes roll. They're a ludicrous shade of purple, striped with blue and brown, deep-set and heavy-lidded. They're inhuman. "I'm no one," it says, then approaches her, reaching a hand toward her face. Harrow doesn't flinch, even when the soft fingertips and sharp claws brush her cheek. "And yet everyone knows me." It moves closer, and Harrow can smell it: Musty, powdery, with something sweet underneath. Something terribly, deathly sweet. "Everyone faces me."
It's the smell of rot, Harrow realizes. "You really are Death."
It leans closer, brushes its mouth against hers. It agrees in a voice like shattering ice, "I really am."
6
"I've been waiting for you for years." Harrow feels strange saying it, but she can't take it back now. She feels stranger still letting this creature into her home, but she can't take that back, either. Why would she want to? Death is the first physical guest she's had for decades. It's been all ghosts and vermin for far too long. "Where have you been?"
"Around," Death says, its eyes roving as it steps into the manor, stepping gingerly through the puddles in the foyer, its feet bare. It's dressed all in white, its long skirt trailing on the floor, the hem damp and muddy. It wears only a camisole on top, the straps thin and hanging off its bony shoulders, short enough that it leaves a few inches of its midriff enticingly bare. Harrow startles at that: She hasn't been enticed in decades. She startles again when she realizes how utterly human it is to feel enticed. Perhaps she's still human after all. "I keep a very busy schedule."
Harrow has the distinct feeling that that isn't true, but she doesn't dare say so.
Death itself has come to her.
It's hard not to feel special in the wake of it, and she swallows down a wave of pride. Pride. She hasn't felt that in ages, either.
"You really live like this?" Death asks as it steps into the parlor, the damp rug squelching obscenely under its bare feet.
This room had once been grand, but now, it's little more than a shadow of its former self. A ghost of itself, like its mistress. The walls are lined in ceiling-high shelves full of moldering books and pretty little treasures, the Persian rug unwinding at its edges, the lovely chaise discolored and misshapen from years of sweat and sitting. All the furniture in the house is in such a state. Harrow can't find it in herself to be embarrassed by it anymore.
Death takes a seat on the chaise, kicking its bare feet up onto the far end, its delicate ankles crossed one over the other. Its skin is so pale that the worn navy velvet makes its veins all but glow.
It's otherworldly, and Harrow comes to sit in front of it on the warped wood of the floor. She arranges her skirts carefully, keeping her tattered slippers hidden under her equally tattered hem. Had she known Death was finally coming for her, she would have dressed better. "Why are you only here now?" she asks, an unfamiliar desperation in her voice. Of course she's desperate, she thinks. She's been waiting since before the turn of the century. She's been waiting longer than most people get to live.
"I told you," Death says, picking at a loose string on the arm of the chaise. A bit of the piping comes off with it. "I've been busy." It glances up with its ludicrous eyes, meets Harrow's gaze, holds it fast. Harrow feels caught in their depths, like a fly in a glass of sweet tea. Sweet it is, though. "And I thought you would have come to me on your own by now."
7
The following morning, Harrow wakes alone, still dressed and still exhausted.
She's disappointed, but she can't bring herself to be surprised. She's poison, after all. Even Death itself can't bear to be around her. She can't say she blames it.
She's still on the floor in the parlor, the chaise empty, but it still has that smell clinging to it: Musty and cloyingly sweet. Like violets, Harrow thinks again. Death has eyes like violets. Who would have guessed? Certainly not her.
She had always imagined Death as a skeleton wrapped in a black robe, a scythe at its side, its eyes empty black pits in its skeleton face. Death didn't look like a girl, but an ancient being, rotting away from the inside. She had had a nightmare, once, that Death had come to her in the guise of her long-dead aunt, Glaurica. In the dream, Harrow had very nearly taken its hand.
She had never feared Death. Even now, having met it in person, she doesn't fear it.
Death was the first real companionship she had felt in ages.
She thinks this even as her mother crosses the room. Pelleamena is dressed in the same long, trailing black dress she wore on the eve of her death, her long black hair pulled into a braid that hangs heavy down her back. It looks eerily like a rope. She's reaching for a book on the ceiling-high shelf, but her hand goes right through the spine, and she pulls back, staring through her transparent fingers as if it hasn't happened a thousand times over.
Harrow watches her, silent as a stone.
Even in death, they barely acknowledge each other.
Priamhark, as much as the ghostly thing that wanders the house is Priamhark, is less dead. When Harrow watches him, he watches her right back.
"Father," Harrow says to him as he paces the gallery.
He doesn't speak, Harrow has made certain of that with her postmortem sewing, but he looks at her, and his dark, dark eyes are gentle.
They stand together, his lighter-than-air hand over hers on the gallery's splintered railing, and this night, the swamp is dark.
8
When her parents killed themselves, Harrow called the police.
Hours passed.
No one came.
Pigs, Harrow had thought.
She's been alone ever since, save Death and the ghosts. Even Aiglamene has stopped visiting.
Harrow doesn't mind being alone most of the time. It's the peaceful nights that get her.
In the quiet, under the singing of crickets and the rumbling of the gators, she can hear Gideon's voice. Gideon, asking, You really gonna wear that? Gideon, calling her baby. Gideon, begging for her touch.
From time to time, it's Alecto's voice in her head, whispering songs and poetry and utter nonsense. Too much of her voice, and Harrow is certain she'll go mad. For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams of the beautiful Annabel Lee, Alecto sings in her whispery, water-logged voice, and the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes of the beautiful Annabel Lee.
Now, though, it's Gideon's voice nor Alecto's she hears.
The air is hot around her, humid, and Harrow loses herself in the fantasy, her black eyes slipping closed. Her chewed-down nails rake against her skin, and she imagines a golden hand in their place. She imagines bluing lips at her neck, too-sharp white teeth sinking into her neck. She imagines the cool, meager weight of Death above her. It's Death's voice she hears, and in its creaking hanging-tree voice, it whispers, Come.
Harrow does.
9
You bring shame on us.
Though her mother hasn't spoken in half a century, Harrow can still hear the words in her voice. She had a lovely voice, Harrow's mother. It was elegant and soft, almost musical. Her words always came slowly, carefully selected before they passed her lips. The note was probably exceptionally well selected. Short and sweet.
The note is tucked into the neckline of Harrow's gown, the paper tucked against her heart and tinged yellow from years of sweat and tears.
Harrow can't bear to be without it.
It's her cross to bear, and she must bear it alone.
10
It's a full week before Death shows itself again. Harrow finds it in her room, stretched out on the molding canopy bed. The canopy is less lace now than Spanish moss, the covers mildewed and practically falling apart. Death doesn't seem to mind. It looks perfectly at ease, its hands joined behind its head, its right leg bent, the other tossed over its knee. It was humming to itself, its pale foot bouncing along to the rhythm.
Harrow can hardly believe that it's back.
Death's voice is an undignified whine when it asks, "Did you forget about me, Harrowhark?"
How could I? Harrow doesn't say. She does say, "I tried to." It's not entirely true. "I thought you'd abandoned me again."
"Abandoned you?" Death looks almost offended, its golden hand coming to its chest, clutching invisible pearls, but its laughter is high and sweet, bouncing off the crumbling walls like birdsong. Harrow represses a pleasant shiver at the sound of it. "Harry, my love," Death says, smiling with blue lips and too-sharp animal teeth, "I have been beside you since the day you were born."
My love? Harrow's cheeks go warm, but she ignores it, asking, "Since I was born?" It seems impossible. It also seems impossible that Death exists as a person at all. She's been surrounded by impossibility for as long as she can remember. This shouldn't be so surprising. "How could you possibly have time for that?"
"There are half a million Deaths," says Death with a wave of its hand. It wears lacy, threadbare gloves, and its cuticles are bluish, its nails chewed short. "This is just the area I chose to cover," it's saying, though it doesn't sound at all interested. Harrow wonders if it's even capable of interest. "There are fewer people here, less work. I can just hover most of the time."
The dark cloud of Death follows us, Harrow's grandmother had once told her. It seems she was right. Harrow can't quite believe it, even now. It's a curse, her grandmother had told her, and we deserve it. "Why me?" she asks.
"Why not?" Death shoots back. It holds out its arms, and against her better judgment, Harrow climbs into bed beside it, letting it enfold her. The gold of its skeletal right arm is chilly through the worn lace of her dress. "You Nonagesimus types are my favorite. You always come to me so willingly."
Harrow props herself up on her elbow, meeting Death's eyes with her own. "You know my family?"
"All the dead ones," Death says with a shrug that sends the strap of its camisole slipping off its shoulder. The veins just beneath its icy-pale skin are especially visible there, and Harrow lifts a hand to trace them. They have a green tint to them, and she wonders if there's blood in them at all, or if this iteration of Death has algae and swamp moss in its veins. "I gave the kiss of death to your father, and to your mother, and to Glaurica, and to sweet Ortus." Death ticks off each name off on its spidery fingers. Then it looks down at Harrow, one colorless brow lifting. "And then there was Alecto." Harrow feels the blood drain from her face, the breath fleeing her lungs in a single second. "She wasn't one of you, was she?"
"She could have been," Harrow says, softly, "eventually."
"You sent her to me gift-wrapped, didn't you?" Death doesn't sound at all bothered, and it slips its fingers beneath Harrow's chin, forcing her to look it in the eye. "It had been so long since I received a sacrifice like that. Your people don't offer tribute like they used to."
"Our magic isn't what it used to be," Harrow says.
"I wonder why," Death says. Its smile fades, though, when it asks, "You're how old? I'd say your magic is working just fine."
Harrow's lips threaten to smile, but it never comes. She says, "It's impolite to ask a lady's age."
Death itself laughs at her, songbird-sweet. "All you want is to die," it says, sounding bemused, one brow lifted in a match to the corner of its mouth, "and yet you'll live forever."
"For far too long, anyway," Harrow agrees, shivering when Death's golden hand slides into her hair, carding carefully through choppy black locks.
The silence that falls then isn't silence at all. Outside, the wind is in the trees and in the water. The cicadas are singing. Birds call to one another. Harrow's heart is beating a mile a minute, pounding in her ears. Death's heart isn't beating at all.
Softly, its voice almost a purr, Death says, "Did you know you've been dying your whole life?"
Harrow scoffed. "Isn't everyone?"
11
"Where did you go?" Harrow's voice is soft and plaintive, and she hates it. She's straddling Death's waist on her bed, its pointy hip bones pressing into the backs of her thighs. It feels like too much too soon, and it's far too intimate, but she has no intention of pulling away. She could stay like this forever.
Death presses its fingertips, both the flesh ones and the golden ones, into Harrow's hips. "Someone needed transporting," it said with a shrug of its narrow shoulders.
"You do that?" Harrow asks. Her hands are resting against the flat plane of Death's stomach, her fingertips tucked just beneath the hem of its camisole. "Transport people?"
"I transport souls," Death says. Its eyes are on Harrow's, searching for something in her black gaze. "This one was the last one in the area, save you."
Harrow's unkempt eyebrows draw together, her eyes flittering off to one side. As far as she knows, she's the only person still living in the area. She asks, "Who was it?"
Death, strangely, hesitates. "An old woman called Aiglamene," it says, and there's a strange weight in its voice, as if it knows how much Aiglamene meant to Harrow once upon a time. "Must have been a hundred and twenty years old." Its hands slide down to Harrow's thighs, its thumbs coming to rest in the creases of her knees. "Maybe even older than you."
"By a bit," Harrow agrees, doing her best to keep the sudden numbness out of her voice. "I didn't know she was still here."
"Keeping an eye on you," Death says, "from what I can gather."
And now she's gone, Harrow doesn't say, but the words fill her chest. It hurts.
"You should have seen her automobile," Death is saying, sounding almost mystified. Its hands are joined behind its head now, its eyes distant. "Such an incredible machine!"
More to herself than to Death, Harrow says, faintly, "I've never seen an automobile." Gideon had one that she was immensely fond of, but she hadn't trusted it on the marshy roads of the swamp. Alecto, old-fashioned thing that she was, chose to simply walk. It had made her disappearance so much easier.
"You're so behind the times, Harry," Death chides, though there's amusement clear in its voice. "You should come to town with me." It gives her a sly grin, looking very much like the fox that managed to break into the chicken coop. They're both foxes, Harrow realizes. "The things I could show you..."
"No." Harrow says it far too quickly, and her eyes dart off to the side, embarrassed. "No, I belong here. My magic ends here. I would age fifty years if I ever left the swamp."
"Shame, that." Death doesn't sound particularly bothered. Instead, its hands come to Harrow's thighs again, pushing the fabric of her skirt immodestly high, up past the tops of her stockings. It takes everything Harrow has to keep from pushing her hips into the touch. "But there are so many things I can show you right here."
12
The next time Harrow wakes, she isn't alone.
She's on the great bed in her room, Death's arms wound tight around her and holding her close. Her chest is pressed to Death's side, its skin bare and cool to the touch, devoid of breath or a heartbeat. It's eerily still. It's not Harrow's first time in such close contact with a corpse.
Outside, through the thin curtains over the balcony doors and the windows, the light is thin and greyish, either dusk or dawn, but certainly overcast. There's a storm coming. Harrow wonders if Death will simply sleep through it.
Death, unsurprisingly, sleeps like the dead. All through the night, it didn't move even once.
Was it only all night? It could have been years, for all Harrow knows.
As she lays quiet in Death's arms, she's surprised to find that she doesn't mind that idea. Let her dream her life away in the arms of Death. There are worse fates.
13
Just inside the door of the sinking manor is an antique dark wood table. On top of it is a crystal vase filled with flame-orange roses.
They were a gift of Aiglamene, given shortly after Gideon vanished in a rare gesture of comfort.
They are the single thing in the house that isn't rotting.
Harrow stands before them, staring, willing life through them.
Death stands beside her, watching quietly, its arms crossed over its chest, its head tipped curiously to the side. "I can feel their age," it says, its voice soft and thoughtful. "How long have you had these?"
"Decades," Harrow says. She plucks one from the crystal vase and tucks it behind Death's ear. Immediately, the life leaves the petals, and even when Harrow touches the petals, she can't revive it.
Death says, softly, "Are you afraid, Harrowhark?"
"No," Harrow says, and is surprised to realize that she means it.
"Good." Death steps behind her, wrapping its arms around Harrow's waist, resting its pointed chin on her shoulder. Its skin is soft and chilled. "With old Aiglamene gone, my attention is all yours."
The smell of violets mingles with the scent of roses, and Harrow realizes there's nothing she wants more.
14
"How do you do it?" There's something like awe in Death's voice, its head tipped to the side, a chipped tumbler half-full of decades-old scotch in its golden hand. "I'd lose my mind if I had to stay here all the time."
There's no derision in its tone, and Harrow says, "Maybe I have."
"Suppose you wouldn't know if you had," Death says, taking a long sip. "You could be dead right now, couldn't you? Would you even know the difference?"
She isn't dead. She may be dead inside, but she still feels. Harrow feels the chair she's sitting on, threadbare and creaky as it is, feels the warped wood beneath her bare feet, feels the coolness of Death sitting beside her. She would know, she tells herself.
She doesn't quite believe it.
15
Death goes out sometimes, wandering through the swamp and into the towns.
Harrow watches it leave from the iron gate, Ortus at her right, Alecto at her left. Her parents keep close, too, sewn-lipped and sullen.
Even with the ghosts, Harrow is alone, waiting.
Her life has become a waiting game, and she finds she doesn't mind, because she knows she'll never be alone for long.
Death always returns to her, sometimes with a man to sacrifice or a woman to seduce, sometimes with a butchered gator or a pot of jambalaya it found God-knows-where. It rarely comes to the manor empty-handed.
Death is courting her, Harrow realizes, and for the first time in decades, she smiles.
16
The courting is gentle. Death often is, isn't it?
It comes softly, like sleep, darkening the edges of the world and drawing it all in close.
Death steals the very breath from Harrow's lungs, pinning her flat against the wall. Its blue lips are pressed to her nape, its golden hand resting lightly around her throat, its spidery flesh hand at her hip.
Its voice is soft when it says, "You were made for this."
Made to be used by Death itself? Made to cater to Death itself? Made to be a lover to Death itself? The answer is obvious. "I was," Harrow agrees, her voice nearly lost in her heavy breathing. "I am."
17
Harrow spends her time in the arms of Death itself, now. But is that any different from how she lived before?
At the end of a long day, she waits beside the rusting gate, waiting for her deathly love to return to her.
The branches of the too-familiar cypress shake above her, Spanish moss swaying in the breeze. She presses a hand to its rough bark and wills it to live. Like the roses, it must live. It's a monument now. This tree is her old friend, known all her life.
As is Death, approaching through evening fog, violet eyes shining in the dark.
Being in the company of Death is better than being alone, Harrow supposes as Death's arms wind around her, pulling her close. Death's lips are blue and chilled against hers, but she melts into the feeling of it, as she always does.
As they walk back toward the sinking manor, they pass the old sign. Is your soul prepared?
Death trails its golden, skeletal fingertips along the top of the sign as they pass, and the wood is immediately overtaken by mold and mushrooms, the paint flaking off in great chunks.
"Is my soul prepared?" Harrow asks as they walk in the dark.
"Oh, Harry," Death laughs. Its glowing eyes turn to her, hypnotic and bright as lightning bugs. "Your soul has been ready for me since you were born."
ID: a digital drawing of Harrow and Gideon in school uniforms cleaning up inside a classroom. There are two lab tables present- one in the foreground, bottom left, with a sink, and on in the background, bottom right, with some stool around it. Gideon, a brown skinned girl with a shock of orange hair, wearing a white button down and light blue skirt, is at the sink washing a glass beaker as she looks to her side at Harrow. Harrow is behind Gideon, wearing the same outfit, and holding a stack of books. She looks back at Gideon with a mean look in her eyes. She is a brown-skinned girl with short black hair. In the back corner of the room is the door, and the wall the viewer can mainly see, taking up most of the upper half behind the girls, has a large chalkboard. End ID
This is my second post for @tltbb ! Based of a scene in chapter one of a this fic called “who cares, divine intervention” by @camgoloud . Go check it out!!
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
This is my fic for The Locked Tomb Big Bang! @tltbb
I put a bunch of work in this fluffy little piece about dancing. It meant a lot to me and I got to work with my really amazing artist @redheartzone who did illustrations for it! Shout-out to @thinknt who provided some support for this as well during the process :)
Summary: 2 love-stuck idiots have a miscommunication. Time to get physical. Or, the Tridentarii have a hell of a time teaching Gideon and Harrow how to dance, in the name of love!
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
fic title: how sharper than a serpent’s tooth
fandom: the locked tomb
rating + warnings: T, no archive warnings apply
elevator pitch: Gideon and Harrow are ex childhood nemeses who happen to live together (it’s complicated). Things have been in a very tentative equilibrium for the past year- what will happen when holidays, feelings, and family are added into the mix?
the gorgeous art is by @brightfern ! :D
[ID: a nine-part square moodboard used as playlist cover art. From left to right: a white, blond woman's face cropped to center on a violet eye; a line of ornate, wall-mounted rapiers; a partially melted analog clock; a brunette white man with tousled hair in profile; a black square with white text in capital letters reading, "we have each other."; a white woman with long blonde hair in a complex braid facing away from the viewer; an overhead shot of a long, descending spiral staircase; a gold-lined enamel pin of two hands in a pinkie promise gesture, one white and one black; a cluster of purple amethyst. End ID.]
we have each other
a playlist for the fic "Purgatory is Mandatory" by urban-sith/doodleishere on ao3
→ READ IT HERE
There is an arm that isn’t supposed to be attached. There is a soul that is supposed to be attached but isn’t. The House appears to be in its usual degree of decay. Ianthe looks over at the other bed, and there she is: Corona, sleeping soundly. If Ianthe focuses really hard, she can hear Babs’ snoring in the room over too.
An arm that shouldn’t be there. A soul that should.
A house not demolished. A twin safe and sound.
For lack of being able to think anything else, Ianthe whispers aloud, “What the fuck is going on?”
(Or, alternatively: Ianthe figures out the true secrets of Lyctorhood while stuck in a time loop at Canaan House.)
TRACKLIST
(links go to individual songs on YouTube)
1. “Every Tear Disappears” by St. Vincent
2. “In the Next Life” by Kim Petras
3. “L.E.S. Artistes” by Santigold
4. "Here it Goes Again" by OK Go
5. “You’re at the Party” by Lemon Demon
6. “Dread in My Heart” by Mother Mother
7. “Run Me Out” by Zola Jesus
8. “Lo Vas A Olvidar” by Billie Eilish, ROSALÍA
9. “Get Home” by Bastille
10. “Thousand Eyes” by Of Monsters and Men
11. “Exile Vilify” by The National
12. “Let Me Down Gently” by La Roux
13. “Long & Lost” by Florence + the Machine
14. “Cry for Judas” by The Mountain Goats
15. “Someday (triple j Like a Version)” by Julia Jacklin
16. “Ribcage” by Mary Lambert, Angel Haze, K.Flay
17. “Goddess” by BANKS
18. “Lay Me Down (Flume Remix)” by Sam Smith, Flume
19. “There is a Light That Never Goes Out” by The Dum Dum Girls
20. “Sister” by K.Flay
