She turned away from the pain.
Jane stared at the boundary around her, with its haphazard salt grains, its skipping lines. This. This was what was true. This was her constant, her starting point, and all her derivations should arise from it. She reached out, searching for the eel, and found it gliding along the walls she had built. She urged it higher, stacked brick upon brick.
Her power grew. It gave her some relief. She had destroyed the ritual, might have already lost Augustine, but she had not lost this. She built a little higher. A little more.
Peace spread across her, and she stretched out on the floor in the middle of the circle. The aching of her heart grew distant, eclipsed by the surge of power in her.
She built, higher and higher, and the world around her faded in color. The room was still filled with early morning light, but it grew thinner. The edges of the furniture became indistinct, the joining of the walls and ceiling extending out endlessly away from her, like faint pencil lines measured out along a straightedge.
It was soothing. It was calming. She could feel tears upon her cheeks.
The world fell away, and she fell away with it. Had this been here all this time, this gentle succor, this sweet emptiness? Her lungs expanded and contracted as normal, and she knew that she was getting air, but it felt distant. It felt immaterial. Ecstasy danced across her nerves, a sweet delight, perfect in its tenor, blotting out all else.
No—not all else. The mass was moving, shifting inside of her, the way infants were said to kick within the womb. It hurt. She pushed away from the feeling, weaving her walls higher, reaching for more delight, more gracious bliss.
Instead came agony.
The mass pulsed, sharp and angry, the pain more horrible than anything she had ever felt. It throbbed and arced and wracked her down to her soul, and she clutched at her belly, gasping for breath. She lost her hold upon the eel.
The pain quieted as the wall around her lowered a few feet, the ecstasy leaching from her brain.
That mass was magic. That knot, when all else was gone, thrummed and sang within her. What did it mean, that it hurt as the wall grew higher, as the world grew more distant? Another clue. Another variable.
A loud crack startled her.
There—harsh footsteps in the hall. And now she heard voices, heard the footsteps slow, and then—
Mrs. Luthbright and Mrs. Purl appeared in the doorway.
Their features were abstracted, splashes of pigment and emotion that Jane could feel more than she could see. Mrs. Purl recoiled at the sight of Jane, and whispered something she could not make out, but Mrs. Luthbright stormed forward, shouting, “I will not let this continue any longer, Mrs. Lawrence!”
She reached the chalk line, and not seeing it, stepped over. It did not stop her, did not bow and flex like an infant’s caul. She stepped across it like it was only chalk.
The world crashed back into Jane.
She retched.
Mrs. Luthbright sidestepped the mess and seized one of her arms, hauling her up. “Come, we have brought a carriage,” Mrs. Luthbright said. She was rough as she dragged Jane to the hall. Mrs. Purl stared, hands outstretched but not quite touching.
“Genevieve!” Mrs. Luthbright snapped.
“What if the madness is catching?” Mrs. Purl returned.
Jane reeled, barely tracking the conversation. Everything was noise and emotion and pain. She curled in on herself and wailed. Mrs. Luthbright flinched but did not let go.
“Mrs. Lawrence, stop. We must get you outside; the carriage is waiting.”
“Let me go!” she begged. “Let me go!” The thought of being taken from the house sparked panic in her, and she jerked back, trying to break Mrs. Luthbright’s grip. But she was weak. She had not realized until that moment how her muscles cramped, how they refused to work in concert with one another. She turned to Mrs. Purl, desperate. “Please, let me go! I am trying to bring him back. I have to fix this, I can fix this. I must get him out, I must—I must—”
Mrs. Purl approached with cautious steps. Hope grew in Jane, then fell dead as Mrs. Purl seized her as well. They dragged her toward the front door.
“He is in the house,” Jane cried.
They stopped.
“Mercy,” Mrs. Purl said, looking at Jane, then up to Mrs. Luthbright. “We need to get the magistrate. He’s dead in the house?”
“Please, he’s trapped, did you not see the cellar door? It’s gone. It’s gone. The house has taken him!”
“You need rest, and food, and quiet,” Mrs. Purl said, though she kept casting worried looks at Mrs. Luthbright. “You are seeing things.”