Page 41 of Tomb of Ancients
Returning to my old quarters in Coldthistle House came with a disarming wave of comfort. My little bed; my old, rickety side table; the long looking glass where I had first beheld myself in the simple frock and apron that would become my day-to-day wear... It felt possible to slide back into that old life, to wake each morning and see to my chores, cleaning blood out of carpets, helping Chijioke haul corpses down to the wagon, feeding the horses and buttering sconesfor guests—all there, just out of reach, an existence that spun in time like a dancer in a music box.
My life, but not. A future, a path, but not. I stood at the foot of the bed and touched the blankets carefully, as if this were all a mirage and might shimmer and break at the faintest touch. For a brief time, I had known the stability and routine that most young women of my station longed for, a position that ensured I would eat, that I would sleep sheltered, and that I would put a bit of money away, maybe one day to be spent upon a paltry dowry.
That was another Louisa. I went to the looking glass and smoothed down my hair. It was in a tangle from our mad dash to the house, and my gown, torn and muddied, would need replacing. Staring into my own dark eyes, I wondered, not for the first time, if like the damned guests of Coldthistle House, I, too, had been lured here by a dark promise. They were ultimately met with death, but I seemed destined for something else.
“Death will be your promise if you do not open your eyes, girl.”
I watched in the mirror as the room filled from the bottom with grayish fog, the mist rising above my ankles and then to my knees. There was nothing in the reflection, but I turned toward the voice and gasped, finding myself face-to-chest with Father.
He towered above me, his image unsettled, half the fake human form of Croydon Frost, the other half his trueappearance. A gruesome deer’s skull protruded from the human skin, bone forcing its way through flesh. His suit was in tatters, transforming as it fell into the black rags and leaves of Father’s robes. Tufts of human hair clung to the lopsided antlers that poked from his naked skull.
He smelled of death, but then that was no surprise.
I backed up against the looking glass, bracing.
“Close now,” he seethed, eyes two glowing red coals. “So close now... My ashes, my body, the tree that sprung from my earthly leavings...”
“This is not a dream,” I breathed. “Nor a nightmare.How can this be?”
Foolishly, I reached out to touch him, to know for certain that he was real and not an illusion. My palm sank through his chest as if he were made of colored smoke. But when I tried to pull my hand back it wouldn’t budge—his image held me there, his hands wrapping around my wrist.
“A Binder’s mark.” He stared, transfixed by the now-illegible lettering on my palm. Then his crimson eyes flew to mine. “You freed Mother. You survived a Binder. You are stronger than I thought, daughter.”
Daughter. Now I was notgirlorfoolorchildbutdaughter.
“Release me,” I whispered. “And be gone. Iamstronger than you know, and my friends are here with me.”
“Friends?” He laughed, but it was like the cackle of a raven in the gloom. “What need do you have for friends when my spiritgrows powerful? Go. Go to the tree. Carve the bark, drink its sap, and there will be no dawn for the shepherd and his ilk.”
No. The word was there, just on my tongue, but no matter how hard I struggled to say it, my lips clamped shut. I felt the world go blurry around the edges, and my balance trembled, flecks of red dancing across my sight. The crimson veil was dropping again, Father’s influence too strong now to resist. It had been a mistake to come. I had not considered that being near to his physical form would somehow embolden his claim over me, but it did. My struggle was valiant but brief, for there was no resisting the tendrils that curled, steady and painful, into my brain.
The world went by as if imagined. Nothing seemed real. I felt my feet carry me out of the room and down the stairs, then down again, until I was turning toward the kitchens. The door leading outside was barricaded and too noisy to disturb without being noticed. So I went on hands and knees, and, like a rat in its tunnel, I crawled through the hole Bartholomew had dug under the house, a project he might have started months ago along with all the other holes he had put in the yard. Roots and dirt brushed my cheeks, but I was blind to that, though not unfeeling, the cold earth under my hands slippery, fragrant with grass and loam. Insects, free about their nighttime business, skittered over my hands and ankles, crawling up my back and into my hair, tickling my nape with their horrid little legs.
No, no, no. I could not go outside, not when the shepherd’sAdjudicators could descend at any moment. And if they did, I feared more for them than for me—Father controlled me now, and his wrath upon them would be terrible. My hands clawed and clawed, carrying me through the muddy tunnel until at last, I felt a gust of wind against my face, and the way curved upward. I scrambled out of the hole, breathing hard. I must have looked a true terror, covered in grime and insects, my eyes wide and unseeing, my every step guided by the beast in my head.
The tree was not far now. I could sense it—Father sensed it—and I trotted, then ran toward it, hurrying right for the eastern border of the property. Surely somebody in the house would notice me and help? Or would they be alerted to my presence only when Father succeeded and made war with me as his instrument?
Please, I pleaded with him as best I could in my head.Please.Let me make my own path. How can you be so unfeeling toward your own daughter?
But he was silent, pitiless, and I flinched, feeling suddenly the lowest boughs of the tree brush my face. Impossible. How could it have grown so fast? It had been but a sapling when I left in the spring, but now? My hands found its trunk, a full-grown tree, gifted swift life by Father’s ashes.
“He should have cut this accursed thing down,” I managed to whisper.
Silence, daughter. Carve the bark. Carve it.
I had only my hands, and so he forced me to use my fingernails, shards of unyielding wood splintering into my soft palms as I pawed at it like a beast gone mad. Droplets ran down my cheeks, not the cold dew off the leaves but tears, hot and steady. The pain was unimaginable, the mark on my palm pulsing with fire.
I carved and I carved, clawing, scratching with what I knew would be raw, bloody fingers come morning. If morning came. My fear redoubled when the pain stopped, numbness spreading through my fingers to my hands and wrists. Blood soaked the sleeves of my ruined gown. But Father was relentless, and I was powerless in the shade of his death-borne tree.
A mist rose around me, and I felt the stickiness of sap trickling against my skin. The sharp, herbal scent almost shocked me into control, but no, the feeling was gone, and the sap covering my hands seemed only to deepen his hold. I stumbled back from the tree, shivering, and bent to lick my fingers.
I could already hear the blood pounding in my ears like war drums. The shepherd and his folk would not see another sunrise.
Chapter Twenty
The night would come back to me in fits and starts, fragments of a dream washed red with blood.
A cry for help. Bones snapping beneath my fingers. The scent of deep forest, then the reek of fear. A body broken on the floor. Golden feathers scattered like fallen autumn leaves.
