Page 29 of As Many Souls as Stars
‘I could not say,’ she said. ‘If I die because of him—because ofyou—then so be it. Many women better than I have done the same.’
‘And what of the curse?’
‘What of it?’ Cybil snapped. ‘It will not matter if I am dead.’
‘I saw the way you reacted when I promised to remove it. I know how desperately you wish that you might someday be free.’
‘That wish was foolish. I see that now.’
‘I do not believe you,’ Miriam said. ‘I have watched you, Cybil Harding, since the moment your father died. I have seen you study his books and mix his potions.’
‘That was mandrake tincture, for my mother.’
‘The fact remains, my dear. You havehope, still—and how beautiful that is. How tragic.’
Cybil sneered at her and turned away.
They stopped in front of a door. It was Christopher Harding’s study, where Miriam had first seen her, weeks ago. Cybil touched the wood. It was carved with markings: a grid of strange, curling letters, clearly designed to keep demons at bay. With their creator dead, the markings had lost all their power, but it was still with some irony that Miriam crossed the threshold.
‘You may leave,’ Cybil said, as she began to scan the study’s shelves, selecting books and making a pile of them in the centre of the room. ‘I will never make a deal with you, Miriam Richter. If my hope is foolish, yours is even more so.’
Ignoring this, Miriam peered more closely at the books. They were mostly grimoires and alchemist tomes. She opened one to find a ritual inscribed on the very first page, incantations and a circle already drawn. ‘What will you do?’ she asked, dropping the book dismissively back onto the pile. The curiosity in her expression was clinical, disinterested—a physician observing a wound. ‘Burn them?’
‘Some of them. But most are too valuable.’ Finished, Cybil went over to the books she had selected. She hefted a stack of them into her arms, and looked down, grimacing, at the substantial pile that remained. For a moment, she pondered in silence, and then she sighed. ‘If I cannot be rid of you, you might as well help. Take the rest.’
Miriam had never been ordered to do anything before—not without the parameters of a deal—and she smiled at the novelty as she took the rest of the books, tucking them under one arm.
‘Not that one,’ Cybil said, sharply, and she took one grimoire back: it was a smaller book, with a black leather cover embossed with a three-headed bird. She laid it carefully at the top of her stack, tuckingit beneath her chin. Miriam eyed it curiously, but she had no reason to protest.
They went down the corridor, where Cybil stopped in front of a closed door. She used her foot to thump on it, as her hands were full. ‘Mother?’ she called. ‘Are you awake?’
No response came. Cybil shifted, trying to distribute the weight of the books.
‘Mother,’ she repeated. ‘Listen to me. A witchfinder is coming from the town to investigate us. If you have any of Father’s things in there—anything that might incriminate us—please burn them. Or hide them if you must. I will do my best to keep him away from you. And I shall—I shall return for you. I swear it.’
She did not wait for a reply, and she marched down the corridor without glancing back.
They slipped through the dark house in hurried silence, the only noise Cybil’s staccato breathing. They came through the kitchen, into a servant’s passage, and out into the gardens. Cybil fetched a cloak on the way, but the cold was clearly quite severe—the moment they came outside, her teeth began to chatter, and her cheeks flushed. In the far distance, Miriam could hear dogs barking. It would not be long before Cybil would hear them too, and she would grasp the true urgency of the situation. Would she respond with fear, Miriam wondered, or determination? A fox leaping for its den, or a wolf flashing its teeth?
Leaving her stack of tomes on the gravel, Cybil went to the shed, returning with a spade, another cloak, and a sack for the books. She tossed the cloak at Miriam, who stared at the fabric in her hands in confusion.
‘I thought you would be cold,’ Cybil said.
‘You thoughtIwould be cold?’
‘I need you to aid me with the books,’ she snapped. ‘And you can hardly do that if you are—well—I know not if youcanbe cold, actually, so—no matter.’
She put her books into the sack and slung it over her shoulder. Then she spun around and tramped toward the exit of the gardens. Amused, Miriam followed her, obliging to pull the cloak around her shoulders.
The forest swallowed them whole, plunging them into black. Miriam could see without trouble, but Cybil clearly could not, as she quickly stumbled over a branch. Miriam caught her.
‘Release me,’ Cybil said, tugging at Miriam’s hands. Therewasfear in her voice; fear and anger both—how lovely it was to hear, the music of her desperation. But then Cybil froze; she was looking into the distance, where the glimmer of torches was edging the horizon. Miriam could hear the dogs louder now, and the men shouting, the horses shattering the frozen leaves beneath their hooves.
Shuddering with cold and terror, Cybil pulled away from Miriam. They walked a little longer before they found a suitable clearing. Beside a wizened oak, Cybil attempted to break the earth with her shovel, only to find it frozen solid. She swore and bit savagely at her bottom lip.
‘Fool that I am,’ she muttered to herself. ‘OfcourseI cannot bury them, not in November. I am acting without sense. I shall have to burn them, after all.’
Miriam, tempted by the novelty of benevolence, took the spade from her and began digging, tossing clods of icy earth behind her shoulder. Cybil watched her silently with widened eyes, clutching the cloak around her shoulders.
