Soon.
I will enter the trees, rescue my mother and Bram alike, and come home without even Erybrus knowing what it is I have done. But first, I must face the arrogant smirk ofLordRansom Black. My stomach twinges.
The door swings open, and the driver’s gloved hand appears, leather shining in the moonlight. I take it and drop from the carriage. A cold wind wraps hands around my throat when I look up at the mouth of the beast awaiting me. A bogeyman few have seen. The seat of House Black.
There are tales of gargoyles clinging to stone, coming alive in the light of a full moon. Whispers of blood dripping from broken-glass windows, ravens perched amongst the buttresses. A line of crazed men hidden amid their old books and stone and pages of symbols no human should read. Knowledge that was lost during the Rending.
But I see none of that here. Blackbourne Castle rises from the earth like some peaked tumor.
It crawls with shadow, the mist undulating around a high tower that pierces the clouds above. Light slips like molten wax from a single window. The bitter smell curls around my shoulders like rope, and I heave a breath.Air coats my tongue, sweet and free. I turn toward the driver, but he is already heading for a small door cut into the gray stone, one hand on his hat.
“You must follow me, miss!” he calls above the gale, cloak billowing around him like waves.
My skin gooses with cold. I collect myself enough to put one foot in front of the other until I enter a chamber licked black with darkness. The scent on the air is damp, thick and riddled with the slash of mold. A lump forms at the base of my tongue.
Then comes the snap of wood and wick, the sting of red phosphorus, and the shadows retreat, cowering against the wall where the dark wood paneling appears wet. All thought flees my mind. Where awe should be, disgust sinks fingers into my flesh.
The walls drip with moisture, peeling back the delicate golden-brown wallpaper, weeping the paint down the portraits lining the hall. Every face, every jaw, every rouged cheek slips along canvas like melting wax. My heart flutters, and a shaky breath escapes my lips.
The driver holds a small lantern over his head, illuminating more of the distorted portraits. Some are in a worse state than others. Frames crawling with black mold, brushstroked faces chewed away by mildew, leaving behind only the remnants of painted flesh.
Behind these, where the wallpaper has shaved away, strange symbols are carved into damp plaster. A snake eating its own tail. Over and over again, they mar the wall, some neat and perfectly circular. Others rushed, ink dripping.
I stifle a gasp with a fist. It is the sign of Erybrus. Unchanging. Unbreakable. Ever-present. It reminds us how we must always strive to be closer to Ithrandril. Closer to righteousness. For if we do not, we will be caught in Erybrus’s snare forever. Our suffering unending.
“It’s been getting worse lately, the damp.” The driver’s voice cuts through the fog of my fearful thoughts. “Started back when I was just a boy, a stable groom for old Lord Cyrus Black. Appeared in the cellars, they say, where the light don’t reach. That’s where they used to—you know.” He looks at me with expectant eyes, but I only shake my head. The driver clears his throat. “Well, don’t be needing to talk about that. Anyway, only a matter of time before the mold began to grow.”
My throat swells with bile. I want to press but am too afraid to. Beneath his pocked jaw, the driver’s candle gutters. I fist my hands, sweat leaking out to slither along my wrists. I was a fool for coming here. An utter fool.
“Where is Ransom?” I ask before I can stop myself. Red shame roils up my cheeks, the cold air on them now arctic. “The Lord Black, I mean.”
The driver, not seeming to notice the white tallow wax dripping lines down his fingerless gloves, nods to the shadows high above.
“Up in his tower, I’d wager. Spends most his days up there, up to Ithrandril knows what. There or the gardens. Not much to do ’round the castle anymore. Used to be, I reckon. Foxhunting, pool in the billiard room, seances when the guests would come…”
His voice trails off, listing more activities deemed gentlemanly by society standards and ridiculous to my own. I drive the symbols on the wall from my mind, replacing them with conjurations of Ransom in the gardens of Blackbourne, dirt beneath his fingernails, roots like lace between his hands.
Within the darkness, I search for any inkling of another living soul, but all I am greeted with are the melting and molding faces of those who came before. The hundreds of snakes gleaming wetly from the walls. Unending pain. Unyielding suffering.
Bram—trapped in some place in between—catches my thoughts, but I push it away.
“Does the castle not keep staff?” I ask, interrupting the driver on his distaste for the occult, something it seems the late Lord Black was fond of. Clearly.
He shuts his mouth, itches the corner of his bulbous nose.
“Just me now. And the husband. He does the cooking—if the young lord decides to eat, mind you—and I take care of the horses. Used to mind the gardens, willing the plants would ever grow, but the young lord has taken up that task now. Loves his green and growing things, he does. Most everyone else was let go years ago. Nasty business, says I. Nasty business.”
My fingers thrill at the idea of Ransom bent over in the grass, doing the same thing my mother loved. The same thing she taught me. “What is it Lord Black grows in his gardens? If you don’t mind me asking.”
He shakes his head. “The lord loves to experiment with his plants. Breeds together poisons and—”
“I don’t think our guest has come all this way to hear the inner workings of Blackbourne Castle, Bertram. Least of all my strange practices. I presume the horses are hungry after their journey.”
The voice drips like honey from the shadow. I peer into the blackness above, yet it yields nothing. Ransom Black is merely a ghost. A kind of irony that tastes of steel on my tongue. I can see the dead, but the living, it seems, are more evasive.
Bertram, the driver, nods, a knuckle pressed to the brim of his cap.
“Right you are, milord. Right you are.” He turns to me. “The carriage will be waiting in the courtyard for your return to the vicarage, Ms. Thorn. Whenever that might be.”
