‘Who taught you to play?’ I asked without thinking.
To my surprise, she answered.
‘One of your predecessors.’ She went on blithely, as though she had not set flame to the tinder of my curiosity: ‘What is wrong with you, why are you wearing a bedsheet?’
I swallowed the questions that lay on my tongue, and looked down at the counterpane I had wrapped around me. ‘I came to say sorry but I won’t be joining you this evening.’
‘What?’ She stopped what she was doing and frowned. ‘Why?’
‘I am unwell.’
‘Do you need me to nurse you again?’ she smirked.
‘No it is a female matter.’
Her face fell. ‘Well tell Wolf to bring up some laudanum. You don’t have to sulk in your room.’
I leaned against the doorframe and smiled, taking in this ruffled Witch. A few months ago she would have been ordering me out of her study in outrage at being interrupted, refusing even a second of my company. Now she grumbled at being denied it.
‘I will be better tomorrow. Let me sleep tonight.’
‘Very well,’ she said. ‘But I will have you know I am most displeased.’
‘I am glad to hear it. I hope you pine.’ I went back to my room, the memory of her playing bright and warm in my mind.
Then the thought that soured it: she had been taught by a previous companion. Perhaps our fear about the fate of the companions was unfounded. Edgar’s unfinished letter nothing more than a distracted boy. I wished for a moment that I had not delivered it to the Hässlers so that I could study it further for any sign of his fate.
Still wrapped in the counterpane, I retrieved the key to Edgar’s room and slipped inside. It was the same as it had been before, bare, tidy, unused. The messy desk was only that: empty ink bottles, snapped quills, blank, brittle paper.
There were no answers here.
I had promised not to pry. The Witch had done far more than she was obliged to in keeping her end of the bargain; she had let me visit my father, taken an interest in me. What had I done but broken her trust?
I snapped the lid of the escritoire shut.
The Witch had told Edgar something, that much I remembered of his letter. Perhaps if I let her trust in me grow, she would share the secrets I searched for in time.
b
For a while, that hope was like a spell I cast over myself.
It was all too easy to lose track of the days, living as we did in a perpetual cycle of breakfasts together, days spent alone walking the castle to stave off boredom or digging through the three different libraries, then evenings holed up in a truce that had become more like friendship. I slept deep and long, in a way I had not for a long time, languid and content. I had attempted to speak to the women in the village again, but they turned their backs on me as one. It was as though, to them, I simply didn’t exist.
I instructed Wolf to mark the days with different meals – preserved cherries only to be served on Mondays, or poached eggs on Friday. Christmas passed without remark. I ate ham on Christmas Eve and looked out of my bedroom window to the valley where the village was hidden below; there were no lights, no church bells. I wondered if my family thought of me as they exchanged presents, sang carols. I thought about Edgar and his family. They had wanted him back, unlike mine, and yet I had been the one able to return. Some mornings at breakfast I toyed with mentioning his name to the Witch, but never worked up the courage. I did not want to risk hurting her again; the peace between us was too fragile and precious.
Winter dragged long and slow through January, freezing the birds to the branches in the forest, but we made a warm home inside the castle, the two of us nested in the study with the fire always stoked and bright. I could feel myself begin to relax, held enough by the familiarity to feel safe – to feelhome. The river, too, froze, a thick crust of ice with fish trapped like insects in amber, twisted and grotesque. I found several battered pairs of old skates in one of the junk rooms and dragged her down to spend an afternoon skittering and skidding between the banks, grabbing at each other and growing red and breathless with laughter. It was outside the bounds of our agreement, but those lines had been sloughing away with each week together.
We passed snowed-in evenings around the fire playing whist and card games the Witch insisted were popular even though I’d never heard of them, eating spiced ginger biscuits Wolf baked in vast batches. I tried again with my mother’s drop spindle and a book on spinning; I caught the Witch watching me strangely as I worked, and in embarrassment, I put the spindle away.
At breakfast one morning in mid-January, I came down in a tea dress with three India shawls wrapped around me for warmth. The Witch had already poured me a cup of coffee and buttered me a roll.
Without missing a beat, she said, ‘I have decided we will celebrate your birthday. When is it?’
Surprised, I gave the date, a few weeks away.
‘Then it is settled. Instruct Wolf however you please.’
I went through the rest of my day lighter, buoyed up by this unexpected kindness. My birthday had never been much of an event at the palace, and I was touched that the Witch had thought of it.
