Elspeth watched her carefully. “It’s like you think use is all there is to a body. Like you think you gotta earn rest, or... or someone caring for you. But it ain’t, and you don’t.”
Mortifying, yes—but Charlotte wanted to learn to like this. She sighed, snuggling into Elspeth.
“I’d like to believe that,” she said, “but it’s difficult. I can’t do as much as I used to, since my illness, and in Seacliff... Well, it’s just how everyone thinks. How everyone lives—how can you live, otherwise?”
Elspeth bent and kissed her brow.
“Port Lorne, too, darlin’. But you know what? Gran and Granddad worked themselves half to death when me and Maggie was growing up. I watched ’em. Always told myself it wouldn’t be that way for me. And it don’t have to be for you, neither.” She hesitated. “I’d make sure of it. If you wanted that.”
Charlotte’s breath hitched. Before she could respond, however, there was a flump across the room: the plant creature dropping to the floor. It scrambled toward the window, tendrils swaying.
Charlotte sat up, her back twinging. Her pain had been low all day, but the movement coming on the heels of physical exertion reminded her how easy it was to overdo things.
“What do you suppose has it so excited?”
“Dunno, but I’ll see what’s what.” Elspeth reached for her shirt and boots. “Stay here.”
“Not a chance.”
Charlotte tugged her clothes back into place and reached for her cane. Elspeth grabbed the poker from beside the stove and slipped out into the snow with Charlotte at her heels. The plant creature slung itself after them, darting back and forth like an excitable dog.
Beyond the brambles, an angry howl split the snowy silence. Charlotte shuddered. The plant creature nosed at her hand, then went weaving back and forth again.
Another howl, louder and angrier than the last. Brambles withered and died, crumbling to dust. They left an opening wide enough for a horse, beyond which was a swinging bridge.
Limping off the bridge was something misshapen. The plant creature shot forward, bowling into the thing as it cleared the brambles. The thing fell with a crunch of snow and a curse. Elspeth stood in front of Charlotte, armed with the poker.
“Calyx—” A low growl. “Calyx,stop it.”
The plant creature whirled away and trotted happily back to Charlotte. It sat at her feet, tendrils waving.
“Calyx. Is that your name?”
It nosed at her hand.
The thing before them struggled to its feet. It was a beast, with a wolf’s legs, paw-like hands, antlers, a fanged snout, and a face something like a wolf’s and something like a stag’s and something like a raven’s. One leg was twisted, one eye scarred. Angry red streaks slashed across one cheek. Moss and lichens grew in the scar and the ruff of the beast’s neck.
But he had black hair tied in a loose knot like a human’s, except for the white flowers dotting it like stars. Human eyes, too, one hazel, one milky. Except that he was without shoes, he worehuman clothes: trousers, a linen shirt with toggles—spotted with blood at the shoulder—and a fur cloak he had become tangled in.
With a snarl, he flung the cloak away. Charlotte gasped; the snarl gave her goose pimples.
The beast looked up. Elspeth stepped forward, raising the poker, but a tendril shot out and wrenched it away.
“Hey—”
Calyx whipped the poker so hard it flew over the remaining brambles. Elspeth whirled on the plant creature, but the beast’s eyes fixed on Charlotte. His face slackened.
“Charlotte Throckmorton, I presume,” he said, in a hoarse voice.
“Prentice,” Charlotte said automatically, but her brain stalled out. Why did the beast know her name?
He nodded and trudged toward them. They backed away, but he merely went to the door. Calyx gamboled after him until he went inside. It stood uncertainly at the threshold, but Charlotte scooped it up and followed him into the house.
“Arthur was right,” the beast said. “You do look like George.”
Her heart beat painfully. “You’ve seen Arthur.”
He hung his cloak on a peg, limped toward the stove, and sank into the shabbier of the two armchairs.
