15. Howl at the Moon
Howl at the Moon
Rumor Malefic
My dreams were restless and filled with ghosts of the past, of my sister and our dry twigs of memories. My past was a trail of broken and forgotten runes.
When my mother was taken, I was content to let her garden die with her.
I know, that’s bad, but I couldn’t even stand to look at it through our kitchen window.
Berries, ferns, and fruit trees grew plentiful and lovely.
Mother and Prism had planted flowers in accordance with the seasons so that anytime we looked outside, something was blooming, a burst of color and happiness amidst the hollow gray of our circumstance.
My sister was not so resigned to letting the fruits of mother’s labor, magical or otherwise, perish.
Every morning she’d waft through the mist of dawn harvesting vegetables, picking apples, and pulling weeds.
She said once that mother’s magic was still alive within the soil.
It enticed fuller harvests, sweeter juices, repelled bugs, and occasionally brought forth surprises.
One sunrise, Prism burst into my room, shaking me awake. I leapt from the bed, grabbing my dagger, thinking I’d have to fight an intruder. Giggling, my sister pulled at my arm. “Come look. It’s the first day of October. This was Mother’s favorite day. Also, a home blessing day.”
With a yawn, I rubbed my eyes. “You know more about witchcraft than I do and you’re not even magical.”
“Mother said that anyone can practice hedge witchery—though, she was the most gifted of them all, I think.” With a smile, she tugged me out the back door into the damp, brittle grass.
“Look.” She beamed, still in her pink nightgown, her blonde hair still twisted up in ribbon braids.
Prism was only twenty-two, one year younger than me, but I’d always see her as a tiny, sweet little girl.
With the horrors we’d endured from the rapture and the withers, it was a ray of sunshine getting to experience a moment of true happiness with her.
So I ignored my hatred of mornings and cold, wet days and indulged her.
“Wow,” I breathed, looking all around us at the spheres of orange, the twisted green vines, and dozens upon dozens of pumpkins that surrounded our cottage. “Where’d they all come from?”
Prism gently rubbed the dew on a pumpkin so large it came up to her knees. “They sprouted overnight. Mother’s magic saying hello and happy October.”
“She loved you so much, Prism. I do, too.”
“I love you too, Rumor.”
I awoke with a start, suspicious of the quiet and the sunlight that filtered into the room.
The Blackthorne Castle didn’t deserve sunlight, or peace, or tranquility.
Kicking off the cozy as hell duvet, I padded over to the window and looked out over the estate.
A gasp sucked through my throat at the sheer expanse of it, and even more so, the horror of all the graves that littered almost every bare patch of land.
Where did they all come from? To the corner, near the thorns that crested the immensely tall iron fence surrounding the property, was a tiny work shed, or maybe a gardener’s cottage.
Did someone else live on the property? Of course, they had to have servants of some sort.
A place this large didn’t function on its own, and I highly doubted the posh and pampered Blackthornes were growing, catching, or preparing their own food.
It was time to explore.
To gather intel on the inner workings of the castle, to sort out their day-to-day, as I worked through a way to hex them so thoroughly, they’d beg for reprieve.
Yes, that sounded good.
However, I was in a nightgown, and my previous dress was too dirty and stinky for the likes of the sheltered baby princes of the house. “What am I supposed to wear while I scheme, dominate, and otherwise destroy these lazy lords?” I asked myself, thumbing my fingers on a dressing table.
Suddenly, the wardrobe shook.
My heart jumped into my throat at the unexpected sound of rumbling and shaking.
Then, as fast as it came, it stopped. My mind wondered if I’d imagined it as I crept closer for inspection.
With a deep breath, I flung open the doors of the wardrobe and flinched, expecting a flurry of bats or something equally spooky to jump out at me… but nothing but silence greeted me.
Along with three outfits and three pairs of shoes.
My eyebrow arched in skepticism. “An enchanted wardrobe?” I asked the ornately carved, dark wooden box.
“It’s probably a trick I’ll regret later…
but…” I pulled out a dark blue day dress.
“This is pretty.” I fidgeted with my sea glass necklace at my collar as my attention landed on a pair of black pants and a gray, long-sleeved blouse that sat above a pair of lace-up boots.
“This looks a bit more practical for hexing and dominating, though.”
To my pleasant surprise, the shirt hugged my waist, and the pants hung perfectly on my hips. The leather of the boots sat buttery soft against my soles and needed no breaking.
An enchanted wardrobe that catered to its guest, along with water on demand? Both were exuberant displays of complex magic. I wondered what else in the castle was enchanted towards comfort… and what sort of discomfort could befall should the Blackthornes demand it.
That was a thought I didn’t want to dwell on.
Instead, I marched myself, smelling fresh as a summer daisy thanks to the pampered lords’ soaps, to my door and bravely twisted the knob.
Only a vacant hall and flickering candles joined me as I slowly traversed the opulence around me.
I found it perplexing they hadn’t sent a servant or guard to stand watch at my room.
Riot said I couldn’t leave yet sent no one to stop me?
Perhaps they thought I wasn’t dumb enough to attempt escaping them.
Jokes was on them, because I was definitely dumb enough, and I’d be mapping out every exit and possible escape route on my exploration of the castle and its grounds.
Undoubtedly there was a servant or two I could sway my way. Who wouldn’t feel sorry for the little Willowspire girl captured by the big bad Blackthornes? Easy, this was going to be easy. These boys didn’t know what they were getting themselves into by trifling with me.
Speaking of trifling and sneaking… where was my cat?
He’d wandered off, no doubt getting lost within the maze of halls and rooms of the grand, gloomy estate.
The critter probably wasn’t my familiar, even if my crone said so.
Empath was probably just being nice. Only the most powerful of witches attracted a familiar—and clearly mine had run away or gotten lost.
Everything about the Blackthorne Castle was dripping in dreariness.
Old paintings on the wall depicted night skies or beige houses.
A painting of a black ocean caught my attention, and I stopped to stare.
Matri was a sea witch who once said that only the deepest of loves could pull her from her blessed tides.
Mother would smile, and they’d hold hands.
With the downfall of Willowspire, I wondered if they’d ever wished they’d stayed at the coast instead. Was the coast of Night Gale faring any better than Willowspire? Were my Matri’s coven and people afforded lords who actually gave a damn and did their duties?
There was no way to know. The brushstrokes were still visible on the stretched canvas, peppered in blacks and blues of waves on dark shores. I let out a sigh. This was probably the closest I’d ever get to Night Gale and its beaches.
All of a sudden, the canvas changed. No, it moved . The waves came to life, crashing onto the beach, leaving white bubbly foam in their wake. The stars twinkled, and the waves continued to roar.
It was beautiful. A simple beauty but a complicated magic of the likes I’d never experienced before. Did all the paintings move?
I rushed to the next, a scene of a long, pointed house on a hill. After staring a moment, a moon rose above the house, and I grinned as bats beat their wings in the moonlight. “Extraordinary,” I breathed.
Moving down the hall, I stopped and watched scenes of running hunting dogs, flowers in a thunderstorm, and autumn leaves floating down a river.
Lovely magic.
Too lovely for the Blackthornes.
Why would they waste time and energy bewitching paintings? It had been ages since I’d witnessed magic just for magic’s sake. Memories of the pumpkins that sprouted overnight on the first day of October hung fondly in my mind. My mother’s magic was beautiful, like the moving paintings.
Noting every sound as I continued my way through the long hall and reached the winding staircase, I moved like a hunter, like Matri taught me.
Soft on my feet, ready for anything. Which reminded me as I looked up and inspected the high arched ceiling and rafters above the stairs—had Riot dropped from them yesterday? It had to be eleven stories high.
A shiver trailed my spine as I recalled his laugh.
Riot was a creep.
The sooner I could be done with them, the better.
Ticking sounded faintly in the background as I reached the first landing of the stairs, which opened up to another set of hallways with paintings, stone statues, and tapered candles.
No wonder my cat got lost, this place was a labyrinth—I was running the risk of getting lost myself.
Which wing was Riot and Spade’s?
The ticking got louder as I reached the center of the landing, above another grander staircase down to the foyer.
The source of the noise was a giant, dark wooden grandfather clock.
Stopping to admire the sheer grandeur of it, I noted the phases of the moon carved into the top, complete with a moon dial, charting the lunar timeline.
How very Willowspire coven of them.