Chapter 7
Fighting to calm my racing pulse, I gently place mouse-Mum into my pocket and glance around for the raven. The clock on the mantel ticks at twice the pace of a normal one. That cheating witch.
Rattled, I let out a yelp when the raven flaps onto my shoulder.
My crown must be in here somewhere. Help me find it!
“I have a different task,” I remind him.
This is more important, he insists. You still have hands. Use that stick to turn over these piles.
I huff a sigh, but go along with his plan. I need to start searching for a way out. Perhaps there is a key buried among the filth.
Instead, all I turn up is moth-eaten clothing, old shoes, rotted food, and bits of metal.
The stench is almost unbearable. I tie a scarf over my mouth to keep the worst of it out, but this soon leaves me hot and sweaty.
My eyes water with the sting of dust. Grime sticks to my skin. Yesterday’s bath seems like a dream.
“It’s not here.” I toss aside the broken broom handle and collapse into the chair I sat in earlier. It creaks like it’s going to drop me onto the floor.
It has to be. Keep searching! The raven flies to the top of a crooked bookshelf and begins knocking things off.
A skull shatters, sending shards of bone scattering.
I jump back. Determined, the bird pushes glass vials and small wooden chests tumbling.
One breaks open. I gape in awe at the gold coins that spill out.
“Gods,” I breathe. “This is more money than I’ve ever seen in my life.”
It’s a trick. Focus.
“Right.” A plan begins to form in my mind. If we can find his crown, and I can escape from this cottage, I will demand my mother’s release. He can break his own curse. I won’t be forced to choose between saving my mother and the man I have come to...love?
Is it possible to fall in love with someone you’ve never truly met?
The thought stills my hand. When I remember myself, I discover it hovering over a different metal object. A key.
“Keep looking!” I shout, rushing to the door.
My heart beats in time with the clock’s frantic ticking.
I can tell by looking at it that it won’t fit.
I refuse to let the sinking sensation in my stomach slow me down.
More crashing from behind me as the raven tosses objects willy-nilly from their perches.
Thwarted by the door, I try the windows, but the sills won’t budge. It’s stifling hot in here. I rip the scarf from my face, cough, and put it back up.
The fire.
I overturn the pot of water, dousing it. Better. Staring at the hissing embers, I get an idea.
“Can you fly up and unlock the door from the outside?”
How? I don’t have hands in this form.
“True.” Maybe I can climb up the chimney.
As if the witch can read my mind, the fire roars back to life. I jump back. Sparks catch the hem of my skirt. I quickly pat them out. A shame to ruin the nice new dress the queen gave me.
If I had attempted to escape through the flue, I’d have been burned to a crisp.
“Look for keys,” I shout to the raven. Rushing to the shelves, I comb through the witch’s collection of books. The leather bindings are rotted and the pages falling out, but I do find one thing of interest. A list of names.
Though the ink fades for the older entries they are all in the same handwriting. Why would she keep a list of names? Her victims, presumably?
I rip it out and shove it into my pocket.
On the lowest shelf, in a bowl of junk, I hit the jackpot. Rings of keys, single keys, rusted iron keys, tiny locket keys, all jumbled together. I dump it onto the table and search for anything that might fit the lock I need to open.
I found it! The raven’s triumphant cry interrupts me. I can’t reach it. I need your help.
Outside, the sunlight filtering through the shutter slats cants toward evening.
With a groan, I abandon my search and shove the rickety chair beneath the rafter where the raven’s tail juts out.
I step carefully onto the seat, testing its ability to hold my weight, then hop up, balancing on the wobbly surface—and scream.
“You could have warned me!”
I cling to the rafter until the chair steadies beneath me. Then I gingerly remove the ring of hammered gold from the grinning skull of a long-toothed bear.
It’s dead, Weena. It can’t hurt you.
I huff and hop down. “Now what? I can’t put it on you, you’re too small.”
He lands on the back of the chair and glares at me like I’ve said something offensive. I gingerly set it around his neck. Nothing happens.
Why didn’t I change back into a man?
“I don’t know. Are you sure it’s your crown?”
Yes, Rowena. The ruby in the center is called the heart of...He trails off.
“The heart of what?”
I can’t remember. Although his voice is only audible inside my head, the way it was when we were in the dreamscape, he sounds stricken. Forlorn.
Evening shadows slant through the shutters. Jolted back to the present, I eye them with alarm. “How do I unlock this house?”
Frantic, I scoop the collection of keys into my skirt and carry it to the door. One by one, I jam them into the lock, starting with the likeliest candidates and discarding the smallest ones onto the floor. Mouse-Mum stirs in my pocket, disturbed by all the commotion.
“Come on, you son of a bitch,” I mutter. One rusted iron key won’t go in. It looks about the right size and shape. I smack it with the heel of my palm to try and force it. An orange mark stains my filthy skin. The iron clatters to the floor. “Fuck!”
The house is a puzzle. The raven hasn’t moved from his perch. He clutches his crown in one foot, gazing around the room. I knew that once. The witch—she steals memories.
“What exactly did she say to you when she cursed you?”
That the spell would break if I could remember who I was.
“She didn’t mean what you were, as in a title. You never forgot that part.”
I did, though. I only knew that I was searching for something. When I awoke in your cottage, I remembered the crown. I thought that was it. But it must be something else.
Smoke fills the cottage. I cough. The fire has blazed high enough to lick the wooden mantel above the stone. Embers swirl in the air. We aren’t going to escape.
We are going to die here.
Despair envelops me. Despite the filth, I drop to my knees where the air is clearer. Rats and roaches scurry past, searching for an exit that doesn’t exist.
Through the smoke, bright determination hardens in the raven’s eye. His claws curl around the golden crown. He flaps hard, taking laborious flight, dives through the flames, and shoots up through the chimney so fast I gasp—and choke.
“You bastard!” I shout. Tears stream down my cheeks. He left me. Abandoned me to die inside a burning cottage.
The house is a puzzle, he reminds me. Keep trying to solve it. I’m going to try a different tactic.
A burning sensation scalds my arms. I rub them, but it was only a spark scorching a hole through my sleeve.
I crawl to the fire and that damned ticking clock.
There’s so much smoke inside the hut now that I can’t tell whether night has fallen outside.
I grab the elaborate ornamental timepiece with my bare hands—
And scream.
Hot metal burns my palms. I throw the clock on the floor. It shatters.
At least I’ll die without that horrible sound counting down my last breaths.
“I’m sorry, Mum.”
Blinded by tears and smoke, I stumble into the chair and accidentally shove it against the table.
The table straightens. I sniff and wipe my eyes with the back of my sleeve. The house wants to be tidied up.
The keys were a distraction. The clock was meant to pressure me. The fire was her final trick, to frighten me into mindless terror. The witch’s tactics almost worked.
But the blaze is dying out. Or rather, it’s being redirected, up and out the chimney in a tower of flame, taking the plumes of smoke with it. The raven didn’t abandon me. He tried to distract her so that I could focus.
Sniffling, I wrap the scarf around my blistered hands and begin putting things where they belong.
Touching each object sends a wave of nausea through me.
I push through. Anything that looks usable, I find a place for.
Books get stacked neatly onto shelves. Jars without lids, bowls full of odds and ends, all get sorted into place. The cottage darkens by the second.
The rats help, pushing piles of decayed filth into a single heap near the fire. I find a broken piece of pottery and use it like a shovel, scooping mounds of garbage into the inferno. Tears leak down my cheeks from the pain.
Even mouse-Mum crawls out of my pocket, down my leg, and lends a paw.
With every piece that goes back into place, the hut straightens a little more, like a beggar’s spine after a good meal, a hot bath, and a decent night of sleep. When the final bit of trash is incinerated, the doors and windows pop open with a creaking sigh of ancient wood.
I step out into a blazing forest. My jaw drops as understanding dawns. He lit his feathers on fire and flew to the witch’s apple orchard, giving me time to solve the puzzle without her interference. Distress and shock sink cold in my stomach.
“Raven!” I shout, breaking into a run.