SABELLA
JUNE 3, 1886
VERY LATE
J udging by the regrowth of my antlers, midnight is near, but I am wide awake. And still alone. I stare into the forest’s shadows, praying morning will come on swift wings so I can search for Calder. I do not know if I will be able to help him if he’s been captured, but I must try.
I rise from my seat on the fallen tree trunk, ready to pace along its length, as I have done at least twenty times in the last few hours.
A rope slips over my head and shoulders. Before I can react, it clenches tight around my body, binding my arms to my sides. Fear expands within me as a sharp tug tightens the rope.
“Sabella Jenkins,” a female voice says. “How lovely to see you.” I cannot turn to see the woman’s face, but I can guess who is speaking.
“Let me go!” I strain at my bonds but it proves futile. The rope is strong, and so is the woman who wields it.
There is a faint rustling as she walks, the sound of fallen leaves being crushed by her slow footsteps combined with the swish of her skirt. “Not a chance, my dear. Calder Hadrian sends his greetings, by the way. Not quite a hero, is he, leaving his lady alone to face the perils of the forest?”
“I’m no one’s ‘lady,’” I say. I continue to squirm. The rope constricts. I look down to discover it is not a rope at all, but some sort of vine. A living thing.
Delphine steps into view. “It could be argued that you’re mine now, but I prefer not to waste my breath.”
Yonaz once said that she could make men fall in love with her with a mere glance, and I believe it. This springtime version of Delphine has smooth skin the delicate golden-brown of dried wheat. Her eyes are a startling blue-green that almost glows in the dim light of the forest. Her figure is curvaceous, her bearing regal. She wears a short, plain black cape over an unremarkable, earth-colored dress, yet she is as stunning as a woman bedecked in velvets and silks. On her forehead, she wears a miner’s headlamp. Somehow she makes even this humble piece of equipment look elegant.
Just as I take in her appearance, Delphine takes in mine, assessing me from my antlers to my shoes. She tugs the dark, purplish green rope that spirals from her left hand to my body. “Come.”
I am tethered like a disobedient dog, so I follow her. If she is taking me to Calder, perhaps we can think of an escape plan together. At the moment, I am too stunned and angry to think clearly. I should have been more careful. More alert.
Rather than dragging me up the rocky slope Calder climbed, Delphine leads me along a path we’d missed. It winds steeply up a hill clad in wiry grass. Her headlamp illuminates the ground ahead.
There is something menacing about the thick-stemmed vine between us, something that seems more animal than vegetable. In all my forays through the forest, I have never seen anything like it. Where it encircles my body, I think I feel its throbbing pulse.
Ahead, a boulder as big as a barn looms. Delphine jerks the rope. I stumble before increasing my pace to her satisfaction. As we come around the side of the boulder, the smell of wood smoke drifts into my nostrils. A moment later, I spy two dimly lit windows set into the front of a steeply gabled house built of dark timber. Vines embellish its face like an overabundance of Christmas garlands.
“Do you like my pretty little house?” Delphine asks as she strides forward. “It is no palace, but it is certainly better than anything in the mine towns.”
I stumble again, this time over a stone. I grab the vine to steady myself. I say to her back, “Why are you doing this?”
“We will speak of that later.”
“I would prefer to know now.”
Over her shoulder, she sneers at me. “Your preferences mean nothing to me, child.”
She keeps walking. The light from her headlamp spreads onto the face of the house. Thousands of leaves cringe as they catch the light. Each one is attached to purplish-green vine identical to the one binding me. Now I can see that entwined by tendrils of vine, there are metal bars on the windows. This is not a house but a prison.
Delphine stops to throw open a wide door spackled with moss and lichens. I follow her over the threshold, tugged along by the vine. My eyes scan the single large space that appears to serve as the kitchen, dining room, and sitting room. A steep set of wooden stairs abuts one wall. A few oil lamps and an open fireplace illuminate the sparsely furnished room. Every windowsill and shelf is crowded with plants of different shapes, sizes, and colors. Some flaunt flowers, blossoms of blood red and honey gold. The scent of damp soil and moldering leaves troubles the air.
“Sabella,” Calder says from the far side of the room. “Blast it.”
Had he imagined I would rush in to slay the proverbial dragon and rescue him? How I wish. He is covered in dirt and a bruise swells on his cheekbone. He looks frustrated, angry, and weary all at once—feelings I share, especially as I note the odious vine that twines from his neck to his ankles to secure him to a chair. This chair is wedged into the corner of the kitchen area, a spot readily observable from any point in the room.
“No idle chatter,” Delphine says. The vines around Calder creak as they tighten their hold, and he winces.
Delphine unravels my vine leash from her arm and tosses the end of it toward the wall. It snakes forward to fasten tendrils to a metal hook. At her command, the vine loosens enough for me to work my arms free. My unbound muscles tingle and ache as the vine adjusts itself into a stiff belt around my waist.
Delphine points to fireplace where a tarnished copper kettle hangs over a pile of orange embers. “Feed the fire and brew some tea, Sabella.”
It feels dangerous to ask, but I cannot hold my tongue one second more. “Where are the others? Where are Rhys and Branna?”
She presses a hand to her chest and does a poor job of feigning astonishment. “Why, they’re upstairs tucked into their beds. I am not ignorant. I do know that children need their rest.”
Branna is hardly a child at fifteen years of age—and as far as I know still a fawn—but if being viewed as a child earns her mercy, it is a good thing.
Delphine removes her short cape and drapes it over the back of an armchair before taking a seat. She reclines like a queen enthroned.
My hands tremble as I take a tin of tea leaves and a silver tea pot down from a shelf. I do not ask where I might find the other things I need to prepare the tea. Instead, I use this opportunity to rifle through drawers and cupboards. If asked, I can claim I’m looking for spoons. In reality, I’m searching for a blade to slit my bonds. I find only a dull, dainty butter knife before Delphine says with a yawn, “Is all well over there?”
“Fine,” I reply. Disappointment weighs heavily on me, but I have not given up hope of finding a knife. She has asked me to make tea; surely she will ask me to cook something else soon. There must be some sort of cutting tool here somewhere.
Across the room, Calder shifts in his chair and draws my attention. Are you all right? he mouths.
I nod and pause from my work to take in the sight of him. Despite our recent quarreling, and notwithstanding our present trial, his presence consoles me.
“Midnight,” Delphine says from her chair across the room. “I always feel it in my bones when it comes, stirring like an earthworm among newly cast roots. Do you feel it, Sabella, in the marrow of your antlers?”
“No. I am usually asleep at midnight.” I say no more, wary of this woman who commands vines and kidnaps children. She is likely sifting my every word for information to use against us. When the tea is ready, I deliver a cup to her, my pace hindered by the vine around my midsection.
Delphine offers me a small smile in exchange for the cup, but it is as false as a paper flower. “You must be tired after such a long day of walking. Sit with me while I drink. When I have finished, I will show you to your room.”
I take a seat across from her, forced to sit up uncomfortably straight by my antlers, the vine, and the stiff wings of the high-backed chair. She sips while perusing my antlers with obvious curiosity. “However do you manage to sleep with those atop your head?”
“It is not easy,” I reply. I try to stifle a yawn but fail. This tiredness is inconvenient to say the least. I should be spending every moment trying to solve the problem of our captivity. I pinch myself hard but it does no good.
Delphine’s cup clinks against the saucer as she sets it onto the small table at her elbow. “It is clear that I will wrest no brilliant conversation from you this evening. Let us retire upstairs.”
“What about Calder?” I glance over at him, noting his puffy eyes and sunken cheeks. The neck-to-ankle constricting vines give him the appearance of an exhausted mummy propped in a chair.
She dismisses my concerns with a wave of her elegant hand. “He will be fine where he is.”
“He needs to lie down,” I argue. “He looks ill.”
Delphine’s eyes widen with surprise. A wry smile curves her mouth. “You’re a bold creature. Very well. He can sleep by the hearth, tethered as he is. I’ll see to him after you’re settled.”
“Thank you.” It irks me to offer her gratitude, but I am relieved to know Calder will be allowed some rest.
“Do not mention it. Only a fool refuses a request inspired by true love.”
My face heats. “I asked because I’m concerned for his health.”
Delphine peers down her nose at me, accusing me of lying without saying a word. She turns and flicks her wrist toward the vine that holds me. It wriggles and unhooks from the wall. The end slithers toward Delphine like an eyeless serpent. She gathers a portion of the vine with her hands and wraps it around her wrist. At the same time, through some silent magic, the vine shortens until it becomes a taut, three-foot-long rope between her wrist and my waist.
“Come,” she says.
With a slight nod, I bid Calder an unspoken good night and follow my captor up the creaky wooden stairs.