Chapter 16
Lochlan Finley
R ynn was late coming down to join me for breakfast, so I went looking for her.
Perhaps she wasn’t late so much as I was feeling increasingly eager to have her near me again.
I found her in her bedroom, peering out the window. She wore a tea gown in a bright violet shade—her favorite color. A vast improvement on the morning gowns in jet and dingy grays I’d grown accustomed to seeing her in.
“Are you hungry?” I asked her.
She held a wooden comb in her hand, and she used it to gesture down below her, through the window. “I was watching the chopping block there,” she said. “The wood was cutting itself in half, and then the geese showed up.”
“Geese?” I joined her by the window seat. Sure enough, a massive flock of snow geese littered the grounds. The great birds crowded under the weeping willow trees and filled the water gardens. They landed on the sandstone statues of rearing lions, littering them with white feathers. I chuckled.
“I’ve never seen so many at once,” she said, picking through her curls carefully with the comb.
“Hulda,” I said.
“Are we naming the geese?” she teased, separating her tresses into thirds to braid it. “I’m partial to Daisy.”
“It’s a warning to me from Hulda,” I explained. “She’s a weaver woman. Their leader, I think. She wouldn’t approve of how I dragged you into the house the other night. All your screaming must have caught her notice.”
Her brow wrinkled. “Witches sent you geese?”
“The witches protect women from dangerous men,” I told her. There were numerous tales of the witches which had been twisted to scare off American Civil War soldiers from fleeing into the woods. But weaver women had no interest in brothers slaying brothers, as long as they left mothers and daughters out of their violence.
“The weaver women stories I know make them sound like the wicked witches from the Grimm tales,” Rynn said.
“I’ve spent the last twenty years leaving them offerings, and I’ve come to know them in that time,” I said. “There’s nothing wicked about them, though they aren’t necessarily always good either. They’ll share wisdom with those who make an offering and are willing to listen. Gifts too sometimes.”
Rynn drew my attention back to the chopping block. The axe rose in the air, seemingly on its own, and another chunk of wood was cut in half, startling nearby geese into flight.
“Who’s down there?” she asked, knotting her hair in an elegant plait.
“Do you remember Boren?”
Her nose wrinkled. “Unfortunately.”
He’d been a brute, seeming to delight in my father’s abuse of us. Boren had learned early on that we were the perfect scapegoats when my father was angry. He’d thrown us to the wolves time and time again to spare himself.
“He wasn’t much older than us. I’m surprised he’s gone.” She pinned her braided hair just above the nape of her neck.
“Tuberculosis claimed him. He was one of the first ghosts to tether himself to me. I tried to make him leave, but then he set to work outside on the grounds. As long as I don’t feel him in the house, I let him carry on with his chores.”
“Serves him right,” Rynn muttered. “But I’m sad for Gertrude and Martha. Surely, they deserve some rest after all these years. I can’t imagine living a life of service only to have to continue it after death.”
“There’s nothing to be done about it. They’re doing it to themselves,” I said, an irritated edge sharpening my voice.
“How do you mean?” she asked, and that agitated me further. They didn’t deserve her protection. None of them did.
“Don’t you feel it? You’ve always been sensitive like me, Rynn. I think we got that from my father. He was sensitive, too. He didn’t pass it on with his blood, though. He passed it on with his wrath, with all those horrible things he did to us. Even before the ghosts came in numbers, I sensed them in the dark. I heard them whispering.” I had a theory that Father tormented us to distract the ghosts, to keep them away from him. He’d get us upset and then lock us away in the dark like a beacon for the spirits. “You feel them too, don’t you?”
She thought about it for a moment, watching the axe split more wood, fingers running absently down the spine of her comb. “Guilt,” she said softly. “They feel terribly guilty.”
“As they should.” My jaw clenched. “We were little. They were grown. They didn’t see everything, but they saw enough. Not once did they lift a finger to stop him. Boren especially. I think he enjoyed making it worse for us.”
“Oh, but . . . that’s not true. Poor Martha always comforted me. On my birthday, she’d make excuses to bake a cake. She told the baron it was because she had extra oil and flour that needed to be used up, but I always knew it was for me. She was lovely.”
“She should have protected you from him,” I said sternly.
Rynn shook her head. “What could she have done? She had no power in that house. And if she lost her job, who would comfort me? Gertude too. When I was little, I’d have accidents in bed after I’d spent too long locked in the dark. She helped me clean up and never said a word about it, even though I was adding to her workload. They were both kind.”
I crossed my arms over my middle, frowning at my faded reflection in the window glass. “Martha told you to keep away from me. Gertrude too.”
Rynn sighed. “They were just looking out for me. They’d seen how relationships between people with means and people with none usually ended.”
I rolled my eyes. “Come on,” I said, walking toward the door.
“Where are we going?” she called after me.
“To get your boots. We’re going mushroom hunting.” I stopped in front of the door, my hand resting on the knob. Over my shoulder, I added, “We’ll do it properly this time. No snakes.”
She grinned at me, the little vixen. “No snakes.”
* * *
Rynn was mildly miffed when I explained that we would not be eating the mushrooms. We were gathering them as a gift to leave for Hulda.
“Will the witches speak to me after?” she asked, plucking a blonde bulb from near the roots of an ash tree.
“I don’t know,” I confessed. “They’re unpredictable.” The ground was littered with white feathers and goose droppings. I could hear the birds splashing in the water gardens, not far from us.
The geese were testy this morning. They hissed and flapped their wings when we got too close. There were so many of them, it was difficult to avoid them entirely.
We gathered a few fistfuls of morels, then I took her to the weeping willow viewable from her bedroom window, and we laid the basket amongst the roots. I pulled out a book I’d tucked inside the lapel of my gray blazer before leaving the house, my copy of Treasure Island .
“What’s that for?” she asked me. “Do the witches like to read?”
“I used to bring them things that I thought they wanted: fabric, bread, supplies for their looms, yarn, knitting needles, tools made of bone, beautiful flowers—things of that sort. But over time I learned they like it best when I leave them something that’s of importance to me,” I explained, adding the book to the bottom of the basket, careful not to crush the mushrooms.
She chewed on her lip for a long moment. A breeze stirred her onyx curls, loosening a few strands from the scarf in her braided hair. “Hold on. I want to add one, too,” she said .
She returned several minutes later with an old copy of Hansel and Gretel . Her favorite fairytale. It was the story I’d used to teach her to read. She added it to the small wicker basket beside my book.
“You don’t think they’ll be offended by the foul way they’re represented in that fairytale, do you?” she asked me.
I chortled. “I think as long as it’s important to you, they won’t mind, but we’ll find out soon enough.”
The wind picked up, rustling the willow’s drooping branches around us. Darkening clouds threatened rain overhead.
“What do we do now?” She brushed her hair out of her face.
“Usually, I talk at them for a bit, then I come back in the morning to see if they accepted my offering.”
“Oh.” She went sheepish then, feet shuffling under her skirt. “Could I talk to them . . . alone?”
It made me nervous leaving her outside. Being away from her at all put a pinch in my chest, right between my ribs.
“All right,” I told her, because denying her anything was becoming increasingly difficult, day by day. “I’ll see you inside.”
As I sauntered away, her lovely voice carried on the wind.
“Don’t be too harsh with Loch,” she told the willow tree and the witches who listened. “Last night we had a bit of a misunderstanding. And if anyone deserves to show that man some wrath after all we’ve been through together, it’s me and only me. I wouldn’t appreciate it if you tried to take that from me with geese.”
A laugh rumbled out of my chest. Her words were relatable. I felt the exact same way about her.
* * *
I awoke bright and early the next morning to the sound of the bell tied to Rynn’s door tinkling. I rolled out of bed and pulled on a housecoat. Out in the hall, I caught her descending the stairs, and I hurried after her. She usually walked in her sleep early in the night, but I followed just in case. I didn’t want her to fall.
Weak daylight filtered in through the windows, the sun struggling to rise. I found Rynn in one of my nightshirts, standing in front of the ebonized parlor door, staring at the locks. It pleased me that she still wore my clothing even though she had hers back.
“Rynn?” I called gently.
“I’m awake,” she said, her back to me as she studied the parlor door.
“What are we doing down here?”
“I keep dreaming about this stupid door and that horrid house in Light Lily. I was having dreams about the baron’s angry voice, but then you told me he was gone for good, and I stopped hearing him.” She took a steadying breath. “I think I need to have a peek inside to make the dreams about this door go away. Just a quick look, and maybe my mind will let it go like it did your father’s voice.”
“No, Rynn.”
Her shoulders slumped. “I was afraid you’d say that.”
“Hm.” I hated to leave her in this state: curious and anxious and looking hopeless. “Come on,” I told her. When I extended my hand, she took it.
“Where are we going?”
“I have an idea.” I removed my housecoat and tossed it over her shoulders, then I guided her through the kitchen and out the back door. We rounded the manor, barefoot, in grass that was dewy. The flocks of snow geese were gone, but they’d left their feathers everywhere. It coated the lawn like a dusting of snow.
It was a cool spring morning. She hugged herself as we made our way to the parlor windows.
I put my back to the house and squatted down, leaning against the gray stone. I patted my knee. “I’ll give you a boost. Then you can have a quick look inside.”
It took a moment for my plan to register with her. It was still early. We didn’t usually rise at this hour, and neither of us liked to do much of anything before we had our coffee.
“All right.” She smirked at me, then she placed a damp foot on my bent knee and began to climb. I helped her, holding her hand, then steadying her waist, then her thighs as she stepped onto my shoulder and hoisted herself higher.
“I can see in!” she exclaimed. “It’s . . . it’s just a parlor. And not a particularly exciting one,” she said, sounding deflated.
“Well, yes.” I held as still as I could so I didn’t topple her. “What were you expecting?
“I don’t even know.” Rynn peered down at me. “What sort of ghosts get themselves trapped inside a boring parlor?”
I grunted as she shifted her weight. Carefully, she climbed down the way she’d come. I waited until she had both feet back on solid ground before I answered her.
“The sort that refuses to believe they’re dead, that’s who. The troublesome kind. They’re ill-tempered and easily confused. They’re trapped in there because they believe they can’t get out. Eventually, they come to accept their lot and walk out through the walls, and I don’t see them again. More come. I order them inside and start the process over.”
“They listen to you?”
“They do. I think they’re so surprised someone is finally speaking to them that they do what I say. But if they don’t, touching them gives them a jolt.”
“They aren’t thwarted by your locks at all, then. Not really,” she surmised.
“Those are to keep out the curious living. Like you.” I leaned my weight against the wall. “Spirits are drawn in by fear and wrath like iron to a lodestone. You remember what Gertrude did. Given the chance, those spirits might try to do worse.”
Above us, the windows fogged, like the glass had been bathed in hot breath. Ghostly fingerprints streaked through the condensation. Rynn shivered at the sight.
Eager to be off, she slipped her hand back in mine and walked me to the weeping willow tree to check on our offering for the weaver women. I lifted the drooping branches so she could slip under them. Bending low, she removed the wicker lid from the basket.
It was full of cream-colored goose eggs. A gift from the witches. Rynn let out a cheer, and her infectious excitement warmed my haunted heart.