11. Chapter 11
Chapter eleven
The invitation was a garish thing. Lux held the sparkling, sweet-smelling parchment by the barest edge lest her fingers become permanently tarnished at the contact. She shifted in the hard-backed rocker with a scowl.
Her mind surrendered to the saddened wonder of just whose dirty bottom rested contentedly upon her favorite chair’s cushions, or worse—if it was moldering within the marshes. Jaw tightening, she studied the flowery script again:
Please join us in a
Masquerade Celebration
Of our most illustrious Mayor
On the Eve of his Birth:
The evening of the fifth Noxday
Of the month of Mortema
Two days’ time. Her eyes traveled over the bold illustrations:
Gifts, though not required, are greatly anticipated
She nearly choked on her biscuit. Greedy, odious man. He had everything. What did he expect? A slew of guests lined up with wrapped parcels of lifeblood, harvested just for him?
“Doubtless.” Lux’s imitation of the mayor left much to be desired.
The creaking of the front door caused her to sink further into the uncomfortable chair. As much as she appreciated having someone in this life to look out for her well-being, this home was much too small. Especially when expected to encompass one such as Riselda. She filled up the space, and Lux couldn’t help but feel eclipsed in the shadows.
“Lucena?”
She drew a long breath before conceding. “Here, Riselda.”
Her aunt floated down the stairs. “Oh, there you are.”
Lux battled to keep her expression neutral at Riselda’s appearance: clothing askew, tangles in her hair, a smudge of dirt along her jaw. Riselda pushed a few wayward strands from her eyes before washing at the basin resting on a corner pedestal.
Lux peered at her aunt from the edge of her teacup as Riselda gazed into the mirror, rubbing her chin clean.
When Riselda’s piercing stare met hers through the glass, Lux flinched. “Plucking about my old solarium. A mundane task.” Before Lux could question her, she added, “Not all of a healer’s necessities can be bought.” She laughed darkly, pulling a dried leaf from her hair. Twirling the dead thing between her fingers, she tossed it to the floor. “Or maybe they can…”
Lux’s brow furrowed, wondering at the meaning—until she remembered the mayor’s message. “The mayor requests your presence.” She waved the invitation in the air, and Riselda was there in a breath, snatching it from her outstretched fingers.
“Oh, my sweet Bartleby.” Spinning on her heel, a grin stretching her cheeks, she strode to the kitchen, plopping onto a stool. It groaned beneath her. “Hush, or I’ll replace you too.” Frightened into silence, the rickety piece of furniture obeyed.
Riselda traced the elaborate sketches with curling strokes of her long finger, and Lux wondered aloud, “I can’t believe he still requests gifts. What could that man possibly need?”
Her aunt turned toward her, eyes softening. “Oh, it is never about needs with these men. Wants, my dear.” She turned back to the parchment. “What do you have…that he wants?”
Lux glanced around the small room, taking in the bright furnishings in too cramped a space, knick-knacks and a lone painting. “I don’t—”
Riselda tutted. “Not so hard. It’s quite a lot easier than you think.” She glanced at Lux’s shifting form. “Services. Promises. Secrets.” She laughed without humor. “Our mayor certainly knows how to enjoy his parties.”
Lux was severely reconsidering her assent in attending such an event. “Will you go?”
Riselda inhaled the paper, filling her lungs with its scent. “I haven’t decided.” Her eyes sought Lux’s again. “Will you? I assume from your questions that you haven’t attended before.”
Lux shook her head, draining her teacup. “I’ve never had the desire to step within that house again. But now, I wonder—” Cut off as if of their own volition, the words grew heavy, and she couldn’t pull them out. Lux swallowed against her tight throat.
Where did this bout of anxiety rear from? Why couldn’t she tell Riselda her concerns, her frightening theories? Her aunt had been closer to him at one time than his own family if rumor could be believed. She may have heard something or noticed peculiar happenings.
Lux tried again. The words bit into her tongue.
“But now you wish to experience it?” Riselda finished for her. “I can’t imagine it’s much changed. The mayor only lays out the most beautiful banquet, dozens of wines and barrel-aged ciders. The music is lovely, and the dancing…” Riselda grinned devilishly. “With the right clothing and your eyes, you would never be without a partner.”
Lux scoffed. “That’s hardly my priority.”
“Oh, but it should be, Lucena.” Riselda’s stare darkened. “It should be.”
Lux pulled her gaze away. There would be no dancing for her. Her muddled plan was to greet the mayor with one breath, place a ludicrous gift upon the table with the next, and sneak quietly into the shadows.
She couldn’t very well hunt for the mayor’s secrets while dancing. With a muffled laugh, she stretched as she stood, then strode to the door.
“Where are you off to?”
Lux paused. “A walk.”
Riselda’s eyes roved over her face before she smiled. “Fresh air is important. Tell the crow I say hello.”
Lux opened her mouth, then closed it. What could she say anyway? Turning with eyes uncomfortably wide and feeling uncomfortably seen, she ascended the steps.
The crow perched upon the bridge, its interest revealed in the haughty tilt of its head. Twilight neared, and the bird expected her. Lux’s fingers brushed against the familiar stones.
“Riselda says hello, crow.”
The bird cocked its sleek dark head further, studying her. She shook her head. Absurd animal. It hopped closer.
The air thickened, the wind hushed, and Lux drew in a deep breath full of damp grass, old stone and a lone, brave wildflower. Her gaze found that of the forest as feathers brushed her arm. She ran a finger absently along the bird’s head. Twilight .
Tall, dark, and crooked, the trees spiraled up and forward, leaning toward Ghadra as if they could smell the scent of its occupants, and longed for much, much more. Blackened leaves hung still, unmoving, stuck fast to ink-dark branches that twisted in whichever direction they chose. Sometimes, when the fog shifted, Lux could trick herself into seeing a thin branch curl inward. Inward and out again.
Lucena. Lucenaaa.
Lux glowered at the forest, and the crow cawed. Something was changing. Or had changed? So small, she couldn’t understand it, yet so large—
One hand trailed the length of the bridge until the stone fell away to nothing. Until Lux stepped amongst the grass on its opposite side for the first time in her life. Startled, she didn’t remember ever having moved. The air was so still she could feel every breath stretch and unravel around her. Yet leaves rustled through the deepening grey. She blinked against branches curling inward.
A trick of the fog.
A trick.
Lucena.
Tears pricked her eyes. Lux crouched, letting her fingers brush wet blades of grass—grass she’d never touched. It didn’t feel any different, but…shouldn’t it? She pushed to her feet. She stared into the darkness, and that darkness beckoned.
This time, she would see what it had to say.
A frigid breeze gusted from the wood like an exhale, enveloping Lux, piercing exposed skin. Crossing one black sleeve over the other, she stood still, craning her neck. Up and up.
The forest edge. She could touch it if she wanted. Her fingertips dug further into her forearms instead, leaving half-moon imprints along their lengths.
Why was she doing this? What did she hope to find? She didn’t know. But she knew she would enter the wood anyway. A surge of reckless adrenaline warmed her, a torch to her fear, and Lux’s lips twitched into an awful sort of smile, a fragmented chuckle up her throat. Because surely its darkness wasn’t any deeper than that having rooted within her soul so long ago?
No. Surely not.
Dampened by soft moss, Lux stepped, noiseless and imperceptible, through the forest’s edge. The wood breathed around her. The wood breathed her in . Boughs high above appeared to shift toward her scent only to shudder back at her quick glance.
She blew out a silent breath, watched it puff into the gloom.
“You can’t have me, trees. My heart beats still.”
Her admonishment was met with a hiccup in the air. A hidden smile.
Silly girl.
Lux fought against the trickle of fear down her spine. A trickle that threatened to crash over her in debilitating waves. Hunger. Want. Desire . It pulsed from the forest’s center, coating her skin, enticing her further inward, even as her insides turned to ice. Adrenaline’s welcomed flame snuffed out.
A rhythmic creaking met her ears. Soft at first, but only growing in intensity, and Lux swung around to the grassy plain she’d strode across.
A death-cart.
She lunged behind the nearest tree, careful to avoid the barest brush of skin against its rough bark. There, she waited.
The reaper flickered in and out of her vision as he neared. Cloaked and masked, he drove the horse fast across the wood’s edge, into a natural clearing covered in that same thick moss. Yanking back on the reins, the horse tossed its head in irritation as the driver jumped down, pulling the dead by limp arms and dangling legs. He didn’t have a care for them, tossing four bodies into a heaped pile before leaping again into the wagon and forcing the horse to retreat. Back and back, until they hurtled toward Ghadra once more.
Lux clutched at the breath longing to escape her chest, for she didn’t dare allow it. Not now.
Black boils burst and oozed, coating the forest floor, and the wood released another cold exhale filled with a new scent now. Jasmine. Lux stepped away from the tree, craning her neck, peering into the shadows. Any moment now, and—
She stilled.
There, amongst the trees. Something had formed from where there’d been nothing before. It was grey, this something, silent and unmoving, and the wood caught its own icy breath before it. Lux sensed her heart bounding in her chest; she was sure she could hear it too. And if she could hear its beat, what else might?
The figure stood rigid and cloaked, a deep hood hiding the face beneath. Lux whispered a silent plea that it would pass her by.
Another exhale from the living darkness around her, and the wraith glided forward. Did this phantom play a part in the wood’s devouring? Lux shook so badly her teeth rattled. She clenched her jaw tight. If this being were anything like its towering companions, it could sense her presence on much less. But it didn’t turn toward her.
The flash of a long blade winked in the waning light, held tight by pale fingers. The figure crouched among the bodies. Lux couldn’t see what it did, but it worked quickly, and when the knife retreated, she expected it bloodied.
It wasn’t.
The figure rose, and as silent as it came, faded into the darkness.
Lux peered into the treacherous shadows for so long, her eyes threatened to send tears down her cheeks. When the wraith didn’t reappear, she swung her gaze to the bodies. They’d been moved, but only just. Aside from that she could discern little difference.
Yet, there must be. What had been done?
Lux strode forward only to stumble, a protruded root she hadn’t noticed earlier humped and warped at her feet. Her booted foot was wedged tight. She growled at its refusal to budge and, forgetting for only a second, braced a hand upon the tree to free it.
The cold.
It stole the breath from her lungs.
And when frigid fingers wrapped themselves around her own in an unbreakable grip, Lux could only gasp—for her voice was gone. She clawed at the invisible binding. The fingers ignored her and brushed along her wrist, caressing, so cold it burned. Her tears grew rigid on her cheeks.
A trick.
She dragged in a frozen breath; her lips cracked, raw, and with everything in her, she whispered, “It isn’t real. It isn’t real. There’s nothing there. There’s…nothing…there !” She pulled, wrenching her arm at the shoulder.
The fingers. They slid to her forearm.
A silent fissure crept downward along the black trunk. Roots shivered, crawling like monstrous snakes. The soil shifted beneath her stuck-fast feet.
Only a trick.
“No.” A sobbed hitched in her chest, weak and useless. Lux kicked out at the root reaching for her unbound foot. Her boot hardly moved.
The icy grip held her by the upper arm now, her entire limb gone numb in its embrace. The fissure widened with a horrid crack, frost and darkness spilling out in puffed breaths. The root triumphantly gripped her ankle, winding to the knee. Unable to move any longer, Lux stared into the yawning abyss before her.
Lucena.
Her name wafted over her like the scent of rot.
Lucenaaa.
Something broke inside her. Interesting really, as she didn’t think there had been anything left inside to break. Foolish . Foolish to believe it’d been her parents’ soothing voices from the Beyond, floating upon the breeze. Because it was them . All along, it had been death’s own coaxing call.
Darkness curled around her face, cool tendrils stroking her cheeks. Lux glared back, defiant, her blood hot, then cold and dripping into her boots. And though it sounded too alive, too warm, for this place, a warbled shriek filled the air.
Crow—
Dark wings dove from above and into the chasm. Unwavering, a heart met its end.
The fissure snapped closed. Icy fingers retracted. Roots released. And a satisfied shiver swept through the dark leaves that never fell to the forest floor. Lux collapsed, her knees aching and bruised, her head bowed before the tree, and with the shocked eyes of a person embracing death only to be cast back to the living, she finally found the strength to lift her chin. She scanned the wood.
The bodies.
They were gone.