Chapter 29 #2
“Yes, child.” She nodded, leaning against the pitch of the hut. “You would.”
“Are you me?” I breathed, terrified, frozen.
“I am you and you are me and I am Hecate and Hecate is you. We are not the same person, the same magic even, but we are the three faces. Maiden, Mother, and Crone.”
“How?” I breathed. But I already knew. “That place between the worlds.”
She nodded. “If you manage to survive him, you will learn that all worlds have their own time. You will call Hecate and she will answer. You will find a maiden witch who believes she is cursed and frustrate her about mushrooms, just as I have with you.”
“What if I cannot survive?”
“Then another maiden will become us.”
“I haven’t been able to find that place anymore.”
“It’s still there,” she said. “It’s been there all along. Go to the border. Remember, I’ve been telling you that you must mind your borders.”
“But what do I do?” I pleaded.
“You must live,” she said. “The time for learning has passed. The reaping has come. But you must live, young one. Before you can save anyone, you must save yourself.”
THE FOREST WAS QUIET ON MY RETURN, NIGHT CREEPING slowly over the far mountain ridges.
The smell of frost was in the air, and I stepped into to the chateau just as Renaud’s horse sounded in the courtyard.
My heart raced at the familiar ring of his stallions’ hooves, and I darted through my little stone gate, slipped off my shoes, and immediately tossed them behind a tapestry.
I did not want him to discover I’d gone into the wood.
Thankfully, I had left a basket of a few herbs I’d collected before the frost at the door and threw them on my arm. He would not question me if he thought I’d only been in the garden. Still, I crept up toward my room, hoping that I might escape his notice altogether.
But he met me in the hall and his gaze flicked over me. “Did you go into the forest?”
“I was in the garden,” I said, showing him my basket. Perhaps too hastily; his gaze narrowed in suspicion.
I didn’t understand why I felt like I had done something wrong. I hadn’t. He had never forbidden me from going, only told me it was dangerous, only encouraged me not to.
His expression was unreadable, but he didn’t ask me anymore, only kept walking. After a moment he called back over his shoulder. “Go clean yourself up.”
Feeling like a chastised child, I turned and headed for my room.
I made sure to wash all the forest earth and sweat off me and dress carefully in the shift and woolen hose laid out for me.
There was still light left in the clear sky, that chilled pink-tinged autumn light, and I ran down the hall to catch him before sunset.
But when I tried Renaud’s door, it was locked. I slunk back to my room, unsettled.
No matter how many times I proved myself and he showed me favor, I could never be certain of his patience with me.
It still felt as if any moment he might throw me out.
As if all this had only been a test—the one he swore I could not pass.
I paced before the fire, my arms tight around myself as night fell over the chateau.
My ears kept straining, tilted toward the door.
My gaze kept falling to the giant’s lantern on the mantel, as if it were the hourglass from my arrival.
I was waiting for something—Dacia to scream again, the house to trick me, Death to come in my door and tell me I had passed … and then suddenly, I stopped.
The curse marks. The other place where I’d seen them—I remembered now. They were on the hourglass of my test.
I WAS STILL WIDE AWAKE AS THE SKY LIGHTENED TO THE BLUE of coming day, as the sun broke the very edge of the horizon.
The night had been peaceful—no screams, no nightmares—but I was in turmoil.
I needed to find out what that curse meant, and I could do nothing until Renaud left.
As soon as I felt it was light enough, I grabbed my basket from the day before and crept out to the garden.
I had to work quickly. Before Renaud woke and came to find me.
I let my mind settle into my memories of Dacia.
They were worn and warm, like a favored dress.
The light she brought when she’d stepped out of the crowd of girls to take me under her wing.
The first time she touched me, her hand on mine.
The lily and sweat smell of her skin, the first time she kissed me …
I thought of her and gathered rosemary and stole back into the house, shivering. Racing the rising sun, I sat by the fire and braided the sprigs.
The nuns would have called it blasphemy, but when I reached for words to give shape to the spell, it was my years at the convent that answered.
The verse shaped itself so easily into a spell it was almost as if it were made for it.
Dominus custodit te Dominus protectio tua super manum dexteram tuam.
My fingers twisted and threaded. Per diem sol non uret te neque luna per noctem.
I wound the braid into a ring. Dominus custodit te ab omni malo custodiat animam tuam Dominus.
I got a needle and thread and sewed the spell tight.
Dominus custodiat introitum tuum et exitum tuum ex hoc nunc et usque in saeculum.
God will protect you on your journeys—whether going or coming—from now until forever from now. I finished the ring only when the spell was finished, biting off the thread and the spell both just as the sun rose over the edge of the forest.
Once I got the ring to Dacia to keep her safe, I could find the origin of the curse whose roots spread from the foundation of the chateau to the foundation of my life.