Chapter 11
eleven
There is a stench of sulfur on the wind while the carriage traces the long drive of Blackbourne Castle and empties me back in front of the vicarage door. The shadows hound my heels, and my skin thrills at the idea of being caught by Father.
But the house is still when I enter. Not even the ghost of Vicar Thorn to be seen.
The hearth is cold in the kitchen, the light beneath his study door gone out.
Quickly, I take to the creaking stairs and enter my room, throwing myself down onto the bed and releasing all the breath I have kept trapped in my lungs since Ransom left me.
Already, I long to be back at Blackbourne Castle.
I miss the slight touch of Ransom’s fingers, his breath on my cheek.
Even for all his threats, I miss his nearness.
The way he does not shrink away from me but rather is drawn in closer.
As though I am something desired. And I sink into that feeling—being wanted.
I study the water stains on the plaster, tracing the lines with my eyes.
So familiar yet something out of a dream.
Being stuck in this room forever. A reality that might have once been mine but will be mine no longer once I enter the wood.
I have half a mind to draw out the bell and ring it, my eyes fixed on the corner, waiting with bated breath for Bram to appear like wisps of smoke.
But I don’t and the bell settles between the folds of its wrappings like river silt as I wait.
Wait because I am a coward. I couldn’t even make a promise to Bram. Two faces beneath one hood, he said. Two souls for one. But now I have said yes to Ransom, added another to the number. Two faces for what? Bloody sockets, a sucked-out soul, Death in the palm of my hands?
But Ransom has offered me a way out. A salvation of sorts. If I become Lady Black, Father will not be able to send me away, and instead, I will remain close enough to regain his love with the help of my mother.
I roll over in my bed, the scratch of the patchwork familiar on my cheek. It used to smell like Mother: garden dirt, fresh rain, and lemon blossoms in spring. But now it’s nothing more than hollow air and the distant catch of old blood. I push myself up.
No more blood. No more death.
Tomorrow night, I will go through the wood.
The next day passes like custard through a sieve. The village lies silent, with chill wind. The bridge over the water is still; no one coming or going. Too many dead women. I know they think it is me, the killer amongst them. A wolf in sheep’s clothing.
And who is to say they are wrong? Where do I truly go when my eyes swarm black? This ever-waking wrongness? If it is true, whatever everyone believes, that I am cursed by unholy shadow, then who is to say I am not the one with blood on my hands?
Erybrus only seeks to corrupt and steal, to draw souls away from Ithrandril. And maybe I am for Erybrus. Perhaps, when Mother died, a Reaper swept in for her soul and corroded mine in the process. Maybe I will finally learn the truth of the illness coursing through my veins.
I stretch my hands in my lap, the cuts softening from angry red to primrose pink.
There is only one way to find out, really.
Enter the wood. Make a devil’s deal for Ransom’s mother, for my own.
Find Bram and bring him home. He deserves as much after I turned my back on him.
I spend the day pacing my floor, swearing at each creak of the boards, and when night finally does come, the air smells of snow. From my window, I watch Farmer Whitley’s wagon rumble across the bridge, lantern swinging, while he carries the last remaining crop for market in the morning.
I remember market days. The spritz of ripe orange flesh against my teeth, the comforting scent of roasting chestnuts, spiced rye cakes.
Mother used to take me when she went to sell her flowers and tinctures.
I remember seeing Bram there once, his little sisters trailing like goslings behind him, and I smile at the memory.
And then it is replaced by something else. A shadow approaches the tree line from across the river.
Ransom’s voice is silk in my head, his hands on my waist like winter wind.
I grind my teeth, jaw cracking. We enter the wood tonight.
But I am not doing this for Ransom, for his father’s obsession with death, for the wreckage and ruin that has become Blackbourne Castle.
I am doing this for myself. For my family.
For the mother I lost too soon and the father who has forgotten how to love me.
I look at a portrait above my small mantle. Mother’s lips like rosebuds, a gold locket for Ithrandril hanging from her throat. Father’s steel-gray eyes.
For them. Everything for them. To stitch my family back together, soul by soul, even if it means stealing two additional lives back from the gods.
The light of the moon is cool on my face, and I press the glass open, welcoming the night.
It greets me with the cold scent of frost, the rot of apples down in the orchards, the leaves falling from the trees like flecks of gold in the moonlight.
I take a deep breath of it all, letting it fill my lungs near bursting.
My door erupts, and my heart turns double in my chest.
Father stands in the frame, a candle wicking below his face, hollowing out the sallow shadows of his cheeks.
“Close your window.” His voice is hard and cold.
I finger the bell, toying with the idea of ringing it right here and now, summoning Bram and showing Father the power I wield. This power of life and death. But I don’t. I listen to the careful beats of my heart and smile.
“I’m sorry if the chill disturbed you. I was only—”
“I do not care for your excuses, Adelaide. I said, close the window.” His words are sharp now, metal licked over by a whetstone.
But mine are the edge of beaten brass.
“Ithrandril is good to those who wait.” The Blessed Scripture spins from my lips like mud from a wheel.
I watch in satisfaction while his lips part, shock veiling his eyes.
“And you have waited long enough, have you not, Father?”
“What are you talking about, child?”
“Ever since Mother died, you have wanted me gone. But you couldn’t.
The vicar, send away his own child? Heaven forbid it.
So, you spoke of my evils, my weaknesses.
” My hand curls to my throat, just to feel my heart.
“The town believes you now. She’s a monster, you know?
The one responsible for all the killings.
That’s what they say, isn’t it? Down in the village? What the Mayor himself believes?”
Father flinches, steps closer, but my hand is already on the windowsill, reaching for the frame, the slate tiles.
“Adelaide, I know you are not—”
“You don’t have to wait any longer, Father. The truth will set you free, will it not? And the truth is—” My words stick in my throat, turning to hot gobs of paste. I blink back tears. “The truth is, I’m going to fix us. I’m going to set this all to rights.”
Before he can stop me, before I can turn away from this disastrous plan, I leap for the windowsill and crash out against the tiles. They crack beneath my boots, and the cold air rams into me like a thousand iron nails.
Father dashes across the room, my name on his lips, but he is too late. Already, I am hurtling toward my mother’s forgotten garden beds. The wind blows at my skirts, and I hold tight to the bell while I slip into the night.
For family. To piece us back together.
Three souls will make me Death itself.
Ransom is standing near the tree line while Father’s cries hound my heels. His stance is nonchalant, shoulders tipped back against the silver moonlight, but he straightens when he sees me. I fumble the bell from my pocket, sweat already freezing on my forehead, heart racing.
Ransom’s brows lift. “Not the quiet escape you were hoping for?”
“Shut up.”
I push him in front of me and glance behind us. Father is through the kitchen door now, the candle guttering in his hand. He bellows my name. In one fluid motion, I hold the bell aloft.
“What the hell am I supposed to do?”
“Ring it.”
There is no time for arguing, even though the command seems foolish. Too simple. Father’s footfalls are crisp on the frost outside. My mouth sours with panic.
Ransom’s fingers sink into my arm, sharp as steel. In the corner of my eye, I see a wisp of smoke. Blinding white against the darkness. The souls are already here.
Father screams my name, over and over. A bloody, panicked cry. My fingers shake.
Let him wake the village. Let them all watch the miracle about to occur. The vicar’s daughter, the woman who wields the power of life and death, all at the ring of a bell.
Ransom’s fingers brush over mine, sending cinnamon sparking up my skin. My palms skim with sweat.
Father is near the riverbank now. So close, so close.
“Thorn.” Ransom’s voice is thin at my neck, pricking the little hairs.
“I know,” I hiss. “I’m working on it.”
There will be a price for this, I know it.
And I’m terrified what that price will be.
I can’t think about what I will leave behind, who I might become if I ring the bell.
Enter into this bargain of blood and bone and souls stolen.
Damnation tastes bitter in my mouth. Images of tail-swallowing snakes drawn in blood come into my mind.
Ransom’s father holding communion with ghosts—demons. Erybrus laying claim to my own soul.
I am painfully aware that ringing the bell is a place I may never come back from. But it is too late for that now. The wood towers above us, seems to shiver with anticipation.
Come inside. Taste what it’s like to feel death.
Father’s boots squelch in the river muck, splash into the water. His silver eyes glint in the candlelight.
“Adelaide!” he roars, his face hardening to glass when he notices the bell in my hand.
Faces beneath a hood. One, a fool. Two, a thief. Three, a Reaper of Erybrus.
I turn back to the quivering trees, the white smoke, the dark nothingness of it all laughing in my face.
“Ring it.” There is an urgency to Ransom’s voice matching the untethered beating to my own heart.
But I do as I am told.
I lift the bell and give it one, gentle ring.
The note fills the air like honey. Like the first crisp call of birdsong in autumn. It cascades around my ears, filling and clearing them all at the same time. My father’s cries fade to silence while the note swells.
And then the trees seem to grow. Reaching up, up, up, turning silver, sharp, and almost liquid in the moonlight. The two closest to us part, and a path appears. Gravel white as snow.
Ransom grabs my hand when red light pours against us, his mouth a grim line. “Come on.”
My name is a scream on Father’s lips, but I don’t turn back. I move forward, skin swimming crimson when I leave the world of the living behind.
Into the rowan wood.