Chapter 10 #2
Silas lurked at the doorway, dressed down since the last few appearances and more importantly—not covered in blood.
His simple blouse showed off the subtle tanned skin underneath the thin fabric, and midnight trousers accentuated his lean figure.
Loose strands of his hair hung around his mask.
The black straps tight around his head did little to hide the faint scar—and his annoyance.
It was broad daylight, and he wasn’t sleeping in a coffin. Just what was this man?
“I don’t think I told you that you could rifle through my possessions, Little Dove.”
“Since when did reading become a crime?” I retorted.
I closed the book, cradling it into the crook of my arm.
“You did give me free rein to explore unless you meant anywhere else but here.” I took out another book, barely skimming the cover of it, and settled in with the collection of books in his chair.
I was surprised to see pictures of plants staring back at me.
“You decided to read up on plants, hm.” Silas leaned over me, amusement high upon his brow. He placed a hand onto my shoulder, jolting such fleeting images flashing in front of me.
Grass. A large oak tree. A boy with raven hair.
Don’t you wish you could be anyone else?
I shifted in the chair, images disappearing as fast as they had appeared. “I wanted to learn a few remedies.” I drew out the handkerchief, letting the tickle in my lungs die on the pristine cloth. I rubbed my chest, avoiding the scrutiny in his pale gaze.
Silas crossed the room, propping a leg up over the arm of the chair across from me.
“I am guessing you are stubborn and did not drink the vial I gave you,” he said.
I raised a brow, slinking down into the cushion with the book. “So, should I have drunk the mysterious liquid and died then—is that it?”
Since Ebony brought the vial, I had not looked at it since stashing it in the drawer. I don’t care if it guarantees me a cure to my illness because I did not trust him enough to consume it. For all I know, Castle Briar wanted to kill me, and I wouldn’t let it.
“What is it that you so graciously want to drink? Herbal medicine? Blood from a sacred cow? Perhaps a crushed up red beetle?” I asked.
“My, do we have quite the imagination.” He laughed. “No, it’s none of those.”
“Then, what is it? Why should I trust it?”
Silas’s smiled thinned. “I am death, as you have mentioned. Why should you trust death?”
Having enough of his lousy company, I gathered the books in one hand and my skirt with another, taking myself away from this man—and the impure thoughts plaguing me. Quick movements flashed beyond the course of my vision, and I collided with Silas, who blocked my path out.
“I’m trying to help. You should be grateful,” he said.
“I don’t need it,” I hissed.
I strode past him, ignoring my own body’s protest of the electrifying thrill and the unrelenting dread dancing upon my skin.
Lungs grating from the dust, I buckled over, the metallic cough coming out of nowhere.
Books scattered across the hallway, and I gasped for air and fumbled for my handkerchief.
Silas played coy. “Sounds like you have this handled, then.”
I glared back.
Silas leaned against the doorframe with a smirk, as if he was enjoying the show. The slow death I was consumed by.
I picked up the books, my gaze refocusing on the plant-covered one.
“Yes, no need for your remedy or whatever. I am perfectly able to find my own solution without the use of you. Thank you. Now, if you please, I’d like to read in peace.” I gathered my skirt and walked off.
When I reached my room, I spun to see Silas bowing to me. “Very well, your grace. Whatever suits your fancy, but sooner or later, herbs are only going to do so much to prevent your death.”
I spat, “I’d rather die than drink anything from you!” I slammed the door, tossing the books onto the bed, and sank into the soft mattress, groaning. Once the pain in my chest subsided and the heat upon my cheeks had cooled, I sat up and inventoried the books.
I propped an elbow and flipped through the herbalism book, soaking up the tiny paragraphs about various plants and their uses.
The images of the hand-painted herbs along the yellow page appeared to be delicately done with fine detail.
I shook my head, reading the same paragraph over and over as my vision blurred.
I slammed it closed, another tickle in my throat creeping up, bubbling, then inflating into a cough.
How long can I last?
The longer I was alive, the more exhausted I became. Lungs ached to breathe normally, and my body continuously strained against the efforts as I grew weaker with each passing day on this Earth. I lay against the bed, heavy eyelids betraying me as I curled up among the downy comforter.
I wanted to remember a time when the cough wasn’t there. Where the shame of scrubbing or hiding the blood from others did not fill my ever-waking thoughts. Most of all, I wanted to remember a time when I wasn’t so scared of dying.
I drifted off, unable to cling on to wakefulness, aware I had not put the armoire against the door. Truthfully, it wouldn’t stop Silas—not even a little—from barging in. I was defenseless in this castle, and he easily could take my life if he so wished.
My thoughts drifted to the vial and the mysterious contents its glass walls harbored.
Why was he persistent in trying to get me to drink that?
If it is that simple to be cured, what would be the catch?
As sleep came, I thought of the boy from the vision standing among the summer sweet grass as the sun’s warm, bright rays sweeps across his skin and mine.
In another life, don’t you wish we were different?
Finding Ayla’s home did not take me as long as I had initially thought.
Taking the path on the outskirts of the town, I came across the little cottage.
The babbling brook’s crystal-clear water funneled into a large wheel appeared to power the grinding machines inside.
The yard of the house was covered with tulips of reds and yellows in full bloom despite the deepening chill of autumn.
I clutched my wrap and knocked.
The door swung open, Ayla barreling out. “You came!” she screeched, hugging me tight enough my lungs nearly ended up on the back of her dress. “Come in, come in. Do you want some tea? I have a kettle on.” She ushered me inside the cozy, quaint space.
The inside was considerably small, with a long table taking up the majority of the room filled with herbs and spices.
Its aroma permeated as if I were standing in the exotic stall at the market on a crisp morning.
A fire burned in a brick laid over, and flames licked at the iron kettle suspended above.
Various herbs hung over a caged window, the sun baking them as a rainbow stream through spinning stained glass cylinders.
The windmill I saw outside spun into a makeshift hydraulic press, cogs turning as the metal grinded behind a closed door.
The floor creaked as I stepped inside. I was struck with a memory of Miriam and me playing hide-and-seek when we were children.
I had gotten trapped in the attic for sometime as Miriam sought me out, only to give up halfway.
Miriam never told me the game was over and had forgotten about me for several hours.
“I’m sorry for the mess,” Ayla said, brushing aside herbs on her table. “I was not really prepared to have company over so soon, and I was in the middle of drying some herbs.” Ayla swept dried herbs into an infuser.
Honey and lavender steam floated up from two mugs, the scent permeating the spiced air as she poured hot water.
I took a cup, and the steam blasted my face with warmth. “This smells wonderful.” I sipped, the sweetness and softness of the lavender easing my tight body as I let out a breath of relief.
I wandered to Ayla’s dainty hands wrapped around her mug to a silver band adorned with blue jewels. The ring was on her right ring finger, which made me think she was married and shared her little cottage with someone.
I tried not to think of the other option that may be the truth to the matter.
“Your ring is gorgeous,” I said.
Ayla stretched out her hand, the ring glittering.
“Thank you. I know what you are thinking. I am married and such.” She took a small sip from her mug, a perfect precursory pause.
“It was a family heirloom once upon a time ago. I was engaged, but it didn’t end well, so I wear it to remind me what I have lost and what I must gain. ”
I shifted the mug, thinking about the sentiment. I wiggled my finger where my own ring lay. I wore it out of fear, unsure of what Silas would do if he found I refused to wear it. “You must have had a pretty rough life, then?”
“It’s not all bad. Just today, I was in the middle of filling an order for a family.
The mother was blessed with a child in autumn’s cycle who has become sickly in recent months.
The family is worried that the child won’t survive to see its first-year mark.
I suspect cholera, as the majority of this town has had it in some form or another.
But even then, death haunts this town as much as the fog sticks.
” As she sipped her tea indignantly, her eyebrows scrunched in focus as she stared into the cup.
“I fear my skill may not be enough, especially if the monster on the hill still terrorized us.”
I perked my ears. “Actually, that is part of my reason why I came here today. What do you know of the monster? Is there a way to kill it?”
Ayla clicked her band against the ceramic mug, the soft ting mixed in with the soft grinding of several of the machines in her space.
She brushed a strand away from her face.
“There is a legend, one I am inclined to believe. There is an ancient ash tree that is said to have mystical properties to ward off the supernatural and especially of the night-walking kind.”
I picked at the bed of my nail, stabbing my fingernails into the bed and letting the blood and pain be a reminder of the nightmare I was to endure. “Where does one find the ash tree?”
Ayla stood, collecting the mugs and depositing them into the sink. “The tree no longer exists. It burned down about the same time the castle came to be.”
“Which means that this Death Incarnate will continue to prey on people.” I sighed, hanging my head in my hands.
The crushing weight of the world kept building on my shoulders. I kept waiting for it to falter and collapse in the same way that my hope had.
The soft gargled water coming from the sink filled the space. Fire crackled from the fireplace as Ayla hummed a tune eerily and hauntingly beautiful.
I sat there and listened, the melody familiar to one that reminded me of home.
“What am I going to do? There’s no hope of killing this man,” I whispered into the hopeless void.
I wanted freedom from both death that plagued my lungs and the death I was living with who, in one split second, could drain my life from me. I wanted to see the world in its beauty and push myself to the limit without cause or worry about funds.
I wanted a life.
“Not necessarily.” Ayla strode over to the counter and dove into the cupboards. Moments later, she tossed me a sachet. “Go ahead, open it.”
I undid the straps to see gray ash. “This is . . .”
“The remaining ash from the ash tree that was burned,” she said.
“How did you even get it?”
“Not easily. That is what I’ll say about it. Sprinkle the ash onto a blade and shove it deep into his chest. That should kill him.”
“Should?” I closed the sachet, skeptical. “I don’t know this is—”
Blood gargled from my throat, and I hacked it up onto the table, blushing in shame.
“My guess is this is not the first attack you’ve had.” Ayla scooted a napkin my way, and I murmured a thanks, cleaning up the mess.
I nodded. “The doctors don’t have any idea what it is. At first, they assumed it was consumption, but as it progressed, my symptoms deviated with the same prognosis. I’m not expected to last the year.”
Ayla took the napkin and tossed it into the fireplace. The fabric disappeared in mere moments, the same way I would not if I were to go into this plan.
“I might just have the thing to at least ease the coughing spells.”
Ayla flew to the countertop filled with her dry herbs, arms moving in time to an invisible beat as she mixed and ground.
She pushed up the sleeves of her dress, then dumped the mixture from the mortar into a sachet.
With her movements precise, it was memorizing to watch as she flew across the small space.
She handed another satchel to me, the heady scent coming from the bag.
“Take a sprinkle of this when there is a cough attack. It’s not a cure-all, but it should ease the symptoms more so than whatever your doctor had been prescribing.
I have seen this type of disease before, the kind that is ravishing your body.
Unfortunately, there are not a lot of remedies. ”
I held the black wool satchel, a few thoughts coming to mind on the life I wanted to cultivate. “Do you mind if I come back—if I came back to learn from you until I—until I . . .”
She nodded, drumming her nails against the wood of the table. “Yes, I think I like that very much.”
I rubbed my thumbs against the two satchels. The ash satchel’s bright outer shell hid the true danger it could inflict.
“How much of the ash is needed onto a blade?”
Ayla’s smile faltered. “A sprinkle upon a silver blade should do the trick. With that said, you only have one shot to kill him.”
I almost did not want to know the answer to the question weighing on my mind since walking into the cottage.
“And if I don’t?” I stuffed the satchels into my dress pocket, preparing to leave.
Ayla walked me to the door, her voice a soft whisper. “Let us hope that it does not come to that.”