Chapter Ten #2
“It seems he’s not the only one,” Mrs. Jensen said, though there wasn’t any anger in it. “There’s nothing wrong with my tree, is there?”
“No,” Lyssa said sheepishly, looking at her boots.
“And is that why you come here sometimes to stare at the house? You used to live here?”
Lyssa’s cheeks flushed with embarrassment. “Yes.” She couldn’t bring herself to look at Alderic, didn’t want to see the pity in his eyes. “I didn’t realize anyone had noticed me.”
“The bank told us it was a … sad situation, when we bought it.”
“It was,” she said stiffly. Brandy whined, as though he remembered being thrown out into the cold, and she reached down to scratch his ears.
“I am sorry for your misfortune,” Mrs. Jensen said, and although she did look sorry, her voice was stern. “But this is our house now, and we have misfortunes of our own, as you can see. I don’t know what you had hoped to accomplish by coming here, but you need to leave. Now.”
“I understand,” Lyssa said. She used to seethe with hatred for the people who had taken her house, her life, but she wasn’t a child anymore.
She knew her father was the only one to blame for their family’s downfall and all of the horrors that followed.
Mrs. Jensen wasn’t responsible for Lyssa’s situation then, and she didn’t owe Lyssa anything now.
As she had said, she had more important things to worry about.
Lyssa would simply have to find another botanical item that held some significance to her.
“I’ll pay you,” Alderic said, already withdrawing a stack of bank notes from his pocket and pushing it into the woman’s hands. “For your time, and your trouble, and our intrusion upon the sickroom. All we need is a tree branch, and then we will be on our way, and you shall never see us again.”
Mrs. Jensen stared at the wad of money, her expression downright incredulous. “One branch is worth this much to you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Lyssa clenched and unclenched her fingers, resisting the urge to rub her hands over her face in frustration. Lady Bright, woman, why do you care? Just take the money and let us into your yard! But Mrs. Jensen was looking at her expectantly.
She heaved a sigh. “Because this is where I was happiest, as a child,” she said, still avoiding Alderic’s eyes. “I … want to keep a piece of that with me.”
Mrs. Jensen looked stricken, as if she, too, wished she could buy a sliver of former happiness and carry it like a talisman. “All right,” she said. “But be quick about it. You can’t be here when my husband comes home.”
“Thank you.”
The yard was exactly the same as Lyssa remembered it.
The vegetable garden against the back fence, the stone bird bath with the wrought iron bench next to it.
The towering ash tree that cast deep shade over the side of the house in the summer.
Her father had always complained that his office was too dark because of it, and had threatened time and again to cut down the tree to make more light for himself.
But her father was all hot air, and the tree remained.
“Would you like a ladder?” Mrs. Jensen asked.
“No, thank you,” Lyssa said without taking her eyes from the names she and Eddie had carved into the tree trunk all those years ago.
The y in Lyssa’s name was backward. Eddie’s was perfect, of course—he had always been better than her at writing.
She remembered trying to copy the way he held his pencil, how patient he had been when teaching her to form an s.
Their mother had been sick by then, and the nanny had taken on the role of nurse, so it was often just the two of them.
“She’ll only be a moment,” Alderic said. “Let’s wait for her inside, out of the cold. It wouldn’t do for you to get sick.”
Lyssa felt a surge of gratitude for him, for understanding that she wanted to be alone for a moment.
Once he and Mrs. Jensen had gone back into the house, she took off her boots and climbed the tree barefoot, like she had always done as a child, her toes finding footholds instinctively.
When she reached the first branches, she hauled herself up and straddled one of them, reaching out to run her fingers over the bark.
“Hello, old friend,” she said. “It’s been a long time.
” She closed her eyes and let herself feel the breeze on her face before unsheathing the ritual knife she had made years ago at Ragnhild’s instruction—the first thing she had forged on her own, without Honoria’s help, though Honey had been unable to keep from hovering while Lyssa worked.
The blade was curved into a sickle-shape and carved with spells, the handle wrapped with doeskin soaked in Lyssa’s blood.
The blood had mostly flaked off by now, but the magic would remain.
At least, that’s what Ragnhild had told her.
Night was falling quickly now, and the moon was already visible.
A sliver shy of full, just as Alderic had said.
Lyssa inspected the branchlets and twigs around her head, feeling along their lengths in the failing light.
She needed ones that had grown recently enough for them to accept Ragnhild’s magic readily—older branches were stubborn and did not appreciate being cut, whereas twigs didn’t know any better and didn’t much care what they were used for.
They had to be sturdy but not too thick, and free of cracks, splits, or rot.
Finally, she cut off a few suitable twigs and stuffed them in the cloth bag stitched with spells that she kept in one of the pouches on her belt for just this purpose. Then she climbed back down, patting the tree trunk before pulling her boots back on.
When she went back inside, she found Mrs. Jensen weeping, gripping Alderic’s hands in hers.
“Samuel will make me give it back,” she was saying. “He’ll worry what people will think—he won’t even let go of our last servant to save the money we spend on her salary. He says we must keep up appearances. He would rather die than accept charity.”
“He’s not the one who’ll die without it,” Alderic said.
“If he chooses to put his own pride over his child’s life, then he doesn’t deserve either of you.
” He withdrew his hands from hers and squeezed her shoulder.
“Don’t tell him about the money. Take your daughter back to the doctor while your husband is at work, and tell him it was a miracle when she gets better. ”
The woman laughed through her tears and pressed a sodden kiss to his cheek. “Thank you,” she whispered, and ushered them out the door. Brandy trotted demurely behind Lyssa, as though if he behaved well enough now, she might forget that he had disobeyed her earlier.
“I guess we should have led with the money,” Alderic said as they walked up the street toward the wall they had emerged from, one half of his face illuminated by the glow of the street lamps.
“I didn’t want to lead with anything,” she reminded him. “I wanted to sneak in and out without anyone knowing.”
He shoved his hands into his pockets. “Well, now we have the added happy memory of helping someone in dire need. Perhaps the sword will be even more powerful, as a result.” He glanced at her sidelong.
“I never would have guessed that was your childhood home. The way you behave, I would have thought you grew up in a gutter.”
“I grew up there, too,” Lyssa said with a scowl.
Alderic’s brows furrowed. “Really? What happened?”
“Don’t,” she said, stopping so suddenly that Brandy smacked into the back of her legs.
“Don’t what?”
“You don’t need to know anything about me just because we’re stuck gathering ingredients for a magic sword together,” she snapped.
He looked confused. “Maybe I don’t need to know anything about you,” he said, “but I want to.”
“Why?”
He shrugged, looking at a point just beyond her instead of meeting her eyes.
“People tend to come and go so briefly that I have found it best not to form attachments anymore. But it’s a difficult urge to curb—humans are social creatures, after all—and so I have taken up the hobby of studying them, instead.
” Now his gaze found hers. “I have never come across anyone quite like you before. I’m simply curious about the circumstances that led to your formation. ”
A jolt of anger lashed through her. “Am I supposed to be flattered by that? I am not an insect to be pinned under glass and studied!”
“Now there’s a hideous hobby.” He shuddered. “Look, I apologize if I have offended you. If you don’t want to talk about it—”
“I don’t,” she said through gritted teeth. “Not with you. Not with anyone. Ever.”
She stormed away, leaving him struggling to keep up despite the fact that his stride was as long as hers.
When they reached the wall where they had come through into Sunnyside, she took out her chalk.
“I don’t want to linger in the Wood,” she said brusquely.
“A few hours in there can be a whole day out here, and we have two more items to gather before the moon starts waxing again. We’re going to step through the Gate, grab our packs, and turn right back around and go through the arch to wherever we’re getting the water from.
” She frowned. “Where are we getting the water from?”
“Bellgaard,” Alderic said softly.
“Bellgaard?” she asked, getting out her chalk. “I’ve never heard of a place called Bellgaard.”
“It’s the name of an old country estate in the Niadosia Mountains.” He hesitated, then said, “Ragnhild told us to choose somewhere with significance to us or one of the victims. Happy memories as an added bonus.”
“I don’t need to know why you picked it,” Lyssa said, but Alderic curled his hands into fists, as though determined to go on.
“The Beast killed my brother at Bellgaard, the place we were happiest as children.”
It felt like the breath had gone out of her. “You lost your brother?”
“Yes. And now we’re even. A bit of me in exchange for the bit of you that you were forced into giving.
I’m sorry, by the way,” he said. “I made that more difficult for you than it had to be. I should have just done what you said—like I promised I would—and acted as lookout while you went over the fence.”
“Yes, you should have,” she said, but all the heat had gone out of her voice. He had lost his brother, same as she had. Maybe that’s why Ragnhild’s bones had wanted him to come along. They were bonded in a way only those who had lost a sibling could be. Not that Alderic ever needed to know that.
“However, I am not sorry that we were able to help that woman,” he said. His jaw was set, as though he were ready to fight her if she disagreed.
“I’m not sorry about that either,” she said.
Alderic looked surprised, but it was true.
When she was a child, she would have given anything for a handsome stranger to show up at their door and hand them all the money they had needed in order to save her mother.
How could she begrudge Mrs. Jensen that miracle?
Then she frowned with sudden realization. “Wait a minute. How can the Beast have…” The words killed your brother died on her tongue. Thinking them was painful enough, but saying them out loud was unbearable.
She shook herself. Remembered that they weren’t talking about Eddie. Still, she didn’t like the idea of dragging Alderic down into despair with those words, either. “I have a list of all the victims’ names for the past two centuries. There’s no ‘de Laurent’ in any of the records.”
“My parents were very … private people,” Alderic said, the muscles in his jaw working as if it took immense effort to keep his voice so even, so free of emotion.
“The last thing they wanted was for our family’s tragedy to be splashed around for everyone to see.
They paid handsomely to make sure my brother’s death remained quiet. ”
“I see.” Part of her wished she could have done the same, if only to spare herself the pain when an old friend like Dickie mentioned Eddie’s death, tearing her wounds open all over again without meaning to.
At the same time, hiding what she had been through brought its own kind of pain.
“So, where in the Niadosia Mountains is this Bellgaard? Are there any towns nearby? I need to know where I’m going. ”
“The closest one is Silverdell.”
Lyssa shook her head. “We can’t go to Silverdell.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m not welcome there.”
“More faerie-lovers?” Alderic asked.
“Miners. They hate me even more than the Children of the Moonlit Grove do.”
“On principle?”
“Not exactly.” Lyssa winced. “I, er … came across a knocker there a few years ago. Subterranean faeries that miners swear lead them to rich veins and warn them of danger, though they’re just as likely to slit your throat and rob you while your back is turned.
It tried to steal my gear when I was sheltering from a storm, and I killed it.
A week later, there was a cave-in that buried half the townsfolk, and the mine dried up soon after.
The good people of Silverdell blamed me.
If I show my face anywhere near there, there’ll be trouble. ”
Alderic thought for a moment. “What about Reedshollow? It’s a little farther, but not terribly.”
“Reedshollow likes me,” she said with a nod. “I saved them from that redcap. The weather there is horrible this time of year, though—looks like you might actually get to use some of that rain gear you bought.”
He looked so excited that she almost burst out laughing.