xxiii. In which Charlotte and Elspeth escape a muddy ending
They found the shovel at the foot of a tree.
The tree drooped, veined in black and dripping. The shovel’s tip was corroded, but Charlotte recognized it nonetheless; it
had come from her garden shed.
She stumbled from the gig in a daze.
“Lottie,” Elspeth said, but Charlotte grabbed the shovel.
“Arthur?”
The forest was silent.
“Arthur!”
Charlotte reached for the tree, like it might provide a clue to where her brother had gone, but Elspeth’s fingers closed around
her wrist. She yanked Charlotte back. The shovel clanged on the ground.
“For the love of God,” Elspeth said, “don’t touch it.”
Charlotte lunged at the shovel, but Elspeth held her back. “It’s ours.”
“What’re you on about?”
“The shovel. It’s ours.” Charlotte tried and failed to wrestle free. “From our shed. Arthur took it with him. To unstick the
cart, he said.”
She swallowed.
“The wheel tracks end here, don’t you see? And here’s our shovel at the foot of this tree.”
Elspeth’s grip didn’t loosen until Charlotte stopped fighting her. “Then we know he passed by, don’t we? Leave it, Lottie,
there’s a good lass.”
Silly to cry over a shovel, but Charlotte wanted to. She wanted to cry at the nickname, too. It reminded her so much of Arthur
because he was the only one left who called her that.
She wiped her eyes and left the shovel, but she wouldn’t let them move on until she’d dug the vial of black ooze from her
medical bag. To her relief, the glass was undamaged. The shovel’s corroded tip had made her worry the vial might’ve been damaged,
too, but it seemed the ooze had different effects on different materials.
By the time she’d clambered back into the gig, the path had vanished. Charlotte gasped, but Elspeth shrugged.
“Happens. Told you. S’all right. We’ve got the acorn.”
“That might help if we were going to the first tree. I don’t see how it’ll help us find the Lord of the Wood.”
Elspeth smiled crookedly. That was the only way she’d smiled since yesterday, crookedly. Charlotte missed the easy grin she’d
worn back in Seacliff.
“Never you mind. It’ll save us getting lost, and that’s all you need bother about.”
Not long after that, the temperature dropped, cold and sharp. Unseasonable frost limned the foliage around them. Elspeth whistled,
wrapping her cloak around herself.
Charlotte had no cloak. She had an old coat that would have protected her from an autumn chill but not the sudden winter that
had befallen. The cold knifed into her.
Ahead of them, a fox slunk across the path. Charlotte shuddered, drawing closer to Elspeth. The fox’s skull showed through its fur.
Spooked by the forest, Charlotte wanted to believe she was imagining it, but she remembered Elspeth’s description of the sparrowhawk
that had attacked her. The fox gazed at them with eyes blank and black. It should’ve been more skittish, Charlotte thought.
The fox regarded them then slunk onward, vanishing into the underbrush.
Elspeth shook her head and clucked at the mule. His ears twitched as they continued onward.
Realizing how close she’d gotten to Elspeth, Charlotte shifted away. She missed the warmth immediately. Her fingers were stiff,
her joints aching, but it was hard to say, just now, what bothered her more: the pain or the memory of the fox’s skull showing
through its fur. She curled in on herself, shivering.
Wordlessly, Elspeth removed her cloak and offered it to Charlotte.
Charlotte hesitated. “You’ll be cold.”
“Not as cold as you, I reckon.”
Charlotte took the cloak gratefully. She meant to say thank you, but what came out was, “Why is it so cold?”
Elspeth shrugged but offered no answer.
Charlotte curled away from her. Elspeth’s kindness made her burn with shame. They’d hardly spoken a word to each other after
her outburst yesterday, but Elspeth had built a fire, cooked them supper, and seen that Charlotte was comfortable when they’d
bedded down for the night.
Charlotte hadn’t even known what Elspeth was going to say.
How she thought they were alike. It could’ve been anything, not that Charlotte could think of many ways they were similar and fewer still that might be signaled by the giving of a cap.
But she’d thought so much lately of feelings she’d suppressed for decades that she’d jumped to conclusions.
She snuggled into the cloak, squeezing her eyes shut. “I’m sorry.”
“What for?”
“For . . . for yesterday. For . . .”
She sputtered into silence. Elspeth shrugged again, but her brow puckered.
Then she straightened, tense as a bowstring. “Maggie?”
Charlotte glanced at her. “What?”
Elspeth’s dark eyes snapped, but she spoke in a hushed voice. “It’s Maggie.”
Charlotte’s heart sank. She tried not to picture what Maggie McIntire might look like, grown over like Brigid. “I’m—”
Elspeth slapped the driving lines with a laugh. “Maggie!”
Charlotte clutched at the seat. “What—”
“Just there.” Elspeth pointed through the gloom. “Don’t you see her?”
Charlotte squinted. Through the trees, a figure in white materialized. It looked in their direction, or appeared to. At this
distance, in the frigid gloom, it seemed to have no face.
“Maggie,” Elspeth called. “Christ. Couldn’t’ve come home and eased us afore you come back out here?”
“Elspeth,” Charlotte said, “I don’t think that’s Maggie.”
“’Course it is. Always did like to wander the forest, never mind how dangerous it’s got.”
Elspeth urged the mule faster. Charlotte shrank into her seat. Facial features failed to materialize as they approached.
Here I am, a voice seemed to say, but the figure had no mouth with which to say it. The voice was layered; Charlotte jolted upright,
certain she’d heard Arthur’s tones.
The trees were too tight for the gig. Impatient, Elspeth yanked the mule to a stop, vaulted from her seat, and sprinted toward the figure.
“Maggie!”
“Elspeth, don’t.”
Charlotte shrugged off the cloak and clambered down. She slipped, feet hitting the ground too hard. Pain spiked up her shins
and jolted her knees.
The figure vanished.
Elspeth skidded to a stop. “Maggie?”
An unseen bird called overhead.
“Elspeth,” Charlotte said through gritted teeth. “Come back to the gig.”
“But—” Elspeth’s fingers twisted in her shirt. “I saw Maggie. I swear I saw her.”
“It was a trick. The forest trying to take you. Come back to the gig before it succeeds.”
Elspeth let out a breath, but when she tried to turn back, she didn’t move.
“Lottie?”
Charlotte retrieved her cane and limped as fast as she could toward Elspeth, gritting her teeth so hard her jaw ached.
“Lottie!”
“I’m coming.” Charlotte meant to sound soothing but didn’t manage it. “Hold on. What’s—”
Through the undergrowth, she saw: Mud had Elspeth ankle-deep. It dragged her deeper before Charlotte’s eyes. It was up to
her shins. Her knees. The muddy pit bubbled like boiling water. The harder she struggled, the faster she sank.
Fingers crept from the mud, all in different states of decay. Mummified, some of them, others half rotted or skeletal.
Elspeth lunged for a nearby branch, but it broke under her weight. She thrashed, grasping for any vine, bough, or stone she
could see, all out of reach.
“Lottie,” she said, sounding panicked.
Charlotte had never expected her to panic, but those fingers, dozens of them, grasped at her, pulling her deeper. She was
up to her hips in mud, twisting away from the fingers all around.
Charlotte swallowed but said firmly, “Stop struggling. You’re making it worse.”
“Sure, it was a picnic before,” Elspeth ground out, but she did as she was told. Her fists clenched and unclenched at her
sides. The fingers curled around her wrists. She wrenched away. “Help me!”
Charlotte nodded, hoping she could pull Elspeth free despite the sucking mud, the dead fingers, though every movement ached.
She held her cane out but hunched, almost dropping it, before it had gone far from the ground. All right. Not her cane. A
branch—there were fallen branches all around. She picked one up, but it was so heavy she could barely lift it.
She wanted to cry. Six months ago, she might’ve been able to do something about this. She blinked back angry tears.
Think, she told herself. The mule. The mule could pull Elspeth free.
“Stay here,” she said, hurrying back to the gig.
“Oh, aye, I was just about to run off,” Elspeth snarled.
Charlotte’s fingers were so stiff they hurt, but she fumbled with the gig’s traces until they’d been loosed. She led the mule
by the bridle back to Elspeth. It tossed its head, but Charlotte tugged it forward.
“Come on.”
Elspeth was waist-deep now, panting. The fingers had vanished, but mud crept up her stomach and chest like it was alive. It
turned aside when it reached the silver acorn on its chain, creeping around Elspeth’s ribs like bands instead.
Charlotte flung the traces toward her. “Catch hold of these.”
Elspeth lunged, grabbed them. She nodded, pale and shaking.
“Hurry. They’re still grabbing at me.”
Charlotte slapped the mule’s rump. The mule threw itself forward.
The traces slipped from Elspeth’s grasp. Gasping, she looped them around her hands.
“It’s all right,” Charlotte said. This was just like a medical emergency, she told herself, even though it was nothing like
a medical emergency at all.
A hand crawled from the mud and grasped the hem of her skirt. She yelped, beating the hand off with her cane.
“Leave go,” Elspeth said through gritted teeth. “No point both of us getting pulled under.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Charlotte snapped. “If you let go of those lines, I’ll kill you myself.”
Elspeth scowled but redoubled her grip, grunting and trying to twist free. Charlotte grabbed the mule’s bridle. She kept whacking
her shoes with her cane, felt that hand grabbing her again, though she was now out of reach.
Slowly, they pulled Elspeth free. Her waist appeared. Her hips. Her thighs. Her knees. Fingers came with her, grasping at
her ankles. She kicked them. A nasty crack, and the fingers retreated.
With a horrible sucking sound, the mud released her. She went flying, crashing into the undergrowth.