Chapter 21 The Metal Box #2
The posting inn had a lived-in shabbiness, but the floors were swept clean and the fire roared.
The innkeeper’s wife met them at reception—a plump lady who spoke in hushed tones, apologizing that her husband was away on business, but promising she would do everything to ensure her guests’ comfort.
She told them that a few other attendees of the “master’s hunt” were also staying at the inn.
Leena was not eager to make those guests’ acquaintance and hurried past the parlor.
By the time they had settled in, eaten dinner, then retired to their rooms, Leena was exhausted, and she could think of nothing except burrowing into her bed and sleeping until the fatigue left her body.
Her bags had been brought up, and the first thing she searched for was her pouch filled with salt.
“No, no, no,” she moaned, her heart sinking when she realized she’d stupidly forgotten her precious pouch at the previous inn.
With the heavy taxes on exports from Algaraa, the amount of salt Leena needed wasn’t cheap and she knew she couldn’t ask the innkeeper’s wife for such an amount.
Leena herself had to save for months to afford it, and every morning she carefully scooped every grain of salt she could collect back into the pouch.
All the while, she dreaded the day she’d have to replenish it.
During those times when she had no choice but to purchase some more from the market, both Leena and Rami had to live off stale bread and watery milk for at least a week to make up the excess.
She’d have to wait until they reached Weavingshaw the next day to procure some more—she was sure such a cost would mean nothing to Mr. Martin, who lived and dined in such a grand house.
Leena sat on the edge of her bed and buried her face in her hands, so weary she could barely lift her head. It would mean having to spend a night entirely awake, fending off ghosts trying to possess her body and do their bidding. Already she had to force her eyelids open.
Theodore Daye hadn’t made an appearance since early morning, so she would not be able to rely on him to guard her through the night. Nor could she ask Rami to help keep vigil; he was just now starting to have unbroken sleep as his pain eased.
She must fight her own battles tonight.
When Leena finally did look up, she was not surprised to see a ghost waiting impatiently to be acknowledged.
Leena reared back in shock when she peered more closely at the ghost.
A drowned woman stood before her.
Leena recognized her immediately—the vacant eyes, the dripping clothes, the long wet hair.
Lord Hargreaves’s wife.
Leena could not believe that the ghost had found her so soon, before she had even stepped foot onto Weavingshaw land. Leena’s eyes swerved to the dim outline of the clock and saw the hand strike midnight. Abruptly, the ghost’s outline seemed firmer, a trace of color bleeding through her skin.
The lady beckoned for Leena to follow her away from the warmth of the inn and into the dark night already thick with the prowling of wolves. Leena stood up and shook her head, well aware that she was not yet ready for this meeting.
But the ghost was very insistent, her eyes no longer vacant but flashing with rage.
“No,” Leena ground out with frustration. “Go. Away.”
Her anger seemed to trigger the phantom. She grew larger, rage twisting her blue-tinged lips until she towered over Leena. Her hands tried to grasp Leena’s clothes, her anger so potent that Leena felt it like a shock on her skin.
“Stop!” Leena yelled, tasting something metallic in her mouth. “You don’t have power over me. Don’t forget that only I can see you. If I close my eyes, you cease to exist!”
The phantom halted, sudden terror in her eyes.
Leena’s hand snatched her copper coins but let them go after a moment’s deliberation.
She could not shake the sudden fear that this might be her one and only chance to learn valuable information she could trade with St. Silas, who clearly had a vested interest in this particular ghost.
“If I follow you, will you leave me alone?” Leena asked slowly.
The drowned ghost’s eyes widened, and she nodded.
Cursing to herself, Leena put on her cloak. Although creeping outside in the night—especially in a town with insurrection on its mind—frightened her beyond measure, instinct propelled her onward. There was something here to be uncovered, she was sure of it.
The inn’s halls were quiet, save for a rhythmic snoring from inside one of the rooms. She took a kerosene lamp, providing just enough light to see the ghost in front of her.
The stairs creaked beneath her boots, but all the armchairs in the parlor were vacant, and the reception desk was empty.
On the desk was a vase filled with the violet blooms of Deathgrips.
She allowed herself only a brief moment to wonder if this was a northern tradition, to put Deathgrips by the window to keep away wolves, before she grabbed a handful of stems and stowed them in her pockets.
She followed the ghost outside, clutching her cloak tighter against the bite of the wind.
It was her first time following a phantom into the barren expanse of the countryside without street lamps or tall buildings to shelter her. Apprehension slithered down her spine, raising goosebumps.
A smooth voice slashed through the darkness. “Fancy a midnight walk?”
Leena froze on the porch steps before swinging her lamp around to find St. Silas making his way back to the inn.
She peered closely at him, trying to settle the pulse pounding in her neck.
He was in an unexpected state of disarray—mud caking his boots, shirt loosened to the collarbones, sleeves rolled to his elbows, and hands covered in dirt.
“Have you been burying a body in the woods?” she asked, and then instantly cringed even as the jest left her mouth.
He seemed to be in an unusual mood, his eyes bright in the darkness. He ignored the question. “Meeting your special friend, Leena?”
The way he said her name made her shiver, and she remembered the force of his gaze when he’d asked her to call him Bram. That sort of informality unnerved her.
Ahead of her, Lady Hargreaves had continued on, so intent on her destination that she hadn’t turned back to see that Leena had lagged behind.
She rushed to catch up, calling behind her to St. Silas, repeating what she’d said the last time he’d caught her sneaking out at midnight. “I didn’t give you leave to call me by my given name!”
Silence.
Then the sound of St. Silas’s footsteps followed her. “Where are you going at this time of night?”
“Perhaps I’m going to see the miners.” Leena kept an eye on the ghost who walked ahead of her. “Reassure them that, while we are not nobles, they’d still be very welcome to take you.”
“The town is the opposite way,” he replied drily.
She repressed an exasperated laugh. He was never short of answers.
They approached the dense cluster of trees that St. Silas had told her marked the border of Weavingshaw; Leena hesitated on the edge.
The woods were dark, her lamp illuminating only a small area while the rest of the world was hidden, cloaked in a thin mist rising from the ground.
Her pockets full of Deathgrips were needless, for the forest was filled with their thick aroma, and even in the darkness their petals were luminescent.
Sensing her hesitation, St. Silas halted beside her. She could feel the warmth of his body next to hers, so at odds with the ghost’s chill.
“Can phantoms disturb your sleep?” The lamplight flickered across St. Silas’s face, giving him a spectral look.
Leena didn’t like how close St. Silas was to the knowledge that phantoms could possess her, so she gave him a half-truth instead.
“Not always. Tonight, I had a particularly insistent one.” She also chose not to reveal that it was Lord Hargreaves’s wife.
“This does not concern Lord Avon or yourself, so you’re free to go back to the inn. ”
Rather than wait for his response, she plunged into the forest, her boots snapping a dry twig, her heart racing. Leena was used to being alone with the dead, to having one foot in their world, to being haunted forever and ever and—
St. Silas didn’t leave, but kept pace slightly behind her.
And Leena was so glad of his presence that it unsettled her.
In the flickering darkness, St. Silas became a silhouette, yet she found this more comforting because she could not see him clearly. It was only for this reason that she asked, “And you? Do you sleep well at night?”
They walked in silence for another stretch. Leena had almost forgotten she’d posed a question before his words came back, guarded, as though by a sentry.
“Sleep is for the dead,” he said above the rustle of decaying leaves.
“That’s untrue.” Leena looked over her shoulder. “Even the dead don’t sleep.”
Rather than respond, he took hold of the heavy lamp she’d been carrying; her muscles had begun to ache from the weight, her arm continuously dropping down before she jerked it back up again.
The forest smelled of buried and dead things: rotten stumps, decomposing branches, withering plants.
Lady Hargreaves seemed at one with her surroundings, as if this was a path she traveled daily, like a pilgrim going to pray.
Leena had seen ghosts become obsessive to the point of blindness, unable to see or hear anything while their last wishes remained unfulfilled.
Lady Hargreaves showed that same all-consuming fixation, still never once turning back to look at Leena, as if she was compelled down the forest path.
“You let your hair down.” St. Silas’s voice jerked her from her thoughts.
For a moment, his remark confused her, until she ran a self-conscious hand across the thick curls cascading down her back.
“I was preparing for bed just as the ghost appeared, and I didn’t have time to pin it back up. In truth, it needs a cut.”