Longshadow

by Olivia Atwater

  Abigail glanced at Hugh. “We?” she asked. “You’re comin’ with me?”

  Hugh rolled his eyes. “Of course I’m comin’ with you,” he said. “Didn’t you listen the first time around, Abby? I’m still here because you’re here, an’ I want to stick with you. If you head off to Longshadow, then you won’t be here anymore—so I’m not stayin’ here either.”

  “I am coming too,” Lucy said hotly. “I was promised an audience with Lord Longshadow, and I will have an audience with Lord Longshadow.”

  No one, Abigail thought, had promised Lucy anything of the sort. And in fact, she realised, Lucy had technically had her audience with Lord Longshadow already. But there was little point in debating the matter.

  “Miss Esther Fernside is our black magician,” Abigail told her father. “She’s tryin’ to bully Lord Longshadow into bringin’ her mother back to life. That is…” She trailed off uncomfortably. “Mercy is Lord Longshadow. She has been, all along. But I don’t understand it—why would Mercy tell us about the apple herself? An’ why would she tell us not to destroy the bans you placed on her?”

  Elias blinked in surprise. “I… none of that makes the least bit of sense,” he said. “But do you really mean to say that Lord Longshadow has been sleeping in my home, and I never noticed?”

  Black Catastrophe shrugged. “Lord Longshadow does have a thousand faces,” she said bitterly. “All of those ghosts just love giving her bits of themselves.”

  Abigail gasped. “Gifts!” she said. “Faeries can’t give gifts, Dad! Mercy told us to keep the bans, because she has to trade the apple for something just as valuable!”

  Elias scowled. “Everything to do with faeries is so convoluted,” he muttered. “Not that I was thinking of destroying the bans, in any case. If Miss Fernside knows Lord Longshadow’s real name, then she could order him—her—to do all manner of terrible things. Those bans will prevent the worst of it, at least for now.”

  Abigail looked back towards the locked bedroom door. “There are three sluagh trapped in an iron cage in Miss Fernside’s bedroom,” she said. “Mum could surely let them out, as soon as she comes back in her pelisse. But you’ll have to tell her where they are.”

  Elias narrowed his eyes. “I will not be letting you walk into Longshadow alone,” he said. “You cannot even use your magic, in your current state.”

  Black Catastrophe turned her bright blue eyes upon him. “You do not have a choice,” she said. “The Kensington path to Longshadow is blocked—and that path would take too long, in any case. Mercy will have taken her captor by a special way which only Lord Longshadow can open. There is one other path which we may take—and it is open only to ghosts and to sluagh. Even magicians may not walk this path, unless they ride the edge of their own death.”

  Elias opened his mouth—and Abigail knew that he was about to suggest one of several methods which could induce a death-like trance—but she cut him off.

  “You haven’t got much of your magic right now,” Abigail told him quietly. “Don’t try an’ throw together some half-baked ritual on the spur of the moment. I don’t know how I’m goin’ to save Mercy… but I will save her. Trust me this time, won’t you?”

  Elias stared at her for another long moment… and then, he sighed heavily. “I will trust you,” he said softly. “I must find Mr Jubilee, in any case, if we are going to save you. Do not dare walk over to the Other Side, Abigail. I will come after you if you do.”

  Abigail grinned at him. “Some sluagh would have to drag me there by force,” she said. “An’ I hear that they don’t do that.” She turned back to Black Catastrophe. “Where is this path we’re takin’, then?”

  “Lucy an’ I are comin’ too,” Hugh added quickly. “Don’t forget us.”

  Black Catastrophe looked them all over grimly. “We shall walk the path of the dark night,” she informed them. “Some call it annwfyn—others call it stranger things. It is a path for ghosts who seek to understand their own mortality. The path is very close, for it lives within your soul. I will take you if you ask me; but know that you may lose yourself upon the path forever.”

  Abigail pressed her lips together. “I’m goin’,” she said. “I’m happy to go alone. But I won’t stop anyone else from comin’ with me if they really want.”

  Lucy shrank into herself visibly. “I… perhaps I had better stay here,” she amended quickly.

  Hugh crossed his arms. “I’m goin’,” he repeated. “Take me with you.”

  “As you like,” said Black Catastrophe. “It is part of my duty to bring you there, if you wish it. I cannot turn you down.”

  The sluagh released Elias’ hand—and his golden eyes slid away from Abigail, searching for her anew.

  “You will have to come back,” Elias warned her, though he could not see her any longer. “We will be waiting, Abigail.” He paused, and then added, more softly: “I love you.”

  “I love you too,” Abigail whispered back. After that, she couldn’t bear to look at him any longer. She rested her eyes instead upon Black Catastrophe’s indigo skin and bright blue eyes. “Please take me to annwfyn,” she said. “I’m ready to leave.”

  Chapter 21

  Before Abigail had even finished the words, the shadows in the room surged forward, crawling over her. For a moment, she was dimly aware of Hugh next to her, fighting off the black tendrils—but then, Abigail’s awareness of him disappeared, and she was suddenly alone in the darkness.

  Abigail wasn’t quite certain what she was expecting. Black Catastrophe’s tone as she described annwfyn had been chilling… but there was nothing particularly frightening about this darkness. Rather, it felt warm and still—like being cocooned in a soft blanket in the middle of the night.

  The longer that Abigail stayed still, however, the more tempting that softness became—like a mental quicksand, tugging gently at her thoughts. It would have been a simple matter just to lie down in the darkness and fall asleep right where she was. And so, she started blindly forward, taking each step warily.

  Thankfully, the further that Abigail walked, the more the darkness lifted. A soft silver light started in at the corner of her eye, defining the details around her.

  Annwfyn looked an awful lot like a workhouse.

  The warm, comforting closeness of the darkness had evaporated, replaced by simple claustrophobia. Dirty straw beds clustered against the walls, each with far too many people—all sick, or injured, or else just tired and desperate. The air was thick with the stench of unwashed bodies… and, of course, the pungent scent of lye.

  Anyone else might have been horrified by the scene. But Abigail had lived it—and so, to her, the sight was simply tiring.

  Somewhere underneath the growing din of murmurs, however, Abigail heard a young girl crying… and this, for some reason, gave her terrible pause.

  Near one bed, in a little corner of the room, a little girl with blonde hair and pockmarked skin sobbed over her mother.

  “You’ll be fine, Mum,” Abigail heard her younger self whisper. “You just need to fight it. You’ll get better.”

  The woman in the bed was blonde, too—but her hair was plastered to her forehead, and her eyes were barely open. If she heard her daughter pleading, then no sign of it registered on her expression.

  “Well,” Abigail said flatly. “That’s just a low blow, isn’t it?” Her voice trembled on the words, though, and she found herself staring at her first mother, struck by the sight of her obvious suffering.

  “I am the Last Sigh.” The words came from behind Abigail, and she whirled to face the woman who spoke. “I am the Final Usher. I am the Calm and the Dark Night.”

  The figure that stood behind Abigail looked like Mercy. Her hair was long and black, and her skin was far too pale. Her eyes were full of darkness, though, and she wore no cap—instead, she was clad entirely in heavy folds of midnight.

  Her eyes fixed upon Abigail with a terrible, inhuman kindness. “Let me take her with me, Abigail,” t
he woman said softly. “I will spirit her away from here and give her peace.”

  Abigail looked back at her mother. It was clear to her now, in a way that it had not been clear when she was young, that her mother had held on for far too long—that she had indeed listened to her daughter’s pleas and tried to survive the illness that had taken her.

  “She doesn’t want to go with you,” Abigail said. “She knows her own sufferin’, an’ she still doesn’t want to go. Can’t you understand that?”

  The false Mercy considered Abigail seriously. “Your mother is staying for you,” she said. “But you have the power to let her go.”

  Abigail swallowed hard. She took a hesitant step towards the dirty straw bed, kneeling down in front of it.

  “Please don’t die,” the younger Abigail begged. “Don’t leave me all alone here, Mum.”

  Tears pricked at Abigail’s eyes. Slowly, she reached out to take her mother’s other hand. Her skin was warm and dry—she had already sweated most of her water away.

  “You won’t leave me all alone,” Abigail told her, with great difficulty. “There are other people who’ll take care of me. If you want to live, then you should fight. But you shouldn’t stay here just for me. Do you understand? It has to be your choice, Mum.”

  For just a moment, Abigail thought she saw her mother’s distant eyes fix upon her. A quiet sigh escaped the woman in the bed—so soft that it was barely perceptible.

  And Abigail’s first mother died.

  “Your mother required no guide to the Other Side,” said the false Mercy, “because you told her not to wait for you.”

  Abigail dropped her mother’s hand to swipe at her eyes. “Is this real?” she asked in a choked voice. “Am I really here?”

  “You are,” said the false Mercy. “And you are not. It is very complicated.” Her voice was flat and toneless. It was nothing like the voice that Abigail had come to love. “It is not your time to die, Abigail Wilder. But there will come a time when you are tired. And when that time does come, I will take away your pain.”

  Fury sparked within Abigail’s throat. She shoved to her feet, turning upon the spectre that had Mercy’s face. “You will not,” she said. “I haven’t offered you my pain. You will not have me, not ever. An’ if you really were Mercy, then you would know that.” She clenched her fingers into fists at her sides. “You look around at this, an’ all you see is suffering. But I see unfairness—a whole awful heap of it! I won’t take your stupid peace, no matter how many times you offer it to me.”

  The false Mercy frowned dimly. “That is silly,” she said. “Death is inevitable. There is both peace and virtue in accepting that.”

  Abigail scoffed. “Peace, I’ll grant you,” she said. “But there’s no virtue in layin’ down an’ dyin’. It just is what it is. Why should anyone accept that if they don’t want to accept it? I won’t let death take me quietly. I’ll linger as a ghost, if I have to. I’ll find some magician who wants advice, an’ I’ll make ‘em spin me up a locket. I’ll fight you for every spare second of my existence.”

  The false Mercy glanced towards the woman in the bed—and Abigail clenched her jaw at the implication.

  “My mum made her choice,” Abigail said. “I won’t grudge her that, an’ I won’t grudge anyone else who wants to go on. But you won’t make my choice for me. So long as death is unfair, then I’m not ever goin’ to the Other Side. I’m stayin’ here with my sufferin’, an’ I’m stoppin’ unfair deaths—people who would starve, an’ people who’d die sick, an’ people who’d be murdered, like Lucy an’ Hugh. An’ I’ll even figure out how to bring ‘em back, if I can. I’ll give out that apple to someone—an’ then, I’ll wait a hundred years, an’ I’ll give another apple out, until that tree finally withers an’ dies.”

  The false Mercy shook her head. “I don’t understand,” she said. “You cannot live forever, Abigail Wilder. It is not done.”

  “I will do it,” Abigail said. “So watch me.” She met the false Mercy’s deep black eyes. “I know what you are. You think you an’ Mercy are the same—but you’re not. You’re just a piece of land in faerie. She’s… more. She’s got a thousand faces that you don’t—a thousand stories—an’ she’s learned to care about ‘em all. She’s learned how to give people their choices. I hope you learn that someday too.”

  Abigail breathed in deeply, summoning up her anger and her courage. “You’ve offered me a gift, Longshadow—but you don’t understand gifts, do you? I don’t have to take a gift just because you’ve offered it. Next time, offer me fairness an’ not peace, an’ I’ll consider it.”

  Longshadow did not offer a reply, this time. But slowly—very slowly—the workhouse faded from view, melding into darkness.

  Twilight rose upon the horizon. Abigail turned, and saw the rosy light glimmering upon a tall hill, carpeted by silver lilies.

  “Oh!” said Hugh. “You are here!”

  He and Black Catastrophe had appeared just behind Abigail. Hugh looked tired but determined, while Black Catastrophe simply looked thoughtful.

  “Did you learn something from the dark night?” Black Catastrophe asked Abigail.

  Abigail considered that. “I did,” she said, with a hint of surprise. “Though… I’m not sure that I learned what it wanted me to learn, if I’m goin’ to be honest.”

  Black Catastrophe studied Abigail carefully. Then, she said: “I promised to lead you to the Other Side. I will take you there now. It is up to you whether you cross or not.”

  Abigail nodded. “Miss Fernside will have gone to the tree that grows on the border,” she said. “I want to go there too, if you don’t mind.”

  Black Catastrophe pointed one taloned finger at the hill in the distance. “There,” she said. “From the top of that hill, you can see the tree, and the Other Side. It will not take us long. I hope you are prepared.”

  Abigail looked at Hugh—and offered him her hand. He threaded his fingers through hers with a wry smile.

  Abigail thought: I still have no idea what I’m going to do.

  But this was a useless thought, and so what she said out loud was: “I think we’re prepared.”

  The climb up the hill of silver lilies took much longer than it should have done—but Abigail was used to this, since she had travelled through faerie so many times before.

  The hill never seemed to get any taller—nor did the sky come any closer. But the further they trudged up its slope, the more the twilight sky darkened into evening. There was no moon and no stars in faerie… which was how Abigail knew when they had reached the top of the hill.

  As they finally came to the summit, Abigail saw stars.

  They were sprinkled all across a midnight sky, far in the distance. There was a clear delineation, Abigail thought, between the empty sky of faerie and the brilliant cascade of stars that overlooked the Other Side. In fact, she discovered, the Other Side was truly the other side of the hill itself—a land washed in wistful starlight.

  A tall silver tree grew at the top of the hill, taking up most of the space there. It was wildly large for an apple tree; half of its huge, winding limbs reached up into the faerie sky, and the other half reached for the Other Side—as though to knit the two realms together.

  Before the tree stood Miss Fernside, in her light yellow ball gown. With her was a pale, white-haired man even shorter than Miss Fernside was—dignified, and dressed all in midnight, with the twilight of Longshadow flickering in his eyes.

  “You will bring her back, Mercy Midnight!” Miss Fernside choked out. “After everything I have done—after all of the suffering you have caused me—you will bring my mother back to me. You have no choice in the matter.”

  Abigail studied the man next to Miss Fernside with a strange, hollow feeling in her chest. There were traces of the Mercy that she knew within him; his skin and his eyes were the same, though his hair was far different. The alien majesty which he carried was familiar. But Lord Longshadow, Abigail thought, was deeply u
ncomfortable in a way which Mercy had not been, and he held himself in a stiff and miserable manner.

  The man that Abigail was looking upon now was, in some way, a false form. He was a kind of forced performance—an empty mask for Mercy to wear.

  You are not really a lord at all, Mercy, Abigail thought sympathetically. You were so much more comfortable as a laundress, weren’t you?

  “I cannot give you what you ask,” the lord in front of Miss Fernside said quietly. “Your mother has passed on to the Other Side. None may return from that land—not even the sluagh.”

  Miss Fernside stared at Lord Longshadow with tear-stained cheeks. “You are lying,” she whispered. “You are the Keeper of Life and Death. You can bring people back to life.”

  Lord Longshadow winced. “But faeries cannot lie, Miss Fernside,” he said. “I swear to you: your mother is beyond my power.”

  Abigail drew in a deep breath, clutching to Hugh’s hand more tightly.

  I can’t use my normal magic, Abigail thought. What can I do?

  “Sluagh can kill people,” Abigail observed slowly, to Black Catastrophe. “In theory—couldn’t you kill Miss Fernside?”

  Black Catastrophe regarded her grimly. “I could,” she said. “I could kill her with a mere touch. Normally, of course, I would not do so. But she has abducted my friends and dishonoured Lord Longshadow. I am therefore owed my vengeance.”

  Abigail raised an eyebrow at Black Catastrophe. “I thought you weren’t too fond of Lord Longshadow,” she said.

  Black Catastrophe smiled sharply. “I am not,” she said. “But while I may dishonour Lord Longshadow with impunity, no mere mortal should deign to do the same.” She paused. “Unfortunately, Miss Fernside has Lord Longshadow’s name, and the Last Sigh is more powerful than I am. So long as Miss Fernside is wary, I will never manage to reach her.”

  Abigail nodded slowly, thinking hard. Lightless had said that Miss Fernside used eyedrops to see ghosts; hopefully, Abigail thought, Miss Fernside had used her eyedrops very recently. “You should watch for your chance,” Abigail told Black Catastrophe. “I’ll do my best to give you one.”