And later, he’d never knocked on that farmhouse door. He’d never properly been invited into the house. He’d been at the door and then in that woman’s room. Then when she’d asked him to leave her room so she could put on a robe, he’d been afraid to go, afraid of getting lost along the way.
Arell had been quite proud when he’d found himself by the fire. He even imagined he could feel its warmth. And when he’d grown angry with the woman for daring suggest he might be dead, he hadn’t left the house. He’d not exited by any door that he knew of. He simply wasn’t there any longer.
He wanted to blame the woman—curse her for his misfortunes—yet he felt the injustice in it. He’d gone to her for help and then yelled at her for trying to offer the only help that seemed reasonable to her. Calling her a superstitious peasant was hardly fair. She had a faultless beauty and resolve to her. And when she’d mentioned needing to put on a robe, he’d realized where he stood and the temptation such a location actually offered him when faced with her dark hair tumbling over her shoulder in a single smooth cascade.
And she wasn’t afraid. Well, maybe at the very first, but she’d shaken off that fear rapidly and instead moved to kindness and action. She’d have made a good soldier with such qualities.
And then by the firelight, when he’d been able to see into her blue eyes, he felt that no jewel in all of the kingdom could flash as brightly in the sun as her eyes did in the firelight.
He then remembered that those eyes could not look on him.
She couldn’t see him—not even in the smallest degree. Logical sense, not superstition, persuaded her to think of him as a spirit.
But that didn’t make him dead.
He fumed over her accusation for several moments longer before thinking to look around him and get his bearings. He hadn’t left the farmhouse. But he wasn’t in it any longer either. So where was he?
The dark. He was in the dark.
Arell wasn’t afraid of the dark, but this dark was something new. It encircled him entirely. And the cold. The cold was indescribably painful as it crushed in on him from all sides.
He closed his eyes, since he couldn’t see anyway, and forced himself to focus. Everything required this painful, mind-splitting focus. And even with that, he felt like he existed in a haze of confusion.
He was normally sharp and on top of things; that was how he earned his place in the royal guard. But since finding himself on that farm, nothing had been clear.
The wall.
It all came back to the wall.
And then he was there.
He was back! On the wall. In the part of the kingdom he knew he belonged: at the palace.
He took several deep breaths to steady himself against the overwhelming dizziness that came over him. It was daylight.
How could it be daylight? How could he be back at the palace when he’d been on the western ridge of the kingdom? But how could he have been in Daven when he’d been at the palace just before that?
He looked around, feeling relief to be where he knew his place and his world. Perhaps it was all just a dream. He’d imagined everything he’d seen and experienced before. That had to be it. Nothing else made sense. Though he hated to think that the beautiful woman he’d spoken to by firelight didn’t actually exist, he hated the idea that his entire life had been upended even more.
Home. He was home.
And everything was going to be all right.
He turned to head down from the wall, go to his rooms, and change out of the dress uniform he still wore.
Arell frowned. The clothing. He was wearing the same full dress uniform he’d been wearing at the farmhouse. Then he noticed something more troubling. The flags flying in the guard house were black—black for mourning.
The woman by the fire had told him that the package Norton wanted to give Simmons could possibly have been meant to harm the royal family. Had that happened? Had the family he’d sworn to protect been murdered?
Noises farther down the wall caught his attention, and he rushed to the men in the distance. His captain, Wilton, and the first lieutenant, Langley, spoke together in hushed tones. They didn’t look up at his rapid approach. They didn’t answer when he called their names.
And when he reached out to touch them, his hand did something it shouldn’t have. It passed right through his captain’s arm. “I’m here!” he cried out to them. “Please see me! I’m here!”
“Poor Arell,” Langley said.
At hearing his name, Arell hoped that he’d made contact with the man—that Langley could finally see him.
“He was such a healthy man that it seems strange, doesn’t it? He didn’t take with drinking and pipe smoking,” Langley said. “For him to die, to fall down dead with no cause or reason, feels suspicious, sir.”
“You think someone killed him? And how, when there wasn’t a mark anywhere on his body?” Captain Wilton asked, lowering his voice as he looked around to verify they were alone.
But they weren’t alone. Arell stood right next to them. He shook his head, an overwhelming sense of panic flooding him. “I didn’t die! I’m right here!”
Langley suppressed a shudder and looked to the sky. “Maybe a storm’s coming. A wicked cold wind like that is a sign.”
“A sign of what, Lieutenant?”
“A sign that something’s not right here.” Langley rolled his eyes. “I know how foolish that sounds, but something nefarious is happening. I can’t pretend all is well when all is not well.”
“You’re right that not all is well. But what’s wrong isn’t some conspiracy in the kingdom. What’s wrong is that a man who was trusted and loyal and a friend to us all—a man who was in his prime—is gone. How could such a thing ever be right?”
A single bell rang through the air.
It was not the bells of twilight or the bell that chimed the hour, since those bells were accompanied by smaller bells that sounded like a celebration. The single bell tolling was the bell of bereavement. But only one short blast—not the seven in a row that it would have been if he’d been freshly entombed. It meant he’d been entombed for seven days. Today was the seventh.
Arell had been gone seven days—eight if one counted the day it would take to prepare his body. He looked hard at his comrades. “Where am I?” he demanded to know. “Where have they placed my body?”
But just as the little girl could not hear him and the farm woman had not seen him, these men could neither see nor hear him.
“Where?” he shouted.
The two men frowned and shivered and tucked themselves tighter into their uniform coats.
“Definitely a storm coming,” Langley said.
Arell made his way to the wall passage, but before he could take real steps, he was in the passage. “I’m not dead.” He chanted this again and again. But he thought of the crypts in the mausoleum where those who died while serving the royal family were kept. And then he was there.
How could he do that if he were not dead?
No. Do not think such thoughts. But there in the low light of the mausoleum where the only illumination came from the stained glass windows at the top of the high walls, he saw what he’d expected but hoped not to find.
A stone on the wall that was fresh with no watermarks from drainage issues or droppings across the top from rodents. A fresh stone covered the resting place of the man for whom the bells of bereavement tolled. And his name was carved into its surface.
“I’m dead!” he shouted to the empty mausoleum. He stood staring for what seemed an eternity, but what did he know of time any longer? Days could pass in an eyeblink.
He could go from hearing a noise in the dark to being dead over a week later with barely a thought.
He stiffened.
The noise in the dark.
The king’s advisor called out to Simmons, who had also been on duty that night. Whatever had been in that package had been worth killing Arell over, and if the farmer woman was right, it would end wi
th more bells of bereavement—six sets a day for the six members of the royal family.
And then Arell was in the apartments of the king’s advisor. Norton sat at his desk, reading something from a book with aged and torn pages. “I can hear your panic, so you might as well show yourself to me.”
Arell startled. Could Norton see him? But before he could answer or confront Norton in any way, Simmons stepped out of the doorway shadows.
“People are suspicious!” Simmons spat out. “They keep asking me questions because I was on duty with Arell that night. They think I know something.”
Norton shrugged. “To be fair to those doing the asking, you do know something.”
“But I didn’t kill Arell!” Simmons said.
“And to be fair to me, I didn’t kill him either.”
Arell frowned. He’d seen the black flags and heard the bells of bereavement. He’d seen the stone with his name on it over his crypt. Did Norton mean someone else killed him?
Who else would have done such a thing?
“Well, he didn’t kill himself,” Simmons, who’d never been short of sarcasm, said.
“The man’s not dead.”
“What?” Simmons said.
“What?” Arell said.
“But I saw the body,” Simmons said.
“I saw my crypt!” Arell shouted.
The two men shuddered violently in response to Arell’s anger.
Norton frowned in Arell’s direction but shook his head and turned his attention back to Simmons. “He’s not dead because he’s been spelled.”
“Spelled?” Simmons frowned. “Like magic?”
“Yes. How else could I best one of the guards? It cost me a lot to get that spell. I carried it on me at all times in case of an emergency. And what a waste!” The man narrowed his eyes at Simmons. “You were assigned to that wall, Simmons! You were meant to be there to accept the delivery and to get your lady friend in the kitchens to do the job I’ve paid you both to do. But where were you, Simmons? Because I can tell you where you weren’t. You weren’t at your post. One would imagine you purposely changed places with Arell. One would imagine you’re trying to back out of our deal.”
Arell knew he needed to pay attention. He knew he needed to hear and commit every word to memory. But the shock of discovering he was dead and then of discovering he was not dead had proved so great that finding focus came with difficulty. What did it mean that he was spelled? What spell could induce a man to look dead enough for him to be buried? And why could he walk about like a spirit or ghost if he was not dead?
“I don’t like the insinuations you’re making, Norton. I’m not backing out of our deal. The change of guard wasn’t my doing and not something I had any choice in obeying. You know Captain Wilton changed my orders. If I hadn’t obeyed, I would’ve been dismissed immediately for the night, and it would’ve cast suspicion on me. And your little spell over Arell has already brought enough suspicion to the garrison. This whole plan has gone to sewage.”
Norton jumped up from his chair and shoved Simmons against the wall. “And whose fault is that? Who failed to be where he was to be? And even now, you’re in my rooms—a place no member of the guard has any reason to ever be. If anyone saw you come to me, what kind of suspicion would befall you then—especially once the royal family is dead? Take care with your insults, boy! I made a man look dead enough to lock away into a crypt and to blast the bereavement bells for all to hear. Think what I wouldn’t hesitate to do to you if you cross me.”
To Simmons’s credit, he didn’t look away from Norton’s piercing stare. “It’s been a week, Norton. If Arell wasn’t dead when they put him in that crypt, after a week of no food or water, he’s dead now. So you arguing that he isn’t dead is dead wrong.”
“I told you, he was spelled.”
“So what? He just sleeps for the rest of eternity? What spell can condemn a man like that?”
“There’s a time limit. There’s a time limit on everything. As the moon becomes brighter, he will become dimmer. When the moon phases full, he’ll expire, unless moonlight actually touches the body—which it won’t with him locked away under stone. But we’re not talking about him anymore. He sealed his fate the moment he drew a sword on me. There are other lives in question. And they also have an expiration date. If the family is not dead by feast day, then the kingdom of Vestat will withdraw their offer, as we will have proven ourselves men who cannot get important work done. If we fail, you will never be captain of the guard because Arell’s fate will be very similar to your own, do you understand?”
“Perfectly. So the feast for the princess’s birthday?”
“Yes.” Norton handed Simmons a packet—the same one he’d handed off to Arell that night on the wall. “Take this with you and leave. And I don’t care what circuitous route you must take or who you must kill to keep from being seen leaving my quarters.”
Arell lunged for the packet, trying to hinder Simmons in any way from carrying out such a horrible deed.
He fell through the men and their hands joined by the packet of poison. He fell hard and felt as though he’d never stop falling. When the sensation of flipping head over feet came to a stop, he found himself in the throne room. It was late at night, and the room was empty. He must have ended up there in his desperate need to save the royal family. How could anyone discuss murder so casually, especially when several of the targets were children? They were going to kill the princess on her eighth birthday. What monsters could do such a thing?
But they wouldn’t do such a thing.
Arell would stop them. He had to.
He found himself tugged back to the crypt. The waxing moon shone light through the stained glass windows, casting a light that unsettled Arell. He wasn’t done, but he may as well have been. No one could see him. No one could hear him. And it seemed he had no power over anything in the physical world.
His body was imprisoned behind the stone that bore his name. And his spirit might as well have been imprisoned along with it for all the ability he had to influence the world around him. What good was it to know of the pending slaughter of a good and loving king when no one could hear him confess such knowledge?
But someone could hear him.
The tugging and falling sensation didn’t stop for a long time. And when it did, he was in the feed shed on a farm on the west ridge of Tenali.
Grace
Grace didn’t hear the ghost again when she awoke the day after he’d become so angry and abruptly left her. She pressed her sister, but Annabelle hadn’t seen or heard from the ghost either. She checked the feed shed that morning, but it was quiet and warm with the rising sun. She walked through the house and searched for any unusually cold pockets of air, but the air in the house remained warm and cozy. Maybe the ghost had finally accepted his fate and gone on to whatever afterlife awaited him.
He didn’t show up the next day either.
Grace couldn’t say why that disappointed her. Perhaps it was because his was the first male conversation she’d received in the last several years that wasn’t from either a relative or an employer. And in spite of his frigid temper, he’d been nice.
“My life has truly taken a pathetic turn if I’m daydreaming about a dead man that I’ve not even seen,” she said to the feed shed after checking it a third time.
She turned to leave and walked straight into a blast of urgent, icy air.
“I need you!”
It was him. Her ghost had come back to her. “What’s wrong?” She felt foolish for such a question immediately after voicing it. What was wrong? As if a man being dead wasn’t enough to be considered wrong?
“I’m not dead!” he cried out.
Or a man in denial about being dead wasn’t enough to be considered wrong. She shook her head. “You poor, dear man. I can see why you don’t want to believe this about yourself, but—”
“I’m not! I’ve been cursed and put in a crypt, but I’m not dead. I’m not. But I will be
if you don’t help me.”
“I don’t understand,” Grace said and then looked harder in his direction. Had she seen something? A glint of an outline shifted in and out of her view. As he spoke, his profile shimmered like water in the sunlight. She could see him in a sense and was not disappointed by the little she saw. He had a strong profile. She imagined from the little she saw that he was handsome.
“A lot has happened since yesterday,” he said.
“You mean since two days ago.”
“Two days? So much time lost already. The king’s advisor had bargained with one of the other members of the guard to poison the royal family. He’s cursed me to appear as one who is dead. They placed me in a crypt, and the bells of bereavement are ringing, and the black flags are waving. But they will be ringing and waving for the entire royal family if we don’t arrive back at the palace in five days. Please go fetch your brother. I’ll need him to accompany me to the king’s palace. Time is of the very essence, so we must go immediately!” He moved toward the barn, where the only horse the little farm owned was stabled.
Grace didn’t follow. When his silvery silhouette turned back, she gave him a look that surely indicated she didn’t think he was in his right mind. She hated to be rude, but ... “First, my brother is no longer with us. He’s learning his trade in another city. So if you want help, you’ll have to ask me, and you’d better do it nicely if you want my help since you’ve insulted me by assuming my brother is the only one who is capable of being useful. And second, what kind of access would a guard have to poison the family? That doesn’t make sense.”
A wisp of a smile formed. “You see? I wondered that very thing. Only it took me longer to get there. I’m not myself at the moment. That’s why I need you. You and, apparently, not your brother at all. I need someone to help untangle my thoughts. The guard in question is in league with one of the cooks. I need someone—you—to go with me to the palace and revive my body so I can warn the family before it’s too late. We must leave at once.”
He turned to go again, but when she wasn’t following a second time, he stopped and said, “I know it’s a lot to ask, to have you leave your home and family. But the duration of this journey will be short, and lives are at stake, Miss ...”
Midsummer Night Page 6
