Darkwood

by M. E. Breen

“No one’s ever told you about the mine? About how Magnifica came to be?”

  Annie shook her head.

  “Well, it’s not a nice story, dear. Do you want to hear it? Yes? Very well.”

  Beatrice began to work the pedal of the loom with her foot, her voice blending with its gentle whir.

  “Not long after ringstone was first discovered in Howland, a group of prospectors traveled west to see what they could find. They made their camp, and in the morning each man set out in a different direction. Among them was a man named Terrance Uncton. As he walked along, Uncton stumbled over a rock poking through the dirt. On the rock was a round, shiny patch of ringstone, gleaming like the skin on a bald man’s head.

  “At first he thought it no great find, a few inches of ringstone at most, enough for a belt buckle or perhaps a serving dish. But as he cut into the rock he discovered that the shiny patch was only the top of a column that extended far underground. For weeks Uncton kept his discovery a secret, but as he dug farther, the column grew thicker. When it reached the thickness of a man’s body, Uncton realized he would need help. But first, with his sharpest chisel, he carved the words ‘Prop. of Tr. Uncton’ into the top of the column.

  “The prospectors followed the column down, twenty, fifty, a hundred, then two hundred feet deep, until they came to the ringstone’s mighty root. They broadened the mine and built entrances and exits, pulley systems and trusses. They built an entire underground network of catwalks and tunnels along which the miners could travel for days without ever coming to the surface.

  “So much dust blew up from the bottom of the mine that nothing grew for a quarter mile in every direction from the mine’s entrance. Barracks sprang up to house the miners, and it was not unusual for a child to come in after playing outdoors covered with yellow dust. The prospectors and their families settled around the mine and grew rich, though none more than Terrance Uncton. From there the city grew.

  “The ringstone in the mine lasted a long time, but as the column was cut closer and closer to its base, getting at the stone eventually came to be more trouble than it was worth. The air at the bottom of the mine was thin and the ringstone harder and more difficult to cut. At last only the poorest men ventured down. They breathed air through hoses threaded down the mineshaft and scraped at the stone with homemade chisels, often staying below ground for weeks at a time. When a miner had collected enough ringstone to satisfy him he blew three times on the whistle he wore around his neck. A man waiting at the top would turn the great wheel to which the miner’s waist-rope was attached and haul the miner to the surface. Before he left the mine, the miner paid thirty percent of his take to the man who hauled him up.

  “One day the mine collapsed in on itself. A hundred years’ worth of trusses, rigging, planks, wheelbarrows, spades, hoses, dirt, and rubble fell into the hole, burying the miners at the bottom and closing the mine for good. Above the roar of falling earth the man at the mine entrance heard the shrilling of dozens of whistles. Then the earth moved beneath him and he, too, along with his wheel, disappeared into the hole.”

  Beatrice fell quiet, and for a long time the only sound was the whir of the spinning wheel. Then that faded, and Annie looked up to find Beatrice watching her.

  “Can you still visit the mine?” Annie asked, feeling she should say something.

  Beatrice gave an odd smile. “Of course not, dear. That’s where they’ve built the palace.”

  They rose at dawn the next morning. Bea was the sort of person who always looked wide-awake, but Serena …

  “Tea, Beatrice!”

  Beatrice handed her sister a cup of hot tea. Serena swallowed the tea in one gulp and held out the empty cup. “Tea, Beatrice!”

  Beatrice filled, Serena swallowed, and so on. Six times.

  Serena set down her cup. “Thank you, Beatrice.”

  “You are most welcome, Serena.”

  “Annie, gather your felines. We are off!”

  Beatrice followed them into the yard. It was colder than the day before and the air felt sharp. Annie sniffed. “It will snow soon.”

  “Yes, you two—get going. There are extra blankets in the back, and a canvas if it gets really wet. And mother’s pistol.”

  “Mother’s pistol?” Serena raised her eyebrows.

  “For Annie. In the event that … should anything …”

  “Beatrice.”

  “Oh, I didn’t want to worry you! It could very well be hog-wash, and you know how people love to spread trouble, and it being Annie’s first trip …”

  “Beatrice!”

  Bea looked uncertainly at Annie. “Perhaps Annie should …”

  “Bea. I believe our Annie is more than equal to hearing a little talk of”—she looked hard at her sister—“kinderstalk, is it?”

  Bea nodded. “A man traveling outside of Balesville saw them. Day before yesterday.”

  “Balesville! Why, that’s in Broad County! We passed through there on our way home!”

  “I know,” Bea said unhappily.

  “How many?”

  “Three, just sitting by the side of the road plain as day. What that fellow must have thought! His horse bolted before he could take any kind of aim, but the funny thing is they didn’t give chase. They just sat there, he said. Watching.”

  “Who told you this?”

  Beatrice blushed. “Claire Fauxall. I ran into her at market. It’s why I didn’t tell you before.”

  Serena looked cross, but she also looked worried. “If even a grain of it’s true … But I’ll bet Annie knows her way around a pistol, yes?”

  “Yes.” Annie was disgusted by how small her voice sounded.

  “Now don’t you worry! It’s just a precaution. I’ve got Dad’s old fowler under the seat, and I’m a better shot than he was.”

  “I should hope so,” Bea murmured, and the sisters snickered.

  “Broad County is quite far from the forest, isn’t it?” Annie said. “Nearly as far as we are here?”

  “We haven’t had a kinderstalk sighting in years, and now this. I don’t suppose you brought them with you?”

  “Serena! That’s not funny.”

  “Well! I was only trying to lighten the mood.”

  “When did you ever hear a good joke about kinderstalk?”

  As casually as possible Annie said, “I’d like to borrow a hat, please. Or a wig, if you have one, or … or anything, really, to cover my head and my … my face.”

  The sisters stopped bickering and stared at her.

  “Annie, do you know how to bridle a horse?” Beatrice asked. “Perhaps you could do that now, to save us some time?”

  Annie slipped away to the small outbuilding the sisters used for a barn. She looked back and saw them huddled in conference, Serena gesticulating, Bea with hands on her hips.

  There was only the one horse inside, chewing his oats.

  “Hello, horse,” Annie said quietly.

  When Annie returned from the barn, Beatrice was standing by the wagon holding a wig of floppy orange ringlets.

  “Here.” She handed the wig to Annie. “This was Mother’s. She never liked anyone to know that her hair had … how shall we say?” She glanced at her sister and suppressed a smile. “Fallen clean out.”

  Beatrice hovered around Annie and Serena as they finished packing the wagon, tightening what was already tight, neatening what was already straight.

  Serena turned to her sister. “Good-bye, darling Bea.”

  “Good-bye, precious Serena.” This time it was Beatrice, tiny as she was, who seemed to engulf her sister. “Come back directly, once you’ve made the delivery. No dawdling.”

  “Now, Bea, have you ever known me to dawdle?” Serena climbed onto the wagon seat and sat down heavily. Beatrice settled the wig on Annie’s head, tucking up her long dark hair.

  “Wait. I have something else for you. I had to guess the size, and there wasn’t time for … the faces aren’t as detailed as I’d like, but I think I’ve …Per
haps you can wear them until you get proper boots.” She shrugged and blushed.

  The slippers had peaked toes and stiff leather soles that must have taken hours to sew on. Against a crimson background Bea had stitched two cat faces: Prudence on the right foot, with her wide eyes and sweetness, and Izzy on the left, his ear torn, his expression imperious.

  They fit perfectly.

  Annie felt something old stir inside her, something she had not felt even with Page—not a memory exactly, but something warm and safe, something of her mother.

  She did not know what to say. She held Bea’s hand. Bea’s palm was soft but each of her fingers had a callus at the tip from working the loom.

  “Good luck, Annie. You will always be welcome here.”

  Serena drove while Annie studied the map. Serena hardly needed directions to Magnifica, but Annie enjoyed plotting their course.

  “Which way at the turning now?”

  “Go right, then the road forks again. Jog left, then straight, then right again at the stone cross.”

  “Right! Left! Straight! Right again! Whoever heard of such a silly road!”

  The cats perched on the seat between them, staring straight ahead like a pair of figureheads. Far to the north Annie could make out a dark shape she thought must be the forest. Were the kinderstalk hunting during the day now? Were the sightings real? She thought of Gibbet and his sack of rabbits. She thought of the kinderstalk standing on its hind legs, like a man.

  The air continued to grow colder, and though there were no clouds the sky looked washed out, the sun a pale orb. Annie felt a weight press heavily against her left shoulder. Serena had dozed off and was listing to one side like a boat threatening to capsize.

  The horse, sensing that his driver’s attention was elsewhere, stood stock-still in the middle of the road.

  “Serena, uh, could you …” Annie’s voice trailed off. They had come to a stop perhaps twenty feet from the stone cross that pointed toward Magnifica. The road, where they had only recently passed booksellers, junkmen, even a cartload of acrobats, was deserted.

  She saw the tail first, a thick black plume, as the creature stood, stretched, and stepped from behind the cross. It looked both better and worse than she remembered: bigger, nearly as big as the horse, and terrifyingly out of place. But the face—there was expression in it. The honey-colored eyes met hers. Instinctively, Annie put her hand on Izzy’s back, then lifted it away, startled. He was purring.

  But the horse had begun to dance and roll his eyes. He jerked a few steps sideways and the wagon jerked with him, tipping Serena upright. She looked at Annie sheepishly.

  “Oh, my! I am sorry. I do enjoy a nap, at my age. Have I drooled on myself? Have I drooled on yourself?” She shook the reins. “And what’s gotten into you, fellow? Eager for your oats, I’ll bet. Hop to it, then. Which way, Annie? Which way at the cross?”

  Annie stared behind her as they drove away. The kinderstalk had disappeared, but she could not shake its image from her mind, the fur coal black except for a diamond-shaped patch of white on the breast.

  As the hours stretched themselves out, Serena told Annie about her previous trips to Magnifica. Unlike Bea, she loved the city, with its crowds and shops and sparkling white stone buildings. And the palace! Each of the mullioned windows was shaped differently, with every pane a different color of glass. The doors to the palace were solid brass with ringstone inlay, weighing several tons apiece. Serena visited Magnifica two or three times a year to deliver goods and stock up on the parts she couldn’t buy locally. Where Bea had become a weaver like their mother, Serena had taken up their father’s trade.

  “Most of what I do is humdrum repairs around the village, but every so often I get a specialty order from the city. Reach under the seat there, Annie. I’ll show you what I mean.”

  Annie pulled out a lumpy bundle wrapped in sackcloth. It was about the length of her arm, but not heavy. Annie hesitated.

  “Go on, open it.”

  Inside the sackcloth was a smaller bundle wrapped in soft flannel, and inside that an even smaller bundle wrapped in rose-colored satin. Annie felt strangely nervous as she unwrapped the final covering. Resting among the folds of satin, as if inside a luxurious coffin, was a mechanical man. He was made of hammered silver and, though barely a foot long, precise in every detail: his neck moved so he could turn his head; his knees and elbows bent; his eyelids lifted up and down so he looked alternately startled, crafty, and asleep; each delicate finger was perfectly articulated, the three joints made out of tiny loops of silver wire.

  But it was his heart from which Annie could not look away. There, in the center of his chest, Serena had placed the clock itself. She had built it in the shape of a heart—not a valentine but a real human heart, with four chambers, minute ventricles, and the clasps that held the clock in place cunningly shaped to look like arteries. It was the size of a human heart, much too big for the miniature body, but still somehow perfect. The heart ticked steadily. Annie stared at Serena. She felt afraid—not of Serena, but of something.

  Her voice came out a hoarse whisper. “You made this?”

  Serena had been looking at Annie oddly, but now she smiled.

  “Yes. He keeps perfect time, too, with no winding. It will be painful to part with him; he’s been a part of my life for so long now. Two years he’s taken! But I always knew this day would come, and considering who …” She paused and gave Annie a cunning look. “Can you tell me who it’s for?”

  Annie studied the clock again. She had been so struck by the heart that she hadn’t noticed the gold crown, studded with tiny chips of ringstone, the papery ruffles on the breeches, the stiff collar of silver beaten so thin it was almost translucent.

  “He’s the …it’s the king.”

  “Indeed! The king himself. It’s very flattering to be asked, naturally. I do have something of a reputation in the city. He even had me summoned to the palace. I didn’t go inside, of course. I only hope he likes it. He wanted something in his own image, something unique, ‘a thing no one else had yet dreamt of.’ Those were his precise words. Imagine! An order like that, after so many years of cuckoo clocks!”

  Serena had been speaking too loudly, too cheerfully, perhaps to compensate for Annie’s silence. Now her voice faltered.

  “I did hesitate at first—such responsibility! But I’ll never have to work again, Annie, I mean the repairs, the routine business. I’ll be able to concentrate on the”—she blushed—“on the art.”

  “It is art,” Annie said. “It’s astonishing. And it’s so … so anatomical.” Page had shown her drawings from one of their parents’ books, the body without skin, showing all the muscles, and another showing just the organs. Everything had seemed awfully crowded together. Serena blushed again, but she looked pleased.

  “Well, I did spend a year at the Royal Institute of Medicine. They don’t usually allow women, you know. Beatrice always says she was born to be a weaver, but I … well, in any event, I couldn’t stay once Mother and Dad died. Though I must say it comes in handy when one of us gets a splinter or some little thing.” She looked at the clock, her expression wistful. “Now wrap him back up. We don’t want any dust in the works.”

  They drove on a while in silence. Annie wanted to unwrap the clock again and look at it, but it also made her uneasy, as though there were another person in the wagon with them. Suddenly she sat up straight.

  “Serena! Are we going to the palace to deliver the clock?”

  “Oh no, dear, no one simply goes to the palace. Once we arrive at the inn, we’ll send word that the order has arrived, then wait to be summoned. Then, once we’re summoned, we’ll drive to the bottom of that big hill the palace is built on and wait to be summoned again. He’s very secretive, our king. I’ve even heard”—she lowered her voice—“it’s rumored that if anyone speaks of what happens inside the palace to someone on the outside, he, well, he loses his tongue. I mean it’s actually cut off. There’s supposed to be s
omeone in the king’s service whose sole duty it is to cut out tongues. But well, honestly, that does seem unlikely, doesn’t it?”

  Annie tried to smile, but her lips felt stuck to her teeth.

  Traffic from the city had started to clog the roadway. Workhorses rubbed shoulders with courtiers’ mounts. A wagon full of turnips was forced into the ditch by a carriage as white and round as an egg. Gold velvet curtains fluttered at the window as the horses charged past.

  “Ridiculous, with their new-bought names,” Serena muttered, but Annie was watching a sheep farmer hustle his flock across the road. A black and white dog nipped and nudged the sheep along. Annie thought of the kinderstalk she had seen in the road. There was no reason not tell Serena. In fact she ought to tell Serena. But she didn’t.

  Then, as they crested a hill the great city itself appeared, a shimmering white mass, with the palace perched above it like the top layer of a wedding cake.

  “Looks good enough to eat, doesn’t it?” said Serena.

  Chapter 8

  The inn was simple by Magnifica’s standards, but far grander than any building in Dour County. As soon as they reserved a room Serena stumped off to investigate the kitchen, leaving Annie alone in the foyer with the innkeeper. She was a thin woman with a white starched collar that matched her teeth.

  “What pretty red hair you have,” the innkeeper said, and Annie knew immediately the wig looked a fright.

  As she followed the innkeeper past the kitchen, Annie saw Serena sitting around a big table with the maids and stable boys. She was laughing and gesturing broadly with one hand; in the other she held a tankard filled with foamy ale. Annie hurried up the stairs.

  The room was clean and impersonal, with a square bed in the center that looked big enough even for Serena. The innkeeper walked over to the window and twitched back the curtains. The sky was filled with pale, hazy light.

  “You got here just in time. Snow is coming, our first big storm of the season. They say the roads will be impassable by morning.” She all but smacked her lips with satisfaction, and Annie realized that if the guests were snowed in they would all have to pay for a second night.