Darkwood

by M. E. Breen

  “Who …?”

  Two neat points of pressure on her hip, now four, six, eight, climbing over her shoulder. She reached a hand out from under the covers and touched soft fur, cold from the night air. Of course they had found her. They always did.

  The next morning the cats were gone, but orange and brown hairs clung to the blankets. Annie hurried to the window.

  The bindweed had grown since yesterday. The closest leaves lapped the windowsill. A rime of frost coated the sill and the windowpanes, but there was no frost on the leaves of the vine. Puzzled, Annie reached out to touch a leaf, then pulled her hand back quickly. The leaf was warm. Tentatively, she reached her hand out again—the petals were warm too, and the stem was almost hot. She looked down at the green circles burned into the white lawn, and snapped a flower off the vine.

  Immediately, the flower wilted. She put the flower in her half-full water glass. The stem lifted. The petals deepened to a darker pink.

  The cats returned after dark. They went straight to her untouched dinner tray: bread pudding doused in cream and a tiny quail floating on its back in a pool of sauce, two delicate paper pom-poms where its feet should be.

  Prudence buried her face in the cream. Izzy hunched over the quail carcass, cracking bones.

  “Izzy, stop!”

  He let her take it, but barely. Annie studied the smooth leg bone, the prominence at one end where it fit into the hip socket, split and sharpened now by Izzy’s chewing.

  It shouldn’t have worked. It didn’t work, the first fifty tries. And then, with the cats watching her lazily from the bed, and her palms sweating, and the greasy bone-key slipping, it did.

  Annie opened the door, just a crack, and peered out into the hall. It was empty.

  Her old clothes felt good, scratchy and stiff after the fine fabric of the nightgown, but hers. The hall stretched immensely long in both directions, punctuated by candles in wall sconces and carpeted in purple, green, and gold. There were doors on either side, all closed. At one end she could see a long, thin window, like an arrow slit, and below it the first few steps of a staircase.

  Down, down, down the stairs she went, past a great black and white tiled hall, past a pink and gold ballroom, past a green and burgundy billiards room, past the steamy kitchen where the scullery boys were washing dishes. Finally the steps ended at a plain wooden door. She opened it.

  A crushed stone path led around the wall of the palace to the gardens. Lanterns of colored glass lit the path and she watched her hands turn blue, then red, then purple as she stepped through pools of light. Bits of gravel poked her feet through her socks.

  She passed banks of flowers and neatly groomed raspberry bushes laden with berries. To her right a wild rose had been trained to a fragile network of lattice. The lawn, clear of snow now and such a vivid a green it was almost sickening, spread out before her. The colors in the garden seemed sinister to her now, not beautiful. She felt sorry for the plants.

  Stepping among the trees of the pleasure forest, Annie felt a queer thrill, part fear, part joy. She was in danger; she was safe. She was lost; she was on the path. She wondered if the lords and ladies had the same feeling when they entered the pleasure forest, if that was the point.

  Annie followed the path until it emerged on the other side of the forest, crossing several more yards of lawn before joining a path that ran along the base of a high stone wall. She had reached the border of the palace grounds. Statues lined the path at precise intervals: a stone Cupid aimed his arrow at a stone fawn. A stone goose curved its neck over stone eggs. The whole place had a forgotten, melancholy air, as though the statues were waiting for someone to arrive who never did.

  Annie turned left at the wall, but the path soon disappeared beneath the tangles of an errant bracka hedge. She smiled a little at that. Bracka bushes would always have their way, royal gardeners or no.

  Picking her way around the hedge, she was struck by the quiet of the pleasure forest. Even the smells seemed muted, without the spice and rot she remembered from the forest of Dour County. She ran a finger over the bark of the nearest tree. It felt real enough. Yet those boulders just ahead: there was something too orderly about them. They reminded her of the rocks she had climbed to reach the castle gates. And they felt … they were hollow! Annie knocked against the rock again, enjoying the sound.

  “Who is there?”

  The voice struck Annie like an arrow. She dropped to her knees.

  “Hello? Is someone there?”

  That voice. Oh, that voice.

  She started to crawl, fast, around the base of the rocks. Pine needles pricked her hands. She could hear herself panting.

  “Please! You are frightening me. Tell me who is there!”

  It’s me! It’s me! But the words caught in her throat. She burst around the edge of the rock pile, then reared back in panic. Inches from her face hung the massive head and heavy, narrow jaws of a kinderstalk. One side of its muzzle rose in a snarl. The tongue was very red. The fangs were long, white at the tips, yellow where they met the gums. But most frightening of all were the eyes, round and blank, filmed over with milky white. The kinderstalk was blind. Did she have a chance, then? Annie inched backward. The animal snarled and advanced. One great paw, bigger than a man’s foot, pinned her right hand to the ground.

  She could hear someone whimpering and thought, That must be me. Then she heard a strange low sound, almost like barking. The kinderstalk’s ears pricked up. A hooded figure emerged from the shelter of the rocks, holding a torch. The kinderstalk trotted over and sat down beside the figure, docile as a dog. The figure laid a slender hand on the kinderstalk’s head—a woman’s hand.

  At the sight of the hand, Annie began to tremble. The figure set the torch in the earth and raised both hands to her hood. Long pale hair, nearly white, hung around her shoulders. She held out her arms.

  Chapter 10

  Annie buried her face in Page’s hair, breathing in the familiar scent of ink and old leather. She drew back from her sister just far enough to peer into her face. Tears leaked from the corners of Page’s eyes and her nose was running, but she looked happy.

  “Come inside,” Page said, mopping at her face with a sleeve.

  Annie let go of her reluctantly. Page picked up a cane leaning against the side of the rock shelter. She walked with a fluid, firm step, the cane moving like a part of her body. Annie felt happy and a little lost to see that her sister no longer needed crutches.

  The kinderstalk followed them in. Annie edged away from it, but Page smiled. “He won’t hurt you.”

  It was more a cave than a house, with only a jagged space between two boulders to serve as an entrance. Torches illuminated the walls and low ceiling, all formed of the same rocks that were not rocks. A straw pallet and a three-legged stool made up the furniture. From a hook close to the entrance hung a clutch of dead rabbits.

  “Can I come stay here with you?”

  It took Page a moment to answer.

  “I have a room at the palace. I only stay here sometimes, to keep Sharta company.”

  “The kinderstalk?” Annie gaped. “You named it?”

  “Him. And he already had a name.”

  Annie’s heart felt like it was being squeezed tight in someone’s fist. “I saw you, the night the kinderstalk chased me. And you saw me.”

  “Yes.”

  “It wasn’t a dream.”

  “No.”

  “You knew I was here. You knew I was locked in that room.”

  “Yes.” Page’s voice was soft, urgent. “But, Annie, ask yourself what—who—could possibly keep me away from you?”

  Annie studied the empty face of one of the dead rabbits.

  “Was it the king?”

  Page nodded. “I’m not free here either, not really.” She gestured around the cave. “Sharta has his little prison, and I have mine.”

  “But why are you here? I don’t understand.”

  Page studied her for a long moment. At
last she spoke.

  “You didn’t get my letters.”

  “You wrote me letters? Uncle Jock must have … they told me you were dead!” Annie wailed.

  “Shh, sweetheart. I’m not dead.”

  “F-f-fever, he said. He burned your books!”

  “He’s a villain.”

  “How many letters?”

  “Every week. Sometimes every day.”

  Annie wiped her nose with her sleeve.

  “I wish the kinderstalk would kill him.”

  Page smiled. “I should tell you not to say such things.” She handed Annie a handkerchief. The fabric was very soft. A triangle of letters was embroidered in one corner, P-U-T, with the U at the top and bigger than the other letters. Annie pointed to it.

  “What does that mean?”

  Page blushed. “Oh, that’s nothing. Everything has to be so fancy here. You’d better blow your nose.”

  “Why are you a prisoner like me?” Annie asked.

  “Well, we both arrived here the same way. I came with Sharta. You came with many, many more of his kind.”

  “I didn’t come with the kinderstalk! I was running away from them!”

  “I think the king believes that now. He took some convincing. You’re lucky I found your slipper.”

  “My slipper?” Annie felt the conversation wheeling away from her. She had the ugly feeling of being the butt of a joke, but there was only Page, watching her anxiously, and the kinderstalk. It lay at her sister’s feet, eyes closed, ears erect.

  Page reached into the pocket of her cloak. “We only opened the door far enough to pull you inside, but the kinderstalk scattered. They left this.”

  It was the right shoe, the one with Prue’s face on it. Something had punctured the sole in several places.

  “I showed this slipper to the king.” Page shook the shoe in the air. “I told him, ‘She barely escaped with her life! She warned us to close the doors! And now you want to throw her in the dungeon?’”

  Annie touched one of the holes in the leather. Definitely a tooth. “I was in the dungeon?”

  “For twelve minutes. He agreed to let you out, on three conditions.”

  “If I took my medicine?”

  “Yes. And I was not allowed to visit you.”

  “That medicine, it’s the same potion they give the plants to make them bloom.”

  “It’s harmless, that stuff. It might even be salutary.”

  Before, when she used a word like that, Page would have grinned, and waited, and Annie would have asked what it meant. They would have made a game of it.

  Instead Annie asked, “What was the third condition?”

  Page had been leaning close to Annie, her face eager. Now she sat up straight and stiff. A pink spot appeared on each cheek.

  “We should go now. It will be light soon, and it’s better if they don’t know you left the room.”

  Annie didn’t budge. “You said you came here with the kinderstalk? How? What happened? Why did you leave?”

  Page studied her hands. There was a smudge of ink on the right ring finger. “All this time, when I imagined you reading my letters, it felt like you were here with me. I shared everything with you. And now you’re here, you’re really here, and you don’t know any of it, and we feel so far apart.”

  Annie didn’t know what to say.

  Page took the kinderstalk’s long jaws in her hands. She murmured something that made its ears stiffen, then relax. Slowly, the big head swung toward Annie. The snout lifted, searching the air. Without knowing quite what she was doing, Annie extended her hand. Cold nose, hot chuff of breath, a prickle of whiskers in her palm.

  Page took her arm. “Come on.”

  Page stopped just long enough to grab the torch, then plunged through the trees, beating bracka bushes aside with her cane. Annie followed her at a trot.

  “Page, wait. Page, slow down.” A branch bounced off her sister’s cane and snapped against her thigh.

  “Page! Stop.”

  Page turned. Her face looked fierce in the torchlight.

  “Give me the torch,” Annie said.

  “What? Why? You don’t know where you’re going.”

  Annie hesitated, just for a second. “I can’t see. You’re walking too fast.”

  Page pinched her lips together. “Fine. But stay close behind me.”

  Any tree would do. The snow that had burned away so quickly from the lawn still clung to their shaded roots. Still, she waited until they had nearly reached the edge of the pleasure forest. Then she slowed, pretended to stumble, and plunged the torch into a patch of snow and sodden leaves.

  Darkness dropped over them like a shroud. Page screamed. For a moment, in the shame that rushed over her as fast as the dark, Annie wondered if her dark sight had deserted her. Then objects began to pick themselves out of the blackness—the bulky contours of a tree trunk, the spreading fineness of branches, an emerging bud.

  “Annie! Where are you?”

  “I’m right here.” Annie touched her sister’s hand. Page jumped.

  “I can feel you, but I don’t …I can’t… oh, I hate it!” Page’s voice was nearly a wail.

  “I have matches. Wait, it’s almost lit.” Annie counted to twenty, then made the sounds of fumbling. She was glad her sister could not see her face.

  The torch hissed into light. Page lunged for it like a drowning person. So this question, at least, was answered. Page could speak to the kinderstalk, but only Annie could see in the dark.

  From the top of the stairs Page walked straight to Annie’s door. Of course she would know where the room was, but still, it hurt to see her act as though she had been to visit Annie a hundred times before.

  “I did visit you. I snuck in when you were asleep. I even read to you a few times about abnormal topography.” She forced a smile and lifted her hand to tuck a piece of hair behind Annie’s ear. “You’re as tall as I am.”

  “Page, I have something important to tell the king. It’s why I came.”

  Her sister’s eyes were light blue, very clear, like water from a spring. Now she did touch Annie’s face, briefly. Annie turned her cheek into her palm. She would forgive her anything. Everything.

  “I’ll be back for you tomorrow morning,” Page said. “We’ll talk more then. Sleep well. And don’t … don’t worry.”

  Annie woke to find Page sitting next to her in bed, reading. Her hair had been looped and braided into an elaborate crown. On top of her real hair was a tower of what looked like someone else’s hair, all of it held together by jeweled combs. She wore a red velvet dress embroidered at the bust and hem with gold curlicues. Her lips were painted red to match her dress. Strangest of all, her face was dusted with white powder and her eyebrows had been shaped into high, surprised-looking arches. Annie felt a little afraid of her, until she noticed the brown and white cat hairs clinging to the lap of her dress. Prudence sat at the end of the bed washing her face.

  “Sleepyhead. I was just about to wake you.”

  Annie scooted up from under the covers and leaned over her sister’s shoulder to see what she was reading. Page showed her the cover. Topographical Anomalies of the Frigian Glacier.

  “Dull?”

  “Extremely.”

  “Page, I found your book! I took it from Aunt Prim. It had your notes in it but the rest was written in some language I couldn’t read. It isn’t even a book, really, just a paper hidden inside another book.”

  Page had gone pale. “May I see it?”

  Annie jumped up and ran to the wardrobe. “It was in my pocket when they washed my dress. The ink washed away.”

  Page held the book for a moment without opening it. Quickly, she lifted the cover, looked at the watery streaks that had once been letters, and closed it again. Her fingers reached for the locket she had worn since childhood, a gift from their parents. It looked plain and dull against the elaborate dress.

  “You said Aunt Prim had this? Not Uncle Jock?”

 
; “Aunt Prim. I don’t think he knew she had it.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Why? What did it say?”

  “I never figured it out, but I think its a message from Mother and Father. I was trying to translate it when—” She broke off. “You’d better get dressed. We’re going to have breakfast with the king.”

  Annie looked at a puddle of brown fabric on the floor by her feet. She hadn’t bothered to hang up her dress last night, and now it was not only stained, threadbare, and two sizes too small, but wrinkled.

  “Not in that. In this.”

  Page reached past her into the wardrobe and took out a green dress. Not a dress, a gown. A woman’s gown. The waist nipped in, the skirt flounced out. The sleeves were embroidered with a pattern of silver vines.

  “I’m sure you’ll hate it, but it was the least lacey one I could find.”

  “I don’t hate it.”

  “Oh. Well, good.”

  “Page?”

  “There are slippers as well. They have a bit of a heel. You’re too young for that, but—”

  “Why did you leave? How did you get here?”

  Page had been holding the green dress up to her body. Now she lowered her arms, as though the dress had become too heavy for her. It pooled around her feet.

  “Oh, Annie.” She walked over and sat down on the bed. Annie watched a cat hair on the collar of her dress flutter each time she breathed. “It’s a horrible story. The first part, anyway.”

  “Tell me!”

  “Uncle Jock sold me to the Drop.” She touched the handle of her cane. “He couldn’t have gotten much for me.”

  Annie moved to put her arms around her sister, but Page leaned away. “Let me get it over with. He’d sent you and Aunt Prim to market, remember? A man came to the house. I’d never seen anyone so ugly. Gray skin like milk gone bad, and beady eyes.”

  “Did he have a scar, like this?” Annie traced a line down the middle of her scalp.