The Glass Casket

by Templeman, Mccormick

  “I’m just a girl,” Fiona said, looking deep into Rowan’s eyes. “And I want to be left alone. Do you understand me?”

  Rowan nodded, her blood growing very cold. She knew quite all at once that this girl, this creature, could kill her in an instant if she so chose.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” Fiona said, and she seemed to mean it. Rowan backed away. “But if you tell anyone about me, I will. Do you understand?”

  Speechless, Rowan nodded again.

  They stood there a moment, staring at one another, and then the wind picked up, blowing a chill across Rowan’s neck. She looked at the girl standing half-naked in the snow and wondered how it could be possible. And then Rowan remembered where she’d seen the shift the girl wore—white eyelet lace with a green flower stitched at the base of the left strap on the girl’s dress. It had been Emily’s. She’d been wearing it the night she died. Rowan began to grow sick at the thought, but then she heard something—something coming through the trees, fast, and Rowan knew it was the beast, the creature, and she was certain that she was going to die.

  She closed her eyes as if that could stop it, but she opened them again when, with a crash, the monster came lurching through the trees, its gaping maw extended, its daggered teeth ready to devour. Rowan screamed, her body paralyzed with fear, but then the creature stopped abruptly directly in front of her, and with those empty eyes—the eyes of the dead—it stared into her, and it seemed to Rowan that it knew her every thought.

  Fiona took a step toward the creature, and reaching up, she stroked it as one might a beloved pet, and then, at some unspoken communication between them, the beast retreated, backing away into the trees. Rowan’s eyes were trained on it as it grew horribly still and seemed almost to become part of the whiteness itself, disappearing into the trees, into the snow. If it hadn’t been for its steaming clouds of breath, Rowan would never have known it was there.

  “Curious,” Fiona said, turning her attention to her cousin, but Rowan was so petrified that she could barely feel her feet, let alone speak. “It didn’t hurt you. It’s so very hungry, you see. And yet it didn’t hurt you.”

  The girl wrinkled her brow, seemingly disturbed by the idea, and then she turned to Rowan.

  “What … what is that … thing?” Rowan whispered.

  “A friend. And like I say, it’s so hungry,” she said, and reaching out, she tucked a strand of Rowan’s hair behind her ear. “Incidentally, so am I. I think you’d better go now.”

  Rowan began to shake uncontrollably.

  “I … can go now?” she asked, barely able to form the words.

  The dead girl smiled at her, and then she nodded. “I think you’d better. But remember”—then she held a finger to her lips—“shhh.”

  Jude was cleaning up outside the shed when he heard approaching footsteps. Expecting Rowan, he dusted off his trousers but was surprised to see Tom. Tom, with that strange haze to his eyes, that simmering violence just below the surface, took a step back when he saw his brother.

  “I don’t want to talk,” he growled, and headed for the inn, but Jude stopped him.

  “I know,” Jude said, grabbing Tom by the shoulders and holding him still. “I know where you’ve been going, and I know what she is.”

  Tom pulled away. “Leave it alone, Jude. You don’t understand what’s happening. You can’t know.”

  “But I do know. I know exactly what’s happening, and it needs to stop.”

  “Forget it,” Tom snapped, turning toward the woods. “It was dumb to think I could come back here.”

  “People think it’s you,” Jude said. “They’re probably combing the forest for you right now. They think you’ve lost your mind, Tom. They think you killed those people.”

  “Me?” Tom laughed.

  “I’m trying to protect you,” Jude said. “What are you becoming? Where is my brother who enjoys helping the elderly and who always has a kind word for his fellows? It drives me crazy, but that’s the person you are. Come back to us. Even if you don’t feel normal, you need to start acting normal or else the tide of suspicion that’s already turned against you will grow. The elders came to talk to Father when this all started. They said their oracles told them there was an evil hanging over our house.”

  “An evil over our house?” Tom asked, his eyes seeming somewhere very far off. “When? When did they say that?”

  “Right after the soldiers died. If they tell the others, that will be enough. They’ll hang you, Tom. They will.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Tom said, his eyes growing increasingly clouded. “You’re being paranoid.”

  “Have you seen your face? Do you have any idea what you’re doing to our parents—to Rowan?”

  Tom spun around, his eyes suddenly alight with a haunting kind of fire. “I don’t care,” he said. “None of that matters anymore. Who I was before, that wasn’t me. I didn’t know who I was then. I know now. This is who I am. I’ve found the thing that every man seeks, and I’m not letting it go.”

  “It’s unholy,” Jude said, and Tom stared back at him with hatred in his eyes. “I’m sorry that she died. It was a tragedy, a horrific tragedy, but it’s what was meant to be. She was dead. She’s supposed to stay dead.”

  “But she’s not dead,” Tom said, his face slowly contorting so that when Jude looked at him, he saw little more than an animal. “Don’t you see? She’s not dead. She’s here, and she loves me.”

  Jude shook his head. “No, Tom. She is dead. You found her dead in the snow with her heart torn from her chest. You saw her yourself laid out in that casket.”

  Before Jude could say more, Tom drew his fist back, and with all his fury, he hit his brother in the face, throwing him backward into the snow. Jude tried to scramble up, but Tom was on top of him, and Jude was blinded by the pain.

  And then Tom released him.

  Jude lay on the ground a moment, trying to understand what was happening. He heard footsteps, and then the shed door opening. Confused, his head throbbing in pain, he wondered what Tom could possibly want in the shed.

  By the time Jude realized the answer, it was too late, and his brother was on top of him again, knee to his stomach, holding the hunting knife directly over his heart.

  “No!” Jude screamed. And through the blood, Jude’s eyes locked with his brother’s, and in them he saw only evil.

  Jude struggled, but Tom overpowered him. He hovered over Jude, knife held aloft, but instead of plunging it down, Tom tore open Jude’s shirt and dragged the knife slowly across the skin of his chest. The pain was excruciating, and Jude cried out in agony.

  It was as if the cry awakened something in Tom. Suddenly he stopped, his eyes grew wide for a second, they cleared, and then he looked at the knife in his hand in horror. He dropped it in the snow, and running off, he disappeared into the woods, leaving his brother writhing in agony.

  When Rowan found Jude, he was washing the blood from his torso. His face was swollen but no longer bleeding.

  “Goddess!” she cried. “What happened to you?”

  He flinched when he saw her and then looked away, obviously ashamed. “Tom” was all he said.

  Reaching out with trembling fingers, she touched his chest, careful not to aggravate the wound. “He did this to you?”

  “He sure did,” Jude said, unable to keep the anger from his voice.

  With great pain, he pulled his shirt back on and began buttoning it up.

  “But that needs dressing,” she said, concerned.

  “Mama Lune will help me. I was waiting for you, but I don’t think you should come with me.”

  “What?” she said, hurt. “Why not?”

  “We have to go through the woods to get to her, and I have no clue what’s happening here. I don’t know what to fear or how much to fear it. All I know is how much danger we’re in, and how much happier I would be if you were safe, locked in your house, than out in the woods with me, especially so near nightfall.”

&
nbsp; “No,” she said firmly. “I’m coming. Besides, being locked in a house did nothing to protect Arlene or Emily.”

  He started to argue with her, but when he saw the determination in her eyes, he knew it would be useless.

  “Fine,” he said, defeated. “But we have to hurry. It will be dark soon.”

  The two moved quickly through the woods, trying to make as little noise as possible. Rowan noticed that Jude winced with pain as they went, but he seemed intent on hurrying, so she didn’t try to slow him. She smelled the smoke from Mama Lune’s fireplace before she saw the cottage, and when she did, she increased her pace. It was a pretty stone thing with a thatched roof, set back against a mossy glade. Before they could knock, Mama Lune opened the door. Behind her, Rowan could see Mama Tetri, her dark skin even more lovely illuminated by the firelight within.

  “You’ve come,” Mama Tetri said, smiling. “I’m so pleased to see you.”

  Sweeping forward, the Bluewitch took Rowan by the hands. She looked at her as if she were looking at her own child, then pulled her close and held her in her arms. “Come,” she said. “Come, my child. Sit with me by the fire, and we will have our talk.”

  Mama Lune’s eyes moved to Jude’s swollen face. “What happened?” she cried, and when he removed his coat to reveal his blood-soaked shirt, she gasped. “Who did this to you?”

  “It’s complicated,” Jude said, looking away, and Rowan wondered whether he was protecting his brother or was ashamed.

  “You come with me,” Mama Lune said, putting her arm around him as if she were holding an injured bird. “This will need a plaster. Rowan and Mama Tetri have much to discuss. We will join them once we have you fixed up.”

  Rowan watched as he was ushered from the room, and she realized her heart was breaking for him, for no matter what he might say or do, the boy loved his brother, and to have his love met with such violence could not have been easy for him.

  “He will be fine,” said Mama Tetri, her voice soothing. Rowan had not expected witches to be like this. She had not expected mothering tones and quietly burning fires. She followed Mama Tetri to the hearth and took a seat in a comfortable wooden chair.

  “I am so pleased you’ve finally come to hear. Mama Lune feared you never would.”

  Rowan shifted uneasily in her seat. “In the village, she told me something—something I could not believe—that you said sooth for my mother when she was pregnant with me.”

  “I did,” Mama Tetri said, and Rowan fought the urge to argue with her, for whatever prejudice she had against the witches seemed moot now. “We were children together—your mother and her brother, Pimm, and I. When she found she was with child, it was only right that I should come say sooth for her. Do you know what sooth is, my child?”

  “It’s like a prophecy,” Rowan said, squinting. “Right?”

  The witch smiled. “A little. It’s a blessing, really, but often there are bits of prophecy involved. Sometimes a witch will see things when she lays her hands. Sometimes these things cannot be easily explained. This was the case with you.”

  “What did you see?” Rowan asked, trying to keep the fear from her voice.

  The woman pursed her lips. “It was strange. When I lay the hands, it was as if half of you was blocked from me. I had never seen the like, though I tried not to convey my worry to your mother. I stayed through your nesting—you know, when you were small, you had the most lovely red cheeks; they were like fires burning beneath your skin—and I tried to divine what I could not see in your sooth. I looked in the waters, but they did not speak to me. After your mother was settled, I moved on, and when I had the opportunity, I held conference with an older witch who was more experienced in birthing matters, and she helped me to understand. She explained that this could happen when siblings’ destinies are extremely closely linked. I’ve seen it a few times since. If the path of the first child is determined by the birth of the second, then it will be impossible to see the complete picture for the first until the second has survived the birthing process. All became clear when your mother called for me to say sooth again within the year.”

  Rowan shook her head. “But my mother died in childbirth. I don’t have a sibling.”

  Mama Tetri smiled. “Of course you do. If you didn’t, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

  “But I don’t,” Rowan repeated, her muscles tensing. I am an only child. My mother died in childbirth.”

  “Yes, my child. She died just after giving birth, but not to you. You were only a little over a year old. Tell me, do you sometimes dream of your mother?”

  Rowan nodded, pain gripping her heart as she thought back to her dreams of her mother and the wooden egg.

  “Those aren’t dreams, child. Those are memories. You knew your mother.”

  “I did?” Rowan asked, a wisp of a memory floating past her mind’s eye—her mother’s warm breath upon her face, a slant of light through a diaphanous curtain.

  “You did,” Mama Tetri said. “The destiny I saw when I said sooth the second time was that together you and your sister would eventually bring the downfall of both your parents. By the time I reached your mother, when I said sooth for her, she was already ill, and with this second pregnancy, her fortune was set. I could see clearly now that both parents were destined to die as a result of it. I had to tell your mother. It was my duty. Your mother, she didn’t believe it, and when your father talked of separating the two of you—of sending the baby to your mother’s brother as soon as she was born—your mother wouldn’t hear of it.”

  “The baby lived?” Rowan asked, the words tumbling from her lips like apples from a cloth sack.

  “The baby lived,” said the witch.

  Rowan’s eyes grew wide, the truth suddenly upon her.

  “Fiona Eira?” Rowan said, the name wounding her heart as she spoke it. “Fiona Eira is my sister?” She was stunned, and yet on some level, she’d always known. She’d always sensed her absence, and that day standing on the path, she’d been so familiar. When Fiona had died, the grief had nearly torn her apart, although she’d had no idea why.

  “She begged your father not to separate you, and he promised her he wouldn’t, but still,” continued Mama Tetri, “your mother, she feared for her children. She feared that with such dark fortunes, harm was bound to come to you both. So upon her deathbed, while she stared down at Fiona Eira’s snow-white face, and while she caressed your rosered cheeks, she spoke these words: ‘You two shall have each other forever so long as you live. What one has she must share with the other.’ When your mother died, your sister’s fate was sealed. Your father sent the girl away to your mother’s brother, Pimm, and his wife, Malia, with instructions never to bring her to Nag’s End.”

  “Why?” Rowan asked, shaking her head. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “When I first returned to Nag’s End, it was because I saw in the waters that the sisters were to be reunited, and I feared what might come of it. I wanted to speak to you because I thought you might listen, but since then, much has changed. Outcomes are very uncertain.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Rowan saw Jude and Mama Lune standing at the edge of the room. Jude looked at her with deep concern in his eyes, and she wondered how much he’d heard.

  “Do you know?” Rowan asked the witches. “Do you know that Fiona Eira walks again?”

  Mama Tetri nodded. “We have discovered this, yes.”

  “We know about her,” said Mama Lune, coming closer. “And we know about the beast she commands.”

  “I’ve seen it,” Rowan said, shivering at the memory of it. “It’s awful—a monster of death.”

  Mama Tetri nodded. “I’ve seen it as well—in the water, and we’ve heard it, moving through the trees at night.”

  “Tell me,” Rowan said, a connection beginning to form in her head. “Was her rising the work of a Greywitch?”

  “We think so, yes,” Mama Lune said, but she averted her eyes, and Rowan knew she was
n’t telling her everything.

  “What was it you saw that day? You saw something at the funeral that frightened you—something that made you suspect that a Greywitch was among us.”

  The Greenwitch sighed. “Your sister, when her body fell, I saw that she wore a coin around her neck. This coin—I could see Grey magic trailing off it like ribbons of smoke. Death magic went into its making. Do you know what that means, child?”

  Rowan’s mind flashed back to the drawing of the coin she’d found in her father’s study. She knew he was involved; he had to be, but she still didn’t see how it was possible. She shook her head, trying to focus on the witch. “Death magic? I’ve heard of it, but I can’t say that I know what it is.”

  “For death magic to work, innocent people have to die. They are sacrificed—were sacrificed—in order to create the spell that made that coin,” said Mama Tetri.

  “What is it, though?” Jude asked. “What is the coin?”

  Mama Lune squinted her eyes, crow’s feet fanning out from their edges. “I have seen its like before. It was a long, long time ago, but it is not a thing easily forgotten. Do you know what a talisman is, child?”

  Rowan nodded. “I think so. It’s a protective charm.”

  “No,” the witch said, raising a finger to stop her. “It can be a protective charm, but in its essence, it is a placeholder. It is simply an object that can be used to hold the intentions of the witch who cast the spell into it.”

  Mama Tetri cleared her throat. “In old times, when the Greywitches ruled their sisters, talismans were used almost exclusively to summon ancient spirits, wicked things that they could command to do their bidding.”

  “I’m not sure I understand,” said Rowan. “So the talisman summons a spirit?”

  “It is a doorway,” said Mama Tetri. “Each talisman is fashioned for the purpose of housing a specific spirit. It is only through the metal of the talisman—and it is always fashioned of metal—that the spirit may enter this world.”