The Glass Casket

by Templeman, Mccormick

  Jude ran his hand through his hair. “So this monstrous beast that stalks our woods, someone used this talisman to call it forth?”

  Mama Tetri furrowed her brow. “Not just someone. A Greywitch. A most powerful Greywitch.”

  “Wait,” Jude said, shaking his head. “But this beast does not live in any talisman. It is corporeal.”

  “Is it, though?” Rowan wondered aloud.

  “Of course it is,” he said. “You saw it yourself.”

  She shook her head. “But I’ve also seen it disappear among the trees, and we’ve both felt it move past us without seeing its shape. It’s almost as if it is of this world and not of this world at the same time.”

  Mama Tetri nodded. “I think you may be right. You see, even if a spirit were made corporeal—and it would take an immensely powerful Greywitch to cast such a spell—its essence, its heart, would remain in the talisman. It is like the shell of a sea creature. It may wander forth without its shell, but it is not safe or whole unless it is in its true home, the talisman. A spirit is of no use to a witch if she cannot hold sway over it.”

  “But Fiona Eira has it,” Rowan said. “She has the talisman.”

  “We know,” said Mama Lune.

  “But,” said Jude, “Fiona couldn’t have summoned that thing.”

  “No, she couldn’t have,” Mama Tetri said.

  “Then how?” Rowan asked.

  The witches looked at each other, and then Mama Lune spoke. “All we can say for certain is that somewhere out there, a Greywitch is missing a very important possession, and she can’t be pleased about it. I would hazard a guess that she doesn’t know who has her talisman, and therefore she doesn’t know who has her beast. She must be searching for it, and yet we have not felt her walk our woods.”

  “But,” said Rowan, trying to make sense of it all, “what about Fiona … what exactly is she?”

  Mama Lune’s eyes grew wide as she spoke. “She is a bloody one, child—the hungry dead. She needs to feed or she will die a second time, the pain of which you can scarcely imagine.”

  “And the beast,” Jude said. “You say it is a kind of spirit?”

  Mama Tetri pursed her lips. “It is an old thing—from long ago, when the world was a wicked place.”

  “And it is the coin that connects them because Fiona wears it around her neck,” said Rowan.

  “It could be more than that that connects them,” said Mama Lune.

  “What do you mean?” Rowan asked.

  “The Greywitch must connect them both. It has to,” the witch answered.

  Rowan’s mind felt alive as all the pieces of the puzzle began to click into place. And yet, there was a creeping fear, a sense of doom looming just above her, threatening to press down and crush the air from her lungs. “Do you think this Greywitch could still be in Nag’s End?” she asked.

  Mama Lune furrowed her brow. “If so, she is being very quiet. We have not sensed her.”

  “So … what do we do?” Rowan asked, galvanized. “There must be something we can do? Some kind of magic?”

  Mama Lune scowled and put a hand on her hip. “We are not all-powerful, child. I am a Greenwitch. I make herbs and tinctures to heal. Mama Tetri is a Bluewitch. She works the water to divine. We don’t go about fighting primordial monsters.”

  “But can’t you divine how to kill it?” Rowan pleaded. “Can’t you divine what to do?”

  Mama Tetri pursed her lips. “I have tried, and I cannot see. The only thing we do know is that witches like us are powerless against this kind of magic.”

  “But you can’t be!” cried Rowan, fear welling up in her heart. “There must be something you can do.”

  Mama Lune shook her head. “We are heading west. It is time for Mama Tetri to move on, and I shall go with her.”

  Rowan was shocked to hear the words, but looking at Jude, she saw that they hit him harder.

  “What?” he said, stepping away from Mama Lune. “You can’t leave now.”

  “There is nothing we can do,” the Greenwitch said. “Mama Tetri has delivered her message, but we cannot stay and fight. Witches are a dying clan. We need to protect our ways. We must move on.”

  Jude stood stunned, his face crimson with anger.

  “You’re not going to help us?” Rowan asked, her mind spinning. “You’re just going to leave us here?”

  “This is not our battle. We cannot win it,” Mama Tetri said, leveling her gaze at Rowan. “But there is a faint possibility that you might be able to do so. This connection you have with Fiona. See what that brings. You are connected to her, and she is connected to the beast. And therein lies your hope. Perhaps there is some way to use this connection to your advantage.”

  “You’re both crazy,” Jude spoke, fury charging his words. “You’re telling us that you won’t stay and help us, but that Rowan should risk her life?”

  Mama Lune nodded. “I cannot make you understand the ways of the witches. Forgive me, child.”

  Jude shook his head. “That’s all we get?”

  “That’s all you get,” she said, pity in her eyes, and for a moment, Rowan felt certain that Jude was going to scream, but clenching his jaw, he turned and strode over to Rowan.

  “Let’s go,” he said. “I’m sorry I brought you here.”

  Mama Tetri reached out to take Rowan’s hands, but she backed away from the witch and walked out the front door with Jude.

  Once outside, Rowan turned toward Jude, and he winced, pain written across his face. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know what we’re going to do.”

  “It’s not your fault, Jude,” she said, upset to see him so hurt, wanting to soothe him somehow.

  “I trusted them. I thought they would help us. I thought they would help you,” he said, looking at her with desperate eyes.

  And that was when they heard a man’s scream—sharp and otherworldly. They froze there, staring at one another, the same thought pulsing through them both—Tom. Without another word, they raced through the trees, back toward the village, toward the scream.

  As soon as they saw the body, Rowan knew it wasn’t Tom, but the sight was so horrific that she was overcome. There in the snow, his rifle beside him on the ground, Goi Tate lay splayed out, his chest a bloody cavern.

  Some distance through the woods, Rowan heard movement—the snapping of branches, the crushing of snow.

  Jude took her hand. “We have to go. Before it comes back. We have to get inside the village barrier.”

  17. STRENGTH

  OUT IN THE woods, Fiona kissed Tom between his eyes. He sighed and cocked his head.

  “I think I’m changing,” Tom said, but she only laughed. “I don’t know who I am anymore.”

  “I know who you are,” Fiona said, smiling. “And I think you’re wonderful.”

  “This anger, this violence inside me,” he said. “It grows stronger every day. I fear it will consume me.” Gazing at the coin she wore around her neck, he remembered Jude’s words. The elders had seen an evil in their house, and Tom knew they were right to have seen it, but the evil hadn’t emanated from a person. It was the coin that they’d sensed. He took a step toward Fiona. “It comes from there. It draws me to it. I need it to stop. Please, Fiona, make it stop.”

  Fiona’s face grew serious, and grasping the coin around her neck, she took a step away from him as if to shield it. “What would you have me do?”

  He looked at the coin and then back to her face. “It makes me sick. It turns me inside out and makes me crave things—things that frighten me.”

  “What things?” she asked, her expression curious.

  “Violence. Blood. I nearly killed my brother today. I stood over him, ready to plunge a knife into his heart, and I don’t know why. It was as if there was no other choice. And I know it was that—that thing. It drives me to do things. Please, Fiona.”

  She shook her head, insistent. “There’s nothing I can do about it.”

  “Yes, there is
,” he pleaded, moving to touch her. But just as he stepped toward her, she stepped away. “Get rid of it. Destroy it.”

  “You would have me destroy it?” she asked, shocked. “But I need it. I cannot live without it.”

  “Of course you can. Please understand, that coin, it will drive me to do things I will regret. Since the moment I found it, things have gone wrong. Up on that mountain, when I found it buried in the snow, somehow I knew. I just knew, but I took it anyway. Even when I forgot about it, when I packed my heavy coat away in the attic, the coin in the pocket, I believe I still felt it calling to me even then. And then, when I put it around your neck, everything changed. Don’t you see? It was as if the world turned sour after that. If I hadn’t found it, if I hadn’t given it to you, maybe everything would be okay right now. Maybe it still could be. I am begging you to destroy it.”

  She moved close to him, and taking his head in her hands, she peered into his eyes. “I will help you. I will teach you how to control your urges as I am learning to control mine. When that girl, my cousin, came into the woods earlier today, do you think I did not want to tear her throat from her wispy frame? Do you think I did not want to consume her? But I fought the urge because I promised you I would not kill again.”

  Tom bowed his head. “Then we have to leave.”

  “What?” she asked, shocked. “Where would we go?”

  “Up north,” he said, a plan formulating in his mind. “Away from people. If I am to turn into a monster, then I want to be where I can do no harm to innocents.”

  “But we’re happy here,” she said, sad-eyed. “I can control it. I can help you control it as well.”

  And that was when they heard it—the crack, the scream, and Fiona’s eyes grew wide.

  “What … what’s happening?” Tom drew near her, terrified she was injured, but then she sighed, and as she arched her back, a delicious smile spread over her face.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, gripping her tightly.

  Eyes wild and sparkling, she licked her lips. “I feel wonderful,” she said. And then fear spread over her face. “Oh, Tom. Oh, Tom, no.”

  “What is it?”

  “It has fed. Oh, Tom, I am so sorry.”

  “No,” Tom said, understanding immediately. “You said it did what you bid.”

  “It does,” she said, bewildered. “It did. But it was so hungry, Tom, and something strayed into the woods tonight.”

  “Oh Goddess, my Goddess,” Tom moaned, pacing. “Is it my brother? Is it Jude?”

  Fiona tilted her head, feeling what the beast felt. “No … I don’t think so.”

  “We have to leave,” he said, and this time when he spoke, he saw on her face that she understood he was right. “We are a sickness—a plague. We have to sequester ourselves, take that beast with us where we can hurt no man.”

  Fiona started to shake her head, but it was not worth fighting.

  “I need to say goodbye to my family,” Tom said, speaking quickly, as if trying to piece everything together. “Then we’ll go away from here. We’ll leave tonight. We’ll start anew somewhere else. We won’t hurt anyone.”

  Fiona closed her eyes, and then she nodded. “I need to say goodbye to Lareina. She is buried where you pointed out to me—on the cliff above the lake?”

  “Yes,” he said, relief consuming him. “That’s right. Up Cairn Hill at the Mouth of the Goddess. I will meet you there, and then we will go.”

  Taking her hands in his, he stared into her eyes, and then, without another word, each went their own way into the night.

  By the time Rowan and Jude reached her house, they were out of breath, their lungs bursting, and Rowan was on the verge of tears. Flinging open the door, she screamed for her father. She ran to his study but found it empty. Footsteps on the stairs sent relief flooding through her, but a moment later, when the duke emerged into the hall, she was overtaken by a sudden sense of uneasiness.

  “What is it?” he asked, concerned.

  “There’s been another attack,” Jude said, breathless. “In the woods. Goi Tate. I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do.”

  The duke ran a hand through his hair, thinking for a moment before he spoke. “Jude, you come with me. We’ll go to your father’s tavern and gather what men we can. Perhaps we can catch the beast while it’s still afoot. Rowan, you lock the door behind us. Don’t let anyone in.”

  “Okay,” Rowan said, confused and terrified. “Where is my father?”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “But I don’t know. Merrilee is asleep upstairs. Will you keep an eye on her for me?”

  Nervously, he wrung his hands, the silver rings catching the moonlight and casting a glittering veil over Rowan’s eyes. She turned away, a tightening in her chest, and suddenly, though she couldn’t say why, she was newly afraid.

  “Of course,” she said, though the words came out as no more than a whisper.

  “Thank you,” the duke said, and then, turning to Jude, he added, “Come along. I suspect we have a full night ahead of us.”

  She watched them leave, the heavy oak door shaking the house when the duke pulled it closed behind him. Once they had gone, Rowan stood alone in the hallway, feeling very much as if icy hands were gripping her shoulders. Shivering, she tried to understand the source of her fear. She stood very still, listening to the old house creak and breathe, settling into its foundations, as Emily used to say. Her teeth began to chatter, and her thoughts fell to the rings the duke wore on his left hand. That was what had frightened her, what continued to frighten her, though the reason she could not place.

  A creak from the floorboards above startled her, and she did her best not to cry out. Merrilee. She needed to check on Merrilee.

  Slowly she took the stairs one at a time, her knuckles growing white from gripping the banister as she went. Above her, the second-floor landing was lit only by the radiance of the moon cascading through the picture window, and the house was so quiet that she could hear her own breathing echoed back to her by the walls above.

  She took the last step and pulled herself up onto the landing. The moonlight illuminated about a quarter of the hallway, but gradually the darkness took over until it seemed to consume the length of it. Nearly frozen, Rowan peered down into the shadows to the far end of the house where her mother’s old room lay. She moved slowly, running her fingers along the walls, careful to keep her feet silent as she went. She watched her fingers disappear as she moved out of the moonlight and into the darkness, and from then on she was guided only by memory, and by the lines of light beneath each wooden door. When she reached Antonia’s old room, where Merrilee slept, she caught her breath and opened the door as silently as she could. Light streamed in through the window and kissed the sleeping child, who was curled up on the bed like a tiny animal. Rowan breathed a sigh of relief.

  Turning, she pulled the door closed behind her, and then let her attention fall to her mother’s old room, where the duke was staying, and again she felt uneasy.

  She crept across the hall to his door, and quietly she opened it and stepped into the bedchamber. Unsure what exactly it was she sought, she looked around for anything that might stand out. Reaching for the matches over the fireplace, she lit a mounted sconce, and a warm, quivering light flooded the room and danced upon the walls. The chamber was neatly kept, the bed expertly made. Oddly, though, his personal belongings were nowhere to be seen. It was as if no one was occupying the space at all. She tried the closet door but found it locked. Remembering that Emily kept keys in the top drawer of the dresser in each room, she gently pulled the drawer open, but inside she found nothing.

  Rowan leaned against the wall and swept her eyes over the room once more. If the duke had the key on him, then she was out of luck, but perhaps he’d hidden it. If she were going to hide a key somewhere, she wondered, where would she hide it? She scanned the space again, and then they alighted on the wooden bedposts. Rowan grew very still as she stared at the round wooden finials. They lo
oked like … eggs—like wooden eggs. In her dream, her mother held one of those wooden eggs in her hand. But if the witches were right, then those dreams weren’t really dreams; they were memories. And if it was a memory, then that meant that those finials could be removed. Could there be space inside them large enough to fit a key?

  Hesitant, her heart beating wildly within her chest, she took a step toward the bed. With shaking hands, she reached out and began twisting the round finial nearest the window, near where the light had streamed in in her dream. It gave way easily, and she turned it until it came loose from the post.

  Her heart gave a start as she realized what this must mean. The witches were right. It was true—she had known her mother. Her mother had held her and loved her, and Rowan remembered it all. The dream wasn’t just a dream; it was a memory. She fought back tears of joy as she thought of it. Carefully removing the wooden egg, she reached inside the post. It was a space definitely large enough to hide a key. She let out a joyful gasp, overwhelmed by what this meant, and then her fingers brushed against something metal. The key.

  Smiling, she pulled it out and headed to the closet. She slipped the key into the lock and turned it, and the door eased open to reveal a most unexpected sight. Three trunks lined the base of the closet, their lids shut and padlocked, but the shelves, instead of being filled with clothing, were hidden by lengths of thick black velvet cloth. With a shaking hand, she reached up and pulled off one cloth, and then another, and another, and behind each gleamed mass of sparkling silver after mass of sparkling silver. Strewn along every surface—forks, knives, spoons, serving implements, dashed together carelessly, and at the center of the mess was a large silver bowl. Rowan found herself stepping away, clutching at her chest as the meaning hit her.

  It was him. All along it was him. Although she’d had moments when he’d made her feel odd, she’d never suspected he could be the Greywitch. She’d assumed that all witches were female, but apparently she’d been wrong.

  The light from the dancing candle seemed to animate the glittering mass of silver, sending it into a rapturous dance, and even as her gut cinched in upon itself, she found herself reaching out for the riches. But just before her fingers grazed a gleaming chalice, she came to her senses and jerked her hand away.