A Grave Inheritance

by Kari Edgren

  Amnesia could not have caused James to “forget” my Irish roots as he now claimed. Nor would he miss an opportunity to remind me that Henry was currently betrothed to the king’s second daughter. Against his will, albeit, but betrothed all the same.

  A dozen heated retorts jumped to my throat. I forced them back, determined to remain civil. “You require a remedy, I believe. Something for the journey.”

  “Quite right,” he said. “On the voyage from England I suffered severe seasickness. I was hoping you might have something that would make the return voyage more tolerable.”

  For a brief moment I debated giving him a bottle of senna root that I had brewed as a laxative for Old Nan. One teaspoon twice a day wasn’t enough to cause him too much inconvenience, though it would do absolutely nothing to cure his real ailment. By my humble estimation, seasickness and an occasional loose bowel were the least he deserved in return for his awful behavior towards me this past month.

  I shot a furtive look at the bottles. Passing one onto James would be easy enough. Getting away with it would prove more difficult. He had asked for my help, and to deny him was a serious breach of my gift. If Brigid learned that I had purposefully harmed another person, I would be cut off from the Otherworld and the very source of my power. No human was worth the risk, least of all James Roth.

  I took a jar of powdered ginger from the shelf instead. “This should help. Brew one teaspoon in a cup of hot water four times a day. You may add some sugar to help with the taste.”

  James nodded and took the jar. “Thank you, Miss Kilbrid.” Without so much as a smile, he turned and left the room.

  My pleasure, Mr. Roth. And may the devil take you before the morning.

  Such luck had eluded me of late, and for about the millionth time I cursed the circumstances that kept me in the Colonies a month longer than Henry and, by his insistence, in James’s daily company. To be sure, I had bristled at the idea of a protector, but Henry had stood firm and refused to sail unless I agreed to let James stay, regardless of the magistrate’s threat to have him flogged.

  I now had nine more weeks to tolerate that insufferable man—one to travel to Philadelphia and secure passage to England, and another eight at sea. I only needed to be patient awhile longer. Then Henry could deal with James, though it was probably too much to hope that he would be dismissed from service as the two men happened to be the best of friends.

  Alone once more, I returned to the hearth to stir the liquid simmering in one of the large black pots. Steam rose up, bathing my skin and chasing away the last of the chill left by Mr. Chubais. Based solely on our conversation, I failed to understand his connection to the goddess born. Yet what his words did not clearly disclose, I felt confirmed a hundred times in my core—the man could not be trusted.

  Something about him gave me the jitters. Upon deeper reflection, I knew it wasn’t his unusual appearance, the pasty white skin and pink eyes. As a healer, I had seen much worse and wasn’t bothered by such physical afflictions. His soft voice and tendency to sniff the air were disconcerting, but even these mannerisms could not explain my strong aversion to the man. Something else persisted, something much deeper than the eye could see. If not for the cryptic message, I would have preferred to never see him again, which could well be the case gauging by the lengthening shadows in my apothecary. At first light I was leaving for Philadelphia. The man had less than twelve hours to recover from the heat enough to send word. Message or no, my reunion with Henry would not be delayed by even a day.

  Midnight came and went by the time I wiped the last pot clean and then looked around, satisfied with my work. The room was tidy, everything neat and in place just as my mother would have liked it. Before her death we had spent countless hours working together in this room, my mother teaching me the art of healing and the many secrets of our kind. I smiled from the memory when tears unexpectedly stung my eyes. Was I really going to walk away from this? From everything I had ever known?

  Needing to clear my head, I crossed to the open door and inhaled a deep breath of the sweet, earthy scent of ripening wheat. The full moon cast a silvery glow as I stared toward the small family plot where my parents and maternal grandparents were buried. Beyond that, hidden deep in the forest stood the altar that served as a passageway into the Otherworld and the source of my power. For eighteen years Brighmor had been the center of my world in one form or another. Then Henry stepped off a ship and changed my life forever.

  A pang of longing began to swell in my chest, and for the first time since he left, I felt apprehensive about leaving my home to travel halfway across the known world. What if I depleted all my power before I could cross into the Otherworld? Or if the ship sank and I ended up drowned at the bottom of the Atlantic? Or if I did make it to England only to learn that Henry had experienced a change of heart and agreed to marry Princess Amelia after all?

  This last thought proved worse than the others put together. I shoved it aside, unwilling to even consider the possibility. My mind was decided, and I wasn’t about to throw away my only chance at happiness because I was too scared or nostalgic to leave Brighmor. These stone walls were sturdy. They would still be here when I returned—if I ever returned.

  A gentle breeze stirred the night air, brushing the stray hair around my face and causing the candles to flicker on the table behind me. My new life would start tomorrow. Until then I needed to sleep, at least a few hours before the sun came up. I turned to go when something moved in the trees nearest my garden, a flash of white that disappeared in the blink of an eye. My nape prickled in warning, strong enough to make me shudder.

  “Who’s there?” I called.

  Silence followed and I took a cautious step back into the doorway.

  A full minute passed while I waited for any sign of movement. Nothing appeared, and after another minute of watching, it became clear that exhaustion had finally gotten the best of me.

  With a muttered curse, I closed the apothecary door and extinguished all the candles, save for one to navigate the darkened house. On a whim, I also picked up Brigid’s knife on my way out of the room. Certainly, such a blade would come in handy on the voyage.

  From the servants’ wing, I passed through the kitchen, my meager light temporarily aided by the red embers glowing in the cooking hearth. Another door led to the main house, into a long hallway so black my candle did little to dispel the darkness. I continued toward the front stairs, thankful for the thin strip of moonlight that spilled across the hallway from the adjacent room.

  I crossed through the light in two quick steps, when a faint scratching sound caused my feet to stutter. Darting a look into the room, I glimpsed a large shadow through the window as it ducked out of sight. I gasped and jerked back, inadvertently knocking the candle from the holder. In the pitch-black, I hurried down the hallway, the soft thump of my slippers breaking the heavy silence.

  Nearly at the stairs, I came to a sudden stop when something scratched again, this time against the front door. A tentative rattle of the iron handle sent my heart flying straight into my sternum. Rather than run, I found myself rooted in place, staring toward the door as the rattling grew more determined.

  The door refused to budge, having been bolted for the night by one of the servants. The room soon fell silent, and yet I waited, every muscle held taught, hardly even breathing so as not to give myself away. The silence pressed on until it appeared the would-be intruder had left, I hoped from Brighmor altogether, but quite possibly to look for another entrance. Whichever the case, I now had time to alert James of the situation. He, in turn, could wake the numerous field hands who slept above the carriage house, and together they could search the grounds.

  I had just willed my feet to move when the door handle creaked sharply. The iron groaned under the strain, and the wooden jam splintered around the bolt. The commotion was over in seconds, the loud protests of m
etal and wood replaced by the sound of my ragged breath. Where the door had previously held fast, a sliver of silvery moonlight now cut through the darkness. Confusion clouded my head as the sliver continued to grow to a wide arc, and I found myself staring at the shrubberies that lined the front walkway. Then fear took me, stealing my voice and turning my first scream into a small, terrified squeak.

  A large beast stepped into the entry, its pale, canine body illuminated in the moonlight. The summer heat turned to ice around me and I started to shiver, overtaken by a tremendous chill. Partway in the room, the beast lifted its muzzle to sniff the air, each exhaled breath reappearing as a frosty puff.

  Blood pounded through my heart. The beast was too big to fight single-handed. To survive, I had to run. Either back down the hallway to the servants’ quarters or up the stairs to my bedroom where Henry had insisted I keep a loaded pistol. I opted for the pistol, hoping a well-aimed shot to the head could stop a creature capable of breaking through solid wood doors and iron locks. Chancing a tentative step toward the stairs, I heard a snarl of warning. Another step, just the smallest movement, brought more snarls as the beast moved closer, cutting off my path.

  Not daring to move again, I pressed my back into the wall, aware of one last option other than simply playing dead. I might lack the strength to kill the creature, but I could at least hurt it a little, or even scare it off for the few necessary seconds I needed to get up the stairs. Slowly lifting my left hand, I hurled the brass candleholder straight at the beast. There was a meaty thud, followed by a loud clatter as the candleholder hit the wood floor and rolled away. I tensed, ready to bolt.

  It didn’t even flinch! I had hit the devil with all my strength, and it didn’t even flinch! Instead, it tilted its head to the side, the previous snarls replaced by an odd wheezing sound. At first I thought it might be whimpering when another thought flashed through my mind. The cursed thing was laughing at me!

  By now I was too mad to try playing dead.

  I stared at the beast, a strange fire stirring deep inside my chest, feeding my anger. “Stop laughing,” I hissed.

  It wheezed some more, obviously amused by my words.

  The fire surged inside me, white hot and deadly. “Get out of my house or...or...I’ll tear your blasted heart out!”

  The beast snarled in response and edged another step closer. Then it lunged, its teeth flashing at my neck. I screamed, this time loud enough to wake the dead, and threw my hands up to protect myself.

  It slammed into me, knocking my head hard against the plaster. My arms jolted painfully, pinned to my chest beneath its massive weight. A long hiss, like the sound of searing meat, came from between us and my nose filled with the scent of burnt fur and flesh. At once, the beast’s savage snarls turned to howls of pain, then fell silent. A bitter cold moved into my right hand, stinging my fingers before I remembered the smooth, bone handle clamped in my fist. I let go, and the beast sank to the ground, Brigid’s knife deep in its chest. The fire receded inside of me, sapping my strength along with the maddening rage.

  Footsteps came pounding down the stairs. I turned to see James, a candle in one hand and sword drawn in the other. “What happened?” he demanded.

  Unable to speak yet, I let my eyes fall toward the ground.

  James followed with the candle, sucking in a hard breath when he saw the beast lying at my feet. “What is that?”

  I stared down, at a loss what to tell him. Canine in form, its fur was completely white, except for the newly formed bloodstain around its heart.

  James moved the candle closer. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said. “Could be a distant cousin to the wolf hound, though it’s larger by half. What was it doing in here?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, finally recovering the use of my voice. “It broke through the door and attacked me.”

  James poked the hound with the tip of his sword. “Is it dead?”

  “I think so. I had the knife from my apothecary. The hound fell on the blade when it lunged at me.” I held back how the blade had slid into the creature’s chest, melting its flesh and bone like butter.

  James leaned over for a better look. “This wasn’t its first fight.” He pointed towards the hound’s head, “Something has taken a bite out of its ear.”

  My knees buckled and I braced myself against the wall to keep from falling. James was right. One ear looked severely mangled, a portion of cartilage gone and the remainder covered in a thick layer of scabs. The wound was unmistakable, as was the nature of Mr. Chubais’s urgent message—to kill the goddess born.

  The body began to quiver and James jumped back. A blue flame sprang from the bloodstained chest, barely missing my skirts as it raced over the fur, encasing the hound in a blanket of icy fire. It was over in seconds, the carcass reduced to a pile of white ash.

  “Merciful God!” James exclaimed.

  His words mirrored my thoughts exactly.

  Stooping, I picked up the knife from the ash, marveling at how good it felt in my hand. It was a formidable weapon, forged by the smith god for one purpose—to defeat the enemy.

  Chapter Two

  A Person of Interest

  England, November 1730

  From the upper deck of the Callisto, I stared out at the most extraordinary sight. London, a city so vast and crowded it sprawled for miles in every direction to accommodate its half-million residents. The thought boggled my mind—a half million people living together in one place, and all but one complete strangers to me.

  The dark water of the Thames meandered like a lethargic snake, its cumbersome body winding a wide path that separated north and south London by more than a furlong. Ships dotted the river as far as the eye could see, three and four mast giants casting long shadows over the smaller fishing craft and ferryboats. Just past noon, the time appeared much later due to a thick layer of smoky haze that covered the city. A crisp breeze passed by me, strong enough to ruffle my woolen cape and to turn the river’s already noticeable stink into a powerful stench.

  I wrinkled my nose and held up a scented handkerchief to help cover the odor. The mass of humanity, though exciting to behold, had left its mark on the city’s air. Even from the ships position in the middle of the Thames, throngs of people were easily discernible milling about on the docks. After months at sea, the crowds seemed a small price for the freedom to move about beyond the tight confines of the ship’s deck.

  Only a little bit longer, I reminded myself. Captain Saunders was due back at any moment from the customs house where he had gone to declare the ship’s cargo before ferrying the passengers to shore. Another few hours were inconsequential when considering how long Henry and I had already been apart. Fifteen weeks had passed since our last goodbye, each day feeling significantly longer than the one before.

  In the midst of an impatient sigh, my breath cut short when a different number wormed its way forward. Eighty-six days.

  Tomorrow would mark eighty-seven, followed by eighty-eight, every sunrise adding another day to my last visit into the Otherworld. Try as I might to minimize the truth, Brigid’s last warning clung like a stubborn child to my thoughts.

  “Refusing to drink from the spring will result in your death.”

  Lack of opportunity might not equate to outright refusal, but the reason, I assumed, had no bearing on the ultimate promise of death. As Brigid only came to my specific garden about once a year, all I knew for certain was the tidbit she had tossed in with the warning, that it would happen, “over time, depending on the circumstances.” Nothing more had been offered, not even a hint whether she meant six months or six years.

  Anxiety bubbled in my stomach. When I had first agreed to join Henry in London, I drew comfort from the knowledge that my grandparents had survived a similar journey years ago. But as the weeks wore on, this comfort began to wane as my power grew
more and more sluggish with each use, and it became increasingly difficult to ignore the many challenges that awaited me on a distant shore. Now the Callisto had arrived, the questions I’d pushed aside refused to remain quiet any longer.

  Would I know if I were dying? Or just drop dead one day without the least warning? And where in this vast tangle of people and buildings would I find another altar to crossover? Assuming one had been opened at all.

  Soft footsteps approached from behind me, too delicate for any of the sailors. I shook the troubling thoughts from my head and glanced around to find my dearest friend, Nora Goodwin, her excited face framed by the dark hood of her own woolen cape. Stopping at my side, she passed an arm around my waist.

  “I scarce believe my eyes,” she said, looking out at the city. “Pinch me so I know it’s real and not just another of Poseidon’s cruel tricks.”

  “It’s real enough. Can’t you smell it?”

  She pulled a deep breath in through her nose. “Praise be the stink,” she said, gagging slightly, “if it means my wits have survived this accursed journey.”

  “Praise be, indeed. I can hardly wait to get ashore. London looks a marvel from here. Do you think it is really so evil as the stories say?”

  “A right Gomorrah if you ask me,” she laughed. “Though I would gladly take it over spending another night on board this over-sized bucket. Remind me again why I agreed to leave Pennsylvania to accompany you on this silly folly.”

  I poked her playfully in the ribs. “For true love, my dear girl. You are too sentimental for your own good.”

  Nora gave me a sideways glance. “Sentimental, my foot. I did it because you promised we could sneak into a playhouse once we got here.”

  “Another compelling reason,” I said, smiling. Ever since she was a young child, Nora had dreamed of seeing a play, but as a devout Quaker the threat of being discovered, and potentially disowned was too great a risk while at home. Having yet to decide where I belonged amongst the various religions, I received more leniency than Nora from Hopewell’s Quaker population whenever I participated in activities that ran counter to their notion of plain living. In London though, we were two strangers in a veritable sea of people, and a world away from censure of any sort.