At first, Rhea thought that the glare was playing tricks with her eyes. The white pavement heaved upward in a circle and subsided. Another section bubbled up and fell away again.
Heat haze, she thought. It must be. It must be.
It was like no heat haze she had ever seen. The road did not shimmer, it roiled. It moved like a canvas with a road painted on it, billowing and subsiding as she watched.
Her footsteps slowed, then stopped entirely as the road boiled in front of her. “What’s going on?” she said aloud.
The hedgehog made a small sound of distress. Rhea leapt sideways as the pavers heaved under her feet. The dust rose up like steam.
She landed badly, almost turning her ankle, and stumbled. The hedgehog shrieked. She ran for the grass on the side of the road, but it seemed to be miles away, as if the road had grown, and there were bubbles heaving up between her and it.
Roads don’t boil. This isn’t happening. It’s a trick to keep you from leaving, that’s all—
If it was a trick, it was a very effective one.
She staggered backward. Back was the only way that was even remotely clear.
No! Not back, not to the house! The trees—if I could just reach the trees—!
The dust roiled up, higher than a man, forming a wall between Rhea and the trees. There were faces in it now, faces with yawning mouths and teeth like pine needles, faces that had never been human, faces that were not quite human enough.
They looked down at her, and Rhea knew that the things on the white road could see her.
Her arms hung slack at her sides. She could feel the road moving beneath her feet, and yet she could not run.
They’re only dust, they can’t actually hurt me, surely they can’t actually hurt me—
The dust faces moved closer. They were solidifying as they approached, the air become thick as gauze. Creatures of childhood nightmares wriggled and squirmed in the air, and became the nightmares of a hardened adult.
And still Rhea could not move.
The hedgehog shrieked in her pocket, a shriek like a rat in a trap, and it broke the spell.
Rhea turned and ran.
The road rippled underneath her. If she stumbled, she would die. The things on the road would tear her apart, out of hunger, out of hatred, out of some alien emotion that she did not understand.
She was running back to the house of her enemy, and she did not care.
Her feet pounded on the road. Her steps raised no dust now, she saw—perhaps it had all gone to make up the bodies of the things behind her.
There was no sound at all except for the slap of her shoes on the road and her hoarse breathing and the hedgehog whimpering.
She could see faces in her peripheral vision and long grasping hands (if they were hands). She did not dare look at them. She had to look at the next step and the next one and trust her feet because her feet were the only things that could save her.
She dove beneath the arch and into the courtyard, remembering to fall sideways to shield the hedgehog. The shoulder of her dress shredded and the flesh underneath raked across the cobbles.
She lay there, her breath hurling itself in and out of her chest, waiting for a dusty claw to reach out, under the arch, and drag her back to the road.
It did not come.
After awhile, she sat up. The hedgehog shuddered in her pocket.
She looked through the arch.
The road lay straight and quiet. The dust danced as if it had been caught in a stray breath of wind.
Her entire escape attempt had lasted less than ten minutes.
And then, because she could think of nothing else to do, Rhea went into the house and back into her room. She pulled the covers over her head and curled into a very small ball, as if she were a hedgehog herself.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Rhea woke as the sun was setting. The covers were still over her head.
It always works with monsters. They can’t get you under the blankets.
But those were childhood monsters, and she was in a house surrounded by monsters, and locked inside with a grown-up one that walked about in a human skin. Leaving the house was clearly not an option.
What were those things?
She grimaced. Never mind. They’re…out there. I’m in here.
Crevan’s in here, too.
If she refused to get out of bed, he would undoubtedly take that as a task failed, and then…
…then, Miss Rhea, I’ll marry you.
She grimaced and swung her feet out on the floor.
Not that it matters. He’s probably going to keep setting me tasks until I fail at one.
Why doesn’t he just marry me outright? Does he like to play with his prey before he eats it, like a cat?
She went down to the kitchen.
“Not up for cooking tonight, child,” said Maria hoarsely. The cook was sitting at the far end of the table, looking weary. “There’s bread and cheese and raisins on the table for you, and you can wrap up a bit to take with you tonight.”
Rhea looked up, startled.
“There’s a note,” Maria said, nodding to it. “Can you read?”
“A little,” said Rhea. “I’m better with figures.” She picked up the note.
Tonight you must go to the grave of the Lady Elegans, (it read) and place flowers on the grave.
Leave at moonrise and return before the sun.
This is a small task, Miss Rhea, but should you prove unwilling or unable to complete it, I will marry you.
Crevan
Rhea folded it and set it back down on the table. She did not want to put it in her pocket. Lord Crevan had touched it. She rubbed her hands on the side of her skirt before she picked up the bread knife.
At least I don’t have to talk to him. Would he know I was on the white road?
Would he laugh at me for running from the monsters? Would he be glad that I was scared?
“Lady Elegans isn’t so bad,” said Maria, breaking into her thoughts. “She was a proud woman, but not a cruel one.”
“Is she really dead?” asked Rhea skeptically.
“Oh, yes. Dead and in the ground and not coming back. When your life goes elsewhere, that’s the end of the matter. It’s not like misplacing your death.”
“…okay,” said Rhea.
She set the hedgehog on the table. It began shoveling raisins into its mouth with every evidence of enjoyment.
I wish I was as resilient as a hedgehog.
“The white road—” she began.
“Is dangerous,” said Maria flatly.
This is not a safe topic of conversation, then. Damnation.
She would have liked to ask about the beasts on the road. She would have liked to ask—well, in truth, there were a few thousand questions that Rhea wanted to ask, and she didn’t know that she was going to get a chance to ask any of them. What would set Crevan off? Maria looked worn out—would another bolt of…whatever that was…kill her? Would Crevan kill off his cook?
He can probably just marry a new one.
She applied herself to the bread and cheese.
After a few minutes, she said “How do I get to the graveyard?”
“Out the garden gate,” said Maria, “and turn to your right. There’s a little road, or there will be when you go. It’s a country graveyard, and not a bad place.”
“It’ll be harder coming back,” said Rhea, staring at the cheese. “The hedgehogs helped me last time.”
Maria nodded. “I felt magic,” she said. “A little wildwood magic.” She offered the hedgehog another raisin, which was graciously accepted. “It was kind, and there’s little enough kindness around here. I shouldn’t expect it a second time, if I were you.”
Rhea’s heart sank. On some level, she had been counting on the hedgehog to come through again.
The little animal gave her an apologetic look, and patted her wrist with its paw.
“Not your fault,” said Rhea. “You helped me once. I
suppose this time I’m on my own.”
“I shouldn’t say that,” said Maria. “Our thoughts go with you. For some of us, that’s worth more than others.” She slid a knife across the table. “It’s nearly moonrise. Go cut some flowers for the grave.”
It was not a terribly good bouquet—a few purple asters and some sweet-smelling herbs. Still, the note hadn’t specified that she bring white lilies or anything, and it wasn’t as if she had much choice.
She put the knife in the pocket that didn’t contain a hedgehog and set off down the graveyard path.
This one did not turn to brambles and thickets, nor to white dust, but wound around the edge of the great manor house and into the weedy ruins of a former lawn. Foxtail grass and weeds rose waist high in places, but the path was shorn to an inch. It was springy underfoot. A small covey of quail picked their way across the path in front of Rhea, and she paused to let them pass.
I don’t have a great deal of time, but I think being polite to animals is probably a very good idea…
The hedgehog was warm in her pocket. She had barely had time to think about the little creature’s magic the night before, but now, walking briskly down the path, she wondered.
A little wildwood magic…the hedgehog said it wasn’t enchanted when I asked. I wonder if they can all do that, if you get enough of them together…
She’d never heard of such a thing, but the world was a strange place. If there were humans with odd little magic talents, perhaps there were hedgehogs with them, too. Maybe she just happened to have a slug-speaker in her pocket.
“If I survive this,” she said to the hedgehog, out loud, “we’re going to have a very long talk.”
It poked its snout out of her pocket and gave her an ironic look.
“I’ll talk,” she clarified. “You can…um…mime. We’ll play charades?”
It occurred to her, yet again, that the possibility she was going mad would explain a great many things. Perhaps only a madwoman would talk to small animals and be terrified of a dusty road.
Still, not much that I can do about it if I am. I suppose if you’re mad, you just carry on doing whatever seems best. Maybe the wheelwright’s son had a very good reason when he started putting trousers on the pig. Maybe if you’ve spent a week in a fairy mound, it is incredibly obvious that pigs need trousers.
Maybe I’m overthinking this.
The fields around her changed. The grass grew taller, until she suspected it was no longer an overgrown lawn but an old hayfield. It was taller than her head in places, so that she walked through a rustling tunnel that glowed silver in the moonlight.
When the wind blew, the grass bent and the tunnel seemed to lean sideways, murmuring in a hundred restless voices.
It was not an unpleasant place. Rhea would have rather liked it, if she had been back in the village. She had always been fond of grain fields—it was part of being a miller’s daughter, knowing that all the wheat rippling around you would eventually wind up coming through the mill. There was a proprietary quality to her enjoyment.
This was not quite a grain field. There were too many weeds of the prickly, thorny, bristly variety, and it would have been rather an unpleasant lot to bring down to the threshing floor. But the grasses bent properly in the wind and made the proper sounds, and Rhea’s heart seized with homesickness, even as she was comforted by it.
If I have to marry him, he can’t keep me in the house all the time. I could walk here. This is not a bad place.
She found the graveyard, not at the end of the path but more or less in the middle of it. The path split in two and went in a broad circle. In the center was a low, wrought-iron fence with broken finials, enclosing a small country graveyard.
It was not the sort of place Rhea expected to find a great lady buried in. (Maria had called her Lady Elegans, so surely she was noble?) It was a little clutter of gravestones, softened by moss, like the family graveyards found on old farms.
The gate stood open, and even if it had not, she could have stepped over it. A hare moved away as she approached, not running, just a few unconcerned hops.
It was very peaceful. Rhea had a hard time believing that it stood so close to Lord Crevan’s home. It seemed like she should be able to feel his malice, even here.
There were only a dozen graves. Rhea walked between them, looking for names, and found Elegans written on most of them.
Is this their graveyard? Did this use to be their manor house, and Crevan married into it? Or is the world just twisted around again, and I’ve come to their graveyard by magic?
“And which is Lady Elegans?” she asked. “Is this part of the test? Find the correct grave?”
A dozen graves. Eight of them had the name Elegans.
Rhea felt a bubble of panic. No one told me her first name. What if I put the flowers on the wrong grave? I’ll fail the task.
She looked down at the gravestones again…and then blew her breath out, hard.
Don’t be ridiculous. This is not hard. Aunt would figure it out in a trice. It’s no worse than when we get grain from the Smiths.
There were six Smith families in town, all of whom were descended from the same patriarch and all of whom hated one another passionately, egged on by self-same patriarch. Working out which Smith household was due which bags of grain could be an exciting prospect if the notes were not exact.
This would be easier if they had dates. I could work backwards from there…
But there were no dates. There were a few phrases chiseled here and there, and several carvings, but no dates. Time had apparently stopped in this place.
Of the eight Elegans gravestones, three had male names. It was unlikely that Lady Elegans had been named John or Jack—though not impossible, Rhea had to admit, as the mayor two towns over had been born under the name Jack, and was now the most elegantly dressed woman in three counties. But both of those stones had badly worn lettering, as if they were very old, and the third male headstone was very small and said “Beloved Son.”
There were five headstones with a woman’s name or no name at all, and two of those were also weathered. The one next to “Beloved Son” said “Beloved Daughter” and was no larger than its counterpart.
Children, most likely, thought Rhea, carried off in a plague. Poor things.
That left her with two gravestones.
One had sharp, clearly edged writing. Sophia Elegans. The other was a trifle more worn, but the stone looked softer, and it read Catherine Elegans.
Sophia Elegans had a carving of ivy around the edges of the stone, and underneath it said Beloved Wife.
Catherine Elegans had a carving of an angel, and the words The World Is Greater For Your Gift.
Rhea considered this.
It was hard to imagine Lord Crevan writing Beloved Wife under something and meaning it, although it was perfectly plausible that he had waved a hand to someone—probably Ingeth, or perhaps her predecessor—and said “Have it say something appropriate, Beloved Wife or some such—” and thought no more about it.
On the other hand, there had been that long and rather opaque discussion about gifts. And bulls. Rhea scowled.
She glanced at the sky. The moon was high overhead, not yet beginning its downward slide.
And as soon as I’m done here, the path is going to close up or some such nonsense, and it will take half the night to get away from it.
She could afford to be annoyed by this, because she was very nearly sure that Lord Crevan would not kill her before he married her. He seemed very interested in marriage.
Afterwards, of course, is another matter. I suppose he killed Lady Elegans, whether she was Sophia or Catherine.
After the golem-wife, merely murdering someone seemed almost unremarkable.
I suppose I shan’t enjoy it very much if he does it to me. Then again, I suppose no one ever really enjoys dying, however it happens.
Well, enough of this.
She pulled the bouquet from her pocket and divid
ed it in two. Each had a few stems of asters and a sprig of rosemary.
She laid one on the grave of Sophia Elegans, Beloved Wife, and one on the grave of Catherine Elegans, The World Is Greater For Your Gift, and stepped back.
“I don’t know if I’m supposed to say something,” she said to the graves. “My name’s Rhea. I’m the miller’s daughter. I suppose I’m going to be Lord Crevan’s wife, if I can’t get out of it. I guess that makes us…err…something? Not sisters. Something else. Anyway. The flowers are for you. I hope wherever you are, you’re…um…well?”
It was not the most graceful speech ever made in a graveyard. Rhea felt vaguely absurd and her face grew hot, even though no one heard her but the hedgehog and the dead.
She turned away.
A dog stood outside the iron fence, looking at her.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Here we are, then, thought Rhea grimly.
It was not a nice-looking dog. It had a short coat and the cool, professional look of a sheep-killer.
Rhea measured the distance to the gate. The dog was on the opposite side of the graveyard from the gate, and while she could not hope to outrun it for more than a few paces, she need only get to the gate and haul it closed. It opened out, with a heavy metal cuff that slammed down over the bar, so once she shut it, the dog would not be able to pull it open again.
And then it will jump over this ridiculous three-foot fence and tear my throat out.
Well, as long as I have a plan…
“Nice dog?” said Rhea.
The dog stared at her. The moon burned green in its eyes.
“Good dog,” said Rhea, and turned and bolted for the gate.
The dog took off silently, and that was a bad sign. If it had barked, at least, it might have been a sign that the dog was as nervous as she was, but it did not bark. It merely ran.
She reached the gate, and a second dog slipped out of the grass and charged her.
The hinges made a shattering squeal when she yanked on the crossbar, and there was a bad moment when it looked as if the gate was not going to close at all.
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