“Choices?” Anne said.
“Yes. We can either educate Luther, or we can skip that and get you out of here—away from him.”
“Pardon?” Anne said.
“Hmm,” I hummed to myself, making the decision for her after a second of thought. “Nope. That’s it. You have to escape.”
“I can’t,” she cried, but I saw the hope in her eye. “Where would I go? How would I ever get off the estate? It’s large and the forest surrounding it is endless, haunted they say. I wouldn’t make it very far, and my chances are even slimmer in the winter, with a newborn.”
I looked at Katy. “Tell me there’s a way.”
She shook her head slowly, and my heart sank, until her brow lifted and her mouth popped open. “Wait,” she said, standing up, “the supply run.”
“The green truck?” I said. “Do you think it’s possible?”
Katy got up and looked at the clock on the mantle. “The empty potato crates. A friend of mine snuck out once inside of them. Maybe—”
“It’s worth a try.” I got up off the bed. “If it’s still here.”
“It is. He won’t leave until eleven,” Katy said.
“Then we have an hour.” I drew my eyes away from the clock and looked at Katy. “Go get my jeans and a sweater. Oh, and a coat. We need to make Anne look like she’s from town.”
“What’s the plan then?” Katy asked.
“I’ll go down to the kitchen and find out where the truck is now, then I’ll come back up for Anne and the baby.”
“Do you really think this will work?” Anne asked, lifting the baby to her shoulder.
“It has before,” Katy said with a nod.
“Did your friend ever come back?”
“No, Miss. But we got a letter from him. Mrs. Potter burned it right away in case anyone found out he ran away. But he made it.”
I smiled. “Then we need to hurry. We don’t have much time left before the truck leaves for the week.”
***
Anne wasn’t given clothes for her baby, and with no other children in this mansion I couldn’t find anything in any of the rooms to dress her in. So we wrapped her in my red sweater to keep her warm, and placed her in a cane picnic basket, covering Anne’s modern jeans and coat with servants’ attire in case anyone saw us. We didn’t have any money or anything else to offer Anne for her journey, and none of her family were alive anymore, so I told her about women’s shelters and how the police would help her, as long as she never told them her name. In a wolf town, someone would be sure to recognized the name, if not her face.
We made it to the ground floor without being seen by anyone, except for a servant that passed behind us, but if he happened to have noticed three slaves walking with a picnic basket he wouldn’t have thought anything of it. Still, if the baby so much as even grunted, it would stand out like a woman in modern clothing around here. The last baby to be born into slavery was Katy, more than twenty years ago, so it just wasn’t a sound anyone was used to hearing.
When we reached the Great Hall Katy walked on ahead, carrying a pile of ruse sheets while Anne stayed behind me, stiff and slow, jumpy, as though she hadn’t been out of her room in a decade. I was confident that we wouldn’t be seen, which kept me calm, but I think I held my breath the entire time. I’d mapped it all out on my dummy run down here. As long as no slaves came up to the second floor, I knew we could reach the ground floor without too much of a problem at this time of day; but once we reached the kitchen, getting from the stairway to the back door and onto the truck without being seen would be tricky. Lunch would be served in an hour, which meant there were staff all over that floor.
Katy pushed the panel open that led to the kitchen and staff quarters, and nodded back to say it was clear. This was the tough part. Tiny hammers pounded at my throat and stomach as I readjusted my hold on the basket and walked on, trusting that Anne was right behind me.
We waited at the top of the stairs while Katy went down and checked each corridor, then we descended them quickly and pressed our backs to the wall, right beside the old bricked-up door that had now become a barrel storage zone.
Down the short hall to the kitchen, shadows danced in the square of sunlight beaming through the doorway. I wasn’t sure how many people were in there, but from where we stood it looked like one, maybe two.
I shut my eyes, taking a tight breath. If anyone stepped out of that kitchen and came this way they’d see us for sure. We were sitting ducks right now. “We need them to go to the storage rooms, Katy.”
“I know.” She motioned for us to move to the wall opposite the barrels, and then peeked around the corner.
“Ah, Katy dear!” someone said.
Not missing a beat, Katy stepped around and stood like a bollard, stopping the woman from progressing to the T-junction.
“What are you doing down here?” the woman said. “You’re supposed to be cleaning out fires.”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Potter. Mr. Barkley asked me to bring him clean sheets.”
“Then where in the Lord’s name are you going, girl? His room is that way, not in the kitchen.”
I felt a profound sense of pride in Katy after what she said next.
“Yes, Mrs. Potter, but he asked for a glass of water too.”
There was a moment of silence. No one thought Katy was a very clever girl. After all, she hadn’t really been educated. She’d never even been read stories or taught to use her imagination. So no one expected her to be smart enough to lie.
“Very well then,” Mrs. Potter croaked. “Hurry yourself up.”
“Yes, Mrs. Potter.” Katy moved back a step and the portly old woman stepped into the crossway just as two men started down the stairs. I panicked, stepping right then left, not sure where to go or what to do. Mrs. Potter, thankfully, moved down the other corridor, her back to us as she went, but those men coming from the Great Hall would see us without a doubt.
Katy, cool as a cucumber, pushed Anne into the nook with the barrel and then dropped the pile of sheets to the ground, shaking the top one out and handing me a corner. I caught on right away, stepping back and spreading the sheet wide across the nook.
“See?” she said to me. “I got that stain out with a bit of baking soda and… hello.” She bowed her head to the man-slaves as they passed. They each nodded, but their eyes went to me, obviously questioning my place here. That was all, though. They were raised with no more education than Katy was, obviously, and just didn’t have the mind to think anything other than what their eyes told them to. We were just two slaves discussing stains.
“You’re so clever, Katy!” I almost hugged her, but we still weren’t in the clear. The baby grumbled in her carry basket, so I passed it to Anne and hooked my arm around hers, dragging her toward the kitchen. I could feel her reluctance to accept this new journey, but her feet moved by sheer will to rescue her baby.
Just as I’d hoped, the coast was clear—the kitchen empty as all the slaves tended their masters in preparation for lunch.
My stomach did flips as Katy pulled the heavy door open and I saw the truck outside, its engine running, filling the small stone courtyard with smog.
Anne and I pinned our backs to the wall behind the door while Katy stepped out to see if anyone was watching, calling Mrs. Potter’s name, as though that’s why she was out here.
“Who are you looking for?” a jolly voice said.
“Mrs. Potter. Have you seen her?”
“Sorry, luv.” I heard a car door open. “Not since she barked at me for my muddy boots.”
I laughed to myself.
“Okay, thank you,” Katy said.
The car door closed and the purr of the engine changed. I poked my head out around the door.
“Katy?”
She looked at me.
“Is the coast clear?”
“Yes.”
I waved the back of my hand at her. “Distract him!”
At first I didn’t think she he
ard me, but her mouth moved in an “Oh” and she ran to the driver’s side. “Oh Mr. Ellis. I forgot…” she started, and I grabbed Anne’s sleeve and tugged her along. We ran like the speed of the wind from the safety of the stone doorframe to the back of the old tuck. I ducked slightly as if bullets might rain down on me, making the skin on the back of my neck crawl.
The truck only had a half-door, so it was easy to throw Anne over. She handed me the basket for a moment, but in her haste it hit the side of the truck and the baby screamed. Loudly. I flipped the lid and stuck my pinkie in her mouth, shushing her gently, while Anne stood frozen.
“Go!” I whispered gruffly. “What are you waiting for?”
Anne pressed her hands to the steel door and hoisted herself up, flipping a leg over and then climbing into a potato crate. “How can I ever thank you, Red?” she said, reaching back for the baby.
“Live.” I lifted the basket. “Be free. And never let Luther find you.”
She smiled, scooping the floppy little infant into her arm. “I will,” she promised.
“Thank you,” Katy called loudly, making it pretty obvious that was a sign for me to get back. I threw a tarpaulin over Anne, and as she ducked away my heart felt sad, knowing I would never know what becomes of her and her little girl.
“Anne?”
“Yes.” She popped her head back up.
“What will you name her?”
Her face went blank, as though that never occurred to her before. Then she smiled. “Red,” she said. “How can I call her anything but Red?”
She grabbed the tarpaulin and hid under it again, mouthing ‘Thank you’ one last time before she disappeared.
As the truck pulled away, Katy and I darted back inside and closed the door, forgetting the picnic basket in the middle of the courtyard. My heart was in my temples, in my wrists and even in my knees, making them shake. I couldn’t believe we’d just done that, and as Katy and I laughed I also couldn’t believe we didn’t jump in the truck with her.
“We should have gone,” I said, wondering if it was too late.
“No.” She shook her head. “You wouldn’t make it far, Red. Anne has no family left out there, remember—no one for Luther to hurt. But you do. And he won’t just stop at your family, he’d hurt Alex too.”
I exhaled the adrenaline and let it calm me. She was right. “But I don’t want to have babies with him. I don’t want my sons to be sent away to join an army and my daughters slain for the crime of being a girl.”
“Then we need to come up with a plan.”
“What plan? Kill him?”
Katy gasped, covering her mouth. “I was thinking of hiding a contraceptive pill in your food, Red. Not killing him!”
“Well, why not? If there was a way, I would kill him, Katy,” I promised. “He’s done evil things and he has to answer to someone. If he’s above the law here, then maybe he should be put to death so he can answer to Carne.”
Katy looked worried, but I felt strong with resolve now. Luther would return soon to find his wife had escaped. He would most likely hunt her down. Who knows? We might have even made things worse. Luther had to die. If not for the sake of me and every other girl that might marry him one day, then for sake of Anne and little Red.
Part Three: Chapter Nine
Mighty Raven; Fallen King
So much time had passed now since I left my home and family. So much time had passed since George died; and yet so little time had when I really thought about it. Alex would be in the phase of grief now where you have to start accepting life again; where everyone expects you to cry only at night, alone in your bed, and really has no time to listen to you talk about how sad you are. He would need me more now than he did before. Or, at least, he’d need a friend. If I couldn’t be that friend, I just hoped and prayed to Carne that he had someone.
My thoughtful meandering led me to a part of the estate that I hadn’t seen before. The gardens here were unruly, the trees high and accompanied by many friends, making it feel closed in and shaded like the greater forest outside these walls. Whatever this place was, it clearly wasn’t out of bounds. Last time I stepped even one foot out of bounds, several wolves had come at me, growling and snarling until I turned around.
Up ahead I could see a brick wall of some kind, but couldn’t tell if it was a fence or a building. The trees were so thick above me that the canopy drowned out what little light the winter offered, making it hard to see.
I pulled the hood of my powder-blue cloak over my hair and took a not-so-subtle look around for guards, pressing my left thumb to the iron circle on my ring finger.
“It’s sacred ground,” said a deep, familiar voice from behind me.
Even though the voice painted his face for me, I still jumped out of my skin, jerking around defensively. A day had gone past and everyone was gossiping about Anne’s escape, so I was just waiting for them to figure out who helped her and come to hurt me. Just waiting to be snatched by the arm and dragged to the flogging post. Or worse.
“Hi Theo.”
“Red.” He said my name by way of greeting, the snow crunching under foot as he came to stand beside me. He nodded at the forest and the wall up ahead. “It’s where we lay our dead.”
“That’s a lot of dead then,” I noted, “Judging by the size of whatever that is.”
“It’s a mausoleum. Well…” he sighed, taking a step past me, “more like a charnel house now, I suppose.”
“What do you mean?”
“Come on. It’s time for you to see what you’re up against here.”
I followed Theo through the thick forest, not realizing until I skidded on a pile of pine needles that very little snow actually landed here. There were no patches of light coming in through the canopy, and though he said this land was sacred it felt more like it was cursed. I wondered if that’s why no wolves patrolled here. I wouldn’t, if I were them.
“Red, I know what you did,” he said, his deep voice calm. I couldn’t detect even a hint of anger or judgment.
“Oh.”
“He will eventually find out. Your scent, and the baby’s scent, are all over that picnic basket.”
“I know.”
Theo didn’t say anything else after that. As we came upon the mausoleum a great wave of sadness washed over me. I didn’t know any of the people that would be buried in there, but I felt a deep connection to them.
“Ancestors?” I asked.
“Yes. Once, that is what this place was for. But when the estate graveyard was overrun with corpses, my father had them exhumed and cremated—the ashes brought here to keep them hidden.”
“Hidden?”
He climbed the stone steps and opened a big heavy door, revealing behind it a clean, modern space. If I expected spider webs, old stone and a musty smell, the marble floors and straight walls with brass plates in them were a shock. It smelled like incense and sadness in here.
Theo led me to the middle of the room where two white marble tombs lay side by side, both embossed with a rose, the stem snapped in the middle leaving the full bloom to dangle.
“My mother and my stepmother,” he said, touching the tomb closest to him.
“What’s with the snapped rose?”
“It’s a symbol,” he said. “The flower represents the age they died—in full bloom—while the stem symbolizes that their deaths came too soon.”
“Right.” I nodded, lifting my eyes to take in the rest of the spacious room. “And who are all the other people?”
He rolled his hand out, angling his head as if to say ‘Take a look’.
So I did. I pushed my hood off my hair and walked over to one of the brass plates:
Luther II
8 Days Old
I bit my lip, feeling an immense cloud of grief. “He lost his son?”
“Yes.”
My eyes flicked absently to the brass plate beside that, the sorrowful expression becoming a frown when I read it. “Luther III.” I ran my fingers ov
er the plate. “He was eight days old too?”
Theo just moved his head in aim at the next brass plate. I pulled my eyes away from him reluctantly, knowing, from the look on his face, that I wouldn’t like what I read there: Luther IV. 8 days old.
I walked along, reading each name and the age they were when they died. After Luther V, the names changed and became random—indicative of their time. Things like Horik and Augustus, until I got to the end of that wall and the names had become slightly more modern, like Jonathan and Gregory.
Panic tightened my chest. I stood back to take in the sheer mass of the wall and then the one behind me, noting the changed brick where he’d extended the mausoleum decade after decade. 8 days old. Every one of them a boy.
“What is this?” I asked, my voice coming out shaky.
Theo put his arm around my shoulder. “You started something here, Red. When you helped Anne escape, you set things in motion that cannot be undone.”
“What are you saying?”
“I needed you to see this. I needed you to know that none of them lived. Not one of my father’s sons, aside from me, ever lived past eight days.”
“Why?”
“We don’t know.” He removed his arm. “I was the product of two immortals—carrying the blood and therefore the strength of them both. But alone, without an immortal partner, my father cannot, it seems, recreate life.”
My eyes narrowed as his words turned the cogs inside my brain.
“And if it were possible for any of them to live,” he added sadly, as if it were an admission to himself, “he might have taken that chance away with his own foolish superstitions.”
“What do you mean?”
“You see, Red, I need you to understand that the man you married is a lie. He was not born immortal, the son of Carne, but rather made by witchcraft—”
“I know,” I said. “Anne told me.”
“How did Anne know?”
“There was a journal in her room—”
“So it surfaced.” He nodded to himself. “We searched high and low for that journal, but Freya hid it well.”
Red: The Untold Story Page 20
