by A C Gogolski
“That’s you…” Nell could not believe the tale unfolding in the water.
Evelyn kept her silence. Up until this point there were very few scenes with Rhiannon. But the next one showed Evelyn hugging Gadnik, both of them weeping. The crone appeared behind them wearing an impatient frown. She took the pearl from around his neck, and sent Gadnik from the room without a replacement chain. The man gave Evelyn a shaky smile from the door, just before the sorceress slammed it in his face. She then produced a stuffed blue bear from the folds of her robe. It wore a necklace suspended with a delicate pearl. When she saw it, little Evelyn stopped crying and hugged the toy. It was then that Rhiannon slid the chain from the bear and placed it around the girl’s neck.
“That was my seventh birthday,” Evelyn said in a hushed tone. “It was the last time Gadnik ever spoke. He changed after that.” Her voice came soft and sad. “I forgot… all that. I forgot he ever spoke at all.”
The vignettes continued. Evelyn was alone in most of them: reading, or painting, or teaching herself to sew. One scene stood out, however. Beneath the great stained glass windows of her room, she was showing the witch a drawing, but Rhiannon had other plans that day. Putting aside the artwork, the crone took Evelyn by the hand and whispered something in her ear. At once, young Evelyn’s eyes clasped shut in horror, her mouth stretched in a scream. Rhiannon left the girl crying on the floor as the water of the well ripped again. Scene after lonely scene continued, finally drawing to one with Nell in it. Now she was the one with her eyes clamped shut, holding a kitten in her arms. Nearby, Evelyn stood banishing the cats from her bed in a hideous display.
The surface of the well clouded over after that, and the flame deep within resumed its dance. The spectacle was over. Moments passed. The two girls stared down at the murk without speaking. It was Evelyn who broke the silence, grumbling, “I don’t feel any different. This thing didn’t give me my wish.”
“Let’s go,” Nell said firmly. “I think the passage up is back this way.”
They stumbled through sagging bracken and prickly vines, Evelyn gripping her magical torch, and Nell the candlestone. But the path they followed to the well was lost. They seemed to keep running into the same thicket. Then, from beyond the glow of their lights, a wail cracked the stillness.
“Are you sure this is the way out?” Evelyn asked.
“You might know, you were with me!” Nell accused in a whisper. The inhuman cry came again, closer, and a breeze rattled the dead vegetation around them.
Nell could feel the Word thrum in her chest. She never felt anything like it, but she knew it meant danger. A thing of twisted magic was near, coming at them from the darkness. The air itself began to crackle. “It knows where we are. We need to run,” Nell said.
The girls dashed away at full speed, splashing through mud and stands of dry reeds in their desperate search for the stairs. Instead, they came upon an arrangement of columns supporting nothing but the blackness. Powder-white human skulls ringed the base of each pillar, glowing dully in the light of the torches fixed above.
Nell barely gave the headless structure a look. Escape was her only thought, and she started off again, crunching a grisly assortment of bones beneath her feet. She was tugged suddenly backward by Evelyn though. The sunken-eyed girl was hypnotized by something she spotted between the columns.
In the middle of the rotunda sat a misshapen chair of glistening white. Its seat and arms drooped forward, and its back dipped crookedly in on itself, as though it were melting. Slowly it became clear what gave the chair its sheen: pearls of every size covered it, thousands of the tiny stones reflecting the torchlight. Some were fused together, others seemed newly fastened. The whole place stunk of rotting meat – the stench of Rhiannon.
Evelyn put her hand to the pearled chain at her neck. “What is it for?” She looked like she was going to be sick. “This is what Mummy does with my pearls?” Tears streamed down her cheeks. “What is it for?”
“She’s using you. Just like she used Gadnik,” said Nell.
Evelyn was unable to take her eyes off the tortured chair. “No, she wouldn’t.”
As they spoke, a head like a rotten melon reared up from between the pillars on the other side of the rotunda, gibbering to them on the wind. Evelyn shrieked as its clawed hand suddenly clutched the back of the chair. The ghastly thing was creeping forward quickly.
At that, Nell pulled Evelyn’s wrist and ran from the pillars as fast as she could. Evelyn stumbled behind her, still reeling from the shock of the pearled seat. The candlestone and torch made the girls an easy target, but there was no helping it now. Ferns ripped at their skin as they charged, blind to where they were heading. In the distance, the ghoul gibbered and spat, its awful stammer growing louder every time.
Then Nell saw a faint light filtering through the trees ahead. “It’s daylight!” The girls raced toward the opening and Nell burst through it first, immediately slipping on slimy stones. The door, really a tiny fissure at the base of the ruin, opened out almost directly onto the sea. Yellow strangleweed stretched to the horizon, lolling languidly in the dying light of day. Now just moments past sunset, the sky showed a brilliant purple to the west. “We made it,” Nell yelled. When she got to her feet again, she found Evelyn still frozen in the doorway. “Come on! We have to get away from here!”
“Can’t – go – out,” Evelyn choked. She thrashed at the door, gritting her teeth against some unseen force.
The cry of the dead thing echoed from the darkness below the ruin. “You have to! It’s coming!” Nell screamed.
With an excruciating effort, Evelyn groped at the pearl about her neck. She couldn’t seem to reach it. It was as though she was slipping on the edge of a chasm and could only scrabble for a rope with lifeless hands. When her numbed fingers finally caught hold of the chain, she shrieked again in pain.
“You have to come!” Nell said. She went forward to pull Evelyn by the shoulders, but at that moment the Word thundered in her chest: a warning not to touch her companion. She stopped just out of reach, terrified to do nothing, but even more terrified to help.
Yeffel gulls beat their ugly wings at the commotion on the rocks. Evelyn shuddered, and when she did, it seemed the entire island shook with her. Her hand tugged on the necklace once, twice, and then began to slide feebly away. Tears streamed down her face.
“You can do it Evelyn. You have to believe me. Rhiannon’s just using you,” Nell pleaded. “You can do this!”
“I – can’t!” Evelyn cried, her fingers useless.
“Yes you can!”
“It’s your fault!” Evelyn slumped within the fissure, sobbing in defeat.
“She doesn’t love you!” Nell shouted. At this point, she was ready to grab hold of Evelyn’s collar, despite the warning.
Just then, Evelyn’s hand lunged up again, catching hold of the necklace. “LIAR!” The word rang out over the sea, a rush of utter betrayal. With senseless fingers Evelyn pulled, and this time the chain snapped in two. At once the delicate silver became seaweed, and the torch in her other hand snapped into driftwood before their eyes. From her still-numb grip, the pearl bounced down onto the stones, landing in the sea with a soft plip.
Nell breathed a sigh of relief, moving forward to draw Evelyn away from the darkness. But before she could reach her, a distorted face loomed over Evelyn’s shoulder. Withered black hands clamped around her neck, wrenching her back into the chamber beneath the keep. “No!” Nell shouted.
Diving back into the swampy underworld, Nell heard Evelyn’s cries beyond a thicket of reeds. She crashed through them, whipping her candlestone about. The creature could not move so quickly with Evelyn in tow, and Nell soon caught up with it. ‘Leave her be!” she screamed.
The ghoul hissed, its black claws tearing at the lace of Evelyn’s dress while Nell approached. Evelyn’s lips were already blue. She gasped for air against the bony arm locked around her neck.
In desperation, Nell raised her
light against the fiend. “I said get away!” She was no threat to the creature, but she moved forward anyway, hoping to pry Evelyn free from the thing’s grip. Suddenly the candlestone in her hand blazed hot as the summer sun. Without thinking, Nell raised it high above and, in a blinding flash, the marble sparked forth a hundred white needles of light.
The dazzling stars burned into the ghoul, making it howl like an animal. It waved away the brilliance with crooked arms, and at that moment Evelyn flung herself away. With her last bit of strength she stumbled to her feet and ran madly back toward the fissure.
For just a heartbeat, Nell saw the creature in the full radiance of the candlestone. It was a female, its skin rotten and wet, with long scraggly hair hiding its face. Worst of all, it had a hole the size of a saucer eaten completely through its chest. Gibbering, the she-ghoul fell back another step from the stone, a greenish wraith-light illuminating the hollows of its face. Nell brandished the glowing marble to keep the creature at bay. Then she began to backpedal after Evelyn, her feet somehow finding the way to the door without help from her eyes. As soon as she made it outside Nell stumbled into Evelyn, who was wielding the piece of driftwood like a cudgel.
Two mottled gulls swooped as Evelyn swatted them awkwardly with the stick. “What do we do now?”
“We need to get back inside the palace!” Nell shouted. “Look!” To their left, a set of weathered stairs snaked around the base of the ruin. As she scrambled away from the fissure, Nell heard a sound more horrid than the gibbering ghoul behind them, more ravenous than the mob of gulls overhead, and bleaker than the dusk. The Malady was close, it was hungry, and it had come to see them suffer this night.
CHAPTER 24
RHIANNON
Atop the stairs, a narrow archway running through the wall provided some protection for the girls. Nell’s hand was bleeding, but Evelyn fared better against the gulls, armed as she was with her driftwood cudgel. For the moment, the birds were holding back from diving into the arch, but it wouldn’t be long before they grew bold.
From the other end of the tunnel, the girls surveyed the inner courtyard. The nearest opening leading back into the keep was about a hundred paces away. Not a great distance, but between the archway and the door, an enormous congregation of yeffel gulls sat scavenging food from one another. Several had already taken notice of the girls. “How are we going to get all the way to the door? They’ll flock as soon as we make a move,” Evelyn whispered.
Nell looked about but there was no closer entrance. “I don’t know.” Night was coming, and a cold sea breeze howled through the tunnel.
She tried to calm herself, reaching out with the Word and wondering if the kelp might respond. The enchantments of the fortress whistled and whirred around her like a crazed machine. To her inner ear, the fortress sounded like a tightly wound bundle of wire unraveling out of control. Something was wrong with the place, a crucial thread within the magic pattern was coming undone. Evelyn, however, was quiet: the girl no longer had any of the tell-tale chiming about her.
Nell listened to the dissonant sounds received by the Word. Suddenly she jerked her head upward, toward the empty windows above. There were voices – tiny, hissing voices – all around.
“What? What is it?” Evelyn asked anxiously.
Nell shrugged, trying to concentrate on the chatter. It wasn’t the kelp: the strange voices were coming from inside the fortress. Though she couldn’t make out who was speaking, she prayed they were friendly. Help us, came her silent plea, and across the rubble-strewn yard, two reflective eyes peered out from a window.
A number of gulls flew over the wall, squawking and swooping down toward the archway where the girls hid. Hundreds of sharp beaks turned in their direction, and the birds began scampering toward them. “Help us,” Nell breathed.
Another pair of eyes appeared across the courtyard. More curious eyes, green and yellow, smoldered in the doorways. Help! Nell called again, just as a gull flapped into the arch. Evelyn swung with the driftwood, smashing the bird in mid-flight. It veered into Nell, and she found herself punching at a flurry of mottled wings. “Get away!” Together they drove off the offending gull, but Nell’s hand was now dripping with blood, and the courtyard of gulls had taken notice.
“Help!” Nell cried, her voice cracking. A mob of gulls hopped in the direction of the arch, all vying to be the first to investigate. A piece of driftwood would not stop the enormous flock. “Help us!” she tried again, though the birds drowned her call. There was nowhere for the girls to go. They couldn’t go back below the keep, and the arch would soon be mobbed. “Help!”
“Who are you calling to? There’s nobody here except us!” Evelyn cried. But she was mistaken, for at that moment the dark openings of the ruin poured forth a torrent of hissing, yeowling cats. They broke in every direction, tumbling, sprinting, and leaping high into the air. Startled gulls beat their wings to escape the attack, but feathers flew as the cats pounced and wrestled with their prey. “My kiddies! They came to save me!”
“Now’s the time!” Nell shouted. With the gulls momentarily on the defensive, the girls bolted toward the door and were safely through in seconds. Several cats rushed in behind them, but Nell could see the gulls already starting to retaliate. “Let’s go find Gadnik,” she said. The hunters were fast becoming the hunted, and it wouldn’t do to let Evelyn witness the fate her brave felines.
The spoiled girl wasn’t thinking about cats though. Looking down the other end of the hall, Nell saw what now held Evelyn’s gaze. A great, crumbling hole gaped where just this morning there was an opulent fresco. Purple dusk showed through the gap. “My castle,” she sobbed. “It’s coming apart!”
Walls cracked before their eyes, the ceiling rained plaster, and torches flickered as Rhiannon’s enchantments began to ebb. More troubling, Nell saw a tiny spot racing through the twilight sky from the coast. Attuned with the power of the Wealding Word, she could already detect the high screech of the sorceress’ flight. “Rhiannon is coming! Evelyn, you broke the spell she had you under!” Lady Zel’s tale rushed back to her: the magic for keeping someone enthralled only worked if the victim was completely trusting, and loved the person who was stealing their life. Nell had disillusioned Evelyn – had opened her eyes to the truth of her world. Now the devilry keeping Rhiannon from death was crumbling like the ruin around them, and the sorceress would surely have her revenge. Nell cried, “You’re free! You’re no good to her anymore.”
Evelyn’s sunken eyes took in the sight of the witch’s descent. “She was using me,” she said slowly. “She’s a liar. An old, shriveled, smelly bag of lies.”
“And she’s coming for us. We have to hide or she’ll kill us both!”
It was too late. Liquid black smoke streamed down from the sky. The next instant Rhiannon stepped from the crackling fog, wreathed in a tempest of fury. “You wicked girl!” she screamed. Despite her frailty, she stood tall and menacing, floating clear above the floor. “I gave you everything and see how you repay me!”
Evelyn lost her voice in the face of the Widow’s rage, falling back a step behind Nell.
“You were using her like you used Gadnik!” Nell shouted. She blocked Evelyn from the witch. “You’re a murdering thief! You don’t deserve to live!”
The air around Rhiannon sizzled. “You! Mother’s darling,” she hissed. “This is all your fault!” Before there was any outward sign, Nell could feel an invisible, elemental current surge up at Rhiannon’s command. “I will crush you!”
“Run!” Nell shouted.
Shocked back to her senses, Evelyn took off after Nell. At that moment, the hall erupted in a geyser of white-hot flame. The stone floor where they had been standing bubbled from the deadly heat. The girls ducked down the first hallway they found as the backlash from the explosion barreled toward them. Terrified, they raced around a corner, running directly into Gadnik.
The servant itched his neck, leaning by a fallen heap of stones. Large sections of t
he enchanted palace were fading quickly, and the dazed man could not make sense of the change. “Gadnik,” Nell said, “Come with us! Rhiannon is destroying everything!” The fortress groaned as more of the magics holding it together came unbound.
They could only hope the inferno down the hall would keep Rhiannon at bay while they hid. Soon the small group happened upon a branch of the palace that had not yet begun to unravel. Nell took the candlestone from her pocket and found the small marble shed a light as calm and steadying as ever. “In here!” she said, pushing open a set of doors to the right.
Only after they went inside did Nell realize her mistake. There by the stained glass window was the familiar fig tree, and a small shelf of books. It was her room: Rhiannon would know to look here for sure. But the girls were too scared to venture into the hallway again. “Let’s hide in the dress room, maybe she won’t look for us there,” Nell said. Just then thunder rocked the palace, resounding from down the hall. The witch’s shrieking continued long after the explosion ended, blistering the air with threats and curses. Another loud crash boomed closer still, and it seemed to Nell that Rhiannon took pleasure in destroying her creation.
They hastened into the antechamber, followed by Evelyn’s oblivious servant. Nell cast the light of the candlestone about the room, looking for a place to hide as their shadows danced in the wavering light. There on one side were the chests of Evelyn’s discarded toys. Somehow, she noted absently, the eyeless doll had made its way to the top of the pile again. The other walls were concealed behind rows of pink and white silk dresses, suspended from several long rods. It wouldn’t offer much concealment, but it was their best hope. “Quick,” Nell said, “behind here!” She ran forward and flung the hanging dresses aside… only to come face to face with hungry pig-pink eyes.
