by Dylan Farrow
Mads, on bended knee, is waiting expectantly for my answer. His soft blue eyes are full of warmth and hope. His smile makes the moonlight look even brighter, somehow.
I had not dared to consider this outcome. There was always a reason not to. We’re too young. My family’s curse. Taking care of Ma. Me being the girl in his life for the moment, but never forever.
And yet, he is proposing. This is what I had hoped for.
Isn’t it?
This is my chance to put everything behind me. I could marry Mads and live in the town with him, no longer shunned as an outsider. It would be hard, but we could work together and build a future. We could have children. We could be a family. In time, I’m sure I will fall in love with him properly, like he deserves.
But I’m not in love with him.
And that’s only part of the problem.
Hazy images of Ma, Pa, and Kieran drift in front of me. Pa falling to his knees in the pasture, gasping for air as his heart failed him. The dark blue veins on Kieran’s neck. The ornate golden dagger jutting out of Ma’s chest. The home I lived in, soaked in sickness, blood, and death.
Can I simply turn my back on all the unanswered questions and pretend nothing is wrong?
“I can’t.” My voice comes out a whisper. Disappointment cascades through me. He didn’t go to the Bards for answers. He thinks he is helping me, but he isn’t. He can’t. He doesn’t understand. Just like Fiona.
Mads’s eyes widen for a split second, but his gaze doesn’t waver from me. His smile slips from his face, and I so desperately wish I could transfer his hurt and place it on my own shoulders. The more I try to summon the words to help, the more I come up short. In the end, it is Mads who pays the price.
“I’m sorry, Mads,” I say. “But there’s so much I haven’t figured out yet. I must find out what happened to Ma. I need answers.”
He lets my words sink in before slowly replacing the box in his pocket and getting to his feet.
“Answers. Right,” he whispers. “Forget I said anything. I was only trying to help. Pretty stupid of me, wasn’t it?”
“Mads, please. Please stop.” Tears sting the corners of my eyes.
He looks shaken. Destroyed.
“I’m sorry, Mads.”
He turns his gaze away, toward the ground. His breath is coming heavy, as if he’s been running. “Don’t be. I—I understand.”
Except he doesn’t. He shifts his weight from foot to foot, as if desperate to escape me. To Mads, problems like mine can be shoved away, kept at a far enough distance that they can’t hurt anyone. But they are still there. I can’t simply act like Ma’s murderer doesn’t exist. That my life wasn’t touched by the Blot. That my embroidery doesn’t haunt me and play tricks on my eyes. But I know how Mads thinks: Why fix anything when the problem can be ignored or fended off with brute strength?
To him, the truth doesn’t matter enough to fight for.
But it matters. It has to.
“Mads…”
“Don’t.” He takes a small step back, followed by another. “You don’t have to explain anything. I should have known better.”
This isn’t what he wanted. He went to the Bards thinking their approval would please me. He thought we’d be making plans and promises. Instead, we’re standing on opposite sides of the dirt road in uncomfortable silence. Neither of us wants to give away how much we feel the ground crumbling beneath our feet.
I tell myself not to apologize again; it won’t help.
“I’m sorry,” I say anyway.
“Yeah.” He sighs. “Me too.”
Without another word, he turns and walks away. I watch him disappear into the darkness before covering my face with my hands. How did I manage to lose both Fiona and Mads in the same night?
Without Fiona’s comforting words, or Mads’s warmth, or Ma’s gentle hands to braid my hair, I’ve never felt so alone.
Thin, gray light crests the mountaintops. Dawn. Somehow this interminable night has come to an end. I feel a sigh of relief escape me. Cold air fills my lungs, solidifying my resolve.
I will not conveniently tuck the past away. Today, I follow the course I’ve charted for myself.
Swiftly, I cross the threshold into my old home. I look at the narrow rooms, the low walls, the tiny beds, the darkened hearth. The rooms have been cleaned. There is no trace of the violence that occurred. Who did this? The constable? Did he neaten things up out of kindness or to make it all vanish as if it had never happened?
Hardly breathing, I quietly move around the room, touching each surface, as if hoping some trace of Ma’s spirit will still be hovering here. The stillness feels ready to swallow me whole.
Finally, I step back out into the early light and head up the hill toward the north pasture. The entire flock of sheep is gone, as if it never existed, though I can smell the familiar scents of the barn. Wool and hay and worn leather. I realize with a start that the constable must have sold them off. It hadn’t even occurred to me to ask what he had done with them. Or whether those earnings should have been mine to collect. Worst of all, it never struck me to say goodbye to them.
One by one, I recite their names aloud into the dusty air of the barn. When I’m done, I close the barn door behind me and stare out over the town and to the nearby woods beginning to stir with the calls of birds.
“Wish me luck, Ma,” I whisper into the placid new morning. Wherever she is, I can only hope she’s listening.
8
By the time I reach the watchtower, sunlight has begun to break out over the roof, making it look like a torch burning away the darkness.
Aster only has a small volunteer militia, and they revolve reliably around two shifts, the morning and the night watch. Dunne likes being easy to find in case anyone needs him and sticks to a rigid schedule. If I squint, I can see the outline of his office, perched at the top of the watchtower.
With the streets empty, I am able to pass through town undisturbed. But even in the hour before the town awakens, I feel the weight of their eyes upon me. I pick up my pace, hurrying down the main street to the very edge of Aster.
Guards pace at the town limits, not more than fifty feet from the tower, monitoring the only road that leads in and out of town. I shiver and wrench open the iron door at the tower’s base. Inside is a narrow vestibule with steps leading upward; a few cobwebs and a half-full crate of supplies for the militia rest beneath the stairs. The air is dry and a little stale. I look up the spiral to the top. The watchtower seems even taller from the inside.
My fingers brush the wall to steady myself as I climb. Each time I round the corner, convinced I must have arrived, I find another twist in the stairs. There’s a small window slit for archers and crossbowmen at every level. When I venture a look outside, dizziness sweeps over me, along with an eerie feeling of power. This place is like the High House of Aster, watching us from an eagle’s perch.
Dunne must be able to see all the way to my house from the top, I think. My legs begin to ache, and sweat coats my neck from the heat inside. I’m beginning to wonder if the tower has a top at all, when I find myself deposited on a small landing.
I take a deep breath and knock on the door.
“Come in.” Dunne’s voice issues from inside. I push on the heavy door and it creaks open.
Dunne’s office is small and cramped, lit by four large windows, facing each cardinal direction. The eastern window is practically blinding from the newly risen sun. I squint as I enter. I can make out shelves and crates, a glass display case, and a few framed pictures on the walls.
“Well, this is unexpected.” Dunne’s brow furrows, and he rises from his seat. His weathered desk looks dull in the sunlight.
“Constable, I apologize for my intrusion,” I say, blinking rapidly until my eyes adjust. “I’ve had a few more questions since our … talk yesterday.”
Dunne’s lips press into a thin line. I half-expect him to refuse me.
“Yes, of course. It is my
duty to dispel any doubts you may have.” Dunne gestures to a chair in front of his desk. “Please, sit.”
I take my seat and Dunne does the same.
“Now,” he says, leaning forward on his elbows, “what troubles you, Shae?”
“Well…” I trail off, finally getting a better look at my surroundings. The pictures on the wall are not pictures at all. I feel my skin crawl, like it’s ready to run out the door without the rest of me.
They’re paper, covered in ink.
Writing.
My gaze flies over the room, finding the same strange symbols on nearly everything. The display case is full of bottles of various shades of blue and black liquid. The shelves are packed with thin rectangular leather boxes. Cold terror creeps through my bones as I try to make sense of why Constable Dunne is stockpiling dangerous items.
“Shae.” Dunne’s voice makes my eyes snap back to his. My knuckles have turned white from gripping the wooden armrests of my seat. “Focus.”
“What … what is all this?” My voice is a shaky whisper.
“It’s contraband, Shae. I keep it on display so I know what to look for, and to help others identify writing if they claim they see it.”
I nod slowly, the ink on the walls tangling my thoughts. “How often do you find contraband?” The question escapes me before I’m certain I want to know the answer.
“Mercifully, less and less,” he says. “The Bards make a sweep every few months to claim the more dangerous items and destroy them. But you didn’t come all this way to discuss the contents of my office, did you?”
“No, sir.” I shake my head, forcing myself to concentrate. “I need you to reconsider closing my mother’s case.”
“I see.” Dunne steeples his fingers. “What happened to your mother was a tragedy. But I think it’s fairly open and shut, don’t you?”
I frown. “I beg your pardon?”
“These things happen, Shae.”
“These … things happen?” I repeat, dumbfounded. “Someone—” I almost say murdered again, but stop myself. “Someone wanted my mother dead!”
Dunne levels an unreadable look across the desk at me. “Shae, what are you talking about? Your mother was killed in a landslide. No one wanted any such thing, believe me.”
All I can do is stare at the constable, my jaw opening and closing as my thoughts collide chaotically. Ma’s bloated face, forever painted red, blurs in front of me.
“Landslide?” I’m reeling, unsure what he’s talking about. “There’s been no landslide.”
“Of course there has. After the gift of rains brought to us by the Bards’ Telling, the dry soil at your northernmost pasture gave way. Your mother, in her weakness, must have fallen into the rocks by the far wall, at the base of the slope.”
I’m stunned and confused. I recall the Telling, the brief spell of rain. I try to remember the landslide, but I can’t. Has my mind completely erased it? Or is this further proof of my curse?
“I don’t … I don’t remember anything like that.And my mother wasn’t found outside—she was in our home. She—”
“Shae. You’ve been through a lot. When I found you, you were screaming at the top of your lungs and extremely disoriented. You were covered in filth. Perhaps the trauma is causing your memory to play tricks on you? Painting the picture of a weapon to make it easier to point the blame at someone else?”
Point the blame at someone else? As if it were my fault. Is it though? A dark fear slips into my mind and I can’t shake it.
“You must be mistaken,” I manage. “Constable, you heard a scream from the Reeds’ homestead. You saw me running to the house, and you went in after me. I watched you remove the dagger, the murder weapon, from my house!” My anger sends me to my feet. “Don’t you remember the dagger?”
Dunne is silent, his narrowed eyes fixed on me.
“What dagger?”
“It was gold! It had engraving on the hilt! There were symbols on the blade.” I point to the parchment on the wall. “Just like these! It…” I pause, at a loss. Nothing about Dunne’s expression has changed. “How do you not remember? Why don’t you believe me?”
“I believe that you believe it,” Dunne replies evenly. His words are a knife twisting in my gut. “Shae, maybe you need to think your ma was murdered in order to cope with the reality of her death.”
I shake my head. “No,” I say. “I know what I saw.”
But even as I say it, I remember how loose the soil was beneath my feet when I ran home that morning—how I fell, right before I reached the part of the hill where you can see my house. The door was ajar … I saw it, I swear …
I recall, suddenly and horribly, how I’d been completely covered in dirt—it was caked under my fingernails, clinging in the folds of my messy braid—when the constable had found me.
“That’s impossible, Shae.” Dunne rises from his chair. He looks at me like I’m some small creature left to die on the side of a road as he points to the window behind him. “Take a look if you need to.”
I step to the eastern-facing window. Outside, the entirety of Aster sprawls below me across the plains. My eyes follow the main road up to the pass, the familiar pathway that leads to my home. It threads around the old well and uphill past the familiar landmark of the Reeds’ homestead.
Above it is the hill with our north pasture, where, sure enough, there is a strange streak of brown, a pile of rubble and stones below—clear evidence of a small landslide.
My jaw hangs open as I try to reconcile what I’m seeing with what I remember. No, it’s not possible. I know what I saw. Don’t I?
Dunne approaches me from behind and puts what I’m sure he thinks is a comforting hand on my shoulder. Like he did right before he dragged me from my home.
“Aster is flawed.” Dunne’s voice is grim. “We try our best. We work hard. We obey the rules. But there’s a deep-seeded wickedness here. It’s why misfortune follows us, why the crops fail and the Bards won’t show their favor.”
I feel a twinge of anger. Misfortune follows us. What he means is: misfortune follows me. The Bards offered a Telling to help the town. That same Telling is what caused the erosion on my land. It can’t be a coincidence, can it?
“My ma was murdered,” I whisper fiercely, unable to let go of the memory—as crystal clear and harsh as the moment it happened. It was real. I know it was, no matter what he says. Tears prick the corners of my eyes. “It’s the truth!”
“And I’m saying that’s simply not possible.” Dunne pinches the bridge of his nose. “Besides, if what you’re saying were true and a dagger engraved with writing was involved, High House would have taken care of it. Lord Cathal takes these matters very seriously.”
I pause, letting his words sink in.
“High House would have…” I take a deep breath.
There’s so much wrong that it takes a minute for my thoughts to settle into place, but when they do, I only feel more disconcerted. My mind travels to the forbidden idol in my house. The dagger that killed Ma. The contraband collected in this very room that the Bards pick up every few months.
“Shae?”
What I’m saying is true. I know it. Every instinct I possess is screaming at me that something is wrong … Which means: The constable is lying. He’s hiding something. For someone.
“It’s time to put the past behind you.” I turn my head to Dunne. His eyes are narrowed sharply, making the lines in his face more severe. “It does no good to have one of my townspeople parading around with such a disturbing story.” Dunne’s words lace around me, tightening in threat. “Do we understand each other?”
“Yes, Constable Dunne.” I need to get out of this tower, down on land where I can breathe, where the world will make sense again. I turn to go when a firm hand grabs my wrist. Dunne pushes my sleeve back slightly and inspects my wrist.
No dark veins.
“Let Hugo know I’ll be stopping by to check in,” he says, a dark undercurrent in his v
oice.
I fly from the room, air growing lighter the farther I get from the cursed objects cluttering the constable’s office. The journey down the endless tower stairs is much faster than it was during my ascent, and soon I’m bursting through the door, ignoring the guards’ confusion as I rush past them toward the center of Aster.
Things are starting to piece together. There’s something bigger going on here. And if Constable Dunne can’t be trusted, we’re all in more danger than we think.
I need to find someone, anyone, who will listen.
9
The general store is busy by the time I rush in, flinging the door open so forcefully that the little tin bells nearly fall off. I ignore the strange looks I get as I approach Fiona behind the counter. One of the boys from town is standing there, chatting her up, but he startles and moves away when he sees me. I must have a wild look in my eyes; even Fiona raises an eyebrow, but she says nothing to me.
“I need to talk to you. Alone. It’s very important.”
I’ll lay everything out for her. No more secrets. No more lies. I have to trust her. If anyone will understand, it’s Fiona.
But still Fiona says nothing.
“Ah, Shae, there you are.” Hugo’s voice comes from the entrance of the stockroom. There is an edge in his voice. “You had us worried.”
“Sir…” I glance to Fiona, hoping she’ll help me out, like always. Her gaze is fixed on the floor.
“We need to discuss our arrangement,” Hugo says, joining his daughter behind the counter, his tone unfaltering. “While I’m grateful for your assistance these past few weeks, we think the time has come for you to find new accommodations.”
“We?” I repeat quietly. For a second, I forget why I rushed into the store to begin with. “Fiona?” Please look at me. “Fiona, I know we had a disagreement, but…”
“It’s nothing personal, you understand,” Hugo cuts me off. “But my family’s well-being must come first.”
“I would never do anything to hurt your family,” I shoot back, watching Fiona dip behind the counter.
