Cinders and Sparrows

by Stefan Bachmann

  I nodded, and we donned the green cloaks, took up baskets from the pile, and set off across the gardens for the perimeter of trees.

  It was a lovely afternoon, bracing and sharp, the mountain air smelling of pine and stone and the coming winter. Vikers wheeled in the sky above. The last of the autumn leaves blew around us, and the sun took the edge off the cold and made my heart soar. The woods held no horror by day. Even the memory of my kidnapping seemed far off, as if it had happened to someone else, in a different forest, or in a dream.

  “What a pretty place,” I said, going to a tree and laying my hand against its trunk. I felt the sun-warmed bark under my fingertips, and beneath that, the thrum of some ancient power, the old, slow life of the tree itself.

  “Yes,” agreed Minnifer, but Bram frowned at us.

  “It’s not pretty,” he said. “These woods are very old. Very odd. A place where the veil between the worlds has worn thin. There are loads of ghosts here.”

  “Well, I like it,” I said, giving the tree a friendly pat. “Anyway, it’s the middle of the afternoon. I’m sure it’s perfectly safe now.”

  “I don’t think spirits tell time,” Bram said, stomping across the moss and into the cool air beneath the trees. “It’s all a hoax, what they say about midnight and the witching hour. Ghosts are either here or they’re not. People just pay more attention in the dark.”

  Minnifer and I exchanged looks. Then we too stepped into Pragast Wood, picking our way among the mossy stones and fallen branches. Moths darted on the breeze, wings tipped in rust and amber. Mushrooms grew in the damp hollows, their spores collecting in dusty clouds that hovered over the ground. Sunlight barely penetrated the evergreen branches, but here and there, where there was an oak or an ash, and the leaves had fallen, it broke through in golden pools.

  “What are they?” I asked. “The triggles. They look like what might grow on a wheel of cheese if you left it in the cellar too long.”

  “Maybe they do,” said Minnifer. “No one really knows where they come from. It’s said they’re what happens when a ghost stays in the lands of the living for too long, or that they’re the spirits of the rich and greedy. But they’ve been spirits so long they’re practically brainless. Mrs. Cantanker has somehow persuaded them to do little chores for her, but usually they just steal things.”

  “I suppose they hope they’ll eventually have enough to pay passage into the spirit realm,” I said, and Minnifer laughed.

  “Well, they’re never going to get there. As if the spirit realm wants triggles running about, stealing everything that shines! They’re far too annoying.”

  We approached the graveyard and went through its crooked gate. Tombstones veiled in ivy pushed up around us like uneven teeth. Several mausoleums, grim little mansions black with age, lurked among the trees. I knelt to examine one of the tombs.

  Miss Hyacinth Brydgeborn, it said. Taken too soon at the age of 21 by a fangore in an unfortunate incident.

  Bram and Minnifer were already far ahead. I scratched at a bit of moss, trying to read about the unfortunate incident. And then something on the ground caught my eye: a footprint, small and elegant—a lady’s shoe with a heel.

  Who had been out here? The footprint looked quite fresh. I parted the grass, saw another footprint, and another. The path led out of the graveyard, into a thicket of ancient trees. I scrambled to my feet and followed the track, pushing through another little gate and out beyond the edge of the graveyard.

  There, deep in the creeping mist, was another mausoleum. It was larger than the others, dark pillars and a peaked roof, the doors shut tight. It looked proud, as if it did not care to be a part of the rabble in the graveyard anyway. The path wound toward it, ending at the foot of its cracked stone steps. I knew at once whose house this was: Magdeboor’s.

  The woods had gone silent. No sunlight fell here. The air was cold and heavy as a damp blanket. And then, for the briefest instant, I saw Greta. She was standing in the shadow of the mausoleum, in a thicket of brambles. Her dress was ragged, yellow silk and lace, torn and streaked with mold. Her gaze was ferocious, almost hateful. And in the blink that I glimpsed her, she lifted her hand to me, and I saw that her palm was scoured with a bloody brand—eight legs, a fat, round body. A spider.

  I gasped, squeezing my eyes shut. When I opened them, Greta was gone, but I had not imagined her. The brambles where she had stood were coated in frost, and I still felt her gaze . . . an accusing glare, as if I had done something terribly wrong.

  “Zita?” Minnifer was beside me, her voice loud in my ear. “Zita, what are you doing?”

  I jumped. “Oh,” I said, looking again at the mausoleum. “I don’t know, I—”

  But before I could say another word, Minnifer was pulling me back through the mist and into the graveyard, away from that brooding little house. “Stay on the path,” she murmured. “There’s no telling what’s out there.”

  We came at last to the place where Pragast Wood crashed against the castle in a wave of oak and evergreen. Just as Minnifer and Bram had promised, there was an opening in the wall, and behind it an overgrown courtyard and the looming towers of the north wing.

  “This is as far as we take you,” said Minnifer, looking forlorn.

  “If we’re caught in there . . . ,” Bram started to say. “Well, best not. Best not give anyone reason to think we’re snooping.”

  I nodded. Then I whistled for Vikers, who flew down out of the sky to sit on my shoulder, and climbed over the mossy stones and into the courtyard.

  Blackbird Castle’s oldest wing was not at all like its inhabited ones. Charred battlements loomed against the blue sky like the fangs of some gigantic beast. The spines of rusting gates snagged at my cloak. Parts of the walls had collapsed, revealing the chambers behind them, like an opened-up dollhouse, and I saw grand drawing rooms, and little bedrooms higher up, all of them sleeping, frozen in time, tucked beneath shrouds of ivy. I glimpsed moldering paintings, tarnished silver on mantelpieces, a banquet hall blackened with cinders and overrun with vines, crystal and china still lying among the leaves. No thieves had come to relieve the Brydgeborns of these abandoned treasures. I supposed none had dared.

  I crossed a stone bridge above a grassy, dried-out moat . . . and there was Amsel’s Tower, beckoning to the sun like a crooked finger, as if hoping to lure it from its path across the sky. Vikers let out a long, foreboding caw.

  “Shh,” I said. “We don’t want anyone to know we’re here.”

  I gazed up at the tower, its missing roof and small gray windows. I imagined the triggles scampering through their little passageways, then out into the open and up that sheer stone face, vanishing into the arrow slits. Little wretches indeed.

  I doubled my pace. At the base of the tower was a rotting door, and into this I inserted Greta’s silver key, twisting it with all my strength. I might have been too enthusiastic, however, because the entire lock fell out with a clang, and the door yawned open without any sort of fight at all. I stepped into the dark mustiness of the tower.

  All was quiet and still. I began climbing the winding stair, Vikers perched on my shoulder. The stair was made of wood, and I felt sure the whole construction would at any moment come away from the wall. Higher and higher I went, hopping over the holes where treads were missing, gulping down my fear when the staircase began to sway.

  I was breathless and tingling all over with nerves by time I reached the top. The chamber was round and almost bare. Whatever furniture there had been lay piled up against one wall. And in the middle of the floorboards, glittering in the meager light, was a mountain of treasure absolutely swarming with triggles.

  They climbed over the goblets and brooches like ants, cooing to one another and polishing the trinkets with curtain tassels and bits of rags. For a good long moment, they were too absorbed in their work to notice me standing there, gaping at them. Then Vikers made a small noise in his chest and they all froze, their faces tiny masks of alarm.

&
nbsp; I froze too. There were quite a lot of them, and I wasn’t sure I could fend them all off if they decided to attack. But then I realized I was alarmed by what amounted to a passel of sentient mushrooms, and I strode toward them, my cloak flapping behind me.

  “I just want my Anchor back,” I said firmly. “Just one thing, and you can keep the rest for all I care.”

  But the triggles did not seem willing to part with so much as a single coin. They slid down the pile and formed a ring around it, shouting in shrill voices. Their shrieking continued to rise, thinning into a single threadlike whine. And then one particularly bulbous one with a red-and-white toadstool head began to advance.

  I looked at Vikers. Vikers looked at me. Then Vikers flew at the triggles, and they ran screaming up the walls, gathering on the ceiling like a wobbly, resentful spot of mold.

  “One thing,” I said again, peering up at all those wide black eyes.

  I knelt before the pile. There were candlesticks and silver platters, golden teaspoons and ruby necklaces, crystal toads, sapphire-eyed unicorns, and entire rolls of jeweled damask. But I knew my Anchor was here, under it all. I could feel it, a delicate pull at the edges of my mind. I began to lay out the treasures, piece by piece, until the entire floor was full of objects. Then, when there was only a heap of coins and little trinkets left, I pushed my arm into it, all the way up to my shoulder. I rummaged about, squinted, stuck my tongue out between my teeth. . . .

  I felt it at once, a light sting of electricity against my fingertips. And then warmth, like the loveliest handshake from a friend. I withdrew my arm, a foolish grin on my face. Clutched in my fingers was a plain silver locket. It was oval, decorated only with a few ivy leaves. Etched into its cover in tiny, tiny writing were these lines:

  For Zita Brydgeborn, last of her name. May this light always guide you home.

  The words made my heart hurt. My parents must have chosen them, not knowing that everything was about to change, that they would never give the locket to me, that I was about to vanish and they would spend their remaining years searching for me in vain.

  My fingernail found the locket’s release and I clicked it open. Inside was a small pane of glass, and behind it was the morning room. But not a picture of the morning room. No, as I turned the locket to and fro, the room turned too, as if I were looking at it through a telescope. I saw the painted silk scrolls, the gilt chairs, and potted ferns. And then I turned all the way around and found myself suddenly face-to-face with three figures: Mother and Father and a baby who I suspected was me.

  I’d never seen a picture of myself as a child. Mirrors had been forbidden at the orphanage for fear they would turn the children vain, and Mrs. Boliver had never hung up any, either, as she’d held the odd belief that they made her older with every passing day. For most of my life, I’d satisfied my curiosity with looking into pots and puddles, and trying to piece myself together out of the things others said I was and what I felt to be true. It was a bit of a shock, then, to see myself in the flesh. There was my wild hair and pinched face, and I had been dressed up until I looked like a rather turnip-y little root in a bonnet. We were sitting in front of a crackling fire. Papa had his arm around Mother’s shoulder, I sat in her lap, and Teenzy was curled into a ball on top of a tasseled cushion, and we were all beaming at each other, as if we’d never been more delighted in our lives. And then my mother looked up, peering out of the glass, and I could swear she was smiling right at me, her face crinkling, bright and warm.

  “Mother?” I whispered, leaning over the locket. “Mother, do you see me?”

  But the image only sputtered and began again, like a loop, repeating itself over and over. I sat on the floor for some time, watching those smiling faces. Vikers rubbed his head against my cheek. Even the triggles went quiet, creeping down off the ceiling to stare at me with great solemn eyes.

  After what felt like hours, I noticed the sunlight creeping down the wall and remembered Bram and Minnifer out in the woods. I got to my feet, clutching the locket to my chest. Then I nodded to the room, a nod of thanks. “Greta,” I said. “I’m sorry for what happened to you, but I’m going to fix it.”

  I left the tower at a run, making my way crashingly down the stairs. The locket joined the skeleton key around my neck. Vikers wheeled above me in the gathering dusk. As I made my way across the bridge, I thought I saw Greta again, far back among the ivy, glaring at me. But before I could really tell, a billow of leaves blew up from the moat and she was gone.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I must have spent more time in Amsel’s Tower than I’d thought, because Bram and Minnifer were not waiting for me at the gap in the wall. I found them half an hour later in the Room of Marble Heads, their green cloaks disposed of, rags and buckets in hand, diligently polishing the hundreds of ancestral busts. The busts were all whispering in stony voices, centuries of memories, gossip, and counter-gossip bubbling up out of their throats, and Bram and Minnifer were doing their best to look demure and busy. I saw why at once: Mrs. Cantanker was in the room next door, swirling about in flowered silks and filling a padded box with porcelain tea things.

  Bram placed a finger to his lips. Minnifer winked at me. As soon as Mrs. Cantanker had retreated down the passageway, they rushed over.

  “You found it?” Minnifer whispered, and she seemed far more excited than seemed entirely reasonable. “Was it where we said it would be?”

  I nodded, pulling the glimmering locket from my collar. “And look what’s inside.”

  I opened the clasp. There was the pretty room, the crackling fire . . . and there was my family, moving about and smiling. “Aren’t they lovely?” I whispered.

  Both Bram and Minnifer smiled too. “Yes,” said Minnifer softly. “They are lovely. Now everything will be easier. You’ll see.”

  Minnifer was right. Everything was easier after I found the locket. I didn’t even notice Mrs. Cantanker’s moods or rages, and because I didn’t notice them, she seemed to give up having them quite so often. We trained with lures and coins and weapons in the Hunting Room, discussed the flora and fauna of the underworld, dissected an undead beetle. . . . Mrs. Cantanker even praised me on my lunges once, while I fought a straw mannequin with my silver scissors. I wondered if the change lay with me or with her, but I rather suspected it lay with me. Ever since I’d found my Anchor, I felt as if nothing could bother me. A lightness and a warmth seeped from the locket, and with it lying against my heart I felt nigh unstoppable. If the Butcher of Beydun was on his way, and the Dark Queen with him, he would not find me a half-fledged witch.

  I had the treskgilliam tree’s twig, my silver scissors, and the locket . . . now I had only to wake my family.

  That night, after Mrs. Cantanker’s lessons, I crept down to the dining room, my arms full of blackberry branches, and unlocked the gilt doors with my skeleton key. Then, using my locket for a light, I crept forward into the dark. The cocooned shapes lurked in the shadows ahead, that strange stone dripping from their collars and down their cheeks. As I approached, I heard a faint tickling, skittering sound, and for a terrifying moment I wondered if they were stirring, like creatures about to hatch. But no . . . with a shudder, I saw it was the food that stirred, slowly decomposing beneath a glistening sheen of maggots, roaches, and ants.

  I was not afraid of insects, not in the least. I was afraid of the still, soundless shapes in the chairs, but I told myself I mustn’t be. They were my family. I loved them, didn’t I? Or at least, I loved their souls, which were very far away now. Gathering every scrap of courage I possessed, I sat myself on the floor cross-legged, next to my mother’s chair, and peered up at her. She looked different than she did in the locket. I wasn’t quite sure why. I supposed that was what death did to people, emptied them of all they really were.

  You’ll save us, won’t you, Mother? You’ll come back and make all this right.

  Something twinged in my heart, quivering like a plucked string. I wanted so badly to wake her. I wanted th
e cocoon to melt away, the lights to blaze in the chandelier, and the castle to fill once more with people and laughter. I wished for it so much it hurt. And then, when I was done wishing, I set to work.

  First I dragged all three chairs away from the table and pushed them back-to-back. Then I laid out the silver scissors and the green twig from the treskgilliam tree on the floorboards, and set to clipping the thorns off the blackberry branches, every last one, my eyes straining in the dimness. I slipped the locket from around my neck and draped its chain in an arc, the clasp open, light shining from the glass pane. Last of all, I strewed the petals in a circle before spraying everything with puffs of rose water from my bottle.

  I stood back to examine my handiwork. It looked perfect. It was perfect. In just a few moments I would no longer be alone in this castle, no longer the last of my line on whom everything depended. In just a few moments, the veil would part for a moment, and Mother and Greta and John would step through it, and I would no longer be an orphan.

  “Wake up, Mother,” I whispered. “Wake up, Greta, wake up, John Brydgeborn.”

  I closed my eyes, my hands clenched into fists. I thought I heard a sound—a rustling very close by. My eyes sprang open. A mouse was looking at me curiously through the ribs of the ham. It cocked its head, bright eyes glinting. But none of the figures had moved. I clenched my fists again, hoping and wishing and trying to feel all the love in the world, squeezing it from my heart like water from a rag.

  Nothing. They did not wake up. The mouse grew bored and returned to its feasting.

  In the end, I gathered up my scissors and the blackberry branches, put the treskgilliam twig back into my belt, and went to fetch a broom. I worked until deep into the night, pulling down the cobwebs and pushing about heaps of dust like snow. I worked until my hair stuck to my forehead and my arms ached, until I was too tired to cry.