A Branch of Silver, a Branch of Gold

by Anne Elisabeth Stengl

  She thought suddenly of Grandmem. Mad old Grandmem sitting in her little shack, shivering and muttering “Cateline” over and over again. It was like witnessing a prophetic vision of her own future.

  With a passion that was terrifying had she only known it, she clasped her hands, wringing them up at Benedict. “You’ve got to let me try!” she said. “Give me a chance. Give me a few days at least! You can hold the mirror if you like, but let me look again. I—I think I can follow Evette.” The memory of her reflected self reaching out a hand though her own hands did not move was vivid in her mind. “I think I can get into the mirror world, and I can find her. If I can just find her, I know I can bring her back!”

  This was false. After all, Grandmem had not brought back Cateline. But Heloise couldn’t allow herself to think otherwise, much less say it.

  Benedict put an arm around Heloise’s thin shoulders. “Come, come,” he said coaxingly. “Let’s get you out to the garden at least before someone sees you. Please, little girl!”

  Too overwrought to take offense just then, Heloise allowed herself to be guided down the passage, around to the scullery, and out into the kitchen gardens where, but a few days ago, she had spoken to Benedict. Once there, Benedict was able to breathe easier. He looked down at the girl, so pale and wretched-looking with her tear-smeared face.

  He couldn’t deny it: He felt sorry for her. Besides, if she was completely mad, what did that say about him? He had heard the wind talking too.

  “Look here,” he said, and she obeyed, gazing up at him with terrible solemnity. “We can’t go wandering about the house today, me holding the mirror while you’re staring into it. People are bound to notice. Come back tonight and”—he could hardly believe his own ears as he heard the words coming out of his mouth—“I’ll help you try again. All right?”

  “You will?”

  Benedict startled. When her face lit up so suddenly and so brilliantly like that . . . well, she didn’t look quite so much like a little girl anymore.

  He blushed and scuffed one foot in the dirt. “Yes. Sure. But please just go away for now.”

  Heloise grabbed him by the hand and, before he could stop her, planted a kiss on the back of it. “Master Benedict!” she cried in the most respectful tone he had yet heard from her. “Thank you, sir! Thank you kindly!” Then she darted away across the kitchen yard, around the side of the house, and out of sight. His last glimpse of her was tangled curls whipping behind her like a battle standard.

  “Oh, Lumé,” he whispered. “What have I gotten myself into?”

  Indeed, what have we all gotten ourselves into?

  But the story must play out to its ending. We must see where it takes us afterward. So be brave, mortal hearts! Be strong and courageous!

  And seek for the branch of silver. Hear me, child, listen to my words. Seek for the branch of silver . . .

  SEVENTEEN

  Papa stood in the cottage doorway. Heloise could see him long before she was anywhere near the cottage yard, and she suspected from his stance that he had spotted her too. No point in pretending otherwise.

  Dragons blast it! Any other day Papa would have been up and away to the fields hours ago. But he had just danced a vigorous dance all night long—well, all night with breaks for refreshment every so often. No one could truly dance Le Sacre all night. Though the sun was by now well past the noon zenith and facing the latter half of the day, Cerf Flaxman looked as though he had only just rolled out of bed. Not unusual on the first day of spring at Canneberges.

  Heloise paused at the gate long enough to see if she could spy a switch in his hand. She didn’t; not that she knew what she would have done if he had held one.

  The gate—the same gate where, but a few days before, adoring swains had swarmed around her lovely sister—creaked as she opened it. She half expected the sound to bring her bevy of brothers running to observe their sister get a good tanning (which was always great sport; Heloise was a magnificent howler). But no brothers came, not even as she crossed the yard, scattering Rufus the Red and his clucking harem as she went. Then she stood alone before her father.

  “Heloise,” he said. His arms were crossed, and his shoulders filled the doorway. Shadows from the low thatch fell heavily across his face. “Your mother has been weeping.”

  Suddenly Heloise wished there was a switch. She knew how to handle the pain of a switch. It was easy. She didn’t know how to handle this pain.

  “She is in her bed, and she will stay there today,” Cerf continued. “You will not go near her.”

  “Yes, Papa,” Heloise whispered.

  “You have disappointed her, Heloise. You know how she depends upon you since . . . since . . .”

  Since Hélène’s death.

  “Well, since you’re her only girl child, she wants to see you do right by this family. She wants to hold her head up with pride.”

  Heloise feared for a moment that she would be sick. Right there; right then. All over her father’s feet. Her stomach churned as though she’d chewed on a false-unicorn blossom, and her head went light and fuzzy. Mastering herself, she racked her brain for any explanation she might give for her recent actions.

  I’m sorry, Papa. There was this talking wind, you see . . .

  I’m sorry, Papa. I saw this fantastically beautiful woman kissing Rufus the Red—the ancestor, not the rooster, you understand . . .

  I’m sorry, Papa. I watched the daughter you don’t remember taken away by phantoms while the rest of you danced and didn’t care . . .

  I’m sorry, Papa . . .

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  Cerf shook his head. “It’s not enough,” he said. “Not for your Meme. You have embarrassed her, wounded her.” His brow knotted, not quite in a scowl. Indeed, from where she stood, Heloise could almost believe his expression sympathetic or, at the very least, pitying. “I cannot stop her from saying what she thinks. I cannot stop her from thinking what she thinks. But you, child, can behave yourself and do right by the Flaxman name.”

  “Yes,” she whispered, though she wasn’t entirely certain what she was agreeing to.

  Heaving a heavy sigh, Cerf stepped back into the cottage then reappeared to hand a bucket of slops to his daughter. “Give these to Gutrund and do your chores. Then to bed with you.”

  That was that. Neither comfort nor scolding but Papa’s best effort at both. Heloise knew he found the boys far easier to deal with, and she felt sorry for him. He never knew how to talk to her, nor she to him. He always seemed discomfited in her presence, as though she was not quite unwelcome but not quite welcome either.

  It hadn’t always been that way. Only since the fever. Only since Hélène.

  But Papa tried. Heloise acknowledged this in the privacy of her thoughts as she dumped the slops and scraps into Gutrund’s trough and absentmindedly scratched the sow behind her ear while she grunted and rooted about for choice pickings. Papa tried. He didn’t want to treat Heloise differently, and he disliked that he did, though he couldn’t figure out how not to. He would have liked, if it were possible, to make everything all right again.

  Not Meme, though. Meme didn’t try. Meme didn’t want to try.

  “Do you blame her?” she whispered to herself. She did not need to speak the answer. No. She didn’t blame Meme. Not at all. There was only one person to blame.

  All of a sudden, there it was; that small, secret thought lurking in the back of her brain. Behind her anger. Behind her fear. Behind even the voice that wasn’t quite her own which had plagued her since the morning of her birthday . . . This was a much deeper, much more private voice, and it was entirely hers.

  If you rescue Evette, Meme might forgive you.

  “Dragon’s spit!” Heloise growled. Gutrund, startled by the intensity of her voice, snorted noisily and backed away out of reach. She squealed when Heloise climbed into her pen and landed with a squelch in the mud. Ignoring the pig, Heloise squished over to the water trough and stared inside,
stared at her murky, rippling reflection.

  “You know what to do,” she said.

  Her reflection mouthed the words along with her. It struck Heloise as mocking.

  “You know what to do. You can follow Evette. I know you can.”

  Still only the mimicking lip movements. Just like any reflection.

  Heloise raised a fist and smacked it down into her own watery face, splashing water over the front of her dress.

  In her head, the voice not her own whispered, Silver . . .

  All the way back to his chamber Benedict told himself that he would be too overwrought by the strange doings of that morning to possibly sleep. He suspected it was a lie, however, and his suspicions proved accurate. The very sight of his bed, mussed and rumpled though it was, drew him like a magnet.

  He was asleep before his head hit the pillow, before he’d even thought to remove any layers of clothing.

  Perhaps he dreamed. Afterward he couldn’t say for sure. It didn’t seem like a dream while it was happening. But then dreams so rarely do.

  In his mind at least, he saw several dark figures draw near and stand around his bed. At first he thought, judging by the general aura of menace radiating from each of them, that they were Doctor Dupont, only split into several versions of himself.

  But this idea Benedict’s unconscious discarded as silly. Doctor Dupont, while certainly ominous, never carried himself like these figures did. One of them in particular gave such an impression of power and grace even while standing perfectly still that Benedict immediately thought of it as the Prince. Simultaneously he thought of it as the Lion. The words were synonymous in his dreaming head; he couldn’t have told one from the other.

  The rest of the figures—five or six, maybe more—were less majestic but equally dreadful. And all were nothing more than warm shadows surrounding his bed.

  “He has my niece’s mirror,” said one. “He is dangerous, no?”

  “Hardly,” replied the Lion-Prince. “He is dying.”

  “They’re all dying,” said a third shadow. It added with a deep growl, “Mortals always die.”

  “This one is dying faster than most,” said the Lion-Prince. “I smell it on him. We have nothing to fear from this creature.”

  “But he has Alala’s mir—”

  “Do not say that name!”

  Each word struck Benedict’s ear and turned into an animal snarl. There was a screech and, though Benedict’s eyes weren’t open, he saw a blur and a flash of red.

  Then one fewer figure stood around his bed. None of the lesser shadows spoke, as though each was afraid of sharing the fate of the luckless shadow. At last, however, one said, “But if he is determined to help the curse-breaker, should we not dispose of him now?”

  “And break the Law?” said the Lion-Prince.

  “It wouldn’t exactly be breaking the Law,” said another voice, a wheedling, whining sort of voice that seemed to pant between phrases. “More like, sort of, you know . . . helping it along.”

  “No,” said the Lion-Prince. His word was final.

  “Besides,” said a new voice, this one with a huskily feminine growl to it, “he is prime for the hunt. If she should make it so far.”

  Suddenly all the heads gazing down upon Benedict where he slept turned like those of so many dogs catching a sound or scent in the bushes, though more elegant. The panting one said, “Ah! She’s coming.”

  “The cursebreaker,” said the Lion-Prince. “Away with you. All of you. Now!”

  A wafting darkness passed over Benedict. He felt it like silk and feathers and . . . and raw power. It was the sort of sensation one can have only in a dream, so he assumed he was dreaming indeed.

  Creeeeaaak.

  That sound, rather too familiar, brought him awake with a start.

  He lay with every muscle frozen and tense, staring into the gloom of his bedroom, which would have been too dark to see anything save that a wash of moonlight shone through the window. It was all so strange by moonlight, and he was so disoriented with sleep that he didn’t recognize where he was. At first he thought it was his room back at university, only it didn’t feel quite right. He couldn’t hear Victor’s deep snoring or Luc’s strange sleep-talking murmurs. No, this room felt empty, as empty as it had been after . . .

  Oh, wait. That was over, that whole period of his life. He wasn’t at university. He was back home now. He was back home, and—

  Creeeeeaak.

  He looked up and saw the outline of a curly head framed in the window. “Is that you?” he demanded. “Heloise . . . Heloise Oakwoman?”

  “Yes!” said a sharp, familiar voice. Then, “Oooomph!” With a scramble she managed to get her torso up and over the windowsill. He heard a curse followed by a thump as she fell into the cold room.

  Benedict sat upright. A gentleman born and bred, he felt it wasn’t right for him to lounge in bed while strange young ladies—even peasant girls—fell through his window. Beyond this, he couldn’t begin to say what good manners might demand in a situation such as this. Should he offer to help her up? Or simply stay put until she, like a gawky new fawn, got her feet under her?

  One way or another, decisions would be easier made in the light. So, leaving Heloise to manage herself, Benedict climbed from his bed and fumbled around for a candle. The fire on the hearth was nearly gone, but a few coals still gleamed like so many devil eyes. Moving slowly, Benedict crossed the room and knelt before the hearth, holding the wick of his candle to the brightest ember until it took. He turned—

  —and uttered a gulping yelp upon finding Heloise standing much nearer than expected.

  “Hush!” said she, and he couldn’t stop the immediate “Sorry!” that sprang to his lips in response. Heloise paid no attention to this, for her eyes, so bright in that warm little glow, were fixed upon the candle. “Is that . . . is that beeswax?” she asked in the same tone a beggar might ask, “Are those diamonds?”

  “Yes,” said Benedict, searching in the dark until he found a proper holder in which he affixed the candle before the hot wax could burn his fingers.

  “Lumé!” said Heloise. She could have kicked herself then for sounding like such an urchin. But she had only ever heard of beeswax candles before, never seen one in use. There was a tallow chandler over in east-end, and she had once gone with her older brothers to see him at work. None of the chandler’s candles had been lit, and the stink of boiling beef fat was almost as bad as the dye house (though no stink could be as bad as the dye house). But the lord of Centrecœur and his family, she had been told, used much finer, imported candles made of beeswax.

  Heloise felt she could have stared at that candle in its gleaming holder for hours. What a thing it must be to be rich and master of all the land!

  “You’ve got straw in your hair,” Benedict said, frowning. The shadows cast by the candle made his face look comically dreadful. “What were you doing, sleeping in a haystack?”

  Heloise did not grace this with an answer. Tearing her gaze away from the glorious light, she looked about the room. Her eyes, which had adjusted to the darkness as she crept over Canneberges and waded across the moat, were nearly blinded now. “Where is the mirror?”

  Benedict, who’d been practically asleep on his feet when he returned to his room, had to search a bit to discover where he’d left the lovely glass. He found it at last under one of his pillows and realized he must have taken it to bed with him without noticing. Lucky for all, he hadn’t rolled over and crushed it in his sleep!

  He picked it up in one hand, and the gleam of his candle flickered across its surface and on the black-molded coils of the lions’ manes. He thought suddenly of the shadow-figures around his bed. He knew now that they must simply have been nightmares. Strangely lucid nightmares, to be sure, but nightmares nonetheless. Still, he didn’t think he would forget them anytime soon; particularly that lion-like presence who had spoken with such command.

  “Come on!” said Heloise, all but bursting wi
th her desire to take the mirror in her own two hands. She bounced from one cold foot to the other. “Please, let’s hurry! Everyone is asleep, right?”

  “I think so,” Benedict replied, shaking away the nightmarish memory.

  So he found himself stepping out of his room into the gloomy passage without, looking this way and that like a thief afraid of discovery—a strange sensation, here in his own home. Heloise kept close behind him as though afraid of losing him in the darkness. He proceeded down the hall, the candle held high like a guiding star, and the two of them passed undetected.

  Once they reached the passage leading to the Tower and the narrow stair, Benedict opened the door to the weaver room and paused in the doorway. No moonlight managed to slip through the narrow window slits, and his candle hardly touched the heavy darkness inside. A gleam along the edge of the nearest loom and the soft bolt of half-woven cloth—and that was all. Everything was as dark as the dungeons below.

  Somehow . . . somehow it didn’t feel empty.

  Heloise pressed up behind Benedict, peering around him into the chamber. She hated to enter. But what did that matter? She had gone far beyond likes and wants now. There was only need, and she needed to enter. She needed to look into the glass.

  “Will you hold the mirror?” she asked.

  Benedict, the vision of his nightmare far too present in his mind, shuddered. “Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked. “Maybe we should wait until morning.”

  “Yeah. When everyone’s up and about, and no one’s going to ask us any questions. Right.”

  Her sharp voice was oddly reassuring. A reminder that, however near any strange, otherworldly terrors might be, Heloise herself was nearer still and more than willing to tear him apart with her tongue if necessary. Benedict grinned despite himself. Holding the candle steady with one hand, he reached with the other into his shirt and withdrew the mirror. It was heavy, and he had difficulty supporting it one-handed.

  Heloise, without thinking, put out her hands. Benedict held onto the handle but allowed Heloise to support the mirror by its frame, holding it so that the candlelight filled the glass. The room seemed suddenly much brighter, and more of the strange, monster-like looms could be seen. Of course there was nothing lurking behind them. Or under them. Or in the shadows beyond them. Because the room was empty this time of night. Absolutely . . .