Authors: Mccormick Templeman
“Tom’s leaving,” he said, and when he stepped closer, she could see heartbreak in his eyes. “He says he’s headed up north. I know he means to go with her, and I can’t let him. He can’t go off into the wilds with that monster. I have to stop him.”
“He told you this?”
“No,” he said softly. “I just missed him. He came to say farewell to my parents. My mother said she saw him slip some cinnamon into his pocket before he left. She wondered if he might be heading to Cairn Hill to pay his respects to our dead before he goes. I’m heading up there now to see if I can catch him. I have to stop him, Ro. He’ll die up there. He’ll die.”
Jude’s words surged through Rowan. Coin or no coin, they had to find Tom. He was her best friend. She couldn’t let anything happen to him. “I’ll … I’ll go with you,” she said, but he shook his head.
“No. I’m going alone. I just wanted to say goodbye in case …” Reaching out, he held a hand to her face and looked into her eyes. “Rowan,” was all he said, but there was such tenderness in the word, that even amidst all the pain and fear in her heart, something fluttered to life. And his hand warm on her cheek, he gazed into her eyes. “Rowan,” he said. “I want you to know … I never hated you. I … I think you’re wonderful.”
She looked up at him, and he stared down at her with a new sort of intensity, one with a soft edge that both confused and thrilled her.
Warmth rushed through her as he said the words, and all at once everything became very clear. “I’m going with you,” she said.
“No. Rowan, please stay here.”
“I’m coming,” she said firmly. “I’ll do whatever it takes to save Tom.”
“Because you love him?” he asked, his voice trembling.
Rowan looked into his eyes and realized that for him the weight of the world rested on her answer.
“No,” she said, excited and frightened all at once. “Because he’s my friend.”
Standing there in the snow with Jude, she felt deliciously free, and suddenly she knew what to do. Her mind flashed back to her dream—to the golden snake that cut into her mother’s flesh, and to the blade that freed her from it. Smiling at Jude, wildly giddy, she reached into her boot and retrieved her dagger.
He raised his eyebrows at her, confused. And then in
one fluid movement, she slipped the blade between her flesh and the red twine, and she sliced.
Just like that, she was free.
Jude took a step away from her, shocked, staring at the severed twine that lay mangled in the snow. Rowan reached down to retrieve it, and smiling at Jude, feeling wonderfully alive, she hurled it as far out into the night as she possibly could.
And then he stepped toward her, and his deep brown eyes flashing, he reached for her, her body swaying to curve against his.
“Jude,” she whispered.
Pulling her to him, he kissed her, and a wave of emotion swept through her. She yielded to him, her body flush against his, her breath coming more quickly, her legs beginning to shake, and then she stepped away, overwhelmed.
“I’ve been wanting to do that for a really long time,” he said, confusion in his eyes. “I’m sorry if I …”
Rowan shook her head, slowly returning to her senses. “Don’t be,” she said, and then taking his face in her hands, she kissed him deeply, a different kind of kiss, a hungry kiss, and he leaned into her, matching her passion, and it seemed to Rowan that the world spun wildly around her. And then he was lifting her up, her hungry fingers holding fast to his shoulders.
And then, dizzy, she leaned her head back, and he set her down. They stared at each other, stunned.
“Right,” Jude said, still shocked but grinning now. “Where does your father keep his weapons?”
I
N THE STUDY
,
Henry Rose handed them each a rifle and took a third for himself. Rowan tucked her dagger into her stocking and looked over at Merrilee, who sat huddled up in the window seat, knees to her chest.
“Don’t be frightened,” Rowan said, walking over to the little girl.
Merrilee wrapped her arms around her legs. “I don’t want you to die,” she said.
Rowan exhaled. “I’m not going to die. No one is going to die.”
“Can you promise me?” the girl asked, a tremor to her voice.
Rowan sighed. “That’s not really something you can promise. But I give you my word that I’ll do my best to make sure everyone returns safely.”
“Especially your father?” Merrilee asked, looking at Henry Rose with love.
The gesture stirred Rowan’s heart, and she was overcome with sympathy for the little orphan. “Especially my father,” she said. “Now listen to me. I want you to go up to your room and lock the door. Don’t open it for anyone, do you understand?”
“Not even for the duke?” asked Merrilee, her voice quavering.
“Definitely not for the duke,” Rowan answered firmly.
Merrilee nodded, and after hopping down from the window seat, she shyly kissed Rowan on the cheek, then hurried out of the room and up the stairs.
Then, together, Rowan, her father, and Jude headed out into the woods. Night was already upon them, but a fat moon hung in the sky, illuminating their way. Rowan could feel the fear growing inside her as they passed through the village boundary and crossed into the woods. The forest was a different place at night. She knew that now. Devils stalked between the trees, and somewhere out there, a Greywitch walked among them.
As they approached Cairn Hill, she couldn’t shake the feeling that they were being watched, followed. She looked to Jude, but his countenance gave nothing away.
As if sensing her trepidation, her father turned to her. “Steady now, Rowan. We’re nearly there.”
But the words did little to assuage her fear. The moon cast strange shadows, making monsters of the trees, and as they trudged through the snow and up the steep slope to Cairn Hill, Rowan had a feeling that something very bad was about to happen.
When they reached the top of the hill and entered the Mouth of the Goddess, Rowan’s eyes swept the burial ground for signs of movement, but there was only stillness.
They approached with their weapons raised, and Jude, spotting something, hurried to the ceremonial altar at the far end of the sacred place.
“They’ve left the cinnamon offering,” he called. “They’ve already come and gone.”
Rowan looked to her father, desperate for a plan.
“We’d better head back down,” he said. “Maybe we can still catch them.”
Rowan paused, a strange feeling upon her, and she looked out past the trees toward Lover’s Leap and Seelie Lake. “Let’s go that way.”
“But there’s nothing out there,” her father insisted. “Only the drop-off.”
“I think … I think I can feel her,” Rowan said, surprised by her own words. But it was true. She’d felt it every time she’d seen Fiona. There was that energy between them, a link.
Heeding Rowan’s instincts, the three traveled a short way through a sparse wood and out toward the edge of the cliff, toward Lover’s Leap. Rowan spotted Tom and Fiona before they saw her, and her heart flooded with relief.
They sat in the snow, his head in her lap. He looked
unwell—pale, nearly green—but Fiona stroked his hair and gazed at him with such love—like a child admiring her favorite doll. The sight shook Rowan, but there was something else, something she couldn’t put her finger on. Something was making her feel especially uneasy.
“Raise your weapons,” her father said, and he stepped out into the clearing. Jude and Rowan followed.
Sensing them, Fiona looked up, but Tom didn’t notice. He continued staring up at her, while Fiona only gave them a pleasant smile.
“Not the farewell I’d hoped for,” she said, still smiling, but narrowing her eyes.
Tom, startled, scrambled to his feet and stepped in front of Fiona as if to shield her. “What are you doing?” he yelled, horrified. “Put your weapons away.”
“Tom, please listen to me,” Jude said. “You need to come home. You’re in danger.”
Tom glared at his brother. “Get out of here, Jude. Leave us alone.”
Rowan’s father cleared his throat. “Tom, you know we can’t do that. Your brother’s right. Your place is with your family.”
“You’re sick,” Jude said. “She’s made you sick.”
Tom flushed crimson. “She’s done no such thing. I’m fine.”
“Fine?” Jude laughed. “You tried to kill me today.”
Tom looked away, ashamed, and Rowan’s heart broke for him. He was different now, there was no question about that, but he was still Tom, and to see him in such pain was
excruciating. Her eyes traveled to Fiona. Rowan kept expecting her to join in, to speak, but she only sat watching from her place on the ground, placid and beautiful, her hair falling in black waves down to the snow.
“Please,” Tom said, looking at his brother’s gun trained on Fiona. “I love her. And we’re leaving tonight. We’re going north to the Old Territories, away from people. We only came up here for a final farewell.”
“And what about that creature—that beast?” Jude asked.
“She’s taking it with her,” Tom said, stumbling over the words. “It won’t hurt anyone again. Neither of them will. They will feed on moose and northern bears. Just let us go.”
“You would choose such a life?” Jude said, his voice breaking. “She’s bewitched you. She’s a monster.”
“She didn’t ask for this,” Tom cried. “She’s a victim. You can’t punish her for choices that weren’t hers to make.”
“People are dead, Tom,” Rowan said. “People we knew and loved, they are dead because of her.”
“At least let her defend herself. Tell them, Fiona,” he said, turning to her. “Tell them what happened.”
“Why?” she said calmly. “I owe these people nothing.”
“Please, Jude!” Tom pleaded. “Put down your guns. Please, give her a chance to speak. As my brother. As my friend. Do this for me.”
Jude considered a moment, his face strained with emotion, and then he signaled to Rowan and her father that they should lower their weapons.
Tom turned to Fiona, but she looked away. “I … don’t want to tell them,” she answered.
“Then tell
me
,” he pleaded, kneeling beside her. “Tell me what happened to you. Because if I’m going to risk death up there in the north, then I need to know. If you love me, you will tell me. You will help me understand what it is that I’m walking into.”
She looked at him with a desperate kind of love, and then, pain marring her face, she nodded. “I don’t like thinking about it,” she said, her voice soft. “I don’t like thinking about anything anymore.”
“Start with the night in the woods,” he urged. “Do you remember what happened?”
She nodded. “It was the coin,” she said, running her fingers over the necklace. “My pet, it was far—very far from here, but the coin connected us. It had been up there, you see—up on Beggar’s Drift, slumbering, ancient. And then something woke it, and at first it didn’t want to answer. It wanted to stay sleeping, but then the call became unbearable. When it emerged, it sought the coin, but it had been in such a dark place for such a long time and without a heartbeat to follow, the beast was like a blind infant, searching in vain. First it headed north, where the animals are large and warm and fresh. But then my heartbeat, it called it back down here, back to me, because I am its master. I was born and I died that I might be its master. That night when it found me in the woods, it was wild then, it was filled with longing and death, and in lunging for me, for its new master, it didn’t mean … well, you know the rest.”
Her voice cracked, and she blinked as if fighting back
tears. Tom touched her arm, gently urging her on, and she nodded.
“After that, I remember very little except for cold and the sense that I was very alone. And then something changed. I heard … digging. And then I remember gasping for breath, clawing my way out of the mud. I remember the night sky above me—how beautiful it looked as the pain shot through me, and my body came to life. Next I was in the woods. It was with me, waiting for me. And we were hungry, so hungry. The hunger, it burned inside us. Tom, you can’t know what this hunger was like. There are no words for it.”
“We?” Rowan asked, her thoughts turning to the abomination she’d seen with Fiona.
Fiona narrowed her eyes at Rowan. “Yes, we,” she hissed.
“We.”
“So,” Tom said, his voice shaking. “So it was the beast that killed the villagers?”
Fiona hesitated a moment and then shook her head. “You have to understand. When it woke me, when it pulled me from the clutches of death, it gave a piece of itself that I might live. And we were so hungry, and it couldn’t cross into the village, so I had to do it. I didn’t want to. It wasn’t a choice.”
“That thing. That thing did this to you?”
Fiona’s eyes were wide with emotion, and it seemed to Rowan the girl was desperate to make Tom understand. “We are bound. I gave it my heart, and it gave me its soul. We share our hunger, our thirst … our mortality.”
“Your mortality?” Tom asked, his voice breaking with
sorrow. “Tell me you’re not serious. Tell me your life isn’t yoked to that creature’s.”
“We need each other, Tom,” Fiona said. “The beast and I, we are not whole without the other. But no one has to die anymore. I grow stronger every day. If we can just get far enough away, then no one has to die. We’ll find something else—something big and warm. We just have to leave, Tom, and we have to leave soon. Because given our current situation,” she said, looking to the others, “I can’t promise anything.”
“Tom,” Jude said. “Don’t go with her. She’ll kill you.”
“She won’t,” he said. “I trust her.”
“Then you’re a madman. You really don’t think she’ll turn on you eventually when that monster of hers gets tired of eating bears?”
“If I’m a madman, then let me be mad. I’m going with her.”
“Listen to your brother,” Henry Rose said, taking a step toward Tom. “You’re a good boy, Tom. You always have been. Go home to your family.”
Rowan thought of the witches, to the connection they believed existed between her and her sister. It didn’t seem likely that she could have much effect on Fiona, but she needed to try. She stepped toward her. “Please. I beg of you, listen to reason. He’ll die if he stays with you. Let him go.”