Ash (13 page)

By the time Ash finished attending both Ana and Clara, who could only talk about how grand the palace was “if only you could have seen it, Ash,” she said it was very late. Gwen had already gone to bed, but she had not yet fal en asleep. As Ash changed into her nightgown, Gwen shifted on the thin mat-tress and asked, “Don’t you think Colin is handsome?”

Ash slipped beneath the covers and answered, “I suppose.”

“You suppose?” Gwen cried, and giggled. “I think he is wonderful.” She sighed and flung her hands over her head onto the pil ow. “We danced together for three dances tonight,” Gwen said. “I hope—oh, I shouldn’t say anything or I’ll invite bad luck.” Gwen turned onto her side, curling her hands beneath her chin, and looked at Ash lying next to her.

“Do you have someone, in West Riding?”

“I—no, I don’t,” Ash said.
Not in the way that you mean
, she thought.

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“Oh, don’t you just yearn for someone?” Gwen said in a breathless voice. “Someone to take care of you, and hold you, and . . .” Gwen giggled again, and Ash did not respond. She felt, as always, the loss of her mother, but she knew that was not what Gwen was asking about. “Oh, I can’t wait until I find my husband,” Gwen continued. “My mother and I have been embroidering linens for my trousseau for ages . . . what have you been working on?”

“I don’t have a trousseau,” Ash said.
Or a mother to help me
with one
.

“You don’t?” Gwen said, shocked. “Goodness, you must begin at once. You’re so pretty, Ash, you can’t expect to be a maid forever. Whom do you wish to marry?”

“I don’t know,” Ash said. Gwen’s questions made her uncomfortable.

“I mean, do you want him to be tal , dark, fair, a butler, a merchant?” Gwen persisted. “I think Colin would be ideal for me. We would both be able to stay in the same household.”

When Ash didn’t respond, Gwen asked, “Is something wrong?”

“I’m sorry, I suppose I’m just tired,” Ash said.

“All right, al right. Go to sleep then.” But Gwen didn’t sound angry with her, just amused, and she turned her back to Ash and fell silent.

Ash lay on her back for some time, staring up at the ceiling, not in the least bit weary. When she heard Gwen’s breathing take on the even rhythm of sleep, Ash careful y rol ed over onto her side, turning away from Gwen. Her father’s second marriage had only made her life miserable, and she had never 108

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respected Ana’s single-minded quest for a husband. But Gwen’s words opened up something inside herself that she had long forgotten: the memory of being loved. Once, things had been different. Tears pricked at her eyes, and she held herself very stil , her body tense, not wanting to wake Gwen.

When Ash final y fel asleep, she dreamed of the Wood, the tal dark trees, the shafts of sunlight that shone through the canopy to the soft forest floor. She could smel the spicy pine, the dampness of bark after rain, and the exotic fragrance that clung to Sidhean. It was the scent of jasmine, she remembered, and night-blooming roses that had never felt the touch of a human hand. But though he was walking next to her, she could not turn her head to see him. Instead, she could only look straight ahead, where the huntress was walking purposeful y down the path, her green cloak fluttering behind her. If only she would turn around, Ash thought, then the huntress would finally see her. But she would not look back, and Ash could not cal out her name, for she did not know it.

When the morning bel tolled and Ash opened her eyes, the dream still clinging to her, she could not at first remember where she was. Then she felt Gwen sit up beside her, and she smel ed the cold morning air and heard the creaking of the townhouse as it groaned into life. There were footsteps on the back stairs, and the voice of one of the other maids on the other side of the wal . She was in the City, and Yule was over, and she would be returning to Quinn House that day. Sidhean was waiting.

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Chapter X

sh spent the morning packing for
their return to West Riding.

She was struggling to fit Ana’s newest acquisition a heavy A velvet wrap lined in rich blue silk into her already over-stuffed trunk when Gwen knocked on the open door and came in. She was carrying a folded piece of paper that she held out to Ash, who was kneeling on the floor in front of the trunk.

“It’s a spel ,” Gwen said in a conspiratorial tone.

“What do you mean?” Ash asked, unfolding the paper. Written in what Ash assumed was Gwen’s handwriting were several lines:

Good Lysara, play thy part

Send to me my own sweetheart

Show me such a happy bliss

This night of him to have a kiss.

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“Tomorrow is the Fast of Lysara,” Gwen whispered, kneeling down next to her and trying ineffectual y to close the trunk.

“Oh,” Ash said. She had first heard the tale of Lysara when she was very young, for it was a popular one, but she hadn’t given it a thought in years. Lysara had been a beautiful but penniless young woman from the far Northern Mountains, and when the King, whose name had long been forgotten, first set eyes on her at a Yule bonfire, he fel in love with her, and she with him. The King’s advisors disapproved of the match because it was thought that she was half-fairy, for her eyes were as deep and richly verdant as the forest. But even though everyone knew that no good could come of a union with a fairy woman, the King was so deeply in love with her that he ar-ranged to be married within a fortnight. The first year of their marriage was marked by uncommon prosperity and joy, but it was also their last. Exactly one year after their wedding, Lysara died giving birth. During her short reign as Queen, the people had grown to love her dearly, for she was the embodiment of true love, steadfast and sweet. So the anniversary of her wedding day became known as the Fast of Lysara, when young girls made wishes upon their clean linen pil ows to dream of their true love.

“Lysara watches over us,” Gwen insisted, giving up on latching the trunk shut. “You must fast tomorrow in her honor, and before you go to sleep, say this spel my mother’s aunt gave it to me, and she knows a greenwitch who says it wil work and you’l dream of your future husband. That way you’l recognize him when you see him.”

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Ash must have looked startled, and Gwen misread her expression as apprehension. “It’s all right,” Gwen said reassuringly. “We all do it all of us servants, anyway. We just don’t tel the mistress. And it won’t hurt to give it a try.”

“Thank you,” Ash said, bemused, and slipped the note into her pocket. “I’ll try.”

“Good,” Gwen said. She impulsively reached out and pul ed Ash into an embrace. “It’s been good to have you here, Ash. I hope you’l come back with Ana again.”

Ash awkwardly put her arms around Gwen. “I’ll try,” she said again.

Quinn House was cold and dark when they returned later that afternoon. While Jonas carried the trunks back upstairs, Ash lit the fires and began to prepare supper. She was surprised to find that she missed the bustle and excitement of the Page Street mansion; she missed being one of many, easily overlooked. She thought about Gwen, who wanted so desperately to dream of Colin; she thought about Ana, who wanted a life of luxury. What did she want for herself? Ash swept a pile of dried peas into the kettle hanging over the kitchen fire and added a handful of ham. She stoked the fire, and as the flames leapt up she remembered the bonfire, and the dancers, and the look on the huntress’s face. Ash put the lid on the kettle and did not think about her question anymore.

The next morning, Ana did not come downstairs for breakfast.

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Lady Isobel sipped at her tea and said, “Aisling, go upstairs and see what is taking Ana so long. Her breakfast is getting cold.”

When Ash opened the door to Ana’s room, she found her stepsister awake and sitting at the window looking out at the courtyard, dusted with snow. “Your mother is asking for you,”

Ash said.

“I’m not going down,” Ana replied. “Tell her I’m ill today.”

Ash eyed her stepsister skeptical y. She did not seem il . In fact, Ana was particularly lively, with a glow in her cheeks and a sparkle in her eyes that made her look as if she were holding back a secret. “You don’t look unwel ,” Ash observed.

Ana’s brow creased in annoyance. “Tell her I’m sick,” she stated again. “And don’t bring me any food; I can’t stand it right now.”

Ash shrugged and went to deliver the message, but her stepmother insisted that she bring Ana a boiled egg and some tea. When she carried the tray upstairs, she found Ana sitting in the same position. “Your mother told me to bring this for you,” Ash said, depositing the tray on the smal table by the window seat.

“Take it away; I won’t eat it,” Ana said.

“Fine,” Ash said curtly. “I’ll just tell your mother you wouldn’t eat. She’l probably cal the physician.”

This caused Ana to actual y look worried for a moment, and then she turned to Ash and said, “Aisling, I real y can’t eat it, but you mustn’t tel Mother.”

Ash looked at her stepsister’s face, flushed with desperation and hope, and said, “You’re fasting, aren’t you?”

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Ana colored, asking unconvincingly, “Why would I do that?”

Ash shook her head. “I wouldn’t have thought you had it in you,” she said archly, “to revert to old superstitions.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ana said, and turned away from Ash.

But Ash could stil see her stepsister’s cheeks, pink from the lie. She reached into her pocket and pul ed out the folded note that Gwen had given her. Walking over to her stepsister, she placed the paper on the window seat. “Here,” she said. “Read this aloud before you go to bed tonight.” She picked up the untouched tray and began to leave the room.

“You won’t tel Mother?” Ana said in a low voice.

“I won’t,” Ash promised. She took the tray back down to the kitchen, where she poured herself a cup of tea from Ana’s untouched pot, and very deliberately cracked the egg on the countertop, watching the shel splinter. She peeled it away and salted the damp, slippery white surface of the egg. When she bit off the top, the yolk fel in golden crumbles onto the scarred wooden table.

That night, after the supper dishes were washed and put away and her stepmother and stepsisters had retired to their beds, Ash sat wrapped in a warm quilt on the hearth, nodding over a book of hunting stories she had found in the library. She was half-dreaming about horses and hounds and a leaping white 114

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stag when the last log on the fire cracked, sending cinders crashing through the grate. She awoke with a start and then decided to drag herself off to bed.

As she lay her head down on the pil ow she could feel herself falling into a dream, as if she were tumbling into a wel involuntarily, and when she stopped fal ing she found herself walking down a path through the Wood. She recognized it almost immediately: This was the path that led to Rook Hill.

She could see the ground ahead of her, il uminated, and she realized she was carrying a lantern in her right hand and a spade in her left. She had not been walking for long before she saw her destination: the hawthorn tree and her mother’s grave.

But unlike in previous dreams, this time she had no trouble reaching the end of the path. When she emerged from the Wood, she looked toward the grave and knew with a sense of rising dread that something was wrong. She took the last few steps, her legs shaking, and saw that there was a gaping hole where there should have been earth and grass.

She shone the lantern light into the open grave, and the roots of the hawthorn tree jutted out from the soil like gnarled fingers, reaching for something that had been snatched away.

The light fel on the spade she held, and she saw dirt on the blade, and the torn end of a tree root.

Her heart was pounding in her chest, and she awoke abruptly, her breath rasping in her lungs. The moonlight was streaming in through the cracks in the shutters, and she felt herself damp with sweat. The hal clock began chiming, and she counted twelve strokes before it fell silent. She lay down again and tried to go back to sleep, but the memory of the dream 115