Ash (8 page)

Ash

name with her fingers. And then she lay down, pressing her cheek against the edge of the stone where it met the soft ground, and closed her eyes.

She slept on the earth over her mother’s grave, and she did not dream.

When she awoke it was dark, and the night air was cool against her skin. She was lying with her bel y to the ground, breathing in the scent of the soil. She could feel the steady beating of her heart, the rhythmic pulsing of her blood through her veins, and beneath her the dense, solid earth. She rolled over onto her back and looked up through the branches of the tree, the new leaves a dark pattern against the black night sky. She wondered if Anya would be awake stil , at her daughter’s house in Rook Hil . She wondered if Anya would send her back to her stepmother. With that thought she woke up completely, the memory of the last several months flooding back into her with depressing efficiency. She sat up slowly and brushed the dirt from her hair.

Opposite her, a man was sitting on a rock. A thril of fear coursed through her body, for there was something odd about him. First of al , there had never been a rock there before, and second, the man did not look exactly human either. He was dressed like a man, but a very exotic one. He wore white breeches and boots and a white shirt with white lace at the throat, and the fabric of his clothes gleamed as if there were 64

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light trapped within its threads. And then there was his face, which on first glance was just like a man’s face, except that his skin was as white as his clothes, and his cheekbones were sharp as blades. Though his hair was pale as snow, he did not look old; he looked, in fact, like he had no age at al . His eyes glowed unnatural y blue, and when he opened his mouth to speak, she saw his skin sliding over the bones of his skul .

“What are you seeking?” he said, and his voice was silky and cold. Though they were separated by several feet, she was disconcerted by the intensity of his gaze; she felt as if he could pul her open from afar.

She answered, “I came to see my mother.”

His eyes moved to the gravestone and then back to her face.

An expression of some sort passed over his features, but she did not recognize it. He said, “Come closer.”

She was compel ed to get up; her muscles would not obey her own commands; and when she was standing before him she trembled from fear. She wanted to look away, but she could not turn her eyes away from his. They were cool, measuring, as faceted as finely cut jewels; they traveled over her face methodical y, cataloguing her eyelashes, her nose, her mouth, her chin. He reached out and stroked her hair, and she could feel an icy chil emanating from his hand. She wondered if his touch would spread a frost over her, snowflakes blooming over her skin like a dress of winter. When he took her hand in his and ran his thumb down the center of her palm, the blood in her veins seemed to freeze. The pain of it freed her voice from her throat, and she managed to ask, “Are you the one who sent me back that night?”

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He looked back at her face, and she swal owed. For a moment he did not speak, and then he said, “There are many of us.”

“Who are you?” she asked, her heart thudding in her chest.

“You know,” he said, “who we are.”

She felt like a fool, but she pressed on. “I wish to see my mother,” she said, and her voice shook.

“Your mother is dead,” he said.

“Can you not bring her back?” she asked desperately.

He let go of her hand and warmth rushed back into her fingers, making them ache. “You dare to ask for such a great gift,” he said, and there was a note of amusement in his voice.

“Please,” she begged.

But he said coldly, “No.”

Her stomach fel , and she whispered, “Are you going to kil me?”

At first she thought that he might strike her down where she stood, for a look of ravenous hunger came over him, as if he could not wait to spil her blood. But as her heart hammered in her throat and cold sweat dampened her skin, he seemed to change his mind, and the expression on his angular face smoothed out until he was as unreadable as before. He stood up, towering over her, and said, “You must go back the way you came. You took an enchanted path, and you cannot remain here.”

“Go back?” she repeated, and she was flooded with disappointment. “Don’t make me go back,” she pleaded.

“You have no choice in the matter,” he said curtly. He turned, lifting his head as if he were listening for something 66

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she could not hear, and he said, “I wil take you there.”

And then a tal white stal ion with golden eyes came out of the Wood toward them. In one smooth motion, the man picked her up and lifted her onto the saddle, and then he mounted behind her. She sat stiffly, afraid to lean back against him. The horse beneath her felt powerful and wild, but he moved so smoothly that Ash found herself relaxing against her will. As they glided through the dark trees, the texture of the air seemed to change as if space were being compressed on their journey, and when she inhaled, it was like a gust of wind thrust down her throat. She could smel the scent of night-blooming jasmine and something indefinable perhaps it was the smel of magic. Her head fel back against the man’s shoulder, and soon her eyes drifted shut. She dreamed of gardens ful of white roses, their perfume intoxicating. Above them a city of white stone towers so tal she could not see their roof-tops rose to the blue sky.

When the horse slowed down she blinked her eyes open, and they were crossing the meadow. She saw Quinn House ahead, a single light burning in Lady Isobel’s window. She sat up, pul ing herself away from the man self-consciously. When they stopped outside the garden gate she tried to dismount hastily and he had to catch her hand, wrenching her arm back painful y, to prevent her from fal ing. When her feet touched the ground her knees almost buckled, and she grabbed at the horse’s mane for balance, her other hand stil held firmly in his grasp. “You must not take that path again,” he said to her. She looked up at him, and here in the ordinary darkness, he seemed to have lost some of his otherworldly glow. “Do you 67

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hear me?” he demanded.

“Yes,” she said quickly, afraid to upset him. He dropped her hand then, and she felt momentarily unbalanced. He turned the horse back toward the Wood, and within the blink of an eye they had vanished and Ash was left alone outside the garden gate.

Feeling as though she were fighting her way back through a fog of some sort, she reached for the gate to steady herself.

She took a deep breath and realized that she was cold and hungry, for she had not eaten al day. She opened the gate and made her way back inside the house on shaking legs.

She was looking for the end of a loaf of bread when she heard footsteps come down the stairs and saw a light coming closer to the kitchen door. Lady Isobel soon appeared in the doorway, holding a candle in her hand.

“So you decided to come back after al , did you?” her stepmother said. “Where have you been al day?”

Ash turned toward her stepmother, backing up against the edge of the countertop. “I just went for a walk and I got lost,”

she said, trying to sound unruffled.

“Who told you that you could leave the house?” Lady Isobel demanded.

Ash hesitated. “I didn’t think I would be gone for long,” she finally said.

“You’re a liar,” her stepmother said. “Come here, Aisling.”

She held out her hand.

“Can I—can I just go to bed?” she asked as her stomach growled loudly in protest.

The candlelight beneath Lady Isobel’s face made her look 68

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like a monster. Her lip curled in anger and she said, “You have been absent al day and you expect no punishment? Come here!”

“No,” Ash said impulsively, and then she knew she had made a mistake.

Lady Isobel came toward her and grabbed her upper arm in a fierce grip. Ash let out a gasp of pain as her stepmother propel ed her back toward the kitchen door.

“You are given entirely too much freedom,” she said as she opened the door and shoved Ash out into the yard. “You shirk your duties on purpose and leave your work for others to do.

You disrespect me and what I do for you.” Ash stumbled as she was pushed toward the corner of the house where the entrance to the cel ar was sunk into the ground.

Ash struggled in her stepmother’s grip, trying to twist away from her. “Let me go!” she shouted.

“Be quiet!” her stepmother said angrily. She pushed Ash down the stone steps and followed close on her heels. She drew out a large black key from the pocket of her skirt and unlocked the cel ar door, a massive block of thick oak. It creaked on its hinges as she threw it open. “Get in there,” she commanded, and pushed Ash into the dark. “And think about what trouble you’ve caused. I feed you and house you and you repay me by running off without a thought for your duties.”

Her stepmother paused for a moment in the dark doorway, and Ash thought she could make out a faint smile on the woman’s face. “You are a shame to your father,” she said.

And then she stepped back out of the cel ar and slammed the door shut, leaving Ash in the dark. The great iron key 69

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turned in the lock, and Ash heard her stepmother’s footsteps receding until there was nothing but the muffled hum of the dark, and the cold, damp press of the cel ar air against her skin.

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Chapter VII

sh could hear her breath in the dark:
quick, frightened, like a rabbit fleeing from hunting hounds. She put her hands A out in front of herself and felt only cold air. She took a tentative step toward the door, shuffling forward until the tips of her fingers bumped against the wood. It was slightly wet.

She flattened her palms against the door and then pressed her body to the oak. When she closed her eyes the quality of the dark did not change, and for a moment she stopped breathing, afraid that she could not tel if her eyes were open or shut. She touched her face, her eyelids, and the trembling movement of her eyes somehow reassured her: She was stil real. Then she slid down to the ground, her face pressed against the door, her boots dragging roughly across the dirt floor. She gathered her knees to her chest to make herself as smal as possible, and tried to ignore the weight of the darkness on her.

She must have fal en asleep, her cheek leaning against the 71

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door, because she thought she saw someone sitting next to her, and she thought it was her mother. The woman put her arm around Ash, and Ash dropped her head onto her mother’s shoulder and felt the pressure of her mother’s chin on her forehead. Her mother stroked her hair and said, “Don’t worry, Ash, I’m here.”

Ash felt the soft collar of her mother’s blouse beneath her cheek. She slipped her arms around her mother’s waist and pressed up close to her, feeling the solid warmth of her body.

“Don’t go away again, Mother,” she whispered. “I’ve missed you.”

“Shh,” her mother said. “I know. You should rest now.

You’ve been out al day and you’re hungry.”

Ash could smel the scent of her mother’s skin now, and it was the fragrance of the Wood, oak and moss and wildflower.

She felt the dul thump of her mother’s heartbeat, the lightness of her mother’s breath on her hair, the gentle touch of her mother’s hands stroking down the length of her back. The rhythm was echoed in the sound of her mother’s fingers on the fabric of her dress, a subtle swoosh in the dark, up and down, up and down, the friction like a rope binding them together. Her mother pressed a kiss to her forehead, and her lips were warm.

When Ash opened her eyes, she could see. The cel ar door was outlined with daylight, and it illuminated, dimly, bushels of 72

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potatoes and apples, sacks of flour and grain. Three trunks were stacked against the far wal ; there was an old wheelbar-row, garden tools, a coil of rope. She wrapped her arms around herself and felt the chil of the early morning.

She did not know how long she sat there before she heard footsteps above her. She realized she must be sitting beneath the kitchen floor. The footsteps moved away, and then the kitchen door slammed. At last the steps came down to the cellar door, and a key rattled in the lock. She scurried away from the door and was standing when it opened. She blinked in the sudden glare at the wide, dark shadow looming outside.