Mistle Child (Undertaken Trilogy) (39 page)

They both emptied their glasses in one gulp. The liquor went down like fire, but Silas poured another round.

“And to Lichport. May our homecomings be happy ones.”

Lars quickly wiped his eyes and then drained his glass. He took the bottle from Silas and filled their cups again.

“And to Beatrice,” Lars said softly, “my dearest love.”

Silas stopped breathing and set down his glass. The brief spell of self-delusion was shattered the second he heard Lars say her name.

“Do you know her, Silas? Do you know Beatrice, or her family? Is she still in Lichport?”

At hearing the words spoken out loud a second time, Silas felt like someone had hit him in the back of his head. Nauseated and dizzy, he knew it was his Bea whom Lars meant. He’d known already. There was no hiding from it. In that instant Silas realized he could never tell Lars the truth about her. Everything was ruined now. When he found Bea, she would see Lars and forget about Silas. Blackness rose like a veil before his eyes, and all he could think to do was speak the lie and get it out of the way. “No, Lars. I’ve never heard that name before. But if it’s possible, I’ll help you find her and you can be happy again.”

Lars raised his glass to Silas’s words, and drank once more. He smiled as he rose and went to the door, saying he would gather his things and see Silas the next day. Silas only nodded in response, and then bent over as if scratching his foot. After Lars left the chamber, Silas sat down on the carpet and put his face in his hands. He could command the dead, and bring them peace, but there was never going to be any joy left for him.

The weight of his promises was crushing him. As Silas considered that he had just agreed to help reunite his girlfriend with another guy, a small sob pushed his shoulders up and down, and he began to cry quietly into his hands.

T
HAT NIGHT,
S
ILAS DREAMED
OF
B
EA AGAIN
, but he could not see her face. He jumped from one side of her to another, but always she turned her head away. In one hand, she held a piece of cloth. In the other, a needle and thread. She was stitching two letters in gold flax:
B
and
L
. As she put down the last small, careful stitches she said, “Gold is always best. What is stitched in gold shall last forever and cannot be undone. Beatrice and Lars.”

“Say
my
name,” said Silas. “Remember me, please.”

But Bea only laughed and turned her head away from him again.

When Silas awoke, he found that his thigh was bleeding where he had clutched it during sleep. His nails had broken the skin. He wiped it with a cloth and dressed quickly.

The water in the basin was cold. He splashed his face, pulled on his shoes, and left his rooms, moving quietly through the house, not wanting to meet anyone, especially not Lars. It wasn’t Lars’s fault, but he couldn’t look at him. Silas only wanted to finish what he’d started. He could at least try to do that. He would go alone and do whatever needed to be done to restore peace to the prison-house that Arvale had become to him.

Then he could go home with his girlfriend’s lover and his heartbreak in tow and once again, make everything right for everyone but himself.

S
ILAS WALKED QUICKL
Y THROUGH THE GARDEN
and toward the summer house. He barely noticed the change in the weather. It was not as warm as it had been when he last visited; a chill breeze nipped at the edges of the air, trying to chase the summer away. There were other small differences in the land. The roses were all blown now, petals gone, their thorns grown long and threatening. The topiaries that lined the garden path, previously wild and shapeless in exuberant growth, had now each taken on the same spare, discernible shape; green heads of boxwood wolves watched Silas as he passed.

As he emerged onto the lawn in the front of the summer house, Ottoline’s voice greeted him.

“It’s been AGES, Silas! How dare you keep yourself away! It is lovely of you to come to our little soirée! But as you see, you come upon us unawares. We weren’t expecting you until this evening. Why, Cook hasn’t even finished making the canapés!” Still, it’s better you’ve come now. Yesterday was an utter miserino. Teddy lost all the shuttlecocks and then the rain came, completely spoiling the hunt. I was so looking forward to it,” she said, drawing her finger gently back and forth across her lips. “It has been so long since I’ve gotten any blood on my hands. . . .”

“The weather is much better today, if not a bit colder,” Silas said absently, wanting to keep moving.

“I am glad for it. I thought the season was going to be over early. I think tonight it should be very clear, the last of the good weather. Perfect! Now, you must have something to eat, you look famished. And goodness! Wherever have you been! Your unfashionable coat is covered in soot! Silas, really, your man should have seen to it!”

“I am sorry, dear cousin Ottoline, but I fear I can’t tarry here with you today. My path lies a little farther on.”

“Are you going hunting yourself? You look ever so determined. I like well that gleam in your eye. The weather is brisk and fine, as you say. If you can wait a tick, I’ll go change into my hunts and we shall ride together.”

“Oh, I would love to hunt with you, but today I haven’t time.”

For the briefest instant, Ottoline’s exaggerated frown became something else. She tilted her head slightly and her eyes grew small and dark as she looked at Silas. He took a step back, suddenly afraid she was going to strike him for disappointing her. But then the moment passed, the smile returned to her face, and she swatted Silas’s shoulder with her gloves.

“Silas, how tiresome you are! Very well. Wherever are you off to that you can’t even stop for a small G and T with your cousins?”

“I am following the path of the firedrake into the woods to find the Mistle Child. I don’t suppose you’ve seen it?”

“Oh, Silas, what a question. Don’t
you
know where it is? I thought you were the scholar of the family. Didn’t you speak to the father in his wretched basement?”

“I did. He did not elaborate much more on the matter. But he said that if I wanted to stop all the screaming, I would need the Mistle Child—”

“Yes, he would still want it, I suspect . . . ,” mused Ottoline, looking down at her sharp, immaculate, and translucent fingernails.

“I’ve learned that it’s in the forest—”

Ottoline smiled and held up a hand. She closed her eyes and, with the other hand, fondled a long strand of polished amber and jet beads. The mere mention of the forest set her into a little private reverie.

“Oh, Silas, the forest is lovely, simply divine. How we used to adore our romps in the greenwood,” she said in a bit of a swoon. “Once, long ago, our country house was deeper in the woods. We favored privacy then, and didn’t much receive company. Still, you could meet the most curious folks upon the forest paths. Such sights we saw within the wild places, when we hunted so regularly, and what good sport! And I can’t lie, the trysts we all had were absolutely the choicest . . . but it was so long ago and everyone was so handsome and delicious. The long green days . . . yes, you must go to the woods and see what’s still there to find. Cupid’s victims always leave a little something behind, no?”

She opened her eyes and looked at Silas. “And when you come back, we’ll have a little party for you. Won’t that be nice?” She looked up at the sapphire sky. “See, it’s going to be a lovely night to be out of doors. Positively perfect.”

“Later, then,” said Silas, as he began walking toward the forest.

“We will light the lamps for you, so you may return by way of the summer house,” Ottoline said as he left. “What a time we’ll have! It will just like the old days . . . with carpets on the grass!”

At the end of the lawn, there was a long, low mound, and behind it the edge of the forest rose up like a rippling green curtain. From the summer house, Silas had just been able to catch sight of the tall oak he’d spied from the tower. He thought that if he kept to a fairly straight line as he walked, he should run into it.

His optimism was ill-founded.

Soon after entering the forest, he became confused as to which way the tree lay. After walking for several minutes, he looked back over his shoulder, and realized that he was now surrounded by nearly identical trees and couldn’t even discern the path back to the summer house. Indeed, there was no path at all. Before him, thick beams of sunlight pierced the canopy, making little glowing islands on the forest floor. Far away and deeper into the woods, he thought he heard the sound of horns.

He wandered for a time, unsure of how long it had been since he’d entered the forest. As the light began to gray, he looked up. Very little of the sky could be seen through the emerald canopy. He had no idea which way to go.

His mind drifted back to Beatrice again and what he was going to do when he got home with Lars. Maybe, he hoped, faced with the choice, she’d actually choose him. His gut told him she never would. Why would she? Lars was from her world, a lost fragment of her life. Lars was probably the reason she never went to her rest. Maybe if the two of them were reunited, then all the bad things that had happened to her would be mended somehow. Anyway, he’d made a promise to Lars to help him and he wasn’t going to break it. But what would happen when he found her, when he broke whatever binding held her to the millpond, and brought her back from the waters? What then? How would he feel when he saw Bea’s face again? Would he come to hate Lars for it? Or himself for making a promise before knowing the particulars?

The sound of birdcall sifted down from the branches, drawing his mind back to his search. Before him, a little robin jumped about, gathering leaves. It would take a few in its beak and fly off, then come back, pick up more, and fly off again. On one of its returns, it hopped just in front of him. Silas stood very still and the robin landed on his shoe, then flew off once more.

Silas followed the bird as it darted farther into the forest and finally toward a large oak tree, its branches hanging thick with mistletoe.
For the Mistle Child,
Silas thought.

The robin flew to the other side of the tree and disappeared. When Silas came around the wide trunk, he saw a great hole in the tree, an old deep hollow, its edges worn and rounded with age. The robin sat there, with two leaves in its mouth, then darted into the tree. Silas peered inside and saw the bird gently place the leaves on a small pile of other leaves at the bottom. The size of the tree allowed more than enough room to accommodate a person, so slowly and carefully, Silas climbed inside.