The Glass Casket (27 page)

“But …” Rowan said, stopping in front of Jude. “But a Greywitch is born of the Goddess. A Greywitch could cross the boundary.”

“Yes,” he said, his eyes growing wide. “Yes, it could.”

“Jude,” she said. “I’m frightened.”

“So am I,” he said.

Out in the woods, Tom awoke to a harsh winter light. He was cold and alone. Shivering, he pulled himself up to stand, his head spinning. The sickness was starting to bore into him. Wrapping his coat around himself, he staggered through the trees. He needed to go home. He didn’t know how long it had been since he’d last bathed. Days were slipping away from him. There was only Fiona, and when she wasn’t beside him, taking a breath felt like inhaling razors, and walking sent pain tearing down his spine.

He was nearly to the village barrier now. As he crossed it, the low rock wall remained the only thing between him and his parents’ inn. His head spinning, he brought his hands to his eyes, and that’s when he saw it. Blood. His hands were covered in it—stained red with it. Sticky, metallic blood.

Horrified, he stumbled back, as if to escape himself, and tripping over a rock, he landed sprawled out in the snow. Quickly, he pulled himself up, and eyes darting this way and
that, he slowly backed away from the inn—from his parents, from his people.

He would return to the woods; he would find Fiona. She would help him. He didn’t know how the blood had gotten there. He didn’t know what he’d done, but he feared the worst, and there was no going home. Not anymore.

That afternoon in the village square Rowan heard what was to be done with the glassblower. The elders had put forth their case, and the duke had decided. Seamus Flint was to be executed at dawn. The hangman’s hood had yet to be worn during Rowan’s short life, and she feared the spectacle the morrow would bring.

Although she wanted justice for Fiona and Lareina, she knew that there could be no such thing. What was done could not be undone, and punishing the guilty could never fill the void the dead left behind.

She took the long path home, and as the snow fell in shimmering waves, her thoughts lingered on Goi Flint. She wondered what it was that made one man go mad but left his brethren unscathed. The elders called madness the hunger moon disease, after the third moon of winter, when food was scarce and desperation often took hold. They maintained that right living could keep any man from it, but Rowan knew that a mind once rent at the seams could unspool in the most spectacular way—and once it was fully unwound, what remained could be as disparate as diamonds and snow.

She paused at her gate and stared deep into the Black Forest. Somewhere out there was a monster, she knew. She’d seen it with her own eyes. And yet the beauty of the place continued to leave her breathless. It was such a shame the things beauty could conceal. Shaking her head, she passed through her gate and into her yard.

That was when she remembered she’d need to fix supper. It seemed to her a cruel thing that she should be tasked with feeding everyone when she was the one grieving most. Every time she set foot in the kitchen, she thought of Emily, and her heart broke anew each time.

But when she walked in that night, she found the duke chopping winter herbs, and a pot of something boiling on the stove. She tried to hide her surprise. He smiled at her, that glittering beam of white teeth, and she did her best to forget the strangeness that had occurred between them the other day.

“Good evening,” he said.

“Hello,” she said. “You’re making supper.”

“I am. I don’t see why I oughtn’t pitch in.”

“It’s very kind of you.”

“I wanted to apologize,” he said, scooping the herbs into the pot of boiling liquid. “I offended you the other night. I did not mean to. I hope we can remain friends.”

“Of course,” she said, relieved to have the tension cut between them. “I imagine I might have been snappish with you as well. I’m sorry if I overreacted.”

“You didn’t,” he said. “You were right to rebuff me. Your place is here with your people. Let’s not speak of it again.”

Smiling, she nodded, and then started into the dining room to set the table.

Seamus Flint awoke in his cell to the sound of someone lightly giggling. He sat upright, a sweat breaking out along his hairline, as he was gripped by an overwhelming sense of terror.

“Who’s there?” he gasped, and then he saw a figure in the shadows.

“Hello,” replied a girl’s voice.

He could just make out a silhouette in the darkness. “Who are you?” he whispered.

The figure spoke to him as if he were a child. “It’s me. Fiona. I’ve come for a friendly visit.”

He held up his hands to her, making the sign of the Goddess, but nothing happened. “You’re not Fiona. You’re a thing from hell is what you are.”

She laughed again—a high, tinkling laughter that made him feel like he might be sick.

“I’ve heard the news,” she said. “I’ve heard that they’re going to execute you, and I just can’t let that happen.”

“You can’t?” he asked, and for a brief moment, he was moved to believe this demon crouching there in the darkness was there to help him.

“No,” she said. “Not after what you tried to do to me … after what you did to Lareina.” Fiona paused for a moment, then continued, “I want you to tell me something.”

“Anything,” he said, nodding.

“You knew my father well, didn’t you? Back before you were drinking. You were young men together.”

“Yes,” Seamus said, his voice quavering. “I knew him well.”

“Tell me, why did you marry his wife? Why did you bring us here away from our home?”

“To—to protect you,” he stammered.

“And did you do that?”

“I did,” he gasped.

“Think again, dear stepfather. Is that what you did? Were you really trying to protect us?”

“Okay,” he cried. “No. That’s not what I did. Your father, he received money from here, from Nag’s End. From your uncle. I thought I could use the money, only it wasn’t … it wasn’t enough. But please, it wasn’t just that. I also protected you. You and your stepmother would have been destitute if I’d not stepped in.”

“Ah,” she said. “And were you trying to protect me that night when you came into my room?”

He shook his head. “I didn’t mean to. It was the liquor. It was only the liquor,” he said, shaking now, violent shudders surging through his body.

“Poor Seamus,” she mocked, stepping into the light now. “You must be so cold. And so scared. Are you scared? Do I make you feel scared?”

He looked away, afraid to see the creature that stood fully illuminated before him.

“Tell me,” she said. “Tell me why Goi Rose was paying my father.”

He shook his head, and then he felt a hand pull his jaw forward, a burning heat searing his face.

“Answer me!” she screamed.

“I don’t know,” he cried, still averting his eyes. “Please, I swear to you that I don’t know.”

And then the hand released him. “I believe you,” she said, her voice sweet again, and he sighed with relief. “Now, we’re almost finished here, and then I’m going to save you. Do you understand? I want you to thank me.”

“Thank you,” he whispered.

“Just one last thing,” she said. “I want you to look at me.”

“No,” he wept. “I can’t do that. Please don’t make me.”

“Look at me,” she commanded.

Trembling, he looked up at her, and for a moment, she was the person he remembered—beautiful Fiona, an angel among girls. But then something went wrong. She began to change, and right before his eyes, she transformed into a monster, full of fury and hatred, filth and evil, and the last thing he remembered was the searing pain as her teeth tore into his flesh.

Fiona hadn’t been in any of the usual places, and Tom had spent the day wandering, searching, and when night came, he could barely move for the cold that had gotten inside his bones.

Night was slipping into morning when he finally found her. She was back in her fairy hollow, having stolen past him at some point. At first he was relieved to see her, but something was wrong. She was curled up in her nightgown,
and it was covered in blood. It was everywhere, all over her body, all over her hands and face, and to her hair clung bits of flesh and bone.

He rushed to her and took her into his arms.

“My darling,” he cried. “My darling, are you hurt?”

She looked up at him, clearly only just realizing he’d entered the space. “Tom.” She smiled, and he saw that her teeth were stained pink.

“What’s happened to you?”

“I’m so glad you’re here,” she said. “I was hoping you’d come.”

He searched her body for wounds, but he found nothing.

Reaching for him, she clung to him and wept. “I don’t know what’s happening to me.”

“It’s going to be okay,” he said, his head swimming, knowing that whatever was happening, there probably wasn’t a way that it could ever be okay.

Gathering water from the basin, and a cloth soft as petals, he started to wipe the blood away. Stroke by stroke he worked, the ivory of her skin beginning to peek out from underneath. When he had finished, he helped her change into a white shift he discovered under a blanket in the corner, and then he led her to the little bed she had made for herself. For an instant, he was startled to see something on top of the bed, something white and smeared with blood. His heart stalled for a moment before he realized it was only a stuffed lamb. Fiona, barely looking at him, climbed under the covers, and gripping the stuffed animal to her chest like a child might, she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
,
Jude returned from his hunt to find his father discussing something with his mother.

“Is everything all right?” he asked, and his father nodded, then apparently thinking better of it, he looked at his wife and shook his head.

“No, everything’s not all right,” Elsbet said. Standing, she placed her hands on the table in front of her and stared down her oldest son. “What is going on with your brother? He’s not coming home at night. Where is he sleeping, Jude? I know that you know.”

Jude raised his hands in the air. “Leave me be. He hasn’t spoken to me in days.”

“He’s lying,” she said, and stalked out of the room.