“What, Peter Cothay? What a mess he’s made of all of this, hiding your true purpose, hiding you here. Telling you not to touch things, encouraging your fears, poking his nose where it doesn’t belong—”
“Be. Quiet.” I had never heard myself so cold, so powerful.
Both Mary and Imogen pulled back from Lucy, trying to dissociate themselves from the source of my anger. I wondered how I must appear to them, to elicit such fear.
Lucy herself produced a burst of nervous laughter. She opened her mouth, forced a smile, then wisely gave up any rebuttal. Her lips trembled. I did not think she was scared of me, unable, as I was, to resort to my usual weapon, armed with her two human associates to my rogue canine one. Lucy was taller than me, stronger, my arm was still bandaged; I’d be no match if we two were to fight. But she needed me, I realized. She could not hurt me. Doing so would gain her nothing, and she had everything to lose.
“Why are you burning our library?”
Lucy nodded, apparently pleased with the question. “There’s only one book we need. The rest are useless. They belong to my brother.”
“They belong to me.” I frowned at her. “What is this book you want?”
“An old book, very old—the binding almost fully broken, the paper wrinkly and brown. It has three spirals on the cover, or what passes for the cover. We haven’t found it yet. Before I left here I hid it under a floorboard, but somebody has moved it. Your father, no doubt. Do you know where it might be?”
“No.” I glared at her, no interest in another old book, another riddle or quest. “And you’ll stop burning the rest. You’re destroying my home. You’re ruining everything.”
How badly I wanted to believe this: that Lucy had been impetus for everything, that Lucy was to blame. It was easy to cast her as villain, to say it was she who’d fomented my father’s disappearance, my capture, the destruction of the house. That she was responsible for my own defilement, the curse that had kept me confined. I wanted to blame her selfish scheming for the pain I’d caused, the horrors I’d inflicted. I wanted her evil to exonerate my own. I knew that it couldn’t, and this recognition strengthened my hatred.
Although unable to destroy Lucy and her companions with my touch, I still might find another tactic. Those bookshelves were quite heavy. The fire was hot. I took a step toward the ancient iron poker.
Unexpectedly, Imogen came toward me, speaking as if she had read my thoughts. “Destroy us if you must,” she said, “but know about the wood before you do.”
“If I never see the wood again,” I said, fully aware that that same wood grew up all around me, thrust its branches through what once had been my home, “I never hear of it again, I never smell it . . .”
“Your young man is there, now. So is your father.”
I froze.
“Peter? He did go after me! He’s been there . . . Why didn’t you tell me at once? Why didn’t he come with you?”
“He’s trapped inside a tree.”
“He’s—what? And, wait—what did you say, my young man? What, you couldn’t mean . . . Matthew?”
Imogen nodded.
“Matthew Hareven? Impossible. I saw him not an hour ago. How could he be . . . How could you even know?”
“Just because we’ve crossed the old threshold, taken shelter in this house, does not mean that the forest has unleashed us.” Imogen looked to the library windows, which had once boasted a wide view of the drive, Urizon’s gardens, the lawns, but were now covered over by weeds.
“You can see Matthew?” I asked her. “What’s he doing? Is he hurt?”
“He will be,” said Imogen, kneeling. She took my hands in her cold ones and looked up at me. She was about to speak, but then her eyes widened with shock. She released a stunted gasp and dropped my hands, pressing her own to the wide mound of her stomach.
“What?” said Lucy, darting forward. “What did you see?”
“I didn’t . . .” Imogen’s right hand fluttered toward me, her left planted firmly on the lower side of her belly.
“Matthew,” I insisted. “Is he in danger?”
“He will be, if you do nothing to stop her,” Mary broke in. “He needs you. We all need you.”
What did I need, in that moment? To hide under the covers, to pinch myself and hope that I would wake from this worsening nightmare. I needed my mother, or Mrs. Blott or Mother Farrow, someone who loved me not for my peculiar powers, not as a last piece of a centuries-old puzzle, but as myself, in spite of everything. I needed Peter, who had used me, yes, but who, when it most mattered, had gone to find me in the wood. I needed Matthew, who had done the same.
In front of me, Imogen let out a cry. Her eyes were wet, her fingers grasping. I let her clasp my wrist, upon which she released a sudden moan. A gush of liquid flooded from beneath her dress, staining it, darkening the carpet.
“The baby!” Lucy took Imogen’s elbow, eyes incredulous. I twisted away from Imogen, her labored breathing, Lucy’s hovering, Mary’s nose flared with fear and surprise. Imogen howled, and the others tried to lay her on the settee, wiping sweat from her brow. I left them in the library. I went into the wood.
Merciless and Wild
Go on ahead, Matthew had said, go on, I’ll meet you at Urizon. Matthew, who could balance any chemical equation, did not know how to balance his regard for Maisie Cothay with his fears. He wanted her to know that he trusted her. How many times could he question her choices before she saw him as a captor, as her domineering father, or worse, another Coulton or Rafe? How better to show himself an ally than allowing her to forge her own way?
As soon as he turned around, watched through the rearview mirror as she scrambled over fallen trees, he knew he had been foolish. Better to leave the car and join her, bring her to the cottage with him later, make a plan. Better to risk her wrath than her safety, better to have kept her near.
Was the unease he felt, the danger that he sensed, actual danger, or was it only love acknowledged? The object of his love made tender, appearing softer than she really was, appearing vulnerable in having made him vulnerable. Matthew remembered holding his newborn baby brothers and sisters, watching them take their first steps, their first stumbles, knowing that they must stumble alone. So it was, he thought, with Maisie. Yet he worried for her, missed her. He’d returned the car to his aunt’s cottage and turned immediately back toward Urizon. Decided to take the shortcut, through the wood.
WHEN KATHRYN’S SLACK body falls still over Matthew’s, her pretty nose fits like a key into the small space above his sternum, locking him, restricting his air. He gags, nudges and tries to wake her. When he cannot, he removes her, and shudders. He fumbles to fasten his trousers, to pull himself from Kathryn’s limp arms. His face is ashen.
He notices the black-eyed girl.
“Maisie?” Matthew distances himself from the body, sliding back against the bulge of a tree root and pulling his head into his hands. His shoulders quiver, the edges of his narrow ears flush. He inhales and counts slowly, hold and release, a pattern to make meaning of each breath.
“I didn’t . . . ,” he says finally. “I thought we said I’d meet you at the house.” With each word his chest tightens, with shame, then anger, and finally fear. His fingers twist at his temple, scratch the nape of his neck.
The black-eyed girl says nothing.
“I can only . . . I apologize . . . you finding me in such . . . we haven’t said it yet, I mean, not outright, haven’t fully, but I thought you’d . . . I’d agreed that if we . . . I don’t know what happened. What I was thinking.”
Matthew is crying now, the black-eyed girl realizes, a drop of water gathering at the edge of an eye, traveling his cheek. “I want you to know,” he pleads fervently, “what happened, there. I wasn’t . . . I was not myself.”
His tears sit like stars, fat and glistening. The black-eyed girl reaches out to catch one: brushes her hand against his cheekbone, pulls the water to her tongue.
Matthew stiffens.