by Jenn Bennett
A narrow, dim hallway passed several doors—a kitchen, with drying bundles of herbs and roots that perfumed the air, and a bathroom with modern facilities. Photographs of well-dressed ladies lined the walls, and I remembered Valentin saying that Mama Lovena was rumored to have come from nobility. Seemed she was also educated: a framed degree blurred in my sight as I walked past, from a well-known Romanian medical university in Transylvania. She had medical training as a nurse.
An educated noblewoman, living here in a humble cottage.
The hall stretched the length of her home, and we ended up in the main living space, where natural daylight filtered in through a long pair of windows. It shone upon low bookshelves that ringed the four walls, overflowing with dusty books, and it illuminated a cluster of elaborate birdcages that hung from dark wooden rafters in the center of the room. The cages were old, a variety of shapes and sizes, but it wasn’t until we walked beneath them that I noticed what was inside.
Crows.
A dozen or more—each black as the night, from beady eye, to beak, to claw. One shook its cage, and a dark feather fell out, gliding until it settled upon the woman’s outstretched palm.
Mother of the forest, Valentin had said.
She knows the tongue of the beasts.
One of the caged crows squawked, and I jumped. A chill raced down my arms.
“Never mind their chatter, dear,” the woman said. “My birds are only curious, as all creatures of intelligence should be. Are you curious, little empress?”
“I’m curious about where my father is,” I said, trying to sound tougher than I felt.
“Yes, let me tell you what I know about Mr. Fox.” She settled on a large velvet-upholstered armchair, its stuffing poking out in several places, and invited us to sit on a couch across from her, which we did. “He came to see me last summer with his pretty traveling partner, the French man.”
“Jean-Bernard,” I said, feeling hopeful.
She nodded. “And I didn’t mind that your father was a rude American who demanded my time instead of asking. Nor did I mind that he insisted on looking at a ring that he was certain had been in my family for several decades. The problem was that he was sent here by my enemy, a Hungarian man by the name of Mr. Rothwild.”
“He’s the collector who hired my father to find the bone ring,” I said.
“Collector?” She shook her head. “He is a wicked man.”
“How so?” Huck asked carefully.
She looked at both of us, thoughtful, and then leaned back in her seat. “Don’t suppose it hurts anyone to tell you. Do you know of the legend of the Solomonari?”
“They’re wizards, aren’t they?” I said, trying to recall whether I’d seen something about them in my Batterman’s Field Guide or whether my mother had told me a folk story about them.
She nodded. “Travelers in the clouds, they were called by the Dacians. Said to be able to control the weather. They rode dragons in the sky. Well, our Mr. Rothwild fancies himself one of the Solomonari—at least, in an aspirational sense. You see, he’s a devotee of a medieval Romanian organization with a checkered history. A secret society. The ring your father was hired to find is the centerpiece of some grand plan to revive the society, and Mr. Rothwild is a fanatic psychopath. He conspired with a woman to kill her husband in order to obtain what he thought was the genuine ring of Vlad Țepeș, and when he found himself holding a dud, he was furious.”
Conspired to kill a man? She had to be talking about the widow Natasha Anca. Rothwild helped kill the widow’s husband . . . and Sarkany killed the widow. That was an awful lot of murder for a “dud” of a ring—murders of which my father was smack in the middle. Of which we were in the middle . . .
I glanced at Huck; he was clearly thinking the same.
“Right now we’re more concerned about where my father is,” I said. “You mentioned he was here yesterday?”
She nodded. “He showed up here yesterday morning, looking like hell. Said he had to find the ring because he’d fallen into a dark rabbit hole—people were following him, and his family was not safe. It seems the Frenchman has been harmed.”
“Poisoned,” I confirmed.
“That is what Mr. Fox said, yes,” she confirmed. “A shame, because the Frenchman at least had manners. No offense intended.”
No offense taken. My father had the manners of a loudmouthed toddler covered in mud and jam who swore like a sailor on leave.
“Jean-Bernard was poisoned by Rothwild?” Huck said.
“That is what I took it to mean, though I’m unsure if Mr. Fox knows for certain,” she said. “But I’ll tell you what I told Mr. Fox—it doesn’t matter if he finds the ring or not. Mr. Rothwild is not a man of his word. If he’s willing to kill for the ring, he will not stop doing so. Especially if he gets his hands on the prize. How can I say this in English?” She paused, forehead wrinkling. “Do you know what a relic is?”
“An artifact?” Huck said.
“No, my boy, the earlier meaning. A relic is the body part of a holy person kept as a talisman. The ring your father seeks was made from human bone. It contains a sleeping power, and in the wrong hands, that power will wake up.”
Goose bumps chased down my arms. “It’s rumored to be cursed.”
“Cursed? Perhaps,” she said. “That is a broad term, and I don’t think it was made as a punishment. I think it was made to bestow unnatural power or will upon its owner.”
“This may be a silly question, but how do you know?” Huck said. “If you don’t mind me asking, that is.”
Lovena gave him a patient smile. “I know because my family owns the real ring.”
I sat up straighter, head buzzing. “Is that so?”
She explained, “We have owned it for decades. A letter came with the ring when it was delivered to my mother, before the turn of the century. A priest from Turkey sent it to her, trusting that she would keep it hidden, because it could be dangerous in the wrong hands. When she died, I became its caretaker.”
Father was right. The widow, the hermit, the twins . . . He knew one of them had it. But my God—he’d missed out on learning this during his summer trip here because he was rude to this woman? Could it really have been that simple?
“Ever since I was a child,” Lovena said, “I could feel the power in that ring. I do not know what it does, exactly. However, since inheriting it, I have researched and learned that it was not crafted for Vlad Țepeș—Dracula—but his father, Vlad Dracul.”
“The Dragon,” I murmured.
She smiled. “Indeed. The elder Vlad was a pawn in a war between the Ottoman Empire and the King of Hungary, who was also the Holy Roman Emperor. And that emperor had a ring of bone made by someone with occult knowledge, a ring that would give Hungary the advantage in war. However, the elder Vlad never wore it. It was his son, the younger Vlad, who was depicted wearing it.”
“In a woodcut of Vlad eating at a table before his impaled enemies,” I said excitedly, thinking of the illustration in my Batterman’s Field Guide.
“That’s the one, yes,” Lovena said, nodding approvingly. “And legend says that ring molded Vlad into an unstoppable warlord, a deathless killing machine—right up until he was beheaded in battle.”
The woman paused, glanced from Huck’s face to mine, and said to me, “That is only what I’ve read in my studies, but I have no reason to believe it’s not true. You may be like your father and call me irrational; I do not care.”
Irrational was the last thing I’d call her. She was calm and cool, if not a bit intimidating. She reminded me of my mother a little, in that way.
“I’m not my father,” I told her.
“Perhaps not,” she said, looking at me intently. Sizing me up. Measuring me. I held my chin higher.
“Hold on, now,” Huck said, still trying to piece everything together. “Let me get this straight. You think your ring is real. Rothwild believes that the ring he has is a fake. Yet Fox—that is, her father,�
� he said, gesturing to me. “He left notes that suggested there were at least two other rings made to confuse anyone who might go looking for it. Someone has a third ring?”
“Yes, Mr. Fox explained that to me—that two reproductions were sent along with the real ring. I have no reason to doubt it, as I heard a rumor years ago that a similar ring of bone had been acquired by the owners of an antiques business, the Zissu brothers. They have a keen interest in arcane items such as this. Maybe their ring is a reproduction, or maybe they don’t even have it anymore, but likely they know its history better than I.”
Brothers. I wondered if my father had talked to them. Could they be the “twins” on his list?
“Their shop moves from city to city every year or so,” Lovena said. “They are merchants who follow the estate sales, you see, and in that regard, they are a bit like your father, interested in obtaining unusual objects.” She shrugged. “Last time I saw them, a few years ago, they were in Constanța, on the Black Sea.”
That was all the way on the eastern side of the country. Miles and miles away. Days.
Huck warily eyed a crow cage above us and said, “How do you know your ring is the real one?”
“As I told you, I can sense that our ring has power. The markings on it are very old. But whether it is the ring Rothwild thinks he wants, I could not say. He is the expert on Vlad Dracula and the Holy Roman Emperor who founded a secret fraternal organization, one that Rothwild and his colleagues want to revive. One that gave Vlad’s father his family name—the Order of the Dragon.”
Adrenaline raced through me. My father had made several notes about this medieval order. “They were a militant group, created to stop the Ottoman government from invading and taking over Eastern Europe.”
“A threat that doesn’t exist today, as the Ottoman Empire fell nearly two decades ago. Rothwild’s motives for reviving the order likely center on occult secrets to amass power. I don’t know how many people are involved in this pet project of his, but they are experimenting with dark things that they do not understand.”
That sounded . . . vaguely terrifying. Some part of my brain was intrigued and wanted to know more, but I tried to focus on why we came here.
“Did you give my father the ring?” I asked.
“And have him hand it over to Rothwild and his cultists? Never,” Lovena said, shaking her head. “After Mr. Fox and the Frenchman left this summer, I gave it to my sister. As it was, I couldn’t bear to have it in my house—its power was too loud. Enough to drive anyone mad. My sister isn’t sensitive to these things, so it didn’t bother her. She promised to keep it safe, though I’m worried now that I’ve made a mistake. . . .”
“Where is my father now?” I asked.
“Probably in Sighișoara,” she said, pronouncing it like Siggy-shora. “That is north of here, in the Carpathians.”
Something sparked inside my head. “That’s the birthplace of Vlad Țepeș, isn’t it? A medieval citadel.”
She nodded. “Indeed it is, yes. My family home is also there, though not as famous as Vlad’s perhaps, and so is my sister. She has married into Hungarian money and is a baroness—Lady Maria Kardos. That is what I told Mr. Fox, and that is where he seemed intent on going when he left my home.”
A tightness inside me loosened. My father was alive, he was here yesterday, and we knew where he was going; all we had to do was catch up. I didn’t know how far away this town was that she spoke of, but maybe Father was still there. . . .
Huck was relieved too. He gave my fingers a quick squeeze on the couch between us, and I squeezed back. Then a noise above caused us both to look up at the birdcages.
“Do you really talk to animals?” Huck asked.
“Do you believe such a thing is possible?” Lovena asked in a voice that was almost playful, teasing. Yet also challenging.
“I’m . . . not sure,” Huck answered.
“Some call me a wisewoman, babă, mother of the forest . . . pagan. Some call me a crow witch,” she said, lifting her chin to the cages above. “But I will tell you a secret. I am not special. Magic is in every natural thing. It waits in the grass, and it blossoms in flowers. It’s concentrated inside metals, deep within the earth, and it’s carried on the wind. Magic will speak to anyone who takes the time to listen.”
“But animals?” Huck said. “I don’t—”
“Animals, humans . . . we are all made of blood,” she said, running a nail along a vein in her hand. “That is where magic is plentiful. When magic is plentiful, it is easy to hear, if you have sensitive ears and a willingness to listen.” She leaned forward and squinted at Huck. “I am a good listener. Where I was born, in Transylvania—the land beyond the forest—is rich with magic. It makes the dead rise. And it gives the living power. Our blood is vibrant.”
“Blood, eh?” he murmured, looking a little pallid. He tried to smile and said, “Truth be told, it’s not my favorite thing in the world. Prefer it when it’s on the inside.”
“Blood is everything,” she said. “Magic in the blood can be heard, which is where my talents lie. Some are deaf to its voice but are able to force results using old rituals. Wonderworkers, they were called. Occult magicians. They knew methods to take blood from a living thing and forge it into something new.”
“Into a magical object,” I said, intensely interested. “I’ve read about that in a few books. . . .”
“Theory is one thing,” she said, “but in practice, this is hard to do, a rare talent. Maybe one in many thousand could even do it. Maybe one in a million. But likely it’s how Vlad Dracula’s bone ring was made—by bone and by blood.”
Huck shuddered. “The dark arts.”
“Depends on the intent. Like anything, it can be abused.” Mama Lovena picked up a fallen feather and ran it through her fingers. “So, to answer your question . . . I am a good listener and a good conduit. But you don’t need to fear me. My interests are always with the forest and the animals in it. People, I can take or leave.”
Huck chuckled and nervously rubbed his palms along his trousers.
Lovena turned to me and held out her hand. Her fingers crooked. “Please. I am curious.”
“You want to read my palm?”
“I want to listen to your blood.” A small smile lifted her lips as she winked at me. “It is not as bad as it sounds. I am no vampire. Not yet, at least. When I die, who knows. Maybe my fool of a sister will fail to bury me properly, and I’ll enjoy haunting her.”
She was making jokes? I liked her more and more.
Ignoring Huck, who was squirming on the seat next to me, uncomfortable and anxious, I extended my hand for Lovena to inspect. She held the tips of my fingers, looking and listening. Then she leaned forward, squinting at the veins on the back of my hand, and made a purring noise. “Very interesting indeed. Who is your mother, little empress?”
A cool breeze from the open window rattled the cages above us, and after they stilled, an odd rustling noise swirled around the room. My pulse quickened. Was it the birds? I tried to spot the source of the noise but saw nothing.
“My mother has been dead for almost eight years,” I told her.
“That matters not. You have old Transylvanian blood, do you not?” Lovena insisted. “Your mother’s bloodline is from these lands—it’s as clear to me as water from a stream.”
I blinked. Had my father told her? Or had she investigated him after his first visit last summer? If it wasn’t that, then maybe it was because I’d spoken a little Romanian to her and she’d just made an educated guess.
But I didn’t think so. The way she looked at me made the hair on the back of my neck quiver and itch.
“Yes,” I said quietly. “My mother was from Brașov. Her family goes back many generations, I think.”
“Yes, I thought so. Old blood,” she confirmed. “Do you speak with her?”
“My mother?”
“There are ways to speak to some of the dead. Ways to hear, ways to send messages betwee
n worlds,” she said, glancing at her crows above us. “Or maybe, like the boy, you have doubts. Maybe you don’t believe . . .”
An unsettling thrill shot through me along with an unexpected sense of desperation. “I believe,” I insisted. “If there’s a way to speak with my mother, a spell or a ritual, I want to know it—”
Lovena released my hand. “It’s not a recipe I can write down for you.”
“But—”
“Speaking with the dead involves more than your mere desire to hear. I said there are ways to talk to some of the dead. Not all. Some. Some don’t want to talk. Others are too far gone to hear, even for me and my crows.” She gestured lightly to the cages above.
“But how would I know?” I asked. “Do I just talk to her? Does it need to be at her grave or where she died?”
She smiled. “So many questions. That is my fault. You came here to talk about your father, not your mother. Let us just stick to that, yes?”
Frustrated, I bit back a response and glanced at Huck, who couldn’t keep his eyes from darting to the crows above us. All of this was making him nervous. He never had a strong stomach for the unexplainable. Or the dead. When I was at home in New York, I often went to my mother’s grave to talk with her. It gave me comfort. Huck, on the other hand, refused to step foot in the graveyard.
But talking to my mother was one thing . . . The possibility of her answering was another. Perhaps I was too eager to believe what Lovena had said was possible. I wasn’t sure, but it didn’t matter. When I pushed her for more, she wouldn’t budge. Subject closed. “Is there anything more you need to know about the ring or your father?” she said, as if she were ready for us to leave now.
“Could I ask you your advice about a symbol?” I said.
She gestured loosely. “You may.”
“See, there’s been this man trailing us by the name of Sarkany. . . . He’s tangled up in this mess with the ring.”
I proceeded to tell her a bare-bones account of how the man gave me the banknote in Istanbul and then appeared on the train, and how we saw him again outside the widow’s house in Bucharest, hiding in the shadows with his wolf dog.