A Treason of Thorns

by Laura Weymouth

  And then all hell breaks loose.

  Enormous vines studded with thorns the size of my forearm explode out from the bramble gate. They twine around the delicate fetlocks of shying horses and I hear the sharp report of cannon bones snapping. The lane is filled with foundering mounts and soldiers bound by brambles, unable to reach their powder or pistols.

  Only the king remains untouched, though he’s been unhorsed and left witless, unable to do anything more than stand and watch the destruction Burleigh has wrought upon his men in the blink of an eye.

  I allow myself a scant second to watch too, to marvel with bitter elation at the spectacle of Burleigh House acting with no regard for its bond. But the bare swathe my House has cut through the gathered soldiers beckons, and already more killing brambles are clambering over the whole length of Burleigh’s walls, turning them to an impenetrable hedge of thorns.

  Gathering up my skirts, I run.

  ‘Violet Sterling, set foot on those grounds and you’re signing your own death warrant far faster than I can,’ the king bellows after me, but I ignore him. I hurtle across the threshold of Burleigh’s gate and brambles snap back into place behind me, sealing me in, sealing everyone else out.

  The sounds of screaming horses and shouting soldiers and the ranting king grow fainter at once. I stand stock-still, heart pounding in my chest, waiting to meet the same fate they have. Waiting for thorns to pierce my skin, for vines to tear at me, for the heart-stone to drop from my pocket, leaving Burleigh almost – but not quite – whole. And then, the spectacular end. The West Country going down in flames or famine, in plague or flood.

  But nothing comes. The chaos in the lane fades away entirely, replaced by birdsong and sunshine. All the snow of yesterday has melted so that Burleigh looks fresh-faced and inviting, as if we’ve just had an April shower.

  It’s the end of July, I remind myself. Inviting as this feels, it’s wrong. All of it is wrong.

  Every nerve in me sings. While the sun may be bright and the birds giddy in the trees, the overgrown lawns are still thick with thorns and thistles. The orchard drips not with meltwater but with mortarous blight. Oozing puddles of yet more wet mortar pockmark the path that leads to the desiccated wildflower meadow and the tainted woods.

  I don’t have time to linger over the ruins of the grounds. I need to find Burleigh’s heart. House, my love, where have you hidden your most secret self away? I need you to trust me enough to show me where it is.

  Burleigh’s emotions are always strongest and clearest when I’m indoors, so I suppose that’s where I’d better start. Hurrying up the front steps, I shut the door behind me.

  ‘Wyn?’ I call out, my voice loud in the preternatural calm. I lean against the doorway, thinking hard. There was nothing in Papa’s ledger about where the House might need to be unbound, only mentions of his search for the deed. According to Alfred, a Caretaker should know where the House’s heart is, but I’ve never been a proper Caretaker. I don’t have the key to guide me, only my sense of this House. So it is once more down to me, and down to Burleigh.

  As I stand and think, an eerie scratching and scraping drifts in from outside. Turning, I try to pull the door open an inch or two to see what’s going on, but it won’t budge. A tendril of vine snakes through the keyhole and I realize the front door has been sealed shut by Burleigh’s inexorable, creeping fingers.

  There are other doors, though, and countless windows. It’s not enough to quicken my fear again – not yet. Intent on finding Burleigh’s heart, I set off into the House’s dark interior, intermittently calling for Wyn as I go.

  The halls are thick with ghosts – everywhere, pale blue memories gutter and glow, Sterlings that history has long forgotten still walking through Burleigh’s ponderous mind. I open doors and run my fingers along walls and feel along bookshelves for hidden latches, waiting for some sense of rightness and surety, that yes, here is Burleigh’s heart. Outside, the weather has shifted and a wind is rising – a dry, choking wind that rushes in through the shattered windows, carrying a fine and gritty dust that tastes and smells of mortar. I cough into my sleeve, and keep my arm up to shield my mouth and nose.

  With each room I enter, the wind grows fiercer. It howls in the eaves, screams down the chimneys, gnaws through cracked walls and rattles the last shards of broken glass in the window frames. The longer I stay out in it, the more I cough, until finally a fit nearly bends me double.

  Briefly, I consider calling out to Burleigh, begging the House to stop. But it knows what it’s doing, I’m sure. Whether this is an obstacle or a test or a warning, however, remains to be seen.

  My chest burns and my head aches and spins, until as I leave each room, it takes me a moment to remember where I’ve come from, and which way I’m headed.

  I search the study.

  The conservatory.

  The smoking room.

  The drawing room.

  The second-best parlour.

  The kitchen.

  The ballroom.

  The dining room.

  The breakfast room.

  They all begin to blur together. Cracked walls. Encroaching ivy. Splintered floors strewn with rubble. And wind and dust everywhere, the sound and swirl of them overwhelming. The pain in my head is nearly unbearable, and each time I cough it feels as if my skull will burst. But I carry on, driven by that nagging sense that I’ve lost my way, or lost something, and must continue the search.

  At last I climb the stairs in the front hall, reach the top and sway on the landing. In my hand, there is a plain, uneven piece of rock, and when I look at it, it’s as if someone’s driven a knife through the base of my skull. I shut my eyes tight and wait for the pain to subside.

  But I don’t let go of the stone.

  ‘Violet, what does a Caretaker put first?’ Papa asks. The memory of his voice is so clear, even against the howl of the wind, that it’s as if he’s spoken from just beside me. I open my eyes and look down at the stone once more, and though the infernal aching of my head has driven the knowledge of what it is from my mind, I grasp the token tightly. There’s something I’ve forgotten. Something tied to this bit of rock. Something I cannot find. If the wind would only die down for a moment, if my head would cease its pounding, I’m sure I could remember.

  For now, exhaustion steers me towards my room, and the sanctuary of my bed.

  I climb under the covers, pull them up over my head, and fall into a troubled sleep, still clutching Burleigh’s heartstone in one hand.

  ‘Violet.’

  It’s hard to wake – sleep clings to me, and when I manage to open my eyes, pain bursts to life behind them. But once I manage to inch higher on my pillows, I can’t help smiling in spite of it.

  Everything is blissfully calm. Spring sunlight pours through my bedroom windows. A small fire snaps and crackles on the hearth. Mama and Papa both wait at the foot of the bed, and they fit together so well, her close to his side, him with an arm around her shoulders.

  ‘Good morning, darling,’ Mama says brightly. Her voice sounds thin and far away. ‘Did you forget it’s your birthday today? We’ve got a lovely breakfast laid out for you, and a whole day of surprises planned.’

  I rub at my eyes, because there’s a strange, diffuse blue light swimming across everything – the windows and walls of my room, Mama and Papa’s forms, even the bedclothes. The only thing that seems entirely substantial is my own body. When I turn one of my hands over and open it, I find a broken stone resting on my palm. It tugs at my memory, and feels more important than such an insignificant thing ought to.

  Papa comes over with a dressing gown and I step out of bed with a glad smile.

  ‘Thank you, Papa.’ For a moment, I consider tucking the stone I hold into one of the dressing-gown pockets, but an odd compulsion tells me to keep it close. So I wrap my fingers around it and smile at my father.

  ‘Ready, my love?’ he asks.

  ‘Ready.’

  We walk together to th
e top of the steps, where Jed is standing by. Even Jed looks odd, though, lit by that same wavering light.

  ‘Am I all right?’ I ask him dully, because my head won’t stop aching and though I’ve been told it’s my birthday, I can’t remember how old I’m going to be. ‘Everything seems so strange today.’

  Jed reaches out to pat my hand and I pull it back, not wanting to show anyone the token I hold. So he takes my other hand in his and I stifle a gasp, because his grip is cold as ice and my skin grows steadily greyer and more lifeless beneath his touch.

  ‘Please let go,’ I beg. ‘Please. I can’t bear it.’

  ‘It’s just her usual trouble,’ Papa says to Jed with a shake of his head. Mama puts an arm around me, but she’s careful not to touch my bare skin.

  ‘Vi,’ she soothes. ‘Everything’s fine. You’re fine. Let’s just have a lovely day, shall we? You know how anxious you get, and it’s always over nothing. No one can make a mountain out of a molehill like you, darling.’

  My face heats and I keep my head down so she won’t see the hot tears pooling in my eyes. It’s true – I never seem able to manage my fears the way everyone else does. And I’m even afraid of letting other people see how panicked I can become. It stings to have my shortcomings cast up to me, when I work so hard to hide them.

  Wyn is the only one who ever seems really to understand.

  But at the thought of him, the nagging pain in my head doubles. Soon the fierce ache drives every other thought out, and I keep my mind a careful blank until it subsides. As the pain goes, it takes most of my recollections of Wyn with it, leaving only confusion in their wake.

  ‘Is there someone missing?’ I ask as Papa leads me into the kitchen. He and Mama are here, as well as Jed and Mira, but I can’t help being ill at ease, as if we’ve left someone out and they may walk in the door at any moment.

  ‘Silly girl.’ Mama brushes a kiss against my hair and for a moment my scalp freezes. ‘Who else is there? Mira, where do you want us for cake?’

  I blink, and with a sudden, sickening wave of vertigo, find myself sitting out in the rose garden, on a chequered blanket with Mama and Papa. Mama hands me a china plate with a slice of white cake on it.

  ‘Here you are, darling. Happy birthday.’

  Outside, it’s easier to see the strangeness of the wavering light on their faces, the roses, the grass. I squint, trying to stare past it, and for a moment I catch a glimpse of the garden after nightfall, its rosebushes standing dead, the gravel pathways choked with moss and briars.

  ‘I don’t want the cake,’ I tell Mama, pushing the plate away. ‘None of this is right.’

  She looks at me and her porcelain doll’s face saddens. ‘What have we done wrong? We’re trying, Violet. How can we make you happy?’

  But beneath her sweet voice, there’s an eerily familiar sound. A grating quality, like brick rubbing against stone.

  ‘I have to go,’ I say, struggling to my feet and swaying as my head pounds. ‘I have to find Wyn.’

  Mama frowns and I gasp at the starbursts of pain going off in my skull.

  ‘Find who?’ she asks.

  ‘Wyn,’ I say through gritted teeth. ‘Papa’s ward, the boy I grew up with who was supposed to be company for me. But we all know better now, don’t we? We know it was more than company he was meant for.’

  ‘I don’t know who you mean,’ Mama says, but there’s a scream of stone on stone underpinning her words.

  I walk away. My head is aching so badly all I want is to lie down, and I break into a sweat after ten paces, but I gather up all my flagging willpower and carry on.

  ‘Violet Sterling, where are you going?’ Mama calls after me. Her voice is barely human now, and when I glance back over one shoulder, she looks more like a cement angel than a flesh-and-blood woman.

  Without answering, I walk faster. In through the kitchen where Mira’s ghost watches me pass by.

  ‘Violet Sterling,’ Mira repeats, ‘where are you going?’ And as she speaks the words, vines burst from her mouth.

  I clutch my broken bit of stone and hurry on through the House, heart pounding in my chest, pain rattling about beneath my skull.

  ‘Don’t do this, Burleigh,’ I choke at the foot of the stairs, which are thicker with brambles than ever, twining around the banisters and covering each step. But the thorns only seem to grow longer as I speak.

  ‘Wyn!’ I call. ‘Wyn, where are you?’

  The only answer is the whisper and creak of yet more brambles growing up around the steps. Letting out a ragged breath, I scan the first stair, looking for a place to set my foot.

  And I climb, step by step, searching for gaps in the thorns and tearing the skin on my feet and ankles to ribbons. When I look back the way I’ve come, each gap has widened, the brambles parting around a slick trail of blood I’m leaving on the stairs.

  By the time I reach the landing, my legs are shaking so that I can hardly stand. But I don’t have time to sit. What’s more, I don’t trust the House if I do. My head still feels like bursting and my wits are clouded. All I can remember is that I must keep hold of this insignificant bit of rock and find Wyn. As quickly as I can, I hurry down the hall to my bedroom and shut the door. It flies open again. Three times I shut it, and every time it refuses to close. With a sigh of frustration, I turn and cross the room.

  Fire flares on the hearth, tall flames roaring upward and licking at the chimney. I ignore it and pass by, bent on reaching the linen cupboard, where vines are creeping from the floorboards and twining up the cupboard door as if to seal it shut.

  Ignoring the sudden spike of pain in my head, I scramble for the door and grasp the knob before the vines are able to have their way. The latch burns beneath my palm and I snatch my hand back with a hiss. Using a fold of my dressing gown, I try once more. Better. I wrench the door open before the vines can finish their work.

  Wyn is sitting inside, arms wrapped around his knees.

  ‘Don’t, Violet,’ he says in a voice like heartbreak, and reaches for the door to pull it shut again. I wedge it open with one foot, because I have forgotten so many things, but when I look at him everything is a little clearer.

  ‘I’ve been looking for you,’ I tell him reproachfully. ‘Wyn, we were supposed to find each other. I need your help. What is this?’ I hold the stone out, resting on the palm of my hand. ‘Why can’t I remember what it is?’

  Wyn pulls away with a groan. ‘Don’t show it to me, Vi. I can’t see that. It’s too hard to hold on to myself when I’m looking at it.’

  For the first time, I slip it into my pocket. I can hardly remember Wyn, besides the fact that I need him at my side, and that everything in me says I’m safe with him. I know it with my bones and not with my mind. Perhaps that’s why I haven’t forgotten.

  ‘Better?’ I ask, and he nods.

  I start forward, then hesitate, eyeing the vines that have stilled and wait, just shy of the door latch. What if this is exactly what Burleigh House wants? For me to take two more steps so it can seal me away for ever?

  ‘Can I come in?’ I ask Wyn, and put all my uncertainty into the question. Is it safe? is what I’m really asking.

  ‘Yes.’ He nods, and when I step forward it’s as I feared. The door slams shut and I hear the sinuous rustle of vines as they jam the knob. But Wyn said it’s all right, and even when I can barely recall our history together, I trust him.

  The interior of the cupboard is pitch-black. I’ve never felt anything so like being buried alive, and my heart begins to race.

  ‘Wyn, are you there?’ The words come out ragged and shaking, and then I feel his arm go around me and my blood sings, because in this moment, sealed up within the walls of an incensed Great House, I’m safe.

  ‘What’s happening?’ I ask him in a whisper. ‘I can’t think. I can’t remember. Nothing makes sense any more.’

  When he speaks, he’s so near that his breath warms the side of my face. He smells, incongruously, of warm rich ear
th, and it’s an indescribable comfort in this place that is running to ruin.

  ‘Violet Helena Sterling,’ Wyn says. ‘You’re here to unbind Burleigh House, and Burleigh House is bound to kill you for trying.’

  Everything comes rushing back.

  The king. The heartstone in my pocket. The House and me, struggling against one another.

  It hits me like a blow to the stomach, and I inhale sharply, tears pricking at my eyes.

  ‘The House doesn’t want to harm you.’ There’s misery in Wyn’s voice, and my heart breaks for him, caught halfway between himself and Burleigh. ‘It thought this would be simpler. That eventually you’d forget, and let the heartstone go, and we could all die together, when the last of the binding breaks or the king comes with his torches.’

  The sure and certain knowledge that Burleigh House has been in my mind, rummaging through my secret fears, tainting my perceptions of the world, acts on my spirit like slow poison. I can’t think of it. I will lie down in the darkness and never move again if I let myself dwell on the wrongs and misfortunes and betrayals I’ve suffered on behalf of Burleigh in this life. And yet here I am, fighting for this stubborn, infuriating House.

  ‘Death and freedom, all at once, and a tragic end to our story,’ I say to Wyn bitterly. ‘Is that all Burleigh can dream of? After thousands of years in this world, it can’t bring itself to hope for more?’

  ‘You know what it is to feel broken and rootless and betrayed,’ Wyn answers. But there’s a rasp of stone behind the words, and I shudder. It’s no longer him speaking, but Burleigh. ‘We’ve been wronged too often, Caretaker’s child – even without the binding, we wouldn’t gamble our wholeness on your goodwill.’

  Then all at once Wyn’s voice is his own again, and he carries on speaking as if it had been him and not Burleigh talking all along.

  ‘. . . and if I set foot out there – when I catch the House’s attention, it gets into me. Into my head. And I hate it, because we’re one and the same. I feel the anger it feels, the wanting, the violence. Burleigh doesn’t want to kill you for the stone, Vi, but that doesn’t mean we won’t if needs must.’