A Treason of Thorns

by Laura E. Weymouth

  “Content, then.”

  “Nor content. I was waiting, Mira. Biding my time, until I could come home. I’ll never be happy anywhere but at Burleigh House.”

  “Then reconcile yourself to the way things are,” Mira warns. “His Majesty won’t make you Caretaker. Your father failed to get the deed. Burleigh House is falling apart—did you see the countryside? Folk around here are suffering because of this place. It might be better if—”

  “Don’t say it.” I turn away and fiddle with the sleeve of my blouse to hide how her words pain me. Mira sighs.

  “Vi, my darling girl, I’m not trying to hurt you by telling you the truth. But the fact is, I’m not sure there’s a safe way of keeping this House.”

  Getting up from my place, I kneel at Mira’s side, taking her work-worn hands in my own.

  “I don’t have to be safe,” I tell her. “I have to do my job, as someone who’s meant to be Burleigh’s Caretaker. Did Papa find Burleigh’s deed? Please, Mira, I need to know.”

  “What will you do with the answer to that question?”

  She looks into my eyes and my gaze falters. I say nothing.

  “George found where the king keeps the deed,” Mira admits, “though I don’t know that he ever laid hands on the thing itself.”

  I’m breathless. The air around me is breathless, too, as the House holds back, fighting against the restless, destructive energy I can feel through the flagstones beneath my feet. I am pushing too far, I know. But I can’t stop now.

  “Where, Mira? Where does His Majesty keep Burleigh’s deed?”

  She shakes her head. “Your father never told a soul but a friend of his called Albert Weston, and the two of them are dead and buried. I expect no one knows that secret now but the king and Burleigh House itself.”

  With a wrenching shriek, metal twists and a sapling bursts through the center of the kitchen’s long wood-fired range stove. The tree rises to the ceiling and spreads leafy branches over us, dark flowers and darker thorns jutting from every twig.

  “Oh hush, I’m sorry,” I soothe, crouching to press my hands to the flagstone floor. Mira gets up and goes out to Jed, because she knows the words aren’t for her.

  Wyn gets up, too, wordlessly dropping his plate into the washbasin and leaving the room. As I watch him go, guilt and regret and longing all churn in my stomach. I want to be the way we were, but he’ll barely look at me. And now here I sit, having done no more than speak of treason, and my words have already bred damage. Fear fills my belly, and I ruthlessly tamp it down.

  After dark, I creep up to the long echoing attics at the summit of Burleigh House, drifting past old wardrobes and chests of drawers and clotheshorses. Opening a familiar window, I shimmy out onto the roof and scoot around a brick chimney only to find Wyn, lying on his back on the slate tiles, eating a wrinkled winter apple and staring up at the starry night sky.

  “It’s nice to see some things haven’t changed,” I say, a little shyly, because I don’t know if I’m wanted or not. “I missed coming up here.”

  “Didn’t they have stars in Lincolnshire?” Wyn asks, and takes a bite of his apple.

  “Yes, but not like these ones. Am I interrupting? Do you want me to go?”

  Wyn glances over at me. “I can’t tell you to go. It’s not my House.”

  “It’s not mine, either,” I point out. “It’s the king’s.”

  “But you want to change that. Tell the truth.”

  I settle down with my back to the brick chimney, which still holds a hint of the sun’s warmth.

  “What else am I supposed to do?” I ask, drawing my knees up to my chest and wrapping my arms around them. “His Majesty won’t give me the key, but Burleigh needs help. I don’t see a way around this, Wyn. Have you looked at the countryside, or at Burleigh? I’m afraid this House won’t last the summer, and that’s all the time I’ve got. After that, the king’s sending a new Caretaker to oversee things.”

  “Then let His Majesty choose a new Caretaker now, and tell Burleigh you approve,” Wyn says.

  The House rumbles ominously underneath us. I’m not sure I could convince it to accept a new Caretaker, even if His Majesty sent me someone sympathetic. What’s more, I don’t think I trust anyone else to look after Burleigh. Revulsion churns in my stomach at the thought of the key in a stranger’s hands. It’s not just me the idea upsets, either—ill temper and distaste are creeping up through the slate tiles of the roof.

  “I don’t think that’ll be enough,” I tell Wyn. Not enough for Burleigh, and not enough for me. “I think—blood and mortar, Wyn, I think I have to finish what my father started.”

  There it is. The thing that’s been weighing on me since we left the East Fen, and that I haven’t, until this moment, fully acknowledged even to myself.

  “You don’t have to, though.” Wyn’s voice is flat, devoid of emotion, and he keeps his eyes fixed on the sky. “You’re not a Caretaker. You don’t have the key, like you said, and you can’t work House magic without it. It’s foolishness to think you can do much here, Violet, and trying for the deed will be the death of you. You don’t need to end up like your father did.”

  On my far side, out of his view, little daisies sprout beneath my hand, their soft petals brushing the webbing between my fingers.

  Don’t I?

  “What happened?” I ask Wyn.

  “Your father kept doing his job. Working House magic after the king had taken the key. That’s what killed him.”

  “Not that. Why did you stay?”

  A muscle works in Wyn’s jaw. “George asked me to.”

  “I still know when you’re lying. That’s not the truth,” I chide.

  Wyn sits up with a single fluid motion and fixes his eyes on me. I can feel restrained anger radiating from him, just as I always feel Burleigh’s frame of mind.

  “That is the truth,” Wyn says. “Or at least as much of it as I’m willing to tell.”

  I rest my head against the chimney and watch the sky as Burleigh paints a mournful, pale green aurora across it. It isn’t the season for such a sky. But here—magic is always in season at Burleigh House.

  “Violet,” Wyn says, and my heart sinks at the sound of his voice. I know what he’s about to say. “Come with me when I leave tomorrow.”

  “I can’t,” I tell him regretfully. “You know I can’t.”

  “Trying for the deed will get you killed. Better to leave Burleigh to its fate—let things run their course, and let the king put it down before it ruins the West Country. Yes, I know that’s what he plans to do—gossip travels faster than horses.”

  The slate roofing tiles shudder and jump beneath us, making a high-pitched, chattering sound. I reach back and press a hand to the solid brick of the chimney and slowly, Burleigh calms.

  “I told you I haven’t changed,” I say. “Burleigh still comes first for me. Before—”

  “Stop,” Wyn says angrily, that bad temper I sense bubbling up from beneath the surface. “Burleigh isn’t human, Vi. It’s not your family or your friend. It serves its own ends, and that is all. Even your father acknowledged that fact—a Great House puts itself first. This place does not deserve your loyalty or your blood or your tears. It is a monster bent on nothing but its own survival, and every pretty trick, every fire lit for you, every flower blooming at your feet, is nothing but a ploy to win your affection.”

  A breeze kicks up, making a sad, dissenting sound as it runs over the open mouth of the chimney.

  “Well, if Burleigh’s such a monster, why are you still here?” My words ring on the night air like a challenge. “You could have left weeks ago. Yet here you are, Haelwyn of Taunton. Here you are.”

  “I stayed for you,” Wyn grits out. “To try and change your mind about this place. But I see you’re right—you’re no different than before. Still stubborn and pigheaded as ever when it comes to Burleigh. Do you know who had the right idea about this House? Your mother. She’s the clever one. Got out while s
he still could.”

  He scrambles to his feet and swings back into the attic through the dormer window before I can reply. I’m left swallowing back tears yet again—it seems that’s all I’ve done since coming home.

  A few feet away from me, just where Wyn was sitting, a pair of ghosts spring to life. My child-self and Wyn as he once was sit side by side, shoulder to shoulder, sharing a thermos of tea back and forth between them and watching the stars. There’s a strange bluish cast to them and an odd sort of ripple, as if they’re lit by sun reflecting off water. It’s a peculiarity of Great Houses, this dredging up of old memories that makes it look as if spirits haunt the halls and grounds.

  I watch for a moment before wincing and shaking my head. “Please don’t, Burleigh.”

  The children Wyn and I were flicker and fade away.

  7

  IT’S STILL FULLY DARK WHEN I WAKE THE NEXT MORNING to the sound of rooks shouting at one another in the House’s eaves. For a moment I’m disoriented, not sure why the gulls sound so strange, and then I remember—I’m home. My head throbs with too little sleep, but I sit up anyway. The smells of stone and wood smoke and mildew wash over me, along with the fresher, cleaner scents of earth and wet grass, drifting in from the windows I forgot to shut last night.

  Movement near the fireplace catches my eye, and I freeze in place. There, beside the cold hearth, is my own ghost. I can feel an urgency in the air, a sort of static hum registered by the skin and not the ears. Burleigh wants my attention. It has something to say, and this time I let its memory play on.

  Little Violet must be nine, judging by the ragged patch of hair at the back of her head. I remember that—I’d caught my braid on spruce gum and had to have it cut out by Mira. My younger self, brought back to temporary life by the House, lies on the hearth rug with a well-worn copy of Gulliver’s Travels open in her hands. Like the memories last night, Little Vi’s not quite solid or real. I sit and watch as she glances at the clock on the mantelpiece, tucks the book under one arm, and skips out of the room.

  As a child, I grew used to turning a corner and finding some long-dead Sterling in the corridor or beyond an open door, as the House pondered an incident in its past. But Burleigh’s memories have never come with this sense of importance before—with the awareness that there’s something my House is desperately trying to say. Curiosity piqued, I slip out of bed and follow after Little Vi.

  She makes her ghostly way down the stairs, step by slow step, barefooted and sliding her hand along the banister to better feel what the House feels. I do the same, and there’s restlessness under the habitual anxiety and pain creeping up from the floor. Something about this memory Burleigh wants me to see worries it, and I wish I could ask the House why.

  My child-self dances down the central corridor of the east wing, heading out through the conservatory and across the rose garden. She picks up her skirts and leaps like a deer through the wildflower meadow, forcing me to hurry to keep up. Though there’s enough light to see by and the sky is growing pink with dawn in this present moment, the Violet of the past is lit by full sun. It must have taken place at midmorning, this memory, though I can’t recall it yet.

  At the very edge of the meadow, up against the woods at the back of the grounds, Little Violet ducks into a summerhouse. I blink uncertainly—the small, glass-paned building is there, but not there. Sometimes I see a pile of rubble, sometimes the structure whole and complete. And I think I know now what it is the House is dwelling on.

  The summerhouse’s interior ripples with the same shifting, limpid light that strikes my ghost. I settle down on the ground to watch as my father and a gentleman, white-skinned and prosperous-looking, speak in hushed tones. Little Vi sits nearby and opens her book once more. I remember that—the book, my father’s nearness. What I’ve never remembered is the conversation he had. All I recall is the sweet scent of the roses overgrowing the summerhouse, and Gulliver among the Houyhnhnms.

  The House remembers, though. And it remembers what I didn’t see at the time—Wyn as a small boy, crouching in the long grass outside the summerhouse.

  “—they want answers, George. They want us to make our move,” the unfamiliar gentleman says. His voice sounds distant, as if I’m standing with my ear to the keyhole of a locked door. “It’s time we have this done with.”

  Outside the summerhouse, a stiff breeze seems to have risen up. Though I can’t feel it in my present moment, the stalks and heads of ghostly wildflowers tap-tap against the panes of glass, sounding for all the world like eager fingers. It’s as if a legion of Little Folk are asking to come in.

  “It’s no use, Bertie,” Papa says. He’s haggard and careworn—I can tell all of this happened not long before the king descended with his soldiers and his charges of treason. “I’ve found locations for all the deeds except Burleigh’s. And if you think for an instant that I’ll set things in motion when my own House is the one left at risk, you’re a fool. There’s not a chance.”

  My sun is fully up now, and shining cheerfully enough. But the light around Little Vi and Papa and the gentleman called Bertie has gone grey. I can hear fitful gusts of rain beating against the glass of their summerhouse. Even as a child I was quick about picking up on the moods of the House, and rainfall during daylight hours should certainly have told me something was wrong—Papa kept everything well-regulated in the Blackdown Hills, with rain falling only in late evening. But that day I found myself so absorbed in my book, I failed to notice Burleigh’s growing discomfort, just as I missed a bedraggled Wyn, peering through the glass.

  Papa noticed, though.

  I watch as the remembered version of him glances out through the summerhouse’s glass panes and shakes his head. “We shouldn’t be speaking about any of this on the grounds—it’s hard on Burleigh to hear us. But I’m afraid of being overheard in the village.”

  Papa’s companion likely doesn’t even notice the House’s distress. To him, it seems like nothing more than the vagaries of weather. He doesn’t know how good-natured Burleigh generally is.

  “Couldn’t you overcome your scruples and let us go ahead without Burleigh’s deed?” the gentleman suggests. “This place is devoted to Sterlings. I can’t imagine it ever doing you any harm, even if the king commanded it. And we could use the rest of the deeds as leverage to force His Majesty to hand Burleigh’s over.”

  The gusts of rain turn to a flurry of hail. An anxious, stomach-churning feeling grips me, and I know it’s not my own. But I can’t tell if it’s a part of the House’s memory, or a part of my present reality, or both.

  Papa’s face darkens.

  “Out of the question,” he snaps. “I won’t hear you suggest it again—not to anyone, but especially not to me. I’m not willing to hazard that, but I don’t like any of this. There are too many loose ends. And not being able to find the location of Burleigh’s deed, out of all of them? It feels like bad luck. I’ve bribed and questioned far too many people by now—I’d hoped to have this done with months ago. There are roadblocks at every turn, though.”

  My surroundings fall entirely still, both in the past and the present, as if the House is listening. The rain and hail stop. The light is low, and not a single bird sings. Little Vi looks up from her reading and puts her head to one side with a frown.

  Papa’s friend leans in, toward my father. “Do you think someone’s working against you, George?”

  “I don’t know.” Papa rubs a hand across his face. “It certainly seems like it at times. Albert, if anything were to happen to me, you’d look after Vi, wouldn’t you? Give her a home at Weston Manor?”

  “Of course,” Albert promises. “Don’t fret about it for a moment.”

  “Papa.” My child-self’s voice is high and wavering with worry. “The House—”

  The sky of that remembered morning has gone a sickly green. Inside the summerhouse, there is a slithering, hissing sound as thick vines snake up the walls.

  “Violet!” my father shouts,
and lunges forward to shield me as glass shatters and beams snap. But he’s too far off, and Wyn is faster. The boy flies through the open summerhouse door and bowls me over, the two of us landing in a tangled heap.

  This I recall—the sudden worry that tore my attention away from my book, the horrible sound of breaking glass, and the shock of being knocked down. I cover my head instinctively, though the falling shards have no power to harm me now. Their touch is feather-light, barely remembered.

  When the clamor fades and the summerhouse lies in ruins, both in truth and in memory, I can make out my father at the center of the chaos, bent over Wyn and Little Vi. And I see what I didn’t at the time—the fragments of mortar-coated glass that have shredded the back of Wyn’s shirt, the blood trickling down his neck and arms. I don’t think he was hurt badly, but my heart sinks at the stricken look on my father’s face.

  “George, did the House—” Papa’s friend begins. But Papa ignores him.

  “Are you alright, Wyn?” he asks. The boy nods without speaking.

  “Go on in and find Mira,” Papa urges. “She’ll look after you.”

  Without a word to me, Papa straightens, and there’s anger in every line of his posture.

  “We pushed the House too hard,” he says to his companion. “The binding prevents it from hearing much about the deeds without trying to stop whoever’s speaking of them. Burleigh, I’m so sorry.”

  Sun shines on the trio of ghosts once more, and distant birdsong begins again. Daisies sprout and unfurl in front of Little Vi, who sits unharmed at the center of a ring of broken glass. Papa and the strange gentleman both watch as the child I was plucks the flowers with a sad smile.

  “Of course I’m alright,” Little Vi says to Burleigh, because no one else has asked.

  The memory fades and I’m forced to jump back from the old wreckage of the summerhouse with a yelp as enormous, thorn-studded brambles twist themselves around its sun-bleached remains with frightening speed. Before long, there’s not an inch of the summerhouse left visible.