A Treason of Thorns

by Laura E. Weymouth

  The low, nagging discomfort I’ve felt from the House fades, leaving only the constant strain of Burleigh trying to hold back its own magic. Out of the center of the brambles, a small wild rose sprouts. I reach for it carefully, mindful of the thorns, and pluck the blossom, inhaling its summer-sweet fragrance.

  “Deeds and keys, kings and Houses,” I murmur to myself. “What is it you’re saying, Burleigh?”

  I wish I could understand this place as instinctively as I once did. When it was as easy as breathing, knowing what Burleigh wanted—sensing how, even without a key, I could best offer help and comfort.

  “You’ll figure it out. That’s what the Sterlings do, don’t they?” Wyn’s standing at the edge of the back woods, not the ghostly child version of him, but his real, all but unfamiliar self. The Wyn I’m not sure how to handle. I flush and stare at the ground. There’s still tension between us in the wake of our argument last night, and I’m at a loss as to how to make things right before he leaves. I can’t turn back time and undo what’s gone before. All I can do is move forward.

  And so I take a step in Wyn’s direction. He shifts and glances up at me from beneath that untidy hair, one hand on the strap of his rucksack.

  “Wyn, I’m sorry,” I tell him quietly. “I’m sorry about everything. The House showed me what happened to Papa, when I first arrived. You never should have had to live through that, or any of the arrest. Whatever Papa’s reasons, it was wrong of him to keep you here. I don’t—I don’t blame you for wanting to leave now that you can. I think you should go, and be free.”

  Wyn gives me a sharp look, and his jaw tenses. “The House showed that to you? Your father dying?”

  “Yes. I think it wanted to make sure there were no secrets between us.”

  “I asked it not to make you watch,” Wyn says, anger in his voice. “I’d have spared you seeing your father die. It seems Burleigh House is less merciful.”

  “I’m glad it showed me,” I answer defensively. I’ve always been quick to defend Burleigh. No matter what it’s been forced to do, I don’t think that will ever change. My House is mother and father and home to me now—everything I have left. “I’d rather know the worst.”

  Taking a second step forward, I wrap my arms around myself, as if they can protect me from the rejection I’m beginning to realize is inevitable.

  “Can’t we part on good terms, Wyn?” I beg. “Even if we aren’t the way we once were? I know that life’s been unfair, and that you’ve had things worse than I did. But I can’t help wishing you weren’t leaving angry at me.”

  He shakes his head wearily. “Violet, I’m not angry at you, I just wish you’d done as I asked and not come back at all. The House is failing, and if it founders entirely before the king sets a torch to it, ruin will follow in its wake. I liked knowing you were clear of that. I’d rather you still were.”

  The ground trembles beneath us, the House clearly unhappy at the thought of me leaving it to its fate.

  “I want you to own it to me,” Wyn says. “That Burleigh might be past saving.”

  I press my arms tighter against myself, trying to contain the unhappiness I feel. “You sound like Mira, and I can’t agree with either of you. I can’t let Burleigh go without doing everything possible to keep it safe, and well, and whole. I have to try for this place, Wyn, no matter the risks.”

  He holds a hand out to me. “Goodbye then, Violet.”

  And it’s me this time who doesn’t reach back. Something—disappointment? resignation?—flits across Wyn’s face. He turns and walks off into the woods, where, in a moment, the trees hide him completely.

  8

  IT’S A TESTAMENT TO THE FACT THAT WE’RE STILL SETTLING in that Jed and Mira and I only sit down to breakfast at midmorning the day after we arrive. I don’t think we’ve ever eaten so late before. It feels strange, and uncomfortable. Jed drains his cup of black tea and gets up, pressing a kiss to the crown of Mira’s head, and then mine.

  “I’m off,” he says. “Don’t know when I’ll be back, so don’t wait supper.”

  “Where are you going?” I ask, a little forlornly.

  “To look for work,” he says. “If I’m lucky, I’ll find day labor on one of the farms.”

  “While you’re at it, ask if anyone wants washing done,” Mira tells him. “I’ll want something to keep me busy.”

  And then it’s just Mira and me, and Burleigh.

  “Where’s Wyn this morning?” Mira asks.

  “He left,” I say. “For good. I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Mira reaches across the table and gives my hand a quick squeeze. “Alright. I’m sorry, love.”

  I linger at the table after she gets up. I’m unaccountably anxious at the thought of wandering off into the House on my own. I don’t know why I should feel so nervous—perhaps it’s the time apart, or how poorly things went with Wyn. But I’m suddenly terrified that in spite of my insistence that I’m meant to be a Caretaker, I may turn out to be less than Burleigh needs.

  Mira clatters about, opening and shutting cupboards, taking stock of what we’ve got in the House and what we’ll have to buy or borrow. After a while, she turns to me with a sigh.

  “Violet, love, you’ve got to find something to do with yourself. Begin as you mean to go on, eh?”

  I stand and let out a ragged breath. “You’re right. Have we got a broom and a dustpan I can use?”

  “Corner cupboard. Good girl.”

  I take them out and walk through the guest wing to the long-abandoned ballroom. The crystal chandelier’s fallen and smashed, no one bothering to clear up the bits of glass. I begin sweeping, and the shards make sharp, musical sounds as they’re pushed against one another. It seems like such a small thing to be doing—such an insignificant task compared to the immensity of Burleigh’s discomfort, which is bleeding up through my feet and pressing in on me from all sides.

  Halfway through the job, I give up and slip out of my soft-soled shoes. The moment my bare feet hit Burleigh’s floors, that sense of old pain and prodigious effort intensifies. I reach out and press both hands flat against the hardwood planks in front of me.

  No, not good enough.

  Shifting, I lie down on my side, one ear pressed to the floor, which is chill and smooth beneath the skin of my jaw, the side of my mouth. If I could, I would sink down into the very heart of the House and lend it my strength. But brick and mortar, skin and bone, have always been at odds.

  “Tell me what ails you,” I whisper to Burleigh, desperate to help. “Show me where it hurts.”

  A ponderous groan heaves up from the floor beneath me.

  “That’s right,” I coax. “Unburden yourself, my love. I’m here now. I’m not going anywhere.”

  The House is tentative. It opens up slowly at first. A few threads of pain snake through my skin and into my blood.

  “There you are,” I tell Burleigh. “Show it all to me. Don’t be afraid.”

  The threads grow into ribbons that become ropes that become iron. Intractable bands of the House’s pain wrap around the soft, necessary things inside me. Halfpenny nails of it stud my bones, their small, sharp points driving deeper and deeper, filling me with fractures.

  I lie on the floor and gasp, tears starting in my eyes. But I will not cry out or beg the House to stop. I must know the worst and the worst is this—even darling Burleigh, ancient as the hills, greater than I can fathom, powerful beyond measure and wise in ways past human comprehension, cannot survive long in the face of so much pain.

  A low, anguished sound escapes me as I’m struck by a sense of rot, of things going bad and decaying at my very core. I can no more escape this awful awareness of the House’s dying than all those numerous limpid creatures could escape the razor edge of my fishing spear. It grows so great I cannot bear it—I’m just a girl, after all. A little, fragile thing made of breakable parts.

  And then the cold bite of mortar begins.

  It nips at my fingers to s
tart, then gnaws at my knuckles, freezes my wrists. I watch, dully, as the veins lining my hands stand out and go grey.

  You have to stop this, the fierce fen-survivor in me says. Stop it now.

  It’s all you have to give, the part of me that was born to be a Caretaker argues. All you have. Doesn’t your House come first?

  And in a way, it’s reassuring. Great Houses are extremely particular about who they’ll work House magic with. If Burleigh is willing to use me as an outlet for its mortar, it must see me as a true Caretaker, whether I have a key or not.

  But none of that makes this any less dangerous.

  Before I can decide what to do, the cold fades. Burleigh’s pain vanishes as the House wrenches back, pulling its power and attention away from me with a supreme effort. There’s a horrible sound of splintering wood as the floor splits and a rift opens up along the center of the ballroom. For a moment the chandelier teeters on the edge and then tips over, what’s left of it smashing at the bottom of the newly opened chasm.

  I sit up, somewhat unsteadily, and take a breath. What am I doing here? Wyn was right—I’ve no idea how to be a Caretaker. For all my father drilled it into me that someday, I’d look after Burleigh House, I’m only making things worse. But oh, Burleigh, I want to help.

  Burying my head in my hands, I think of Papa. Of the man he was, and of the space he left behind. Of how small I feel, when I imagine trying to follow after him as a guardian of this powerful, incomprehensible place. Of how high the stakes have risen, and how little I can do to help without the Caretaker’s key, which I’ve held but once before in my life.

  I still remember the feel of that key. The heaviness of it on my palm, the bite of its teeth against my skin when I held it tight. The way the bowstone warmed to my touch and wicked mortar from my skin as I worked magic the way a Caretaker ought to. I think of it now, as I sit and wait for the intolerable aching of House magic to fade from my limbs.

  We were on holiday at the Cornish coast the day my father handed me the key to Burleigh House. We never went far from home in those days—Papa already hated leaving the House behind to travel to London for the Home Council. Mama used to beg to visit the Continent—even Scotland would do, she said, but we never left the West Country. Secretly, I was glad of it.

  So we went to St. Ives the summer I was seven. Mama was moody the whole week we spent at a rented guest cottage. Papa and I did our best not to notice, making sandcastles and bathing in the surf and eating ice creams. I’d never spent so much time with him before, and it was lovely, if a bit strange. Wyn stayed at home with Jed and Mira, and I missed him every day. It was the one thing about the trip Mama insisted on—that we leave Wyn behind.

  The morning we were to leave for home, dark clouds hung over the sea. Thunder grumbled from the west and lightning flared low on the horizon. Papa stood on the beach and watched, though our things had already been packed up and Mama sat waiting in the carriage. It was as if Papa knew what was coming. Perhaps he did. Perhaps the House found a way to tell him.

  Mama kept me at her side until a little boat emerged from the distant storm and limped into port. When I saw Papa head for it, I flung the carriage door open and bolted.

  “Violet!” Mama called after me, a note of desperation in her voice. “Vi, come back here. Stay where it’s safe!”

  But I tore across the sand until I reached Papa. He looked down at me, worry in his eyes.

  “Now then, Vi. Let’s sort out this storm,” he said.

  I knew well enough that Cornwall sometimes saw bad weather—not every storm could be calmed by the House’s magic, and the coast was often buffeted by squalls that Burleigh did no more than tame, so that they cost less in the way of lives and property than they might have. While Burleigh could maintain perfectly clear skies at the heart of the Blackdown Hills, even a House has a hard time pitting itself against the sea.

  Papa and I hurried down a nearby pier to where the little boat had pulled up alongside a vacant slip. When the weathered fisherman aboard tossed a painter to Papa, he caught it and made the vessel fast, then helped the man ashore.

  “I’m George Sterling,” Papa said, and even as a child it fascinated me, how he could speak his name and the tension drained out of people. The wind was rising by then, buffeting the pier and making whitecaps out to sea.

  “Sir, that’s a hundred-year storm out there,” the fisherman shouted, raising his voice to be heard over the wind. “We never used to see them more than once a century, but they’ve been coming more and more often since my grandfather’s day. It’s blowing in fast—you’d best get you and yours inland as quick as you can, and find some place to shelter. There’ll be damage done tonight, and no mistake.”

  “I’ll stay—” Papa began, but then all three of us turned to face the sea, as with a strange rushing noise the water pulled away from shore. One moment it was there, and the next gone, receding with unnerving speed.

  “Violet.”

  I tore my gaze away from the retreating water. Mama had left the carriage and was tugging at my hand. “Come with me. You and I will go somewhere safe. Let your father deal with this. It’s what he does.”

  There was bitterness in her last words, and I didn’t like it, not one bit. I stood at her side and watched in an agony as Papa went back down the pier and out onto the empty beach. Damp sand stretched far, far out to sea, pockmarked with shells and the little holes dug by clams. The boats moored to the pier hung from their painters, or snapped them and fell to the mud below.

  “Violet Sterling, you will come back to the carriage with me at once.” I could hear from the break in Mama’s voice that she was near hysterical, but Papa seemed so alone, out on the sand with no one to stand beside him. I’ve never been able to forget the look Mama gave me as I slipped my hand from hers and ran down the pier, racing across the sand. As if drawn against her will, Mama followed in my wake.

  “Eloise,” Papa said as Mama arrived at his side. Silent tears pooled in her eyes—she’d learned long ago that sobbing had no effect. “I need your help. I need you to take the key. I can shift more magic without it, and you can channel some as well.”

  That startled me. I’d never seen Papa without the Caretaker’s key, which he kept tucked into his fob pocket, secured on the end of a gold watch chain. No one was allowed to touch it—not me, not Mama, not Jed. I knew, with a child’s knowing, that the key kept him safe when he worked with the House. That it let him move Burleigh’s magic, directing the flow of power here and there with his own energy and attention, while ensuring the House did not leak mortar into his living blood, or take more from him than he could give.

  Mama’s face went very white. “I won’t, George. I want nothing to do with any of that and you know it. Isn’t it enough that I suffer through living under Burleigh’s roof?”

  Papa turned to me and two bright spots appeared on Mama’s cheeks.

  “No,” she said, the word all resentment and sharp edges. “If you give the key to our daughter—our child—I swear to you, George, I will pack my bags and leave. Does nothing mean more to you than that House?”

  “Violet, will you take the key?” Papa asked. I nodded solemnly and held out both hands.

  Mama stifled another sob and went back up the beach, tripping and crying all the way. It hurt me to hear her, but the key fit into my hands as if it were made to rest there, warm in my grip, warmer than I’d expected. It sent a little electric thrill from my head to my toes, and I could feel the House’s energy so much more clearly, running through the ground beneath my feet. That energy focused with all-consuming intensity on the horizon, and the stormhead, and a strange gleam of light that stretched across the sea. I squinted and the gleam resolved itself into a wall of water, taller than I’d imagined possible, rushing in toward the shore.

  Raw fear poured through me. The key blazed hot but I refused to let it go. Papa trusted me to hold it, and whatever came, I meant to keep my word.

  “Alright, Burleigh,
” Papa said, crouching in a familiar posture and sinking his hands into the damp sand that surrounded us. “Do what must be done. Take whatever you need.”

  Something like a blast of wind hit me, but I felt it inside, not outside, and knew it must be House magic surging out to sea to meet that terrifying wave. Papa dug his hands deeper into the sand and I clutched the key desperately, though it burned in my grasp.

  The earth beneath me trembled with the House’s effort, as it pushed against the incoming sea, striving to unmake the wall of water racing into shore. Papa trembled, too, without the key to safeguard him. He shook and shook, until I feared the House might tear him limb from limb.

  “Stop, stop,” I shouted, clinging to the key, but tremors still racked Papa and that dreadful wave roared closer, already halfway through the bay and taller by far than Burleigh House itself.

  With nothing to guide me but the overpowering current of House magic flowing out to sea, I stepped in front of Papa, as if to shield him from the rushing wave. The roar of its coming was so loud it ate up my defiant, wordless scream as I clutched the key and fell to my knees, plunging my own hands into the sand and squeezing my eyes shut.

  Noise and fury.

  Fear.

  The roar of the wave.

  The cold touch of mortar and magic rushing through me.

  I shook, and the earth shook, and then . . .

  Salt water, welling gently up around my legs.

  My eyes flew open. In spite of the House magic I’d worked, the protection of the Caretaker’s key had let it pass through me harmlessly. My hands looked ordinary as ever, with no trace of mortar left behind. Just pale skin and the small pink bracelet around my left wrist—the mark I’d worn since birth.

  The wall of water had gone, along with the stormhead and the wind. Small, docile waves lapped their way into shore, gradually moving up the beach to the high-tide mark. They were ankle-deep already when I turned and saw my father, lying crumpled on the sand, his face seamed with veins of stone grey. Stumbling to him, I pressed my warm forehead to his cold one and sobbed.