“No, it isn’t. If I were fighting with you, I’d be cross. I’m never cross with you.”
“I’m cross with you sometimes,” I point out. “What makes you so much nicer than I am?”
I slow my pace, and Wyn walks on a few steps.
“I’ve always been nicer than you are,” he says. “Everyone knows that.”
When Wyn notices I’m not keeping up, he stops and turns, waiting patiently. I put my head a little to one side and look at him. At first when I came home, seeing Wyn was a bit of a wrench. I kept expecting to see the child I grew up with. But it’s not like that anymore. Right now, I don’t want to see anyone else, just him, as he is in this moment.
And blood and mortar, I’m glad he came back.
“What are you looking at?” Wyn asks with a puzzled frown.
“Nothing,” I say, catching up with him. “Nothing at all.”
18
MIDWAY THROUGH MY SHIFT AT THE SHILLING, ALFRED comes downstairs, looking gloomy and a bit at a loose end without Esperanza. He occupies their usual table, covering every inch of its surface with papers and notebooks, ledgers and ancient-looking texts.
Alfred only ever takes tea, I know that by now, and the second time I stop at the table to freshen his pot, I sit down opposite him for a moment.
“Have you ever seen this bit of verse before?” I ask, taking Wyn’s drawing from my pocket and sliding it across the table wrong-side up so Alfred can see the handwriting on the back.
He squints down at the page through his spectacles and goes suddenly pale. “Where did you get this?”
“I found it at the House,” I say.
“Forget about it,” Alfred says, burying his nose in a book once more.
I reach across the table and pull the book downward, so he can’t hide behind it. “You and Wyn are both being very cagey about this, and it’s really not accomplishing what you intend. It’s my House, Alfred. I have a right to know what this means.”
He gives me a pained look. “Esperanza would kill me if she found out I told you.”
“Then she never has to know,” I say.
“I don’t like keeping secrets from Espie.” Alfred sounds disgruntled, and I give him my firmest look.
“I don’t like having a House that’s dying.”
“Oh, very well.” Alfred rifles through his assortment of documents and pulls an extremely old book toward us. As he leafs through it, I can see that all the pages are hand-lettered in faded ink, and the binding made of some sort of cured animal skin. Though I can make out most of the spellings, the language is unfamiliar.
Alfred gestures to a section of text and I shake my head. “I can’t read it. What is it?”
“Oh, sorry. It’s an Anglo-Saxon text, from my namesake, Alfred the Great’s, reign. That dates it to nearly two hundred years before the Great Houses were bound. Do you see this?” He points to a few indented lines. “That’s your verse, more or less. More, really; it’s almost identical. It’s a set of instructions that explain how a person can be bound to a Great House. We call it a binding rhyme, those of us who’ve made a study of the Houses.”
I frown. “Why would anyone need to bind themselves to a Great House, especially if the Houses hadn’t even been bound by William the Deedwinner yet?”
“There are two stories here,” Alfred says, overcoming the reluctance that’s obviously warring with his chronic desire to discuss obscure points of House history. “One’s about a House in the Scottish Highlands—it’s not called a House in the text, though; they call it a witchcroft. According to this book, it was incredibly old, older than anything else in those parts, and began to fail. It needed new land, and a fresh start. So the man who tended it at the time—call him what you like, a priest, a shaman, a Caretaker—bound himself to the croft. He gave it his blood and bones and breath and brought it to Yorkshire, where it eventually became Ripley Castle. Fascinating.”
“And the other story?” I ask.
“Hold up.” Alfred turns a few pages. “Alright, here it is. The chronicler talks about a place in Exmoor, near Withypool. He says there was a strange village called Burglǽcan, or ‘the town that springs up.’ And the people who lived there? They were called Stiorlings—from stioran, meaning to guide and direct. Burglǽcan had been around for ages, too, but seemed to be alright until a group of Danes came inland and tried to raid the village. The raiders just . . . died, suddenly, without warning or violence, and the chronicler says a grey substance sprang from their ears and their eyes and their noses. After that, Burglǽcan goes into a swift decline, until one of the Stiorlings binds herself to the place and relocates it.”
“To the Blackdown Hills,” I say.
“That’s right,” Alfred says. “To the Blackdown Hills, where I would assume it became Burleigh House.”
“And we became the Sterlings.”
“Exactly.”
“What happened to the woman who moved Burleigh?” I ask, leaning forward. “And to the man who moved the Scottish House?” Excitement thrums through me. “Could I move Burleigh again, to give it a new beginning?”
Perhaps I won’t have any need to find the elusive deed after all. Perhaps there’s a simpler answer to all my problems.
Alfred looks down at the book in front of him. “They died. There are other stories from the Continent and it’s always the same. You can save a Great House by binding yourself to it, but it’s a death sentence.”
“Oh,” I say, my voice small. “That’s why Esperanza wouldn’t want you to tell me. She thinks I’d—”
“Yes,” Alfred answers. “That’s what she’s afraid of.”
He takes his spectacles off and pinches two fingers to the bridge of his nose, as if his head aches. “I can’t tell you what to do, Violet. I suppose it really comes down to this—is Burleigh the thing you love most in this world? Espie’s that for me, and if I really had to, I’d die for her in a heartbeat. Would you die for Burleigh?”
I ought to be just as sure as Alfred is. After all, I spent my entire childhood learning my place, my duty, my calling. I am the Caretaker of Burleigh House, and a good Caretaker puts her House before anything, even her own life.
But oh, it feels as if I have only just started to live.
I was once so certain of myself and what would be required of me in this world. As a child, everything seemed clear—I would look after Burleigh, and Burleigh would look after me. Even on the fens, I knew that if I could just get home, everything would be alright again.
It isn’t, though. It’s all falling apart.
“Thank you, Alfred.” I stuff the binding rhyme back into my pocket. “I’m glad you told me the truth.”
“What are you going to do?” he asks.
“I don’t know yet,” I answer truthfully. “I’ll have to think about it.”
And I do think about it. Consequently, I make a muddle of everything for the rest of the evening, until Frey takes me aside and asks me if I’m feeling quite well. I’m not, though there’s nothing wrong with me in body, only in spirit. Everything’s tangled up inside me, a mess of fear and anxiety about what’s to come. As I walk to the door at closing time and remember Falmouth’s hands on my wrists and my throat, fear over what’s already passed hits me as well. The moment I set my hand on the knob, I can feel his arm pressed up against my neck again, and his fingers digging into my flesh.
Shaking my head to clear it, I step out into the damp night air. I will not do this. I will not let one arrogant, entitled nobleman make me afraid of the place I was born to. I’ve enough fears already, and no desire to add to that collection.
Looking up at the stars, I start to count. But I’m interrupted before I number a dozen of them.
“Forget I was coming?” Wyn’s leaning against the inn wall in a patch of moonlight. And suddenly, inexplicably, at the sight of him all my fears vanish.
“I did,” I admit a little shamefacedly. “But you were right earlier—I’m glad you’re here.”
<
br /> Wyn grins, and we fall into stride with one another, walking down the lane toward home. Though it’s June, the closer we get to Burleigh House the colder it becomes. By the time we’re half a mile away, frost rimes the hedgerows. The stars shine cold and clear overhead, and my breath smokes on the air. I shiver, and wrap my arms around myself.
“This can’t be a good sign,” I say to Wyn.
“No. Vi, about that—something happened to the House today, while you were at the Shilling.”
I stop short. “Something happened? What do you mean?”
Wyn winces and shakes his head. “You’ll see soon enough.”
All my fears spring to life once more, swimming in endless circles through my veins. As we turn in at the bramble gate, I can sense something at once—Burleigh’s pain, which I’m always conscious of on the grounds, is no longer a dull throb. It’s sharp and immediate and impossible to ignore. I gasp as it hits me.
Ivy slithers along the drive the moment I step through the gate and snakes up to twine around my hand. Tiny white flowers unfold along the length of it, and I can feel Burleigh’s pathetic eagerness to have me home.
“Poor darling,” I whisper. “What’s happened here?”
Then I look up at the House itself and a sob rises in my throat.
The roof of the guest wing has collapsed in on itself. Mortar seeps from torn timbers and shattered stone, and blackened brambles are already climbing up the walls. I gather up my skirts and run down the drive, bursting into the House where Burleigh’s pain hits me afresh, blazing like a beacon.
When I open the door to the guest wing, a cloud of dust pours out, choking me. Once it settles, I stare at the wreckage beyond in horror.
A massive two-story hole gapes above us, open to the night sky, and what’s left of the rooms are strewn with mountains of wreckage. There’s mortar everywhere, the lifeblood of my House leaking out from within it, and I press a hand to my mouth at the sight.
“Vi,” Wyn says quietly, appearing at my side as I stand motionless. “Are you alright?”
No. Seeing my House in distress makes me feel as if I’m crumbling on the inside as well. I could serve food and drink and clean tables at the Shilling for five hundred years and never earn enough to repair the damage I’m looking at. Not to mention the deed. A single summer, to attempt what my father couldn’t manage in years, with the full resources of the West Country and the Sterlings’ ancestral lands at his disposal.
I am penniless, keyless, and woefully inexperienced by comparison. I am not enough. I will go down in history as the first and last Sterling to fail Burleigh House.
All of this roils beneath my skin, but if there’s one thing Burleigh and I have in common, it’s a capacity to keep our darkness and unpleasantness locked up inside. I will not break down. I will not let this panic pour out.
But I feel so very small and helpless. I want, more than anything, for Wyn to reach out and take my hand. For him to promise me everything will come out right in the end. I’m not sure it will, but I think if he said it, I’d believe him. And yet I know it’s wrong to expect that of him. Burleigh is my burden to bear.
So Wyn and I stand silently, side by side, looking at the beginning of Burleigh’s end.
“Would you die for something you love?” I ask finally. “If it was the only way for you to keep it from harm?”
Wyn hesitates.
“I would,” he says after a moment. And then Wyn turns to me.
“Violet?” he says. “Come away with me. I promise I won’t ask again, but let’s just go.”
There’s no hope in his voice. He’s asking out of habit, not because he thinks there’s a chance.
I reach out and press a hand to one of Burleigh’s failing walls. Fear seeps into my skin. Panic. Loneliness.
I’ve never wanted so badly to say yes to Wyn, and to leave this all behind me, but I can’t.
So I turn to him, too. We face each other until I bridge the gap between us. I run a thumb along the line of his jaw, my fingers in the unkempt hair at the back of his neck. Wyn’s skin against mine feels like magic without the mortar. It feels like electricity and possibility, and because of what I’m about to say, like the beginning of our end.
Wyn draws in a ragged breath and looks at me, and I can see everything he wants written plain across his face.
Me, alone, away from Burleigh House. The two of us together.
And the truth is, sometimes I want that, too.
“Who would I be if I left, Wyn?” I ask, ruthlessly tamping my own wanting down. “Who would I be?”
Alone in my room, I settle myself on the window seat. I feel bruised on the inside, but I take the binding rhyme from my pocket and spread it out on the cushion in front of me.
“Burleigh,” I whisper. “I know you’ve had a hard day. I know you’re tired. But will you show me what you can about this?”
Everything grows dim, until darkness falls around me.
Papa’s room wavers to life as the dark fades. My father stands beside the bed looking very young—no more than a few years older than I am now—and there’s someone else lying under the covers. An older gentleman, who I recognize after a moment. I’ve seen his portrait before, in what is now the ruins of the dining hall. My grandfather, Henry Sterling, who died years before I was born. He looks ill, and presses a sheet of folded paper into Papa’s hand.
“This is for you, boy,” my grandfather says. “You’ll have the key soon enough. And I hope you’ll live a long life and be an admirable Caretaker. But should things go badly in your time—should the House begin to fail, as some have done on the Continent, and as the Sixth House did—know there’s always something that can be done, if you have the courage for it.”
Papa’s young self opens the page and scans the lines of verse. “What is it?”
“A reminder,” my grandfather tells him. “That just as William the Deedwinner and all his heirs have bound the Great Houses to themselves with blood and mortar, so you can bind yourself to Burleigh House.”
“Bind myself to the House?” Papa frowns. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
Henry Sterling struggles to sit up in bed, and Papa moves to help him.
“It’s not often spoken of,” my grandfather says. “Most Caretakers have chosen to forget such a thing can be done. They’ve let the memory of it fade from their families. But we remember.”
“Alright. If you want me to do it, and it’s for Burleigh’s good, then tell me what must be done,” Papa says without hesitation.
“No.” My grandfather places a warning hand on his arm. “It’s only for the very end of things, George. If Burleigh falls into dire straits and the House itself should begin to fail, then you, as Caretaker, can be bound to it—given in service to the House, to be used as a vessel to carry Burleigh elsewhere, so that it can begin again, away from its own ruins.”
“And then?”
Henry Sterling, the grandfather I never knew, shakes his head. “There is no and then, George. The House would consume you entirely, in order to start anew. It would take you over, and leave you lifeless when it goes back into the earth.”
Papa is pale and wide-eyed, and I know exactly how he feels. Exactly how the reality and responsibility of life as a Caretaker must have weighed upon him in that moment.
“How is it done,” Papa asks after a moment, “should I have need of it?”
“It’s quite a simple matter. Speak your intent—of giving yourself up for Burleigh—and let your blood mingle with its mortar. You’ll be able to feel everything the House feels then, even without a key. Burleigh will bend to you. It is like . . . a union of souls, or so my great-grandfather said he’d been told. Should you lose your nerve, you’ll have one last chance to walk away, because you must work House magic after the binding, if you’re to absorb what Burleigh is. Anytime you take in Burleigh’s power, it will eclipse you a little more, until it finally reaches your very heart. Then you’ll be overshadowed, the la
st true servant of our House, who allows it to be reborn, free and unbound.”
Papa takes his father’s hands in his own. “I swear to you I’ll do it, should Burleigh require it of me.”
Henry Sterling nods, and smiles, and a little of the tension drains from his face.
“You’re very certain, my boy. And certainty is what’s required. A willingness to give of yourself. Make sure you’re just as certain if the time comes when a binding is needed, because once bound to a House, you cannot be freed unless someone else takes your place. Even then, you’d have to be absent from the House entirely, in order for it to accept a new bearer and to set you free.”
The memory fades, leaving me sitting cross-legged on the window seat, staring down at my grandfather’s handwriting in the moonlight. But his words are still ringing in my ears.
You will be able to feel everything the House feels, even without a key. It will bend to you. It is like a union of souls.
It will eclipse you.
You will be overshadowed.
It will take you over, and leave you lifeless when it goes back into the earth.
I pull my knees to my chest, wrapping my arms around them and making myself as small as I can. I know my duty, but that doesn’t keep all of this from feeling like more than I should have to bear. And it doesn’t make me any less afraid.
19
EACH MORNING, I THROW MYSELF INTO THE HERCULEAN task of cleaning up the rubble in the guest wing. Every afternoon, I walk into the Shilling and ask Alfred if there’s been any progress in the search he and Esperanza are making for the deed. There hasn’t been. Espie’s managing to hold off her father and the dreadful Lord Falmouth, and that’s about it. With anxiety eating holes inside me, I wait tables and go home in the summer dark and plumb Burleigh’s memories, conducting my own peculiar search.
Nothing turns up. I read Papa’s ledger from cover to cover. Then I read it again. I ask for memories of a hundred inconsequential days. I watch Papa fight with Mama. I watch him leave, and leave, and leave. I watch her leave. I watch Papa drink. I watch him entertain the king, and see the tension in his shoulders, the wariness in his eyes I never noticed as a child.
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