A Treason of Thorns

by Laura E. Weymouth

  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 toward 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’s 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 the top of the steps, where Jed is standing by. Even Jed looks odd, though, lit by that same wavering light.

  “Am I alright?” 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 to really 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 checkered 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 stone 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 forever?

  “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 alright, 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 anymore.”

  When he speaks, he’s so near that his breath warms the side of my face. He smells, incongruously, of warm rich earth, 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 are 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.”

  “This isn’t you,” I insist. “Not the boy I know. There is no we, just you and Burleigh House. Hold on to yourself, Wyn—you’d never do me harm.”

  “Really?” It’s strange and eerie, listening to Wyn’s disembodied voice in the absolute darkness, hearing it grow less and less like his usual tone. “What have we ever been but bound, bound to put your needs before our own? We’ve never been free, Violet. Would you even recognize us, I wonder?”

  He’s mostly Burleigh again, wavering back and forth between the two moment by moment, and fear washes over me. I can’t help but feel as if it’s Wyn speaking to me, even when Burleigh’s voice is the one coming from his lips.

  “Couldn’t I say the same?” I retort, falling back on Sterling stubbornness and indignation because there is nothing else left to me. “When have you ever known me to be free? Born on these grounds, shedding blood onto your soil every time I skinned a knee or pricked a finger. Told from the time I could speak that you’re meant to be the Caretaker, Vi, and a good Caretaker puts her House first. You bound me yourself when I was five—I’ve spent more of my life with your mortar running in my veins than I have without it. You may be bound, but so am I.”

  “Give us what we lost,” the voice says, and there’s nothing of Wyn left in it, just the scrape of stone.

  “I can’t. Not like this.”

  Implacable fingers grasp at my arm and I jerk away, scrambling to my feet. But when I beat my fists against the cupboard door, the vines outside hold fast.

  “Wyn,” I plead, “stop this, please, you’re frightening me.”

  For a long moment, all I can hear is the sound of my own rattling breath, a counterpoint to the inhale and exhale of whoever is here in the dark.

  There’s a snap like a small peal of thunder, followed by the smell of burning vines. The cupboard door flies open, and I’m blinded by noon sun, though I walked through the door on a moonlit night. Unforgiving sunshine shows my decaying room, the window seats littered with broken glass and slate roofing tiles, the bedclothes spotted with mildew.

  Wyn stands in the shadows behind me. His skin is grey and rough as mortar, but his eyes are his own.

  “There’s something here Burleigh doesn’t want you to find,” he says, wincing as if the words burn his mouth. “Out in the back woods, past the trout stream. Everything’s a muddle and I don’t know what it is, but maybe it’s what you’re looking for. Maybe it’s the heart of the House.”

  Already the grumble of stone is creeping back into his voice, and his eyes are glazing over with a film of mortar.

  “Stay with me,” I murmur, stepping closer and pressing my lips to his forehead, his jawline, his mouth. “Don’t leave me, Wyn. I want you with me when all this is over. None of this matters without you—not Burleigh, not a Caretaker’s key, not my name or my land or my legacy.”

  His eyes clear and fix on me. “Vi. There’s no time. Go.”

  With one last regretful look at him, standing half in shadow, half in sunshine, I gather my courage and bolt.

  31

  I WISH I’D PUT ON SHOES AFTER WAKING TO THAT FEVER dream of Mama and Papa. As I hurtle down the stairs, a dark and all-encompassing malice rises up through my bare soles. The House is unhappy, but I know who I am again. I know my purpose, and I will not stop for anythin
g, not even Burleigh.

  The sun hangs low on the western horizon as I burst through the conservatory door and wing my way across the rose garden. The light’s lengthening preternaturally fast—I have no way of knowing how much time I’ve spent within the walls. The roses have resumed their dry, decayed aspect, now my mind is free of Burleigh’s influence. The wildflower meadow lies dead and dying, too. Halfway down the well-worn path at its center, a thistle pierces one of my already damaged feet, but I keep going, ignoring the pain that jolts up my leg with each step.

  The woods loom ahead, and there are still gaps in the wall of brambles surrounding them. I step through one open place, and am overwhelmed by a dreadful sense of unease, the sort of taut energy a wild creature possesses before taking its prey. It renews my sense of urgency, and I hurry along, twisted trees flashing by at the edge of my vision, reaching out to me with grasping twigs. I don’t know if it’s just the normal way of reaching branches or if the House is trying to slow me, but I don’t stop to find out. Leaping over fallen trunks and low spots where fetid water pools on the ground, I head for Burleigh’s heart, and for this journey’s end.

  My lungs burn and my legs shake by the time the trout stream appears as a glimmer through the trees. When the stream bank approaches, I gather myself without slowing and jump for all I’m worth.

  The landing forces a yelp from me. Part of the thistle must still be lodged in my foot, because it feels as if I’m stepping on knives each time I shift my weight. But there’s no time, no time. The pain in my feet is already matched by pain in my head. It blurs my vision and sets the forest spinning, and worse yet, dulls my wits.

  I reach into my pocket and pull out the heartstone, gripping it tight. Let it remind me. Let it hold my focus.

  Still, as the pain in my foot grows, I slow, and limp, and finally sit to pull the spines from my sole because it’s silly to run when every step is an agony. By the time I’ve yanked all the spines free and wrapped the wound with a strip torn from my skirt, I’m not sure what I’m doing so far into the woods. It’s foolish to wander so far from Burleigh, when the House has only ever looked after me and I’ve never wanted anything but to be together.