“I’d never hurt you,” I lie, forcing down not fear but the softer, gentler pieces of me. Because I’m still not sure what I’ll do—whether I’ll choose to unbind Burleigh, or bind it further in an attempt to bring Wyn back. I’m waiting for some sign or beacon, some undeniable sense of rightness to tell me this, Violet. This is how you should choose. “No matter what’s happened before, if you let me in, I swear to unbind you. You’ve known me since the day I came into this world, Burleigh, and I’ve loved you just as long. Can’t you trust me? Can’t you hope for a world where you get more than a lonely rebirth, rebuilding on the bones of someone who never should have died for you? Let me set you free.”
With a whine of rusted hinges, the door swings open. For a moment, I stand on the threshold, breathless and anguished. I almost hoped Burleigh would hold out. That it would shut me out and keep me from breaking its trust, and that would be all the sign I needed.
But the door is open, the way is clear, and I step one more time into Papa’s bedroom, Burleigh’s last and most faithless Caretaker, who stands on the verge of betraying her House.
The room is bare and roofless, and I pick my way around rubble.
“Have it your way, Violet Sterling,” Burleigh says from across the room and I startle. There he sits, on the pile of moldering linens discarded in one corner, wearing the body that was once Wyn’s. I swallow, and steel my nerves.
“Bind us or unbind us. Do what you wish,” Burleigh continues, an almost sorrowful note in his shattered-stone voice. “The truth is, after all these years, we’re tired. So tired, little girl. And it might be more than we could bear, to start over again. We don’t have the strength of spirit or the force of will or the sense of purpose left for new beginnings. So do as you wish—have your way with us.”
Through a window behind Burleigh, I can see the back woods. They’re all ablaze now, and flames are beginning to lick at the wildflower meadow. Not long before they consume it, and come for the rose garden, and then start to gnaw at the walls as well.
I bite at my lower lip. Oh, Burleigh. How you break my heart. Whatever Wyn and my father did for me, I’ve never been anything but bound to you. And what shall I do, here at the end? Break my own binding—not one of blood and mortar, but of love and expectation and countless years of history—in hopes that I can buy Wyn a second chance at life? Or honor the bond between us, and give life to you instead?
“This is the right place, then?” I ask Burleigh. “Your very heart, where I can bind or unbind you?”
Burleigh shrugs, an all too human and Wyn-like gesture, and I wonder. He jerks his head toward the room’s far wall. “Our heart isn’t a place, Violet Sterling. You could have unbound us the moment you laid hands on that stone.”
I glance over at the far wall in confusion and tears prick at my eyes. Because there it is, still carved into the plaster in tall and brutal capitals.
VI. My own, mortar-scarred name.
I have always been the heart of Burleigh House, though it is no longer wholly mine.
Smoke burns at my eyes and I don’t want this, Papa. I’m not enough for it. How do I choose between two halves of myself? How will I live if from this moment on, my soul is split in two?
A good Caretaker puts her House first.
Before king.
Before country.
Before her own heart.
I kneel in front of Burleigh, choking on tears. Pulling my gutting knife from one pocket, I draw it across my palm. Blood wells up, bright and vital, full of life and still-unbroken promises.
“Give me his hand,” I say to Burleigh. The House holds out its hand that once was Wyn’s. But when I cut it, there’s no blood left in these veins, only the gritty grey slick of mortar.
Putting my gutting knife aside, I take the heartstone out and set it on my own bloodied palm.
“Go on,” I say to Burleigh, and the House fixes me with a devastating look. There are eight hundred years of pain and exhaustion and brokenness in those eyes that don’t belong to it, and resignation, too. Right now, in this moment, Burleigh is entirely within my power.
Wyn’s hand cups the top of the heartstone, my blood and Burleigh’s mortar mingling together.
“Burleigh House,” I say. “My name is Violet Sterling, last of my line, and my family has always served you well. By the blood in my veins and the mortar in your walls . . .”
Burleigh fixes his sorrowful, stolen eyes on me, and dear God, all I want is to see Wyn looking out from that face at me again.
“. . . I unbind you. Be whole again, Burleigh. Be well again. Be free.”
Rain slams into me from above as the clouds split apart. A great, earth-shattering roar of thunder shakes the skies, and the foundation of the House. Wind howls through the broken windows. And before me, Burleigh rises in power.
Blinding light radiates from the creature that is no longer Wyn and no longer the House I knew, either. I put up a hand to shield my eyes, and am struck by the sudden, irrational thought that perhaps this isn’t Burleigh at all, but one of the seraphim Mira told me stories of on the fens. An angel of life or death, or perhaps both at once.
Everything around me is wind and thunder and light and rain.
“Remember this, Burleigh,” I call out in a panic, my voice barely audible in the tumult. “Remember how I loved you. And if you can, give him back. Mend my heart again, as I mended yours.”
There’s no answer but the scream of wind and the growl of thunder. At last I’m forced to shut my eyes against the burning light and the driving rain.
When I dare to open them, the noise of the storm has grown bearable. Rain still pelts my skin, but I’m no longer on the grounds. Instead, I’m in the lane, my back to Burleigh’s great iron gate, which has been restored to its prior form.
In front of me stands His Majesty the king and a regiment of soldiers, all of them soaked to the skin and looking like they’ve seen the dead rise up from their graves. Behind me, the House is swathed in a pillar of cloud and fire. The sounds of its restoration are a terrible and mighty thing.
I drop to my knees in the mud of the laneway, wrap my arms around my middle, and sob. I’ve proved myself the greatest of all Caretakers, and bought Burleigh House its freedom against all odds.
In spite of king.
In spite of country.
In spite of my own heart.
But oh, Burleigh. At what cost?
At what cost?
33
I DRIFT IN AND OUT OF SLEEP AS JED AND MIRA ARGUE with Frey at my bedside, tucked away in a little room under the Red Shilling’s eaves.
“She’s ours,” Mira begs. “Let us take her home.”
“That cot you’ve rented is hardly big enough for the two of you as it is,” Frey says staunchly. “And it isn’t home to Vi. You know where her home is. Let her stay here, in a place she knows.”
Jed is the one who kneels beside the bed and takes my hand.
“Violet, my love. What do you think?”
I’m too tired to answer. And I don’t care about any of it, or anything. I’m lost in the same fog they tell me still envelops the House, though it’s been two weeks since I set Burleigh free.
In the end, I stay at the inn. Mira comes to sit next to me in the afternoons and evenings when Frey oversees things. The rest of the time, Frey herself keeps watch, sleeping on a pallet across the room. They’re all worried, I know, but I can’t summon the energy to take an interest or care. I sleep and sleep, waking only to take cups of broth or to use the chamber pot. Even the plate of autumn vegetables and stewed apples and warm bread that Mira brings me over Rosh Hashanah is not enough to tempt me.
Then one morning I wake to a robin singing outside the attic window, and realize the leaves of the branch he perches on have turned to gold.
“Frey?”
She’s by my side in a moment.
“Are things alright, with the West Country? How will everyone fare over winter?”
Frey squeez
es my hand. “There were plenty of folk expecting to starve, if you want the truth. But the day you walked out of that House, every apple tree in the West Country started a second bloom and every heifer and ewe dropped twins. No one’s ever seen the like. The lambs and calves and apples have all grown up at a fearful rate, too—they started pressing cider last week, and the markets are full of stock.”
“What about the king? He just . . . left, after I came out from the House. But before, he’d planned to charge me with treason.”
“He’s back at Hampton Court,” Frey says. “Espie’s gone with him, to make sure he doesn’t get any ideas about renewing those charges. But I doubt there’s any danger of that, not with the West Country in better shape than it’s ever been before. If he laid a finger on you, there’d be riots in the streets. And I hear His Majesty’s at a bit of a loose end, without Falmouth to manage things for him, but that Esperanza’s taken over very capably.”
“I’m sure she has,” I say with a faint smile.
“Do you know what they drink to downstairs every night now?” Frey asks. I can feel myself flush under her close scrutiny. “To Violet Sterling, the bond breaker, and to Burleigh House restored.”
“And Burleigh?”
Frey turns, so I can’t look her in the eyes. “Shut up tight, and showing no sign of opening its gate again. I’m sorry.”
I don’t ask after Wyn. I can’t bring myself to speak his name. That wound is still too raw, and I’m not sure it will ever really heal. This is everything you once wanted, I remind myself. To see your House whole and well and free.
But inside me there is an endless sea, not of fear, but of grief, and I cannot push it back or confine it, no matter how hard I try.
At last, I find the will to get out of bed. And every afternoon I walk the scant mile to Burleigh House, though it takes me longer than it should to make the trip. I sit on the verge beside the lane and watch the meadow grasses go from gold to brown, the hedgerows sprouting red berries and gilded leaves. When the first frost comes and the afternoon air begins to bite, I wrap myself in a thick wool cloak, but I still make the journey.
Even now, with the walls impenetrable and the gate shut to me, I can’t help being drawn back to my House.
Hanukkah comes and goes. But Mira’s latkes and Jed singing “Maoz Tzur” in his deep bass voice are hollow joys this year. Christmas I keep with Frey and her son and daughter-in-law, who make the trip down from London. There’s a tree in the public room of the inn and we sing carols with guests who happen to be traveling over Christmastide. Or rather, everyone else sings, and I stand mute, the music washing over me like a river parting around heartless stone.
When the holidays pass, I resume my vigil outside Burleigh House, sitting with my back to the wall, dozing in thin winter sunshine, listening to the wind over the frozen fields.
And one day, one entirely ordinary day in mid-January, I wake from a fitful sleep outside Burleigh’s walls and find a bluebell has sprouted between my fingers. I glance over to the wrought-iron gate and slowly, soundlessly, it swings open.
Getting to my feet, I walk over and stand on the very brink of Burleigh’s grounds.
The House is visible again, all the mist that shrouded it burned away. It looks just as it once did, when I was a child. Warm stone. Leaded glass windows. Gardens dreaming of spring under their cover of frost. Wood smoke even spirals up from the chimneys, scenting the air. It looks and smells and feels like home.
“Wyn?” I ask, my voice carrying far in the cold and the silence. “Are you there?”
Only the birds in the hedgerows answer. And when I step away, I know I ought not to come back to Burleigh House again. I may be well enough in body, but so long as I keep returning, I will never be well in spirit.
When an early thaw hits, turning all the world to mud and sleet, I begin to think it’s time to take my leave, not just of Burleigh House, but of the Halt as well. I wait tables as I try to make up my mind, and while most of my pay comes in the form of room and board, what coin I do get I put aside.
Frey’s careful with me, watching closely, as if I’ve grown breakable since freeing the House. Perhaps she’s right. Some days, everything seems fine. But others, I feel like a snapped reed, unable to stand on my own. I can’t shake the temptation to slip out each night, after the inn has closed and the last of the evening’s patrons wander home. To take the familiar north lane, until I reach the walls of Burleigh House. Once there, I run my fingers along smooth stone, returning time and again to the iron gate, where I stand on the threshold and speak into the hush of Burleigh at rest.
Wyn. Are you there?
Ash Wednesday is the day I settle on. It’s before Purim this year, and I don’t think I could smile through a celebration with Jed and Mira. I’ll go back to the fens, I think, where life was simpler and where I knew my way. When I tell Frey, her eyes are kind.
“I understand, Violet. You’ll write, though, won’t you?”
Mira bakes as if there’s no food to be had in Lincolnshire, and Jed whittles morosely, carving me little replicas of all the marsh birds. Though they’ve offered to come with me, I insist on going alone. They’ve made a life here again, renting a cottage at the edge of Longhill Farm, where Jed still day labors and Mira takes in washing and mending. I will not uproot them a third time on my behalf, though I’ll miss them desperately.
I don’t write to Espie to tell her that I’m leaving. She writes to me, though, to say that all of London is in a stir over what’s happened with Burleigh House. There are riots in the streets after all, though I face no charges for what I’ve done. Everyone wants freedom for the remaining four Houses, now Burleigh’s unbinding has proved a success, and they’re not keeping quiet about it.
The last shift I’m to work at the Shilling comes at once too slowly and too soon. As always, I’m kept running across the tavern with trays of frothy mugs that smell of yeast and hops. I’m busy, at least, and it’s a comfort. When I do manage a moment of self-reflection, I remind myself of this: the West Country is prospering. The weather has been just what it ought. Larders are full enough from the fall harvest to last two winters, rather than just one.
My House is well, as is the countryside. What more could a Caretaker want?
And yet.
Late in the evening, the inn door opens with a bang and a gust of wind that’s still cold after dark. Shouts to close it come from the gathered farmers and I glance up to see a figure shutting the door. He crosses the tavern and sits at the long counter, where he sheds his coat.
“I’ll be with you in a minute,” I sing out. By the time I manage to get behind the counter with an empty tray, I’m breathless and red-faced.
“Can I help you?” I ask, and stop short.
“Hello, Vi,” Wyn says.
For a moment we just stare at each other, and then he smiles. I’d nearly forgotten how a smile pulls his mouth up further on one side than the other, and how he squints just the slightest bit.
“Have you been well?” Wyn asks.
“Well enough,” I say slowly. I’m not sure any of this is real. It seems too much like one of the muddled dreams I had last summer, while desperately working to free the House. But someone shouts for another drink, and my unconscious certainly never dwelled much on tipsy West Country farmers.
I turn with my hands on my hips. “Shut it, I’ll be with you in a minute!”
“Sorry.” I turn back to Wyn, still in shock. “And . . . and you? You’re alright? Burleigh, too?”
“We are. It’s taken a while, getting things sorted out, but both of us are well, and we’re each of us in one piece, as you can see.”
I steal looks at him in between polishing glasses. My hands are shaking, though, and I’m afraid of breaking something, so at last I set my rag down and give up the pretext of busyness.
“Wyn, I thought you were dead.”
“So did I,” he says frankly. “Until I realized there was clearly enough of me left al
ive to think it. And then I started coming back to myself, piece by piece. It took ages, though. I suppose even Burleigh unbound has a hard time working miracles.”
Wyn smiles again, and my knees go weak. The florid-faced farmer calling for drinks is growing insistent, and I round on him to hide the tears pricking behind my eyes. “Harry Mason! Shut up or get it yourself!”
He grouses a little and hauls himself to his feet, joining me behind the counter, where he fiddles with the tap of the ale keg and mutters under his breath.
“Oh, stop it,” I sigh, pushing him away. “Just let me do it.”
When I’ve settled Farmer Mason with a full mug, I turn my attention back to Wyn.
“What—what will you do now?” I ask tentatively. “Where will you go?”
Wyn leans forward across the counter, resting his weight on his elbows, and is about to speak when Frey bursts through the back hallway door. I stifle a groan of frustration.
“Oh, blood and mortar, Violet,” Frey says. “What are you still doing behind the counter? I think it’s quite alright for you to end your last shift early if someone’s come back from the dead.”
“Are you sure?” I ask, and Frey rolls her eyes.
“Quite sure. Give me that apron, and go on.”
Before I can blink, I’ve been unceremoniously hurried out from behind the counter, and then through the inn door onto the cobbled street.
“Goodbye,” Frey murmurs. “I’m not going to make a fuss, but I wish you all the very best, Vi. And I think you’d better not change your plans. Leave this place behind you, but take that boy along.”
The door shuts decidedly, leaving Wyn and me alone in the fresh nighttime air.
“In answer to your question, I thought I’d go wherever you go, Vi,” he says at last. “If it’s alright. The thing is, you’ve always come first for me. Before Burleigh House, or the countryside, or my own life. None of that’s changed. I’m still for you, so I suppose we’ve just got to sort out who you’re for, now Burleigh’s unbound.”
I’ll never tire of it, hearing him say that I come first. But we walk, and my feet can’t let their old habits go. Wyn and I are silent for a long time, carrying on side by side with a little space between us. It seems the only sound in the whole world is that of our booted footsteps.
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