Green Rider

by Kristen Britain

  “Oh!” fretted Bunch. “I told Letitia to leave the nuts out of the scones.”

  Miss Bayberry struck Karigan soundly on the back.

  “A what accompanies me?” she sputtered.

  “My,” Bunch said. “She’s deaf, too.”

  “A SPIRIT!” Miss Bayberry hollered through cupped hands.

  “Please,” Karigan said, her back stinging and her ears ringing, “I can hear fine.”

  “Ah.” Miss Bayberry crooked a skeptical brow. “You are accompanied by a shadow. A specter, a ghost, a shade. You know, dear, a spirit.” Her apparent ease with the topic was unnerving. “He follows you. You, or something about you, binds him to the earth.”

  Karigan paled. She had heard stories, of course, of dead relatives visiting those still alive and loved. There were many tales of spirits haunting buildings in Selium, but she had never given them much credence.

  “Now you’ve gone and done it, Bay. You’ve upset the child.”

  “H-how do you see this spirit?” Karigan asked.

  “Quite simply, the same way we see you.” Bunch twisted her teacup in her hand. “He wears green and has black hair hanging to his shoulders. Two black-shafted arrows protrude from a blood-dampened back that will not dry.”

  “He calls himself F’ryan Coblebay,” Miss Bayberry said.

  Karigan’s hands trembled. How could they know what he looked like or how he had died unless . . . unless they really could see him? They could have gotten his name off the love letter which had still been in the pocket of the greatcoat. . . . The greatcoat had disappeared from the bathing room with the rest of her clothes.

  Miss Bayberry placed a comforting hand on Karigan’s wrist. “Not to worry, dear. Master Coblebay is only trying to watch over you, to see that his mission is carried out. After that, he will pass on. As it is, he tends to fade in and out. His link with that which is earthly is rather limited. One day, you too, may see.”

  Karigan shook her head in disbelief. Here she was, in this incredible manor house, with two old, eccentric ladies who could communicate with ghosts. Either they were cracked, or they were seers, or some other sort of magic was at work. “Who are you?” she asked. “And what are you doing out here in the middle of nowhere?”

  Miss Bayberry rapped the handle of her cane on the little table. Scones and cookies bounced, and teacups clattered. “Bunch! Did we forget introductions? Did we?”

  An expression of horror swept across Bunch’s plump features, and she covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh, Bay. In our haste to please, we forgot. It has been so long since anyone has visited. Can you forgive us, child, for forgetting this one basic propriety?”

  Karigan stared dumbly.

  The ladies must have perceived her reaction as forgiveness, for they both released sighs of genuine relief.

  “Well, then,” Miss Bayberry said, “let us introduce ourselves properly. We are the Berry sisters. I am Bay and this is my sister Bunch.”

  “Our dear father, the late Professor Berry, gave us names that made us sound like some of the local vegetation,” Bunch said with a chuckle. “Terms of endearment, really. They are but nicknames.”

  “We were born,” Miss Bayberry said, “with the names Isabelle—”

  “And Penelope,” Bunch finished. “Though we rarely use our true names.”

  “We loved our father a great deal. It was he who built this house in the midst of the Green Cloak’s wilds. He said it was the only way to absorb the power of nature and bring to the wilderness an element of civilization. What with no towns nearby, and the unpredictability of living near the northern border, it was not an easy life, especially for our mother. Child, there wasn’t even a road back then.”

  Miss Bunchberry smoothed a crease out of her linen napkin. “When our father built Seven Chimneys, he sought to provide Mother a respectable estate. He spared no expense for her, and even brought along the entire household staff from our original home in Selium.”

  “Selium,” Karigan said. “That’s where I began my journey.”

  “Are you a scholar?” Miss Bayberry asked.

  Karigan frowned. “No.” She hadn’t been much of anything at Selium.

  “Ah, well. Our father was. He was a master of many disciplines—so many that he just wore a white uniform with a master’s knot. None of the single disciplines have white uniforms, you know, and Father was the only one to wear it. Soon he studied disciplines that were no longer taught . . . or approved of.”

  Miss Bunch leaned forward. “The arcane arts,” she whispered.

  A tremor ran up Karigan’s spine. Magic was a topic to be shunned by most Sacoridians.

  “Who is telling the story?” Miss Bayberry demanded.

  Miss Bunchberry pouted.

  “Don’t interrupt again.” Miss Bayberry cast her sister a severe expression, then cleared her throat and continued. “Father started to study the arcane arts. He spent years poring over old books and scrolls in the archives, first to learn the history of magic, then to learn its application. The latter made the Guardian of Selium nervous. You see, after those incursions made by Mornhavon the Black, who used such terrible powers during the Long War, people have been phobic of magic, as if using it would restore Mornhavon, or someone like him, to power.

  “The Guardian finally demanded that Father either stop trying to awaken magic, or leave the city. As you may have concluded, Father chose to leave the school.”

  Karigan was incredulous. First ghosts, now magic. These two old ladies must be daft. Her hands shook a little as she set her empty teacup on the table before her.

  “Was . . . was your father successful?” she asked. “At awakening magic, I mean. . . .”

  “Yes and no,” Miss Bayberry said. “He had no natural talent. Either you are born with innate talent, or you can possess a device which provides or augments powers. Mornhavon the Black had natural powers, but he augmented them with a device called the Black Star. Father did try to create magical devices, but he wasn’t very successful because the magic wasn’t within him. The arcane arts are elusive. Still, he was able to accomplish some things. I expect you know all about magic.”

  “Uh, no.”

  Miss Bayberry raised both brows. “But surely you must know since you carry a magical device.”

  “I—”

  Karigan looked at Miss Bayberry, then Miss Bunchberry. Their faces were flat, their eyes questioning. The house creaked in the stillness.

  “You are a Green Rider, are you not?” Miss Bayberry asked.

  “No, not exactly.”

  The ladies exchanged glances and rounded their mouths into O’s.

  “Our question to you, then,” Miss Bunchberry said, “is who are you?”

  Karigan shifted uncomfortably in her seat under their intense gazes. It was as if the room had suddenly iced over. She realized she would have to do some fast talking or . . . Or what? What could these two possibly do to her? With all the talk of magic and ghosts, better not to find out.

  In acknowledgment of their penchant for propriety, she stood up and bowed the formal bow of the clans: one hand over her heart, and bending deeply at the waist.

  “I’m Karigan G’ladheon of Clan G’ladheon,” she said. “At your service.”

  “A merchant greeting,” Miss Bunchberry said in hushed tones to her sister.

  Miss Bayberry remained unmoved, absently caressing the smooth handle of her cane. “You’d best tell us your story, Karigan G’ladheon.”

  Karigan cleared her throat uncertainly. She glanced at the fire, finding some comfort in its warmth and cheerful crack and pop. “I, uh, left Selium rather abruptly.” She took a deep breath. “I was a student there, and the dean suspended me. Indefinitely.”

  The sisters maintained their stoic expressions. Somehow it seemed terribly important to be honest with them. If she admitted her doubtful background, they would be more willing to trust her. Still, it didn’t make the telling any easier.

  “The dean
suspended me because I skipped classes and such. He said my, uh, attitude wasn’t good.” Blood crept up her neck and colored her cheeks, and still the ladies stayed mute, neither condemning her nor offering comfort. “The main reason he suspended me was because there was this fight. And I won.”

  She could still see it clearly, the throng of students pushing and shoving around the practice ring to see what was happening, Timas Mirwell prone on the ground, spitting dirt, the tip of her wooden practice sword against the back of his neck. You are dead, she had told him.

  Miss Bunch lifted a brow. “You were suspended for winning a fight?”

  “I beat the heir of the lord-governor of Mirwell Province.” At the time, she hadn’t felt remorseful about challenging him to the fight, then thrashing him. He had humiliated her in a number of other ways since the first day she arrived at school, and she had finally had enough. But now, under the steady scrutiny of the Berry sisters, she had a new perspective. She felt childish.

  “All right,” Miss Bayberry said with a dismissive gesture. “You’ve established you were not the most desirable student which, in the end, caused you to leave Selium. Did you not think to face your problem?”

  Karigan’s cheeks grew warm again. “I was too angry. I ran away. That’s when I met F’ryan Coblebay.”

  “Ah,” said Miss Bunchberry. “This is what we were wondering about.”

  Karigan wiggled in her seat and felt the weight of their gazes on her again. But she had nothing to be ashamed of with this part of the story. She told them of how she encountered F’ryan Coblebay, dying with two arrows in his back, and anxious for her to carry his message to the king. She was careful about what she told them—it wouldn’t do to reveal more than necessary. She wished she hadn’t let the message satchel out of sight. She finished with her narrow escape from Captain Immerez and his men.

  The sisters glanced at one another as if mentally conferring. The room warmed considerably.

  “The spirit . . . that is, F’ryan Coblebay, wasn’t able to tell us so much,” Miss Bayberry said. “You’ve explained yourself quite adequately, dear child. Yours is a brave undertaking. Many would have quailed at carrying such a message under such serious circumstances.” She must have noticed Karigan’s stricken expression for she added, “Rolph the stableboy immediately placed the message satchel in the guestroom where you will be spending the night. No one has broken the seal of the message. Your other things await you there as well . . . except the device which is in our immediate care.”

  “The . . . device?”

  “Yes, the arcane device. The one that caused you to fade out when you faced those brigands on the road. The brooch, child.”

  “Oh!”

  “It isn’t a particularly powerful thing,” Miss Bunchberry said. “It may even be more trouble than it’s worth. Letitia brought it to Bay and me when she set about cleaning that muddy coat of yours. Poor soul just can’t abide mud. She’d clean it from the ground if she could.”

  “Ahem, sister,” Miss Bayberry said. “Keep with the topic.”

  Bunch sent Bay an annoyed glance, then continued. “Father had no one but us to confide his discoveries in, and to teach. Seven Chimneys wasn’t a proper school like Selium, but it didn’t keep him from his calling. Teaching, I mean. That’s why Bay and I are able to recognize arcane magic like the brooch. It is probable you accidentally invoked its one single power: fading out.”

  Miss Bayberry produced the brooch in her upturned palm, seemingly out of the air. “We would like you to try to invoke the power of the brooch so we can see how potent it is.”

  Karigan sat up startled. For all the sisters’ fetish for propriety, and seeming ingenuous natures, she sensed an underlying intelligence of which she was allowed to touch but a small part. There was an intensity about them, like a bright burning fire within, but hidden behind a facade of proper social deportment, lightly sugared scones, and fine silver. Was their simplicity a deception, so as not to betray their hidden wisdom? Or was it that their father had taught them well? There was little about them, she decided, that was simple.

  “I’m not sure I can make the brooch work,” Karigan said. “I don’t know how I did it the first time.”

  “Just try for us, dear,” Miss Bunch said. “Try to remember what you did just before you went invisible.”

  Karigan took the brooch with some hesitation. It was cold and heavy in her hand, the winged horse ready for flight as ever. She tried to remember the moments leading to her serendipitous ability to become invisible . . . Captain Immerez sitting upon his white horse in the rain, his one eye trying to see through her hood; a whip unraveling in his hand. She shivered. She had no idea what had triggered her invisibility except a strong desire to disappear.

  “Oh!” Miss Bayberry straightened next to her, her eyes glittering. “The child has positively faded.”

  “She is one with the upholstery,” agreed Miss Bunchberry.

  To Karigan, the room had become leaden, all the furnishings, and even the fire, just shades of gray. Except the Berry sisters. Their eyes were as blue as ever—as blue as blueberries—and color and light danced about them, just like the colors of the trail that had led her to Seven Chimneys. Why the variation? The grayness weighed on her, just as before, and she wished herself visible again.

  “We have learned much,” Miss Bunchberry said.

  “Child, your brooch isn’t terribly powerful, just as we suspected. It gives you an ability to fade out, or more accurately, to blend in with your surroundings. It wasn’t particularly potent here in the parlor because of the amount of sunshine coming through the window. It must have been extremely effective in the dark forest with all the rain and fog.”

  Karigan nodded, her temple throbbing. Maybe the terrible weather had been an advantage in her confrontation with Immerez after all.

  “I can see also that the device saps energy from the user. That is often the fault with magical devices, and even innate power. There is always some cost to use it, and for the trouble, it’s often not worthwhile.”

  Karigan hooked a tendril of hair behind her ear. The brooch had proved its worth already. She dreaded to think what would have happened if she hadn’t used it when she met Immerez. “I still don’t understand how this brooch . . . how magic works.”

  Miss Bunchberry poured another cup of tea to help “restore” her. The steaming liquid extinguished the throbbing in her head.

  “Of course we’ve just tried to explain magic,” Miss Bunch said. “The little we gleaned from our father’s teachings, anyway. But one can’t explain magic, really.”

  “It exists,” Miss Bayberry said, “as flowers bloom in the spring.”

  “As the sun rises and sets,” Miss Bunchberry said.

  “As the ocean rolls . . .”

  “And as stars twinkle in the night.”

  “You see, child,” Miss Bayberry said, “magic is. The world fairly glows with it. Rather, it did before the Long War, and for a while afterward. All we have left now are shards and pieces.”

  Miss Bunchberry folded her hands decorously in her lap. “Child, we thought from all appearances you were an indoctrinated Green Rider. The magic accepted you, and the messenger service does take young ones, you know. Only Green Riders and magic users could recognize that brooch. To the ordinary person, the brooch would look like something other than its present form. Maybe a cheap piece of costume jewelry, or nothing at all. It is a way of setting apart the false Green Riders from the real Green Riders.”

  “I don’t understand.” Karigan had never seen the brooch as anything but a winged horse. She had known it was pure gold—what kind of merchant’s daughter would she be if she couldn’t recognize true gold?—but she had thought nothing of it.

  Miss Bayberry stirred some honey into her tea. “The brooch has accepted you. It wouldn’t permit or tolerate you to wear it if it didn’t perceive you as a Green Rider.”

  Karigan was aghast. “But it’s just metal.” And she
was not a Green Rider.

  “With some very strange spells designed within it. I’m not sure how the brooch accepted you as a Green Rider, but it may have been the duress of the situation when young Coblebay passed his mission on to you.” Miss Bay tapped her spoon on the edge of her teacup. “Fortunately, the brooch found you worthy.”

  Or unfortunately. Karigan hardly felt worthy of anything at the moment, and such talk made her dizzy. “I have a lot of questions. . . .”

  Miss Bayberry reached over and patted her knee. “We understand, child. You left Selium under undesirable conditions only to find your life complicated by a dying messenger with an unfinished mission. I know my sister and I have said some unlikely things, but we are trying to be helpful for we have known some Green Riders in our lifetime—friends of our father’s—who shared with him what they knew of magic. They were the best kind of people.”

  The sisters had said unlikely things, indeed! Ghosts? None that she could see. And magic? Karigan’s fingers tightened around the gold brooch. She felt the urge to hurl it into the fire along with F’ryan Coblebay’s message. Why had she taken on his mission? I must have been out of my head . . . or daft.

  Maybe she could leave the message with the sisters and absolve herself of all responsibility. Suddenly the brooch flared with heat in her hand, and she dropped it onto the floor. She blew on her stinging palm.

  “What happened, dear?” Miss Bunchberry asked.

  “It burned me! I was thinking about getting rid of it and it burned me!”

  “Arcane relics often have a mind of their own, and when they’ve made up their minds about something, well, there is no changing them.”

  Karigan groaned. How could an inanimate object have a mind of its own? She tentatively picked up the brooch. It was as cold and immutable as ever, and only her still stinging palm proved the brooch had burned her. Was she losing control of her life to a horse, a ghost, and a brooch?

  “Poor child,” Miss Bayberry said. “You ought to be settled into a life of ease and courting as with all girls your age. But I can see in you too much fire for such a life. Yours is an open road filled with excitement and, yes, perils.