Mistle Child (Undertaken Trilogy)

by Ari Berk

  “This chair is a rather old thing, though rest assured, it is as solid as the foundations of the earth. This is the seat of the Lord of the Dead. In the world outside these walls, it has been lost for some time, but such objects cast long shadows. It appears here in Arvale because it was once kept by the Umbers long ago, so it is part of our ancestral holdings. Once, in ages past, several of our ancestors held the Ebony Throne themselves. What do you make of it?”

  Silas walked back and forth before the dark wooden chair. The longer he looked, the more details stood out. There were carved heads of dogs at the ends of both armrests and a third hound’s head that crested the top. The long, turned necks and heads of birds, perhaps swans, decorated the back. Looking at the table, his eye was caught by the scepter, and without thinking, Silas reached for it.

  “Wait,” Jonas said. “It is too much.”

  “There is no harm in letting the boy hold it,” snapped Maud. “While he is here he can do with any of these things as he wishes. You do not rule here, Jonas. Time to let him enjoy discovering who and what he is!”

  “I am only interested in protecting him. Why do you press the matter so?”

  But Maud ignored him. She was looking at Silas, who had picked up the scepter and was turning it over in his hands.

  Silas could barely hear what the other two were saying. The black stone was ice cold, and electric to the touch. He felt his skin tighten and all the hairs on his arms stand up. He closed his eyes and, for an instant, he saw himself sitting on a throne, holding the scepter, and before him, a throng was singing a hymn in whose crescendo Silas thought he could discern the names of all the dead of the earth.

  “Can I keep this?” Silas asked, not looking up.

  “For a time if you like,” said Jonas with resignation. “Everything in this house is yours, in one way or another.”

  Maud smiled.

  “What does it do?” asked Silas.

  Jonas looked down. “It enforces the dead to be complacent.”

  “Is that all?”

  “No.”

  Silas held the scepter up closer to his eyes. Its surface was smooth and impenetrable. He could not look away.

  “Yes, you can feel it, can’t you? Like you, Silas, I was an Undertaker in life, eager for power and authority, but death can bring such perspective. From where I now stand, I can see that while some may reach very high for attainment and position, sometimes it is in doing merely what needs to be done that we achieve true honor. On this, if nothing else, I believe your father and I would have agreed.”

  Jonas gently guided Silas’s hands down, never touching the scepter, as Silas released it.

  “Tonight, we shall do what needs to be done. There is some unfinished business and it is important for you to see how essential it is to conclude matters, thoroughly, in the accustomed way. Shall we begin?”

  Silas turned away from the scepter and the Ebony Throne and walked to the doors. Maud stood to his left, Jonas his right.

  “Silas, now you shall open the threshold. It is traditional for you to say, ‘I, Janus of the threshold, open wide the door!’ ”

  Without hesitating, Silas repeated the words. “I, Janus of the threshold, open wide the door.”

  “Good. Now, you can go to the doors and open—”

  But already, Silas was feeling different, like something a little less and lot more than himself. The light in his eyes had begun to change. He felt empowered, anticipation surging through him. His back straightened. He raised both his hands, clasped them briefly together, then quickly cast them apart. With a thunderous crash, the doors of Arvale threw themselves open. The doorway no longer looked out over the front of the estate. It was not the cobalt of night or the sable of cast shadow. The doorway now framed an impenetrable blackness kept over from the time before the stars were made.

  “Fine,” said Jonas quickly. “That’s fine. Now call the name of Joseph Downing.”

  Silas nodded, but then paused. He knew that name.

  “Silas, you cannot stop. This is important. Though others wait to be called, this name must be summoned for you to see the road you must take now, else you shall continue on in error. The way lies open and the house is in peril. Call the name. It’s all right. But do it now.”

  Before he could think again, caught up in the propulsion of the ritual and the power he held, Silas called out, “Joseph Downing, stand before the door!”

  Out of the murky darkness beyond the threshold, drawn by the force of his name being called by the Janus, the ghost of the lighthouse keeper, Joseph Downing, came to stand upon the Limbus Stone before the doors of Arvale. He looked confused and nearly blind, squinting toward the hall. He was soaked with seawater that dripped from his body onto the dark stone beneath him.

  “Now say to the ghost: ‘You stand guilty of wandering and of malfeasance against the living. I sentence you to your rest. Joseph Downing, will you take the waters I offer you?’ ”

  “But as Undertaker, I already—?”

  “The waters of Lethe were never administered. The ghost remained. Trapped beneath the sea. That is no proper end. Now is not the time for sentimental questions. He stands here because you were unable to effectively perform your obligations back in Lichport. Go on!”

  “All right!” Silas snapped back, unsure what else to do but continue. “Joseph Downing, will you take these waters I offer you now? Will you go to your rest and wander no more?”

  But the ghost looked lost. He stared up at the lintel on the door, his eyes pale as quartz. The ghost shook, then threw his head to one side, over and over, as though hitting it against a wall that wasn’t there.

  “Joseph Downing?” Silas entreated the ghost now. “Joseph Downing? Will you take the waters of Lethe? Will you forget and sink down?” Silas fumbled with his satchel, trying to find the flask of Lethe waters he’d refilled in the catacombs, but Jonas pointed to the tin goblet already on the table and nodded.

  The ghost seemed to be entirely unaware of where he was, or what was being asked of him. “No more water. No more water. Where . . . where is my son?” the ghost stammered. “Where is Daniel?” the ghost continued absently. He was falling back into his old confusion. He began to weep.

  Silas looked pained, watching the ghost in its pitiful state. Jonas said, “Say the words, Silas. End his suffering. Do not fall into the trap of sentimentality that is this family’s plague. Say the words, now, and let it be done! Have pity on this spirit and do for him what he cannot do for himself.”

  Silas could feel the pressure on him to act—the terror on the ghost’s face, Jonas’s words, Maud’s expectant stare, the weight of it all, as though the entire mansion of Arvale had just been set down upon his shoulders. The stress awoke something very old in his blood. Sensing the pressure on Silas, Jonas began speaking the words of the ritual into Silas’s ear, but a moment later, he stopped. Silas was saying them by himself, as though he’d known them all along, as though he had presided over the Door Doom a hundred times before. Silas’s voice rose and the doors of Arvale began to shake. Silas raised his hand, pointing at the ghost.

  “Now I speak my judgment against this ghost, Joseph Downing, against the walking one. Here and now, he shall depart, shall be as if he never was, and shall never again trouble the living or the dead!”

  Joseph Downing hung speechless above the threshold. Below his feet, the surface of the Limbus Stone grew bright and transparent, but he still remained, arms moving up and down while his hands opened and closed desperately as if clawing to keep hold of the air.

  Silas, lost wholly in the rite, pitched his voice into a thunder. “Cedo nulli!” he pronounced. At once the black stone under Joseph Downing swallowed him, and the room grew still. Silas’s heart was racing. His words flowed with the force of command and his body shook with the power he held over the dead. Something in his world had shifted in that moment and whatever was to become of him, he knew he would not be able to turn back.

  Jonas looked
at Maud, as if to say, You may have been right. He moved to Silas’s side.

  “I hardly know what to say. I have stood before the Door Doom many times, but I have never seen it conducted so well, so efficiently. That was excellently done, Silas! Did you see, Maud? Silas, I am without words!” Something had altered in Jonas Umber’s demeanor. Where once there was reticence and reluctance, now there was hope. Silas could see that Jonas was proud of him, but his limbs were still shaking and what he’d done to the ghost didn’t feel right, now that he was returning to himself again.

  Jonas couldn’t stop. “Silas! Really! I must say—”

  “Okay! Thank you!” Silas said louder than he’d meant. He needed to think and wanted to hold the silence a moment longer. “I’m sorry. I heard you. . . .” He felt nauseated and confused. For the last several moments, he had felt like he was locked away somewhere small inside himself, watching what transpired as though someone else had spoken the words, as though someone else had banished Joseph Downing. He knew, in every particle of his body, that his father would have wept to see him in that moment, and the tears would not be of pride.

  “Shall we call another to the Door Doom?” asked Jonas calmly.

  “Jonas, enough!” said Maud. “Leave him be. Can’t you see he’s spent?”

  “Yes, all right. Just one for now. But Silas, tomorrow we shall proceed, yes?”

  “All right. Tomorrow,” Silas said wearily, not wanting to discuss it any further. He was bone tired, his legs shaking.

  “I know it’s hard at first. The sad condition of the spirits of the dead can blur one’s sense of responsibility, particularly when they are unable to take the waters. We will try again tomorrow with something where the lines between obligation and the so-called desires of the dead are more clearly delineated. It’s better, more humane, when they can understand you as you speak to them. Most will take the waters. It is easier that way, I promise you. I’ll take care of the preparations myself and will call for you tomorrow.”

  Jonas left the hall. Maud smiled encouragingly at Silas, and then followed Jonas out.

  A few moments later, the mighty horn sounded far atop the house.

  Lars came running into the great hall. He took one look at Silas, his face pale and hands shaking, and ran to his side. “Let’s get you upstairs, eh? A little rest will put all to right.”

  Silas only nodded. He felt pulled in two, sick at the thought of doing it again, but also eager to hold the power in his hands once more. He knew that if he looked in a mirror, in that moment, he would not have recognized himself.

  When they got back to Silas’s rooms, Lars asked him to come up the stairs to the top of the tower. Exhausted, Silas protested, but Lars looked so pleased about whatever it was he wanted to show him, Silas relented.

  Reaching the open air of the tower roof, his legs aching, Silas said, “So, cousin Lars, what is so important that it can’t wait until tomorrow?”

  Lars walked over to the wall and pointed down. Silas looked below and saw torches burning in the small field beyond the garden. There were tents and banners that glistened in the torchlight and he could hear horses and the ringing of silver bridle bells. And there was music. The scene was enrapturing. And though he was becoming drowsy, Silas could not look away.

  “What is it?” he asked Lars, putting his arm around his cousin’s shoulder for affection as much as support.

  “Both within the house and outside its walls, spirits such as these come and go as they will, but the spectacle below is rare and very fine, you must agree,” said Lars without looking away from the night tournament.

  “Yes. Very fine indeed,” replied Silas. He was relieved by Lars’s comment. And he was glad at the chance to eventually be able to share a little more with someone who asked nothing of him. Wanting to know more of what Lars believed, Silas pushed a bit further. “We find ourselves in strange circumstances, do we not? We are not like the folk here, are we?”

  Lars made no answer.

  “Lars?” said Silas as he turned toward him. “You know that though we are living men, we are residing in a house of the dead?”

  Lars smiled wanly. “Cousin, I am a simple man, but I am no fool. I know how far we are from Lichport. That is partially why I remain here. Some nights, I think I can see Lichport from the battlements of this house, yet . . . I know the troubles I left behind are a great ways off. As strange as this place is, that odd distance is a kind of comfort to me, though my heart, every day, aches for home and what I left behind. Do you feel that way, Silas?”

  “Yes. I miss Lichport. I’ll be glad to get back. It feels as though I’ve been away for ages now.”

  Together they looked back over the battlement. Below, two knights with banded lances rode their horses slowly toward each other in a sort of mock joust. Lords and ladies watched from their tents, their clothes trimmed in ermine, laughing and singing below the moon, and the torchlight played on the armor of the knights and made them glow and waver in the air like living flames.

  Silas glanced gratefully at Lars in thanks for the gift of the distraction, but when he looked back at the night tournament, it was gone. Shadows of every length and hue had fallen across the land, and the moon hid behind a wandering cloud. The tents and horses had vanished, and the music faded from the air like the song of some swift-departing night-bird.

  Before they turned to go downstairs, Lars sighed and spoke again. “It is true that we have found ourselves in a very unusual place, Silas, an estate beyond my ken to understand, although I do know we are both very far from home. Still, cousin, you must admit, this house can afford some wondrous views.”

  That night, Silas dreamed of Bea again. She was calling out, her voice falling upon his ears like a bell ringing up from below the waves. Silas wasn’t sure what she was saying and didn’t hear her say his name, but he knew, needed to know, that she was looking for him. In the dream, he tried to yell back, but his jaw was locked and he couldn’t speak or even move his arms to signal that he was there, wherever “there” was. He could sense her behind him. At last, the mist parted and he found himself standing before the mill pond. Thick ice and an old piece of Mrs. Bowe’s lace tablecloth lay across the water. He leaned down over the frozen pond and saw her below. Beatrice was struggling. She beat furiously at the ice with blue hands. Silas struck the surface with his foot, but it was like iron and would not crack no matter how he stomped at it. Suddenly, Beatrice’s face was very close to the clear crystal surface of the water, and he could see her mouthing his name over and over, forming sounds around the bubbles that poured from her throat and spread out against the underside of the ice.

  When Silas awoke, the small fire Lars had set for him on the hearth had burned down to glowing embers, and in the dim light, little carved faces on his bedposts stared down at him with flat, dead eyes of wood, daring him to go back to sleep.

  LEDGER

  For those who die unshriven, or furious, or vengeful, or are too fond of their estates and wordlie fortunes, shalle surely walk again after death. Beware then, for these Restless folk will wander forth from their graves and other habitations, their breath bringinge plague and contagion upon where e’er they walk. And lo! How many goodlie folk have come to death by even idle conversation with a wand’ring corpse.

  —FROM THE NOTES OF WILLIAM OF NEWBURGH (C.1190), TRANSCRIBED BY JONAS UMBER FOR AN UNPUBLISHED TRACT ENTITLED “THE UNDERTAKERS NEEDFUL NIGHT-WATCH AGAINST THE EVILS OF THE RESTLESS”

  AS SILAS LAY BETWEEN SLEEP and waking, a sound drifted down from the roof over his bed. There was a scratching, then the noise of something being dragged, or pulling itself across the floor above. There was a pause, then the latch of the trapdoor leading from his room to the tower roof rattled sharply. But as Silas rose from bed, the horns of Arvale sounded again, the shrill staccatos blasting out, blaring even through the thick stone of the walls: calling him Attend! Attend! Attend! Return to the hall! Doom! Doom! Doom! and banishing whatever had been trying to ent
er his chamber. It’s nothing, he told himself. The house is full of noises. It’s nothing. He knew the family was waiting. Yet his dream of Beatrice still clung at him, drawing his mind toward home, Lichport, his real home. Bea was trapped and he longed to go to her. But the straining chain of family obligation pulled the other way. It was the Doom more than anything that had taken hold of him. What had happened yesterday upset him, but hadn’t Maud said that each new Janus may make changes in the rite? In time, he could make the Doom his own. When he stood at the door, he now knew, he wielded an extraordinary power he was only beginning to understand. If he could summon the dead by their names . . .

  But the Doom brought other concerns.

  How often must it be held? How frequently would he need to come back? Could he convene the Door Doom anyplace else? How much of the ritual’s force lay in him, or in the Limbus Stone, or in Arvale itself? There was still a lot he needed to know, yet the longer he remained at Arvale, the more it felt like, in the end, all his questions were becoming choices.

  At Arvale, he was seeing and learning things about the spectral that he had not experienced at home, and his world was expanding very quickly. Each day brought some new vista of potential privileges. He was beginning to hope that some of his new authority might enable him to help Bea. So he would stay a little longer. He would conduct the Doom as he’d agreed and learn whatever else he could, but then he was going home.

  The trumpet call became more shrill, more desperate. Silas pulled his great-grandfather’s coat over his dad’s jacket. When he opened the door leading into the corridor outside his room, Jonas was waiting for him.

  In the great hall, the family had gathered, arrayed before the walls like figures in a faded tapestry. Candles were lit atop the long table and a fire blazed in the massive fireplace.

  Three hooded figures, cowls drawn up, took their places by the closed doors. Jonas seemed to become more distinct as he entered the hall with Silas. One of the robed men raised his hand and another mighty horn sounded outside. The door shook on its titan hinges.