Mistle Child (Undertaken Trilogy)

by Ari Berk

  When Silas sat up, the night was cold, and he and Lars were alone on the tower.

  “They’ve all gone,” Lars said quietly. He was still looking out over the battlements toward where the town lights had been, but now, Lichport and the land were dark.

  From the other side of Arvale, the peace of evening was broken by a familiar scream. Without fear or haste, Silas stood and said, “Lars, let’s go back. I’m tired and we’re not safe out here at night, especially so high up.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Back to my rooms. I need to rest. Tomorrow I will try to find the Mistle Child. I’ve seen in which direction it lies. And after I find it, I’m going home to Lichport.”

  Silas was deep in thought as they made their way back. He was sure his heart had stopped in that instant when he had seen the firedrake, a comet that had flown and died upon the air hundreds of years ago. He knew then, with absolute certainty, that to see the past meant releasing the present. The idea of stopping his heart to achieve this frightened him, but he wondered if this was how his great-grandfather had his visions. His heart had stopped beating long ago.

  As they approached the door of his rooms, Silas tried to put from his mind the question of what kind of power might be wielded by an Undertaker if he were dead.

  THE WALLS AND PARAPETS OF ARVALE played host to a riot of carvings. Gargoyles. Grotesques. Noble busts. Triumphal Urns. Foliate Heads. Each one, an individual vision or memory fashioned in stone. Heroic events and past lives were memorialized by such sculptures. Leaf-faced men recalled the forest that once flourished where the house now sprawled. Demonic faces and chimeric creatures endured as testaments to the nightmares and terror-dreams of their carvers.

  Far above the great doors of Arvale, perched on a ledge, was a small sculpture of a seated lion. It could barely be seen from the ground. The lion was a minor work, an apprentice piece, and indeed, its rough finish evidenced the talents of a young artist’s hand. That apprentice’s name was Will. When he completed the lion, his master looked it over and smiled. It was not perfect, not nearly, but in the curl of the mane and depth of the eyes, there were hints of the artist that might yet be. The master told Will to make his mark upon the stone. A bold W was carved on its base and the lion was set upon the high wall to look down over the courtyard. Three days later, the young apprentice fell from one of the parapets and died. He was buried in the village of Lichport in a small grave, but no gravestone remains. Only on the walls of Arvale did he leave his mark.

  The furious ghost was moving again, the very air shaking with her long cries.

  As the nameless spirit careened over Arvale, her wailing fractured the mortar between the bricks and shook loose the slate shingles. Portions of the house crumbled before her as she flew, engulfed in flames. From the walls high above the courtyard, she reached out and tore a small stone lion from its long-held seat, and hurled it to the unyielding ground below. When the lion struck the earth, it burst into fragments and dust, and the maker’s mark of Will the apprentice was shattered, and his name went forever out of the world.

  SILAS SAT BY THE HEARTH IN HIS ROOM and pulled off his shoes. Outside, he could hear distant crashes and wails as the nameless ghost went about her mindless destruction.

  He was exhausted but intent on investigating what he’d seen in his vision of the comet. Tomorrow he would go to the place in the forest where the “firedrake” fell. The cold air in the tower had cleared his mind, and brought him to another decision as well.

  “Lars, when I leave, I’d very much like you to come with me.”

  “Silas, I don’t think—”

  “I know you don’t really want to stay here, Lars, and why would you? You are as out of place here as I am. We should be back home in Lichport. I couldn’t bear the idea of leaving you behind in this house.”

  “You make it all sound so easy, Silas.”

  “It is easy. I leave. You leave. We do this at the same time. Simple.”

  “I’m not sure I can face it, Silas. I left in a bad way.”

  “I’m telling you, whatever it is, I can help,” said Silas, reassuringly. The truth was, though, Silas wasn’t really sure what he’d be able to do for him. Lars had stepped out of his life into the otherworld. Where would he find himself if he returned? Silas knew when they got back, much time and care would be needed to help Lars adjust. But now, he would tell him anything to bring him some comfort and convince him to come back.

  “What do you mean ‘in a bad way’? Tell me what happened, Lars. It’s okay. Whatever happened, it’s all in the past now. “

  But instead of beginning his own story, Lars asked Silas a question.

  “Has it been hard, being away from Lichport?”

  “Yes. But like you, I left things . . . unfinished, unsaid. I left in anger, and hurt a good friend. If I had it to do over again, I would do it differently. I might have waited a little longer to come here.”

  “You must have lots of friends there,” Lars said.

  “No, not really. I mean, I have some friends in Lichport, but not really anybody my age. I had a friend back in Saltsbridge, when I was younger, but he’s gone now.”

  “Saltsbridge. I don’t know that place. Is it up past Kingsport?”

  Of course he doesn’t know that name, Silas thought suddenly, it had not yet been founded when he was last in Lichport.

  “Silas, come on now, not even a girl? Really? A fine fellow like yourself?”

  “There was a girl, but I lost her. All I want now is to get her back.”

  Lars looked into the fire. His face softened, going wistful.

  “I had a girl in Lichport. How alike we are, cousin. I’ve lost my girl too.”

  “Well, I suspect we’re both rogues at heart, that’s why,” Silas said, trying to lighten the mood. Lars didn’t look up. “What did she look like?” asked Silas.

  “Oh, she was pretty. We used to meet often at night, for her father did not know about us. And in the moonlight . . . her pale skin . . . and her arms about me so tight—” Lars broke off his description, tears flooding his eyes. “Lord, Silas, I cannot speak of her. I’m such a coward. I’ve ruined everything.”

  Silas ached a little to hear the description. To feel Bea’s arms about him, to feel her pressed against him, he would have given anything.

  “Lars, you haven’t ruined everything. Most problems can be mended. Tell me what happened.”

  Slowly, Lars began.

  “We had been meeting at night, by the millpond. For weeks we made our assignations there. I’d leave her a little white stone, on her windowsill, and that way she’d know to meet me that night. It was perfect. I would come to the millpond and she’d be there, drawn out in moonlight and starlight against the reeds. But one evening, I left my white stone, yet when I arrived at the millpond she was not there. So I waited. Soon I heard footsteps and thought she was approaching, but as I watched, her seven brothers appeared on the path and saw me there. Fear took me, and I couldn’t run. They grabbed hold of my arms and held me fast, and one pushed my head down into the water. Before my sunken eyes was blackness and I knew my life would end there, below the cold water. But then they roughly pulled me up and asked me what I was doing there, at the millpond, at night, as if they didn’t know.

  “Coughing up green water, I said I’d come to walk by night. I’d come for the quiet.

  “‘We’ll show you quiet,’ one said, and they thrust my head underwater again.

  “I choked on weeds and frogspawn, and just when I thought I would succumb, I was pulled out again and jerked to my feet.

  “‘Leave this place, or die here,’ they said.

  “‘I will leave,’ I promised.

  “‘Leave here, and never come back.’

  “‘I will leave,’ I said again.

  “‘Go from Lichport and never return,’ they yelled. ‘Never return.’

  “And their words were a curse, for I ran into the woods along the marsh and lost my w
ay, and came here to this house. But as I ran, I heard her voice and her brothers’ shouts. There was a scream and all was silent, but still I ran and did not return.”

  Some of the details from Lars’s story were uncomfortably familiar. But similar scenes must have played out in Lichport dozens of times over its long history. And the millpond, Silas knew all too well, was a traditional spot for secret lovers’ assignations. But could it be that Lars was describing the story of Beatrice’s own death? What was the lover’s name in her story? No. Silas couldn’t accept it. He refused to accept it. But far in the back of his thoughts, somewhere beyond his quickly silenced fears, a wiser part of Silas whispered: Denial is easy when you don’t want to know.

  Lars was sobbing.

  Silas put his arms about Lars to comfort him and darkened his mind to anything other than calming his friend. “Those days are long past. Maybe, when we go back, things will be better. Maybe her brothers will be gone, or maybe there will be another girl,” Silas said. Those things were certainly true. Her brothers, whoever they were, would now be in their graves. All the people he knew would be gone. Silas wanted to get Lars to think about a new life, but he needed to be careful and not say too much at once. Lars was from a Lichport that was no longer there. Still, let him come home and see his place and accept his lot. Then Silas would try to help. Lars could stay with him. Roommates, Silas thought, warming to the idea of having someone his own age in his life back home. And clearly, the dead did not terrify Lars. Maybe Lars could even help him with the undertaking. A friend and an assistant.

  He lifted up Lars’s face. “I promise you, it’s going to be okay. I’ll help you, one way or another. You will come back to Lichport, and you’ll live in my house. We shall be gentlemen bachelors, and all will be well,” Silas said, trying to smile, trying to get Lars to smile.

  “All right, Silas,” said Lars, resigned. “All right. When you leave this house, I shall go with you, if I may.”

  “Good. That’s settled then. We will not let the past haunt us.” Silas took Lars’s hand in his and shook it.

  He poured two glasses from the decanter on the table and handed one to Lars. He raised his cup and encouraged Lars to do the same. “Come on! Let’s drink to the past that was, and the future yet to come. Whatever is waiting for us back home, we can get through it together!”

  They both emptied their glasses in one gulp. The liquor went down like fire, but Silas poured another round.

  “And to Lichport. May our homecomings be happy ones.”

  Lars quickly wiped his eyes and then drained his glass. He took the bottle from Silas and filled their cups again.

  “And to Beatrice,” Lars said softly, “my dearest love.”

  Silas stopped breathing and set down his glass. The brief spell of self-delusion was shattered the second he heard Lars say her name.

  “Do you know her, Silas? Do you know Beatrice, or her family? Is she still in Lichport?”

  At hearing the words spoken out loud a second time, Silas felt like someone had hit him in the back of his head. Nauseated and dizzy, he knew it was his Bea whom Lars meant. He’d known already. There was no hiding from it. In that instant Silas realized he could never tell Lars the truth about her. Everything was ruined now. When he found Bea, she would see Lars and forget about Silas. Blackness rose like a veil before his eyes, and all he could think to do was speak the lie and get it out of the way. “No, Lars. I’ve never heard that name before. But if it’s possible, I’ll help you find her and you can be happy again.”

  Lars raised his glass to Silas’s words, and drank once more. He smiled as he rose and went to the door, saying he would gather his things and see Silas the next day. Silas only nodded in response, and then bent over as if scratching his foot. After Lars left the chamber, Silas sat down on the carpet and put his face in his hands. He could command the dead, and bring them peace, but there was never going to be any joy left for him.

  The weight of his promises was crushing him. As Silas considered that he had just agreed to help reunite his girlfriend with another guy, a small sob pushed his shoulders up and down, and he began to cry quietly into his hands.

  THAT NIGHT, SILAS DREAMED OF BEA AGAIN, but he could not see her face. He jumped from one side of her to another, but always she turned her head away. In one hand, she held a piece of cloth. In the other, a needle and thread. She was stitching two letters in gold flax: B and L. As she put down the last small, careful stitches she said, “Gold is always best. What is stitched in gold shall last forever and cannot be undone. Beatrice and Lars.”

  “Say my name,” said Silas. “Remember me, please.”

  But Bea only laughed and turned her head away from him again.

  When Silas awoke, he found that his thigh was bleeding where he had clutched it during sleep. His nails had broken the skin. He wiped it with a cloth and dressed quickly.

  The water in the basin was cold. He splashed his face, pulled on his shoes, and left his rooms, moving quietly through the house, not wanting to meet anyone, especially not Lars. It wasn’t Lars’s fault, but he couldn’t look at him. Silas only wanted to finish what he’d started. He could at least try to do that. He would go alone and do whatever needed to be done to restore peace to the prison-house that Arvale had become to him.

  Then he could go home with his girlfriend’s lover and his heartbreak in tow and once again, make everything right for everyone but himself.

  SILAS WALKED QUICKLY THROUGH THE GARDEN and toward the summer house. He barely noticed the change in the weather. It was not as warm as it had been when he last visited; a chill breeze nipped at the edges of the air, trying to chase the summer away. There were other small differences in the land. The roses were all blown now, petals gone, their thorns grown long and threatening. The topiaries that lined the garden path, previously wild and shapeless in exuberant growth, had now each taken on the same spare, discernible shape; green heads of boxwood wolves watched Silas as he passed.

  As he emerged onto the lawn in the front of the summer house, Ottoline’s voice greeted him.

  “It’s been AGES, Silas! How dare you keep yourself away! It is lovely of you to come to our little soirée! But as you see, you come upon us unawares. We weren’t expecting you until this evening. Why, Cook hasn’t even finished making the canapés!” Still, it’s better you’ve come now. Yesterday was an utter miserino. Teddy lost all the shuttlecocks and then the rain came, completely spoiling the hunt. I was so looking forward to it,” she said, drawing her finger gently back and forth across her lips. “It has been so long since I’ve gotten any blood on my hands. . . .”

  “The weather is much better today, if not a bit colder,” Silas said absently, wanting to keep moving.

  “I am glad for it. I thought the season was going to be over early. I think tonight it should be very clear, the last of the good weather. Perfect! Now, you must have something to eat, you look famished. And goodness! Wherever have you been! Your unfashionable coat is covered in soot! Silas, really, your man should have seen to it!”

  “I am sorry, dear cousin Ottoline, but I fear I can’t tarry here with you today. My path lies a little farther on.”

  “Are you going hunting yourself? You look ever so determined. I like well that gleam in your eye. The weather is brisk and fine, as you say. If you can wait a tick, I’ll go change into my hunts and we shall ride together.”

  “Oh, I would love to hunt with you, but today I haven’t time.”

  For the briefest instant, Ottoline’s exaggerated frown became something else. She tilted her head slightly and her eyes grew small and dark as she looked at Silas. He took a step back, suddenly afraid she was going to strike him for disappointing her. But then the moment passed, the smile returned to her face, and she swatted Silas’s shoulder with her gloves.

  “Silas, how tiresome you are! Very well. Wherever are you off to that you can’t even stop for a small G and T with your cousins?”

  “I am following the pat
h of the firedrake into the woods to find the Mistle Child. I don’t suppose you’ve seen it?”

  “Oh, Silas, what a question. Don’t you know where it is? I thought you were the scholar of the family. Didn’t you speak to the father in his wretched basement?”

  “I did. He did not elaborate much more on the matter. But he said that if I wanted to stop all the screaming, I would need the Mistle Child—”

  “Yes, he would still want it, I suspect . . . ,” mused Ottoline, looking down at her sharp, immaculate, and translucent fingernails.

  “I’ve learned that it’s in the forest—”

  Ottoline smiled and held up a hand. She closed her eyes and, with the other hand, fondled a long strand of polished amber and jet beads. The mere mention of the forest set her into a little private reverie.

  “Oh, Silas, the forest is lovely, simply divine. How we used to adore our romps in the greenwood,” she said in a bit of a swoon. “Once, long ago, our country house was deeper in the woods. We favored privacy then, and didn’t much receive company. Still, you could meet the most curious folks upon the forest paths. Such sights we saw within the wild places, when we hunted so regularly, and what good sport! And I can’t lie, the trysts we all had were absolutely the choicest . . . but it was so long ago and everyone was so handsome and delicious. The long green days . . . yes, you must go to the woods and see what’s still there to find. Cupid’s victims always leave a little something behind, no?”

  She opened her eyes and looked at Silas. “And when you come back, we’ll have a little party for you. Won’t that be nice?” She looked up at the sapphire sky. “See, it’s going to be a lovely night to be out of doors. Positively perfect.”