“This is where you will stay,” she said, opening a door. Bert wasn’t sure what to expect, but it wasn’t this. The room was huge, even larger than the chamber where Mother and Father slept. Tapestries covered every wall, aged and tattered, but still glorious with the deepest greens, crimsons, purples, and golds. The largest one featured a striking red rose in full bloom, surrounded by buds and tiny leaves and branches with wicked thorns.
The room had received some attention in recent hours. Some of the thick wooden planks on the floor were still damp from a scrubbing, and crushed herbs had been sprinkled upon them. The blankets on the bed looked clean. Still, a million particles of dust were suspended in the shafts of sunlight that stabbed through the single wide window at the end of the room. And the scent of herbs could not mask the stench of mouse and must. It was clear that no one had stayed in this place for years.
“Whose room was this?” asked Bert, giving his itchy nose a vigorous rub.
“At first your uncle and I slept here,” his aunt said. “It was the master chamber, after all. But after the children, I could not be happy here anymore. Did you know about the children?” She stared at Bert. He widened his eyes and shook his head.
“Well, you were young yourself, I suppose,” she said. “Still, I thought your mother might have mentioned it.” Aunt Elaine sighed and blinked once, slowly. “We had three babies. All were born in this room. And all … all three passed away in this room, before their first month. I thought perhaps we could change our luck if we changed our rooms. And in a way we did. After that, no more babies were born at all.” Bert had no idea what to say or do. He cleared his throat and rubbed one arm with the opposite hand. His aunt stared at a corner of the room and tapped her belly lightly with the fingers of one hand. The moment seemed eternal, but then she startled Bert when she spoke again with forced cheer. “I forgot—I have something you might like. I’ll be right back.”
Aunt Elaine came back holding a tall, bell-shaped wooden cage with a finch inside. It was a pretty creature with yellow and black wings. As she walked, it clung to its perch and flapped its wings to hold its balance. “To brighten your room,” she said. “I hope you like it.”
“I do,” said Bert. Without really thinking about it, he hugged his aunt. She gave him a smile that, this time, was not listless at all.
His aunt left after telling him that dinner would be ready before long. When the door closed, Bert picked up the cage and peered at the bird. “Hello in there. Would you sing for me? No? Would you like to see our room, then?” He walked around the perimeter of the chamber with the birdcage, holding it high and coaxing the creature with whistles. The bird suddenly leaped off its perch and chirped madly, hammering its wings against the bars of the cage.
“It’s all right!” Bert said. He tried to shush the bird, but it grew even wilder. Tiny feathers and bits of down fluttered from the cage. Bert thought Aunt Elaine might know what to do, so he ran to the door. But before he reached it the bird calmed itself and returned to its swinging perch. “What an ill-tempered little beast,” he said. “Perhaps I should name you Hugh.” He half expected to hear Will’s laugh ring out beside him, and felt the stab of his brother’s absence once more.
Bert carried the cage to a low table at the side of his bed, and the bird seemed content. It groomed its ruffled feathers with its beak, and in time the rapid thumping of its breast subsided.
Bert ate his dinner quietly, trying not to draw his uncle’s attention. Uncle Hugh crunched and smacked and slurped his meal while the dogs loitered under the table and around his chair, fighting over the crumbs he spilled and the bones he tossed over his shoulder. He occasionally glanced at Bert with narrowed eyes, hoping perhaps to catch him doing something—anything—wrong.
Uncle Hugh seemed only to enjoy himself once, when a mewing kitten wandered into the hall and the snarling hounds chased after it. Bert wanted badly to rescue the kitten, but he knew better than to leave his seat without permission. And when he looked over, his uncle was watching him from the corner of his eye.
After dinner Bert wandered into the courtyard. The last words his father said were like an echo that never faded away. So the barony might not be his to inherit?
Bert felt an ache in his jaw and realized he’d been clenching his teeth. I’ll just have to prove myself, he thought, rubbing his cheeks with his fingertips. I’ll stay out of trouble. Father will see I’m not as rash as he thinks. But that’s not all. If Uncle Hugh is up to something, I’ll find out what it is.
The days were long, and there was still plenty of sunlight after the dinner hour. He went out to the courtyard and was struck again by a difference between this place and his home. Ambercrest was more than just a soaring castle between broad walls. It was the heart of a bustling community, surrounded by villages and pastures, and populated by farmers, merchants, craftsmen, millers, butchers, smiths, bakers, and countless others. The Crags wasn’t like that. This was more like a garrison, a grim stronghold on the fringe of the kingdom, the last stop before you blundered right off the map into a hostile unknown. And there was nobody here but the ill-tempered lord and his glum lady, a handful of dour servants, and armed men.
But how many men? Too many? Enough to cause trouble if a renegade commanded them?
The courtyard of Ambercrest was wide and sunny, but at The Crags it was merely a dank, narrow alley between the keep and the single wall. Bert circled around the stone structure and found a pointed corner where the courtyard ended abruptly at a wall of natural rock—the mountain itself. Then he turned and walked back, intending to count all the soldiers he saw on the ground and up on the walls. Father said there shouldn’t be more than eighty. Bert strolled around, pretending to be bored. It seemed like every man who saw him scowled or turned away. He’d gotten up to fifty when he saw his uncle talking with another group of armed men. That makes fifty-five already, he thought. Not counting who’s in the barracks or on patrol …
The dogs were there too, as usual. As soon as Uncle Hugh saw Bert, he turned his back and lowered his voice, and the soldiers tightened their circle. Bert stretched his arms and yawned loudly, but his heart thumped against his ribs. Perhaps his uncle was up to no good after all.
Uncle Hugh walked farther around the curve of the keep, followed by his dogs and the circle of men. Bert clasped his hands behind his back, whistled quietly, and ambled in that direction. When he was near the corner, a voice came from above. “I wouldn’t if I were you.”
Bert turned his crimson face toward the voice. Aunt Elaine was there, hanging a basket of cascading yellow flowers from the balcony. “Wouldn’t do what?” he asked, with more edge to his voice than he intended. He added an awkward, belated smile.
“Follow your uncle,” she said. “He wouldn’t like it. Trust me.”
“I wasn’t following him! I’m just trying to learn my way around,” Bert said.
“Why don’t you learn your way upstairs and give me a hand?” she replied.
Bert was with her a few minutes later on the wide terrace atop the keep. The place was littered with benches and tables and shelves. Plants were everywhere. Seedlings sprouted in trays; bushes grew in halved barrels; flowers hung from baskets; strange, fat, prickly plants sat in buckets of sand; and vines crawled up trellises and rock walls.
“Hello, Aunt Elaine,” he said. “What’s all this for?”
His aunt plucked an oval leaf from the plant she was potting. She crushed it between her fingers and brought it to her nose to inhale deeply. “Some will bring flavor to our dishes. Some are said to have healing properties. And others will brighten this gloomy place with their blossoms.”
Gloomy is right, Bert thought, looking at the rocky peaks that cast shadows on The Crags for too many hours each day. His gaze followed the slope all the way down to where it reached the edge of the ruined village. “Why did Uncle Hugh burn it?” he said.
His aunt frowned. “He got …,” she started, but her voice faltered. She pressed h
er lips together, cleared her throat, and began again. “He got the idea that those people were conspiring with the Dwergh.”
Bert nearly hopped with excitement. “Really? Why did he think that?”
“One of his soldiers insisted he’d seen someone talking in the valley to a Dwergh. Of course, the soldier saw it from far away. And he couldn’t find the Dwergh or the person when he chased them. But that was enough evidence for my husband.” Aunt Elaine crossed her arms and stared at the village. “Something about The Crags scares people, Bert. And that brings out the worst in them.”
Bert straightened his back and raised his chin. “It doesn’t scare me. I’m not afraid of the Dwergh. And I don’t believe all those stories about the Witch-Queen.”
His aunt wiped her hands on her apron. “You shouldn’t believe all of them. It happened too long ago. But some of the stories—even the worst of them—are true. And it’s a sadder tale than you’ve imagined, Nephew. A far sadder tale.”
CHAPTER 6
How? How could I let Bert take my place? Will lay on his bed with his pillow clamped over his eyes. He wondered if he would sleep better tonight, or if it would be like last night, when he kept waking, hoping that everything that happened over the last two days was merely a nightmare. He’d called Bert’s name, and when there was no answer, he crept over in the dark and ran his hands across the empty bed.
I can’t bear this, he thought. He and Bert had scarcely spent an hour apart since they were born. And now, a whole summer? An infinity of days stretched before him, and every minute so far had been torture.
“I am so sorry,” he said drowsily. He shouldn’t have let Bert sneak down to look at the maps or climb out the window to spy on their parents. And he never should have let him go in his place to The Crags. If he was ever going to tell his brother no, that had been the moment. The Crags! There was danger there. Will knew there was; he could feel the menace from across the miles. And if trouble was there, of course Bert would find it. He was adventurous. He was curious. He was clever. Don’t explore, Will called out wordlessly. Don’t poke around.
Images played across Will’s mind as he drifted along the foggy shore between wakefulness and sleep. He saw walls part, revealing a secret place as dark as night. He saw Bert walk into the dark place, and Will tried to call a warning, but he couldn’t make sounds come out of his mouth. In this dream he’d forgotten how to speak. Something frightened Bert, something beyond the blackness that Will could not see, and Bert whirled around to get away. There was a hiss and a squeal of fear, the kind an animal might make in the jaws of a wolf. Whatever was behind Bert dragged him backward. Bert reached toward Will, pleading with his eyes as the darkness devoured him….
Will ripped the pillow from his eyes and lurched upright. Now that he was awake he found his voice again. He used it to scream.
CHAPTER 7
Bert wasn’t sure why he was awake. One moment he was sound asleep and the next his eyes snapped open, just like that.
He became aware of a noise in the darkness, so faint that he could not even rustle his blanket if he wanted to hear it. It came from outside his room: the mew of a kitten. In the narrow space under his door, he saw the shadows of four tiny legs.
He kicked off the blankets and crossed the room with the dry herbs crunching under his bare feet and catching between his toes. He opened the door carefully—the hinges creaked dreadfully—and looked out. At his feet he saw the kitten that the hounds had chased. It took a few wobbly steps in the other direction. Bert kneeled down and scooped it up. He slipped the kitten into a fold of his nightshirt and cradled it with one arm. Then he took the extinguished candle from his room and crept down the hall to use one of the lamps there to light the wick. He was relieved to make it safely back and close the groaning door behind him. No doubt stepping out of his room after dark would be a serious breach of one of Uncle Hugh’s “rules.”
Settling back into bed, he let the kitten out of its cocoon. It was a she-cat, black with white legs and a white chin. He whispered to her and scratched behind her ears. The kitten soon relaxed, and she tilted her head to offer her cheek and neck to Bert’s fingers. Before long her eyes closed, and she curled up in the nook between Bert’s pillow and his shoulder, purring furiously. Bert fell asleep thinking about how much his brother loved animals.
Not long after that he woke for the second time that night. The kitten bounded across the bed, chasing a moth that fluttered around the candle. Bert grinned as he watched her little head swivel around to track the flight of the moth, and he laughed out loud when the moth flew directly over the kitten and caused her to topple over backward as she pawed wildly at the air. The moth headed for safer territory at the other end of the room. The kitten leaped off the bed to follow.
Near the far wall, the kitten stopped in front of the tapestry of the rose. Bert laughed again—her tiny tail had puffed out, doubling in size. She arched her back, and the fur along her spine bristled. Then she turned sideways, a ludicrous attempt to make herself look bigger.
“What’s the matter with you?” Bert said, climbing out of bed. “Are all the animals here crazy?” He gently picked her up again, and she scrambled to free herself from his grip. Her tiny claws were sharp as needles, as sharp as those thorns looked in the tapestry of roses in front of Bert.
Roses. A thought occurred to Bert. Didn’t the bird panic at the same place, in front of that tapestry with the great blooming flower? The kitten still clawed madly, so Bert held her away from his body and brought her back to the bed. But she wouldn’t stay. She jumped down and ran to the door, trying to push her nose into the space below, frantic to leave.
Bert watched the kitten, but then his eyes went back to the tapestry. He picked up the birdcage from the table by his bed. Holding the cage in front of him with a hand on each side, he walked toward the woven image of the rose. When he was four steps away, the bird began to fidget on its perch. When he was two steps away, the bird screeched and flew, once, twice, three times into the narrow bars, its wings a blur. He backed away and put the cage back on the table, and the bird settled down.
Bert drew in a great breath and let it out in a whoosh. What’s happening here?
He brought the candle close to scan the tapestry, but saw nothing unusual. He sniffed it warily, wondering if the animals had picked up some offensive odor—something one of Uncle Hugh’s dogs had done, maybe. But there was nothing that he could detect except the smell of great age—the tapestry might have hung there for a hundred years. He ran his free hand across it, feeling the intricate weave under his fingertips. He pressed his palm against it and felt unrelenting stone behind the fabric.
Bert pursed his lips and lowered his brow. He pulled the tapestry away from the wall on one side and peered behind it. There was an ominous creak and a whoosh from above, and he covered his head with his arms as the entire tapestry crashed down. The fabric made little noise, but the wooden bar that it was suspended from hit the floor with an astounding clatter.
Bert let out a curse he’d heard his father use more than once. He raced to his bed and climbed under the covers, ready to snuff out the candle. If anyone came to investigate the noise, he’d pretend to be disoriented and sleepy as if the tapestry had fallen on its own.
No one came. He thought he heard running footsteps in some distant part of The Crags, but there was no knock on his door. He waited to be certain. Then he returned to kneel beside the crumpled tapestry. It didn’t seem to be damaged. Looking up he saw that it had slipped off a hook on the wall—he could mount it again if he stood on a chair.
The wall was easier to inspect with the tapestry down, though. Nothing he could see explained the behavior of the bird and the kitten. The wall was made of great square blocks of stone, expertly fitted. The surface was so smooth that he was compelled to touch it. He drew his flattened palm across the cold stone, and a curious thing happened: a gentle, invisible tug at his hand.
“Huh?” He moved his palm back acros
s the stone and felt it again—something pulling, not at his finger, but at the iron ring he wore. “Lodestone,” he whispered, remembering something a peddler had once sold him and Will. It was a magical kind of ore that pulled on anything made of iron, and attracted or repelled other bits of the same stuff.
He put his nose an inch from the wall, peered carefully, and saw an edge as thin as a hair around the spot he had just touched. The area was shaped like a teardrop, and as big as his fingertip. When he pressed it, the spot sunk into the wall as if there was a spring behind it. It was so strange and unexpected that he laughed out loud.
He took off his ring and slid it across the stone in every direction. Soon he found two more teardrop shapes just like the first. Together with the first spot they formed a triangle, large enough for his open hand to fit inside its center.
“Weird,” he said. He wondered if his aunt and uncle knew about it. Probably not, he decided. He’d found it purely by accident—he could have easily missed it. And the tapestry that covered the triangle looked like it had been there forever, concealing this strange secret. “But what’s it for?”
Now there were footsteps approaching. Bert pulled a chair over to the wall, lifted the tapestry, and set it back on its hook. The steps were getting closer and louder, and he heard muttering voices. He flew across the room and into bed. He licked his fingertips with his tongue and pinched out the flame of the candle, so it wouldn’t send up a stream of telltale smoke. Then he flopped back and squeezed his eyes closed as his door began to open.
CHAPTER 8
Will dipped his pen into the jar of ink and began to write.
Dear Brother,
I hope everything is well with you. Parley says he will hurry to bring you this letter without wasting time along the way like he usually does. He is a good friend. Right after you left I ran into him. I was still pretending to be you, but he gave me a squinty look and a strange smile as if he knew that something was up. His one eye is better than our parents’ four!
The Mirror's Tale Page 4