by Julia Byrd
The man was a chandler by trade, although I’d always purchased my tapers from a woman on the next street. His business was located at the end of a short block of shops. The first floor was the storefront and workshop, while he and Sarah, before she’d run to Juno, had their residence in the second story. The shop door was closed and locked, however, with no note indicating an intention to return. I would have to find him later.
At the greengrocer’s shop, I purchased fresh food for my houseguests and then ducked into the next doorway and picked out two bottles of French burgundy. The girl behind the counter at the wine merchant’s shop I did not recognize, but she must have known me.
“Mr. Hood,” she said. “Very pleased to have your custom. Will you be taking these bottles up to the big house, then?”
I blinked in surprise. How did the girl know the particulars of my life? Did the whole village know? “I’m not sure how their intended destination is relevant to their taste,” I said dryly.
“It’s not, I only wondered if—” She stopped as she understood my rebuke. “Right.” Her face reddened. “You’ll have Everett Toth there with you. Send him regards from Abigail Meading if you please.”
She was blushing and flustered, so I exerted myself to redeem my pointed remark. “Of course. You were at school together?”
“Yes. And whatever people are saying, I’m sure that the hex will not harm Everett.”
“The—the hex? What in God’s name are you referring to?” But I’d heard similar phrasing from Roberts—a hexed lineage.
“You haven’t heard? I assumed you sheltered Everett.”
“From what?”
“The hex?” It emerged as a timid question. The girl was so muddled that I could not feel awkward about my stutter. “His mother’s hex. I really didn’t think it could be—”
“No. Please, stop. Everett lives at home with his mother, although I really cannot understand why I am explaining that. Everyone is fine, and no one,” I said firmly, “is hexed.”
“No one except the Pfeiffer baby and all those others.” The girl’s snub nose lifted. She pushed a bill of sale across the counter towards me.
I slid the bottles into my market bag and collected the receipt. “Not even them. I’ll be sure to pass Everett your greeting, Miss Meading.”
After leaving the shop, I endeavored to put the girl’s superstitious, unfounded comments in context. Roberts had also referred to the Toth’s hexed lineage. Who else thought that way? My own village was not nearly so Christian, in spirit or tradition, as I had imagined. I followed my mother’s example and nodded to all the pedestrians I passed on the streets and walkways, and many people returned my greetings. They weren’t all bad people. Still, the unease lingered. I did not believe in a hex, but apparently, some did.
For the walk to Maida House, I decided to approach along the road and up the long gravel drive, instead of sneaking in through the cemetery tunnel. It’s my house. I could come and go as I pleased.
After I let myself in the front entrance, my boots resounded in a long echo in the quiet hall.
“Hello?” I called, walking slowly along the main passageway.
The library was empty, and the fireplace there was cold. No one was in the kitchen. The dining room was also empty and faultlessly clean. When had Juno found time to work? Daylight and the spotless woodwork only highlighted the damp, sagging corner of the ceiling. I passed back through the main hall and put a foot on the first riser of the staircase. “Is anybody here?”
Had Greeley come to collect Sarah while I’d been away? I tamped down a rising panic. The people in my house were my responsibility. But I already knew they were gone—I could feel it in the stillness of the air. The handle of the heavy market bag weighed on my fingers, and I turned back to the kitchen.
I set the food and wine on the worktable and looked around the room once again. Nothing was out of place.
Except for a slip of paper in the center of the table. It was a note on rich stationery I recognized. How had I missed it before? The stricture in my chest unfurled in sudden relief. I snatched up the note.
Off to my house on a salvage mission. Will return before nightfall. –J.
I refolded the page and slid it into my pocket. Juno had the forethought to provide me with an explanation.
For an hour I worked outside on removing Hedera helix vines from the south façade. Using a ladder from the stable and shears from the cobwebbed gardener’s shed, I pulled at the recalcitrant ivy. A considerable pile of pruned pieces grew around the base of the ladder, where my coat was folded over the bottom rung. Like the rest of the work needed around the house, clearing the vines from the façade deserved more than one man’s efforts. It was slow going, especially with half of my mind waiting on the others to return. I had to keep busy, or I’d find myself staring off into the distance, watching the horizon for a glimpse of Juno’s sweeping skirts and dark hair.
When she finally did appear on the drive, she was with Sarah and Everett, who towed a little wheeled cart. I pivoted on the ladder and gave them all a wave before climbing down. The midday sun provided only faint warmth to the autumn air, but I was perspiring after wrestling with the vines. I dashed my forearm across my face and slipped back into my coat.
For a moment I was embarrassed to be seen in such a state, sweating and dressed like a common laborer. A gentleman should not have dirt under his fingernails or a shallow, stinging cut at the base of his thumb. I rubbed at the blood with the tail of my shirt. She already knows you’re a gravedigger, you turnip.
Juno’s gaze was wary as I approached. She wore a woolen shawl and a fresh cotton dress. One of hers, rescued from the house, or maybe borrowed.
“Ladies.” I stuttered but did not care. “Everett. What have you there?”
He stood aside so I could see the contents of the wagon. It was full of plants. I stared at the overflowing, leafy profusion of vegetation. There were pots of strawberry and raspberry, a huge mint plant, silverbeet, my purloined Viburnum tinus—I recognized them.
“These are from your conservatory,” I said to Juno.
“Yes. You gave me five minutes, and I was able to pull some flora out through the glass doors. They waited for me outside overnight, just on the far side of the oak tree, but I think they’ve all survived the cold. There are more waiting to be fetched.”
She was pleased with herself. Of all her possessions, she’d chosen to save the plants? She had odd priorities.
I shook my head. “I see. You’re welcome to move these into the Maida hot house. It’s a mess, but I don’t suppose that will much slow you. Tell me if it needs any major repairs.”
“Thank you.” She flashed a dimpled grin. There was no surprise in her expression. She’d known I would offer her plants a new home here, of course. The revelation from Mrs. Horvath weighed on my mind. Was Juno that much of a schemer? What else had she hidden from me?
Sarah leaned close and whispered something in Everett’s ear, and he nodded.
“We’ll just take these around to the rear,” he said, hoisting the cart’s handle. He and Sarah walked off together, leaving me alone with Juno.
I couldn’t take my eyes from her. How best to broach an awkward subject? You’re beautiful, but I’m afraid you might be deadly. I stepped forwards and put a hand under her elbow. She raised her chin and met my gaze.
“Did you find out anything about the fire?”
“Not yet,” I said, then hesitated for a moment. “I visited my mother this morning and Mrs. Horvath. Juno, I must speak with you.”
“Of course.”
Her face betrayed no distrust, although I doubted my own ability to assess her. “Thank you. Will you explore with me the famed Maida hedge maze?
“Hedge maze?” Juno turned her head as if she’d simply missed seeing one in the lawn.
“It’s on the far slope.” I offered her my arm. “But I cannot vouch for its current condition. It’s been long neglected, like everything else a
round here.” I flicked a glance at her, remembering with a flush how she’d begun to make amends for my own neglect two nights ago in the attic.
“Lead on. And tell me about Mrs. Hood.”
She has dark hair, dimples in her cheeks, and she likes ‘denude.’ She bewitched me.
“Ah, yes,” I said, shoving aside a distracting vision of Juno in a bridal veil. She referred to my mother, of course, not herself. Juno was so lovely that I found myself avoiding the difficult questions about the infants’ deaths. We walked in silence for a minute or two. “My mother, the former Rebecca Price, was born in Stonebridge in the year of our Lord seventeen hundred and eighty-seven to Squire Randall Price and his wife Anne, the second of four daughters. She has a scar on her left wrist, and she loves blueberries—” I stopped when Juno laughed and lifted my eyebrows. “Not what you had in mind?”
“Sometimes I wonder if you saved up two decades’ worth of words and have now decided to spend them all lavishly. What is that wall?” she asked, pointing.
We approached an eight-foot-high brick enclosure with apple trees espaliered along it at equal distances. The untended trees dropped their overripe fruit in fragrant, mushy piles at the base of the wall. In the north wall was a wide, ungated opening, and conifers crowded the space within.
“You have located the living puzzle, clever girl. The next challenge is finding the center of it.”
She nudged my arm with her shoulder. “Return to the topic of your mother. But tell me who she really is, not the names of her childhood pets.”
We closed the remaining distance and passed through the opening. Together we entered the first avenue of Taxus baccata. I recalled the paths as neat and wide, but the yews had seized the open space and squeezed us into a narrow aisle. Juno brushed against me at hip and shoulder with each step. The midday sky was partially blocked by the towering hedges. As soon as we turned the first corner, the entrance was out of sight. I cut a quick glance back at Maida House, where the roof and fourth story were still visible.
Inside the maze, my mood turned more somber. “She means well,” I said softly in response to Juno’s question. “She loves me. The loss of my father followed two years later by Joseph’s suicide, plunged her into grief from which she has only recently emerged. I have never been quite perfect as a son, and sometimes her mourning made me feel…insufficient. The fact of my existence could not lift her melancholy.”
“I am sorry,” Juno said softly.
“Thank you. I believe we have recently mended some old hurts.” White gravel crunched underfoot. I shifted my shoulders to resettle my coat. “Shall we take the direct route to the center, or wander about and get ourselves thoroughly lost?”
“Do you know the direct route to the center?”
“Not at all,” I confessed.
Juno laughed. “Then it’s decided. We’ll wander until lost. But I hope it won’t take more than an hour, or I’m going to need a cup of tea. I’m an Englishwoman, after all.”
“Will you use your dark arts to conjure up tea at a whim?” I teased, then wafted my free hand about. “A snap of your fingers, and poof.”
Juno appeared to consider, then nodded. “Yes, of course. All I shall require is my smallest cauldron and a particular sachet of rare herbs. Then I apply flint to steel,” she said, jangling my chatelaine at her waist, “and burn dry fuel. Add water to the cauldron—”
“Wait, now,” I exclaimed. “That’s just making tea. You’re describing regular tea.”
She slanted her lips in a sly smile. “There is a certain magic to tea if you do it properly.”
I chuckled. “I suppose that explains why we all turn to ogres without it.”
We rounded a corner and faced a branching intersection. I peered left and right, but the identical paths offered no clues. Juno looked at me with raised eyebrows.
“Left,” I said.
“Left,” she said at the same moment, and our voices made a chiming octave in the quiet maze.
I smiled. “We occasionally agree.”
“I disagree,” said Juno loftily. “We often agree.”
She tightened her grip on my arm in a brief squeeze. We turned left into deeper isolation among the thick hedges. I glanced again at the roofline of Maida House to realign my inner orientation. Ahead, the finial atop a birdcage-like gazebo poked above the yews. We had penetrated the maze, but the center was still several turns away.
A rustling noise emanated from the wall of shrubbery ahead of us.
“Do you hear that?” I asked.
“Yes. Is there someone in here with us?”
The suggestion made my back stiffen. It was less than a full day since Juno’s house had burned. Was someone hunting us? The source of the sound was low, and I scanned the greenery without glimpsing anything.
“I can’t imagine how or why anyone else would be inside this jungle,” I said in an attempt to persuade myself.
The yew branches were less dense near the ground. I disengaged myself from Juno’s hand and sank to one knee for a better look. There, with my head bent close to the gravel, I could see from our path through to the next one over.
The rustling sounds grew more frantic. Finally, I saw the source of the noise—a gray dove flapped in the tight space below the yew.
I exhaled on a laugh of relief. “It’s just a bird. A dove, a juvenile, I’d say, and probably injured. See?” I gently lifted a branch to expose the little creature.
“Oh, poor baby,” Juno murmured. She crouched beside me, careless of her hem, and reached for the bird. “Are you trapped?” she asked the creature. “No, hold very still, please. There you are.”
She cupped her hands around its wings, stilling the flapping. One wing looked normal, but the other was…askew. It would not close flat against the bird’s body. It would never fly again.
“That wing,” I said. “It won’t be able to survive.” The bird’s fate was either starvation or to become a predator’s meal.
“I know.” Juno whispered to the little dove. “I am glad to feel your silky feathers. I am sorry you won’t live the full span of a dove’s lifetime.”
Her tone reminded me of the ritual she’d conducted for the Viburnum tinus. I knew what she was thinking. “Juno…”
“Your mother must have brought you worms and insects, and surely you had siblings in the nest.” She stroked the tiny head with one fingertip, and the bird calmed. “I hope your life afforded you at least one moment of pleasure—perhaps you soared in flight? And I hope your death brings life to other creatures. Thank you.”
Then, with one hand still holding the bird’s wings, she closed her other hand over its head and made a sharp, brutal twist.
Chapter 17: Rite of Communion
The bird’s death at Juno’s hands should have shocked me. I had become too accustomed to death, perhaps. Call it flaw or strength, I was not appalled by the dull crack of an injured bird’s neck.
Gently Juno placed the feathered corpse back under the hedge. I offered her my hand to help her arise and my handkerchief to dust off her fingers. Juno held my glance for an extra fraction of a second as if assessing my reaction. Had I passed or failed some test? If she played some dense game, I was far behind in understanding the rules, let alone the scoring.
We walked in silence around a few turns. Beyond one last corner, the center of the maze opened before us.
“Oh!” Juno said. She stopped at the sight of the gazebo occupying the absolute middle of the garden. Despite their overgrown branches, the surrounding hedgerows still allowed plenty of space for the lacy metal. The arcing roof was topped with a pointed spire. The whole thing had once been coated in white paint, but the lacquer was peeling in many sections, revealing rusting iron beneath. “It’s lovely. I didn’t know what to expect.”
“Do you like it?” I eyed the structure critically. “It doesn’t give any shade. The whole top is just useless tracery. There’s no purpose to any of it, not even a bench.”
She laughed. “I can find purpose in it. This confection alerts the maze-runner to her achievement and rewards us for our efforts.”
“Ah, a common fallacy,” I said, then wandered into the avian folly. I picked at a loose flake of paint on the rail and perched my hip on it. “The real achievement of a hedge maze lies not in getting in but in getting out.”
“Like love,” Juno said softly.
“Love?” I echoed. “You believe the achievement in love is not falling into it but rather falling out of it?”
“No.” She strolled closer, inspecting the fine metalwork on the columns. The rusting arbor concealed nothing, provided neither shade nor shelter, but Juno’s lowered eyelashes shielded a whole universe from me. “That’s not what you said. Not falling out of love but getting out of it.”
“As in getting out…intact,” I ventured. “You say that love is dangerous.”
“Don’t you?” She raised her eyes and caught me staring.
“I have no experience and thus no opinion. Did you love Mr. Stephens?”
“Mmm. No. Not him. My parents selected him for me. He was dull and wanted to control my every thought and action. We maintained a bitter coexistence after he found total authority to be impossible.”
I had no sympathy for the man. Upon meeting Juno, anyone should have been able to recognize that she would not be mastered. But then what experience had led to her dark opinion of love? Experience with whom? I shouldn’t ask, but I could not stop myself. I pressed my lips together to restrain the query for another second, then stepped closer. “Then whose love left you with such a wariness—”
“Ben.” Juno gripped the ironwork and hopped up to sit atop the railing, looking like a particularly curvaceous bird on a perch. “Come here.” She crossed her ankles and flicked her eyes to the space before her. “I must tell you something, but first I want to ask you a question of my own.”
I abandoned my earlier question and obeyed. A single stride brought us together. If she turned out to be an evil witch, my eternal soul was surely damned. From her position on the railing, we were of a height. Juno lifted her right hand rested it near the base of my neck. I went very still as if some rare creature had alighted there.