by Kat Ross
She spent the evening playing her violin and finishing The Mysteries of Udolpho. Despite her initial reservations, Anne found herself drawn into the tale of Emily St. Aubert, a beautiful orphan who gets locked up at Castle Udolpho by the wicked Signor Montoni, an Italian brigand. Emily wept a bit too often for Anne’s taste, but she enjoyed the supernatural goings-on and the doomed romance with the poor but dashing Valancourt.
Anne turned pages into the wee hours and slipped back down to the dining room when she was done to replace the book exactly where it had been on the sideboard, lying facedown at chapter two. For some reason, she didn’t want Gabriel knowing she had devoured his ridiculous book.
The next morning, she was still lolling in bed when she heard sounds below.
Anne sat bolt upright. She rushed down the stairs in her cotton shift and found Gabriel sitting at the dining table. It was the first time he had ever come in full daylight.
“What are you doing here?” she blurted.
He glanced at The Mysteries of Udolpho. “It’s bad for the spine to leave it open like that.”
Gabriel untied the black ribbon from his hair. He picked up the book and slipped the ribbon between the pages.
Anne studied him for any sign of mockery and detected none. “Thank you. But I’ve lost interest in that one anyway.” She paused. “Maybe you could bring another?”
His lips twitched. “Of course.” He swept his arm toward the door. “Come on, then. Unless you’ve changed your mind?”
“No, I…. Let me just get dressed.” Anne ran to the top of the tower and surveyed the gowns, which were all wet from the morning dew. She chose a blue one with a high neck and quickly changed, pulling her boots on and hurrying back down the stairs.
“These are the rules,” he told her in a stern tone. “We walk within the walls for thirty minutes. If you try to run, or to hurt me, or to ask questions I don’t wish to answer, it will be the last time you leave this tower.”
Anne nodded. She had no intention of making a dash for it — not until she knew the grounds better.
Gabriel stood aside and let her go first. Her heart beat a little faster as she stepped through the forbidden door that was always barred to her. A second set of stairs wound down to the bottom of the tower and outside into a high-walled bailey. For the first time she saw the keep itself, which had been hidden by the curve of the tower.
It was not one of those fairytale concoctions of soaring spires and snapping pennants. The castle must have dated back to William the Conqueror, ancient unadorned stone meant to keep out invaders. Dead leaves piled in drifts against the outer wall. She saw no sign of servants or any other inhabitants.
They walked in silence, Gabriel’s bootheels ringing on the stone. The rain had stopped, though the morning remained overcast. Anne had never seen him in daylight before. He looked tired, with dark circles beneath his eyes. They walked together through the bailey to an overgrown garden, still brown from winter.
“You eavesdropped,” she ventured. “The other night. I heard you whistling Zigeunerweisen.”
He glanced at her. “I was curious to know if you really played the violin or if you only intended to stab me with the bow.”
Anne frowned. “What would be the point? You’d simply recover.”
He said nothing to this. They walked another turn around the desolate garden. Anne pretended to be lost in thought but made sure to catalogue every detail. The main gates lay elsewhere but she could see a barred postern gate beyond the garden.
“Where do you go at night?” she asked. “Do you live in the castle?”
“It’s mine,” he replied, which was not exactly an answer.
Emboldened, Anne gave him a friendly smile. “How did you bring me here? Normandy is a long way from the Carpathians. The last thing I remember is falling in the snow and….” She cleared her throat. “You bounding toward me.”
“We Traveled.”
The way he said it conveyed that he did not mean by a coach and four. He meant by a portal through the Dominion.
He has access to powerful talismans and the ability to use them. Anne filed this away.
“What drug did you give me?” she asked.
A pause. “Laudanum.”
She remembered raising the cup to her lips in Father Gavra’s study. She’d come to the monastery half-frozen from the long walk from Mara Vardac and he’d been very polite and kind, offering her a bit of red wine to warm up. She hadn’t wanted it, but it seemed rude to refuse. Two other monks had been present as well — Florin and Constantin — so afterwards, Anne hadn’t been sure which of them had drugged her.
She’d gone to the library and begun reading the books and felt a lethargy come over her. Anne knew right away that they’d put something in her cup. So she’d sent Florin to fetch more books from the stacks and made a run for it, climbing the outer wall before the alarm was raised.
But he’d still caught her in the end.
They made another turn around the oval walkway in silence.
“What do you do all day?” she asked, hoping to prod him into conversation.
“Cook for you.” His gaze fixed on the distant wall. “You think those dishes are simple?”
Anne’s temper began to fray. “You make a joke of it, but it’s not a joke to me,” she said stiffly.
He muttered something inaudible in French.
“My brother will pay well for my safe return. Any amount you ask for.”
He cast her a contemptuous look. “I’m not interested in money.”
“Then what do you want?”
Gabriel’s mouth set. “Justice.”
“For what?” she demanded, exasperated.
He didn’t reply.
Anne stopped walking, forcing him to halt. “Are you really a priest?”
“No, but I am a man of God.” He said this in a low, serious tone and she thought he actually believed it.
“What’s the difference?”
“I was never ordained, but I carry out His will all the same.”
Not just a man-wolf, but a religious fanatic. Heaven help me.
“How did you know I would go to Saint George’s? Were you expecting me?”
His face darkened. “Enough. I told you—”
Anne held up her hands. “All right. I’m sorry I broke your rules. Don’t make me go back just yet. We’ll talk of something else.” He scowled and she touched his sleeve. “Please, it’s been awfully lonely.”
Another lie — Anne could happily go for weeks without hearing a human voice — but she sensed a crack in the façade.
“Your choice. Art? Philosophy? Music?”
Gabriel heaved a sigh. “Music, if you like. Tell me about the piece you played.”
Anne smiled. “Zigeunerweisen. Lovely, isn’t it? Composed by Pablo de Sarasate, a Spaniard. It’s based on the rhythms of the czardas. Hungarian folk dances. They start off slow and get faster and faster….”
They took four more turns around the oval path. The sun broke through the clouds, drying the stones under their feet, and when Anne kept her word, Gabriel seemed to relax a bit. He had a fondness for the romantic composers — Chopin, Schumann, Liszt — but disliked opera, which surprised her given his propensity for melodrama.
“We should get back,” he said at last.
Her steps slowed as they approached the tower. She felt a sudden dread of entering and Gabriel seemed to sense it. He turned to her, his voice softer than she’d ever heard it.
“We can walk again tomorrow if you wish.”
She looked at him, trying to hold her claustrophobia in check. “Yes, thank you.”
He escorted her to the dining room and saw her through the inner door.
“I’ll return later with your supper.”
Anne nodded. The bolt slid home.
While she ate, Gabriel went up to her bedchamber with tools and panes of glass and repaired the window and the leaky roof. Anne tested the outer door, but he’d locked
it with a key. When he left, she found another novel on the sideboard.
The Castle of Otranto.
Anne licked gravy from her fingers and opened to page one. By the third paragraph, a servant was foaming at the mouth. By the fourth, Princess Hippolita had fallen into a swoon because her son, the unfortunate Conrad, had just been crushed to death by an enormous helmet with black plumage. All on the morning of Conrad’s wedding to the beautiful Isabella.
Anne was enthralled.
But even as she read by candlelight late into the night, her mind kept returning to that postern gate beyond the garden.
Over the next week, Gabriel walked with her every morning, rain or shine. They talked about meaningless things and she refrained from pressing him about the nature of his grudge. The excursions lasted an hour or so and then she would return to her tower. It was the most time she’d spent with another person in years.
Gabriel never let her out of his sight, not for an instant. That was as she expected.
But on one particularly fine morning, Anne decided to test his new goodwill.
“Gabriel,” she said cheerfully. “Can’t we walk outside the walls today? The bailey is so small. We just go round and round like rats on a wheel. I’m sure the view from the cliffs is beautiful.”
His eyes narrowed. “So you can push me over?”
She laughed as if he’d made a jest, though the thought had crossed her mind.
“Not at the edge. I just want to see the water.”
“You can see it from the tower.”
She adopted a hurt expression. “Never mind.”
He was quiet for a while. Then he said, “There’s a path that goes down to the shore. It’s steep.”
She gave a careless shrug, though the victory was sweet. “I don’t mind.”
He led her to the postern gate and opened it with a large key. The ground on the other side sloped down to a switchback trail cut into the side of the cliff. Gabriel gestured for her to go first and they picked their way down to the shingled beach.
She could see why he’d permitted it; the shore was nothing more than a narrow crescent that would be fully submerged at high tide. But her heart lifted at being somewhere besides the garden and the tower. Gabriel sat down on a boulder as she ran to the edge of the water and let it lap at her boots. Colonies of grey and white kittiwakes nested in the crags of the cliffs. A cormorant flew low over the water, dark and serpentine. Anne loosened the pins in her hair and let the wind take it.
“When you came to the monastery, you said you were a student of folklore,” Gabriel asked behind her. “Was that true?”
Anne didn’t turn. “Yes.”
“What kind?”
“Any kind.”
But this was another lie. There were certain stories she chased, seeking their source. Hoping they might hold a grain of truth. It was the driving force of her life. Not even Vivienne and Alec knew that, though she wondered if they suspected.
“You came to hunt the pricolici, no?”
Anne glanced over her shoulder. “And I found him.”
“What other stories do you like?”
“Hmmm. Fairies. Witches. Kelpies and bugbears. They’re real, you know.”
“You’re teasing me.”
“Not in the least.”
“Have you seen such things?”
He sounded genuinely interested.
The wind stung her cheeks as she rounded on him. “Why do you care?”
“I’m only asking.”
“Well, don’t,” she snapped, more harshly than she’d intended. “Nothing personal, remember? Your rules.”
A black cloud extinguished the sun. A spattering of rain hit her face. Gabriel’s brows lowered and he looked on the verge of saying something more when the skies opened. They ran for the path, instantly soaked, and made their way up the slippery cliff face in foul humor.
Anne slammed the inner door shut before he could lock her in.
13
By sunset, Anne was full of remorse.
She’d gained a toehold, only to squander it with a childish outburst.
So when Gabriel returned with supper, she apologized and asked if he would stay to eat with her. He looked surprised at the invitation — and not exactly eager.
“Just for a few minutes,” she coaxed.
He looked out the window and she had the distinct impression he was gauging the light outside. Rain swept the tower in grey curtains.
A dark and stormy night….
“For a little while,” Gabriel agreed.
They sat down across from each other. Anne ladled turtle soup into a bowl. He looked even more like a scholar in the candlelight, more like the gentle Father Gavra she remembered, even though she knew he was no such thing.
An awkward silence descended. It was one thing to be escorted on a walk outside, another to have an intimate dinner as friends might. Gabriel seemed all too conscious of this, sitting stiffly, his hands folded in his lap as he watched her eat.
“It’s very good, thank you,” she said.
“De rien.”
He met her eyes briefly, then looked away.
She spooned the rich broth into her mouth, trying not to slurp although it was very hot.
“Oh.” Relief flashed across his face as remembered something, reaching into a coat pocket. “I have something for you.”
Anne accepted the slim volume, peering at the cover. “Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley.”
Gabriel smiled like a satisfied cat. “Open it and read the inscription.”
She did so. “To Lord Byron, from the author.” Anne raised an eyebrow. “You stole this, didn’t you?”
He waved the accusation away. “I don’t steal. I bought it. A very special edition. You know that Byron proposed the storytelling contest that inspired the story?”
“No, I didn’t.” She leaned her elbows on the table. “Tell me.”
He poured a glass of wine but didn’t touch it, just twirled the stem in his fingers. “Mary was seventeen when she began having an affair with the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. He married her two years later, after his first wife killed herself.”
“It sounds just like—” One of your novels, she’d been about to say, but that would mean admitting she’d read them. “Go on.”
“Later, they spent a summer at Lake Geneva with Byron. The weather was miserable so they passed the time inventing ghost stories. Mary had a dream about a poor monster, disowned by its creator and doomed to wander in search of a mate, not realizing it was the only one of its kind.” The candlelight burnished his irises to a rich gold. “Tragic, no?”
“Terribly.”
Another silence descended.
“I have a game,” Anne said.
He leaned back, waiting.
“Not stories. This game is about answering questions truly. One each.”
Gabriel considered this. “Maybe. But don’t ask what I intend to do with you.”
“Why not?” she demanded.
That sudden heat returned. “Because you won’t like the answer.”
Anne felt a jolt of dread. “Just tell me what I’ve done. What crime I’ve committed.”
“Your brother stole something from me, something priceless. So I’m taking something from him.”
“This is about Alec?” Her fists balled. “Then why don’t you damn well lock him up? Women aren’t chattel, you know. You can’t just use us to pay debts.”
He rose and stalked to the window, throwing his hands up. “That’s not what I meant. You don’t understand anything.”
She studied the taut line of his shoulders. “What did he steal from you?”
Gabriel turned, his face blazing.
“Never mind, don’t speak of it.” She gave him a level look. “No need to have a tantrum. I’ll ask something else.”
“Like what?” he snapped.
“Were you born with the ability to change into an animal?”
&nb
sp; He blinked in surprise. “The answer is no.” He drew a deep breath. “Now it’s my turn.”
“Fair enough.”
“Why do you hunt the old stories? You weren’t honest before.”
Anne met his gaze. “Because sometimes they’re true.”
“Which ones?”
“Not the bugbears, I’ll admit. But the stories about nosferatu, risen dead that drain the life from their victims. Wights and ghouls.”
“Are they all so ugly?”
“No. I’ve seen other things, too, enchanting things. Once I saw a mermaid in the Zambezi River with hair of black kelp and a smile like the sunrise.”
His gaze narrowed. “But that’s not what you’re really looking for, is it?”
“You’ve asked four questions now.”
“You never answered the first one,” he shot back.
“I did.”
Gabriel scowled.
“It’s just not all of the answer. But you won’t get the rest until you tell me things I want to know.”
He turned back to the window, his voice sulky now. “I’m not playing if you cheat.”
“Very well.” She ran her fingers down the spine of the book he’d given her, tracing the letters stamped in gold leaf. “Here’s one for free. I don’t believe in the Devil, nor some almighty God either. I suppose you think I’ll burn in Hell for that.”
He snorted. “You’re hardly the first atheist I’ve met.”
“Well, good for you, Gabriel,” Anne said dryly. “But I think I have more experience than you do in these matters, and what mortals call the supernatural is in fact part of the natural world. It simply exists in a dimension that’s rarely seen because they cannot open their minds to it.” She thought of Mara Vardac. “Until it comes and steals their children from their beds at night. So I follow the stories where they lead me and I kill the monsters.” She touched the corner of her eye. “Because I know how to see them for what they are.”