“Which is a stretch to believe,” Fay interrupted. “I mean, Marjorie?”
“Just assume it’s true and answer me this, Fay,” Sophie said. Jordan saw she was squeezing Fay’s hand hard enough that Fay’s fingertips were white. “Have you ever wondered what happened to the original sister? The one you were supposed to be?”
“Sure, I used to wonder about that all the time.” She tried to wriggle her hand out of Sophie’s vise grip and then went slack. “Oh my God, do you think?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I wanted to know what you thought.”
“What are you both thinking?” Jordan asked, louder than he meant. He had to nod an apology at Tristan who clearly didn’t like his wife getting yelled at.
“They think Marjorie is the original sister,” Leo said.
“Marjorie?” he asked, then clamped his mouth shut, realizing he had done what he’d got on his sister for doing. Everything was so difficult to explain and understand.
“It makes sense,” Fay said. “Kind of. If what the witch said is true. If the witch is real.” She turned to Tristan. “Are you following any of this, lovie?”
He nodded. “Most of it, yes. Marjorie is the source of the curse, correct?”
“Possibly.”
“I’m not lying about the witch or what she told me,” Jordan said. “Or that she was in Marjorie’s body. Do you think I would just randomly accost—God. Randomly try to talk to some maid if I didn’t have a reason? I thought she was Lyra.”
“We believe you, Jordan,” Sophie said. “He’s not one to make things up. He’s overly honest most of the time. He actually told me a dress made my butt look fat once.”
“No, I didn’t,” he said, not remembering such a thing.
“Yes, it was my tenth grade homecoming. I loved that yellow dress and you ruined it for me.”
“Please,” Fay begged, holding her hands out between them. “Enough with the trips down memory lane. It’s getting us sidetracked. We can believe Jordan believes what he’s saying, how’s that?”
“Whatever,” Jordan grumbled. “Were you a lawyer in our time?”
“You spoke to Marjorie this morning, didn’t you?” Leo asked loud enough to get everyone back on track. “What did you say?”
Jordan frowned. “I asked her about the curse and she got scared and ran off.”
“Idiot,” Sophie muttered. He thought he heard Fay mutter something, too, but he decided to ignore it. Mostly because they weren’t wrong.
“I thought it might jog her memory. If it’s her curse, we need her to remember what it was. Because what you guys are doing to break it ain’t working.”
“Dear God, her memory,” Fay said. She looked stricken, turning to Sophie, who seemed to catch whatever terrifying notion Fay had come up with.
“She’s under the curse, too. She can’t remember anything. If she did set the curse, she doesn’t know it now.”
“We need to get her to remember,” Jordan insisted. “I mean, she wanted to prove true love and faithfulness existed, so that probably means she got her heart broken and wasn’t thinking straight. How many of us wouldn’t have cursed an ex if we had a witch handy to do it? No one? None of you?” Jordan didn’t like the way the room seemed to seethe with bad energy. For some reason, he was afraid they’d take out their frustrations on poor Marjorie.
“Do you think she’s the one who tried to kill me?” Sophie asked. Jordan looked at her askance. This was the first time he’d heard of that.
“Or me?” Fay asked. “The little cow.”
“Hold up,” Jordan said. “You don’t know anything about that. You both said the curse changed. It could be a completely different curse than the one she asked for. It’s obviously mutating over time. But if she can remember her exact intention for wanting it in the first place, we might be able to drill down to its core.”
“Okay, but the curse didn’t lock me up in the dungeon or set fire to the barn,” Fay said. “That was human hands.” She narrowed her eyes at Sophie as if to dare her to say it was a ghost again, but Sophie nodded her head in agreement.
“It must have been Marjorie.”
“Or Lyra, possessing Marjorie,” Leo supplied. Jordan thanked the heavens for a voice of reason. He was afraid his sister and Fay were about to fire up their torches and go after Marjorie. Who didn’t have a clue of any of it.
“If it was Lyra possessing her, it wasn’t really her. I saw what that was like, twice now. Marjorie wasn’t available at all during those times, believe me. Which means she’s innocent of any wrongdoing,” Jordan said. “In fact, aren’t you happy here now? Would either of you go back if you had the chance?” He looked from Fay to Sophie.
Fay grabbed Tristan’s hand and kissed it. “No, I’d never go back, not now that I have Tristan.”
His sister gave Leo a gooey look. “Of course I’d stay. No question.”
“There. It seems to me like Marjorie did you both a favor.” He thought that would be the end of it, but he was wrong. So wrong.
Fay’s head swiveled toward him as if she were a bobble head doll. A very angry one. “Are you joking? This curse has killed people. Let’s say she’s not responsible for locking me up or burning the barn while Sophie was trapped in the walls or sabotaging the garderobe so she might fall to her death.”
“In poo,” Sophie supplied. “Don’t forget I would have died in poo.”
Jordan’s head spun. What was all this now? Fay nodded vigorously to Sophie’s addendum. “Yes, she would have died in poo. But let’s go ahead and say that wasn’t really Marjorie. Fine. But the curse being upon us in the first place was Marjorie. And that curse has killed people. You know I wasn’t the first one to come through, right?”
Jordan looked at the beams in the ceiling, trying to recall the actual curse. He shook his head. “Do we really know what happened to them? So far, the curse hasn’t exactly been true to its word. And if they did unfortunately pass, they were warned about putting the dress back in the chest. If they gave up, it was their choice.”
Sophie had to grab Fay to keep her from lunging. Leo stood up as an added barrier. “Their choice?” she hissed, spit flying out of her mouth, eyes wide with fury. “You can’t possibly know what it’s like to go through the same terrible losses again and again. You had to face your sister’s death back in our time, right? Imagine doing it once a year without fail. And then it gets sped up to every two months and then who knows when? You might make a bad choice, too.”
Jordan sat in silence for a moment, letting her calm down. “I get what you’re saying. I agree that it’s horrible and wasteful. What I disagree with is Marjorie’s culpability. Can we forgive her for those deaths if she wasn’t aware she might cause them?” He pointed at Tristan and Leo, making a leap he didn’t think was too wide. “You’ve both killed people. And consciously. But you and you both are able to forgive them.” He pointed to Fay and Sophie.
Tristan understood him plainly, his eyebrows nearly meeting in the middle. “I protect my King’s land and people,” he said stiffly. “If that involves killing, then so be it.”
“He’s right, it’s different,” Sophie cried, hurrying to Leo’s side and putting her arm around him. “They’re soldiers.”
“It’s not different,” Leo said softly. “Not to the people who are killed, at any rate. I’m willing to withhold judgment until we know Marjorie’s true intentions.”
For the first time, Jordan could see why Sophie loved that ugly jerk. He wasn’t so ugly or such a jerk all of a sudden. It was clear he had a good heart.
“All we have are more theories,” Fay said. “This stupid curse should have been broken at least twice now.”
Jordan sat up straighter. “There was something else Lyra said. About that very thing, in fact. She said maybe the wrong people were finding love.”
“That’s helpful,” Sophie said in such a way he couldn’t tell if she was being sarcastic or not. She looked tired. Lost. Completely over it.
“If it’s not us, then who?” She shrugged. “I have to go, I promised to help the cook. He was having a conniption about the huge army that’s heading our way.”
“Ugh, Lord Drayton, don’t remind me,” Fay said, pulling a face. “Yes, I have to air out the rooms.”
The men muttered about whatever it was they needed to do, all of them about to leave Jordan alone again. “Don’t follow Marjorie around anymore,” Sophie said on her way out. “Stay in here where it’s safe.”
Jordan rolled himself up in his bedroll after the room was empty and quiet. He hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before, traipsing in the woods and then worrying about what he’d found out. He was surprised that having more information had made everything more difficult. But he shouldn’t have been surprised at anything. He was in 1398, trying to get through to a girl who may or may not have set a deadly curse. He knew he should fear and despise her, but he felt sorry for her instead.
How unhappy must someone have been to want to relive the same year over and over again. What had gone so wrong?
Chapter 11
Marjorie was glad Lord Drayton and his men were finally here. More people in the castle meant more work, but it would also provide a buffer between her and the ever-lurking Lord Jordan. He hadn’t approached her again in the last three days, but he always seemed to be looking at her. The one time she’d accidentally caught his eye, he’d smiled sadly and looked away first. It had confused her. She hated being confused.
She tried not to yawn while she stood behind the Grancourt daughters during Lord Drayton’s arrival. She’d had the same nightmare for the last three nights, making her lie in bed trying to stay awake to avoid it. She didn’t think Sir Walter would have cared if she missed the initial greeting. She wasn’t important, after all. But Anne had been coughing so severely all day she wanted to stay close. At the first sign of Anne faltering, she was going to call for Gunther to take her upstairs. Like a sack of grain if need be. She refused to let her nightmare come true because Anne was too proud to admit to being ill and resting.
“There he is,” Batty squealed.
He was an awful peacock. Everything about his procession through the gate was ridiculous. Men-at-arms rode in bearing flags. More flag bearers flanked Lord Drayton on his pure white steed. The horse’s saddle had more ornamentation than Anne’s finest gown, which she was currently wearing.
Batty sighed about how handsome he was and if Marjorie pushed past her exhaustion she had to admit he had a regal air about him. He dismounted and eagerly greeted Sir Walter, gushing about how delighted he was to see Grancourt at last. She had an odd sense that he was lying. Hadn’t he been to Grancourt before? She felt an absolute certainty that he had, that she’d already thought he was a peacock. Goodness, she needed some proper sleep that wasn’t plagued by nightmares.
As soon as Lord Drayton and his entourage were in the great hall, she decided to skip supper and go upstairs. She’d hear about it from the cook later, since all hands were needed, but she’d been yelled at by him before. She could stand it again.
“Promise me to make Anne retire if she starts coughing again,” she said to Batty, squeezing her arm to make her know she was serious. “If she won’t and you think she’s in a bad way, come and get me. Do you promise?”
“Goodness, Marjorie, you’ve been like a squawking mother hen about Anne for the last few days. If she says she’s fine, she’s fine. Why are you so fretful lately?”
Because Anne dies in my dreams every night, you thoughtless girl.
“Just keep an eye on her. You know she’s been unwell.” Marjorie looked into the great hall, wishing she could sink onto one of the benches and put her head down on the table. She didn’t know how she’d make it up the stairs.
She’d only put her foot on the first step when shouts broke out from the other side of the door. Pressing herself against the wall, she waited to see if it was a minor squabble that would subside in a moment. The shouts grew louder, along with the sounds of thundering feet. A crash sounded in the distance and she finally heard the word she feared most.
“Attack!”
After the men in the great hall had gotten themselves past her hiding spot, she tore out of the stairwell in search of Batty and the girls. Fay skidded to a halt in front of her, gave her a tormented look, and finally grabbed her hand.
“Come with me. Father’s ordered us to the chapel cellar until he knows what’s going on.”
“Who is attacking us?” Marjorie asked as they ran for the chapel. The back courtyard was a seething mass of men readying weapons and donning armor. “Have we been betrayed by Lord Drayton?”
Fay ground to a halt again and looked at her with astonishment, then shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. He never tried anything like that before.”
“What?” Marjorie called, a few paces behind her. Goodness, Fay was quick. She thought she’d heard, just didn’t understand. She remembered her strange feeling that Lord Drayton had been to Grancourt before.
They got into the chapel and, to Marjorie’s relief, Anne and Sophie were already there. The priest was prying open the hidden hatch that led to the safest place for them during a possible invasion. To her great dismay, Lord Jordan jumped from behind the lectern and helped him pull up the heavy trap door.
Why? Shouldn’t every able-bodied man be out defending the castle? There was definitely nothing wrong with his body, as far as she could see. What bad luck did she have that he would be there with them? She didn’t have any longer to lament. Anne bellowed for them to get inside, holding a lantern over the opening. One by one, they made their way down the winding, crumbling steps. Marjorie hated the place. It was one of the oldest parts of the castle and it looked and smelled like it. Cobwebs were everywhere when she finally reached the bottom and she nearly had a fit when she walked right through a big patch in the dark.
She waved her hands and scratched at her face and hair, trying to get the awful, gossamer web off her. It stuck to everything and she imagined a spider was already taking up residence in her hair. She could catch and kill a rat without an ounce of trepidation. She wasn’t scared of crows like Batty was. But spiders. She shrieked, knowing she was covered in them.
Blessedly, a light flared. Lord Jordan held a candle aloft and hurried toward her with it. “Marjorie, are you all right?” He saw the source of the trouble at once and carefully picked away the remains of web while she stood there trembling like a ninny.
“Do you see any spiders on me?” she asked.
“No, it’s only a cobweb.” He swept the candle high in an arc, squinting at the support beams and ceiling. “I don’t see any spiders anywhere.”
She let out a shuddering breath, mortified to show such weakness. “I’m sorry,” she said, ducking and trying to go under his arm to where the others huddled on benches against the wall. “I don’t know what it is about spiders that frightens me so.”
He smiled and she saw how gleaming white his teeth were in the candlelight. “It’s probably the eight legs. Or maybe the disgusting pincers. Or maybe the—”
“Yes, it’s probably all of those things,” she said, unable to resist returning his smile. It was kind of him to try and ease her discomfort.
He led her to the bench and sat her beside the priest, handing her the candle. The only available spot left to sit was the other side of the bench, next to Batty. She had a brief stab of disappointment, which she quickly dismissed. Why should she want to sit next to him? Batty was as good at killing spiders as anyone. She wasn’t afraid of the hairy, nasty things at all.
“Shall we pray?” the priest asked, his pulpit voice reverberating against the close walls of the cellar.
“In a moment, Father Thomas,” Anne said. “What do we know?” she asked. “Anything? And where’s Edgar?” She blew out a dismayed breath. “We forgot Edgar.”
“He’s probably so drunk he doesn’t know there’s a battle raging.” Sophie’s voice came from the center of the gl
oom. Marjorie held the candle up to share a smile of agreement with her about their old physician.
“But what about Roric?” Fay asked. “He’s not fit to be out there.”
“He insisted,” Anne said. “He flatly refused to come with me, saying he’d die at Sir Walter’s side if necessary.”
“I hope it’s not necessary,” Batty whimpered.
“Let us pray about it,” Father Thomas boomed hopefully.
“It’s admirable that he went,” Batty said, nudging Marjorie’s arm. “He’s quite a bit older than you, Lord Jordan, and less able-bodied.”
“Jor—Lord Jordan has an old injury,” Sophie said. “Don’t you?”
Marjorie leaned over to see if he was flustered. She’d had the same thought and was eager to hear his excuse from his own mouth. He turned to Sophie and scowled. How impertinent! She recalled with a start how fast Sophie had run to Lord Jordan’s side when he’d been in a heap in the hall. Was he such a good friend of Sir Leo’s? The familiarity was jarring.
“I’m a pacifist,” he said. “I don’t believe in fighting or killing.”
“You wouldn’t defend your land? Your family?” Batty pressed.
Marjorie knew she was being loyal and berating Lord Jordan for his rough treatment of her. But oddly, she found she’d almost forgotten it and had completely forgiven him. Normally, she carried a grudge for a good, long time. It was refreshing not to be angry for once.
“Leave it, Batty,” Anne said. “Your views are different from ours, Lord Jordan, so I hope you can forgive my maid’s passionate response. But holding to one’s beliefs is always admirable.”
“Amen,” said Father Thomas. “Let us pray for tolerance.”
“But what do we know about the attack?” Anne asked. Marjorie almost giggled at the priest’s disappointed sigh.
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