by Ward, Tracey
He bowed with a smile then turned to lead us down the long, winding path that wove its way to the shore and The Shallows.
Chapter Nine
I should have agreed to return home after my mistake on the cliff. We should have seen that near miss for what it was; an omen. We should have stayed away from The Shallows as almost everyone in Kilmarnock wisely did. They were a haunted, dangerous place. The playground of the devils.
“It doesn’t look so bad to me,” Robert said, scanning the shoreline.
He wasn’t wrong. In the faint moonlight, the black stones glowed with a pretty sheen, the lapping of the tide over the rocks sounding rhythmic and inviting. The dark water undulated in the light but I saw no sinister shadows. Nothing to support the stories we’d heard since childhood warning us of the evil lurking beneath the surface. Of easily angered Saints that were to be feared and respected. There were supposed to be demons here hiding in the low waters, keeping us safe from the outside world but also waiting for a chance to nab us and carry us off to be their companions. I knew the stories declaring the dangers of The Shallows had to be true at least in part. We had all heard the very real reports of fisherman dying here as they worked the waters, but not I or anyone I knew had ever seen the creatures.
“Maybe it’s worse in the daylight,” Elaine suggested. “Right now it’s almost romantic, isn’t it?”
I glanced at her, a knowing smile on my face. She blushed and looked away.
“It’s a disappointment, that’s what I think,” Frederick said, sounding annoyed.
“What did you expect?” Suzanne asked, tossing a stone into a nearby pool. “Did you think the Saints would rise up to greet you? ‘Good evening, Majesty. Fine weather we’re having, yes?’”
Frederick smirked. “Something like that.”
“Knowing you, you’d demand they curtsied there on the spot.”
“I’d ask them for their fealty, of course.”
“And what would you do with a legion of gods at your command?” Robert asked.
“What wouldn’t I do with a legion of gods?”
“We should go back,” Elaine said suddenly, wrapping her arms around herself.
Frederick eyed her. “Are you afraid?”
“No. I’m cold.”
“Here, have my jacket.”
Elaine shook her head, her eyes wide. “Your Majesty, I couldn’t.”
“You can and you will. And you shouldn’t call me ‘your majesty’, Elaine. Not at times like this. I’ve told you that.”
“He’s right,” I said, smiling as he draped his jacket around her petite frame. “Only his demon army needs to be so formal.”
“Maybe even more so,” Suzanne agreed, tossing another stone in the pool.
The still waters rippled with moonlight then fell still. A sudden movement caught my eye, maybe a shadow, maybe a fish. Maybe nothing. I was still watching it, waiting for another movement, when Frederick spoke.
“They’ll be my slaves.”
Out of the corner of my eye I caught his movements as he bent to the ground. The clicking of stones sounded in his palm.
“I won’t allow them to address me directly.”
He tossed a stone into a pool. It went in placidly with a small plop.
“Lowly bastards won’t even be allowed to look me in the eye.”
Another plop.
Then a boom.
My eyes shot up just in time to catch a geyser of water explode from the pool beside Frederick. There was a hiss, then a scream that curled my toes and made my ears ache. It was followed by a smell. A rotten, sulfurous scent that was combined with something else, something almost familiar. Something that reminded me of my days waiting in the kitchen. Something like roast on a spit.
“Frederick!” Elaine screamed, her voice cracking.
I couldn’t see him. I could only see the water and the steam still rising into the air. Then, as quickly as it had started, it ended. The night fell eerily silent, the only sound was our labored, horrified breathing and the gentle plops of water droplets returning to the sea.
“Robert?” Suzanne called, her voice trembling. I’d never heard her sound afraid before.
“I’m here,” he replied quietly.
“Where’s Frederick?” I asked, stepping toward their voices.
They were outlines of black on black. I didn’t notice it right away, I actually wouldn’t realize it until later, but the moonlight was gone. We had been plunged into total darkness.
“I don’t know,” Robert said.
I saw a shifting of shadow to my right near the water’s edge.
“He’s here,” Elaine whispered weakly.
Suddenly a lantern appeared from the path leading down to the shore and the low light exploded like canon fire around us, making me jump. Two figures quickly approached us from behind the light.
“Who did they get?” a voice demanded urgently.
“Th-the Prince,” Elaine wept.
“Where is he?”
I didn’t recognize the voices, but I could hear the faint accent. They were Tem Aedha.
I pointed a shaky finger toward Elaine. “He’s there, beside the pool.”
The light moved, the figures shifting through the shadows with it. They found Elaine easily and when the lantern light caught on the body she was kneeling beside, I pressed my hand against my mouth to stifle a scream. All I could see was red. Crimson wet.
“Is he alive?” I whimpered, tears already forming in my eyes.
“Barely,” the lead Aedha answered. He turned to the other. “We need to move him now. Off this beach, to the meadow beside the gates. We’ll need earth for his wounds. A lot of it.”
“You’re going to put dirt on his wounds?” Robert asked incredulously, taking a step forward as if to intervene.
I pressed my hand to his shoulder, stopping him. “Let them. It will work.”
“How do you know?” he replied, then leaned in a hissed, “Annabel, they’re savages. They’ll kill him.”
I pulled my hand back quickly, as though burned by him.
“I know because it’s been done to me. I’ve seen it work. And don’t call them savages, Robert. They’re about to save your future king. Maybe a little more gratitude, even a bit of respect.”
“At the moment we’d be happy with help,” the lead Aedha grunted. “He’s not a small man. It will take more than Heinrich and I to carry him up the hillside.”
“I’ll help,” Suzanne said, hurrying to their side.
“The three of us can manage, milady,” Heinrich told her, his young voice strained.
She glared at him. “Do I look frail to you? Does this seem like a good time for chivalry?”
There was a pause.
“Fair point on both counts. Grab his arm,” Heinrich replied.
Suzanne took hold of an arm, Robert the other and the two Aedha lifted Frederick’s legs. I hurried to grab the lantern and took up post ahead of them, carrying the light high to keep them as far out of shadow as possible. I tried so very hard not to look at what had become of Frederick, but I saw anyway. The water had burned him, nearly to the bone in places. His face, his ridiculously handsome face, was unrecognizable, a mass of blood and ragged tissue. If he survived this night, he would never be the same. Not even the Tem Aedha had the kind of power or magic it would take to fix what had been done.
Once we reached the meadow we entered a race against time and nature. Suzanne, Robert and I ran back and forth between a distant well, one settled deep in the island near the lake, bringing bucket after bucket of water back to the men working on Frederick. It would have been easier and faster to bring sea water, but the Aedha men insisted the water had to be well water. Sea water simply would not do.
The night drug on and my body began to protest, but I pushed myself to the brink of exhaustion doing whatever I could to save my friend. It sounds noble. Wonderful. But as I did, as I sprinted back and forth in the growing morning light passing peasant
ry and Aedha, I looked at every face. I examined every man and I watched and waited for a chance to see Roarke again.
It did not come.
Chapter Ten
Two months later my mother went into The Tombs.
True to tradition, she did not come out alive.
I’ll never know exactly what claimed my mother. Despite everything happened afterward, I still believe she died by entirely natural causes. There was a disease in her that gave her blinding headaches, dizziness, vomiting, loss of appetite. The list feels endless. By the time she died, she was nothing but stark white bone wrapped gingerly in thin white skin. She was a ghost as she still breathed. My father, to his credit, looked pained as he carried her frail body from her bed. Once outside, he waved away the carriage waiting to carry us to the hospital. Instead he carried her the entire way. It was not much of a feat since she no longer weighed more than a wet cat but the sentiment, the pure gesture of it, stung my eyes with tears. I walked silently behind him, my eyes fixed on her sleeping face. I almost wish I hadn’t. It’s not how I wanted to remember her, but if I know anything of life at all it is this; it cares nothing for our wishes. I know now that stars are hot balls of angry fire and gas that are far more likely to drop from the sky and crush you before bestowing wishes upon you. Waste none of your efforts on them.
The day of the funeral, I received a large bouquet of calla lilies from Frederick of all people. He was the last place I expected to receive condolences or comfort but people will unfailingly surprise you. I hadn’t seen him since the accident. No one had, though rumor had it he was recovering. The very fact that he was alive was a miracle. When I read his note attached to the flowers, surprisingly written in his own hand, I choked on silent tears.
Your pain is my own.
-Frederick
“Are you ready, Annabel Lee?” my father asked from behind me.
I quickly wiped my tears from my eyes. “Of course.”
“You look lovely,” he said gruffly.
I chuckled dryly. “Sadness suits me, I suppose.”
“Don’t be morose.”
“But it’s such a fine day for it.”
“Annabel.”
“Shall we? I’d hate to keep people waiting.”
He paused. “Who are the flowers from?”
“Suzanne and Elaine,” I said, turning to face him while crumpling the card in my hand.
He stood in the doorframe blocking the light, casting me in shadow. I shivered, revolted at the sight of him. Despite his tender gesture of carrying my mother, he still took her to The Tombs. I now saw him as nothing more than a hearse. He’d carry me to my own death one day. I knew it in my broken heart.
And what he knew was that I was lying about the flowers. He knew they were from Frederick because he knew every note, petal, perfume or sweet that crossed my path. I don’t know why I lied to him other than the fact that my mother was dead and I had nothing left to fear. I didn’t care at all for myself or him or his machinations.
“Kind of them,” he replied, his eyes watching me. “Very thoughtful.”
I strode across the room briskly, brushing past him at the door. I was careful not to touch him.
“Is that your mother’s shawl?” he called after me. “It’s too thin for this time of year.”
I pulled the thin black material close across my chest, over my heart. It still smelled of her. Of Jasmine.
“It’s not too thin,” I called over my shoulder. “It’s exactly what I need.”
The service was far too long. Not nearly as long as the service I endured as a child for Queen Elizabeth Anne, but it was close. My mother would have hated it. As the time drug on and the service finally drew to a close, I found myself becoming agitated. I was bouncing on my toes as though bursting to clear an unseen gate. I didn’t know what I was anxious for or about. Not until we entered the carriages and began the procession up the hill toward the mausoleum. It was then I remembered the Tem Aedha.
I immediately shot to the window of the carriage, craning my neck to push my head outside and see the road ahead of us. I could barely make out the hill, the one they had stood on for the Queen’s funeral, but it looked empty. I thought for sure that at least Roarke and his parents would be there, though maybe they didn’t know. Maybe they had forgotten us. I hadn’t seen or heard a sign from them in years now and though I’d quite literally bumped into Ro not long ago, it didn’t mean they still followed our lives. He had recognized me but he also had said next to nothing. Only my name. Just those two syllables in his now deep timbre had strummed a chord in my heart and lit me alive from inside out to a point where even now, even two months later, even on a Death March for my mother, I was Spring blooming brightly through and through at the thought of seeing him again.
But the hill was empty. Perfectly and desolately still.
“Is something the matter?” my father asked, watching me closely as always.
I pulled myself inside, refusing to look at him. “My mother is dead.”
“As is my wife.”
I snorted. “She was no wife to you. She was a ploy.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
His voice was taking on that placid calm that could only mean one thing, one painfully dangerous thing. I could not even begin to care. I pressed on.
“Everyone knows what I’m talking about.”
“You’ll do well to keep quiet.”
“I’ve never been good at that.”
“Truer words have never crossed your lips.”
I rested my head against the polished wood of the carriage window frame. “Is it true that your father bought her for you?”
“Your mother was happy to marry me.”
“Then she must not have known you.”
“She did not.”
I nodded slowly. “You’re a handsome man, father, no one can deny that.” I turned my head slightly to look at him. “I have so much of you in me, don’t I? My green eyes, my golden hair, the proud face. But I thank the Saints I got her heart.”
He looked at me hard, but he was utterly at ease. It infuriated me.
“That’s quite enough. I believe you’ve purged it from your system now.”
“Purged what exactly?” I snapped.
“Your sorrow. You can take it out on me all you like, Annabel Lee. Just so long as you don’t vent it at the wrong people.”
I sneered. “The Prince, you mean?”
“He or the King. Be awful as you like right now, but when we’re in their company I want dry eyes and a closed mouth. Is that understood?”
I glared at him, painting my hate plainly on my face as though it were rouge.
“Your instructions are always very easy to understand,” I ground out.
He lifted an eyebrow. “Then I wonder at how often you fail to follow them.”
I turned away, directing my attention to the outside world, to anywhere but in that carriage with him. We passed the remainder of the trip in tense silence.
At the top of the hill lay the mausoleum. The true tombs of the island. Here lay the remains, or what passed for remains, of the former Kings and Queens of Kilmarnock. My mother was being given the honor of being laid to rest in a smaller mausoleum nearby because of her lifelong friendship with the last Queen. My father and I were to be buried one day beside her.
The wind on the hill howled. I shivered at the sudden coldness of it. My father joined Duke Walburton and two other Lords of the Court as they lifted her black lacquered casket from the carriage and escorted it into the stone building. I remained outside, unable to stand the thought of being in that building with the dead. I felt a pang as though I were abandoning her, but still I didn’t move.
“It is a cold day to die.”
I jumped at the rasp of a voice beside me. I looked over to find the ancient High Priest standing shrunken inside his heavy robes. He looked up at me with watery gray eyes that sent a shiver down my spine.
�
��No one died today,” I corrected him weakly.
“How are you feeling, my dear?” he asked, ignoring me. “You look well.”
“I don’t feel especially well.”
He nodded slowly, his eyes never leaving me. “The Saints will watch over you, child. They will guard you closely. Have faith in them. Give your heart over to them and you’ll know joy again.”
His raspy voice was grating on my nerves, sending goose flesh across my skin. I could smell his breath as it wafted across my face, cold and bitter. It reminded me briefly of the terrible night of Frederick’s accident. The rancid smell that I’d never forget, that I swear I smelled everywhere since.
“Yes, of course,” I agreed, desperate to have this decaying troll of a man leave me alone.
He reached out, pressed his hand with surprising firmness to my shoulder and smiled. His thin lips pulled tight across his large teeth, teeth that didn’t even look real. His pink gums were exposed, looking raw, nearly red and his faint eyes glimmered with a strange delight. It was the single most horrifying thing I’d ever seen.
“Good girl,” he intoned.
Then he mercifully walked away.
I would bathe when I returned home, if not just to rid myself of the bone crushing chill I felt inside my body. Mostly to rid my skin of any memory of his touch, be it by his hand or his breath. I felt marked somehow. Tainted.
But when the time came to return to the castle, I could not bring myself to enter the carriage.
“It’s time to leave, Annabel Lee,” my father told me, opening the carriage door.
I instinctively stepped away from it. “I can’t,” I whispered.
He scowled at me. “What do you mean you can’t?”
“I can’t. I can’t leave her yet. I—let me stay for a bit by myself.”
“That’s ridiculous. You can’t stay here alone.”
I spread my arms to the wide open space around me. My shawl was caught by the wind, nearly ripped from my shoulders. I grabbed at it desperately.
“What possible harm could come to me here? Just leave me. I’ll walk back.”