Jamison whistles, and another whistle answers. He and Tavis exchange signals until the remainder of our group comes into view. My brother bends over, breathless. Claret drops Jamison’s and my packs that we left behind. Harlow goes right to Markham and they embrace. He says something quietly in her ear, and she hugs him harder, both equal in their affection.
Laverick pokes her toe at our dead attacker. “I thought centicores were beasts of fable.”
“They hail from an Otherworld,” says Markham, releasing Harlow to inspect the beast’s antlers. “This one must have come through a portal.”
“There are portals?” Jamison glances around as though he might see one.
“All portals are hidden at the highest peaks of the tallest mountains or in the darkest depths of the seas, places mankind rarely roams.” Markham tips over the centicore’s hoof. It’s as big as my hand. “Travel between the worlds is best through the Everwoods.”
“The queen doesn’t allow belief in the Everwoods,” Claret says quietly.
“She discourages worship of Madrona,” Markham explains. “The Everwoods is the divine forest of Eiocha, thus a part of Progressive doctrine.”
“How do you know so much about the Everwoods, Governor?” Laverick asks, her green eyes fixated on him. She is as cunning as her namesake the fox. He must lie well or she will suspect him.
“Queen Aislinn commissioned me to explore outside our realm, which includes investigating the Otherworlds. I intend to prove they are more than myth.” Markham saws off the tip of the centicore’s antler, collecting a keepsake as proof of his discovery.
His lie is so entangled with the truth of his explorations and assignment from the queen to expand her realm that Laverick appears convinced. She even asks him to saw off the end of the second antler for her.
Jamison retrieves our packs. Our bedrolls are missing, as well as his powder horn and water flask. The Fox and the Cat step away to relieve themselves in the underbrush while Jamison and Tavis inventory our supplies.
Harlow clucks her tongue at my wild hair and dirty clothes. “You don’t look like a shop clerk now.”
I am too wound up from the centicore attack to stop myself from snapping back. “Why did you come along, Harlow? Was it to serve as Markham’s mistress?”
Her eyes brighten shrewdly. “You think you know everything.” She grabs my shoulder companionably, her voice deceptively soft. “But you didn’t know that Cuthbert was Killian’s man. Nor did you know that Cuthbert was sent to watch over me on our voyage to the isle.” Her fingers dig into my flesh, pressing down with bruising strength. I repress the impulse to shove her face-first into a prickly shrub. “You want to know my place here? I’ve already shown you. I belong right where I am, at Killian’s side.” She lets me go and strides to him.
He takes her hand in his and says, “We’ve enough rest. We’re trekking on.”
Such a surprise. The immortal deems us fit for travel.
“Claret and Laverick aren’t back yet,” Jamison says.
He shouts for them, and when they do not respond, Tavis and I holler for them as well. My imagination swiftly plays against me. Uncle Holden was wicked about scaring me into obedience by telling me stories of giants and elves and sorceresses. If the centicore made it through a portal from an Otherworld, other beasts could also call the Thornwoods home.
“Laverick and Claret probably got turned around,” says Tavis.
“They left that direction,” replies Jamison. “We’ll take a look. Everyone stay together.”
Markham steps out in front of him, jawline hard. “This is a waste of effort. We cannot be deterred from our expedition to search for a pair of streetwalkers.”
“Then stay here and wait for us,” I say.
Hoisting my sword, I set off with Tavis and Jamison. Markham will not let my blade out of his sight, so it is not long before he and Harlow begrudgingly follow.
We call out for the Fox and the Cat, all of us on alert for any other creatures lurking in the woods. I fully anticipate another surprise attack, so when we enter a grove of nettles and Jamison motions for us to stop, I am unprepared for what we discover.
Chapter Nineteen
A sign is nailed to a tree at eye level. The square-cut piece of lumber is washed white and inscribed with an elegant bold script. I touch the bluebell flowers painted beside the words, “Cottage of Souls.”
“What do you think it means?” I ask Jamison.
“Precisely what it says.” He gestures ahead at a roofline partly visible through the evergreen boughs.
We creep through the underbrush and come upon a bigger surprise—a lovely little cottage. The exterior is immaculate, with flower boxes overflowing with pale-pink flowers, a river-rock chimney, shining windows and painted shutters, and a low white fence. Sunshine filters through the leafy trees, the dappled light adding an inviting coziness. In front of the quaint home, a swing made of rope and wood dangles from a lower branch of an apple tree, and a wooden bench is set among tufts of wild lilacs.
“What is this place?” Tavis asks.
“I’ve no recollection of it,” Markham replies. “I haven’t come upon it before.”
“Is it real?” I ask. We haven’t been in the Thornwoods long, but I already have a sensible amount of distrust for this place.
“Oh, I’ll go first,” Harlow says impatiently. She shoves past us to the gate.
“Wait,” Jamison calls. “We should keep looking for Laverick and Claret. The owner may not wish to be disturbed.”
Markham beckons Harlow back to his side. “The lieutenant is correct. We cannot allow ourselves to become distracted.”
“But the sun is shining,” Harlow says.
Freckled sunlight streams through the trees and dances across the cottage. I, too, miss the sunshine and would like to see more of this refuge from the briars, but we must be on our way.
The Fox and the Cat stroll out from around the back of the cottage, their arms loaded with vegetables. “You found us,” says Claret.
“Come in,” Laverick adds. “No one’s here.”
Harlow does not delay to go through the gate. Markham enters after her, gripping a single daisy that must have survived our run through the woods. I step onto the stone path, half anticipating the cottage and its surroundings will vanish. Instead, I am bombarded by golden light and a timid breeze that smells of lilacs and sweet grass.
Big yellow butterflies flit from bloom to bloom. Tavis holds out his hand and one of the winged beauties perches on his palm. Jamison pads up to the cottage and squints through a circular window in the front door. Through the main window, the inside appears dim and nothing moves.
“Look at all the food we found,” says Laverick. She carries an armload of freshly picked carrots, peas, and apples. “Around back there’s a vegetable garden and more fruit trees. Our garden was half as good as this one when I was growing up.”
“The well is full of cold, clean water,” Claret announces, chewing the end of a carrot. “We drank a bucketful all by ourselves.”
Harlow lifts the pail and sips from the ladle. The drink must be good, because she offers Markham a taste. He declines, his interest fixated on the apple tree. Though it is too early in the summer season for ripe fruit, the boughs are laden with large red apples.
I sit on the bench amid the lilacs, their scent light and floral. The seat was crafted with care. The grooves and notches are plumb and the wood sanded and treated with lacquer. A shiny apple hangs off a lower branch and grazes the top of my head. As I grab for it, Markham snatches my wrist.
“Don’t eat that,” he says, letting me go. “You don’t know why it’s here.”
I prepare to argue that I don’t know why any tree is where it is, but the “it” he refers to includes more than this fruit tree. It is peculiar that this charming cottage is nestled in the Thornwoods. The apples appear delicious, especially after I’ve eaten hardtack for the last two meals, but the fruit and its tree belong to the owner.
“I can’t see anything.” He knocks on the front door and waits.
We crowd around the threshold. Laverick sidles up to my side, crunching on a snap pea. “Want one? The vegetable garden is brimming. I doubt they’ll be missed.”
“Have you tried an apple?” I ask the Fox.
“No, that’s next.”
“I wouldn’t,” I say. “The fruit is rotten.”
Markham nods, not surprised at all by my response. I cannot quite understand why I’m lying, except that I should be wary of anything that he fears.
Jamison turns the handle and slowly opens the door to the cottage.
“Is someone inside?” Claret asks from the back of the group. She rises onto her tiptoes to see over our heads.
“You said no one was here,” Markham reminds her.
“We didn’t go inside,” Laverick replies. Her disapproving tone implies that would be a violation to the owner. She doesn’t think raiding someone’s garden is wrong, yet going inside the house is trespassing. I suppose even thieves have a moral code.
Jamison steps into the single-room, one-floor cottage. Most of the interior can be surveyed from the front door. It is furnished with simple, well-crafted pieces: a chair, table, and bed. Though small, the space is cheerfully decorated with clean blue curtains, a patchwork quilt, and fresh flowers in a pitcher vase. Not visible are books, letters, pictures, or any other materials that could present clues about who lives here.
In the corner kitchen, between the hearth and washbasin, are one plate and glass, and one of each utensil. The owner must live alone—and whoever they are, they were home recently. The floor is newly washed and the windowsills dusted.
Jamison picks up a basket by the hearth and brings it to us in the doorway. It is full of a variety of objects: a broken pocket watch, a pipe, coins, a whisky flask, and several snuffboxes. He inspects a silver snuffbox with a crest engraved on the lid.
“What is it?” I ask.
“This has the Raffertys’ tobacco farm crest on it, and these are Baylee’s initials.” Jamison shows the snuffbox to Laverick and Claret. “This belongs to a man I know. Are you certain you didn’t see anyone else around the cabin?”
“Hello?” a tentative voice calls.
We turn around so fast we bump into each other. A maiden in a simple pink day dress exits the woods. Her deep-brown eyes are the same color as her hair, an arresting contrast to her snowy skin. The maiden leads a donkey alongside her on a rope. Chains of pale-pink flowers wreath both their necks.
She stops inside the gate, her smile radiant. “I thought I heard voices. Welcome to my humble cottage.”
Jamison edges to the front of the group. “Our apologies for intruding.”
She dismisses him with a wave. “Help yourself to anything you find. Would you like some bread? I baked it fresh this morning.”
Laverick and Claret jump to accept, but Markham speaks over them.
“We’re just leaving,” he says shortly.
“You look like you’ve been traveling. You should stay and rest awhile.” The maiden’s voice has a musical lilt that is gentle yet persuasive. She lets go of the donkey, which grazes on the lilacs, and then she plucks a big red apple from the tree. “I’ll bake us a pie.”
“We aren’t staying,” Markham replies.
His abruptness startles me, as does his white-knuckled grasp on his daisy. Though it may seem ridiculous to fear an unarmed maiden who adorns her donkey with flowers, anyone who frightens a man who cannot perish is someone to avoid. Jamison identifies the same signals of unease from Markham and prods us from the cottage, pushing us along the path.
The maiden trails after us, offering her apple. “You don’t have to wait for me to bake a pie. You can take a bushel with you.” She speaks pleasantly, but the more we rebuff her hospitality, the tighter her features.
“Instead of feeding us,” Jamison says, “tell me where you got this snuffbox.”
The brown-eyed beauty bats her lashes at the silver container. “I come across odds and ends during my walks through the forest. The woods are full of secrets.”
“Did you see the man it belongs to?” he presses.
“You are the first souls I’ve seen in ages.” She loops her arm through Jamison’s. The movement is so naturally possessive, I prepare to draw my sword. “I insist you stay for a pie. I cannot eat it on my own.”
“We really must be going,” Markham says, opening the gate.
The gate flies closed again and latches. A trickle of fear flows through me. No wind pushed the gate and no one touched it.
The maiden hooks her fingers into Jamison’s arm. Her other hand lifts the apple. “Try a bite, and I promise you won’t wish to leave ever again.”
Markham confronts the maiden with his cutlass. I view every single one of the nearly 350 years he spent walking our world in his assertive glare. “I see what you are now. Let us go, old hag.”
The young maiden cackles, a broken rasp like nails raking across a brick.
The cottage and property transform as though someone is peeling off a mask. Leafy trees become unsightly thornbushes. Grass and flowers wither to barren ground and weeds, and the tree swing rots to a snarl of dead vines. The only vegetation unaffected is the apple tree, which, still vibrant amid the dreary foliage, is likewise disturbing. As the scenery changes, I am struck by the stench of decomposing flesh and plug my nose.
Her once-picturesque cottage dissipates to a rundown shack. The cracked windows, crooked shutters, and holes in the roof are comprehensible, but not conceivable are the walls constructed of bones. Stacks of bones, all types and sizes, compose the shack walls, fence, bench, and chimney. Someone muddied them together with layers of clay.
The donkey transforms into a mongrel of the same size that barks at us. Instead of a chain of flowers around its neck, the dog wears a chain of teeth. Jamison backs up and almost trips over a massive skull half buried in the ground like a yard ornament.
Laverick and Claret gasp and drop their harvest of vegetables. The carrots and peas have become lumps of mud. They clutch their bellies as though they need to purge, and Harlow covers her mouth and gags. The well in which she stole a drink of water reeks of festering slurry.
The cackling maiden sheds the illusion of her youth, and in her place stands a hag. Though she is old, her posture is impeccable and her carriage strong. White hair hangs to her waist in thick cords. Stripes of dried blood streak beneath her cloudy eyes and down her squished nose. A helmet, the skull of a beast with two horns, covers her head. Her neck and wrists jangle with chains of assorted teeth, some pointed, some curved, some square.
Those yellow butterflies Tavis admired shift into crows. The large birds, at least two dozen, hop closer. One of them perches on the old hag’s shoulder. A small satchel is slung across her torso crosswise. Along its bottom, in place of tassels, dangle severed toes.
“Let us pass,” says Markham.
The hag pets her crow’s breast. “My children will pick your bones clean, and from them, I will build a shelter for my mongrel.”
Markham puts away his cutlass and thrusts out his daisy. “Everley, the sword.”
Though I have never seen anyone look more ridiculous than him, I draw my blade.
The old hag hisses. “Your symbols have no power here.”
“Is your life worth maintaining that assertion?” Markham maneuvers so the two of us are side by side, me with my sword drawn and him with his daisy. It appears the two are equally threatening. “Tell us how to find the gate and I will be forgiving.”
The hag snarls and then bites out her reply. “The pathway has not been revealed to me, but I know where you will find the helmsman. The merrow king is waiting for you under the wave, O lost one. Bring him what he seeks and you will have your prize.”
She opens her arms and her crow children take flight. The flock encircles her in a tunnel of whooshing bla
ck feathers and sharp claws. We duck down and cover our heads. The cawing crows disperse, taking off into the thorny woods. In the commotion, the old hag has vanished.
The bone-chilling silence shoves at me, prodding us to hasten out of this shrine of death. I hurry ahead of the group, stepping over the graveyard of bones strewn about the dirt. Markham cuts in front of me, his stride even faster.
“What was she saying about the merrow king?” Jamison asks, right behind us.
“Ravings of a madwoman.” Markham shoos off a straggling crow and kicks open the gate. We keep up with him, speeding away from the gruesome shack.
“How did the old hag trick us?” I ask.
“She lures in prey with a glamor charm and then poisons them. When eaten, the apples from her tree are paralyzing. One bite could have rendered you immobile.”
I recall how close I was to consuming one before Markham stopped me. “How do you know about the apples?”
“I have lived many, many years,” he answers so only I may hear. “I did not let them go to waste.”
We pass the cottage sign. It still reads “Cottage of Souls,” but the message is scrawled in blood, and instead of painted wildflowers, it’s decorated with bloody fingerprints.
Once the old hag’s home is far behind us, our party pauses to gather our breaths. Laverick, Claret, and Harlow rinse out their mouths with clean drinking water. Jamison rubs the engraved lid of the snuffbox and then shoves it in his breast pocket.
My sword vibrates and warms in my grasp, indicating our next direction. The call to continue directs me to a daisy. I pluck the tender blossom from a bed of moss and tuck it in my pocket. A flower that can frighten a hag is a flower I want on my person.
I maneuver through the bristly brambles in search of another little flower, more uncertain by the moment about whether they are guiding us somewhere I truly wish to go.
Chapter Twenty
Since leaving the old hag’s shack, our party has been collectively morose. Understandably, Claret and Laverick have been sick to their stomachs. Harlow and Markham speak in private often, and Jamison continuously checks his pocket to assure himself that he hasn’t lost Rafferty’s snuffbox. Tavis and I lead the group, following the magical trail of daisies.
Before the Broken Star (The Evermore Chronicles Book 1) Page 18