I spun to look down the lengthy line of stalls. With no lord and lady in residence, the stables were always empty at this time of day. Natural light filtered in, illuminating the sloped wooden roof and the gleaming, polished stalls.
“Must have been a horse…” I said as my gaze inspected the space. Usually, I would not care if someone wandered by, but I didn’t want a servant to see floating carrots and believe there was a ghost haunting the manor.
The clanking came again, growing louder when a man walked into the stables. As he grew closer, I realized it was not a grown man but a young one, likely only an annos or two older than me. He held two buckets, his muscles straining against the weight. Messy blond hair stuck out in all directions around a chiseled, sun-bronzed face I thought I recognized.
Turning to Marc, I grinned. “Marc, I do believe this is Eda’s famous servant rake she’s told me so much about. I suppose you’re quite well acquainted with him already—you have probably seen his legendary indiscretions first hand. Tell me everything?”
Marc refused.
I shook my head. “I suppose you must consider him a friend then and keep his confidence. A pity. From what I hear, he is quite scandalous among the servants.” I glanced down the line of stalls to where the legendary rake had stopped to pour the contents of one of his buckets into the food trough of Goliath, my mother’s little-used, ill-tempered stallion. The rake’s back and arm muscles moved under his loose white shirt as he controlled the bucket’s pour.
“I suppose I can understand the sentiment; he does cut a fine figure—for a servant,” I said.
Pulling the bucket away and moving to the next stall, he kept his eyes downcast, though a small smile played at the corner of his lips.
“What thought do you think makes him smile, Marc? I do think it must be very evil, don’t you? Perhaps he thinks of ruining yet another maid’s reputation.”
The smile fell from his handsome mouth to be replaced by a look of sternness.
“Or mayhap not,” I decided. Returning my gaze to my horse, I asked, “Should I really make a scandal and marry him instead, do you think?”
To my utter amazement, Marc moved his head in a swinging nod.
“Him?” I asked in shock. “The stable boy? Him you approve of over the honorable Collin?” I shook my head. “I guess that shows what horses know of romance. You probably only approve of him because he gives you food, you selfish beast. I shall never ask your advice again.”
“Would you like me to saddle your horse, lady?”
I jerked up to find the rake only feet away, staring straight into my eyes.
“What?” I yelped and spun so hard I fell backward. My bottom hit the wooden planks, and I only just brought my bare elbows up in time. With heavy breaths, I looked to my bare elbows, and then to the plank my bare skin almost touched. “Oh, dear gods.” My gaze rose to the rake who was now offering his hand to me.
My jaw fell slack. Pressing my gloved hands into the floorboards, I sat up but ignored his hand. We stared at each other for what seemed like forever before his gaze broke off, and he stood straight.
Marc whinnied. A loud pounding came from Goliath’s stall before he answered Marc’s whinny. All around, the horses shifted.
“The horses are spooked,” the rake muttered. His nose wrinkled as if he smelled something disgusting, and he spun to face the entrance of the stables.
Somehow, I heard another noise over the racket, a shuffling that reminded me more of slithering than footsteps. Leaning, I peered beyond the rake’s legs, expecting to see Hester emerge. But it was not Hester who stepped through the stable doors. Instead, the daylight silhouetted the figure of a too tall, hooded man. The slithering grew as his long habit brushed the floor with every step he took toward us.
In the week or so that the monks had been combing the grounds, this was the closest I’d ever been to one.
Under my gloves, a hot prickling feeling moved over my palms. Likely it was an aftereffect of the fall. But as the monk came closer, the prickling grew into a burning.
The monk stood head and shoulders above the rake, though the rake was at least five inches taller than I. The monk stopped feet from the rake, his crimson hood hanging forward, and peered down. I’d seen monks’ eyes before, but the unease never lessened. The blackness reached from corner to corner, like the eyes of an animal. It was even more startling contrasted with a skin tone nearly as colorless as my own. Heavy hollows gathered shadows under his eyes and cheeks. His head turned, though I could not pinpoint the focus of his eyes. It was even possible that those eyes could focus everywhere at once.
His voice came out lower than I expected, a musical baritone. “Who were you speaking to, boy?”
The burning in my hands erupted into two points of pain, and I could not stop a gasp from escaping my lips. The rake flinched, but the monk did not. His head continued to move in slow motion as if he was inspecting every inch of the stables.
The rake said nothing for a few seconds. He had seen me, he knew I was there, but the monk obviously did not. I was not sure if I wanted the boy to reveal me or not. On the one hand, if anyone could provide some insight into my malady, it was the magicians. The magicians were omnipotent in the will of the gods. Monks were said to be the magicians’ mortal vessels. Yet, my instincts told me no; they told me I should never reveal myself to this monk or any other.
After what felt like forever, the rake cleared his throat. “I was speaking to the horses, sir.”
The monk’s head snapped forward. “I believe your words were, Would you like me to saddle your horse, lady?”
“Yes, that is close to what I said, sir. I believe it was more like, Would you like me to saddle you today, Lady?” The rake shrugged. “I was speaking to the paint; I call her Lady.” He gestured to the stall beside Marc’s. “With no lord in residence, it’s part of my duties to ride the horses to keep them exercised and make sure they mind their training.”
The monk did not reply. Without moving, he seemed almost to curve over the rake, so much so that the boy extended his neck. A dead silence fell over the stables, as if not a single creature moved nor breathed within a mile.
“We require a horse and cart,” the monk said, breaking the silence.
The rake nodded. “Right away.”
“Bring it up to the kitchen; the servants will instruct you from there.” When the rake lingered, the monk snapped, “Go now.”
The rake still did not move. “I need to grab a horse.”
“You need to prepare the rig first,” the monk replied.
“Oh, that’s right.” Leaning down, the rake itched his leg. His gaze flicked to mine, just for an instant before he looked away. “The cart is right over here, if you’d follow me?”
“I’ll stay,” the monk said.
I stumbled to my feet, my breaths coming hard and palms still searing with pain. Once, when I was a child, I had reached for a pot on Samson’s cook fire where he was boiling chocolate for me. I’d wrapped my hand around the metal handle when his back was turned. The handle scorched my palm. Holding up my injured hand, I’d screamed that the fire was still inside my skin. A scar still crossed my palm from my childish stupidity.
My hands felt much the same as I stood.
Careful not to touch the stable doors, I hugged them as close as I dared. The monk was not wide, but I wanted to stand no closer to his cloaked figure as I followed the rake out of the barn. I kept an even pace, practically in the rake’s footsteps.
We were feet away from the door to the stables when the boy stopped so suddenly I nearly collided with his back.
A monk identical to the first stepped into the rake’s path. “Step aside, boy,” he said with a voice so similar to the first monk’s that I could believe this was him, and he had somehow made it in front of us.
Both the rake and I stepped just inside the stable door, moving as far out of the way as possible as three more monks entered in slow, synchronized paces. I leaned fo
rward to see that across the yard, monks paced for the barn.
I looked to the rake, but his expression seemed rather placid as he headed for the exit again and we stepped into the day. All around us, tall hooded figures descended. As the boy turned away and headed for the carriage house, I studied the road leading to the manor. I’d never considered it, but my boots likely made prints in the dirt or grass for anyone to see.
My gaze skittered between the dirt horse road and the cobbled carriage road that my heels would not tolerate. The monks moved extraordinarily fast, nearly encircling me. Robes in all four of the gods’ colors—crimson, ivory, black, and gold—flurried around me.
A sudden warm breeze whipped past me. It was more than likely my imagination, but the breeze almost seemed to whisper, ‘Run,’ as it blew my hair out in the direction of the manor.
I hurried behind the rake, but broke away as soon as he reached the cobbles. The heels of my boots insisted on wedging themselves between each stone as I made my way up the road.
One of the monks stepped onto the road beside me, his steps clacking on the stones. Another clacking came from right behind me. When I peered over my shoulder, another monk crossed the road not too far away. Several other monks stood nearly shoulder to shoulder with them. Sucking in air, I spun to face them all. The two nearest me were closing in like two carriages on a collision course.
I wasn’t going to make it past their line without touching them. Pulling my arms in as close as I could, I went to my toes and sprinted for the break in the monks. When they were no more than inches from me, I turned my side and squeezed through the closing gap.
Between one blink and the next, rippling blood-red cloth consumed my vision and then passed.
The moment I stood on the other side of their circle, I spun so fast I stumbled and had to catch my footing. The monks stood shoulder to shoulder until they broke formation and formed three rings. They then funneled one by one into the stable in such a synchronized manner they seemed as if they were dancing. I waited until the last one had stepped into the stables before I hobbled my way across the road and onto the dirt. With one more glance around to make sure there were no more monks, I dashed up the horse path and to the manor.
4
The Rake
Dylan
I plunged my pitchfork into the dry bale of hay and twisted, forking a clump and bringing it down to the wheelbarrow. Loose strands rained down as I twisted the fork and dropped the load.
Do I regret what I have done? In most ways no, Dylan…
I flinched as the words played through my head for probably the hundredth time that day.
I shook the pitchfork, trying to dislodge both the stubborn strands that clung there and my unwelcome thoughts.
I was being haunted.
The last words Lord Klein spoke to me haunted me everywhere I went. The look in the lord’s eyes as he whispered the words haunted me even more so. And it seemed I was haunted by his daughter, who only I seemed to see and know as well. Perhaps it was the weight of my culpability, my guilt—but I would not think about that right now.
Do I regret helping you? In most ways no, Dylan. But I do regret that there will be a price to be paid for what we’ve done… and it is those I love most who will have to pay it.
“What are you doing?” a maid I thought was named Samantha asked, waking me from the memory. She bit her lip, stopping a few paces away. Her hand clutched a bunched-up length of linens at her side.
The sun beat down on me as I spun the fork and gathered another resistant rake-full of hay. Sweat dripped down my neck, tickling under my collar and down my spine. Between the dripping sweat and the midday sun, my cotton shirt was plastered to my skin.
I wasn’t comfortable with the eyeful I was giving the girl, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. I forced a grin and pointed it at Samantha, though I didn’t feel it. “I’ll give you one guess, and if you don’t get it, you have to take my place.” I tried to make my voice more teasing than exasperated, though I wasn’t sure how well I managed.
“I like the view from here, I think,” she said, her eyes filling with heat as she leaned against the haystack. She made a lovely picture in her light blue servants’ dress. Her golden complexion contrasted startlingly with her long locks of hair that matched the color of mid-summer straw. She was a few anni older, I believe, twenty or so. Well, she would have made a lovely picture if she wasn’t under where I needed the pitchfork to go.
My muscles strained as I held the pitchfork aloft. Grinning again, definitely not feeling the smile this time, I asked, “Samantha, do me a favor? Take a few steps back.”
Eyes heated, she grinned wide and winked as she pushed away from the haystack. “I’m sure the view is as nice over there as well.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re very welcome.” Though I meant to thank her for moving, she obviously took it as thanks for the compliment as her gaze moved up and down my figure.
My skin itched everyplace her eyes landed.
To say I had a reputation around Hope Manor was a fair understatement. It shouldn’t have bothered me now; I’d known for months. What surprised and bothered me was that this reputation, it seemed, had spread its whispering words all the way to the lord’s table. Well, at least to Lady Annabelle, and knowing her character, likely to every person she thought it would be entertaining enough to gossip with about me.
The words that the lady had said all those days ago still simmered in my mind. Her opinion wasn’t what grated; the heiress had always struck me as careless, frivolous, and uninteresting. What burned was the idea that before his death, Lord Klein had thought I was a wretch or ‘a rake who ruined women’. It was a reputation I had tumbled into and resented. With my older brother preceding me and my younger brother closely following me in the servant circles, it could even be argued I had been born into the reputation.
Since I overheard the lady’s musings to her horse, every flirtatious word spoken or heated glance pointed my way had irritated rather than complimented me as it usually did.
“There are monks all around you. Have you broken some law?” Samantha asked, again waking me from my thoughts as I’d almost forgotten that she was there. The idea that I’d broken some law had seemed to excite rather than repulse her.
“Broken some law?” I said before swinging another load into the wheelbarrow, “Not that I’m aware of.”
Monks. I’d had known about their presence, of course. They’d circled around me for days like hungry scavengers around wounded prey. The odor of the hay, horses, and my own sweat could never quite mask their sharp, acidic reek.
Samantha cleared her throat. “They asked me some questions—”
I spun so fast the pitchfork almost flew from my grip. “About me?” My words came out too loudly.
An expression of shock rolled over her pretty features. “No… about the manor’s structure—are you truly in trouble, then?”
“No.” I turned and stabbed the pitchfork into the haystack with more force than necessary. “What did they ask you about the manor?”
She stepped into my line of vision. “Well, it is a bit strange, I suppose…” She paused to look to the manor sitting on top of a slight incline. “The manor only has three wings and not the ordained four. I’d never thought about it before. It’s been that way for as long as anyone could remember… but… Hope Manor doesn’t honor the goddess Ester. No wonder bad fortune struck. Three is an inauspicious number.”
As I jabbed the rake in once more, my gaze caught on the east wing of the manor house. Even all these weeks later, the death of the lord and lady still did not feel real.
I’d been at my homecoming dinner, celebrating my return from my pilgrimage with my two brothers and grandmother, when a loud banging and a quick word from a courier delivered the horrible news. My brothers and I had run the five miles from Hopesworth to Hope Manor, arriving as the sun vanished over the horizon.
“Damn it all!” m
y older brother had sworn, kicking a branch and sending it flying into the surrounding forest.
“Does this mean we’re caught?” my sixteen-annos-old brother John had whispered while looking around as if the monks waited in the darkness stretching between the trees.
“No… no, we’re not caught. I’d know if we were.” Joseph shook his head. “I don’t know what it means—except that the last good lord in Domengrad is dead.”
We just stood there outside the manor’s gate, three hulking silhouettes staring at the darkening manor house. My brothers’ blond heads shone with the last rays of the sun.
I had backed away, not wanting them to see the tears that fell onto my cheeks. It had been the first time I’d shed tears since the loss of my own parents so many anni before. I was less ashamed of my grief than unwilling to defend it to Joseph. For a long time, my older brother had warned me of growing too attached to my assignment.
When I saw how altered the manor was, my mind had supplied the answer that in the time before our arrival, the servants had painted the entire wing a lackluster white in mourning. Thinking on it now, the explanation made no sense at all. When would they have had the time to paint every decorative curve of the expansive residence wing?
The lack of interest I had on the transformation of the lady was even more idiotic and illogical—I had seen her in passing as I’d trudged through my chores. But until that day in the stables, her transformation from fair and beautiful to dull and sickly had not stood out in my mind. True, in the days preceding that encounter, I had never been close enough to see the remarkableness of the transformation. It hadn’t even struck me as odd that no one mentioned her when talking about the deaths at the manor. No one had said a word about her, and until that day, I hadn’t even noticed.
“You seem remarkably deep in thought about it,” Samantha said, wrenching my attention to the present. “I must be dreadfully dull to you.”
“Of course not.” It took me a moment to remember her last statement. “Perhaps the fourth wing burned down some anni past.”
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