by Jane M. R.
Whatever odd bond my mother and I shared the night of my kidnap dissolves under the look she gives me. She starts to form a remark but my father lifts his hand to silence her. He looks at me, then turns his attention back to cutting open his fish. “Another two weeks will suffice, I think.”
I try to make my father feel my displeasure with the thoughts I throw at him. I know he is always on me side but he is also married and that, unfortunately, comes first.
It’s clear my mother is not so satisfied but returns her attention back to her meal.
In my room, I endure the eternity it takes to get my dress off, wondering how most girls could dream of the day that marks their maturity and could show that by being tied into their dresses. I want to shout to them all that it is actually a portable prison. I have no desire to lose my virginity before marriage but being forced to take measures to prevent it makes me want to rip my clothes off in public for some backward reason.
Come Sunday, the assigned constable I name Brick Face escorts me to Crisy’s house. Not Uncle Brocen is there, but agrees, along with Crisy (though Crisy is more subdued toward my presence from the last time we spent time together. That was also before I witnessed Jaicom brush her cheek at his sister’s debutante) to my request to ride with her to church.
The azure sky is clear of clouds and the warm sun bears down freely upon us. My pale pink and white riding dress reflects most of the heat that sometimes reaches through the shade of my large wicker hat. Crisy is wearing the same yellow and white print on our first ride together. I have just enough dresses for two weeks without wearing the same one twice. I hate that my parents – well, my mother – wants to show them all off as if I were a doll she can dress up. In many ways, I envy Crisy as surely as she envies me.
Jaicom’s family is sitting at their usual spot on the right row of pews near the back. I watch Crisy’s head turn that way and she stiffens. I seriously need to talk to Jaicom about it. But as soon as that thought tempts me I’m assaulted by another one: If Jaicom doesn’t marry me, who will?
We take our seats and the sermon is vocalized by the priest I like to compare to a crow; his large black robe and long black sleeves under a pointed nose, balding head, only encourage that visual.
I lean into Crisy. “This church has always given me the creeps.”
Crisy muffles a snort. “What makes you say that?”
“It’s made of stone and echoes like a tomb. The dead are prepared for burial in the crypts beneath and the priest wears black and talks about hell all day long.”
“Well,” she muses, “only sinners fear church. So… out with it. What sins would you like to confess?”
I’m still getting to know Crisy and having never seen her at this level of humor, I can’t tell if the unblinking stare she pins on me has already guessed that I’m planning on having her room vandalized or if she is showing off her first step into sarcasm.
Crisy gives herself away. “Good thing I’m not a priest. You might have burst into flames with the look you gave me!” She laughs, a little too loudly, and my mother shushes us – blames me – and turns her attention back to the priest.
“…who sell their soul to the devil!” The priest punctuates the sentence with a thrust of his fist into the air. “All for a chance to handle the powers of God.”
“What is he talking about?” I whisper to Crisy who shakes her head. She hadn’t been paying attention, either.
“It is called mmmmmagic,” the priest emphasizes, casting a steely gaze over the congregation. “Magic. That which turns men evil and compels them to follow after demons is called magic. But, despite the evils of it, some continue to seek it for their own ill or selfishness. Deuteronomy chapter eighteen, verses ten through twelve say thus: There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord, and because of these abominations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee.”
The priest spends a particular amount of time driving his stare into select people in the room. From my position, I cannot see who, but by now the whole chapel is a little unnerved since the shuffle of clothing has stopped, general sniffing, even breathing.
“The Lord will condemn those who deem themselves wizards and the like,” the priest continues, pacing around the pulpit with his hands behind his back. “In Leviticus, it is quoted, ‘I will even set my face against that soul, and will cut him off from among his people.’ Heed to this warning,” the priest intones, “because as the God Almighty has said it, so shall it come to pass.” The priest walks back to the pulpit, for he has a habit of walking all about the raised dais as he speaks. I’m certain that if someone tied his arms down he would be mute.
“Magic.” I taste the word. What an odd sermon this Sunday. The priest makes it sound like there is a problem with magic and wizards in Valemorren.
Crisy leans into me. “Your constable is kind of handsome.”
“Sure. If you can look past the fact he is fifteen years older than you.”
“Better than not being married at all.”
I wish I still had my doubts about that.
The sermon ends with a somber hymn from the congregation, and after the prayer, everyone files out.
“Magic? Wizards?” Crisy asks as we ride back to her house. She laughs but it sounds weird. “What a strange thing for the priest to go on about!” She looks down at her dainty slippers poking out of the bottom of her yellow dress.
I agree, but I don’t say so out loud. This I can tell you. The Fae are real. Fae are often linked with being the “mother” of magic. Durain believed in the Fae. Was Durain a wizard? By now that wouldn’t surprise me.
I’m actually tempted to tell Crisy about the orange flying thing I saw in the forest. But she is the current keeper of one of the Keys so I change my mind. I don’t trust her, despite she has a genuine sweet nature that I believe is real. I don’t even dare tell my father whom I trust with any secret. There is a weirdness growing in Valemorren and lately I feel like I seeded it.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
BRINELLA
I have this intense desire to check the jail registry to see if the thief had been caught, but I can’t think of a believable story to tell my parents why I want to do so. Besides, the thief hadn’t even given me a real name.
I open my violin case. No note. Tonight would have been perfect, too. Jaicom’s whole family is sitting in the wooden chairs below the stage glowing with a gazillion gas lamps, the brown wood of the stage lacquered to reflect the light.
We are in the Community Hall. It is too vain and too large for the small mundane things it is usually used for but when it does support a Ball, people from as far as Bristol attend. The Whaerin family from so many generations ago helped build it, likely in hopes to bait the King for a visit.
The glass, metal, wood, and stone workers combined their arts to create this structure. The two levels with a wraparound mezzanine creating a second floor, teardrop crystal chandlers, and a cathedral ceiling wrestled hand in hand with certain rooms in the Buckingham Palace for dominance and beauty. Archways in the west wall on both floors lead outside to the body of water claimed as a lake. Pillars line parallel down both sides of the rectangular Hall beneath the mezzanine, wrapped in curtains that could be pulled back or draped closed. At one end was our stage, where we waited behind the curtains.
Everyone, to include me – unfortunately – dressed in our horse show best. I feel the title to our musical – “A Violin’s Sorrow” – is misleading. It should have been, “Five Unwed Girls of Age for Sale” because of how all of us had spent the entire day curling hair and nitpicking over brand new dresses no one had ever seen before.
I peek around the curtain and spot Jaicom’s blonde hair shining from some pomade in the lamp
light. His glossy locks are parted mostly to one side but his white skin and blue eyes are lacking any mirth. I’m not sure he enjoys violins as much as my mother tries to make me believe. He is very handsome, I admit. The girls behind the curtain are already talking about him, shooting furtive glances my way. They are all very pretty. Prettier than myself. Not that I’m ugly, but I have a heavier bust than most girls and shoulders broad enough to push against the line of being feminine. That somehow gives me a wide face, too.
My teacher waltzes proudly to center stage and the chattering audience quiets. It looks like the entire town showed up.
She welcomes them all, briefing them on what they would hear tonight. One by one she calls our names and we promenade to the chairs on the stage.
Jaicom doesn’t once crack a smile during the performance but he claps respectfully with the rest of the audience. Upon the conclusion of our musical, we stand, bow, and exit as practiced. The crowd stands to begin their filing through the drinks provided. I’m putting my violin back in the case when Jaicom appears beside me. I stand, not sure what to expect.
“You played wonderful.” His eyes scan me, making me feel immensely uncomfortable. “Beautiful, too.”
I blush, so many questions on the tip of my tongue. “Thank you,” I say instead.
He looks over his shoulder, back into the crowd. Is he looking for Crisy?
“Sorry that I haven’t stopped by to see to your safety and health after your kidnap,” he says without meeting my eye, but his sincerity is so bad that any excuse is not going to cover it. And it’s obvious because he’s fidgeting too much and I finally can’t stand it.
“Jaicom, why are you courting me?” I stand bold, ready to never get married if my only option is marrying a man who has no interest in me. “You only seem interested in me when your father is watching.” The more I speak, the warmer I get. “And even then your father looks so distasteful at me that I fear I’m catching cholera. I don’t understand it. Either court me like a real gentleman or stop.”
I catch him off guard. His pale features flush and his fedora becomes a mash of black baker’s dough in his hands. Unexpectedly, he steps across the space separating us and tags me with a kiss on the cheek.
Now it’s my turn to flush. The kiss is so foreign I’m certain it left a mark with how it burns.
“I’m sorry I’ve been confusing,” he says in a tone I almost believe is sincere. “Been busy learning my father’s business and traveling to Bristol. I’ll do better from now on.” He smiles at me and it further drives my frustration which is now morphing into hurt because he didn’t answer my question. “I’ll see you around Miss Frondaren.” And he merges back into the crowd.
OOO
The buzzing confusion in my brain about Jaicom’s intent is made worse by Varseena talking all the way home about my performance, as if the whole thing was amazing because of me, which I know is false.
By the time I reach my room, Varseena is starting on the time when she first learned to play. I half listen while Varseena unties the knots to my dress and leaves with a promise to finish the tale tomorrow. Unless she is going to tell me how the first violin was made, I’m not sure how else she was going to elaborate on the topic.
As usual, I pull my secret box out of the wardrobe to make sure the thief didn’t help herself. After all, this house had been empty and the thief likely knew it.
I open the lid and stiffness drives between my shoulders. Three identical Keys rest against the bottom, arraigned purposefully. I can’t tell which one is mine. I’m shaking, so many emotions wrestling for dominance in my chest. Relief? Excitement that Durain’s secret is going to be revealed to me? Fear at the cost?
The door knob to my room jostles. I shove the Keys back inside and slam the lid shut. But it is only my father locking me in.
My stampeding heart quells and I open the lid again, touching each piece. They look and weigh identical. As if holding a relic to Durain’s past and my future, I gather the pieces and sit on my bed, folding my legs under me. Trying not to think of the consequences of this, I attach two of the pieces together and then the third, so they look like a three pronged starfish with the rubies dropping down from the tip of each of them
As the third clicks into place… nothing happens. That is to say, I had expected something to happen. A flash of magic like the priest warned about… or something.
Without warning, the three-pronged copper device rips out of my lap as if magnetized and slams into the wall by the window.
I’m screaming before I can stop myself, clamping my teeth shut when I realize it. I run to the door and yell through the crack, “I’m fine! Just saw a… spider. I killed it.” Lame.
Frantic feet come running at me anyway. As soon as the door opens, I greet my father with a nervous smile. “Sorry. A spider crawled across my arm and scared me.”
His stiff expression softens and he pats my head as if I’m three years old. Without a word, he locks me in again. I turn back to the… what should I call it now? Magicked Hunk of Metal, Demon-Possessed Copper Thing? It looks like a star. I will re-christen it as the Star.
I’m shaking with nerves at the remarkability of the thing clinging to the plaster wall facing the mountain range three miles from my house, having flew from my lap as if it were alive. I touch it with the tip of my finger as if it might burn me. Nothing. I slide fingers underneath it and pry. It comes free into my hand with much less force it took to fly away from me and now I have three holes in my wall.
So now I have it. Whatever this is.
Holding onto the Star least it fly out of my hand again, I locate Durain’s letter in my lock box. I see another letter instead on the bottom, face up. Words fill it halfway.
I am paid in full, in case you had any douts. Here are the last pieces to the key. Use at yur own risk. A final warning… yu can never go back once you begin. Your life is in danger if anyone finds out. Eat this letter.
I read it three times, then shove the paper in my mouth. The ink bleeds over my tongue and I gag, running to the pitcher and basin on my vanity but I obey the instructions and swallowed the paper, washing the ink out of my mouth with plenty of water.
I read Durain’s note to see if it would allude to what I’m supposed to do next.
Follow the pull, it said, and hold on.
Oh.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
BRINELLA
Now that violin lessons are complete, my mother indicates in no subtle way that Jaicom loves paintings.
I’m certain my mother has no idea what Jaicom likes but is trying to dissuade me from falling back into habits not desired in a lady. And I briefly hate her because it is working. I haven’t had time just to meander ever since I took Jaicom to the cliff, and even then I was in company that didn’t enjoy himself.
So I’m enrolled in art class twice a week. But I can’t go. Because I absolutely have to follow the pull of the Star and that is going to take longer than a few hours of stolen time, I’m certain. How much time do I need? What if I don’t find the thing I don’t know what I’m supposed to be looking for? What am I looking for?
I write down everything: supplies needed, time frame. I conclude I’ll need to give myself a week to “follow the pull” of the Star, because I have no idea where it is going to take me. I would even like more time but with the increased watchfulness of my mother, it is going to be hard enough to get just that.
I stare at the wall for thirty minutes, at the picture I hung over the three puncture marks in the plaster, thinking of how to request a week off from life to follow the pull of a magicked metal thing the priest would burn if he ever found it. But I don’t know how to find the time. Nothing will work. No excuse, no desperation would yield me that desire.
After some mulling over for a long time I come up with a plan. Brick Face will be relieved from pestering me tomorrow and I will finally be free to travel to art class on my own. Except I won’t show up to art class. I won’t come home, either
. After about a week, I’ll come back, having “escaped” from the same gypsy who had kidnapped me already. Despite everything about my real kidnap, I find what irritates me the most is the monkey was involved.
I’d be stuck with an escort for the rest of my life after that and might be married sooner because of it, but Durain had given his life for this. My sacrifice pales in comparison to his and it doesn’t even bother me that I don’t even know what I’m making sacrifices for. Durain thought it was important. So will I.
I finish the last details and store my plan in my lock box, then relocate to the music room to play the violin before my mother nags me about it. My stomach hardens into knots as I think about the bold act I’m committing tomorrow. There are so many holes in it, but I have to get started. I’ve already been too long getting to where I am with the Star and I can’t count on the fake keys convincing those from whom they were stolen from for much longer. I have to find out what Durain’s secret is before I’m discovered.
I play a couple cords, finding the soft edges of violin screams actually ease my worry a little.
I lay in bed and roil with nerves. My chosen outfit of pants and shirt I took from Durain’s room are already hidden in Durain’s rucksack in the forest beside my house along with other necessary supplies to carry me through the unknown for a few days. I fall restlessly asleep.
OOO
A breeze ruffles my blanket, and I wake because I’m cold. I sit up to close my window I don’t remember leaving open and stop as my eyes fall on a crouched shadow perched on the sill.