by Amy McNulty
I straightened my shoulders, tucked the too-long piece of hair behind my ear, and raised my fist, ready to knock.
The door spilled open, and my fist hung suspended over the chest of a specter.
“Ailill?” It felt like someone else was speaking. I didn’t realize the name had passed my tongue until the thunder of my heartbeat quieted.
“Need something else, my good man?” Someone from behind the specter spoke. I didn’t know who. My senses were dulled, and I couldn’t stop myself from staring up into those red, unblinking eyes. Like all the life had been drained out of him.
I cursed under my breath and looked away. Since when have you called them by that name? But this one was younger than many of the rest. He looked so like him, I’d nearly forgotten I didn’t care anymore. I stepped back to let him pass, watching as his white, shiny shoes scuffed the wooden floor and disappeared into the darkness of the hall.
The ghost of a past life. But how does it work? Does he die, become a shell, and then appear out of thin air as a baby? The thought of a castle of specters silently attending an infant not yet knowing he was fated to join them sent a chill down my back. I thought of Ailill, the real Ailill, the young boy I’d known who became the first shade. He’d had no one. No one at all for years and years after I’d left him.
And now, after a thousand years, there was the man who’d been mine at the castle. Ailill but not Ailill. Some muted copy, twisted and unused to company that didn’t do everything he wanted.
“Noll? I’ll be!”
In the firelight, Jaron, Sindri, Jurij, and a young woman I barely knew were gathered around a table, mugs and half-empty plates scattered across its surface. Each gazed at me expectantly.
Jurij was the only one less curious to see me and more flabbergasted. Like he couldn’t believe I had the gall to show my face.
Jaron didn’t seem to share the same sentiment. “Did you come to join us? A bit late for dinner, I’m afraid.” He pointed to an empty chair beside Jurij. “Have a seat. Next time Vena comes up, we’ll order another round.”
“I’m not sure Vena will ever have a spare moment.” I shuffled to the chair, taking in the room. Beside the fireplace was a small bed in the corner, but nothing else of note. A single window looked out into the night, the pointed roofs of the homes and shops across the way just barely visible. The silhouette of the tall spires of the castle beneath the mountain was but a conspicuous fleck in the background.
Jaron chuckled. “Well, it probably doesn’t help that we’ve been keeping Roslyn so long.” He patted the shoulder of the woman beside him gently. “Thanks for wasting your short break with this old man, darling.”
The corner of Roslyn’s lips twitched, but she settled into an easy smile. “No waste at all.” Her dark eyes roved over the table, meeting mine. I flushed, thinking of Darwyn in the room down the hall. “Besides, you have Noll now. You won’t have to be alone.”
Jaron sniffed and leaned back in his chair. He failed to contain his smirk. “Now don’t you go spreading rumors, sweetheart.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Roslyn’s smile grew uneasy as she passed behind Sindri to the open door.
Jaron leaned over the table. “You have to excuse her, Noll. There’s this rumor that I’m just about the only man in town who welcomes the company of women these days. That I can’t be seen without one.” He took a sip of his drink, and I watched what impact his words had on his companions. Jurij stared down at the table blankly, but Sindri hardly seemed to be paying attention. His eyes followed Roslyn hungrily.
“Oh!” Roslyn jumped as (a fully clothed) Darwyn appeared out of the darkness of the hallway. She clutched her chest as if to keep her heart from beating right out of it.
Darwyn nodded and tried to speak, but his voice caught. I noticed the lump bobbing at his throat. “Roslyn,” he said at last.
Tayton stepped up behind Darwyn, giving Roslyn someone else to look at. Her gaze fell to the ground, and she pushed past them both, careful not to brush against them.
Darwyn took a deep breath and smiled at me. “I see you found your way, Your Majesty.”
Tayton grimaced and stepped around Darwyn to sit in the open chair beside me. “Is this another one of those things from your childhood I don’t get to know about?”
Darwyn nudged Tayton’s shoulder playfully with his fist and tugged on the back of his brother’s chair. “The elf queen, remember? I told you about that.”
Sindri got up from his chair and sat in the one Roslyn had vacated so Darwyn could slip in beside Tayton.
“Oh. Right,” muttered Tayton. He did his best to stay grumpy, but I thought I saw his pouted fishy lips almost straighten into a smile.
“Did he leave out the part where he found the whole elf queen thing obnoxious?” I asked.
Tayton shook his head. “Nope. Got that part pretty clear. He probably fancied himself someone who’d eventually usurp you.”
I appreciated the conversation, if only because I was still shaking from my encounter with the specter. “A retainer usurp the queen? He had no chance. Not when love proved such an easy distraction for him.” I regretted the word love as soon as I said it. “Or passion. Whatever you’d call it. At least he’s over that.”
“Hmm? Over love and passion?” Tayton rubbed his fingers under his chin as if pretending to think hard and then exchanged a sly glance with Darwyn. “I’m not sure. So I doubt he’ll ever get a chance to usurp you.”
Now I felt like the one being left out of something that seemed to make perfect sense to those around me.
“All right, all right.” Jaron clinked his finger against his mug. “Nobody came here to discuss what goes on betwixt the bed sheets, right?” Jaron pointed at me. “Have anything to tell us?”
I looked from one face to the next, surprised to see all but Jurij staring expectantly. “What are we talking about?”
Jaron tapped Jurij’s shoulder. “What was it? A golden copper?”
My head whipped instantly to Jurij. “You told them?”
Jurij shrugged. “Was it a secret?”
“No, but … ” I reached into the band at my waist in which I’d tucked the golden copper. “I don’t see why it should matter.”
Jaron reached out his hand, and I hesitated, running my fingers over the golden surface. He seemed undeterred, so I dropped it into his palm. He held it out above him, a little bit of the firelight flickering off of its surface. “Well, I’ll be. It is yellow.”
“Let me see.” Sindri snagged the coin from Jaron’s loosened fingers and held it out just as he had. His face soured. “What is this?”
Darwyn grabbed it from him and leaned over to show Tayton. Their fingers brushed each other’s lightly as they stroked the surface. “It feels like copper.” Tayton took it in his fist and shook his hand up and down. “Maybe a little heavier.”
He opened his fist, and I snatched it back before the coin kept passing from man to man indefinitely. “Okay. So I have a golden copper. Care to let me know why you all seem so interested? Or why one of the lord’s servants came out of this room before I did, for that matter?”
If I hadn’t been so flustered, or so determined to convince everyone—and myself—that I wasn’t bothered, it would have been the first thing out of my mouth as soon as the specter had left. Instead, I posed the question now, ready to know why they hadn’t thought fit to bring it up earlier. Push me, and I’ll push back.
Sindri’s eyes immediately fell downward, and if I’d hoped Jurij was going to start looking at me now, I was mistaken. Darwyn and Tayton seemed puzzled, curious—but it wasn’t to me that they turned their attention. It was to Jaron, who leaned back in his chair with a sigh. “What do you think of us, Noll?”
Jaron stared relentlessly, and I had to stop myself from turning away. “What do I think?”
Jaron ran a hand over his face. “Are we the men you knew before? Is any man?”
I
studied each of my friends in turn, but none would return my gaze. “What’s this about?”
“It’s not enough for some of us, just to move on.” Jaron scratched the stubble under his chin. I wondered briefly if when he wore his mask in the commune, he’d grown a thick beard beneath. “It’s not enough for most of us.”
“What do you mean, not enough?”
Jaron opened his mouth, but Jurij snapped to attention, cutting him off. “We want to know why, Noll. Why things changed. Why they were ever the way they were. Don’t you?”
I felt the weight of the golden coin in my palm.
“She does know something!” Sindri pounded his palms the table. “You told us she did, but I wasn’t sure.”
“Who’s sure I know anything?” I glared at Jurij, finding none of the easy demeanor that used to dominate his features. “Jurij, what have you told them?”
He shrugged. “That you might have broken the curse.”
“Me?” I swallowed, glancing out of the corner of my eye to see if anyone was reading the guilt flushed all over my face. “But how—”
“You love him, don’t you?”
The words were like Elgar slashed across my chest. The real Elgar.
Jurij didn’t seem to notice. Or maybe he did and didn’t care. “You Returned to the lord of the village, and then everything changed.”
“If I Returned to him, why am I here and not with him? Why would my Returning be any different than any other woman’s?”
“Maybe he didn’t love you back.” The harsh tone in Darwyn’s voice was enough to stop my assault. He fumbled with his hands on his lap, like he was trying to pretend he wasn’t the one who’d spoken.
I threw my hands up in the air. “If he didn’t love me, why did he find the goddess in me in the first place?”
“That wasn’t love.” Tayton put a hand on Darwyn’s shoulder. “Maybe once you Returned to him, he broke free from the spell. Maybe we all did.”
I dropped the golden copper on the middle of the table, crossing my arms against my chest as the coin wobbled slowly into silence. “I wasn’t aware that you’d been conferring with the lord of the village about his opinion on love.”
“We don’t have to,” started Sindri. “We know from our experiences.”
“Your experiences don’t come close to that man’s.” I tilted my chin at Jaron, surprised at my own defensiveness. “Answer my questions, and I may answer yours.” I tapped the coin with my finger. “What did you want from one of the lord’s servants?”
The corner of Jaron’s lips twisted just slightly. “You know, you may not be asking the right question.”
“What do you expect me to do? Walk up to the castle gates, invite myself in, and ask if oh, maybe, the gold copper a child gave me was his indirect way of saying we need to talk?” I slid the golden copper off of the table, tucking it back into the band around my waist. “If he wanted to talk to me, he could come himself.”
Jurij scoffed. “You claim the lord won’t explain what happened to us, but asking him directly isn’t exactly what we had in mind.”
Jaron got on his hands and knees, reached beneath the bed, and pulled out a small, carved keepsake box. I recognized it as one Father had made—old and a bit worn, probably not without a previous owner or two—and wondered if Jaron had made a point of avoiding Alvilda’s carvings. He returned to his seat, shoving aside his mug to put the box on the table. He opened it. “He’d come himself if he wanted to talk?” He pulled out the single item inside the box, a yellowed piece of paper that crinkled at his touch. It was a drawing of a room much like this one, with a man in the bed and a child in a chair beside him, focusing on something in his hands. There was a single jagged edge to the parchment, as if it’d been torn from bindings. “Think you could make him want to come see you? It might give us the time we need to explore where he keeps more of these.”
Jaron nodded, and Darwyn got up from the table. He knocked on the wall and leaned against it, then, seeing my gaze on him, pointed to Jaron.
“Me and the man staying next door do each other favors on occasion,” explained Jaron, and I wondered briefly if it was rented to one of the other men from the commune. “He’s downstairs enjoying the raucous company, so I asked some friends to stay in his room, out of sight, until the lord’s servant left.” Jaron held the paper closer toward me. The boy had gotten up, leaving a shirt and a needle on the chair where he’d sat. He leaned over the form of the sleeping man and shook him awake.
The drawing. Shook the man awake. On the paper.
The man sat up. And somehow, even though he was drawn in plain black ink, I saw it clearly: Master Tailor in the bed, little Luuk beside him. Both moving on paper.
Jaron tapped a finger on the paper. “So what you should have asked is, what did one of the lord’s servants want from us?”
The door to the room opened, and in stepped Master Tailor and Luuk.
“Where did you get this?” I asked. “How did you get this? And why, if the specter wanted it, do you still have it?”
Jaron flipped the paper over, and there was writing on the back:
We have no need for so much bread. Send enough for one. The payment will remain the same. Distribute the food or pocket the payment as you see fit.
I scoffed, turning to Darwyn. “The specter gave your mother a note. On the back of a moving piece of paper?”
Darwyn shrugged. “Mother is so harried, she didn’t bother to flip it over. But I did, when she was scrambling in the kitchen. I didn’t know what to do with it, who to tell. It wasn’t until after we met Jaron that day that I wound up spending time here and unloading the burden. I gave it to Jaron—and now that pale man keeps dogging him, probably wanting it back.” He shuddered at the “pale man.”
Jaron flipped the paper over. The image had changed to the very table at which we sat, down to the detail of Jaron holding a piece of paper over the mugs and plates on the table. My drawing self stared at the paper in Jaron’s hands, my hair longer and thicker in the back than I pictured. I was afraid to move. Afraid to see the change in the picture.
“It follows Luuk.” The drawing of Jurij turned to the drawing of me. And as if to prove his point, Luuk walked to the fire, grabbing the poker to turn over the log. My drawing disappeared from view as just Jaron at the edge of the table remained in focus, the image echoing Luuk’s steps across the room.
I gripped the golden copper through the band at my waist. “Why is the lord watching Luuk?”
No one had an answer.
***
Jurij didn’t come home—didn’t come back to my home—that night. Or the night after. For the second morning in a row, I carved at the table in my shack, my blade moving too fast without my attention. I sliced the tip of my finger, cursing as I dropped the half-formed wooden cow on the table. Rushing to the basin, I tipped a bit of the water out of the nearby bucket to wash the blood away. My finger stung as I washed it clean of the blood, only for it to ooze out in red again seconds later.
Blood on the chest of Elric, the man who so looked like Ailill. There was nothing, and then there was a pool of blood.
I grabbed a rag and twisted it around my finger, pulling it tight and wincing at the pain. I clearly had no idea how to fix this. Ingrith once told me, right here in this room, about a man who’d been a “healer.” Only she didn’t mean “healer” like the men from Ailill’s village, who had a power I still couldn’t explain. She meant someone who fixed your wounds and tended to your illnesses, but without the violet glow. Without the assistance of something I didn’t understand pouring out from his fingers.
Little Ailill cradling my face to remove the bruise from the slap. Little Ailill taking my pain away after the stocks.
When I was so cold to him during my first night in the castle, what was going through that same person’s head?
“This will be your room.” He nodded toward the nearest specter, who seemed to read
his intent as he went to the window and pulled back the drapes. I expected to see dust flying, but it was annoyingly pristine. “You may let the light in as you please.”
Thank you for the instruction on how to push aside drapes. I scoffed loudly. But I was determined not to speak to him.
Ailill stiffened just slightly, but I was too concerned with seeing the prison hidden beneath the extravagantly plush bed and the shimmering baubles before the mirror. A mirror. I’d even have my own mirror! I squashed that feeling of gratitude and wonder as soon as I felt it.
He took you from your home. Against your will. Isn’t he supposed to do what you want him to do? He refused to help your mother when you needed help the most.
I pushed past the specters and back into the hallway.
“Are you hungry?” Ailill asked, appearing at my side. “I have instructed a meal to be ready as soon as we have finished our tour.”
I stopped in my tracks, not sure what would be worse, dining with him or continuing on this tour of his extravagances. Probably the former. I’d never eaten with a masked man before, let alone one who was so good at getting my blood boiling. Besides, I wasn’t hungry. I couldn’t imagine being hungry ever again. I shrugged.
Ailill joined his hands behind his back. “This castle … displeases you?”
You displease me, not the castle. I didn’t say it, but it was almost like he’d heard me anyway. He flinched. I didn’t say anything.
“Is there anything I can do … to make you more comfortable?”
I clenched my jaw, knowing I couldn’t ask him to let me go. Knowing everyone expected me to just accept him. Just live forever with this man I didn’t even know. With this man who’d done nothing to help my mother!
The tour continued after that in near silence, and the disastrous meal together—followed by the truth about my mother. No, not the truth. Not the whole truth. Just enough for me to despise him even more without realizing …