Count On Me

by Abigail Graham

I guess they have a thing for the classics around here. I return the like-new tape to its stack and weave deeper into the storeroom. It’s much, much bigger than I thought. Farther back there are more books. Everything is organized by type, not by age, I realize.

  There’s a rack of rifles stretching ten feet long. Closest to me there are scary-looking modern military guns, farther back they look like something from World War II, and even farther back they change to muskets. The ones on the end have funny clockwork mechanisms or look like they’re set off by a piece of thread instead of a hammer.

  Books. The books. There are so many books I could never read them all in a dozen lifetimes, in at least five languages.

  What is all this?

  Something scuffs in the dark and I freeze. I turn slowly, holding out the candle. There’s nothing, but my heart still races until I’ve woven my way out of the storeroom and closed the door. The hall is empty. I’m alone.

  Turning, I head for the stairs. I head up and up until I find a door.

  Oops. I didn’t come this way. I must have walked all the way across to another one of the towers and ascended its base. I push the door open slowly and find the familiar curving stairs, and let out a deep breath.

  Walking, I see the gate to my left and slip toward it.

  When the sound hits me, I freeze. Peering through the iron grate that separates the keep from the courtyard, I watch. The drawbridge cranks down, the chains clacking and creaking until it settles into place, and the iron grates…

  Portcullis. That’s the word. Those are a portcullis. What’s the plural? Portculli?

  It doesn’t matter, they slide up and then the gates are open. The thunder of hooves shakes the very ground beneath my feet as I lean into the wall and watch, awestruck.

  Riding on a great pale horse, the antlered horseman reins up in the courtyard. His mount rears and screams, its unnatural cry cutting right to my heart, a sharp screech in my ears. There’s no way that everyone else didn’t hear that.

  He drops down to the dirt, standing tall beside the enormous animal. He pays it no mind as he stalks deeper into the courtyard, toward the inner gate and the white tree.

  The horse turns and bolts, galloping back out the way it came. I push the gate open, wincing at every inch of movement, and slip out into the open courtyard.

  This is crazy; why am I doing this?

  Tossing the candle aside, I follow along in the dark. As the flame gutters into nothingness, the rider heads into the second courtyard, the red sword blazing in his fist. It glows red, shimmering with heat, but I feel only cold. I start shivering by the time I pass through the inner gate myself.

  The rider limps forward, digging the point of the blade into the stones. It leaves little cuts in each one, rimmed with frost. I don’t understand why it looks hot but feels cold. Creeping along behind the rider, I make my way inside, closer.

  He leans on the stone slab and throws the sword down then turns sideways and grabs the antlers to rip the helmet off his head.

  It falls apart in his hands, like it melts. Conrad falls to his knees as the cape and armor he wears do the same, sliding off his body in a tide of black dust that wastes away to nothing as it leaves him. He slumps against the stone table, eyes lidded.

  As I grow nearer I gasp. His skin is covered with scratches and the clothes he had on when he picked up the sword earlier are torn. He’s bleeding from a dozen shallow wounds, but even as I watch they begin to close, pressing tight into red welts that sink into his skin, leaving it unblemished.

  He looks me in the eye, his expression darkened by shame.

  “I commanded you to stay inside with the others.”

  “Sorry. I’m not very commandable.”

  “You stupid, silly girl,” he growls, rising to his feet.

  I take a step back, rebuked by the fury in his eyes.

  “I should have had you locked in the stocks instead of giving you a bed,” he snarls. “You come tromping around my home, ignorant of what you may—”

  “Save it. Just tell me what the hell is going on?”

  “Hell is going on,” he repeats softly.

  “What?”

  Grunting, he has to lean on the table to stand. Fatigue is plain on his sweaty face, the way he carries himself as if he’s going to collapse. I take his arm foolishly, as if I could hold him up.

  “Anywhere but here,” he says, leading me out.

  When we’re past the gates they swing shut. No one touches them, nothing moves, the heavy oak just swings on its own until they slam shut. Conrad shoves his iron key into the mechanism and twists it, and something big and clanky locks the doors.

  He takes a few more steps forward and sits on a bench in the courtyard, panting.

  “Do me one kindness and help me to the kitchen.”

  Rising, he has to lean on the wall as much as me. It takes twice as long to reach the kitchen as it did before, with Conrad stopping.

  “I haven’t slept in three days,” he confesses.

  When we step into the kitchen he sits on a wooden bench.

  “A drink.”

  I reach for one of the clay jugs.

  “Water,” he says. “There.”

  When I try to pour he waves the cup away and takes the entire jug, drinking it so fast it spills down over his chin and wets his clothes. I pull it back.

  “You’ll make yourself sick.”

  I lean back against the stone wall and stare at him.

  “Marta will have left me food,” he says.

  I turn and find it wrapped in cloth. Bread, something like beef jerky, some fruit, and nuts. Conrad offers me some. I accept the bread, tear a piece off, and chew it while he eats in sullen silence.

  “Why did you tell me to stay inside?”

  “It’s not safe… And I didn’t want you to see.”

  “That was you. Not tonight, last night. In the fields. You cut down the Red Scarves.”

  “Yes. She feasted last night. There were eight of them. It’s been long since she’s been so well satisfied.”

  “Fed? She?”

  He looks up. “The sword.”

  I chew on my bread.

  Well that’s just peachy.

  I swallow it and try not to scream. This is insane.

  “It feeds,” I say.

  “Yes. It devours the ones it kills and lends me some part of its strength.”

  “Every night?”

  “No,” he says, “thank God, no. I would go mad. When the moon is black and the way to the outside world opens, the sword demands its bearer ride through the night in search of prey.”

  I swallow. “Prey? Did you…”

  “Not tonight,” he says sharply. “I ride out as far as I can, away from everyone, until she releases me. I waited too long tonight. I should have left hours earlier.”

  “What happens if I try to leave?”

  “It won’t let you,” he says, very softly.

  I eat more bread. Eating bread is about the only sane thing I can do. I chew it, taste it, swallow it, repeat until I’m clapping the crumbs from my hand onto the counter behind me, an expanse of oiled wood. The count finishes his meal and sets it aside.

  I don’t know what to do. I want to leave, but go where? I can’t go home. I have nothing left, not even my passport. This man sits on a bench in front of me holding his head in his hands, shaking with grief.

  “I didn’t want you to see,” he says. “You weren’t supposed to see. This can’t happen again.”

  Call it instinct, or sympathy, but for all the anger I feel at being deceived, at being trapped in this place, I can’t help but reach out and rest my hand on his shoulder.

  Until he sharply shrugs it off and stands up.

  “Don’t,” he says. “You don’t understand.”

  “I saw the wounds. It hurts, doesn’t it?”

  He almost looks past me. “Every night ride is a battle. I have returned victorious for another month. Tomorrow night the moon begins to wax a
nd the curse will give me some relief for another handful of days.”

  “What curse?” I say quickly. “What is that thing, why—”

  “No,” he says. “You needn’t concern yourself with it. When next the gateway opens, you go back where you came from.”

  He takes my hand and brings it to his lips. They’re warm on my knuckles.

  “A full turn of the moon, and then you’ll be free. I am sorry you ever came here.”

  The words are like a fist around my heart.

  He lets go of my hand and turns to leave.

  “Wait,” I say.

  He stops and rests his hand on the doorway.

  “Go back to your chamber and sleep and think no more of me. I am lost.”

  He disappears into the corridor, leaving me alone. I stand and start to follow but pull back. My hands are shaking.

  This is real. This is actually happening.

  Or is it? Maybe I’m still on the plane and this is all some whipped-off dream.

  Whatever it is, I head the other way through the kitchen and find my way to my room. Once inside I push all the straw back into a shape I can lie on and sink into, clutching the pillow to my head.

  There’s something more going on here. Something I can’t see, like a presence just behind my shoulder and no matter where I turn I can’t face it.

  I am lost, he said.

  I know how he feels.

  5

  Dark Places

  Conrad

  “I hate you,” he growls, staring down from his window.

  The evil thing has not fully released him. It calls to him even now in the dark, singing to him of battles and glories and blood, always blood, rivers of blood, running hotter than hot, steaming, enough to gorge on, enough to bathe in, flowing forever from a mountain of skulls. Limitless rage, endless hunger, never to be sated.

  Conrad is the only thing that stands between it and the rampage it seeks. Should another hand claim it, there will be no stopping the terror. Friend or foe, guilty or innocent, it doesn’t matter, so long as the blood flows.

  There is one thought that can free him from it. One place he dares to reach. He sets his head in his hands and thinks of her, far below in her chamber off the great hall where he left her. In his mind’s eye he can see her perfectly, her beautiful face wreathed in her soft chestnut hair, full lips pursed slightly as she lies in repose, one hand resting on her chest.

  Conrad knew he was a man when he saw her the first time. As a youth he cared only about breasts and hips. It was Roxanne’s wrists that drew him in, her most perfect wrists. She’s delicate all over, with fine ankles, ethereal features, and those strange, unique eyes.

  The pain of those memories threatens to overwhelm him. Time stalks him like a predator, and he has spent an eternity shaken in its jaws. Nothing hurts more than the lack of recognition in her eyes, the longing for it to be as it was.

  The thought of holding her is enough, and the sword begins to lose its grip. Where it cannot grasp, it seeks to seduce.

  Were he to return to the courtyard and draw the blade, he could gaze through its depths and look on her as she sleeps in truth, without having to imagine her. At this moment he wants nothing more than to lie with her, and this alone. To feel her weight beside him, the way each tiny shift as she sleeps brings her closer until their bodies touch, the constant temptation to wrap his arms around her fighting the guilt of disturbing her sleep. Even the way her cold feet would sap heat from his skin when they brush him brings a small smile to his lips.

  “I can’t keep her here,” he tells the air.

  He steps outside onto the balcony and glares down. The petrified tree reaches up with branches like toothy spears, urging him to leap, reaching out to impale. He stares at them for a long while, feeling imaginary spears of frozen wood ramming through his chest.

  The sensation is not unfamiliar. Something rises in his throat and it might be blood. He turns away and swallows, forcing the hot feeling down, only to realize it was just a phantom. A memory, perhaps. There are so many, he can no longer tell what he’s done from what he’s wished he’d done, or what he hopes from what he has feared.

  Slumping to the floor beside the bed, he takes a clay jug of mead and, without a cup, swills it until it overflows his lips and dribbles lukewarm down his chest. As the sweet warmth tickles his throat from the inside, he imagines those drops are her fingers on his skin.

  The jug smashes against the wall, and Conrad stares at his hand. Has he thrown that jug before? Has it shattered? He pictures the pieces leaping back into form, the cracks sealing themselves as the vessel returns to his grasp, unmarked.

  The sky over his tower is wrong. The air is wrong. This place is unnatural. His world is a tomb. Something crawls beneath it, like vermin in the walls.

  He should expel her now. Head down his tower, scoop her up, and carry her to the far edges. Seal the castle so she can’t return, and wait.

  Perhaps that is all he has to do.

  Let her go.

  He can no more do that than he can plunge his fingers into his chest, tear out his beating heart, and cast it away.

  Not for the first time, he asks the empty air, “What did I do to deserve this?”

  The air howls empty and gives him no answer.

  The weight of seconds trickles down his shoulders like the first hint of rain. The minutes gather into hours and the sunrise bleeds through the windows, and he rises again to face another day.

  Standing in his parlor, he holds his face in both hands and scrubs his fingers through his hair. He must fight these urges; he must resist.

  For a terrible moment he hears singing echoing through the halls, a wordless, idle tune as warm as sunlight and soft as a spring breeze.

  When he draws his hands back he finds himself watching a spider descending from the ceiling on an invisible drop line.

  It scuttles across the floor but doesn’t make it far before he crushes it.

  “Damn things,” he mutters, turning back to dress.

  How long has it been since he slept?

  Three days, he thinks, but it feels much longer. As long as the grave.

  6

  Swords

  Roxanne

  Marta brought me some new clothes a few minutes ago and told me to stay put. When I open the door this time, I find myself facing Count Conrad’s son. He’s maybe fifteen at most, but is already much taller than I am. Not so much that I have to look up, though.

  “Um, hi?”

  He shifts on his feet.

  “I thought your father was supposed to meet me this morning,” I ask, eyeing him.

  “He sent me in his stead,” he says evenly. “I’m Adrian.”

  He stares at me intently, studying my nose for some reason. Like he’s trying to remember something.

  I shake him out of it.

  “Yes, I remember. What am I supposed to do now?”

  “My father has decided you will tutor my…”

  “Where is he? You father.”

  “Busy. He…”

  “He can tell me himself,” I say, brushing past him. “Take me to him.”

  Adrian shifts on his feet again. He’s a little afraid of me, I realize.

  “My grandfather told me once that if you let your mouth hang open like that, it’ll fill up with flies.”

  He snaps his mouth closed and scowls at me.

  “Fine, then. See what disobeying him grants you. This way.”

  I almost don’t need to follow him. This place grows more and more familiar the more I walk it. It must be the orderly layout of the halls. When I arrived I was tired; now I’m rested and fed so I’m a little sharper.

  Everything is right by day. It doesn’t look like a haunted castle. I almost have myself convinced that last night was a crazy dream until I see Conrad.

  He’s in dark trousers, high boots, and a pale creamy shirt, open to bare his chest to the sun. He holds a scrap of thick paper in his hand, talking to a shorter ma
n with a beard, dressed all in wool.

  “The harvests are coming in,” Adrian explains. “He’s overseeing our stores, preparing for winter.”

  “The count is counting,” I say, amused.

  Adrian blinks. This kid is hopeless.

  Conrad rolls his shoulders and looks exasperated at just the sight of me.

  “I told you to set her to her task, not bring her to me,” he says, past me to Adrian.

  “I’m not a sack of potatoes,” I say. “People don’t deliver me.”

  The yard is bustling with activity. Half of the people are scurrying away not to be seen noticing, and the rest are staring openly. It looks like not many people take that kind of a tone with their count.

  I plant my fists on my hips.

  Conrad waves away the villager and steps past where the wagons are rolling in, carrying bushels of grain, fruit, vegetables, and big barrels full of whatever. Draft horses are pulling wagons full of it.

  He takes my arm and I flinch, my whole body tensing at his touch. We’re very close to each other. I resist the urge to touch him back and just gawk at him like a twelve-year-old with a crush instead.

  I look away, fighting the strange sensations cascading through my body. A nervous excitement flushes down my back, and my skin tingles all over.

  “I need you to attend to my daughter.”

  “Your what?”

  “My youngest. She is ten, and wild. She needs a woman’s influence. Her mother…” He sucks in a breath.

  I sigh. “You want me to be a babysitter?”

  “Governess,” he corrects. “Tutor her, teach her some manners and ladylike behavior, and be her companion.”

  “You want me to be a babysitter,” I say. “What do I get in return, twenty bucks a day and all the pizza I can eat from the fridge?”

  He looks even more exasperated, but there is a hint of something in his eyes. He’s studying me.

  “Others have tried, and failed. You’re an educated woman, aren’t you?”

  “Three years of college, but I was studying biology, not theory of babysitting. I’m not a teacher or anything.”