And Holly knew, without hearing her name, that this girl was Willow—her daughter in another life she had never lived. A daughter she had named after her mother. And as she looked upon this girl that looked so much like herself and yet so different, Holly’s chest tightened in a way she couldn’t explain.
“Mama,” Willow said. She knelt down next to Other Holly as she sat on the bed. “You need to stop coming here.”
“I dreamed about her last night,” Other Holly said. “I dreamed that we were young again and that we still lived here. Everything was like it used to be, when we would stay up all night to watch the summer sun rise or drink spiced tea by the winter-side hearth. I thought… I thought maybe she had returned.”
“She left, Mama. She’s not coming back.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know she turned to necromancy,” Willow said, her voice tinged with harshness. “I know you think she had her reasons, and maybe she did. But whatever those were, she can’t come back. She just can’t, Mama.”
Hazel turned to necromancy? Even here in this otherworld where everything was different? It was as if a heavy burden settled over her. It all felt so pointless—no matter what they did, Hazel would become a necromancer and then nothing would ever be the same.
Why had Holly come here? What was the point? To witness a could-be life that ended in ruins for Hazel and, in some ways, for Holly as well? She wanted to leave, to go back to where things were real instead of wallowing in fruitless possibilities.
As soon as the thought entered her mind, the world around her began to dissolve. The walls gave way to snowy forest, and the snow, in turn, gave way to nebulous mist. It was all about to shiver away into eternal nothingness when a thought entered Holly’s mind: What was she supposed to change?
Odd had said she’d see the decisions she did not make and maybe even be able to change the ones she did make. Well, that’s what she needed. She needed to change something, but what?
The mist solidified once again and took on the form of a great wood-paneled hallway. Portrait frames hung on the walls in between candlelit sconces. But instead of paintings, within the frames were fragments of her life.
In one, she and Hazel sat on a log next to a pond while eating honey with their fingers as the sun set. In another, Holly was making the dress she had worn to Hawthorn and Hemlock’s party. She walked on, cringing as she watched herself act like a complete fool in front of Hawthorn and everyone that day Rose came to tea. And there, further on, she did it again as she kissed Hawthorn in the graveyard. Part of her wanted to stop and change those events. They made her cringe just to think about them; how nice it would be if they had never happened.
But that’s not why she was here; they weren’t what mattered. Holly kept on walking until the candles lighting the hallway dimmed and fell into shadow. She turned and looked at one of the smaller frames—one showing how she went to sleep that night when Hazel had left.
What if Holly had never slept that night? What if she had taken the tinctures they’d taken from Emmond’s home and fashioned a potion that would make Hazel sleep instead? More than that, what if Holly had gone to the Shrine? Hazel always took it upon herself to do everything. But what if Holly had gone there, convinced them she was destined for necromancy instead of Hazel?
The last of the candlelight guttered and died, and Holly was plunged back into darkness.
Whispers rasped within her mind, like bees in a hive hibernating for winter. She tried to listen but couldn’t make out any words. Then, further on, a light appeared—soft and blue like twilit water.
She came to a heavy black door that led into a darkened room where, on the far end, she could make out the silhouette of a man. As she walked towards him, he turned to look at her.
Holly froze. His eyes met hers, registering surprise. But he couldn’t possibly be as surprised as she was. How could he see her? None of the others had. More than that, though, there was something about him that looked distinctly familiar.
He looked a lot like Hazel.
“Holly,” he said.
* * *
Holly bolted upright on the bed and cradled her head in her hands. That man… could he have been her father? Holly had never known him; he had left just as she had been learning to walk—or so she’d been told. She’d never mourned his absence. Why would she? He was someone she’d never met and never loved. Why would she mourn someone she didn’t know?
But now, seeing a man that so clearly resembled Hazel, Holly, for the first time in her life, felt as if her heart had cracked with an emptiness she’d never known was there.
Hawthorn handed her a tall glass of water. She gulped it down, only then realizing just how thirsty she was.
“Easy,” Hawthorn said. “Slow down.”
She ignored him, drinking down the water like a man drowning. She was so thirsty. Then her stomach constricted, and she bent over and threw it all up onto the floor.
“I did the same thing,” Hemlock said. He sat in a chair in a corner of the room, his face waxy and pallid.
Holly blinked at him and then at Hawthorn, the events from the potion floating in her memory like a distant, disturbing dream.
“What happened?” she said. “Did it work?”
Hawthorn shrugged. “How should I know?”
“Did I change it? Did it work?”
“Did what work?”
“Hazel, is she here?”
“No.”
Holly’s arms went limp. Nothing had changed. It had all been an illusion.
But it hadn’t felt like an illusion. Even now, as the memories clung to her in a dreamlike haze, it still felt real. She looked at Hemlock. “What did you see?”
He frowned and shook his head. “Lots of things. It was all kind of jumbled. Mother was there, and Father, and Hawthorn of course. But a lot of the time I was alone. I switched to Hearth magic at one point.” He stared off into the distance. “I’m pretty sure a gnome had taken up residence in my cellar…”
“But what about Hazel?”
He shook his head again. “I never saw her. It was like she didn’t exist in that world.”
“She must have existed.”
“She may have, but our paths never crossed.” He ran a hand over his face. “I didn’t much care for that world, truth be told.”
“With a gnome in your cellar,” Hawthorn said, “who could blame you?” He wiped his hands together as if dusting them off. “Well, it sounds to me like this whole affair was a magnificent waste of time. But that’s Hearth magic for you—withered, anemic witches and warlocks tinkering with worthless potions. Ludicrous. I don’t know why the Conclave still sanctions it. Let me know when either one of you comes up with a plan that will actually produce results.” He left the room.
“I hate to say it,” Hemlock said, “but I think he’s right.”
“Hearth magic is perfectly respectable!” Holly said.
“That’s not what I meant.”
Holly flopped backwards onto the bed and stared up at the ceiling. She wanted to tell him he was wrong, it had worked somehow. Only Holly couldn’t see how it had, so she didn’t say anything at all.
Hazel gazed out the window as the carriage continued through the field of starlight. What was she supposed to make of this? Those couldn’t possibly be souls out there. Souls were incorporeal—an indescribable element that could not take shape in this world as blue lights or anything else. And yet how could she be sure? It was becoming increasingly apparent that there was more in the world that she didn’t understand than she did. Maybe necromancers understood more than she would have liked to admit.
In the distance, a great shadowed silhouette of a mountain loomed on the horizon, blotting out the stars as if someone had stolen them from that part of the sky. It towered ever taller the closer they got, and eventually Hazel could see man-made elements upon its natural surface.
Tall, rough-hewn pillars supported crags of irregularly shaped stone
, between which tiny windows had been carved. Some emitted soft light, others remained dark. Lanterns of flickering blue-green flames illuminated narrow stairways that crisscrossed up the mountain face before disappearing into shadows. At the top of the mountain, a crown of silhouetted trees stretched towards the starlit sky.
The carriage stopped at the base of the mountain, and Verrin hopped out. Hazel, taking a deep breath to steady her nerves, followed him to a narrow set of stairs.
He summoned a ghostly apparition—childlike in size—that was nothing more than a shifting haze of flowing ribbons, like silk swatches caught underwater. It emitted a pale white light that illuminated the path for them as it moved up the stairs.
The stairway was only wide enough for one person, so Hazel trailed after Verrin in silence. The stairs themselves were perilously narrow and slick with moisture, so Hazel dared not take her gaze off them. Ferns and other small, leafy shrubs grew out of cracks in the stone, thriving in small rivulets of water that dripped and dribbled along the rough rock.
They came to a cramped landing before the stairs switched back in their ascent of the mountain. Next to the landing stood a polished black door, its glossy surface reflecting the light of the apparition.
Verrin released his spell, and the apparition dissipated like morning mist. He opened the door. They walked into a snug stone chamber illuminated by sconces of the same blue-green light that had illuminated the stairs outside and the streets of Sarnum. The cold air bit into Hazel’s skin. It smelled of minerals and dirt, like rocks pulled up from a riverbed. At the other end of the chamber stood another black door. It lacked the swirling grain of regular wood, and when Hazel put her fingers to it, felt strangely sticky.
“Nightwood,” Verrin said. “It grows only atop this mountain, and it secretes a resin that is repellant to water. Useful, given the surroundings.” He opened the door and walked past her into another room.
Crags of rough rock jutted from the walls, casting irregularly shaped shadows from the flickering sconces. The middle of the floor gave way to a pool of water, fed from a narrow stream that trickled from a wall and collected into a basin encrusted with crystalline formations. Rivulets of water overflowing from the pool snaked across the uneven floor before draining into cracks in the stone.
“Remarkable, isn’t it?” Verrin said.
It was remarkable, but Hazel didn’t want to admit that to him. It didn’t seem right that such beauty could exist in a place like this, where necromancers congregated and worked their dark arts. Instead, she said, “Why are we here?”
He gestured to another black door on the other end of the room. This one led back outdoors, onto a narrow pathway bordered by cliffs of sheer stone on either side. Sheets of water glided down the cliff faces, polished smooth by what she could only assume were centuries of water passing over it. They crossed the narrow walkway and came to another door that led them into a cramped chamber illuminated by moonlight. A set of stairs led out of the chamber and disappeared into the darkness of the mountain. As Hazel started up them, the mountain above blocked out the moonlight and everything went black.
Her breath quickened, and she was about to summon the little glowing moth that Hemlock had taught her, but Verrin was quicker in summoning his ghostly apparition.
Hazel stood aside for him, but he indicated for her to go first. So she did.
She ran a hand along the wall as she ascended the stairs, partly to keep her balance but also to let its solidity reassure her. Where were they going? What would happen to her when they got there? How would she find her way out again if this all turned out to be a dreadful mistake?
Ahead, the apparition crested the stairs and rounded a corner. The stairwell darkened, but Hazel was close enough that a portion of its light still reached her. She rounded the corner after it and gasped.
The room before her was vast and open. To the right, the room retreated deeper into the mountain, the walls smooth and polished. At the far end, a vast hearth had been carved out of the wall, within which a lively fire burned. Black bookshelves and tables carved out of nightwood furnished the room, along with a comfortable-looking sofa and chairs and carpets that padded the cold stone floor. But what pulled Hazel’s attention was the left side of the room that opened up to the clear night sky. Great granite columns held up the stone ceiling, and beyond those a balcony overgrown with ferns, ivy, potted plants and herbs stretched into the star-encrusted night.
Verrin came and stood behind her.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” said a man who was not Verrin.
Startled, Hazel whirled around and staggered back.
There, smiling at her as if nothing were wrong, stood her father, Ash.
He put out his arms as if to embrace her, but she moved back.
All words escaped her. It had been so long. She hadn’t seen him since the day he left, close to sixteen years ago. He had changed very little from what she could remember, yet a spell was not at work here. His face bore lines she didn’t recall, his brown hair now liberally dusted with grey. But he looked healthy. Vibrant. Somehow that made her angry. Her mother had died, and here he was, vigorous and full of life.
Ash put down his arms. “It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”
Long time, indeed. Too long to stand there and chat as if more than a decade didn’t stand between them. Hazel clenched her hands and reminded herself why she was there. “What did you do to Mother?”
A flicker of emotion passed over his features that she couldn’t quite read. Was it remorse? Anger? Or was it something else entirely? But a heartbeat later the look faded and he smiled. “You’ve come a long way. Let us first talk as father and daughter before venturing to less pleasant topics.”
Hazel narrowed her eyes. “Father and daughter? We haven’t been father and daughter for sixteen years! I am not here to sit with you and hold polite conversation. I am here because you trapped Mother’s soul in a geas. I am here to make you undo it!”
He smiled at her again, but this time it was a knowing kind of smile that made Hazel’s anger deepen. “You always were such an extraordinary girl. I saw it in you as soon as you began to speak your first words. I’m glad to see nothing has changed.”
Hazel’s voice turned cold. “You know nothing about me.”
“I know a great deal more than you think.”
Hazel had opened her mouth to protest when Verrin walked up behind Ash, holding an empty silver tray.
“I’ve set some tea and refreshments out on the table. Will there be anything else?”
“No, Verrin,” Ash said. “Thank you.”
Verrin nodded and left.
“A considerate young man,” Ash said as he turned back towards Hazel. “And gifted too. I’ve always liked to think that if I’d had a son, he would have been much like Verrin.”
“Sorry to be such a disappointment.”
Ash gave her a saddened smile and shook his head. “Oh, you misunderstand me, Hazel. You were never a disappointment. And now with you standing here…” He shook his head again as his eyes glittered with unshed tears. “I have never been so proud to call you my daughter as I am tonight.”
Hazel frowned, uncertain how to react.
“Shall we have some tea? The view is beautiful, but at this time of year it becomes too cold to stay out here for too long.” He swept an arm towards the inner portion of the room. “Please.”
Hazel tensed but remained still. She did not want to go inside and drink tea, even though the wind was harsh and cold and she was more than a little hungry. She did not want to let herself get comfortable. She did not want to let this man think, even for a moment, that she had forgiven him. So instead, she stood there, giving him a look cold enough to match the wind.
Ash gave her a wan, tired smile. “Well I, for one, am quite hungry. You are welcome to join me, should you so choose.” He walked into the room and to the table.
Hazel remained on the balcony, clenching her jaw at the ridiculousness o
f it all. She felt like a child, pouting because she wasn’t getting her way. What was she supposed to do now? Stand out here and freeze? Leave? That, of course, wasn’t an option. So, straightening her back, she walked inside and joined her father at the table.
He passed her a cup of tea, and Hazel said nothing as she took it. She assembled herself a sandwich from the platter of bread, cold meat, and cheeses. She was hungry; she wouldn’t apologize for that. Them eating a meal together didn’t mean anything.
“How have you been?” Ash said. “And Holly?”
Hazel chewed a mouthful of food a long while. “I told you, I’m not here to chat. How I’ve been is none of your concern.”
“Do you blame me for caring about your welfare?”
“You don’t care about me. You never have.”
“That is absolutely not true.”
“Then why did you leave? Why did you never show any interest in my life? You never came to check on us after Mother died—not once. You didn’t even send a letter! Instead, you trapped her soul and left Holly and me to fend for ourselves. You don’t do that to people you care about!”
Ash’s expression tightened. “You don’t understand the situation.”
“Oh, I understand perfectly. You left your family behind to pursue necromancy. Then when the opportunity presented itself, you trapped Mother’s soul in a geas, for whatever twisted ends I’m sure I don’t know. I am wondering, though, did you kill her? Or was her illness just a convenient coincidence?”
“I loved your mother,” he whispered.
“You ruined her!”
Ash slammed his hand on the table. “I saved her!” He took a deep breath as he regained his composure. “You’ve spun quite an elaborate fiction. Is that what your mother told you?”
“Mother refuses to even utter your name. And I can’t say I blame her.”
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