by Terah Edun
She was kidding, but Ember turned as pale as snow.
“Don’t joke about that, Mae,” Ember said, her voice quivering.
Mae had the grace to feel ashamed the moment the quip left her lips. “I’m sorry, Ember. He should be on his way with everything. The book, the dry ingredients, and if you have the—”
She stopped when Ember stared at her with surprise. “You let him have the book?”
Mae shrugged. “We divided up the tasks. I needed to get to you to explain everything, and really, I can’t work the darned casting without him, so it just made sense to let him have it temporarily and—”
Ember frowned. “Stop it. You’re rambling. Which means you’re nervous.”
“Well…” Mae said, shifting around.
Ember’s eyes narrowed. “More nervous than that time you stole my bear from my bedding and claimed the dog ate it.”
“Now, that wasn’t really a lie,” Mae said, looking anywhere but at her sister.
“Mae.”
Mae could feel nervous sweat beading on her brow. But she gathered her courage, because they weren’t the only ones in the room. There were four girls, and two of them were emitting constant whimpers of pain. The least Mae could do was tell the truth in their presence.
“Okay, okay,” Mae said. “We met the hermit in the woods, and he told us quite a few things. Richard thought it’d be best that I went over those things with you while he went to stop in with his new special friend for help.”
Though Mae now suspected Richard was the smart one. She’d run all the way here, and Richard would prance in with everything they needed like a savior come down from the hilltop.
“Wait—someone else knows about the plan now?” Ember said.
Mae shifted uncomfortably. “Well, yes, I did say I needed to explain everything, didn’t I?” Mae asked with a weak smile. “There’s been some new developments.”
“Explain,” Ember said.
Mae sighed and pulled a hand through her hair. “You’d better sit down.”
“I’d rather stand,” Ember said.
“Well,” Mae said, gathering up her courage. “First off, the old man is as cantankerous as they say…but he did help us.”
“How?” Ember asked.
“He confirmed what I’ve believed all along,” Mae said. “The incantation is the one we can use to cure the girls, assuming the fluids you procured hold up against it.”
Ember nodded. “Makes sense—we just need Richard to bring the grimoire to test them against the casting. Now, what was this about someone new?”
Mae winced. Trust Ember to get right to the heart of the matter. She sighed and forged on.
“The hermit also told us that we have far less time than we thought,” Mae said. “That the girls have hung on a long time, but they will start a steep and unstoppable decline once their voices become silent.”
Ember froze. “But they aren’t there yet.”
As if to emphasize Ember’s words, one of the girls’ screams picked up into a high pitch that swiftly descended back down to a low alto.
“No, not yet, but soon,” Mae said through clenched teeth. She didn’t really want to look to her sisters. It would just tear her heart apart.
Ember sucked in her cheek, a habit she had when she was deep in thought. Then she nodded. “It sounds like we need to cast the incantation as soon as possible.”
“With Richard’s help, we should be able to move on to the next step in the process. We’re almost there.”
“Yes,” a weary-looking Ember replied. “So, what else did the hermit tell you?”
Mae shook her head. “That was it. The rest we had to figure out ourselves—how to get everything done quicker, and what to sacrifice in the process.”
“You mean this special person Richard went to see?” Ember asked.
“Among other things,” Mae said, dodging the question. She knew she needed to tell Ember about their decision to go before Grandmother and the Council of Elders, but she was scared to do it until Richard arrived. He’d at least keep them from descending into madness while they went through the why again.
“So who is this new special person?” Ember said.
Mae blinked. She actually hadn’t gotten around to finding out that information. “Just someone who has white ash and dill on hand. That’s all I know.”
“You went to a complete stranger for the casting goods,” Ember muttered. “Don’t you think I should have been consulted first?”
“What—why?” Mae asked. “It’s not a huge deal.”
“Don’t patronize me, Mae,” Ember said. “It is a very big deal. That person now knows that we need white ash. That isn’t some common powder and isn’t used for anything good.”
“I don’t think Richard was planning to tell them all the details.”
Ember leveled an angry glare at her.
“But I see that you’re right,” Mae said. “We, I, should have brought you in before we made such a big decision. But now that you know why we did what we did, you have to see that it was necessary.”
“I think that’s up to me, and frankly, you haven’t told me everything. I can see you holding something back, Mae,” Ember said.
Mae grimaced. “It’s something that should be discussed with Richard present.”
Ember heaved a heavy sigh. “Very well.”
Mae nodded, grateful to see forgiveness in her sister’s eyes.
“So how long until Richard gets back?” Ember asked.
The accelerated timeframe has made even her nervous, Mae noted.
“Soon,” Mae promised, half to herself and half to Ember. “It has to be soon.”
Her eyes tracked back to the only other forms in the room. Their younger siblings.
“Yeah,” Ember said. “Do you want to talk to them?”
Mae shot her a startled glance.
Ember shrugged. “It makes me feel better…thinking they can hear my voice even while practically comatose.”
“Do you think they can?” Mae asked.
“I hope so,” Ember replied, her eyes shining.
Mae murmured, “You know…I think I will. Before we go up, anyway.”
Ember nodded. “Go ahead. Be quick, though. They’re quiet now, but we shouldn’t be down here forever. The rest of them will come back.”
“I know,” Mae said as she walked over.
She was quiet as she walked over to the girl on the right. She stood still next to Samuel’s side and let tears flow down her face. There wasn’t much to say that hadn’t been already said over the weeks of vigil in the past, but if extra prayers over her bedside would help…Mae had plenty.
She turned and cupped Rachel’s hand. Standing like that for a few minutes brought Mae some peace. So much so that when Ember walked up beside her and put a hand on her shoulder, Mae flinched.
“They’re so small.” Her voice almost broke as she said it.
“I know,” Ember said, and that was all she needed to say.
They both knew then that they were concocting this insane plan for the same reason. For the two small bodies in the beds—pale, wan, and shaking with fever, even as they slept the deep sleep of the ones who never wake.
24
Wiping away the sadness imprinted on her face was hard, but Mae did it.
She even managed to do so while giving each of the girls a forlorn pat on their hands. Turning away from their bedsides, Mae was surprised to find that the smell which had permeated the room so thoroughly when she came in was gone.
She didn’t think it was the tonic, either. When she had first taken Ember’s miraculous cure, it hadn’t disintegrated the scent so much as masked it as something else. The very air Mae breathed was no longer so offensive to her nostrils that she felt like she was choking on offal. Now, even the masked scent had dissipated.
“What happened to it?” Mae asked.
Ember turned away from the windows, where she’d walked, presumably, to get her composur
e back. “To what?” she asked, wiping a single tear from the corner of her eye.
I was right, Mae thought.
Her eyes briefly strayed down to the children, and then she got herself together and walked away from their bedsides.
“The scent is gone,” Mae said.
Ember took an experimental sniff. “So it is. They’ll want to be in the room soon enough, then. Time for us to go.”
Mae nodded. “Should we think about heading up, then?” she said, pointing her chin at the open rafters.
The ceiling of the sickroom arched up more than two interior stories, and beneath the large, bell-like dome was a second floor with a small open-air atrium, a balcony that wrapped around, and open columns that looked down on the floors below.
“Not there,” Ember said. “That’s where the observers stand watch over the sick. Family that wants to be present as well. But it’s too open for our purposes.”
“You’re right,” Mae said. “They’d notice us and question our lingering presence, most likely.”
“We’ll go out and go up to the sealed-off rooms,” Ember said. “Now that we’re done here, we don’t need to be in sight of the sickroom.”
“You sure you have all the bodily fluids you require?” Mae asked. She knew that once they left, they weren’t coming back until the incantation was ready to be cast.
Ember reached into a pocket and pulled out a vial. “Sweat,” she said. Out of the same pocket, a second vial was labelled “Bile.”
Mae’s lips quirked into a smile. “Good job.”
Ember nodded, and they went to the door to let the others back in. She opened it, and they were about to slip out when Ember stilled.
“What is it?” Mae whispered. She peered around her sister’s shoulder, trying to see what Ember saw. As Mae got a glimpse of black-robed figures sweeping down the hallway , Ember elbowed her in the gut and pushed her back at the same time.
They practically fell over each other as they stumbled back into the safety of the room and the door closed softly behind them.
“Who are they?” said Ember.
Mae was less worried about who they were than what they wanted. Does Grandmother know? she thought frantically.
They looked like a death squad come to hunt her down, but that wasn’t possible. For one, the Darnes clan didn’t have death squads.
“Mae?” Ember said.
“I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know!” Mae said.
Normally she would have tried to assume a bit of control over her emotions, but those caped figures in all black did not look good. Mae started looking around for something to bar the door, since, like most handles in the castle, it wouldn’t lock itself. Unfortunately, they stood in a room that was empty except for the beds their sisters rested on and the cabinets in front of them.
Ember grabbed Mae’s arm to get her attention. “What are you doing?
Mae waved at the door. “We need to block it.”
Ember shook her head. “We can’t.” Mae started to say she knew, there was nothing to bar it with, but Ember continued, “They could be here to cure the girls.”
Mae gave her a stupefied look. “Have you gone insane? Do they look like healers?”
A miserable Ember bit her lip. “We can’t stay here arguing, then! They’re almost here.”
Mae hesitated for a second. She didn’t want to leave the girls, but she also decided that she and Ember couldn’t do them much more harm than the misery they were already in.
“Well, we’ll have to go up, then,” Mae said, looking around. She spotted the winding staircase that led to the second-floor atrium. It was exactly where she hadn’t wanted to be. But they didn’t have any choice now.
They exchanged nervous glances but didn’t speak further, just sprinted across the room.
Mae and Ember climbed the stairs with barely a squeak, and by the time they were up on the second floor, the knob of the door was turning. The figures swept into the room on silent feet with nary a word between them.
From up here, Mae and Ember could see everything in the octagonal room. The two beds, the four feet in between them, the space all around the room—because it was empty of everything but the necessities for each child at the head of each bed on a tiny cabinet—and the six people who suddenly flowed into the room.
Mae and Ember crouched low to the ground with their heads peeking just over the ledge. Mae hoped no one got an idea and decided to look at the atrium. The masks they were wearing as they positioned themselves seemed like it would prevent that.
As she studied their design, Mae wondered where they had gotten them and why they were worn. Each mask was a carved representation of a local bird. Some had long beaks, and others had short ones. Every detail of the birds was shown in the sculpting of the feathers from wood—and even horn, it seemed, for the beaks. The only thing that remained human was the eyes.
From what Mae could see, the most prominent individual was the one who’d stepped up to stand in between the two motionless girls on their beds. He raised his hands and angled his palms to approximately where their foreheads were.
His beak shone with a glimmer of raven black, and he tilted back his head just enough to give an imposing look around the room, but not enough to catch the two of them up on the second floor. For that, Mae was grateful. She began to wonder what he was doing.
I wonder if it’s magic? she thought as she began to inch forward to get a better look. She didn’t see any power flowing from his hands, but she well knew that most of her uncles’ magic was unseen until they wanted it to be.
“Could he cure them?” Mae said so quietly that she didn’t think even Ember heard her.
The thought conjured both envy and hope in her mind for just a few seconds. She was quickly on to different thoughts, however, when he spoke for the first time.
“We are here today for an auspicious occasion,” he said.
Ember sucked in a shocked gasp. “That’s the guy, Mae—that’s him!”
“Him who?” Mae asked.
“The one from earlier,” Ember said in a low voice. “The one with his friend that gave me the off feeling as you were walking out the main gates.”
“Oh,” Mae said. She wasn’t quite sure what to do with that.
The five other people surrounding the girls ducked their heads and said as a group, “We shall heed the warnings of the dark god.”
“The who?” Mae said as her eyes fixed on one person in particular. They were slightly shorter than the rest and almost directly across the room from where Mae and Ember lay a floor above. She didn’t know if it was the acoustics of the room or just the fact that his voice was a higher pitch, but she thought she recognized a cousin from earlier, which was a daunting thought. It meant that she and Ember had recognized two members of their own family in this very odd spectacle, and where there was one Darnes, there was bound to be more.
Mae wasn’t exactly frightened, but she didn’t have a good feeling about this, either. Something was off. Something more than this group’s rather weird attire.
She twisted her head so that her right cheek lay flush with the dusty floor and whispered, “Do you recognize anyone else? I think—”
Ember didn’t let her finish. “Be quiet, Mae, they’ll see us!”
Unable to do much more than watch, Mae looked down as robed figures continued their meeting around the girls. She did have to wonder where all the people who had been standing in the hallway when she had come up had gone, but she couldn’t worry about that now. Those assembled below began to speak in whispers, and Mae couldn’t catch more than snatches. It wasn’t enough to prove they were up to no good, though. Other than Mae’s bad feeling about it, she didn’t have enough to go on. A murmur went up in the group, and suddenly people began to shuffle. Hands reached up and untied the string that bound the masks to their faces, and all was revealed.
She recognized so many that when her Great-Aunt Camilla and even her stepmother appeared, M
ae could only stay crouched down as her stomach roiled in misery.
“More lies,” Mae whispered to herself as she stayed hidden on up high and memorized all of the faces of the six in in the sickroom below. Her stepmother, her Great-Aunt Camilla, the two male cousins she had spied, a male relative she couldn’t place, and Gareth’s father—Uncle Brandon.
It was quite the gathering, and it made no sense to Mae. What were they doing down there, and why were they clothed in velvet cloaks? They were the kind you only saw in the dead of winter, and most certainly too high and mighty for likes of Mae’s family.
Then Mae’s great-aunt stepped forward and said, “All of you gathered here today do so for one purpose. To note the sacrifice of our two youngest members of the Darnes clan and to thank them for it.”
What does that mean? Mae thought. She didn’t ask Ember aloud because she didn’t want to give away their position, and she needed to hear every word coming up from below.
“We acknowledge their suffering, and we will never forget them,” Great-Aunt Camilla said in a deep voice that had just a hint of a tremor in it.
“Why does she sound so sad? They aren’t gone yet,” Mae muttered to herself.
Whatever was going on here, it wasn’t a normal ceremony, no matter how many of her relatives stood around the beds.
“Step forward, mages,” said the leader, the raven beak now held under his arm.
Three others came forward to stand by him—Uncle Brandon and the two older males. The females moved to stand across from them at the foot of the two girls’ beds.
Then they all dropped the velvet cloaks that had been obscuring their bodies. Without the cloaks, their bare flesh was revealed. The two women, young and old, wore thin gowns of gossamer fabric that were cut off at the breastbone. The fabric was captured at their backs, tightly bound by clothespins. The men wore only pants below their bare chests.
It wasn’t the state of their immodest dress that caught Mae’s attention; now that the moderately cold winds were coming in from the open windows, Mae could see that they were moving quickly to do…whatever it was that they were going to do.