A Cold Legacy

by Megan Shepherd

  “The whole household must be down there,” I said. “No wonder it’s quiet as a church around here.”

  Lucy tsked as she squinted toward the fire, exhaustion written in her features. “To think they didn’t invite us.”

  “They probably thought we wouldn’t approve of a pagan festival,” I said. “We being such civilized city folk and all.”

  Lucy rolled her eyes.

  Balthazar turned to Montgomery, fingers knit together. “I’ve never seen a festival before.” He paused and sniffed the air. “Roast pig with honey. Oh, Sharkey loves roast pig. Might we go?”

  Montgomery seemed amused. “Certainly you may go, Balthazar, and I’ve no doubt Sharkey would be welcome, too.”

  Balthazar grinned and started to straighten his shirt, but his fingers were too clumsy. Lucy adjusted his collar and refastened his top button, dusting off his shoulders. “There now. All the ladies will want to dance with you.”

  His face fell. “I don’t know how to dance.”

  “Can’t dance!” she said. “Well, Montgomery, you’d best go and teach him. And you should go, too, Juliet, or else one of those girls is going to try to steal him from you.”

  “Only if you come as well,” I said to her.

  She jerked her head toward the bed. “I can’t leave Edward.”

  “McKenna can watch Edward—it’s only for a few hours. Come on, we all need a bit of fun.”

  She bit her lip in indecision, but then her stomach grumbled. “Roast pig, did you say?”

  I grinned and grabbed her hand, pulling her downstairs and into the night. A gust of cold bit at our legs and I shrieked and pulled her across the fields toward the warmth of the fire. For a few hundred feet we were caught between the house and the bonfire with the stars overhead, and a sudden bolt of joy seized me. After days closed up in such a stuffy manor, my soul yearned for a moment of life. For an instant I loved it here, far from the rest of the world, in a place so wild and free.

  The field was full of people, most of them strangers and performers traveling the winter fair circuit, but I recognized the servant girls and a few familiar faces from Quick. The fiddler was the tavern owner. He tipped his hat to us as one of the girls, Lily, passed us a tankard of warm cider. A belch came from the direction of the performers. With a start, I realized it came from the same old woman from the inn on the road to Inverness. I looked more closely at her companions and recognized the thin leader of the carnival troupe, acting out a play that seemed to involve a donkey. There was no sign of the fortune-teller.

  I shivered at the memory. A child can never escape her father.

  Was it chance that brought them to this particular festival, out of all the Twelfth Night celebrations happening in the north? The coincidence left me uneasy, but then Montgomery and Balthazar caught up to us, legs damp from the dew, and Sharkey trotted up to the fire trying to catch flames in his teeth. I relaxed. They were festival performers, after all, and this was a festival. Why should I be surprised to find them here?

  I spotted Elizabeth through the flames. She wore a heavy fur stole out of the pages of a Viking history book, and with her hair down she looked like one of the fairy folk, strong and beautiful. No wonder she had left the city, when here she was queen.

  “I didn’t think you’d join us,” she said as she walked around the fire, “or else I’d have invited you myself.”

  “Well, don’t tell the vicar we’re here,” I said. “He’d never agree to preside over the wedding of two heathens.”

  She smiled. “He’s over there.” She pointed her chin to a group of old men on the far side of the bonfire who were drinking in a very ungodly way. “He brought the ale.”

  The night passed amid music and laughter, and I was able to let go of my worry over Edward, if only for a few stolen moments. Lucy disappeared for a while, playing games with the younger girls beneath the stars, and after some time I went looking for her. One of the servants pointed me in the direction of the carnival troupe’s temporary camp at the edge of the field. I walked through the high grass, hugging my coat tight, and eventually found her by a wood-and-silk tent. A dark-skinned man was reading her palm, muttering words that made her eyes go wide.

  It was the fortune-teller.

  He kissed Lucy teasingly on the hand. She laughed just as her eyes met mine. “Juliet! I’ve just had my fortune read. I’m going to marry a count. Doesn’t that sound divine?” She grabbed my hand, tugging me toward him. “It’s your turn.”

  The fortune-teller didn’t flinch, nor show any sign of recognition, and my uneasy feeling returned.

  “Your hands are freezing,” I said to Lucy. “Wait for me by the bonfire. I’ll be along in a moment.”

  She grinned and skipped back to the rest of the merriment, leaving us alone. The night was heavy around us.

  “It’s you,” I said. “From the inn.”

  He reached out to take my hand in answer, his mouth curling in a mysterious smile. A shiver ran down the length of my back.

  “You have the hands of a surgeon, pretty girl,” he said, laying out my palm atop his own. “Do you have the mind of one, too?”

  I flinched at the mention of surgeons. “Lucy’s been telling you about me, has she? Well, it’s hardly fair that you know so much about me, yet you’ve never even told me your name.”

  “Jack Serra,” he answered, giving a dramatic bow.

  “It’s rather odd that this is the second time our paths have crossed. Are you following me?”

  He let out a burst of laughter. “We travel the winter fair circuit. It’s the same path year after year.”

  I glanced in the direction of the bonfire, whose music and laughter felt a million miles away. I could barely make out Montgomery by the fiddlers, trying to teach Balthazar to dance.

  “I’d like to know the rest of my fortune. You started to tell me at the inn but never finished.”

  He cocked his head. “Fortunes can’t be rushed.”

  My heart started pounding harder—why was he able to read so much about me in a single look? Was it foolish to be here, when I knew there was no science to fortunes? Soft voices came from the woods, where a man and woman—two of the carnival performers—came back to camp with their arms around each other. My face flushed to think about what they must have been doing in those woods.

  Jack Serra traced a long finger down my palm.

  “A child can never escape her father,” he said, repeating his words from before. “You told me your father is dead, and yet you follow me to a cold field away from your friends because he isn’t dead to you at all, is he? His spirit lives on.”

  “I don’t believe in ghosts,” I said, though my voice shook.

  He scoffed. “Ghosts? Neither do I. Far scarier to know we carry the ghosts of our parents within us. Every decision we make, every mistake we make, is them working through us. One’s father is like the stream, from which comes the river. The river cannot set its own path. The stream runs downhill and so the river does, too. They both end in the same place—the ocean.”

  Around his neck he wore at least twenty charms on twisted leather thongs. He removed one now and pressed it into my palm, a small iron charm in the shape of swirling lines like a river.

  I stared at the charm, transfixed. “The ocean? Is that a symbol for madness?”

  He smiled. “The ocean is merely the ocean. As far as symbols, it is what you yourself make of it.” He placed the charm around my neck, letting it fall against my chest, where it glistened in the moonlight like real water.

  “I don’t understand. You’re saying it’s useless for me to try to change course?”

  Amusement flickered in his eyes. He extended a hand toward the bonfire. “Your friends will miss you, pretty girl, if you do not join them soon.”

  I had so many more questions to ask of him. A voice in the back of my head told me fortunes weren’t real, yet I was desperate enough to believe anything. But Jack Serra only held his hand up, a clear direc
tion that it was time for me to leave.

  I left, hiding the charm beneath my dress, and returned to the bright lights of the bonfire. I took a few deep breaths, reminding myself that fortunes weren’t real and that he was only a charlatan after a few coins—never mind that he hadn’t asked for payment.

  Across the fire, Lucy had taken over teaching Balthazar a dance step, with Montgomery following along to offer Balthazar tips. Balthazar stepped on his toe, but he just laughed and clapped him on the back. I couldn’t help but smile. Such a good heart, and still the most handsome man I’d ever seen. I hoped more than anything that one day, after we were married, there would be no more secrets or tension between the two of us.

  One of the older girls, Moira, approached him shyly and tugged on his sleeve to get his attention. He leaned down so she could whisper something in his ear.

  “They want him to dance with them,” a voice said next to me.

  Valentina stood at my side, wearing a dress with long sleeves, a Woodbine cigarette between her fingers. I stiffened, wondering if she hated me for being named heir. Her gloves were gone now, and I had a closer look at her pale hand. No one could naturally have skin such a different shade from the rest of her body. I surreptitiously looked for signs of bleaching, but there were no discolorations. Her fingers were delicate and petite—too petite, in fact, for someone of her stature.

  Curiosity shivered up my spine.

  She took a puff of the Woodbine. Her sleeve fell back, revealing a glimpse of puckered flesh. A scar. A terrible idea entered my head. Could her hand not be her own hand at all—but someone else’s? Elizabeth said she had performed transplants. . . .

  “After all, there aren’t many young men out here,” Valentina continued, pointing to the girls dancing with Montgomery.

  I cleared my throat, barely able to tear my eyes away from her wrist. “Why is that, exactly? The lack of male staff, I mean.”

  “I doubt there’s anything intentional to it. Elizabeth has a reputation for being able to cure ailments and illnesses, but only women are brave enough to come. The men think she’s a witch. All except old Carlyle. He wouldn’t believe in witches if one sat on his head.”

  She tapped the ashes from her Woodbine cigarette, and my eyes lingered on her sleeve. “What type of ailments, exactly?” I pressed.

  She smiled knowingly. “Rare illnesses. Even—sometimes—missing limbs.”

  Curiosity blazed in me, and I forgot my distrust of her. My eyes were riveted to her hand, so small and white. I said hesitantly, “If you’ll forgive me, I can’t help but notice your hand is a peculiar color and shape compared to the rest of your arm.”

  She laughed, deep and rich. “Miss Moreau, you’re practically drooling. You must have the heart of a scientist. No wonder Elizabeth made you her heir.”

  Her voice hardened around this last word, and uneasiness curled in my insides. Elizabeth had told me that she spoke to Valentina about the situation and that Valentina bore me no ill will, but her resentment now seemed as thick as smoke. Was I the only one who could see it? Perhaps she was different when she was around Elizabeth, trying to win her favor. She had no reason to win mine. Quite the opposite.

  Valentina took another long puff on the cigarette. “When you first came here, I thought there must be something remarkable about you for Elizabeth to choose you, but for the life of me, I haven’t seen it. You haven’t expressed an ounce of interest in the management of the manor. You haven’t visited the outer fields, nor sat in on my educational sessions with the younger girls, nor gone with Carlyle on one of his supply runs. So tell me, why do you even wish to be the mistress of Ballentyne?”

  My jaw dropped at the directness of her questions.

  She put out the cigarette abruptly. “As I suspected, you don’t even want it. It’s fallen into your lap like a pretty new toy, and just like any spoiled girl, you take it without knowing what a rare gift it is. But Ballentyne is no toy, Miss Moreau. It’s a sanctuary. These girls have no place else to go. Elizabeth has dedicated her life to it, and so has McKenna, and so have I. If you aren’t ready to make that same commitment, then you should go. Ballentyne has no room for spoiled girls who only care for pretty toys. The best thing you could do for the manor would be to leave.”

  She dug her heel harder into the cigarette.

  Anger flared in me. She didn’t understand that I had bigger worries than an inheritance that wouldn’t take effect for decades. My palm began to tingle with the urge to connect it with her cheek, until I felt a cool hand on my arm.

  “Come, Juliet!” Lucy pulled me away, tankard of ale in hand. “We’re dancing!”

  I’d never been so relieved to end a conversation, though my blood still boiled. It wasn’t until we held hands and she spun me around the fire, amid the other couples, that I started to calm down. We circled around Balthazar and the little girl with the limp. Then around Montgomery and Elizabeth. I couldn’t stop throwing uneasy glances back toward Valentina. She’d lit another cigarette and puffed it calmly, staring at me. I wondered if Elizabeth truly had replaced her hands. Fingers that weren’t her own, skin that had belonged to another girl. A dead girl, surely. The possibilities made my heart beat wildly. What other secrets was Elizabeth keeping?

  We looped around the other couples, Lucy laughing, the carnival troupe mixing with the servants and the townspeople from Quick. I didn’t see the fortune-teller in the crowd, and I was relieved. The fiddler shouted a call and we switched partners. Montgomery grabbed me, to the dismay of the other girls, and pulled me into a Scottish reel. Sharkey wound between our feet, threatening to trip us, but Montgomery only laughed and pulled me closer to the fire. Sweat broke out on my brow. With the stars overhead, the fiddler, and the good company, the night seemed unreal.

  After another dance, I let Montgomery go. “The girls will murder me if I don’t share you,” I said by way of explanation, and was able to slip away. I found Elizabeth presiding by the fire over the manor’s residents making merry in the moonlight.

  “Elizabeth, there’s something I must ask you about. It’s Valentina.”

  Elizabeth raised an eyebrow. “Is she being harsh with you over the inheritance? I thought I noticed a rather heated conversation between you two. She has a hot temper, but only on the surface. Give her a few days to cool, and she’ll come around. She loves this place too much not to find a way to get along with its future mistress.”

  “It isn’t just the inheritance. It’s her hands. She usually wears gloves but—”

  A small voice behind us interrupted. “Mother,” Hensley said, tugging on her fur mantle.

  “Just a moment, darling,” she said, her eyes still on me. “Her hands? Ah, I think I understand where this is going. Juliet, you’ve no idea the medical advancements I’ve made out here—”

  “Mother,” he said again.

  “And the electricity from the windmill is only the start. Next year I plan on—”

  “Mother!” he interrupted, more insistently.

  “Oh, what is so important, love?” She turned to him and drew in a sharp breath. Still dizzy from the ale and the late hour, I didn’t yet understand what had made her go silent. The fiddler stopped playing abruptly, and a few of the girls gasped.

  “Mother, I had an accident.”

  From somewhere behind me, a girl screamed. I recognized the voice as Lucy’s, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Hensley. My vision kept spinning and spinning, telling me what I was seeing couldn’t possibly be true. Bile started to rise in my throat.

  A tree branch as thick as my wrist stuck straight through Hensley’s chest. It dragged on the ground behind him, bursting out of his small chest with a ragged end seeping blood too slowly. A coldness crept up my legs.

  No one could survive an injury like that and still walk.

  No one who was alive, at least.

  NINE

  ELIZABETH GRABBED HENSLEY, FRANTICALLY whispering reassurances in his ear. With a single swift tug Carly
le pulled the tree branch through Hensley’s body, and they carried him to the manor while the rest of us stood dumbstruck.

  “Did you see that?” Lucy whispered, lips turning blue. She started to slump, and Balthazar caught her before she passed out.

  “Take her to the manor,” I said, a hand on my head to steady my own dizziness. “Stay with her, Balthazar, in case she wakes up.”

  He nodded, seemingly the only one not upset that we’d witnessed the impossible, and carried her in the direction of the house. Around the bonfire, the music had stopped. The fire crackled, but no one moved. I could tell by the servants’ faces that they already knew about Hensley’s condition. As did the villagers of Quick, even the carnival troupe. We were the only ones not included in the secret.

  What in God’s name was going on?

  Across the fire, Valentina smoked calmly on her cigarette. This must have been what she’d alluded to with regard to Elizabeth’s medical achievements—that Elizabeth had gone beyond mere science and lied about losing her ancestor’s research. As if sensing my thoughts, Valentina’s eyes met mine and she smirked.

  She hates me. I could feel it in my bones. She hates that I’m Elizabeth’s heir and she’s not. That isn’t something one can get over easily.

  Montgomery grabbed my wrist and started to drag me across the field toward the house.

  “Slow down!” I yelled. “What are you doing?”

  “We’re leaving this place. I knew there was something wrong from the first night.”

  “Leave? We can’t leave! What about Edward?”

  His pace didn’t slow as we approached the lights of the manor. A light shone in a high room of the south tower, which was always locked. It had to be a laboratory. Elizabeth was probably up there now operating on Hensley.

  Montgomery paused at the front door, one hand on the iron knob. “You saw that child. He wasn’t human, at least not anymore.”

  “We need to give Elizabeth a chance to explain.”