by Ann Aguirre
I’m not used to anyone helping me, so the warmth streaming through me is surely more than such simple chores should elicit. Briefly, I kneel before the flames and bask in the heat Njål provided. To someone else, this might scarcely even register as kindness, but to me, it feels like courtship, more surely than a bouquet of flowers or a silver ring.
Humming, I make breakfast and eat it knowing that he’s unlikely to join me. He hides during daylight hours, much to my dismay. Afterward, I clean up the kitchen and head to the stables, but Agatha and Bart aren’t there. Instead I find them gamboling in the courtyard, playing amid the grisly ice statues. For a few moments, I watch with silent amusement.
Life returns. How delicious.
I start. That cold voice most definitely doesn’t belong to me. It’s alien enough that I spin in place, looking for the speaker, only to establish that I’m alone except for Bart and Agatha. It wasn’t Njål either, not that I imagine he can put thoughts in my mind.
What in the world is happening?
Now more than ever, I suspect that there are two intelligences at war within Bitterburn, and maybe the keep is trying to save Njål. That walk to the past feels like a chance I’ve been granted, but I don’t know what more I’m meant to do.
I hope I can figure it out before it’s too late.
11.
Agatha and Bart clearly hear nothing unusual.
They continue their game for a while, then notice my arrival. They both trot over to greet with me head bumps and receive scritches between the ears. I feel outright unsteady, mostly because I hate confusion and I’m currently living in a constant state of it. None of this makes sense, and Njål doesn’t have the answers either.
When I arrived, I was desperate. I didn’t much care if I lived or died, but a new drive has taken hold—the desire to survive and free Njål. I don’t know if it’s possible, and part of me, the skeptical part, still wonders if he’s committed some heinous sin. If he has, of course he wouldn’t admit it. But he cares so much about not hurting me, not doing anything that I don’t want. Would a truly wicked person feel that way? It’s more likely that he’d take what he wants without waiting for me to be ready, without waiting for me to offer.
I make up my mind then and head to the library. For the first time, I’m not planning to bask in these books and peruse whatever strikes my fancy. I’m looking for something specific. As I skim the titles, I hesitate, torn between a history of the keep and a book on witches. I need to learn about both, so I draw down both volumes and carry them to a table. To decide which I’ll read first, I play a child’s game, moving my finger back and forth whispering a quiet rhyme. In the end, I pause on The Witch Within the Walls: A Simple Guide to Household Charms.
I hope to learn about curses in this book, and I open it intending to search the front index for the right section, but the cover drops open and the pages flip as if they have a mind of their own. A shiver courses through me since there’s no breeze, no rational explanation for this.
More mysterious magic? Bitterburn must want me to see this.
Taking it as a sign, I examine the illustration. It shows a lovely young woman in a garden with flowers blooming all around her. This sketch is fascinating because I’ve never seen a witch depicted in a way that wasn’t horrifying, like some withered crone with a basket full of poison apples.
I read the opposite page. When a witch moves to a new residence, the first thing she must do is ward her surroundings. I skim further, noting the process for laying wards, but it sounds complicated, so I turn the page. Your kitchen garden will produce much faster with only a few drops of your blood. Perform this charm to ward off pests and keep your produce safe from harm. It also serves to bind the land to you. If the weather is not favorable, you can extend the growing season thus.
I have everything I need to do this. It’s probably pointless, but an internal whisper encourages me, gaining volume until I memorize both charms and head for the kitchen to gather supplies. I have no idea how I’ll explain this impulse to Njål, but thankfully I don’t encounter him. Excitement carries me through the kitchen to the side garden, opposite the door that leads to the exterior courtyard. At the back of the yard, there’s a row of empty skeps where bees used to flit in and out. The beekeeper would have harvested both wax and honey. This must have been a lovely place once, a sanctuary for the staff. Suddenly I can see how it was with flowers planted and a small garden beyond the reach of the baron and baroness, who never would have come to the kitchen, let alone the servant’s yard.
I blink and that fleeting glimpse is gone. Once more, I’m standing in a desolate, frozen garden, about to perform two charms because I have too much time on my hands. First, I walk the perimeter in measured strides, just as the book laid out. In doing so, I’m marking my territory, and as I go, I scatter a mixture of ash from the kitchen hearth, feathers from my pillow, and locks of my hair.
“From here to there and there to here, my will is clear. I claim what’s mine and own it well. Let none unmake this simple spell.” A childish rhyme but as I finish the words and empty my basket, energy gathers, buzzing strong enough to raise the hair on my arms.
Am I imagining this or did something truly happen?
Cautious now, I move to the bare patch of ground that I know used to be the kitchen garden. The certainty is unshakable, granted to me through extraordinary means. I don’t hesitate, slicing my fingertip with the paring knife I produce from the pocket of my work dress. Then I move along each ancient furrow speaking the next incantation, sprinkling droplets of my blood as I walk.
“With blood I shield and blood I bind. To the elements you will pay no mind. Deep your roots and deep your love, bring forth your bounty up above.”
I wait, as though vegetables will spring forth immediately. The ground remains barren, cold dirt bereft of life when I finish. My finger is wounded, and I’ve given my blood to the ground, for what little it’s worth. Maybe I did imagine the spark before, a result of an overactive imagination. Just because my stepmother found me strange and cautioned me with the witch finders, it doesn’t mean I have any secret power.
Sighing, I kick at a clod of earth and . . . it’s not frozen. Not like the ground in the ice statue courtyard. Startled, I kneel and collect a palm full of soil. Loose, ready for planting. That’s not normal at any time of year, but certainly not in late fall approaching winter. Though I’m not much for science, I know things swell in the heat and contract with cold. I learned that watching Owen in the smithy.
I can’t decide if that means my charm is taking effect or not, but I hurry into the kitchen just in case. There are a variety of jars filled with seeds and some aren’t even labeled. Before I can change my mind, I go out and plant a variety of them in the garden. At worst, I’ve wasted a little time and effort. I’ve raised herbs before, grown in small pots in the kitchen, so I’m aware that it takes a couple of weeks for seeds to germinate.
In the meantime, there’s no gain in standing here wondering. It’s not quite time for me to start cooking yet, so I return to the library. My books are where I left them, the witch book still open to the page that contains the charms I cast. If it turns out that they worked, I might try another. Until then, I’m done meddling in such matters.
I open the history book and begin to read. Bitterburn was built as a bastion against the frost giants in the north. Though their numbers were not great, their titanic strength meant they could destroy a town with a few warriors. In the year 1013 AC, King Ethred the Ill-Prepared seized the land from a treasonous lord and created the Bitterburn barony, whereupon a magnificent citadel would be constructed by the first Baron Bitterburn.
There’s a sketch of the first baron, and I believe I saw him in the gallery. Imagine having family portraits painted for six hundred years, lining them up generation after generation. I keep reading and finish half the book in one sitting, but it’s dry, and none of the facts help me understand where everyone went and why Njål is cursed.
Sighing, I close the book. This doesn’t account for what happened to the treasonous lord, either. Probably he was executed by the crown, and it’s unlikely that his descendants came for revenge centuries later. This type of research is outside my area of expertise, and I fight disappointment as I stand, rolling my neck and shoulders to ease the strain of sitting in a hard chair reading about dead people for hours.
On a whim, I pass by the gallery, taking an incredibly circuitous route to the kitchen. I walk until I identify the sketch from the history book. The first baron looks a fair amount like the next with broad forehead, deep eyes, a long nose, and an underwhelming chin. As I glance between them, a scene flashes into my head. The great hall is decorated for a party with candles in glass sconces, glittering like fireflies. Women in silk gowns laugh brightly, but the tones are hollow, as if something dreadful will happen if they stop. A velvet tapestry stirs and the baron slides out from behind it. He grabs a woman in a green dress—arm across her throat, hand over her mouth, and pulls her behind the hanging, and then they’re both gone. Nobody has seen a thing; the dancing continues while I process the ancient abduction I’ve just witnessed. I have no notion why the keep is showing me such things, giving me pieces when I can’t even be sure they fit the puzzle I’m trying to assemble.
There must be a secret passage in the great hall.
Instead of going to the kitchen, I detour to the great hall. I’ve no idea why I’m bothering, as it’s far too late to save that woman from whatever grim fate has befallen her. But maybe the keep will show me something else, more relevant to the current situation. What do I expect from a cursed edifice anyway?
Yet I still pace the great hall, searching for the tapestry from my vision. I hate that word, as it reminds me of my stepmother, but there’s no better term. Eventually I find it, a touch faded but not tattered or moth-eaten, as one would expect in such an antique. I move the hanging aside and find a solid wall. Undeterred, I run my fingers over each stone and along the mortared edges, knocking now and then to see if it sounds hollow. The wall is too thick for that, but I’m convinced this must open somehow. Maybe not from this side?
Then I find it near the top, barely within my reach. I press my finger into the divot and hear a click, then the wall opens slowly. I hesitate and then dash to the kitchen. I’ve read enough novels to know that venturing into darkness unprepared is a poor idea. When I return, the panel is ajar and I’ve got a candle in one hand and a kitchen mallet in the other.
Instead of a secret passage, I’ve found stairs leading down. They are stark and sharp, like razored teeth guarding the throat of the beast. For some reason, chills course through me and they just won’t stop, as if I’m in terrible danger. Possibly that should be enough to warn me off, but I don’t think it’s imminent, more like the echo of old terror. I think what I’m feeling belongs to someone else, so I shake it off and descend carefully, shining the candle to see where to set my feet.
It wouldn’t be strange if the keep had a dungeon, but it does seem odd that it’s situated directly below the great hall. I emerge in a big, dark room, and even after all these years, I still smell a faint tinge of copper. So much blood must have been spilled here. With a trembling hand, I move the candle and confirm my fears. I have no name for most of the implements and devices here, but they’re all sharp and spiked, blades coated in red-brown residue, chains attached to ceiling and walls.
And bones. So many bones.
The tremor in my hand intensifies, moving through the rest of my body, until I can barely keep a hold of the mallet. As if I’ve been ensorcelled, I move to the far corner of the room, where a skeletal corpse hangs, still chained at wrist and ankle. I take in the green scraps of her ballgown and know I’m looking at the remains of the woman I saw taken. Beside her, someone hangs in harlequin rags, skull turned toward her.
“What the hell are you doing? How did you find this place?”
12.
I startle and scream, dropping the candle as I raise the mallet.
From the shadows, Njål snatches it mid-air, so swift that the flame goes out. He radiates suspicion and fearsome energy, the most danger I’ve ever sensed from him. I don’t want to have a conversation down here, but he’s between me and the stairs leading out. There’s no way he’ll let me leave without getting answers.
“Sometimes the keep shows me things. I saw a woman being . . . taken from a ball. I don’t know why it wanted me to see that.” In fact, I wish it hadn’t shared this with me, but now I know why Bitterburn feels like a tomb.
“You get these . . . impressions often?” he asks in a strange tone.
It takes me a moment to realize that fear shadows his voice. Njål is afraid of what I’ll learn, of what Bitterburn will reveal. I should be alarmed about standing in a torture chamber with a cursed soul who doesn’t want me to learn his secrets.
“Now and then. Can we leave? I was curious if what I saw was true, but I don’t wish to linger here. There’s nothing I can do for those who suffered and it’s—”
“Of course. I’ll follow you out.” He doesn’t ask me not to look back.
Doubtful I’d see much if I did. It’s so tempting, though in the stories, that never works out well. In one tale, a man loses his beloved wife forever, and in another, curious girls are turned into pillars of salt. Women always seem to pay the price, regardless who did wrong. I feel my way out, easier said than done, and stumble a few times in the dark.
Njål doesn’t join me in the kitchen straightaway, so I have time to settle my nerves with a cup of tea, and I have dinner on by the time he catches up. He settles in the far corner where shadows gather, and I feel him watching me, not with the usual gentleness either.
“There’s something strange about you, Amarrah.”
“Now you sound like my stepmother.” My tone isn’t as light as I wish, and I break open the small scab on the finger I nicked earlier, grabbing for a pot.
“You’re injured.” Njål moves like he’ll come right to me, join me in the light, but then his steps slow.
“Nothing serious.”
“Since you arrived, I’ve had the strangest sense of familiarity, like we’ve known each other for a long time. I fought that feeling, knowing it made no sense. But . . .”
Oh no.
“It’s been so long that I scarcely recall her face, and it’s not possible. It isn’t, but . . . you’re her, aren’t you? Eloise.”
I close my eyes briefly. How am I supposed to rationalize this? “Eloise is my middle name,” I admit.
“Explain yourself, witch.” Njål’s voice is colder than I’ve ever heard it and raw menace radiates from him, practically coating the room in frost. I’ve never experienced this aura before, but icy mist prickles on my skin.
“I’ll try.” In a tremulous voice, I recount exactly what happened in my dream and close with, “If I’m a witch, I had no notion of it before arriving here.”
A growl escapes him and a powerful blow slams into the back wall, making the shelves tremble. “I remember that night. Eloise was gone when I woke, and no matter where I looked, I couldn’t find her. I took so many lashes, endlessly searching. She was the only person who didn’t fear the baron, who dared to be kind even for an instant. Eventually I decided she must be a ghost. That or I hallucinated the whole encounter out of loneliness and misery.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. I wanted to comfort young Njål but it seems as if I added to his torment instead.
“All this time I’ve been waiting because of what she said that night. But you were talking about yourself, weren’t you?”
Miserably I nod. “I thought I was dreaming. I didn’t realize . . .”
“That you were dream-walking into my past. My head feels odd, as if I have more memories, but I can’t access them, like words hovering at the tip of my tongue. I wonder what that means.”
It seems obvious to me. “Perhaps that was the first time I visited you as Eloise, not the last.
Do you have any messages for young Njål?”
“Not at present. This is . . . a great deal to take in.”
“Do you believe me?”
“I don’t know. No aspect of me wants to credit that you came with an agenda, but Bitterburn responds to you in an inexplicable way. You might well be a threat and I don’t wish to acknowledge it because I’m lonely.”
“I understand.” Honestly, I can’t fathom what’s happening either.
Then he shocks me. “It’s also possible that you weren’t a witch before. This place has dire magics bound into its stones, and people tend to . . . change here. Often against their best inclinations.”
“What do you mean?”
“For some, it’s a magical awakening. Gifts or curses that lurked dormant spark to life within Bitterburn’s walls. For others, hidden proclivities come to life. I’ve seen those that I thought were decent folk tumble headlong into depravity.”
“Like the baron and baroness in their murder room?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “I never thought they were decent. But there was a respectable matron who visited, no whispers of scandal or hints of lewd behavior. By the end of the week, she was caught by her husband, intimately consorting with four stable boys.”
“Bitterburn draws out people’s secret desires.”
“That’s why it’s so baffling that you seem unaffected. I’ve been waiting for the corruption to set in, but you’re still you. Still cooking, still reading. Still kind to me. And Bitterburn heeds you. You wanted goats and you have them. I’ve been here an unspeakably long time and I have never seen the like. Do you understand my doubts?”
I nod at once. “Given how Bitterburn reacts to me, I could be a powerful sorceress plotting some appalling scheme. Do you want me to leave?”
My heart hurts over making the offer. This place was just starting to feel like home, and I don’t have anywhere to go. Winter is coming as well. I suppose I can try and make it to Kerkhof. From my understanding, it’s about two months with a mule team, and I’ll be walking, possibly in the snow. Maybe I can find a map in the library. That could increase my odds of survival, but they still aren’t good. Evicting me now would be a death sentence.