Until Richard found her.
He had been nine years old at the time. His mother had called it a gift. His father had pretended it existed not at all, and afterward did his best to pretend Richard did not exist, either.
Uncle Norman never said a judgmental word to his brother, but Richard was content to see the disapproval that registered in the man’s eyes. At times his grim expression flared with utter contempt for his brother, but otherwise he was kind and gentle, in deed and in word. From the moment, nearly two years before, that he had agreed to take on Richard as his apprentice, Uncle Norman had proclaimed him a natural woodworker, joyfully guiding the boy in his education.
And from that first day, the wood had spoken to Richard. Sometimes, it even sang. All this afternoon he had been in the workshop, toiling on a cradle for Walter and Lucille Broward, who had a baby due later in the month. If the Browards had known that a mere apprentice had done the lion’s share of the work on the cradle— for which they were paying handsomely— they probably would have been furious. But Uncle Norman was aware that there were certain types of furniture for which Richard had a special affinity. Cradles, headboards and footboards for marriage beds, and dining tables in particular. Whenever he worked on such things, the finished product was superior even to what Uncle Norman could have made.
His uncle never pressed him to explain, and Richard was glad.
How would he have explained the way the wood spoke to him?
All through the afternoon and into the early evening he worked steadily. Uncle Norman had been crafting a cabinet for another customer, but at some point he had set his tools aside and told Richard he was closing up shop for the night and going up to the house. He urged the young man to go home, but Richard was communing with the wood and could not tear himself away. There was an image in his mind of what the final piece of the cradle— the headboard— would look like, and he dared not let it fade before carving it into the wood.
So he was alone now. The deep rush of the river and the whisper of the wind were his only company, save for the occasional noise of a rider on horseback going by, or a carriage rattling toward town.
He touched the wood, ran his fingers along the smooth planes on top of the headboard. With his eyes closed, he pictured a mother looking down into the cradle as she rocked her baby girl to sleep, humming a lullaby. It wasn’t merely his imagination, he was sure of that. His younger sister, Sally, had suggested to him that he had a bit of fairy blood, but he lent no credence to the idea. Richard had never seen a fairy, nor a sprite, nor any of the magical creatures that were supposed to live in the forest, and he was not at all sure they existed.
But one glance in a looking glass told him all he needed to know of his bloodline. To his regret, he was an awkward, nearly homely boy, with only his mother’s soft eyes to counter the otherwise precise re-creation of his father’s unpleasant countenance.
Fairies, real or not, were meant to be beautiful.
No, he was all too ordinary. Or he would have been, if not for the touch he had, and for the whisper of the wood in his heart.
Richard opened his eyes and studied his handiwork. In the light of a lantern that hung from a hook above his workbench, the finer detail he had carved into the headboard was blurred by shadow, yet with his fingers touching the wood he did not need more light.
A smile touched his lips. The Browards’ baby girl— Constance, he thought, they’ll name her Constance— was going to be happy in this cradle. The wood was warm and soft and the flowers he had carved into it would make the baby smile.
He could almost see her face.
A noise reached him. Richard blinked and glanced around, wondering what had caused the disturbance. Then he heard it again. A voice, calling his name, tense and alarmed.
He stood away from the workbench, breaking contact with the wood. Regret flooded him instantly and he looked back at the unfinished cradle, at the headboard that remained incomplete. Would he have so clear an idea of what it ought to look like tomorrow? Surely not. The wood still would resonate with the shape it was destined to take, but some of the intricate details might be lost.
Richard sighed. He would do his best, as always.
Again he heard his name, and this time it was shouted. He became alarmed, and stepped quickly to the heavy oaken door, but it swung open before he reached it, and Uncle Norman stood on the threshold, staring at him, urgency and sorrow etched upon his face as though carved in hard wood.
“Richard!”
“What is it, uncle?”
“Your sister, lad. Sally’s gone missing.”
THE WORD PASSED SWIFTLY. Within half an hour, dozens of men had taken to the fields around the Kirk house and begun to spread into the forest, searching for Sally with lanterns held high. Peter David brought hunting dogs along, and their baying could be heard echoing amid the trees. The night was clear, the moon was bright, and though an undercurrent of fear ran through all of Camelford, it was laced with hope. After all, the girl had been gone two hours, no more.
Any other time, Sally Kirk’s disappearance would have been attributed to a tryst, or even elopement. She was fifteen, after all, and such things happened. But the Newcomb girl had disappeared only two nights earlier. There had been those— her employer in particular— who believed Holly Newcomb had run off with a traveler passing through Camelford. But surely two girls in three nights was more than coincidence.
When Richard and his uncle Norman arrived at the house, several men were standing at the edge of the property, near the woods. Voices called from within the trees, and lights flickered and bobbed in the darkness of the forest as the search went on.
Richard ran to the door, Uncle Norman hurrying as best he could to keep up.
“Mother!” he shouted, rushing in. “Mother, where are you?”
She appeared from the kitchen, hands twisted nervously in her apron. With the turn the night had taken, she had never had a moment to remove it. Her face was wan and thin, her eyes haunted.
“Richard,” she said. And her mouth pursed as though she’d eaten something sour. “Our Sally we were baking scones and the horses began to neigh. You know Sally and those horses. They might be good for nothing save pulling a cart, but they were the joy of her heart. She she went out to see to them, try to calm them a bit.
“I heard a terrible noise then, a shriek, but it wasn’t Sally, son. It was the horses. Never heard an animal scream like that before. I sent your father out to see to them and look after Sally, but she’d she’d gone.”
His mother bit her lip and a single tear streaked her left cheek. She wiped it swiftly away, as though ashamed.
“Give me her hairbrush,” he said.
His mother frowned. “What are you on about? She’s gone, Richard. Sally, out there somewhere, on her own. Some ruffian’s got his hands on her, mark me. Your father’s out in the woods now, trying to find the trail. You’ve got to go help him. Try to— ”
“Ellie, stop,” Uncle Norman said, and there was such taut confidence in his voice that she went silent immediately.
“Norman?” she asked a moment later, as though she’d lost her way.
“Richard’s touch, Ellie. He may be your best chance of finding her.”
Ellie Kirk blinked as though she had just awoken. “Oh, I’m such a fool. Yes, of course.” With a new kindness, a sweet relief, she gazed at Richard. “Let me just get her brush, then, as you say.”
They waited in the parlor. Richard could not seem to focus his vision. His breath came too quickly and he felt his pulse throbbing in his temples. Despite his father’s contempt, he had never hated living in this house, thanks to his mother’s sweet patience and Sally’s good humor. His sister adored him, and Richard knew it well.
A strong hand clutched his shoulder. “We’ll find her, Richard.”
He turned toward his uncle, reassured, as always, by the sheer goodness of the man. How his uncle and father could be brothers was beyond his capacity to understand, but he was forever grateful for the one, and took the other as his penance for whatever sins he might have committed.
“If anything were to happen ”
“We’ll find her,” Uncle Norman repeated, blue eyes clear and cool, soothing. “The night the Newcomb girl went missing, her absence wasn’t noted till morning. Sally can’t have gotten far.”
Richard nodded, holding on to that reassurance as tightly as he could. A moment later his mother returned and he could see hope and fear and curiosity all at war upon her features.
“Here you are, love,” she said, handing over Sally’s hairbrush.
No mention was made of what she expected him to do with it. In all the years since that first time, she’d only ever referenced what she called his gift in a vague fashion, and had never directly asked him to use it. If she had lost something, she might tell him, and idly wonder aloud how she would ever find it again, but she had never outright asked for his help.
On this night, though she had lost what was most precious in the world to her, she still could not bring herself to speak of it plainly, as though it made her afraid.
Richard did not need to be asked.
He took the brush eagerly and clutched it in his hands. It felt warm to him and his mind was filled immediately with images of Sally, humming to herself as she sat before her mirror, brushing her hair. He saw ribbons and bows and felt the soft comfort of her bed. Heard her laughter. Knew, suddenly, that she had kept her eye on Johnny Miller, the merchant’s son, for some time.
Barely aware he was doing it, he walked toward the door. His mother and Uncle Norman followed in silence. She had her hands up beside him, as though afraid he might fall and damage himself, her porcelain, brittle young man.
Outside, he started first toward the small outbuilding where the horses were stabled and the cart was maintained. A terrible loneliness touched him as he felt Sally’s presence through her hairbrush. His fingers plucked at the bristles and came away with several strands of her hair.
He felt her.
Here.
Richard shuddered, weak with relief. “She’s alive.”
“Oh, thank the Lord,” his mother said, and she began to sob. From the corner of his eye he saw her cling to Uncle Norman, weeping on his shoulder.
“Can you find her?” his uncle asked. His voice was husky.
Richard thought he could, but dared not say so. Instead he wandered about, trying to get a sense of where her presence could be felt most strongly. His touch took him to the edge of the woods.
Richard stepped into the trees and his stomach lurched, bile burning up the back of his throat. He doubled over. Fear unlike anything he had ever known surged through him, an ancient, primal thing that hurt his bones and clutched at his heart. Something dreadful, some devil out of the earth and the wood, slid into his skin like a thousand needles, and panic seized him. Richard shook uncontrollably for a moment, and then he froze.
His mouth opened in a silent scream but he could not make a sound. He felt that if he could only let the terror out, could only give voice to the horror that clawed at him, it would be all right. But he could not. His fingers gripped the brush with such force that its handle snapped.
And he wept. Silently.
With a spasm, the fear slipped from him and he collapsed to the ground, knobby roots bruising his knees beneath him. The tears that coursed down his face were strangely cold.
What he’d touched, what he’d felt, had been his sister’s fear.
“Oh, Sally,” he whispered.
“What is it?” Uncle Norman asked, striding toward him, grabbing him by the arm and lifting him up.
“Richard?” his mother said. “What’s happened?”
He was bereft. What was he to tell her now? That he had touched Sally, that her daughter was out there somewhere, but he could not reach her? No, Richard could not inflict the truth upon her. The moment he had entered the forest he had been overwhelmed by her fear and now he could not sense her at all.
But Sally was still alive. He would join the others, catch up with his father and the other men and search for her, or for some trace of her, some sense of her that he could follow. The wood had always spoken to him, and he thought that perhaps, if he listened hard enough, the trees themselves might whisper the answers he sought.
“She was frightened,” he admitted, only half turning to his mother, hiding his tears. “I’ll find her, Mother. I will.”
Then he moved deeper into the woods, brushing low branches out of his way, snapping twigs underfoot. Uncle Norman muttered some assurance to Ellie, and then followed.
That silent scream was still trapped in Richard’s throat, but he would not release it yet. It was Sally’s terror he had touched, and if his holding on to it meant he could somehow share it, could lessen her fear, then he would gladly hold it within him forever.
THE NIGHT AIR WAS FILLED WITH STARDUST, swirling on the eddies and currents of the wind. Rhosynn danced with it, pirouetting on feet that barely touched the forest floor.
Moonbeams filtered through the branches of the trees and the stardust drifted with each gust. She laughed softly and spun, weightless, into a small clearing. Once, ages and ages past, there had been magic here. She could feel it. The fabric of the curtain that hung between the human world and Faerie was so thin that she shuddered with pleasure.
“Rhosynn, please,” Lorelle said anxiously, following her into the clearing.
With a sigh and a fond smile, Rhosynn regarded her sister. Lorelle was glorious, simply radiating joy. Or she was on other nights. This evening she was so subdued that she seemed almost human. The pale green gown she wore was sheer, and her lithe form was visible beneath as she passed through a splash of moonlight, but there wasn’t a trace of sparkle around her. She walked with her hands clasped like an anxious mother, gaze darting about in search of some threat, and her step broke twigs under her weight.
The lightness of heart that was the gift of Faerie, even here in the human world, had left her.
“Please yourself,” Rhosynn said. “Our family’s lived in Cornwall for centuries. If trouble comes, I shan’t run from it. And until it does, I want to laugh and dance and make mischief. Can you not understand that?”
Lorelle fixed her with a grim stare. “If? If trouble comes? It has already arrived, Rhos. Mellyn is dead. Tamsyn, Wenna, Aine, all missing, with no trace or trail to follow. Evil has befallen us, and— ”
“And what?” Rhosynn snapped, her joyous mood crumbling. “Would you have us all abandon Stronghold?”
Lorelle came hesitantly to the center of the clearing. Skittish as a fawn, she twitched her head every few seconds, shifting her gaze to a different part of the forest around them as though a threat lurked behind every tree.
“Not all. Only we two. Something is hunting us in our own home, in our own wood. If you would go with me, I would fly from here on the morrow.”
Rhosynn crossed her arms over her tiny breasts, the midnight blue of her gossamer gown dark as a starless evening sky. “You shame me, sister, and yourself. Whatever enemies lurk in the darkness, we cannot run from them or they have won before the war has even begun. No, I shall not leave the wood. You’ll have to choose which you fear more: going without me or remaining here.”
With an angry twist of her lips, Lorelle spun away and marched halfway across the clearing, back the way they’d come. Then she paused, hesitated a moment, and turned to cast a pleading glance back at Rhosynn.
“All right, we stay,” she surrendered. “But must we be so foolhardy? Something stalks this forest, yet you wander the wood and delight in the stardust as though no threat exists. I know your heart, Rhos. I know that it is anger and defiance that drive you now, but it is arrogant and foolish to tempt fate so.”
A breeze rustled the leaves and swirled stardust through the clearing. Rhosynn shook her head, laughing softly, and started back into the thick of the woods. Lorelle followed quickly, afraid to lose sight of her.
“It isn’t funny,” she insisted.
Rhosynn sighed and slowed her pace. She reached back and took her sister’s hand, their fingers twining. Side by side they went through the trees and at last some of the weight seemed to lift from Lorelle, for her footfalls made no sound, nor did they leave any trace upon the ground.
“I agree,” Rhosynn said softly. “There is nothing at all funny about what has happened. But still I will not hide. If we have secret enemies in the forest, I dare them to come for me. I shall fight them with tooth and claw if I must. The others at the Stronghold court have been seeking our missing for days, with no sign. I grow angry and frustrated. I want to see these enemies, to wrap my hands round their throats.
“Let them come, Lorelle. And until they do, I will take my joy from the wood as I always have, and secret enemies be damned.”
Rhosynn paused, troubled by the grim conversation, and turned to Lorelle. Gently she reached up to touch her sister’s face, and stardust shimmered from her fingertips, illuminating Lorelle’s elegant beauty.
“Smile, dear one.”
Lorelle nodded slowly, and a smile blossomed upon her face. It was nevertheless a troubled smile.
Rhosynn laughed giddily and took her hand again, and the two of them began to run through the woods, dancing and darting around trees. Night birds sang in the branches above them and soon their bare, delicate feet no longer touched the ground at all and they were capering several feet above the forest floor. Rhosynn gazed lovingly into her sister’s eyes and decided, in that moment, that if Lorelle truly wanted to leave Cornwall for a time, she would go along. To France or Prussia, or through the worlds to Faerie, though she thought perhaps they would feel far more like outsiders there than in some other human nation.
Soon they heard the quiet babble of the river.
The night was filled with the scent of flowers and freshwater, but there was something else as well: the aroma of passion.
“Hush,” she whispered, still giddy but trying to compose herself.
Rhosynn tittered once, and then she and Lorelle were both silent. They crept through the trees and peered around the trunk of a magnificent oak. Not far away was Slaughterbridge, the very place where Arthur had slain his son, Mordred, and been slain by him in return. The earth in that place was dark with power, resonating with hate and sorrow and the blood of legend. Arthur had been human, but was still a legend nevertheless, even to those of fairy blood.
A couple was crossing the bridge, a boy and girl from Camelford, no longer children but not quite fully grown. Rhosynn held her breath watching them. Though they had not the grace of the creatures of the forest, she loved to watch humans move, to watch the way they spoke together and touched one another. A newborn colt was awkward on its feet, and humans never seemed to lose that gawkiness. Rhosynn guessed it was the weight of them, the solidity of their contact with the earth. They were tethered to it from the moment of birth, as if their flesh was aware that it would someday mix with the soil.
She loved them.
The boy took the girl by the hand and led her away from Slaughterbridge, farther from the town, to a place where the river curved and an enormous old split-trunk tree spread its boughs out across the riverbank. There in the shelter of the tree, hidden from the other side of the river, where a carriage might go by, the boy sat on the ground and the girl lay down beside him.
Rhosynn’s heart quickened and she smiled at Lorelle. The sisters moved silently at the edge of the forest, their passage rustling the leaves as though they were the wind itself, a sprinkle of stardust the only evidence of their wake. When they were near enough, they arranged themselves so that they had a perfect view of the couple in the hollow beside the tree.
The girl’s bodice had been undone and even now the boy slid it down her arms so that her upper body was entirely bare. Her breasts were pale and beautiful in the moonlight, nipples dark and taut. The boy kissed and caressed them, and the girl giggled shyly. Rhosynn could feel the heat of his desire deep within her and that passion made her catch her breath. Excited, she glanced at Lorelle, and she could see that her sister was flushed. Her eyes were locked upon the sight of the young lovers, as though entranced.
Rhosynn had long known that human desire had its own sort of enchantment. She was charmed by the pair, and aroused as well.
Their kisses were deeper and longer and soon the girl began to moan softly and squirm beneath the inexpert ministrations of her lover. The boy slid his hand along her bare calf and farther up beneath her dress. A small squeak of halfhearted protest escaped the girl’s lips and she began to push his hand away.
No, Rhosynn thought. The passion is risen in you, as well. You mustn’t cage it.
But the boy withdrew his hand, a disappointed look passing across his face for a moment before he smiled and began to stroke her hair and bent to kiss her again.
“This is no fun,” Rhosynn whispered to Lorelle.
There was caution in her sister’s eyes, but Rhosynn only smiled and raised her arms. She took a deep breath, felt herself rising from the ground, and then she spread her fingers and allowed a shower of shimmering green to sprinkle down around her.
Then she rose farther, riding the wind, and she beat her wings and flew out of the forest in the form of a nighthawk. She soared in an arc through the night sky and then glided down to the enormous split-trunk tree beneath which the lovers sprawled.
Again the boy ran his hand along the girl’s bare thigh. She laughed and squeezed her legs together.
On a tree limb just above them, the nighthawk had a breathtaking view of the girl’s lovely nakedness. She could smell the boy’s arousal, could feel his frustration and his urgent need for release. The girl’s desire was even stronger, and yet she fought against it.
Rhosynn hated to see beauty and passion denied.
The nighthawk spread her wings and stardust fell from them, swirling on the gentle breeze, eddying downward until it dusted the young lovers.
With a sigh, the girl opened her legs. The boy moaned with hunger and surprise as he was allowed, at last, to touch her. The girl arched her back and her right hand caressed the boy’s chest and then moved down to clutch at the thickening pressure at the crotch of his trousers. Hurriedly, he reached down and replaced her hand with his own, pushing his garment down so that she could reach her goal.
Burning with her own passion, the nighthawk took flight again. The leaves rustled with her passing but the lovers noticed nothing, caught up as they were in their desire and the magic of a sprinkle of stardust.
When the hawk alighted upon the forest floor, only inches from the place she had stood previously, she was Rhosynn of Stronghold once again. Her heart beat wildly with mischief and lust and she looked for Lorelle, knowing her sister would share her fascination with the humans’ lovemaking.
Rhosynn frowned.
Lorelle had gone.
At first she was hurt, and becoming angry. She began to search the trees for some sign of her sister’s departure, thinking Lorelle had allowed herself to grow anxious again and fled back to Stronghold.
But there was no sign of Lorelle at all, as though she had never been there to begin with. Rhosynn was confused and for the first time her heart fluttered with concern.
Then she caught the scent of her sister’s fear, and she knew that Lorelle had not fled at all. Panic rose within her.
The enemy had taken her.
With the sounds of human passion whispering through the trees, Rhosynn sank to her knees in the forest and wept, her bravado scattered in the whispering wind.
SILENCE HAD REIGNED all the long day at Ludlow House, and now that night had fallen, it deepened.
Tamara sat at the writing desk in the room she would always think of as her grandfather’s study, no matter how much time passed since his demise. There was fresh paper before her, but the ink was drying on the tip of her pen. She had spent much of the day laying plans for her departure to Cornwall, and then had retreated to the study late in the afternoon. In the hours since, she had written two and a half pages of “The Poison Parchment,” a new penny dreadful she had begun nearly a month past and upon which she had made little progress, even before today.
Two and a half halting, frustrating pages.
Pitiful.
Tamara consoled herself with the knowledge that there were other things on her mind, that she ought to forgive herself a certain amount of distraction. But her writing was meant to be an escape from such things, and her frustration stemmed from disappointment that she had been unable to settle her nerves enough to become lost in the story.
She took a deep breath, sat up straighter in her chair, looped a stray lock of hair behind her ear, and dipped the pen into her ink bottle again, freshening it. The hero of her story, Thomas St. James, had just discovered an ancient parchment among the belongings of a man who had died most mysteriously. Her intention had been that the moment St. James touched the parchment, some supernatural guardian would appear and attack him, attempting to destroy him before he could gain possession of the document. But though she wracked her brain, she was unable to determine what sort of creature she wished to set against her hero. Something subtle, if possible, so as not to alienate readers entirely.
Subtlety be damned, she thought now. Tamara had encountered enough horrors in the flesh that she ought to be able to describe them well enough. Rakshasa. Oh, yes, they’ll do just fine. And the memory was fresh.
The moment she set pen to paper there came a rap at the door and her hand jumped, scrawling a smear of fresh ink upon the page. Tamara closed her eyes, gritted her teeth, and then set the pen aside.
“Come.”
The door swung open, but William stood on the threshold, appearing reluctant to enter. He wore a look of practiced indifference.
“Good evening, Tamara.”
“William.” She let the irritation that lingered after their fight enter her voice.
He ignored her tone. “Have all of the preparations been completed for your journey to Cornwall?”
“I’m quite sure Farris has everything in order by now. Of course, Bodicea and Serena will accompany me, but they require no preparation. As for Farris, I expect you’ll manage to get by without him during our absence.”
William shrugged, as if distracted. “It can’t be helped, can it?”
“No. No, it can’t.”
He nodded slowly, his tension evident in even the smallest of motions. “I truly regret that I am unable to accompany you. But with the wedding coming on so soon, I am more determined than ever to find a way to exorcise the demon from Father’s soul.”
A look of concern passed across his face. “So many times, I have thought we had found the answer. The other day, Horatio and I ran across a promising passage in The Lesser Key of Solomon unlike any other spell our research has uncovered. It took minutes before I realized it was a spell not for exorcising a demon, but for driving out a human soul! Can you imagine if we’d attempted that spell haphazardly, out of desperation, driven out Father’s soul and left the demon in residence?”
“My God,” Tamara whispered. “Father would be gone forever.”
William ran his hands through his hair in frustration and then turned to her. “I cannot imagine my wedding without him, Tam.”
Tamara held her breath. All day she had nurtured her fury at William, and she could not deny feeling a certain relish in that spiteful simmering. Now a wave of guilt went through her.
“I know, Will. And I do understand. From what you’ve said, and what Horatio has told me, I believe you’re close to finally driving Oblis out and returning Father to us. I dare not allow myself to hope, but it would be wonderful to have him back with us again, to have him as master of this house. No, you’re doing precisely the right thing. Farris will look out for me in Cornwall.”
William thrust his hands into his pockets. He strode into the room, but walked away from her toward a window in the far wall.
“I have no doubt. And if trouble arises, you have only to translocate back to London and fetch me, and I shall join you in the north immediately.”
He stared out at the night as though searching for something, but whatever it was, William did not seem to find it.
“I’m certain we’ll be fine,” Tamara said. “Though it would be much simpler if translocation magic allowed us to transport others along with us. On the other hand, I daresay that Farris, stalwart as he is, might be undone by the experience.”
William did not respond. Tamara rose from her chair, studying him closely.
“Is something else troubling you?”