Darkwood (33 page)

There was nothing left of the Drop. The tents had been pulled down, the baskets and scales packed up and carted off, the kiln behind the orphanage dismantled brick by brick. Of the orphanage itself only a jumble of charred boards remained. A notice had been tacked to one of them: “Mine closed by Royal Decree. Direct inquiries to Office of Mineral Exploration and Management, Magnifica,” followed by a date and the waxy mark of a signet ring. Annie felt something brush her ankle and looked down. The cats had followed them. Izzy's orange fur was covered in soot. She stooped to brush him off, but he slipped away from her.

The doorway to the orphanage stood intact, though there were no walls on either side of it and no door left to open or close. Annie stepped through. Izzy was sitting in what had once been the middle of the floor, next to a pair of boots. They were very big boots with metal spikes fixed to the soles. The spikes had been pounded into the ground so firmly that Annie could not pull them up. The cats wreathed around the boots as if someone was standing inside them. Annie's heart beat faster. She reached into the right boot and found the vial from Grandmother Hoop that she had given to Gregor before they separated. It was empty. She reached into the left boot. At first she felt nothing, but then she found it, way down by the toe: a match.

It was a message. She knew it was a message. But what did it mean?

Gregor, Gregor, what are you trying to tell me
?

And then she heard his voice, his small, tired voice, singing the answer.

Darling, what do you wish for? The dark is drawing near
.

A light, Mother, a light, to find you when you're far
.

“Mother! Gregor's alive! He left me a message. He knew I'd come back for him.”

Helia hurried over. “What does the message say?”

“I think he's with Hauler, and he took Grandmother Hoop's medicine, and we'll find each other. No matter how far apart we are, we'll find each other.”

“I am sure you will,” Helia said.

She let Annie ride on her back all the way home.

Annie stretched on her side and let the stone's warmth seep through her dress. Green tips of plants poked up through the dirt lapping the stones at the cave's entrance.

“It's strange how everything grows in the forest but nothing will grow on the farms,” she said lazily. “Except Chopper's farm, of course.”

Helia lifted her head. “You don't know?”

“Know what?”

“Dour County soil was some of the best in the country. We had such a lovely farm in the beginning. Beets, squash, potatoes, the sweetest little carrots. It was strange at first, getting used to vegetables, but I liked it. Primrose was wonderful with flowers.”

“She was your friend?”

“Yes, I suppose she was.”

Annie must have made a face. Helia sighed. “She wasn't always so … prim. Jock was a good farmer, before he met Gibbet. The four of us got on well enough. And she did keep you
safe, at least at the beginning. Jock would have sold you straight to the Drop.”

Annie didn't enjoy feeling beholden to Aunt Prim. “What about the soil?”

“The Drop had just opened, but at the wages Gibbet paid no one wanted to take the work. Gorgetown was a real place then, with a school and shops, not just the tavern. Merchants brought goods from the east. A man could make a decent living fishing or farming. So Gibbet paid Jock to … He
salted
the fields, Annouk. One by one the farms began to fail, even ours, ‘for appearances,' he said. Soon Gibbet had men lining up to mine the quarry.”

Annie rolled onto her back and closed her eyes to the sun.
Small greed
, she thought. The apothecary hated ringstone, but Gibbet—Gibbet loved it, loved it as another man would love his own child, simply for itself. And Gibbet not even a man, not really …

Helia jumped to her feet. “Annouk, they are coming!”

Serena led the horse with Page on his back. Beatrice, shadowed by her sister's body, walked beside them. They appeared and disappeared among the dark trunks, Serena's red bun glinting occasionally over the top of a bracka bush.

Annie stood. She sat down. She stood again. Bones left over from breakfast lay scattered on the ground. She kicked them into the bushes.

Baggy stepped into the clearing and the full procession came into view. Fristi carried a rope in her mouth. The rope's other end was tied around Gibbet's ankles. From time to time
Fristi stopped and jerked her head, forcing Gibbet to hobble forward. Annie saw what made the wolf impatient. Gibbet walked with a cringing, hunted posture. Every few steps he would stop and look over his shoulder, then scan the sky. Wolves stalked behind him, keeping guard, but he hardly seemed to notice them.

The horse, too, dragged something behind him—a litter, bearing a body wrapped in red and gold robes.

If only one of them would meet her eyes, it would be easier. Serena fiddled with Baggy's halter. Beatrice fiddled with the buttons on her cloak. Page fiddled with the bandage around her wrist. Only Fristi looked Annie in the face, but her eyes, calm and full of devotion, were not the ones Annie needed.

Then Prudence, who had been napping with Izzy in a patch of sunlit dirt, rose, stretched, and padded over to Beatrice.

“Oh!” Beatrice said. “Oh, Annie!”

“Dear Annie!” The next moment Annie was engulfed in Serena's familiar tea and copper scent, then passed to Bea, who smelled of beeswax and flannel, then back to Serena. They smelled of the battlefield, too, and weariness.

“Good gracious, your sister! I nearly forgot!” Serena moved to lift Page down from the horse's back but Page shooed her away. Her hair had been cropped short and stood around her head in a blonde fuzz. A white bandage covered her neck.

With a little cry she stumbled forward and dropped to her knees in front of Annie. She clung to Annie's waist. Awkwardly, Annie touched the back of her head. The shorn hair
felt soft. Page was shaking. She was laughing. Her breath came in giddy bursts.

“It's just
you!
”

“Who did you expect?”

“The scion. I thought you'd be different. Serious, or hairy, or—”

Annie smiled. “Just the usual amount.” She met her sister's eyes. “Why didn't you tell me Sharta was our father?”

“I wanted to, but he was afraid of what you'd think, having a beast for a father. He was afraid you'd hate him.”

“He told you. You didn't hate him.”

“I loved him. But he didn't tell me, and he wouldn't have.”

“But you knew.”

Page smiled. “It wasn't so hard to figure out. He knew which foods I hated. He knew my favorite books. And he—he was the same, even as a wolf.” She studied Annie's face. “Don't feel bad you didn't recognize him. You were so young when he changed.”

“I didn't remember.”

“How could you?” Page said, but her eyes had focused on something past Annie's shoulder. Her face turned bright and anxious. “Hello, Mother.”

The twins were whispering furiously together.

“Serena, the king—is he dead?” Annie asked.

“His heart was not strong enough to pump blood for them both,” Serena said.

Annie knelt beside the king's body. His flesh was gray and had a weird rigidity to it, like a casing of clay. She felt she owed him something, some words, at least, but she didn't know what to say. She touched her palm to his chest.

“Annie, wait, he is—,” Serena began, but Annie had already jumped back with a shout of surprise. Hesitantly, she reached out to touch him again. She could feel the beat of his heart.

“You said his heart failed!”

Unaccountably, Serena blushed. She looked to her sister for help. Bea smiled encouragingly. Serena cleared her throat and tried again.

“Annie—do you remember the clock I showed you the day we traveled to Magnifica together, the clock that was to be a gift for the king's bride?”

“For Page. Of course.”

“Do you remember how the clock worked?”

Annie's mouth felt full of sand. “The clockwork heart? You gave him a clockwork heart?”

Serena looked at Beatrice again and the little woman stepped forward.

“She took the heart from the clock and I, well, I sewed it in. The lungs move, the heart beats, but he is not
alive
.”

Serena elbowed Beatrice. “Give them to her now.”

“Do you think we should?”

“Of course we should!”

Bea reached into a cloth pouch and pulled out a stack of papers bundled together with a red ribbon. “He said to give
these to you if he died. He said—what were his exact words, Serena?”

“‘To please forgive a wicked king.'”

Annie looked at the stack of papers. “Dear Annie” was written at the top of the first page. She tore the ribbon away.
Dear Annie, Darling Annie, Little One, Beloved
. All of Page's letters, dozens and dozens of them.

“There are five more bundles like it,” Serena said.

Annie watched the king's chest rise and fall. “Why did you do it, the metal heart?”

Bea looked over at Page, with her beautiful face and her child's haircut. “Your sister said she could not bear to live without him.”

Annie looked from Page to the king, from Beatrice to Serena. She thought of Rinka pulling Brisa from the pit. She thought of Helia and Sharta worrying over the prophecy together. That strange old feeling settled in her chest, part pity, part longing, as though she knew how to love, but not quite enough. Then Izzy—Izzy, who didn't particularly like to be touched, Izzy, who hated to be held—took a few light steps and jumped into her arms. She squeezed him too tight, and he let her.

Fristi stood apart with Gibbet and his guards. Gibbet wore a gag and his hands were bound. His whole body bobbed and jerked as Annie approached.

“I won't hurt you,” Annie said. “But I might lock you up.”

A burst of sound came from behind the gag. Annie reached for the tie.

“Annie, is that wise?” Serena called. She stood a few yards away, uncertain whether her help was needed.

“Maybe not.” Annie removed the gag.

“Lock me up! Lock me up, I beg you!”

The white false teeth formed a strange counterpoint to his stricken face, a face smooth like a child's yet indescribably old.

“You had them pulled, didn't you?” Annie said. “So you could pass for one of us.”

“Please,” he whispered.

“She sent you into the world. She had a purpose for you, but you failed. You fell in love with ringstone.”

Gibbet's wild eyes focused on her face. “Two hundred years I looked for you, I waited for you. And yet I never really looked. What danger in a child? I thought. But I was never a child. Lock me up. Hide me. Only you can keep me safe.”

His voice trailed off. A look of absolute terror crossed his face. Annie heard it too, a vibration in the air like the beating of a large bird's wings.

She would let the thing come and take what it wanted.

“Cut him loose.”

Serena looked at her, stunned, but did as she was told. Barely had she cut through the ropes when Gibbet started to run. He ran wildly, first toward the cave, then veering away across the clearing.

“Mother, no! I'm sorry! Please, Mother, please, no!”

The fluttering darkness took shape and flew screaming out
of the depths of the wood. It sprang from treetop to treetop and bounded to the ground, snatching up Gibbet as though he were nothing more than a field mouse.

It had the wings and talons of a hawk, the lithe shape of a cat, the fanged human face. It was all things, and none.

“Mother, no!” Gibbet screamed as she bore him writhing into the air. Suddenly his cry changed. “Devour the witch! Devour the witch! Scion! Devour the witch!”

The apothecary turned its head and looked at Annie, just for an instant, the bright eyes full of malevolence. Then it was gone.