Green Rider (6 page)

Karigan looked, but still couldn't see anyone but The Horse. She could only wonder who these eccentric ladies were and what they were doing in the middle of the woods.

They appeared harmless enough, and The Horse seemed to trust them. She snorted at herself: was she to rely on horse instinct this whole strange journey? It was her stomach, though, that decided her. It rumbled in an empty, cavernous way, and the thought of tea and cake was heartening. Legs wobbly and head pounding, she climbed to her feet and trotted to catch up with them.

The woods gradually grew more cultivated. The path broadened into a full-scale road wide enough for two amply outfitted coaches to pass one another. It was well maintained, too, compared to the North Road. Someone had cleared dead wood and the snaggle of underbrush from the bordering woods, lending the area an aura of order and balance unlike the chaos of the untouched wilderness. Neatly trimmed hedges lined the road.

They crossed a stone bridge which spanned a chatty stream. Warblers trilled in the woods about them. The pounding in Karigan's head subsided; weariness lifted from her shoulders.

The road ended in a loop at a stately old manor house built of stone and timbers. Several chimneys puffed balsam smoke into the air, and windows rippled in the sunshine. Vines crept up the sides of the manor house, blending it harmoniously into the woods. Several outbuildings of like character, including a small stable, were spread out behind it. It was an oasis in the middle of the Green Cloak.

The two ladies mounted the steps to the front porch which wrapped around the house. "Welcome to Seven Chimneys," said the woman in green, as if addressing an assembly rather than just Karigan.

Karigan counted the chimneys and came up with nine, not seven.

"It was built by our father long ago," the woman continued. "Come." She extended her hand. A fine tracery of veins like rivers on a map looped around her thin wrist and across the back of her hand. "Our servants will see to your friend, the horse."

No servants appeared, but The Horse walked toward the stable as obediently as if led. The two old ladies certainly were peculiar, but they didn't seem threatening, and so she followed them into the house.

The floors were a light stained oak, and the walls were papered with intricate, flowery designs. Rich hangings, anonymous portraits of men and women garbed in armor or fancy dress, and hand-braided carpets adorned each room they passed through, all miraculously unfaded by time or sunlight.

Heavy furnishings were intricately carved, not a surface left untouched. One such chair in the corridor had a back carved in the likeness of a tree, its armrests and legs all leaves and sinuous, winding branches and roots. A red velvet cushion covered the seat.

Cheerful fires glowed in each fieldstone hearth they passed, and Karigan's damp chill began to be replaced by warmth.

"Letitia has set a bath for you, child," the plump lady said. "She will be none too happy about the mud you've let in, but don't let her annoy you. If she couldn't complain, she wouldn't enjoy life at all. Isn't that right, Miss Bay-berry?"

"Indeed. Mud season is the bane of her life, poor dear, and sends her into a snit every year. We endure, however. It is impossible to find good help out here." Miss Bayberry paused in front of a door and took a deep breath. "Well, then, child, we shall lend you a nightgown and robe after your bath. Letitia will see to the cleaning of your clothes."

They led her into a stone-flagged room where yet another hearth merrily crackled with fire. A solitary window looked out into the garden. Sunlight filtered through its upper pane, which was stained in the deep hues of wild blueberries and cast liquid splashes of blues and greens on the slate floor.

Plumes of steam rose from a brass hip bath in the center of the room. It wasn't what Karigan was used to, with Selium's porcelain tubs and piped water, but in her present state, the hip bath looked heavenly.

Miss Bayberry pointed her cane at the tub. "Take your time, child. Relax—you look thoroughly done in."

The two left, pulling the door shut behind them. The voice of the plump one drifted back to Karigan from somewhere down the corridor: "I think our etiquette has improved over the years, dear sister."

The other made a muffled agreement.

Karigan disrobed, untidily dropping her clothes on the floor. A bucket of cold water and a dipper stood next to the tub. She ladled enough cold water into the bath to make it bearable, but it was still shockingly hot as she submerged.

Sprigs of mint floated on the water, the scent soothing and relaxing her. Her body quickly adapted to the heat, and her taut muscles loosened. Before she became too languid, she set about cleaning several days' accumulation of grit from herself. Her long hair wasn't easily managed, but she struggled with it till it was clean and fully rinsed.

She sighed blissfully and eventually dozed off. When she awakened, the bath water was still comfortably warm, and sunshine still glimmered through the window as before. Yet, she couldn't help but think hours had passed.

Her clothes had disappeared, but the promised nightgown and robe hung from pegs on the wall, a comb placed on a side table, and a pair of soft suede slippers were on the floor below.

They do think of everything.

When she was dry, robed, and her long hair was combed out, the pleasant smell of mint lingered on her skin and hair. As if on cue, Miss Bayberry tapped on the door.

"Child, are you prepared for tea?"

Karigan cracked the door open and smiled. "Yes, I'm ready."

"Very good. Bunch awaits us in the parlor."

Bunch?

Miss Bayberry, leaning on her cane, led Karigan to the most elaborate room of all. They sat on a plush sofa which faced yet another hearth. The sofa's armrests were carved with floral patterns and hummingbirds. Sunlight beamed through a broad window casting the room in a warm amber tint.

The plump one, "Bunch," Karigan supposed, carried in a silver tea service on a tray and set it on a table before them.

"We use the silver for special guests only," she said. "Not that we receive guests very often, special or otherwise. Usually a wayward stranger lost in the woods. I trust you found the bath satisfactory."

"Oh, yes—splendid!" It wasn't a word Karigan typically used, but it seemed appropriate in this house of rich furnishings, and in the company of these two ladies.

Bunch poured tea. "Honey and cream? No, not you, my dear Bay. You know what cream does to your digestion."

Miss Bayberry
hrrrumfed
her opinion.

Butter cookies, scones, and pound cake were served with tea, and while the ladies discussed the oddities of weather and gardening, Karigan's mind brimmed and swirled like the cream in her tea, especially when Bunch poured a fourth cup which she placed before an unoccupied chair.

Miss Bayberry noticed Karigan eyeing the teacup. "I am sorry your other companion could not join us, but Letitia would not have him in the house. She was adamant."

Karigan couldn't take it any longer. "Companion? What companion? I've been traveling alone."

"Oh, my dear. You must be terribly unobservant."

"Or dense," Bunch said, not unsympathetically.

"I was referring, of course, to your companion whom you call The Horse. I assure you that though he did not join us for tea, he is being well tended by the stableboy."

"The Horse." Karigan shifted in her seat wondering if the women were mad. "And the other?"

Bunch and Bayberry exchanged surprised glances.

"If you don't know, dear," Miss Bayberry said, "then it may not be our place to tell you."

"Oh, come now, Bay. She will think us daft old fools. My dear child, a spirit accompanies you."

A swallow of tea caught in Karigan's throat and she choked violently.

"Oh!" fretted Bunch. "I told Letitia to leave the nuts out of the scones."

Miss Bayberry struck Karigan soundly on the back.

"A
what
accompanies me?" she sputtered.

"My," Bunch said. "She's deaf, too."

"A SPIRIT!" Miss Bayberry hollered through cupped hands.

"Please," Karigan said, her back stinging and her ears ringing, "I can hear fine."

"Ah." Miss Bayberry crooked a skeptical brow. "You are accompanied by a shadow. A specter, a ghost, a shade. You know, dear, a spirit." Her apparent ease with the topic was unnerving. "He follows you. You, or something about you, binds him to the earth."

Karigan paled. She had heard stories, of course, of dead relatives visiting those still alive and loved. There were many tales of spirits haunting buildings in Selium, but she had never given them much credence.

"Now you've gone and done it, Bay. You've upset the child."

"H-how do you see this spirit?" Karigan asked.

"Quite simply, the same way we see you." Bunch twisted her teacup in her hand. "He wears green and has black hair hanging to his shoulders. Two black-shafted arrows protrude from a blood-dampened back that will not dry."

"He calls himself F'ryan Coblebay," Miss Bayberry said.

Karigan's hands trembled. How could they know what he looked like or how he had died unless… unless they really could see him? They could have gotten his name off the love letter which had still been in the pocket of the greatcoat… The greatcoat had disappeared from the bathing room with the rest of her clothes.

Miss Bayberry placed a comforting hand on Karigan's wrist. "Not to worry, dear. Master Coblebay is only trying to watch over you, to see that his mission is carried out. After that, he will pass on. As it is, he tends to fade in and out. His link with that which is earthly is rather limited. One day, you too, may see."

Karigan shook her head in disbelief. Here she was, in this incredible manor house, with two old, eccentric ladies who could communicate with ghosts. Either they were cracked, or they were seers, or some other sort of magic was at work. "Who are you?" she asked. "And what are you doing out here in the middle of nowhere?"

Miss Bayberry rapped the handle of her cane on the little table. Scones and cookies bounced, and teacups clattered. "Bunch! Did we forget introductions? Did we?"

An expression of horror swept across Bunch's plump features, and she covered her mouth with her hand. "Oh, Bay. In our haste to please, we forgot. It has been so long since anyone has visited. Can you forgive us, child, for forgetting this one basic propriety?"

Karigan stared dumbly.

The ladies must have perceived her reaction as forgiveness, for they both released sighs of genuine relief.

"Well, then," Miss Bayberry said, "let us introduce ourselves properly. We are the Berry sisters. I am Bay and this is my sister Bunch."

"Our dear father, the late Professor Berry, gave us names that made us sound like some of the local vegetation," Bunch said with a chuckle. "Terms of endearment, really. They are but nicknames."

"We were born," Miss Bayberry said, "with the names Isabelle—"

"And Penelope," Bunch finished. "Though we rarely use our true names."

"We loved our father a great deal. It was he who built this house in the midst of the Green Cloak's wilds. He said it was the only way to absorb the power of nature and bring to the wilderness an element of civilization. What, with no towns nearby, and the unpredictability of living near the northern border, it was not an easy life, especially for our mother. Child, there wasn't even a road back then."

Miss Bunchberry smoothed a crease out of her linen napkin. "When our father built Seven Chimneys, he sought to provide Mother a respectable estate. He spared no expense for her, and even brought along the entire household staff from our original home in Selium."

"Selium," Karigan said. "That's where I began my journey."

"Are you a scholar?" Miss Bayberry asked.

Karigan frowned. "No." She hadn't been much of anything at Selium.

"Ah, well. Our father was. He was a master of many disciplines—so many that he just wore a white uniform with a master's knot. None of the single disciplines have white uniforms, you know, and Father was the only one to wear it. Soon he studied disciplines that were no longer taught… or approved of."