Gallant(20)

“Do you know anything about this house?” He steps toward her as he speaks. She doesn’t step back. “This place is cursed. We are cursed.” There is more than anger in Matthew’s eyes—there’s fear. “To be a Prior is to live and die on these grounds, driven mad by ghosts.”

Is it the ghouls that scare him? She wants to tell him she is not afraid. That she has been haunted all her life. It will take more than ghouls to make her go. But he turns away, shaking his head.

“I have lost so much,” he says under his breath. “I will not let it be for nothing, all because a foolish girl didn’t have the sense to stay away.”

“Fine day, isn’t it?” calls Hannah, coming toward them down the path, her wild curls pulled up in a messy bun. “First bit of warmth we’ve had in weeks.”

Matthew sighs, rubbing his eyes. “Have you called for a car?”

Hannah’s gaze flicks to Olivia’s, a question there. Do you want the car to come? And for all that Matthew’s said, and all he’s choosing not to say, she doesn’t want to go. She is not afraid of ghosts. But she is afraid of where that car might take her.

Olivia shakes her head, and Hannah answers, “No word yet, I’m afraid.” A pail swings from one strong hand, filled with the soft gray pulp of mortar. “Edgar saw a few more cracks,” she says, and Matthew’s attention goes to the garden wall. He stands, holding out his hand for the pail. She hesitates.

“I don’t mind helping,” she says. “You could do with some rest.”

“You’ll have to do without me soon enough.”

Hannah winces, as if struck. “Matthew,” she says, “I wish you wouldn’t talk like that.”

But he waves the words away and takes the pail. “I can manage,” he says, turning toward the wall. Olivia moves to follow, but he shakes his head and points to the ground between them.

“You stay put,” he says, as if she is a troublesome pet. But he must be able to tell she has no plans of sitting still, because he nods at the bucket he left beside the roses. “If you want to help, keep pulling weeds.” He pulls off his gloves and offers them to her. “And stay away from the wall.” He turns and trudges down the slope.

Hannah tries to smile, but it is half a grimace and doesn’t touch her eyes as they land on Olivia’s borrowed dress. “Mind the thorns,” she says, retreating up the path.

Olivia sets her sketchpad on the bench and tugs on the gloves. She doesn’t mind the task. The sun warms the air, and when she crouches, the low world smells of soil and bloom. She starts where Matthew stopped, and it doesn’t take long to find the first weed, a coil reaching up to strangle a bright pink blossom.

Olivia pries it free, and holds the tendril to the light.

It’s strange, thin and spined and the color of ash. Back at Merilance, everything felt like it was rendered in shades of gray, but now she realizes that wasn’t really true. The colors were there, just faded, washed-out versions of themselves, but this—this is a graphite sketch against a watercolor scene.

Olivia continues down the row, working her way along the path until she hits the end of the rose bed. She glances down the sloping garden to the wall, where Matthew kneels, smoothing mortar into half a dozen cracks. It seems pointless to mend the wall, when it is clearly falling down.

The sun is high now, and the shade of the orchard beckons. She drifts away from the roses and into the copse of trees, scanning the ground for weeds or fallen fruit. But something else draws her eye. Beyond the orchard, a cluster of short pale shapes. At first glance, she thinks they must be stumps, but then the sun strikes stone, and she realizes they are graves.

It is a field of Priors, interrupted here and there by other names. The latest grave belongs to Matthew’s father, Arthur. Buried here last fall. Nearby a pair of legs stretch out, ankles crossed. Shoulders slumped forward. A head, mostly missing. A ghoul. Olivia hurries toward it, hoping it will be her mother, but when the ruined face looks up, it belongs to a man. Not the one who blocked her way the night before, but another, older.

The ghoul glares at Olivia with what’s left of its face and points a half-formed hand toward the house. A chill rolls over her and she retreats, away from the graveyard and the orchard and back into the sunlit garden.

Down by the wall, Matthew is upright, studying his work, wiping his forehead with the back of his arm. The day is warm, and her hands are sweating in the too-big gloves. She tugs them off and wanders back toward the bench where she left her sketchpad.

But as she bends to pick it up, she sees a gray stem pushing up through the soil, twining round the bench’s leg. Olivia takes hold of the weed and pulls, but it is stubborn and strong. She tugs harder, her palm prickling where it meets the tendril. And then, too late, she feels it move.

A quick, sharp jerk, followed by the rake of heat across her palm. Olivia winces and drops the weed, looking down at her hand, where the spines have sliced a narrow line. Blood wells on her skin.

She looks around for somewhere to wipe it. If she were wearing her own gray shift instead of her mother’s yellow dress, she would use the hem, but she can’t bring herself to stain the soft cotton, so she kneels to wipe the blood on the grass when a hand comes out of nowhere, closing like a cage around her wrist.

“Stop,” snaps Matthew, wrenching her upright. He sees the blood streaked across her palm, and pales.