Gallant(9)

“Never been this far north,” he muses, glancing over his shoulder. “Have you?”

Olivia shakes her head again, though in truth, she doesn’t know. There was a time before Merilance, after all, but it holds no shape, nothing but a stretch of mottled black. And yet, the longer they drive, the more she feels that darkness flicker, giving way, not to memories, but simply the space where they would be.

Perhaps it is only her mind playing tricks.

Perhaps it is the word—home—or the knowledge that someone is waiting for her there, the idea that she is wanted.

It is after lunch when they enter a charming little town, and her heart ticks up as the car slows, hopeful that this is it, this is Gallant, but the driver only wants to stretch and get a snack. He climbs out, groaning as his bones pop and crack. Olivia follows, startled by the warmth in the air, the clouds shot through with sun.

He buys a pair of meat pies from a shop and hands one out to her. She has no money, but her stomach growls, loud enough for him to hear, and he presses the hot crust into her palm. She signs a thank you, but he either doesn’t see or doesn’t understand.

Olivia looks around, wondering how much farther they’re going, and the question must be written on her face because he says, “A while yet.” He takes a bite of meat pie and nods at the distant hills, which look taller and more wild than the land they’ve driven through. “Imagine we’ll be there before dark.”

They finish eating, wiping their greasy hands on the wax paper, and the engine starts again. Olivia settles back in the seat, warm and full, and soon the world is nothing but the rumbling car and the tires on the road and the occasional musings of the driver.

She doesn’t mean to fall asleep, but when she wakes, the light is thin, the shadows long, the sky above streaked pink and gold with dusk. Even the ground has changed beneath the car, from a proper road to a rough dirt lane. The hills have been replaced by stony mountains, distant craggy shapes that rise to either side like waves, and the grim walls of Merilance with its soot-stained sky feel worlds away.

“Not far now,” says the driver as they follow the winding road, through copses of ancient trees and over narrow bridges and around a rocky bend. It comes out of nowhere, the gate.

Two stone pillars with a word arched in iron overhead.

GALLANT

Her heart begins to race as the car trundles forward, down the lane. A shape rises in the distance, and the driver whistles under his breath.

“Lucky thing, aren’t you?” he says, because Gallant is not just a house. It is an estate, a mansion twice the size of Merilance and so many times grander. It has a roof that peaks like egg whites, carved windows and walls of pale stone that catch the sunset the way a canvas catches paint. Wings unfold on either side, and grand old trees stand at its edges, their limbs flung wide, and between their trunks, she can even see a garden. Hedges, roses, wild blooms peering out from behind the house.

Olivia’s mouth hangs open. It is a dream, the closest she has ever come, and she’s afraid to wake. She drinks it all in like a girl dying of thirst, in desperate gulps, has to remind herself to stop, and breathe, and sip, remind herself that there will be time. That she is not a passing stranger on the grounds.

The driver guides the car around a stately fountain, a stone figure standing at its center. A woman, dress rippling behind her as if caught in a gust of wind. She stands with her back to the massive house, her head held high, and one hand raised, palm out, as if reaching, and as the car rounds the fountain, Olivia half expects the woman to turn her head and watch them pass, but of course, she doesn’t. Her stone eyes stay on the lane and the arch and the failing light.

“Here we are, then,” says the driver, easing the car to a stop. The engine quiets, and he climbs out, fetching her slim suitcase and setting it on the stairs. Olivia steps down, her legs stiff from so many hours folded into the back seat. He gives a shallow bow and a soft “Welcome home” and climbs back behind the wheel. The engine rumbles to life.

And then he’s gone, and Olivia is alone.

She turns in a slow circle, gravel crunching beneath her shoes. The same pale gravel that lined the moat at Merilance, that whispered shh, shh, shh with every skating step, and for a second, her world lurches, and she looks up, expecting to find the tombstone face of the school, the garden shed, a matron waiting, arms crossed, to drag her in again.

But there is no Merilance, no matron, only Gallant.

Olivia approaches the fountain, fingers itching to draw the woman there. But up close, the pool of water at her feet is still, stagnant, its edges green. Up close, there’s something ominous in the tilt of the woman’s chin, her raised hand less a welcome than a warning. A command. Stop.

She shivers. It’s getting dark so quickly, dusk plunging into night, and a cool breeze has blown through, stealing the last of the summer warmth. She cranes her neck, studying the house. The shutters are all closed, but the edges are traced with light.

Olivia heads toward the house, takes up her suitcase, and climbs the four stone steps that lead from the drive to the front doors, solid wood marked by a single iron circle, cold beneath her fingers.

Olivia holds her breath and knocks.

And waits.

But no one comes.

She knocks again. And again. And somewhere between the fourth knock and the fifth, the fear she kept at bay, first in the head matron’s office, and then in the car as it carried her from Merilance, the fear of the unknown, of a dream dissolving back into a grim gray truth, finally catches up. It wraps its arms around her, it slides under her skin, it winds around her ribs.