The Year of the Witching(48)
The words landed like a slap. Immanuelle opened her mouth to say something, anything, to fill the ugly silence that formed between them, fearing that it would lag on forever if she didn’t, but Leah beat her to it.
“I’ll leave you two to talk.”
“What—”
A door slammed shut down the hall, and Immanuelle turned to see Ezra emerging from the library with an armful of books piled so high he had to balance the top of the stack with his chin. As he started toward them, a few of the larger tomes tumbled from his arms and struck the floor with a resounding thud. Immanuelle stepped forward to help him pick them up.
Ezra muttered something that sounded like a thank-you and snatched the book from her hand. Up close, he reeked of alcohol—something much, much stronger than the mulled wine that was served at the feast. Immanuelle turned back to Leah, torn between staying and going. But when Ezra staggered down the hall, she fell into step behind him. Just before she rounded the corner, she turned back to look at her friend. Leah stood motionless in the middle of the hall as if pinned in place. Immanuelle watched as she hung her head, wrapped both arms around her belly, and slowly turned away.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Sometimes I wonder if my secrets are better swallowed than spoken. Perhaps my truths have done enough harm. Perhaps I should take my memories to the grave and let the dead judge my sins.
—MIRIAM MOORE
WE NEED TO talk,” said Immanuelle, struggling to keep pace with Ezra’s long strides.
“If you’re worried I told someone what happened in the woods, don’t be,” he said gruffly, looking straight ahead. He spoke like he knew something more than what she’d told him, which begged the question . . . what? What did he think happened in the woods?
“I know you didn’t tell anyone,” said Immanuelle, double-stepping to keep up with him. “If you had, I’d likely be in contrition right now—”
“Or on a pyre.” He paused, then said, “Come with me.”
Gathering her skirts in one hand, Immanuelle followed Ezra down the hall and up a winding flight of stairs. At the top was an iron door which Ezra kicked open, nearly dropping his books in the process. He turned to look at her. “Are you coming in or not?”
Immanuelle had never entered a man’s chambers before and she was certain Martha would skin her to the bone if she ever so much as suspected her of such a grave and salacious transgression. She stalled for a beat, then nodded.
As soon as she was past the threshold, Ezra dumped his books on a nearby table and drew the door shut. Overhead, the chandelier shivered, crystals rattling together. Immanuelle noticed that the ceiling was painted like the heavens, dotted with planets and stars and etched with the shapes of constellations, some so large they spanned the room from one end to the other. The stone walls were hung with tapestries and portraits of stern-looking saints and apostles of ages long past. On the right half of the room was a large iron bed draped with dark brocade and a few thick sheepskins. Just beyond it, a wooden desk built in the blunt fashion of a butcher’s block, its surface strewn with quills and parchment paper.
Opposite the door was a hearth that ran the length of the wall. Above it, hand painted across the bricks, was a map of the world beyond the Bethelan territories. Immanuelle saw the names of all the heathen cities: Gall in the barren north, Hebron in the midlands, Sine in the mountains, Judah at the cusp of the desert, Shoan south where the raging sea licked the land, and the black stain of Valta—the Dark Mother’s domain—in the far east.
All around the room, stacked in piles as tall as Immanuelle, were books. They were shoved into shelves, perched atop the hearth’s mantel, even crammed beneath the bed. But it was only when Immanuelle drew near enough to read their titles that she realized almost all of them related to the history, study, and practice of witchcraft.
Her heart seized in her chest, as if some hand had closed around it and squeezed tight. She could think of only one reason Ezra would have developed a sudden taste for books of witchcraft, and it began with her and ended with what happened in the Darkwood. “What is this, Ezra? You’re scaring me.”
“Something dragged you under,” said Ezra, and the weight of his gaze made her skin crawl.
“What?”
“Back in the woods, at the pond, something dragged you under, and it kept you there for a long time.”
In spite of the blazing fire, a deep chill racked her. “What do you mean by a long time?”
“Twenty minutes. Maybe more.”
“That’s impossible,” Immanuelle whispered, shaking her head. “You must be mistaken, I was barely under for more than a minute. I warned you, the Darkwood has a way of twisting the minds of men—”
“Don’t patronize me,” he snapped. “I know what I saw. You went into the water, something dragged you under, and it kept you there.” His voice broke on the last word, and he hung his head. “I tried to dive in after you, but the forest caught hold of me, and I couldn’t. I just had to stand there helpless, watching you drown with that damn rope in my hand. Toward the end, I was just hoping to reel your corpse ashore so your kin would have something to bury.”
“Ezra . . . I’m sorry.”
Immanuelle wasn’t even sure he’d heard her. He kept his eyes locked on the fire as he spoke. “When I was young, my grandmother used to tell me stories of girls who floated inches above their beds while they slept at night. Girls who could talk a man into taking his own life or the life of someone else. Girls who were executed—tossed into a lake with millstones chained to their ankles—only to be reeled from the water alive an hour later. Girls who laughed when they burned on the pyre. I never used to give those stories credence, but you . . .” He lost his train of thought. Took a moment to collect himself. “What was your obsession with the blood plague? You said you just wanted to end it, but it was more than that, wasn’t it? You know something the rest of us don’t. What is it?”