Sleep Like Death, page 21
I pause. It is not the answer I expect.
I lean toward him. “You know of other kinds of stories? About who the Knight is or where he came from?”
Claude runs his hand through his beard. “What does it matter? Will knowing him change what he has done? Will it bring Leah back? Will it save you from the heartache you’ve endured?”
My chest grows tight with grief. “No,” I say. “It will not. But it may keep someone else from having to endure it.”
“Is that your plan, Eve?”
“I have no plan until I know more about him,” I say. “There must be something else about him that we don’t know, something that can help us defeat him.”
Claude’s shoulders roll forward. “There was a woman who lived in Little Stilts when I was a child.”
“Little Stilts?” I ask. “That’s not in Queen’s Bridge.”
“No,” Claude says. “It’s just over the southwestern border, in Hamelin. It’s not a well-known place. I don’t think it can even call itself a proper village. It’s more of a hamlet.”
“So, you haven’t always lived in Queen’s Bridge?” I ask.
“I have,” says Claude. “But my father worked in the mines on the South Steps. I’d accompany him from time to time as my own sons accompany me. One evening, my father was asked to make a delivery, and I went along. His horse died just over the border, and we hiked in the snow to Little Stilts to see about procuring a new one, but by the time we arrived there, a blizzard blew in and we were stranded there for six days.”
“What did you do?” I ask. “Was there an inn?”
“An inn?” Claude huffs out a laugh. “It is a hamlet, my dearest Eve. There wasn’t an inn. There wasn’t a market, a temple, a castle, nothing. I think there may have been fifty people haunting that place.”
My eyebrows push up.
“Figuratively, of course,” Claude says. “They were all much older than my father. Hell, maybe even older than his father. Anyone who was able had long since abandoned the place. At the first door we knocked on seeking shelter there was a man who looked like he’d been freshly buried and had only risen from his grave to cast us a disparaging look and slam that door in our faces.” Claude shifts around in his seat. “We tried another house. A little one-room abode with a green door. A woman answered and ushered us inside. She told us her name was Nerium and that she lived alone. She asked if we were going to hurt her and my father was so offended by the notion he initially asked if I could shelter inside, insisting he would sleep out on the porch.”
“He would have died from the cold,” I say.
Claude nods. “Indeed, he would have. Nerium had a change of heart, and we stayed with her for six days. My father and I cleared the snow from her roof so it wouldn’t collapse, and we were able to uncover her root cellar where she had a winter’s worth of root vegetables and cured meat. She insisted we make sure the residents of Little Stilts had enough food to ration through the storm, so my father and I went door to door. We all ate well, and Nerium told us stories in the evenings.”
My skin pricks up. “Stories?”
Firelight glints in Claude’s eyes. “I am hesitant to tell you this, because I fear I know what you will do with this information.”
“Tell me anyway,” I say.
Claude sighs and nods. “Little Stilts is older than Queen’s Bridge by a hundred years. Most of Nerium’s stories were about the great famine in Hamelin and the roving wolves of Rotterdam, but one black evening she spoke of the Knight. She knew of his treacherous dealings and spit on the floor when she spoke his name, cursing him. She said he was destined to wander these lands because of a blight on his name. She called it his ‘great mistake.’ ”
“What does that mean?” I ask.
“I was eight,” Claude says. “I didn’t think to ask, but it stood out to me because no one ever spoke of the Knight’s mistakes.”
“They still don’t,” I say, as a thought invades my mind.
“I am certain Nerium is dead,” Claude says as he stares at me. “I can see your wheels turning. I’d think that, by now, every person there is dead and buried.”
I’ve already made up my mind about what I mean to do, and I am thinking about what provisions I’ll need.
“The Knight doesn’t make mistakes,” I say. “Never once has anyone even suggested it.”
“How can that fact help us?” Claude asks.
“If he made a mistake,” I say. “That means he is not all knowing, all powerful. It means there is a weakness. I need to know what it is.”
“It is less than a half day’s ride from here,” Claude says. “If you are not back in two days, I will come for you.”
I round the table and put my arms around him. He hugs me tight, then disappears down the hall with Maggie at his heels. The smallest glimmer of hope dances to life inside me. It is here in this very moment that I envision a new possibility—defeating the Knight means I don’t need to stay hidden. I can reclaim Queen’s Bridge and keep it in the hands of a Miller Queen as it has always been. If I can find this weakness in the Knight, I can keep the people of Queen’s Bridge safe and avenge my mother in the process. I can still be her right hand, her fury.
CHAPTER 18
I use the snow as cover on my journey to Little Stilts, wrapping myself in it as the wind whips up around me. Claude had marked a map tracing the route, and as I cross over the southwestern border of Queen’s Bridge and into Hamelin I cannot help but feel that maybe Claude had made a mistake. As I move toward the mark on the map, I only encounter a single pair of riders on horseback. I hear their horses’ calls before I see them and conceal myself in a blanket of snow and shadow as they pass by. When they pass and their voices are out of earshot, I move on.
I’ve seen Little Stilts on maps, its location indicated by a singular black dot. Claude had said it was more of a hamlet than a village, but as I come upon it, I don’t think either description is accurate. There is a single road covered in snow and ice. Only one set of wagon tracks distinguishes it from the surrounding land. In the immediate vicinity there is one house, which looks to be on the verge of collapse. The roof is caved in and there is no front door.
Snow is heaped up in mounds farther down the road. I imagine the remnants of the houses Claude had visited in his boyhood crumbled beneath. I glance at the sky, letting my cloak of snow and ice fall away from me. If I leave now, I can be back to Claude’s by dark.
A hawk soars overhead, and I concentrate, listening to his call. He is hungry, scouting for his prey, and then suddenly he is cautious and changes course to avoid something coming up the road behind me. It is a wagon being towed by a single horse and driver.
The horse makes noises like it’s dying. A strangled whinny, and the driver croaks something unintelligible at it. I listen again. The horse is the oldest living animal I’ve ever come across, and I am stunned it’s able to pull the cart and its small driver. I consider hiding myself, but the driver has already spotted me and brings the horse to a sudden halt.
I hold still, ready to conjure a weapon if need be, but my gut tells me it won’t be necessary.
“You’re lost,” says the driver.
“No,” I say.
The person laughs and gives the reins a little flip. The horse lumbers forward, and the driver pulls up alongside me. I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling. I thought the horse was old, and I was right, but the woman guiding it is older. For a moment I wonder if I have accidentally stepped into a land where the dead walk among the living. The woman is a corpse. Her bare hands grip the reins, and her fingers are like bones wrapped in thin paper. Her face is gaunt, the entire outline of her skull visible beneath skin the texture of worn leather but with none of the softness. Her lips roll inward, like there are no teeth behind them to give her mouth a solid shape.
“Of course you’re lost,” she croaks. “No one who comes here does so of their own free will. Why would they?”
“I’m looking for someone,” I say. It’s not what I actually mean. I’m not looking for the people from Claude’s story who are long dead. I’m looking for the stories they left behind. “I heard of a woman named Nerium. I’m hoping she may have kin in the area?”
The woman narrows her eyes. “No. No kin.”
My heart sinks. “Is there anyone left here who might have known her?”
The woman opens her mouth and lets out the most desperate, wheezing laugh I’ve ever heard. I lean away from her, startled.
“This place is full of ghosts,” the woman says, still chuckling. “Maybe some of them knew her. It’s hard to say.”
I look her over trying to discern if she herself is one of the dead.
“Come with me,” she says suddenly, giving her horse a prodding with a little flick of the reins.
She steers her cart down the snow-laden pathway, and I follow at some distance. I’m hesitant, but I shake my head as I remind myself that this woman looks as if she might already be well on her way to meet her maker. I could easily kill her if she tries anything, but I immediately chastise myself for even thinking it. I didn’t come all the way here to murder an ancient woman in the center of an abandoned hamlet.
The woman turns onto a pathway that leads up to a house set back among a scattering of trees. As I follow her, I study the house—a small single-story abode with a porch that looks as if it may collapse under the weight of the snow. Several of its windows are boarded up, and its front door is flecked in peeling emerald-green paint. I don’t know if I believe in fate, but this may be enough to make me reconsider. Is it possible this is the same house Claude and his father happened upon all those years ago?
The woman lowers herself down from the cart, and I worry the movement will end her. She huffs and sputters and almost loses her balance. I step in to assist her, but she jerks away from me and continues to the front door in silence. Her horse whinnies, sputtering nearly as badly as its owner. I rest my hand on its bony back and feel its voice inside my head. As rough as it looks, the poor thing is still quite lucid, its low hum filling my head.
“Give her a bucket of that feed,” the old woman says as she fumbles to open her door. She extends a knobby finger toward a small basket with a woven lid. I open it and scoop out a mix of dried beans, oats, and fresh hay, and transfer it to a small bucket. The horse’s call nearly turns to singing as I slide it near her.
“Come on, then,” the old woman says as she disappears inside the house.
I set my hand on my dagger and follow her inside. The house is just one room. There is a front door and a smaller rear entrance. A table and two chairs sit in front of the hearth where a black pot hangs from a hook over the dying embers. A neatly made bed stands in the far corner. Her small kitchen is scattered with clay bowls but otherwise tidy.
“You live alone?” I ask.
“Is there any other way to live?” she asks. She sets down a worn leather satchel and lowers herself into one of the chairs at the table. “Sit and tell me why you’ve come.”
I take up the seat across from her. She stares at me, unblinking.
“I know a man who said he came here when he was young,” I say. “He met a woman who lived in a house with a green door. He said her name was Nerium and that she knew something about the Knight.”
The woman’s eyes light up at mention of his name. I keep my hand on the hilt of my dagger. No one should be so eager to hear his name.
“So, you have come to chase ghosts,” the woman says.
“The Knight is not a specter,” I say, leaning my elbow on the table.
The woman shakes her head. “No. But he is something, isn’t he? Something unnatural?”
“I would agree,” I say. “I don’t mean to be rude, but if you didn’t know Nerium and you say she has no kin, I think I may be wasting my time and yours.”
“Not everyone wants a bunch of needy rats clinging to them all the days of their lives,” she says. “Do you know what it would have cost me to bring children into this world? Do you know how much they consume? How much they cry?” She looks disgusted at the thought.
“I wasn’t specifically talking about you,” I say.
The woman draws her lips inward, then sighs. “If you’re talking about Nerium, then you are talking about me.”
“You?” I ask, looking her over once again and trying to assess the passage of time in Claude’s story. “You’re not implying that you are Nerium, are you?”
“It’s the name my mother gave me,” she says. “She named me after a poisonous plant. Pretty but deadly to those around it—in case you were wondering what she thought of me.”
I sit quietly for a moment. There is a question I want to ask, but I cannot bring myself to do it in a way that seems tactful. I decide to leave any pretense behind.
“How old are you? The man who came here as a boy is graying now.” It occurs to me that I don’t know exactly how old Claude is, but I’d say he’d seen fifty winters. “He said Nerium was elderly even when he was a boy.”
The woman visibly cringes. “Longevity runs in my family. Did you come here to ogle at my date of birth or to ask me something?”
I can’t say I believe her at all. Maybe she knew Nerium when she was a girl. There seems to be no one left in this place who would care if she took up another woman’s name, perhaps her home and possessions, too. I decide it doesn’t matter if she can give me the answers I need.
“Nerium,” I say hesitantly. “What can you tell me about the Knight?”
“No,” Nerium says, stiffly.
“No?” I ask, confused.
Nerium shakes her head. “No. I can tell you the same things we all know about him. He’s ruthless, evil incarnate, that the wishes he grants are full of deception and double meanings.”
“I know all that already,” I say.
“Exactly,” Nerium says. “So, what is it you really want to ask me?”
“No one can stand against him,” I say. “Not unless we learn something new about him. Something that can help us strike at the heart of who or what he really is.”
“Ahhhh,” Nerium says, her voice wet and gurgling. “Another collector of stories.” She readjusts herself in her seat and stares across the table at me. The embers in the fire suddenly leap into flames and wash the room in an orange glow. “What did you say your name was?” she asks.
“I didn’t,” I say. I extend my hand toward the flame and the fire arcs out, gathering in my hand and forming itself into a short dagger of red-hot flames. I hope my meaning is clear.
Nerium rests back in her chair, and the fire settles. I allow the weapon to dissolve.
“The Knight is unstoppable,” Nerium says. “But that is only what he wants us to believe. He has been bested but only once.”
I lean forward, my heart ticking up. Claude’s words echo in my head. “His great mistake.”
Nerium nods. “The details of this defeat are scant. I believe someone in my line was there as the events transpired, though I cannot say who. The broken pieces of the tale have trickled down to me.”
“Tell me,” I say.
Nerium clasps her hands together in front of her. “The Knight’s great mistake involved a young girl. She made a wish to him and he granted it, but somehow …” Nerium trails off for a moment, and I stay silent as she pulls the story from her mind. “This young girl bested him. She found a way to circumvent his deal, and he became so enraged that he vowed to curse her but she never again wished to him. She never allowed herself or her children to wish to him. It’s said he went even more mad than he already was. He almost destroyed himself in his fit of anger. Beaten at his own terrible game by a young girl? I think he could not live with himself after that.” Nerium sighs and clears her throat. “But he still lives, so I think he has made his entire life about righting that wrong done to him.”
“He has never been bested,” I say. “Never.”
“You’re wrong,” Nerium says. “And you should be glad that you are. You wear whatever grief he has caused you like a prisoner wears a shackle. Now you know he’s been outdone once in his miserable existence, perhaps you can make lightning strike twice.” Her gaze moves from my hand to the fire and back again.
This is what I came here for, and still it is another incomplete story. I press my hand into the table. “That cannot be all there is.”
“I’m sure it is not, but that is all I have to say on the matter,” Nerium says.
“Do you know of anyone who might have more to tell?” I ask.
Nerium tilts her head to the side, and as she inhales, the air rattles inside her chest. “I’m sure there are others who collect stories. You’re not the first to ask about the Knight’s great mistake, but something tells me you may be the last.”
“Do you always talk in riddles?” I ask, as I push back my chair and stand.
Nerium says nothing but smiles a nearly toothless grin.
I leave Nerium at the table and mount my horse outside. As I ride away from the house with the green door, I look back only once to see Nerium standing on the front step, her arms folded across her chest, a wicked smile on her mouth.
CHAPTER 19
I ride straight to Claude’s and collapse on the mat in my room. I sleep into the next morning and awaken on the ninth day after my mother’s death. The boys still slumber, and while Claude snores in his room, I dress and go to the potted plant that hides the shard of the mirror in its soil.
I never moved it to a faraway place in the surrounding forest as I’d intended. I pretend that it is because I have been preoccupied with other things, but I know that is just the lie I tell myself to justify keeping the pot with its buried treasure close to me. I need to know if Nova is trying to call out to me. I’ve considered digging it up a hundred times, knowing it’s not the right thing to do, knowing the risks. But as my fingers press into the dirt and find the shard of magic mirror wrapped in cloth, I feel a sense of relief. Perhaps Nova will be there. If I could just talk to him, hear his voice, maybe it would calm this terrible sense of restlessness that has settled over me in the days since my mother died. I need to ask him if he knows about the Knight’s great mistake, if there is anything he can add.
