much too well, he was sure.
Lord Godefroy drew himself up. He checked his shoes, even knowing it was unnecessary, then went back inside the house. He opened the door this time, too. Old habits.
In the stillness of the stables, the lantern's flame faded away. It grew very, very cold.
The candles came to life in the dining hall as he came through the doorway. He walked up to the table where the paper and envelope lay and reached down for them with a quick hand.
He froze. Ashes. The candle by the letter had fallen over as it had melted. The flame had consumed the paper, lightly scorching the tablecloth below. The letter was just ashes now.
He stared, then touched the ashes with a pale fingertip. They crumbled.
That was that, then. He'd never know. Still. .
He left the hall, walking thoughtfully toward his study. He knew what he had to do. As is given, so return. Repay a blow in equal coin. Look for a gift in the market where a giver found his gift for you. Lord Godefroy's study held dozens of papers and letters collected over the years of his new life at Gryphon Hill. It would be simple to find the guilty party with logic and deduction. It could be anyone. But he had the time for the hunt. He had lots of time.
He passed a window looking out over his estate, gave it a glance as he slowed. Moonlight fell across the grounds, the leafless trees lost in frigid autumn, the low hill not far away.
He looked at the hilltop. No sign of the cemetery. No trace of where Estelle and Amanda's coffins lay, their contents long devoured by worms, returned to the filth from which they'd been born. Not even the moon would shine there. All was right with the world.
He walked through the double doors to his study, knowing they were locked and lacking the patience just now to be proper. The lantern was lit. All was still. He walked to his desk and quickly began to shuffle through a sheaf of old papers he pulled from a drawer. He turned around with the papers in his hand and saw the history book on the tea table, fallen open.
Forgot to put it up, he thought, then remembered that he had.
He looked up at the bookshelf beyond in the lantern light. The space where he had placed the book was empty. But there had been the shadow, and he had not finished the job.
Something moved in the corner of his eye.
'What. . 'he said, and spun on his heel to see if something had crept up behind him. With a mixture of rage and dread, his dark eyes searched the room. The papers were clutched to his breast like a shield.
It was nothing. The whore and her daughter were back, perhaps. But he was still the lord of his estate.
He put his papers aside and reached out for his book. His eyes fell on the open pages, looked down at the passage there.
. . Before he breathe last, the Squire speak of the great Screams that break the Darkness as the Daemons begin their work on the Lord, in the lonely Halls of his own Castle. And of these Screams the Squire hear no end, even in his Dreams. .
Something scratched at a windowpane behind him.
He whirled and saw the closed double doors.
The scratching came again, fainter now. From the hall beyond.
Lord Godefroy slowly closed the book, without looking down at it. He frowned in silence at the doors.
This had all happened before. More than once. It seemed that it was dreadfully important to him that he remember why it kept happening.
He left the book lying on the table by his chair. Adhering to tradition, he walked over, still staring at the doors. He carefully unlocked and opened them.
The dark hall beyond was empty. Moonlight crept in through the tall, old windows.
The scratching sound, from the same window as before.
It would seem that he hadn't finished the job of killing the briar. He was getting senile after all, even in this new sort of life that wasn't quite life, in a body that wasn't quite a body.
But he was still lord of Gryphon Hill. He still had the Touch.
As was proper, he walked down the hallway to the window, peered out until he saw a pale branch swing close, then stepped forward and put his hand through the streaked glass window. He caught the branch.
It was not a branch. It was an arm like ice.
Something white floated into view behind the glass and fluttered in the moonlight. He let go — too late.
Freezing cold hands clamped down on his wrist and drove nails of ice into his now-solid flesh.
He screamed with the shock of pain he had not felt in years uncounted. He flailed his arm to dislodge the clawed apparition. White fingers gripped his arm, fingers attached to bare, translucent arms.
A face came up to the window.
The face was dead. Its wide eyes were frozen open, and its black hair crackled as it pressed against the dirty glass, as if it had been walking a long time in the cold on its way down the low hill where the moonlight never fell.
Lord Godefroy howled like a wild animal. He fell back, staggering, and struck the far wall of the hallway.
He pulled the face and the body behind it through the window as he did. Its claws dug into the bones of his arm. Its wide, frozen eyes silently drank him in as the mouth opened, a black wound on a face like a snowfield.
Wilfred, said the face as he screamed.
He threw himself forward, trying to push it all back through the window. He beat at the fingers that gripped him. He swung his arm to knock the fingers off against the windowpanes. His other arm passed close by the windowpanes.
Something grabbed that other arm, the iron grip tearing old flesh. Something pulled itself into the hall as he struggled back, placed blue lips to Lord Godefroy's ear.
I hate you, it said. Its cold breath blew worms and grave rot over Lord Godefroy's fine black jacket and ruffled shirt. The lord of Gryphon Hill saw its white eyes next to his own, set in a face of cold blue stone, and he screamed and screamed and screamed, until his screaming was all there was in the universe.
Wilfred. One pulled him toward his study.
I hate you. The other pushed.
He was in his study. Four cold arms brought him to his chair. His limbs flailed. He kicked his feet at them, striking nothing, helpless as wood in a vice. Their touch made him solid. His new body was just like his old. It couldn't fly. It couldn't fade through the chair. It ached. It bruised. It was cold, cold, cold. And his Touch was gone.
They forced him down in his chair. The small, dead blue face mouthed words as it levered his right arm down against the arm of his favorite chair. Only one word issued from the black mouth of the dead white face as it pressed his other arm down as well. It was terribly easy. They had done this many times before.
In the depths of madness, Lord Godefroy now remembered the first time this had happened, ages ago, the night he had killed his wife and child. Then it all happened again, the night after that, then all the nights after that, on forever, until he escaped them at last by drinking bitter herbs he bought from the apothecary, falling into his last sleep in this very chair. The next day he had his new body and new powers while the powerless old body was buried far, far away, and he came back to Gryphon Hill to rule again. He had been free, free, free!
That freedom had lasted one day.
Estelle and Amanda came back that night, unstoppable. And they were back the night after that. And the night after that. It was too much to live with, even in death, and his mind was gone from trying to block it out.
A cold, foul breeze brushed his face. He opened his eyes for a moment. It was the wrong thing to do.
The dead faces were against his own. Their breath washed over him, suffocating him with rot. He was beyond remembering that he didn't need to breathe.
But he did remember what came next. He always did.
His mind fled. He screamed. It was a new sound, a great magnitude louder than before. It was not the scream of a lord or master or god. It was an animal's scream when it knows of an unspeakable thing and is joined to that thing forever, without end, without escape.
Dead lips touched the skin on his face. Cold teeth would touch next.
Estelle and Amanda had missed dinner ages ago.
