There was one matter I had not wanted to admit.
Perhaps I had been a little snooty and mean to scorn hard work. There are things I didn’t see at twelve that I understood at seventeen.
I thought of these things, standing in the clean but lived-in kitchen, while Celestina took a match from a tin box and struck it, briefly releasing the stink of sulfur, and touched the match to a candle wick. I followed her down narrow steps to the dark cellar full of jars and crocks and boxes, with apples and pears neatly placed not to touch each other, all the fruits of her summer labors.
For a moment, she stood with a hand to her hip, directing the candlelight across glass jars that gleamed at the attention. “Blueberries, blackberries, raspberries,” she said. “We still have more apples to put up, but they’re almost there. Not many cherries this year, but peaches, and quince and crabapple jelly.”
“Do you do all of this yourself and take care of Violet too?” I hadn’t seen evidence of any other servants in the vast house.
She shrugged slightly. “There’s Lean Joe. He chops the wood and tends the grounds, and people don’t rob the place because he’s here, but I don’t see much of him. He’s the sort of old man who keeps to himself. And we send out the laundry. But people don’t want to work for Mr. Valdana. Hence the dust in the parlor.”
Finally, I could ask the burning question while remaining prudent. “I noticed he isn’t popular in town. Is it because he’s a sorcerer?”
“It’s not just that,” she said. She glanced back at the cellar door and started walking toward the light, as if she did not wish to discuss these things in the darkness. “I was five or six when he came back. They thought, for a long time, that he had died in the fairy war. I remember the stories about how he came home with a baby girl and his wife’s body, still looking half dead himself, and how his mother wept that he had come home. She died not long after his return, and that didn’t help the rumors either.”
My heart began to beat faster. The fairy war. That was where it had all began, where Erris had been turned from flesh and blood to clockwork.
She cut a slab of blueberry bread and offered it to me, then cut another for herself. “He was one of the sorcerers in the fairy war,” she said.
“I guess that when he left he didn’t trust fairies, like just about anyone else,” she continued. “He was such a great sorcerer at such a young age, people thought he would take care of everything.” She bit her lip. “That’s what my mother used to say. And then, he didn’t. He disappeared right in the middle of everything, because he had fallen in love with a fairy princess.”
“Oh,” I said. “That’s very… romantic.”
Celestina was slightly flushed. “It is, really. But no one around here thought so. I guess they were upset that their great hero fled the scene. They forgave him when they thought he was dead or kidnapped. But when he showed up again, the truth came out. At least a little. They thought he was a traitor.”
I wondered how she had come to work here. “You must have been scared of him.”
“I was, at first, just because that’s how everyone talked! But not anymore. No, when I came to work for him I was very apprehensive, but he’s a good man and he never avoided looking me in the face, but he never stared either.” She touched the mottled skin. “It was an accident with a lantern when I was fourteen.”
She made a little dismissive sniff as if to dispel the heavy mood. “So, it’s hard work here, but I’m happy. I have the run of the place, and it’s lovely. I’m glad he pays to send the laundry out, of course.”
I smiled. “Me too, if I’m to stay until spring.”
“So… Erris is… a clockwork man? What does it mean, exactly?”
“It means that his face and hands look real, but under his clothes his body is just… metal armature.” I could never explain without a horrified shiver sliding down my back. I couldn’t imagine being in his position. I couldn’t imagine what we would do if we couldn’t fix it. “Every night the clockwork winds down. And every morning, he must be wound.”
She was silent a moment. “The poor man. I don’t know how Mr. Valdana could possibly help him, but I hope he can.”
Celestina stood and took my empty plate. The bread had been delicious, giving me slight sympathy for Violet’s chagrin. “Shall we see how Violet and Erris are doing?” she said, and turned to the kitchen door. The white paint on the doorframe was full of thin scratches, which I guessed came from the gray tomcat sitting contentedly at the window.
We retraced our steps to the lawn. Ahead, Erris stood up and approached us. “I should find food for Violet while the sun is high,” he said. “Do you have a basket?”
Celestina ducked back into the kitchen and produced one.
“Violet should stay outside until I return,” he said. “Violet, if you get cold, ask Celestina for another blanket. I’ll be back.”
He smiled at me, and then turned to the woods, without the invitation I was hoping for. He wanted to be alone. I understood that, but it hurt me deeply all the same.
Celestina didn’t want to leave Violet outside by herself, and she sat down beside her. I didn’t want to listen to the girl prattle about her mother and how pretty she was.
“Do you mind if I explore the grounds?” I asked.
“Not at all,” Celestina said. “When Erris returns, I’ll show you to the guest rooms.”
The forest here felt very old, from the moment I stepped beneath the shade of the trees. The ground was carpeted in leaves and forest debris; I imagined it went down into the earth forever, centuries upon centuries of woods shedding their skin. But I didn’t look closely. I was too weary and lonely to look for birds or berries. This ancient place felt indifferent to my pain, which was an odd comfort-as if everything I felt was inconsequential.
I did not roam too far or too deep. I was afraid I might get lost, and besides, I didn’t know if there were wild animals here, or suspicious neighbors whose land I might stumble onto. I kept the great stone house in view.
I didn’t mean to come upon Erris, but once I spotted him, it felt rude not to greet him. I hoped he didn’t think I followed him, as if I needed his company. He was gathering nuts into a basket already full of greens and a few berries.
“I found some mushrooms back there, but they wouldn’t tell me if they were poisonous.”
I suppressed a smile. “Do mushrooms talk?”
“They don’t really talk. You just know. It’s very strange now. My connection to everything feels broken. Maybe it’s just because I was trapped indoors for so long. Maybe it will come back.”
“Yes,” I said. But mushrooms never had and never would talk to me.
“Still, it’s a good thing I came along,” he continued. “Celestina seems nice, but she clearly doesn’t know how to take care of a fairy. And Violet is so much like Mel.”
“She isn’t Mel, though,” I pointed out. Perhaps I shouldn’t point that out-perhaps he was trying his best to pretend she truly was his sister. But it seemed that thought could lead to nowhere favorable.
“We were all pretty spoiled,” he continued, like I hadn’t said anything. “I know I did a lot of ridiculous things. I was telling Violet how Mel was so fussy about her hair. She used to put it up in pins at night so the front part that fell over her ears would curl. That was how the human girls wore it, and I thought it made her look like one of those dogs with the floppy ears, but she insisted.” He made a thoughtful sound, not quite a laugh.
“I wonder how she died,” he said. “I didn’t want to ask. I guess she made it through the war after all, but…”
“Maybe she just got sick,” I said.
“Or she was heartbroken,” he said. “Because she thought we were all dead.”
“She had Ordorio.”
“Yes, but…”
“But I guess that’s not enough if her family was all dead,” I said, losing my grip on my emotions. “I’m sure your family was wonderful… and you sound like you were all very close and happy… and I guess nothing will ever be enough now that they’re gone. I can never…”
“No, it’s not that,” he began, but I could tell he was only saying it because I was starting to cry. I bit my lip hard and shook my head quickly.
“I’m sorry, Nim,” Erris said. “I don’t mean to imply… It’s just… I never even knew my family had died until I woke up as an automaton and all those years had passed. Well, maybe I knew in a deep-down way, the same way I
