“Then I’m leaving. Give me my bag.”
“You’re in no condition to go anywhere.”
My legs were nearly steady. My mind clear. “I can manage.”
“I’m sure you think you can, but there’s too much you don’t know. Not yet anyway.”
Anger churned in my gut. “So tell me,” I said, and probably more harshly than I should, but I’d had my fill of her nonsense.
“All right,” she relented. “I know you have questions, but I can’t answer them here. What I can say is I believe you’re in danger if you leave this castle. If you stay, I can protect you.”
“From what?”
She closed her eyes, but only for a moment. When she looked at me again, she was as somber as I had ever seen her.
“I fear whatever attacked you will do so again. And that’s my fault. I should have prepared you. I’ve already wasted too much time.”
“But how? I haven’t done anything.”
Another crow screamed out across the Slopes, and then a dozen or more rose from the grove’s dense canopy. Mrs. Crossey watched them with obvious alarm. “We must go. You will be safer in the castle until we sort it out.”
I held my ground. “But I can’t go back, even if I wanted to. Not after what happened. Mr. MacDougall must be furious. He won’t take me back.”
She scoffed and shook her head. “Never mind about Mr. MacDougall. It’s not for him to decide.”
~ ~ ~
At my bedroom door, I listened before turning the knob and gave thanks for the silence within. No voices, no footfalls, nothing to indicate Marlie lurked within.
If she’d finished her errand, she was probably back in the kitchen, and for that I was relieved. Questions were the last thing I wanted to face just now. About Mr. MacDougall’s summons, about my absence from the kitchen, and certainly about the carpet bag on my arm that was holding every one of my few worldly possessions.
I just wanted to be alone.
After closing the door behind me, I hung my coat from a peg and dropped my bag into the wardrobe Marlie and I shared. I fell onto my bed in an exhausted and bewildered heap, still at a loss to explain what had happened beyond the castle wall.
A fairy tale about secret protectors in the castle? Guardians disguised as servants? It was utter madness.
Then to be attacked by a tree? I wouldn’t—couldn’t—have believed it if I hadn’t awakened from that swoon with dirty streaks along my skirt and the smudges along my sleeves and gloves where the root had coiled around me like a snake.
I would have thought it a bad vision, but I’d never seen anything like those eyes in a vision before. Not a face, not a body—just piercing reptilian eyes that not only saw me but seemed to see all of me. My thoughts, my feelings, my fears. Everything.
I know you.
Had I imagined those words or had someone spoken them? I couldn’t remember.
And what of Mrs. Crossey? Nearly as terrifying as those eyes was seeing genuine fear on her face. I might have suspected it was a ruse if I hadn’t known, even in all that confusion, that she had been the one to free me from whatever that was.
What had she used? A golden charm? A talisman of some sort? My wits were so muddled it was impossible to know for sure.
Maybe I didn’t know anything for sure.
Yet here I was. Back in the castle. Back in this stark, little room with two narrow beds, one plain wardrobe, and a slender window that looked out over the outside world. My safety had seemed to be Mrs. Crossey’s primary concern, but it couldn’t be her only one. She had intended to stop me from leaving and here I was.
I punched my pillow and threw it against the wall. Perhaps it was a mistake to return. But even now, despite the doubts and regrets, a part of me believed her.
She had said I would be protected within these walls. But from what?
More images flooded back. Red tendrils twisting around my wrist, my elbow, my shoulder. My whole arm trapped by a powerful… not heat or cold, but both at once. A feeling like a thousand angry ants marching along my limb. I’d watched, frozen and afraid, as those smoky tendrils devoured my arm. Unable to move. Unable to do anything.
Grabbing the pillow again, I pressed it to my face, closed my eyes, and screamed.
I opened my eyes and the vision faded. But it returned the instant I closed them again. Feral, snakelike eyes closing in.
My heart thundered in my chest.
Mrs. Crossey had said I could lose control of my visions. Was this what she meant?
I jumped from my bed and dashed to my carpet bag. I plunged my hand down between the folded frocks and petticoats until I felt it: my memory box.
I dropped to the floor and balanced the old tea caddy on my lap. After tugging off one glove, I trailed my fingertips over the smooth edges, the faded image of the curly haired girl. Then I raised the hinged lid, revealing the treasures inside.
Hard, determined footsteps rattled the corridor and stopped me. I shut the box and shoved it back into my bag before the room’s door flew open.
“What happened? Are you leaving?”
It was Marlie, breathless and confused as she stared at me, her eyes darting around the room for some evidence. Finding none, she pushed back a few blond strands that had come loose from her kitchen bonnet. Her flour-caked fingers left a powdery streak across her cheek.
“Of course not. Why would you think so?” I shoved the bag into the wardrobe and closed the door. “Shouldn’t you be in the kitchen?”
“Shouldn’t you? That’s what Mrs. Crossey…” Her voice trailed off, and her eyes went wide as she noticed my dirty skirt and arms. “What happened to you?”
I stared down at the stains. “I fell.”
Why was she so curious? She’d never taken an interest
