“She told me, the tree woman, that when you awoke, I too would be forever changed.”
A great wheeze shatters his words to pieces. I wait for the coughing to stop, for him to continue to form the truth I am so afraid to hear.
Suddenly, my father’s rasping voice is drowned out not by his cough but by the jarring clang of bells. Loud, discordant peals of bell-song flood through the open window, unleashed like the braying of hunting dogs onto the sleeping city.
I sit up and rush to the window. Hasty lights flicker on in lamps and upper windows all across my narrow view. The deep gongs of bells from the church and the many towers of Wolfspire Hall roll across the night air for what feels like an eternity, soon joined by confused cries. These aren’t melodic bells calling us to services or heralding a feast day. Not in the dead of night.
The frantic drumming of footsteps up the back stair signals the arrival of Bran. He stands in the doorway, out of breath, eyes like golden torches.
“What is it? The bells?”
“The Margrave,” Bran says, his lips narrowing to a hard line. “There are criers in the streets. The Margrave is dead.”
My mouth drops open.
“They say the duke has announced a period of mourning for the city.”
“Of course he has,” I mutter, turning back to the window and the oppressive ardor of the bells, which have not let up.
Nan was right. Change is coming. I just saw the Margrave earlier today; he didn’t have a chance to proclaim who would take the seat at Wolfspire Hall after him. What will become of the proclamation about his heir? I haven’t yet had the chance to tell Papa what the Margrave said about his two sons.
“Is Gep sleeping?”
“No one could sleep in this bedlam.”
“No, Piro, I mean …” Bran’s voice fades away.
I turn back to my father. His eyes are closed and I know right away because his hands are finally still. His chest has ceased its valiant labor. What no tea or medicine or moonlight could bring him, death has. He is at peace.
I will never get to hear the rest of his story, to know what it was that I cost him, beyond a few drops of blood and some harvested wood. The Margrave has taken even that away from me.
Something in me begins to sink, like a stone cast into a well, and I drop to my knees at his bedside. All I can feel is the drowning, the bottomless depths surrounding a stone hurtling through water. There is no ground here, not anymore.
The bells toll on, and in my heart, I know they are not just signaling the end of the old Margrave of Tavia. They are also singing the end of Gephardt Leiter, the puppetmaster.
CHAPTER 12
BRAN SAT WITH ME AFTER PAPA DIED, LONG AFTER THE BELLS faded, the dawn still ringing with their echoes. He wrapped me in his arms and I cried until I was hollow, my eyes soaking the front of his shirt. When I finally came downstairs, I could only feel grateful not to be alone to do the things one must do to say goodbye.
Benito alerts the church cleric about my father’s passing and later that day, a rough wooden coffin is delivered to Curio. I despair at having to release Papa to such a simple box, the same provided for every poor soul when their time comes—unless their family opts for one of Nan’s special funerary urns—but I haven’t the time nor the wood to make him the casket he deserves. If I had my way, I would bury him in something intricately carved and beautifully constructed. Something befitting a woodworker and puppetmaster such as he.
We wash and dress my father in his best suit of clothes, arranging him carefully in the plain chest he will rest in from now on. It’s strangely like dressing one of the Margrave’s wooden men, his body having quickly become a stiff mimic of its former self. It doesn’t bother me quite as much as I might have thought to see him this way. It’s obvious he isn’t really in there anymore, in that brittle, shrinking frame.
The Sorens arrive at noon, bringing food, even though it has been growing ever more precious, especially for their large family. The rest of the Maker’s Guild comes too, bearing gifts. One by one, down in the workshop behind the storefront, they tuck items around Papa that he would have cherished.
From Tiffin’s forge, a long carpenter’s nail, as thick as a man’s finger, on whose head is branded a woodland scene of tiny trees.
“Tiff,” I gasp, running my fingers along the miniature design. “It’s beautiful. How did you manage it?”
He shrugs shyly. “Something new I’ve been trying. Gep gave me the idea for it.”
From Nan comes a small pot of jam; she crafted both the container and the goods. She makes each of us dip a spoon in and taste a bite before she tucks the small vessel into one of his suit pockets. “It was Gep’s favorite.” She sniffs.
With the sour-sweet tang of currants on our tongues, we watch Fonso place a little doll into my father’s other pocket. Her glass-jointed arms and legs betray that she’s a puppet,.
“I just thought—” His voice breaks. “I thought the puppetmaster, he might like to have a little reminder of his work with him. I know it’s not as good as he would’ve done, but …”
“It’s wonderful, Fonso. He would have loved it,” I assure him through my tears. And he would have. It’s exquisite.
From Anke and Emmitt, a restored pocket watch, polished and refitted with a sturdy brass chain that Anke coils lovingly on my father’s chest.
I realize that in the hurry of preparations, along with the chaos of the Margrave’s passing, I haven’t yet shared the news of what the Margrave
