There is a dressing table in another corner, but there’s nothing on top of it, nothing but a silver-backed brush and a hand-mirror. No makeup or jewellery; this is guest bedroom, kept for any visitors who might pass by. There are signs of it being hastily (badly) dusted.
Against one wall is a wardrobe in rose mahogany. When I open it there’s not much there, but three long skirts, one black, one ochre, one blue, and three white blouses, simple unadorned damask things; two pairs of delicate silk slippers embroidered and embellished with beads also wait. I can only imagine the blonde woman put them here as I slept; they must be scrounged from my mother’s wardrobe. In the bottom of the robe is a drawer containing a range of underthings, about my size, in red silk. I’ve never seen anything like this; I’m astonished Aoife hadn’t thought to purchase such items for my wedding night.
The thought of my grandmother, of what I’ve left behind, sobers me. Then comes the idea that perhaps someone rummaged about in my duffel while I slept. Perhaps they found the bloody clothing. I stop breathing for a moment as I cast around for the bag. But there it is, lying on a blanket box at the foot of the bed.
I open it up: everything is as I left it, nothing out of place. I draw things out until I reach the shirt and trousers stained with the green-eyed man’s blood. Things I could have dealt with on the road, but for all my satisfaction at his death I haven’t been ready to look at these them until now. At the hearth, I crouch down, take the tinder box and charcloth and kindle a new fire. When the blaze is hearty and crackling, I feed it the collar of the shirt, bit by bit until it’s properly ablaze before I put it into the fireplace. The fabric smoulders a little but is gradually consumed. Next the trousers; they take longer, yet eventually they too are gone. I stare at the flames for a while longer, thinking that in them is an end. An end to everything I left behind. I can but hope.
In the bathroom, I run a bath. I add oils and salts, find shampoo. I stay in there a long time. And when I am at last clean, I brush out my hair and then dry it as best I can with a towel. Finally, I choose the blue skirt and one of the blouses, and make my way downstairs.
* * *
‘Miren!’
Locating the small lilac-painted breakfast parlour where my new uncle is just finishing his repast was easy. The path I took last night in darkness and half-sleep has embedded itself in my mind. This place has none of the twists and turns of Hob’s Hallow, where a stranger might wander for hours without a guide. But Blackwater is well-lit, carefully laid out; it makes sense.
‘How lovely you look! Nelly chose well from your mother’s wardrobe.’ Nelly. The blonde woman. ‘Miren, my dear. I would have had a tray taken up, but we weren’t sure when you would wake.’ Edward looks pleased to see me as he rises from his seat at the head of the table, then enfolds me in a hug. ‘Won’t you join me? I was about to start the business of the estate, but that can wait. Absolutely!’
‘Breakfast would be wonderful, thank you.’ I take the chair he pulls out for me, so I am at his right hand. The porcelain clock over the mantle says it’s almost ten – late for breakfast, I think. He pours me coffee then rings a bell, sits beside me. ‘Uncle, I do not wish to appear rude, but might I ask where my parents have gone?’
He smiles and laughs. ‘Not rude at all. A natural question. They have travelled to Calder.’
The very name makes my heart jump. Calder in the Dark Lands where the Leech Lords hold sway; Maura would tell me tales of such vampires when I was being particularly brattish. Edward continues. ‘Not an ideal destination, no, but we have been having problems with production – those Lords are experts on the extraction of silver. Calder has its own mines and your parents – after much deliberation – decided to make an entreaty to the ruler there, to see if they might have some solutions to our... barrenness.’
‘How long has this situation been going on?’ I ask. My mind goes back to Calder, to what a desperate move that is, to beseech the Leech Lords for aid. Few journey willingly or otherwise to the Dark Lands, and fewer still return. The borders and gateways are guarded, warded so the vampires cannot cross over.
‘It’s just over three months since they left. Your father, my brother, asked me to come and assist during their absence. Help keep the estate ticking over, and ensure that Ena is well looked after.’
‘Ena?’
‘Your little sister, Miren,’ he explains.
‘I – I have a sister?’ That hits me like cold water. They left me behind, replaced me with a new child. Isolde is… well, she was sixteen when she had me, now she’s what? Thirty-four, thirty-five? Not too old to have another baby. No others in between us – perhaps this one’s an accident too?
My uncle’s expression clouds with concern. ‘Have you not heard much from your parents over the years? Surely they—’
‘I have heard nothing,’ I say and my voice breaks a little. ‘My grandparents... my grandparents told me Isolde and Liam were dead. It is only in the last month that I learned otherwise.’
His lips move but no sound comes out. He’s horrified. Then he manages, ‘My poor girl.’
I cannot bear to tell him that I was left behind. Cannot bear for him to know that I was so easy to abandon. So unwanted. And for a
