Shanaia inhaled sharply. It clearly stung.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Aunt Isa said quietly. “But…”
“I know,” Shanaia said through clenched teeth. “I know.”
However, the strange thing was that despite her injuries and the pain, she looked better than she had when I first entered the drawing room. The lost and resigned expression had gone. Her eyes had come alive once more.
“Thank you for saving me,” I said. “I wouldn’t have made it up the stairs without you.”
She didn’t exactly smile, but she did nod.
“Hey, what about us?” Oscar said. “We saved you too.”
“Yes, of course you did. Thank you so much.”
“How very charming,” The Nothing suddenly jeered in Chimera’s voice. “But I see that you still haven’t got the message.”
We turned as one to The Nothing, still lying on the floor with her legs in the air, but obviously useable as Chimera’s mouthpiece all the same. At that moment there was a loud crash from one of the three tall windows in the drawing room. I only caught a brief glimpse of a large, white body, then it was gone and only a bloody imprint remained on the window pane. Then the next seagull attacked. Another crash. And the next. It wasn’t until the sixth seagull’s attempt that the window shattered and a shower of large and small shards of glass rained down on the rug.
The seagulls made no attempt to get inside. Their mission seemed purely to break the glass. And they didn’t stop until all three windows lay shattered on the floor and the winter wind howled through the bloodstained, jagged holes.
“You have one hour to find my book,” Chimera’s voice said. “Then the sisters will come for you.”
CHAPTER 19
The Blank Book
“Chimera!” Aunt Isa said in a very loud voice. “How much is that book worth to you?”
A pause followed. I don’t think Chimera had intended for The Nothing to act as a communications channel, merely a link in the chain of command. She would speak, we would obey. That was more what she’d had in mind.
“We don’t know which book you’re talking about,” Aunt Isa then said and picked a random volume from the bookcase. “Could it be this one?”
Chimera still made no reply, but The Nothing sat up with a jerk, possibly so that Chimera could borrow her eyes just like the Raven Mothers would borrow those of the ravens. Aunt Isa flicked indifferently through the book.
“Hmmm,” she said. “It doesn’t look all that interesting. I guess it’s not the one.” She tossed it into the flames in the fireplace, which flattened at first from the air pressure and then shot up again, taller than before. She took another book.
“So what about this one? Yes? No? Don’t know?” She did the same thing again – leafing through it before tossing it onto the flames – and then reached for a third book.
“Wait!” The Nothing croaked in Chimera’s voice. “Wait…”
“What does it look like?” Aunt Isa said. “Is it green – like this one?” She chucked yet another book onto the flames.
I just watched with my mouth hanging open. What was my aunt doing? Didn’t she realize that the only person who could get us out of this trap was Chimera? Did she really think it was a smart move to make her even angrier than she already was?
“Or red?”
“Brown,” The Nothing said, and this time she sounded more like herself. “It’s brown with a kind of wheel on the spine and on the cover…” She pointed with her wing. “It’s somewhere on that bookcase.”
Oscar jumped up and immediately began pulling all the brown books off the shelves to see if one featured a wheel. If it didn’t, it ended up on the floor with a crash. Within fifteen to twenty seconds, there was almost the same number of discarded books at his feet, but he carried on until there were no more brown books left in the bookcase.
“It’s not here,” he said at length. “There are books about birds and mushrooms and fairy tales and stars, but not one of them has a wheel on its spine or on its cover.”
“Let the witch child look,” Chimera’s voice said irritably. “If she can’t find it, you’re all as useless as that ball of feathers.”
“Why is that book so important to you?” Aunt Isa asked, more quietly now that Chimera had started listening and responding.
“That’s none of your business, Isa. It’s important because you can save your lives by finding it and reading it to me. That’s why.”
I had squatted down next to the messy pile of books on the floor. Oscar was right. Books about birds, mushrooms…
No. Wait. Wasn’t that…
Yes. A brown book with something which, with a bit of goodwill, could be a wheel or at least a circle with a kind of cross inside it.
“Is this it?” I asked, holding it up.
“What does it say inside?” Chimera asked.
I opened it and was just about to start reading, but Aunt Isa stopped me.
“Wait,” she said. “I’m not at all sure that we should tell Chimera what it says.”
“Would you rather die, Isa? Would you rather see your three little apprentices die? It would take less than half an hour before there would be nothing but a few scraps of flesh left on their bones. Would you like to see the bones of the witch child? I can tell the sisters to save you for last, so you don’t miss anything.”
It was mind-boggling to hear such threats come out of the mouth of a clumsy, sneezing little feather duster like The Nothing. In contrast to her sisters out on the landing it was quite hard to be scared of her. It should have followed that anything she said would be equally unfrightening, but it wasn’t. On the contrary. I could feel the hairs stand up at the back of my neck. And just about everywhere else, to be honest.
I was still holding the book. It wasn’t a big, heavy book like a bible or an encyclopedia, more a kind of notebook, bound in cracked time-worn leather. Old. Proper old. Somehow I could feel it.
“If you don’t want me to read it…” I began, but Aunt Isa stopped me with a gesture.
“Why should we trust you?” she challenged Chimera. “You’re an outlaw. You have no honour. And you’ve tricked us before. How do we know that you’ll keep your word this time? If I’m going to die anyway, I would rather feed the book to the fire and know that at least I thwarted your plan.”
“You’re such a goody two shoes, Isa,” Chimera said. “Always so prim and proper, always so righteous. Don’t you ever yearn for more? Are you really happy living in a crumbling shack in the middle of nowhere, spending all your time treating lice-infested hedgehogs and crook-winged sparrows?”
“Yes,” said Aunt Isa simply. “I live just the way I want to.”
“Is that all you want?” Chimera snarled. “Is that really all you want? Still, if it makes you happy, it’s no skin off my nose. You may go back to your insignificant little life. And take your hangers-on with you.”
“Do you swear?” Aunt Isa said. “Do you swear by blood and by life, by cunning and by caprice, by strength and by seed? Do you swear by everything you are, everything you have been, and everything you will be? Do you swear?”
There was a touch of wildsong in those words, and I suddenly understood that Aunt Isa was demanding more than a promise. It was a pledge. A pledge in which the spoken words bound the speaker’s will so that she really couldn’t break her promise, even if she tried.
“You think you’re oh-so clever, eh?” said The Nothing in Chimera’s voice. Aunt Isa made no reply. She merely took the book from my hands and held it over the flames.
“Very well,” Chimera said. “If it means so much to you. When you have fulfilled your part of the deal and everything has been revealed, I swear that everyone in this room is free to leave and that nothing here will harm you. This I swear, by blood and by life, by cunning and by caprice, by strength and by seed, by everything I am, everything I have been, and everything I will be. Make it so!”
As the last word sounded, it was as if the ai
r thickened for a moment and it grew harder to breathe. The flames flickered, and The Nothing collapsed, close to fainting for a second time.
“Help,” she said in a very small voice, now entirely her own. “I think… I think my head is going to crack open.”
Aunt Isa listened for a while. Long enough for Oscar to start twitching nervously.
“Was that it?” he then said. “I’m not saying it didn’t sound cool, but…”
“She can’t go back on that promise,” Aunt Isa declared. “Not if she wants to go on living.” She turned away from the fireplace and opened the book.
“What does it say?” Oscar asked.
Aunt Isa furrowed her brow. “Nothing special,” she said. “Shanaia, is this your Aunt Abbie’s handwriting?”
“Yes. That’s her notebook, or one of them, at any rate. She would always write down when the swallows arrived, where to find chanterelles or how much sugar to add to her blueberry jam. Stuff like that… A lot of the old books on the shelves are blank, either because the ink has faded away, or because nothing was ever written inside them… This must be one of them.”
“How odd,” Aunt Isa said. “I find it hard to believe that Chimera would set all this in motion simply to get your aunt’s recipe for blueberry jam…”
“Please may I see it?” I asked.
She handed me the book.
“For one kilo of blueberries you will need one kilo of sugar,” it said in a slanted and somewhat straggling hand which had to be Aunt Abbie’s. “You may want to add a little redcurrant juice and a pinch of black pepper, it gives bite and depth to the taste…”
But that wasn’t all of it.
“It says something else,” I said. “Behind it. Underneath it… Look!”
“Where?” Aunt Isa said.
“There.” There was another hand, fainter, but the more I looked at it, the clearer it became. I couldn’t understand how Aunt Isa hadn’t spotted what I had seen immediately.
“I can see nothing but blueberry jam,” she said. “Shanaia? Can you?”
Shanaia hobbled towards us – her shoulder would not appear to be her only injury. She glanced over my shoulder, at her aunt’s directions. And only at them.
“I can’t see anything,” she said. “Nothing except Aunt Abbie’s handwriting.”
“But it’s right there,” I insisted, double-checking to be sure. I turned the page to see if it continued. It did – more clearly. It was difficult to read because the letters were a little different from the ones I was used to, but they spelled out something.
“Read it aloud,” Aunt Isa said. “If you can…”
I held the book so that the glow from the fire fell on the page. And, as soon as I saw the first three desperate words, it was as if the room around me became unreal, and only the words on the page mattered. I read…
CHAPTER 20
Oblivion
I am Viridian. I need to write this down. If I do not, soon I will barely be able to remember it myself. I must write it down and read it every day. Every single day. Then I will remember.
I am Viridian. That is my name, that is who I am. Daughter of Aurora, wife of Biarnis, mother of Mino and Ellis. A wildwitch. A woman. Someone. I exist. I am here. I am not yet dead.
When I came to after the battle, I thought that I had won. The rocks were silent, the wheel no longer glowed. I was alive and the Bloodling had gone. Surely I must have been victorious?
I had lost too much blood. I could see it in the sand, the rocks and the wellspring – they had soaked up such copious gore, and yet had choked on these final thick shiny ribbons of blood, like a sponge unable to absorb any more. I could feel it, too, in my galloping heart and the thirst tearing at my throat and screaming from every pore of my body. Blessed Powers, what I wouldn’t give to be rid of this thirst – yet I knew that I was lucky to feel anything at all.
Blood. So much of this is about blood. My blood lives on in my heirs, Bravita has none. This, or so I thought, was my victory, even if the wounds she had inflicted on me were to prove to be mortal. Whether I lived or died, my blood would flow on in the veins of my sons, and my memory would live on in their hearts.
False was that hope, and foolish was I to harbour it.
I am Viridian. That is my name, that is who I am. Remember me. Remember!
Nightclaw lay by my side, he too had survived. I buried my fingers in his fur and rested my aching head against his flank.
Up, he said. Get up. Whoever stays down, dies first.
He was right. But my strength was spent; only my will remained, and even that was weak. I could feel it slipping away from me; I was starting to forget why it was important to get up.
Nightclaw sank a talon into my hand. Up. Up-up-up!
Oh, Blessed Powers. My weakness gored me with a claw much sharper than his, but in the end I got to my feet. He has always been very good at getting his way.
The wind whistled through the hidden cracks and passages of the cave. The tremors had died down, and the bedrock was still under my feet, almost as if it had never bucked and kicked under our feet, trying to throw us off. But the dust still lingered in the air, and now and then I could hear something clatter and fall somewhere in the subterranean dark.
I would not be able to use the old steps, I realized that after just a few paces. Too much of the ceiling had caved in, and I no longer had the strength to dig my way to freedom. There was only one way out and that was to follow the trickle of the wellspring, through the passage it had carved to reach the sea.
Before I set off on my long and difficult journey, I looked around the cave one last time. There was not much light now – what little daylight that crept through the cracks was dwindling, and night was likely to fall outside soon. But I could still see the wheel carved into the floor of the grotto. It was as still and silent as the bedrock now, still but intact. It had not been broken. Westmark had yet to fall.
I was just about to turn away when I saw it.
An impurity, a flaw. Not in the hub or in the wheel’s rim, but in the quarter of the circle that belonged to Westmark and me. I threw myself down on my knees, without thought for the difficulties standing up again would present. My own blood was spilt across that part of the circle, but that shouldn’t matter, it belonged there, I was as much a part of Westmark as Westmark was a part of me. But underneath it… I tore off my kerchief and wiped away my clotting blood as best I could. The rock looked different now, no longer a part of the bedrock of the cave. Like sand melting in extreme heat, the rock had melted and then hardened as clear as quartz or glass. And underneath the surface, I saw my enemy. Her upturned face staring right into mine, her hands reaching up towards me, and on the underside of the quartz she had written, not with my blood, but with her own, the curse that was already starting to affect me. Only one symbol – the symbol for oblivion. And suddenly I heard her voice inside me, though her frozen lips never moved:
“No man, no woman, no child. No animal. No thing will remember you. All you did will be undone, all you have said will be unsaid, all you wrote will fade. It matters not to me whether you live or die. For you will be forgotten, forgotten, forgotten, and oblivion will own you for ever.”
I barely know how I made it home. At times I wish I had not. Then I would not have seen oblivion in the eyes of my children, then I would not have lived long enough to realize how fragile memory is.
I am Viridian. I am still here. Finally I understand why people raise stones and write books. That they want to be remembered when they are no longer here is easy to understand. But that is not the only reason. For we may be forgotten even while we are still alive – still breathing, thinking, dreaming, speaking. Those of my blood remembered me the longest, but even their memories of me are starting to fade. They look at my clothes as if they cannot remember whose they are. They wonder why doors I have opened are no longer closed. They have stopped seeing me. It is as if their gazes bend around me, as if even the light ignores me. My elder son
has forgotten me completely. My younger remembers me only in his dreams, and then he weeps as if I were dead. They can no longer hear my voice. I have tried penning letters, but they seem not to see the writing on the paper.
I am Viridian. I am still here. But only Nightclaw can see me now, and that is not enough. One cannot live nor die like this. Soon, even I will no longer remember who I am.
You have had your revenge, Bravita.
CHAPTER 21
The Wheel
I could barely see the letters towards the end, but not because they were fading.
“Are you crying?” said The Nothing. “Please don’t. It makes her angry. I’m not allowed to cry, but I can’t help it. I try and I try, but I can’t stop myself. It gets worse when I sneeze, and when I feel sad. But I’m always crying a little.”
“I’m not crying,” I insisted. “I just have… tears in my eyes.”
“Why?”
“Because… it must be awful if the people you love can’t see you any more. That they’ve forgotten you even exist.”
“Yes,” was all she said.
Aunt Isa stared at the pages in the book.
“I still can’t see anything,” she said. “I heard what you read out loud, but…” She got up abruptly. “Go away,” she said, pressing her fingertips against her forehead. “I want to be allowed to remember!”
Then she grabbed a handful of soil from one of the dead pot plants and sprinkled it carefully on the dusty copper plate which protected the floor against sparks flying from the fireplace.
“What are you doing?” Oscar was intrigued.
“Fighting back,” she said through gritted teeth. “I’ve absolutely no intention of letting some four-hundred-year-old ghost decide what I can or can’t remember. I want this curse out of my head, and I want it now. Fire…” She looked around. If there had been any candles in the old candlesticks, the mice would have eaten them long ago. Instead she raked one of the glowing coals out of the fireplace with a poker. “This will have to do,” she muttered, and prodded it until it lay beside the pile of earth. “Air…” she looked at The Nothing. “Please may we borrow a feather from you?” she asked.