They’ll never trust you behind that veil, and you dare not show your face to them. Not as you may show it to me, my beautiful prin—
“I won’t hear another word of yours!” She dared not speak the words out loud, so she mouthed them silently behind the veil. “I won’t hear you anymore. I’m leavin’, and there’s nothin’ you can do to stop me, ’cause you’re only a nightmare! I’ll follow Leo down this mountain, and in that fresh air down lower, I won’t dream no more. I’ll sleep like a little baby, I will, and I’ll never see you again!”
You will see me again.
She increased her pace and would not answer.
You were meant to be mine.
She came to the end of the deer trail and stepped out upon the path leading down the mountain. Beana emerged behind her, and the two of them picked their way down.
Leave the mountain if you dare. See how the dogs below will bark and worry your bones. See how Leo, his good deed done, will forget all about you save when he remembers the nuisance you cause him.
“I won’t hear you no more,” she muttered.
“What’s that, child?”
“Nothin’.”
See how they will abuse you. And then, you will return to me.
Rose Red shook her head. She would die before she came back.
If you do not, said her Dream in a whisper like seeping poisons, if I do not see you at my doorstep within a year and a day, I swear to you . . . I swear by that cursed stone of gold upon which I slept those long centuries . . . I will come for you myself. And you will not like that. No, you will not like that at all.
The gates of Hill House gleamed below her as the sun touched their polished hinges, and Rose Red was suddenly terrified almost beyond bearing. But Beana pressed up beside her, and Rose Red touched the goat’s forehead between her horns and drew comfort from her. “I’m leavin’ with Leo,” she said in a firm voice. “And there ain’t nothin’ nobody can do to stop me.”
“I won’t try to stop you, girl,” Beana said. “Though I’m against it. Well, shall we knock or just barge inside? Perhaps we could leave a calling card and let them get back to us at their leisure.”
The girl and the goat approached the gate, leaving the forest behind them. And Rose Red did not hear the whisper that blew among the shadows of the trees, then vanished like a puff of smoke.
A year and a day, princess.
6
IN SOME WAYS, it had been the longest summer of her existence. In others, Daylily had to admit, it had been a singularly pleasant one, and she was rather sorry to see it drawing to a close. There was something so fresh and, simultaneously, so ancient about the air of the mountains. An out-of-this-world sensation such as she had never experienced in the social hubbub of Middlecrescent.
She sat in her bedroom, gazing out the window. Daylily could not put a name to her present feelings. She was not one to be anxious, but was she, perhaps, a little concerned at the prospect of leaving Hill House? Here she had enjoyed peace; peace edged with that hint of danger that the country folks’ rumors and superstitions delightfully fed. It was a danger like the fears children experience in the night, when they know beyond doubt that something lurks under the bed, though their parents may not believe.
Nothing like the dangers of conspiracy. Nothing like the dangers of failure.
If anything, this thought caused Daylily’s brow to smooth even more perfectly into a beautiful mask. “I am a child no longer,” she whispered to the window, to the dark green forest of the mountain. “And this is not a child’s game.” No, her father’s Plan was certainly no game, but there would be a winning and a losing side nonetheless. She must be certain of her position.
Dragons eat that goat girl, whoever she might be!
Her goodwoman entered the room, dragging an empty trunk behind her. She curtsied to her mistress. “Am I disturbing you, m’lady?”
“No, do continue,” Daylily said with a wave of her hand. Her servant set the trunk in the middle of the room and started gathering Daylily’s belongings.
They were leaving Hill House on the morrow. Daylily was struck now by how quickly the summer had flown. And she would return to her father’s house with . . . with what?