“Why don’t you start off in the bathroom?” Rafe offered, opening a door I had not realized led to an attached bath, with a cramped shower stall, a plain white toilet, a streaky mirror in which I could fully examine the toll travel had taken on my face. I thanked him and closed myself in, remembering suddenly that I was in a hotel room, with Rafe. The battle I’d avoided for these past few days had now been thrust upon me.
There was work to be done if I were to make myself appealing, beginning with the basics of hygiene I’d neglected these past several days. Fortunately, everything in the bathroom was safe for me to touch, and not just after having been refined by human working; these basins were porcelain, faucet heads metal. Nothing here lived, which meant, consequently, that nothing here died. The whole room, and city, too, I realized, was artificial, which I thought even more remarkable than if it had been dead. Dead things became living, by time’s inevitable passing if not by my expediting touch, their decay and dissolution eventually becoming food for their successors, nourishing new life. But these things were the whole extent of what they’d be forever. They had reached the pinnacle of their existence, and I was sad for them.
I imagined Rafe with me as I showered, the water running down his shoulders, my mouth on his neck, my tongue against his teeth. I wondered if he was imagining the same. When I stepped back into the room, he was seated on one of the beds, flipping through a notebook. The television hummed, its wavering fuzz dissolving every minute or so into blurred, discolored faces, as if the people trapped inside its wires were struggling, not quite failing, to break through. Help them, I thought, though I knew that they had no true need. A covered tray sat on the desk, atop the tourism brochures.
“You must be starving,” Rafe said. “Would you believe this place does room service?”
My mouth twisted, confused.
“Room service,” repeated Rafe, “a meal delivered to our room from the hotel kitchen. Here—” He stood and offered me his arm, ready to escort me to the desk. Because we both wore long sleeves, I took it, and let my hand linger.
Rafe offered me the plastic desk chair and I sat down, excited for my dinner, although I was growing restless, unnerved by the pressure of our intimacy, how he licked sauce from his lips, the way his head cocked toward the incoherent drone of the TV. The tension between where Rafe sat on the bed and my place at the desk grew increasingly hard to ignore.
“Any word from Peter yet?” I asked, both eager to see my father and afraid of what might happen were no one to intervene.
Rafe shook his head. “I asked the man up front to let us know. He’ll send him up when he arrives. Just enjoy yourself! Your first hotel! I’m sure he’ll be here soon.”
I smiled and tried to comply, but could not make myself at ease.
“You mustn’t worry.” Rafe grinned, and jumped suddenly up from his seat. He collected our used dishes and piled them on the tray, then reached for a gleaming silver pitcher. “Have some tea,” he instructed, already pouring. I nodded my consent, and lifted the cup once he’d placed it in front of me. The drink was the perfect temperature, having cooled a bit during our meal, and it tasted of licorice with some underlying, sweeter sort of herb. Certainly not my preferred flavor, but I did not wish to be rude. I drank.
“Tell me more about what to expect with Peter. What we’ll do once he arrives,” I said, in an attempt at innocuous conversation.
Rafe shrugged. “My part isn’t all that interesting. I’ll just do what needs to be done.” As when clouds clear quickly from an otherwise blue sky, his eyes took on a sudden intensity. They looked directly into mine, and made me shudder. “It’s important to remember, Maisie,” he said, “that we all do what needs to be done, when it comes down to it.”
I did not understand, but before I could ask him to explain himself, a crashing sound came from below our room’s window. The backfiring of a van, the screech of tires. I lifted my eyes toward the noise and felt my stomach churning, my head begin to spin. My body tilted off my chair. I felt Rafe’s large hands catch me, squeeze my sleeved arms, turn me around.
“Remember,” he said, his eyes pinpricks, his voice rough.
And then I was falling and all was dark.
Part
IV
Inaccurate Translations
When Peter Cothay pulled into Urizon’s drive, the great house stood strict and imposing, and quite obviously empty. All that greeted Peter was the dog—if you could call the creature such, which Maisie did—its canine form restless and panting, whining like it knew something vital.
“What?” he asked as he entered through the kitchen, walked the hallway to his study, Marlowe nipping at his heels. “What have I missed?”
Within hours of Mrs. Blott’s passing, Peter had realized that Maisie must be trapped inside the forest. Abandoning precautions, he had traveled the spiral path to rescue her, spending weeks paying homage to the history, whispering the old prayers. He knew precisely where she’d gone, and how to find her. He knew he must complete the final step. And still a part of him imagined that his daughter would greet him upon his return to the estate. A part of him hoped that the late nights, the travel, the research—his whole life’s work—would in the end amount to nothing.
PETER GREW OUT of short pants at finishing school, where upon hearing his first fairy story he developed an interest in the exotic—ancient practice, modern myth—that bordered on obsession. He did not stumble blindly to Urizon. Curiosity piqued, Peter sought out Laura Blakely and married her, knowing full well her family’s past. Captivated by the whispers, the old tales of the wood, he believed himself capable of solving the riddle that had eluded other scholars of his kind for centuries. He was sure that he could find an explanation for the strangeness of the forest that bordered the estate, for the villagers who emerged from the tree line at the solstices with accounts of woodland spirits and wandering oaks, their minds unhinged, eyes wild, the erratic disappearances of years of Blakely women. Seeking out answers might take time, but Peter Cothay was nothing if not patient. He envisioned a comfortable future, a career at the nearby university, a book or two published, a few months of each year spent exploring while Laura kept house.
He did not expect to lose his wife so quickly. He did not expect to raise a little girl all on his own. He’d stood in the icy night air outside the hospital the night of his daughter’s birth and smoked his first cigarette in years. Pounded his chest to clear the coughing. Cleaned his glasses with a shirtsleeve. Decided he’d give it a go.
How difficult could it be, Peter had asked himself, to act as lone parent? With a large property, some money, a new friend willing to assist—how much would his life, already drifting off its axis, truly change once the girl was brought home? If anything, a little Blakely girl could help him where her mother had failed. He’d expected to find Laura Blakely strange, tainted by the stories of her family. Instead, she had been sweet, attentive, a bit absentminded—overall profoundly normal. She did not sleepwalk or mumble spells or wake screaming from arcane nightmares. Yet Peter was surprised at the ease with which she fit into his life; how much he cared for her. It was fitting that some small bit of Laura would continue in the form of her daughter. A memorial to the mother; a continuation of the family line.