These were the words that I had been waiting to hear all my life. I’d have given them up at once for his freedom.
The last words we had spoken at the cottage, I now barely remembered—that silly argument about Mrs. Blott’s cat. Peter had come in from the drizzle and I’d handed him a towel, sighing while I watched him wipe his glasses. Such a common gesture, so easy to follow, a stepping-stone from one memory to the next: Peter letting me petition for a governess when I was eight or nine, his denial taking on the slow rhythm of his shirtsleeve as he polished each lens; Peter’s laughter, coming inside from the cold, the glasses fogging; Peter telling me to fetch him his cleaning spray and cloth. Maisie, have you come in with my tea?
Already I felt these memories fading, as if each were a butterfly circling the glass garden of my mind, my every conscious recollection netting a specimen, setting it free into the greater world beyond. In ten years, what had once been a populous colony might boast only the shredded wing of scent, Peter’s deodorant and mint toothpaste, the dried caterpillar timbre of his speech. Already I was scheming to keep him. To lock the greenhouse door to be reopened at some later, easier date. Or would there always be some window, busted open? Would the memories escape from me, regardless? Would I always be a child, grasping my beloved so tightly that he crumbled in my fist?
“It’s time, Maisie,” said Peter. He held out his hand, five fingers stretching from a gap within the bark.
“I can’t do it.” I shook my head.
“Maisie, my darling, I love you.”
I almost echoed back: I love you, too. But I knew Peter—knew what he’d want from me—and so to show my love I followed his direction. Steeling myself, I reached out and took Peter’s bare hand in mine. It was warm, calloused, his knuckles scraped dry, his wedding ring firm upon a finger. My father’s hand—the pulse at the base of his thumb strong at first, and then nothing.
I closed my eyes.
30
The wood I found was not the shadow wood that I remembered. It was clear that we’d passed from one world to another, but no regiment of smooth-trunked trees greeted me, no sweet birdsong trilled. The smell of iron hung in the air. There was no daylight, though the temperature did suddenly shift warmer. Darkness here was heavier; no moon, no stars, broke through. When I took a step I tripped on an unexpected root, catching myself with both hands, yelping as my sore arm bore my weight. I crouched low, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, then checked the damage to myself and to the tree I’d just accosted. The edge of my bandage was muddied, but intact. The tree was still alive. Marlowe was still beside me, but I saw no sign of Peter.
Full fathom five thy father lies. Those are pearls that were his eyes. I could not remember the full verse, but I knew that it did not speak of a sorcerer—immortal—but the too-human traveler who’d been caught up in his storm. My father, too, had proven mere man. My entire body felt numb and cold and bloodless. I allowed myself a single shudder, then turned to Marlowe.
“If we wait until daylight,” I said, swallowing, attempting to formulate a plan, “we might have an easier time. But I don’t know if we have those hours to waste. I wonder what we should do . . .”
I did not have to wonder for long. Very faintly, from ahead of us, there came the sound of cracking branches, a slender figure moving through the trees. Marlowe nuzzled my hand, and moved to follow our mysterious companion. I stumbled after, almost running him over when he paused to try and catch the new direction of the sound. Even with my body stiff from recent abuse, my insides frozen from that final farewell to my father, I was more nimble than expected, my years of dodging furniture and avoiding plants having evolved into its own breed of grace. Able to touch what had long been forbidden, I used trees and rocks for balance, let my fingers brush past dangling branches, discovered the spongy softness of live moss. No heart beat in the tree trunks or crushed petals, but I felt a force fuse through them nonetheless, urging me on.
We followed the unknown figure quite some time, long enough for me to realize I was hungry, and berate myself for not bringing a snack. I thought of biscuits, hot soup. Mrs. Blott’s raspberry jam baked into sugar cookies, the buttery crust of her cheese pie. Peter’s forgotten dinner plates, greens limp and gravy congealing. Peter on my birthdays, eating cake with bright, fresh berries. Peter playing records. Peter lighting little candles, telling me to make a wish.
My only wish now was impossible: for things to return to what they had been. For us to all go back, to sit together in the library, cozy by the fire, and whisper about this very wood, this moment, as a distant, untold someday. A fairy tale. A dream.
“When you’re older,” Mrs. Blott and Peter had both told me, time and again, in response to my questions, my doubts, “you’ll understand.” So I’d willed myself older, barreling through the days I thought would stay the same forever. Now here I was, past them, no closer to wisdom, alone.
EVENTUALLY, THE DARKNESS around me dissolved into gray, misty morning. Marlowe and I emerged in a shallow clearing, large trees circling where we stood, the biggest one bent at the waist and reaching down to form an archway. The apparition I had followed stood in front of it: a girl in ragged cloth, blocking me from entering. She looked to be younger than me, maybe twelve or thirteen, though I knew she must be far older than Lucy, as old, perhaps, as the wood itself. Her eyes were very dark and round, like a beast’s, and her teeth, when she revealed them, were unusually sharp. I could not see past her through the tree-arch, but felt certain it would lead me where I needed to be.
I hesitated before moving closer to her.
Still reeling from my encounter with Peter, I had not yet paused to reflect on my less obvious loss, the one shield I had been armed with even stripped in Rafe’s prison: the power of my touch. Without the weapon of my body, at once my most loyal ally and most treacherous enemy, I was simply a girl, weak from injury, unprotected in a vast, enchanted wood. In my amazement at first touching unmarred tree bark, I’d forgotten my fallen defenses, how utterly normal I’d become. The thought struck me now in a full-bodied flood.
All my life I’d wanted to be normal. I’d thought that being normal would mean that I’d fit easily into the world. That might have been so were the world around me normal. However, in a twist of fate I’d swapped my own strangeness for this terrifying setting: a brambly pathway, a dark forest, my shadowed half, a creature even more macabre than me. It was the stuff of nightmares. I was never brave in my dreams: it always seemed more practical to will myself awake. That was not an option here. But some pragmatism in me knew that there was nothing to be gained from feeling frightened. My father’s final words returned to me: I love you. I donned these words as my new shield.
“Hello,” I said.
At this the girl came toward me, taking my chin in her small, dirty hand. I was taller than her, but the movement felt natural as she turned my face first one way, then the other, peering at my features like a buyer inspecting a horse. Her touch, though direct, held none of Matthew’s tenderness. Her hands were cold as Lucy’s, capable and firm. When she released me, I opened my mouth wide, as I’d done for Coulton during routine examinations, but she was not interested in dentistry, nor any other aspects of my body, not even the bandage that unraveled at my wrist. I waited a moment to see what she’d do before pulling it tighter and tucking the dangling bit back where it belonged. The girl stepped back.