It was difficult to tell for sure, as the rounded transport appeared to be made of curved bars that were as pale as the surrounding snow. Inside the bars, heavy black curtains shimmered with a touch of silver underneath the bulbous moon. She could not see what might be inside.
The carriage-cage was being drawn by two bahkauv. They were miserable-looking beasts, bull-like, with horns that twisted in corkscrews from their ears and massive hunched backs that forced their heads to hang awkwardly toward the ground. Their tails were long and serpentine, their mouths wrapped around ill-fitting teeth. They waited motionless for the coachman, for as there was no one atop the driver’s seat, she thought this ghost must be the one who would be driving them.
Back to Gravenstone, the Erlking’s castle.
“No,” said her father. “You can’t take her. Please. Serilda.”
She turned again to face him, startled by the look of anguish that greeted her. For though everyone held suspicions and fears of the Erlking and his ghostly courtiers, she thought she saw something else hidden behind her father’s eyes. Not just fear sparked by a hundred haunting tales, but … knowledge, accompanied by despair. A certainty of the terrible things that might await her if she went with this man.
“Perhaps it would be useful if I were to tell you,” said the ghost, “that this summoning is not by mere request. Should you decline, there will be unfortunate consequences.”
Serilda’s pulse stirred and she grabbed her father’s hands, squeezing them tight. “He’s right, Father. One cannot say no to a summons from the Erlking. Not unless they wish to bring some catastrophe upon themselves … or their family.”
“Or their entire town, or everyone they’ve ever loved …,” added the ghost in a bored tone. She expected him to yawn as a conclusion to the statement, but he managed to preserve his integrity with a sharp, warning glare instead.
“Serilda,” said Papa, his voice lowered, though there was no hope of speaking in secrecy. “What did you say when you met him before? What could he possibly want now?”
She shook her head. “Exactly what I told you, Papa. Just a story.” She shrugged, as nonchalantly as she could. “Perhaps he wants to hear another.”
Her father’s eyes clouded over with doubt, and yet … also a slim bit of hope. As though this seemed plausible.
She guessed that he had forgotten what sort of story she had told that night.
The Erlking believed that she could spin straw into gold.
But—surely, that wasn’t what this was about. What would the Erlking want with spun gold?
“I have to go, Papa. We both know it.” She nodded at the coachman. “I need a moment.”
Shutting the door, she quickly set about the room, changing into her warmest stockings, her riding cloak, her boots.
“Will you prepare a pack of food?” she asked her father when he did not move from the door, but stood sullen, wringing his hands in distress. Her request was as much a means of pulling him from his stupor as it was an acknowledgment that she’d need food. At the moment, she was still full from their evening bread and with the sudden nerves overtaking her insides, she doubted she would have an appetite anytime soon.
When she was ready and could think of nothing else she might need, her father had a yellow apple, a slice of buttered rye, and a square of ?hard cheese wrapped in a handkerchief. She took it from him in exchange for a kiss on his cheek.
“I will be all right,” she whispered, hoping that her expression conveyed more certainty than she actually felt.
From Papa’s furrowed brow, she didn’t think it mattered. She knew he would not sleep tonight, not until she was safely returned.
“Be careful, my girl,” he said, pulling her into a tight embrace. “They say he is most charming, but never forget that such charm hides a cruel and wicked heart.”
She laughed. “Papa, I assure you, the Erlking has no interest in charming me. Whatever he has summoned me for, it is not that.”
He grunted, unwilling to agree, but said nothing more.
With one last squeeze of his hand, Serilda pulled open the door.
The ghost stood waiting beside the carriage. He watched her coolly as Serilda made her way along the garden’s snowy path.
Only once she got close did she see that what had appeared as the bars of a cage were, in fact, the rib cage of some enormous beast. Her feet halted as she stared at the whitened bones, each one intricately carved with barbed vines and budding moonflowers and creatures great and small. Bats and mice and owls. Tatzelwurm and nachtkrapp.
The coachman cleared his throat impatiently, and Serilda yanked her hand away from where she had been tracing a nachtkrapp’s bedraggled wing.
She accepted his hand, letting him assist her into the carriage. The ghost’s fingers were solid enough, but they felt like touching … well, a dead man. His skin was brittle, as if his hand would crumble to dust if she squeezed too tight, and there was no warmth to his touch. He was not ice-cold like the Erlking had been—the difference, she supposed, between a creature from the underworld whose blood likely ran cold in his veins and a specter who had no blood left at all.
She tried to stifle a shudder as she pulled back the curtain and stepped into the carriage, then wrapped her cloak around her arms and tried to pretend it was only the winter air making her shiver.
Inside, a cushioned bench awaited her. The carriage was small and would hardly have fit a second passenger, but as she was alone, she found it quite cozy, and surprisingly warm as the heavy drapes blocked out the frigid night air. A small lantern was attached to the ceiling, crafted from the skull and jagged-toothed jaws of yet another creature. A candle made of dark green wax burned inside the skull, its warm flame not only making the space quite comfortable with its gentle heat, but also sending a golden light through the eye sockets, the nostrils, the spaces in between sharp, grinning teeth.
Serilda settled onto the bench, a little overwhelmed to be given traveling accommodations that were so eerily luxurious.
On a whim, she stretched up a finger and traced the lantern’s jawbone. She whispered a quiet thank-you that it had given its life so she might ride in such comfort.
The jaws snapped shut.
Yelping, Serilda yanked her hand back.
A moment passed. The lantern opened its maw again. As if nothing had happened.
Outside, she heard the crack of a whip, and the carriage lurched into the night.
Chapter 8
Parting the heavy drapes, Serilda watched the passing landscape. Having only ever traveled to the neighboring towns of Mondbrück and Fleck, and once when she was a child to the city of Nordenburg, Serilda had little experience of the world beyond M?rchenfeld, and a heart that yearned to see more. To know more. To capture every tiny detail and store it away in her memory for future musings.
They passed quickly over the rolling farmlands and then onto the road that ran parallel to the Sorge River. For a while, they were trapped between the winding black river to her right and the Aschen Wood, a dark threat to her left.