Woodcarving was the only thing I had, the only thing that quieted my thoughts. When I worked, I was able to forget. I first took a tool in my hand and turned a rough piece of wood into a sphere. It wasn’t much, but I controlled what the wood would be. And no one told me I didn’t really get to choose.
I’d grown better in the past few weeks. Elfriede thought woodcarving was a wonderful idea—as a hobby, she emphasized. And then on further introspection, as a hobby for now, she would add. As if I could forget that I had so little time before I was expected to perform a miracle. I already had a miniature sculpture of Elfriede’s new golden puppy, Arrow, to present to her as a gift. It was only after I had finished that my numbed mind remembered that Arrow himself had been an early wedding gift from Jurij, and I probably shouldn’t have spent so much time carving his image into my mind before the happy coupling and I went our separate ways.
Father had little to say about my talent, or the tools I borrowed from him without asking. But I forgave him. I felt as numb as he did these days.
Mother was only sometimes with us.
Father was behind the house on a tree stump, whittling what looked to be a bowl or a cup. Mother sat beneath the shade of a tree on the edge of the woods, her hand clasping a small piece of wood. Mother should have known that if she was near Father when he worked, she’d wind up distracting him. But lately she was loath to part from him at all.
“How are you feeling today?” I nestled into the grass and leaned against the tree beside her. I clutched little wooden Arrow in my hands to work on the finishing touches, although my model was off somewhere with Elfriede and Jurij.
It took a moment for Mother to acknowledge me. She turned her head slowly. There were dark circles beneath her eyes, a sallow tinge to the once-beautiful oaken shade of her skin. “Better,” she lied.
I looked up to watch Father’s reaction. He held the bowl and chisel in his hands as if he were still carving, but his hands were frozen.
“Your father’s working,” Mother said. “He’s making beautiful things.”
Father’s hands moved again, slowly.
I took a closer look at the wooden figure in Mother’s grasp. “What’s that?”
Mother turned it over and lifted her arms weakly to bring it closer to me. “It’s a lily. Isn’t it beautiful?”
Seeing the hint of a smile on Mother’s face made me genuinely happy. I gestured to the fields behind Father. “It’s lovelier than all the ones around us.” It was getting colder, and those blooms were dying.
Mother leaned her head against the tree bark and shut her eyes. A moment passed and she began to breathe deeply.
I shifted the wooden flower that was slipping from her grasp to the center of her lap. I laid her hands across it. She didn’t stir.
“She’s getting worse every day.” Father continued to carve his bowl. His interest in me was usually so decidedly little it took me a moment to realize he was speaking to me.
“The others in the village are still sick.” I pulled my legs to my chest and wrapped my arms around my knees. A merchant’s wife. The butcher’s daughter. Even little Nissa’s mother. All struck ill, the same day as Mother. The day after I visited the castle.
But Father had little interest in the rest of those ill in the village. He threw the bowl and chisel down into the grass, cradling his forehead. “I don’t know what to do.”
I swallowed. I didn’t know what to say.
Father looked up from his hands. “Will you ask the lord if he can help us?”
“The lord?” I’d tried my best not to think about that night. Even though I always failed. “What could he do?” My voice faltered.
As if in response to my question, I heard the sound of a wooden wheel and the clip-clop, clip-clop of horses’ hooves on the dirt path. It could have been perfectly timed, but the same thing had happened every evening since the specters brought me home the night I met the lord.
The black horses and the carriage burst through the trees and halted in front of our home. A specter sat atop the carriage, his back stiff, his hands clutching the reins. Two specters stepped out of the carriage and stood in front of it, their hands clasped behind their backs, as still as if there was no breath within them.
Now, as always since that first night, I was drawn to their eyes, all of them red like blood on ice. As a child, the eyes had scared me a little. But then I noticed that there was no trace of flame there, and that too set them apart from other unmasked men. Somehow, this made the specters more sad than horrifying.
Father clasped his hands together and leaned his arms over his thighs. He tilted his head toward them. “Go with them. Ask.”
I stood, quickly. “I can’t.” I couldn’t. Going there in the first place had been a terrible mistake. But I couldn’t possibly explain it to Father.
Mother’s eyes fluttered open. She brushed a hand against the hem of my skirt. “Noll … ”
“They’re here again.” I swallowed the sour taste in my throat. “The specters. His servants.”