She refused to linger in the study, sucking in thin breaths as she hurried not to her room but down the stairs and out of Thorn Grove altogether, trying not to scream and alert the entire manor to her ailment.
It’d been a long while since she’d left Thorn Grove in anything but a carriage. Worried about a relapse in her health, Elijah had kept a cautious eye on her, ensuring that Blythe had little physical exertion and that the staff doted on her. But her body was trembling too fiercely for her to hole up alone in her room, and so Blythe took to stomping around the yard for the good part of an hour, soaking up the springtime warmth into her bones as she debated whether she should tell Signa what had happened.
In the end Blythe decided she wanted more time. More time to see if this was only a temporary relapse. More time to feel at least a little normal, without everyone treating her like a fragile crystal heirloom. And so she ventured to the stables instead, where a groom she’d never seen crouched in the hay with a small foal curled beside him. The poor thing was quivering, its eyes unopened and its breaths heavy. A beautiful golden mare poked its head over from the next stall, watching. Blythe’s gut clenched as she realized that it was her mother’s horse, Mitra.
The groom sang as he stroked his fingers through the foal’s coat, and though it took a minute for her to recognize the tune, Blythe’s laugh was the softest breath when she realized he was singing an entirely inappropriate song about a bonny lass who worked on a farm, his voice tired and thick with a lilting brogue.
Blythe’s eyes trailed from him to the foal, and very quietly she asked, “Will it be all right?”
The groom bolted upright. “Miss Hawthorne! Oh, God. Forgive me, I’d no idea I was in the presence of a lady.” His eyes were round and wide, and he was failing spectacularly at not tripping over himself. “Is there something I can help you with?”
“The foal. Will it be all right?”
His face softened. “Only time will tell, miss. All there is to do now is make him comfortable and pray for the best.”
Blythe’s chest tightened to a point where she could barely breathe, and she hated that she followed her first instinct of turning away from the newborn. It was too difficult to look at the dead or the dying these days; the reminder of how much time she’d spent at that threshold was still too awful to bear.
She forced her attention back to the task at hand. Her father would rage if he knew she’d even made the trek to the stables in the first place, let alone that she wanted to ride horseback. Fortunately for her, the groom was new to the job, hired by Byron only a week prior.
“I’d like to take Mitra out.” Blythe folded her hands behind her back and tried to look confident. The groom glanced past her, the tiniest crease knitting between his brows when he saw she was alone.
“Will you be needing an escort?”
It was a sincere question. An honest and expected one that any proper groom would think to ask. Still, it had Blythe bristling, for there was a time when something like riding horseback had been so easy for her that his question would have been laughable. Now she was too unfamiliar with her new stamina to know when she might tire, and she wasn’t so foolish as to allow the possibility of getting stuck unaccompanied in the woods. And so Blythe bit her tongue and told him, “That would be much appreciated, Mr.…”
“Crepsley. William Crepsley.” He had hands calloused from hard work, a broad frame, and suntanned skin that did not belong to a man of high society. He couldn’t have been much older than Blythe, and she noted his kind round face and earnestness. Given how new he was, he would undoubtedly wish to make a good impression, which meant that he’d be far too easy to take advantage of.
“Will the foal be all right alone?”
“It won’t be alone,” William promised. “The examiner will be here soon, and Mr. Haysworth will care for it in the interim.”
Blythe nodded, though she didn’t have the faintest clue who Mr. Haysworth was. For twenty years she’d lived within the walls of Thorn Grove, and yet it was becoming more unfamiliar to her by the day. It would take ages to learn the names and faces of the new staff members.
“Very well. Then I would appreciate an escort to the Killinger estate, Mr. Crepsley. I’m happy to lead the way.”
As William nodded and set off to ready the horses, Blythe found herself more grateful than he would ever know. Not because he was kind or so fresh to this job that he didn’t realize she wasn’t meant to be here, but because if the earth began to sprout moss and thorns once again, at least this time she wouldn’t be alone.
William was slower than he ought to have been, though Blythe gave him no trouble. She was certain he was triple-checking his work, likely because he’d not had the opportunity to prep a horse for a proper ride since he’d started at Thorn Grove. But she kept her patience, and soon the groom returned with Mitra and another saddled white mare.
Mitra approached with her head low and her tail swishing, snorting a pleasant greeting at Blythe, who pressed a palm to the horse’s forehead and curled her fingers into the beautiful golden mane. It’d been ages since she’d seen the horse. Ages since her mother had been alive and well enough to go on rides with her nearly every afternoon. Blythe could almost hear the echo of her mother’s laughter as they rode. Could almost see her windblown hair shining like a sunburst against the sky.
For too long she’d avoided the memories of her mother, desperate not to follow in her path. But now, standing on the other side of death’s door, Blythe ached with nostalgia that had her longing for any remnants of her mother that were still left on this earth.
“Here you are, miss.” William steadied Mitra as Blythe slipped her foot into the stirrup and hoisted herself onto the saddle. Her throat tightened the moment she felt the steady lull of Mitra’s breathing beneath her. How long had it been since she’d had the strength to pull herself up without thinking anything of it? Blythe turned away from the groom as tears pricked her eyes.
Perhaps her subconscious had known all along that this was what she needed. She must have been more on edge than she’d realized to find so much solace in the stables. Still, Blythe’s heart couldn’t quite settle its discontented pounding. Not after what she’d seen in her father’s study, or what she’d read in those journals.
Blythe tightened her grip on the reins, determined to find the truth.
Charlotte Killinger had run into Signa the night of Percy’s disappearance. She was the one who’d alerted Elijah that the garden was on fire. Blythe had talked to her once already, months ago. But perhaps there was more information to be gleaned; if anyone could tell her more about what happened that night in the woods, it was Charlotte.
Blythe led the charge through the softened soil and into woods so achingly familiar that she felt like a child once more. She didn’t see just trees of ripe green bending toward them like a wanting mouth, but saw the ghost of her mother weaving through spindly branches, never letting them tear the hem of her white dress as they so often did with Blythe’s. Birds knocked their greetings upon the trunks of towering oaks or sang sweet spring pleasantries. Blythe heard her brother’s laughter within them. Heard him scolding her for letting herself get so soiled and calling after their mother to help Blythe fish her snared hair from greedy branches.