As I walked through the silent doors, the hellcat streaked beneath my feet.
On instinct, I reached down and grabbed at the back of the cat as if he were any old mouser. It’s strange, flamed fur rippled under my hand, but there was no heat, no burning—nothing more than a whisper of warmth, but only if I thought closely. I picked it up, half surprised when it flopped like a regular cat in my hands. The cat squirmed and scratched at me, clearly put out.
“Don’t spirit cats want to eat too?” I asked it, and then it surrendered itself to my hip and we headed up the richly carpeted stairs.
Nothing in the house had changed during my absence—the torches wavered cheerily, the hallways stretched long and silent. I rushed, relieved for the silence and that there were no signs of Lord Death having returned. Clutching the cat tight, I reached the top of the stairs and set off.
It was strange to smell myself—the sharp bite of herb and fresh air—move through the halls. I hadn’t noticed the thick floral andmyrrh smell of the château earlier, but now it seemed almost overpowering compared to the tang of the forest.
The halls seemed on my side, for I reached my room quickly and shut the door with relief. The hellcat wiggled out of my arms and dropped to the soft carpets, immediately streaking away and disappearing under the bed. Night had fallen outside my windows and dinner was on my tray where breakfast had been. The keys were where I left them. I gripped the cold iron tight before replacing the mattress.
I had made it back just in time. My body ached all over, every joint and muscle screaming. I looked at the hearth, wondering how I might summon a bath again. The luxury and absurdity of it almost made me laugh.
None appeared, so instead, I stripped down to my shift and smeared the poultice on my bruise. It smelled of herb and animal fat, a sharp scent against the close air and dark blues of my room. No longer in a misty morning cloud, the room had transformed again into the darkest twilight blue. The poultice eased my pain enough that my appetite returned, and I ate the bread and bit of meat and wine left on the tray.
My thoughts kept wandering—to the wood, listening to the silence. Dacia and the other girls would be welcoming customers and pouring beer. Cook would be burning something. Josef would be halfway in his cups. The night deepened and I sat restlessly checking my injuries, staring into the fire, checking the keys. What were they saying about me, now that I was no longer there? Girls came and went all the time. I was probably already forgotten.
I didn’t miss the brothel, not at all. But I missed the bustle and the noise. I’d never been isolated like this. I’d never slept alone. Never had a room, let alone a fine house, all to myself. I hardly knew what to do. The night stretched long and lonely. There was no robe, no new dress, still no bath. I looked around the room for anything to do, mending, weaving,anything. But whatever magic the house offered seemed to believe I had no need of such things. There was not even the tick of a clock to orient me in time.
I tried to wait it out, staring at the ceiling. Surely, it was close to midnight. I tried to sleep, crawling into bed in my dress, but I only tossed and turned, wide awake …listening.
In the yawning, deep-throated silence there was a sound, a kind of low hum, and once I heard it, I could not unhear it. I tried to shut my ears. I tried to sing. But whenever I lifted my voice, it seemed to rebound right back onto me, as tight as if I were still buried in that coffin. I could not describe why, but it seemed the room grew disturbed whenever I spoke.
In all my life, I had never met myself on these terms. Alone with only my racing thoughts, my fears growing like mold on the walls of my mind. Death had told me not to leave my room between sunset and sunrise—but he’d also said to test myself. I’d already lost nearly a full day. Maybe that was why the room had not given me anything else, why the house was driving me mad. It was waiting for me to complete my tasks.
I knew better—I truly did—but the quiet gnawed at the edges of my mind. I flung myself from the bed, pacing the room, my thoughts racing faster and further. Soon it seemed that I’d be trapped endlessly in this night if I didnotcomplete the tasks. I wiped my sweaty palms on my dress, lifted the mattress, and pulled out the great ring of keys. Gripping them tightly, I stood at the threshold.
Did you call for a spirit cat the way you called for regular ones? I turned back to the room and called for the hellcat, clicking my tongue and makingpspspspspspspsounds. I looked under the bed and in the curtains, but the cat did not appear. “Here kitty!” I called. Still, nothing. My heart sank. He must have gone back to whatever realm he originated from, but how I wished for his company.
Ignoring the heavy feeling in my stomach, I stepped into the hall.
This time, I didn’t bother to pay attention to the labyrinth of halls—I treated them like the forest and kept my mind fixed on where I was heading, and where the house itself turned me toward. But Istepped as quietly as possible, afraid to alert some hidden horror or trip across some strange enchantment.
It wasn’t long before I stood at the top of the long hall where Lord Death had left me the day before. Given a true direction, my mind had ceased it’s racing and focused only on the tasks. Gripping the keys tight, I walked the entire length of the hall twice, inspecting each door as I went.
The doors were identical—wooden and arched, set into stone. He’d told me to work through them one by one, but he hadn’t mentioned where to begin. How would I choose the right one? The question nearly paralyzed me from choosing at all, but I finally stopped at the first door on the right side of the hall; it seemed logical, at least, to start at the beginning and work my way down.
I pulled out the keys. They clinked in a taunting chitter like bones, and the sound frightened me so much I gasped and dropped them.
I would not pass any trial if I didn’t get my head right. They keys hadn’t sounded alive, they’d sounded only strange. And everything here was strange. I felt Rochelle’s hand slipping through my fingers all over again, and it shook me out of my stupor. Even though Death had insisted it had been an illusion of my own desire, the feeling was too personal, too deep to simply forget. I could not fail her again, even if she wasn’t here. Taking a deep breath, I picked up the keys and squinted at the keyhole.
The iron surrounding the keyhole was molded into a cross and pulpit shape, and I checked for a match, grasping each key tight in my fist so they would not make a sound. I found three that looked promising. The second one I tried worked, and the door swung open. I stepped into a void, the torchlight to my back.
The sound of murmuring Latin drifted from deep within the dark.
I almost turned around right there.Churches?It was as if Death knew how much I hated them, how my very body twitched with the memory of pain under the whispering Latin, the overbearing cross, theflicker of candles. Sweat beaded on my forehead, but I forced myself forward.
The candles emerged first. Then the priest in amber relief, hands raised as he spoke. It took a moment for my mind to understand the impossibility. This was the Riquewihr church.
Prostitutes were not forbidden from services in Riquewihr, but they had to remain in the back of the nave, standing. For all Dacia cajoled, she had never convinced me to go. I had no interest in huddling in the back like a flock of ravens with our black cloaks covering our dresses and curled hair. I knew how it felt to be condemned from my years with the nuns. I remembered how my feet had hurt. My knees had hurt. God would not be saving me, no matter how many prayers or candles I lit. I had run from God, after all. But the truth the nuns had never admitted was that God had abandoned me the moment of my birth.
Even the priest was the Riquewihr priest, an aging man who would come to the brothel for Christine—not for her to lie with him exactly, but to strip naked and lie against his skin. “Warming,” he called it. “The church stones are so cold.” And I had always thought it a strange image of the priest, the church his bride, hard and unyielding against his passion, his body. And so of course he paid Christine, who was soft and pliable and looked every inch a noblewoman, except that she was under Josef’s thatched roof.
The illusion of our village rites was so complete, the world narrowed to this room and its rules and my panic. I forgot all about my flight into the forest and the magic I had already done in Death’s home. Instead, I was small and mean and worthless once again. In a dreamy haze, transfixed by the spectacle, I realized I’d walked too far toward the front, but when I looked back for the nave where I could slip in behind the rest of the somber black cloaks and other undesirables, something seemed changed. I looked down.
I was no longer wearing my blue dress. Or even the cloak of a prostitute, which would fit the illusion. Instead, my cloak, my tunic, my veil,all were the length and breadth of a noblewoman’s. Finer spun than even the finest weavers in the nunnery could produce. Trimmed with glimmering thread and fur on my cloak. A gold chain hung heavy on my neck. I spotted the cluster of prostitutes where Dacia would be, but though I tried to hurry toward them, I never got any closer. The room simply wouldn’t allow it. A sheen of sweat erupted on my brow as it felt for one sickening moment that the edges of the room swirled away like blowing sand.
This was where I belonged. I was known as a prostitute. I was unclean. I didn’t have the patronage. To be anywhere other than the very back, with the other people like me, would mean a public judgment—put in stocks or even, in some cases, drowned. But still the room herded me forward,trapped in a dream where I kept running but could not move.
