Page 13 of A Treason of Thorns

As I watch, his eyes open, but they’re milky and unseeing, not the knowing hazel I remember.

“Burleigh House,” Papa rasps.

A little tendril of ivy snakes up and brushes against his face. Papa turns his head aside and coughs. It’s a terrible rattling sound, and brings up blood and mortar, which must mean he’s close to his end.

“Take what you need,” Papa says, as I’ve heard him tell Burleigh so often before, key in hand, ready to work House magic. But I don’t know how there can possibly be anything left in him to give.

There’s a rush of focused energy as Burleigh turns its full attention toward Papa. Mortar courses beneath his skin, giving him an inhuman grey cast. His eyes roll back and his hands seize on the bedspread.

And then there is the moment that’s hung over me for seven agonizing years.

Papa goes limp. His head lolls. His chest falls still. It is ugly, and brutal, and all at once my knees buckle. I’m left with both hands pressed to my heart, which feels as if it will burst, not just with my own grief but with the House’s, which pours into me in an overpowering groundswell of sorrow.

The door flies open and Wyn crosses the room, sinking to his knees beside the bed. He’s changed a great deal since I last saw him, but I still know the friend of my childhood as he reaches out and shakes Papa.

“George.” Wyn’s voice cracks. “George, wake up.”

“Oh, Wyn, he’s not going to,” I say, but it is the House’s memory replaying the scene, for I can still feel the faint bite of thorns against my wrists. Wyn cannot see or hear me.

“I told you he’d had enough,” Wyn growls at the House. “You knew it, too. How could you?How could you?”

By the end, he’s shouting. Wyn scrambles to his feet and drives a fist into the rotten plaster of the wall, which gives way easily. Mortar weeps from the House’s new wound, and Burleigh shudders beneath our feet.

Wind whips the patched fabric of my skirt around my legs as the memory fades and I’m brought back to the present. Briar thorns prick at my wrists, for I’m standing right up against the space where the gate once was, arms thrust into the brambles that fill the gap. Somewhere behind me, Jed and Mira are waiting. Above us, thunder grumbles and lightning splits the sky.

I don’t know what I’m feeling. If it’s heartbreak, I never expected it to be such a bodily thing. My chest aches and the back of my neck has gone hot and a rushing noise fills my ears. But there is Burleigh before me, half-wild with what it’s been through, and almost the last thing Papa said to me was that I must be brave for my House.

“Burleigh,” I say clearly. I force down my own pain because I was born and brought up to be a Caretaker, and a Caretaker puts her House first, no matter how it hurts. “It’s alright, my love. None of this was your fault. You did what had to be done.”

Perhaps my House is broken, but we are a matched set, split apart in the same place, and a broken girl is just the thing for a broken House. Without hesitation, I step forward, as if an opengate stands ahead of me rather than a thicket of briars. Not for a moment do I allow myself to doubt.

And the brambles patching Burleigh’s wall unravel before me, leaving the way clear. The sky above roils and goes blue, becoming a glory of white clouds and spring sun. Gravel crunches underfoot as I step onto Burleigh’s grounds.

“Mark my words,” I swear to the trees, the grass, the sky. “I’ll be dead before I leave you behind again. And I will never,neverlet anyone harm you. I’m going to look after you, Burleigh.”

A final mutter of thunder sounds on the eastern horizon, and any last trace of the House’s suspicion vanishes, replaced by a wave of relief that surges up from the earth, so strong it nearly flattens me.

As I walk down Burleigh’s front drive, it’s impossible to keep more tears from falling. The air is heady with the scent of flowers and grass and rich soil, and memories spring up around me. Over there on the lawn is where Wyn taught me to turn cartwheels. Beneath the oak tree is where we sat to read together, heads bent over the same book. And on the drive itself, I’d ride my pony in eager circles, waiting for Papa to appear.

I stood just there, on the gravel, waving to my father each time he made the journey to London, to fulfill his duty as a Caretaker and a member of the Home Council. But where he would always pause and turn back for one last farewell, something impossible has sprouted up. Towering from the middle of the drive is a tree I recognize only from the geography books Papa used to pore over whenever he had the time. It’s a jacaranda, meant for warm southern climes, and yet here it is, boughs laden with luminous purple blooms.

Even without words, my House can sometimes speak.

Stepping up to the tree, I run a hand across its rough bark. Lavender-tinted shadows shift about me.

“He always did right by you,” I murmur. “I plan to take care of things just as he did, now he’s gone.”

Ahead of me, the front door swings open of its own accord. It seems the House has overcome its initial reluctance, and is ready to welcome me home. It’s only then that I think to glance over one shoulder and see that Jed and Mira haven’t followed. The brambles have barred the way behind me and they stand in the lane, unable to enter.

I wag a finger at the House. “Don’t be ridiculous. If you want me, you know you’ll have to let them in, too.”

A breeze tosses jacaranda petals into my face, but the brambles pull away and Jed and Mira hurry inside.

“I’d nearly forgot what this place is like,” Mira says with a shake of her head. “Temperamental old barn.”

Whatever it thinks about that, Burleigh House keeps its own counsel.

As we step indoors, the House’s interior wraps around me like a worn blanket, or a mother’s arms. Jed and Mira disappear, Mira to the kitchen and Jed to sort out our belongings. I wander the halls, calling Wyn’s name at each doorway, but not really expecting to find him. After what Burleigh showed me, I wouldn’t blame him for leaving and never coming back, though it’s a whole new sort of pain, thinking of him on his own in the world. And of course, he might not have expected me to return—he did tell me he’d rather I never came back, though I still can’t fathom why.