Page 18 of A Treason of Thorns

Papa noticed, though.

I watch as the remembered version of him glances out through the summerhouse’s glass panes and shakes his head. “We shouldn’t be speaking about any of this on the grounds—it’s hard on Burleigh to hear us. But I’m afraid of being overheard in the village.”

Papa’s companion likely doesn’t even notice the House’s distress. To him, it seems like nothing more than the vagaries of weather. He doesn’t know how good-natured Burleigh generally is.

“Couldn’t you overcome your scruples and let us go ahead without Burleigh’s deed?” the gentleman suggests. “This place is devoted to Sterlings. I can’t imagine it ever doing you any harm, even if the king commanded it. And we could use the rest of the deeds as leverage to force His Majesty to hand Burleigh’s over.”

The gusts of rain turn to a flurry of hail. An anxious, stomach-churning feeling grips me, and I know it’s not my own. But I can’t tell if it’s a part of the House’s memory, or a part of my present reality, or both.

Papa’s face darkens.

“Out of the question,” he snaps. “I won’t hear you suggest it again—not to anyone, but especially not to me. I’m not willing tohazard that, but I don’t like any of this. There are too many loose ends. And not being able to find the location of Burleigh’s deed, out of all of them? It feels like bad luck. I’ve bribed and questioned far too many people by now—I’d hoped to have this done with months ago. There are roadblocks at every turn, though.”

My surroundings fall entirely still, both in the past and the present, as if the House is listening. The rain and hail stop. The light is low, and not a single bird sings. Little Vi looks up from her reading and puts her head to one side with a frown.

Papa’s friend leans in, toward my father. “Do you think someone’s working against you, George?”

“I don’t know.” Papa rubs a hand across his face. “It certainly seems like it at times. Albert, if anything were to happen to me, you’d look after Vi, wouldn’t you? Give her a home at Weston Manor?”

“Of course,” Albert promises. “Don’t fret about it for a moment.”

“Papa.” My child-self’s voice is high and wavering with worry. “The House—”

The sky of that remembered morning has gone a sickly green. Inside the summerhouse, there is a slithering, hissing sound as thick vines snake up the walls.

“Violet!” my father shouts, and lunges forward to shield me as glass shatters and beams snap. But he’s too far off, and Wyn is faster. The boy flies through the open summerhouse door and bowls me over, the two of us landing in a tangled heap.

This I recall—the sudden worry that tore my attention away from my book, the horrible sound of breaking glass, and the shock of being knocked down. I cover my head instinctively, though thefalling shards have no power to harm me now. Their touch is feather-light, barely remembered.

When the clamor fades and the summerhouse lies in ruins, both in truth and in memory, I can make out my father at the center of the chaos, bent over Wyn and Little Vi. And I see what I didn’t at the time—the fragments of mortar-coated glass that have shredded the back of Wyn’s shirt, the blood trickling down his neck and arms. I don’t think he was hurt badly, but my heart sinks at the stricken look on my father’s face.

“George, did the House—” Papa’s friend begins. But Papa ignores him.

“Are you alright, Wyn?” he asks. The boy nods without speaking.

“Go on in and find Mira,” Papa urges. “She’ll look after you.”

Without a word to me, Papa straightens, and there’s anger in every line of his posture.

“We pushed the House too hard,” he says to his companion. “The binding prevents it from hearing much about the deeds without trying to stop whoever’s speaking of them. Burleigh, I’m so sorry.”

Sun shines on the trio of ghosts once more, and distant birdsong begins again. Daisies sprout and unfurl in front of Little Vi, who sits unharmed at the center of a ring of broken glass. Papa and the strange gentleman both watch as the child I was plucks the flowers with a sad smile.

“Of course I’m alright,” Little Vi says to Burleigh, because no one else has asked.

The memory fades and I’m forced to jump back from the old wreckage of the summerhouse with a yelp as enormous, thorn-studded brambles twist themselves around its sun-bleached remainswith frightening speed. Before long, there’s not an inch of the summerhouse left visible.

The low, nagging discomfort I’ve felt from the House fades, leaving only the constant strain of Burleigh trying to hold back its own magic. Out of the center of the brambles, a small wild rose sprouts. I reach for it carefully, mindful of the thorns, and pluck the blossom, inhaling its summer-sweet fragrance.

“Deeds and keys, kings and Houses,” I murmur to myself. “What is it you’re saying, Burleigh?”

I wish I could understand this place as instinctively as I once did. When it was as easy as breathing, knowing what Burleigh wanted—sensing how, even without a key, I could best offer help and comfort.

“You’ll figure it out. That’s what the Sterlings do, don’t they?” Wyn’s standing at the edge of the back woods, not the ghostly child version of him, but his real, all but unfamiliar self. The Wyn I’m not sure how to handle. I flush and stare at the ground. There’s still tension between us in the wake of our argument last night, and I’m at a loss as to how to make things right before he leaves. I can’t turn back time and undo what’s gone before. All I can do is move forward.

And so I take a step in Wyn’s direction. He shifts and glances up at me from beneath that untidy hair, one hand on the strap of his rucksack.

“Wyn, I’m sorry,” I tell him quietly. “I’m sorry about everything. The House showed me what happened to Papa, when I first arrived. You never should have had to live through that, or any of the arrest. Whatever Papa’s reasons, it was wrong of him to keep you here. Idon’t—I don’t blame you for wanting to leave now that you can. I think you should go, and be free.”