Page 62 of A Treason of Thorns

“Why are you really awake, Vi? What’s the matter?”

We’re only inches from each other. It’s too warm and too close and I think I might stifle. I throw off the blanket and sit up. But Wyn follows suit, and though I’m less warm now, we’re side by side and I’m acutely aware of his arm pressed against mine.

I put a finger to my mouth to gnaw at a nail, but they’ve all been bitten down to the bloody quick.

“That bit of verse I found, in your shepherd’s hut in the back woods—you know what it is.” It’s not a question, it’s a statement.

Wyn rests the back of his head against the wall. “Of course I do. And you’ve found out, haven’t you?”

“Yes. Wyn, I don’t know what else to do. I’m running out of time to find the deed—in a few days, even if I can sort out where it is, it’ll be too late. I wouldn’t be able to get to it and back again before the king arrives. I think... I think I have to bind myself to Burleigh House.”

It sits like a cold weight in my gut, the knowledge that I will die for Burleigh. If only I could save the House any other way.

Wyn reaches out and takes my hand. He laces his fingers through mine and a little thrill runs through me.

“Vi?” Wyn asks. “What did your father love most in this world?”

“Burleigh,” I answer without hesitation. “And he always put the House first.”

“Did he?” Wyn lifts our joined hands. The mortar has faded from under my skin and the bruises have gone from my wrists, leaving only the faint pink ring that circles my left arm still visible. “Where did this come from?”

“I was born with it,” I say. “You know that, though.”

He winces. “Violet, I haven’t always been honest with you. But I’m going tell you the truth now, about everything. About how I came to be at Burleigh House, and about why I stayed behind with your father, and about some other things besides.”

My breath catches. I’ve been waiting for him to tell me the truth, but now it’s come, I’m not sure I want to hear what Wyn’s going to say.

“The first thing you should know is this,” he tells me. “That’s not a mark you were born with. It’s a scar. You got it a week beforeI came to the House, and every night for a year, I listened to your father tell you a story, about how you’d been born with it. At the beginning you laughed, and by the end, you believed him. It’s easy to forget things when you’re only six years old, but I remember, Violet. I remember.”

I don’t understand why Wyn would say such a thing, and I pull my hand away from his. “What are you talking about? My father wouldn’t lie to me.”

Wyn gives me a pained look. “You’re not going to like any of this, Vi. Maybe I should just stop. Maybe I shouldn’t tell you.”

But I have one unimpeachable witness to everything that’s gone on within these walls, who will show me the truth of any matter.

“Burleigh,” I say, rubbing a finger against the mark on my wrist. “Show me the day I got this.”

The corridor wavers with an overlay of memory—the image of my own bedroom. A little ghost springs to life on the braided rug nearby—Violet Helena Sterling, age five, playing with her dolls and their house. It’s a replica of Burleigh Papa had made for me, though a year after Wyn joined us, Mama had the toy house taken away.You’ve outgrown it, Vi, she said, even though I still played with it every morning before she took it from me.

Little Vi plays on her own for a minute, and then fixes her eyes on the armchair behind me. I turn, and find my father’s ghost has joined us as well, sitting by the hearth with a stack of correspondence.

“Papa?” Little Vi asks. “Will you play with me?”

“Not just yet,” he answers, without looking up from his letters. “You know I only promised to sit up here with you so long as you didn’t interrupt my work.”

Little Violet sighs and turns back to her dolls, but her disappointment quickly turns to delight. Because all around the dollhouse, Burleigh has laid out a garden, just like our own grounds. There are miniature roses growing from the floorboards outside the conservatory, little grasses and wildflowers beyond them, and even a row of seedling trees to represent the back woods.

“Burleigh,” I watch myself whisper. “Don’t tell anyone, but I love you the most. I’d do anything for you, you know? Anything.”

A green vine, marked with patches of grey mortar, snakes up from the floor and twines itself around Little Vi’s wrist. She smiles, then winces and goes very still as thorns spring out from the vine. Blood beads onto my child-self’s skin like a bracelet, but it isn’t crimson, it’s gone pink, mingling with the mortar in the vine and on its thorns.

Papa glances up, and then he’s out of the chair and kneeling at Little Violet’s side, tearing the vine from her wrist. Tears pool in her eyes.

“You’re hurting,” she says reproachfully. “Stop it, Papa.”

I watch as my father takes my chin in his hand and his eyes rove over my face.

“What have you done, Burleigh?” he says.