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There was something I had to find. Something I had to find, and then I could do what she wanted. Be what she wanted. It was close. I could feel it. But the spiral was there, too, drawing me under. And I was so, so cold.
And then—then the cold was real, biting deep, and I stood in the woods, awake and barefoot in my pajama pants, shivering as Harrow’s bell rang to signal the morning. Mist coiled among the trees and a bird called in the dark predawn, and I was alone.
My fingers ached. Dirt packed the creases of my hands. My fingertips were red, my nails broken. “No no no no,” I whispered, as if denying what was happening could make it less true. I curled my fingers under and jammed my half-frozen hands under my arms to try to warm them. My teeth chattered.
The Harrow dream had come twice, and twice I’d woken out here, dirty and cold. What was happening to me? What was doing this?
I stumbled up the path toward the house. The sun was barely a whisker of light against the horizon. Around me the shadows seemed to shift, pulling free of the trees—stretched, warped shapes, figures like people wrenched into strange configurations, all at the corner of my eye, vanishing as soon as I turned to look. Panic scrabbled out over my skin. I broke into a run.
I burst from the trees, my numb feet carrying me at a stumbling gait. Movement rustled behind me. I didn’t dare look back. I bolted straight for the back steps and flew up them, leaving a trail of muddy footprints.
The French doors at the back of the house were locked. Of course they were locked. My breath hitched, and for a moment I couldn’t think at all. But then I spotted a form hurrying across the ballroom toward me. Mom.
“Helen! Good lord, you’re half frozen,” she said, rubbing her hands on my arms to warm me up. “What are you doing outside?”
If I told her the truth, it would panic her. “Stupid. Wanted to watch the sunrise,” I said.
She gave me an odd look, and I knew she didn’t believe me. But she only gave my arms one last brisk rub and pushed me towardthe stairs. “You’d better go get warmed up. I’ll have something sent up to your room.”
I nodded mutely and tottered toward the stairs up to the Willows. By the time I reached my room I could at least feel my fingers and toes again, though my hands were still shaking as I went for the knob. It turned a quarter inch and stopped. The door was locked. I jiggled it, jiggled it again, yanked at it, that panic starting to well back up. I forced myself to stop.
I hadn’t locked the door. So who had?
The creak of a floorboard warned me that I wasn’t alone, and I tried my best to compose myself before Eli rounded the corner. He had a ring of keys in one hand, and when he saw me, his eyes widened just a touch, almost imperceptibly. We stared at each other.
“The door’s locked,” I said after a moment.
“I was just coming to open it. I’m afraid I slept in,” Eli said, running his thumb along the length of the old-fashioned brass key. “I lock all the bedrooms at night. For safety.”
“Safety from what?”
“Things that go bump in the night,” he said with a faint chuckle, and stepped forward. I flinched back, but he only leaned past me and unlocked the door, then pushed it open for me. “May I ask how you came to be outside your room?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted, unable to come up with a plausible explanation.
“I see,” he said thoughtfully, giving the door a speculative look. “I’ll let you get cleaned up, then. And Helen—it really isn’t safe out on the grounds at night. After the bell.”
“Bryony goes out, doesn’t she?” I asked before I remembered that I’d only dreamed of her out there in the dark.
“The Harrow Witch has her own ways.” He walked past me. I turned with him, making sure my hands with their dirt-packed nails were hidden behind me. Only when he was truly out of sight did I open the door. Inside, I shut it again, and then stood looking around the room. The bed was rumpled, the fox skull was out on the table where I’d left it. Nothing was out of place. Except for the dirty footprints that led from the side of the bed to the wall opposite—and vanished.
The prints matched mine. The sheets were dirty, too, smudged and smeared with dark earth. I followed the path of the footsteps to the wall and pressed my fingers to the wallpaper, searching for some hidden catch as images of secret passages flashed through my mind. But there was nothing.
I shivered, and not just from fear—I was sodden and freezing and covered in cold dirt.One thing at a time, I told myself. I’d get cleaned up, and then I’d retrace my steps.
In my bathroom I stripped off my soggy clothes, and then I paused again. Beneath the grime that coated my hands and wrists were red welts running around my wrists like bracelets. More lines ran across my stomach, my shoulders, my elbows, my knees. Some of them were a single line, but most were frayed and jagged. There was a single red welt just below my sternum. When I pressed my fingertips to them, they were tender like a sunburn, just like the last time I’d woken up outside—but worse.
They had the feel of something unfinished.
10
I SHOWERED, BLASTINGthe hot water, and by the time I was done, the welts had faded to faint marks I could almost pretend weren’t there. Outside, the sky had brightened to a desultory shade of blue. In the shadows the grass was still rimed with white. I could see the path I had walked, grass bent and frost melted, leading to the trees. I tried to imagine myself standing here in the dark. Tried to remember.
But all I remembered was the dream: Bryony and her lantern.
I walked beside the trampled grass and slipped into the woods, walking to the place where I’d been, or as close to as I could figure. I looked around for any sign of why I might have come out here. Orhow.
The sound of a shovel hitting dirt made me jump. Not far from the path, a man in a blue fleece pullover stood with his back to me. I drew closer cautiously. He emptied his shovel before turning and driving it into a pile of dirt beside him. He wasn’t digging a hole; he was filling it in.
