Cursed, p.22
Cursed, page 22
He released her. Serilda stumbled, trying her best to bite back her anguish, even as the children gathered around her.
“Do we have a deal, poltergeist?”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Serilda did heal quickly, somewhat to her chagrin. Within a few days, her bone had righted itself, just as Anna’s bones had after her fall into the arena. But Serilda could not be grateful. She had not seen Gild since that awful day in Gravenstone’s great hall, but she had to assume, so long as the Erlking wasn’t having her tortured, that Gild was behaving as the Erlking wanted. Which meant that somewhere in the dungeons beneath this spooky castle, he was spinning gold for the hunt.
All so the Erlking could capture a god and wish for the return of Perchta.
It made her sick to think about, so Serilda tried to push it from her mind. There were plenty other things to think about, anyway, as she attempted to settle into their strange new home.
She had been given a set of rooms in the northwest corner of the castle, right across the hall from the Erlking’s chambers. They were lavish, with burgundy drapes hung on a four-poster bed and a hearth that was so big Gerdrut could have lain down inside of it—which she did after Fricz dared it of her.
Fortunately, the Erlking gave her and the children a surprising amount of freedom. While he had falsely doted on Serilda in Adalheid, he seemed to have forgotten her entirely in Gravenstone, keeping up pretenses to their romance only by sharing their evening bread together. Even then, he hardly spoke to her.
A welcome change.
He and the hunters were usually preoccupied now, either muttering to themselves in dimly lit parlors or studying enormous maps spread out in the dining hall. Discussing upcoming hunts, approaching full moons. She heard much talk of tree roots and brambles, rockslides and castle walls having caved in. She heard that the blacksmith had been ordered to make pickaxes and shovels and sickles that would cut through the thickest of brush. She saw servants pushing carts overflowing with broken stones and bundles of dead branches. She gathered that they were trying to repair some part of the castle sublevels that had caved in and been overtaken by the forest, but why the dark ones cared about having a few more cellars and storerooms when the castle was enormous as it was, she couldn’t fathom.
Eager to distract the children, Serilda used their unexpected boon of freedom by creating a game in which they explored a new corner of the castle every day, and whoever discovered the strangest or most interesting thing that day would be dubbed the game’s winner.
Anna claimed victory first. They had found the kennels where the hellhounds were kept and, with nothing else to do, decided to stay for the afternoon feeding. It was a grotesque display of raw meat and slobber and a dozen unnatural beasts snarling at one another to prove dominance, which was exactly the sort of thing that Anna, Fricz, and Hans found enthralling, and Serilda, Nickel, and Gerdrut managed to tolerate.
And it was Anna who first observed that the hounds were acting different.
That they seemed … anxious.
The hunters had to actually coax some of them out of their kennels to claim their meat, and throughout the feeding, a few of the hounds appeared continuously agitated. They’d abandon a slab of meat to peer around with wide, burning eyes, or even duck back into their kennels.
“What’s wrong with them?” Anna whispered.
“Maybe they’re scared of the ghosts,” said Hans.
Serilda frowned at him. “What?”
“This place is haunted,” he said, perfectly matter-of-fact. “Can’t you tell?”
She stared at him a long moment, expecting him to realize why this was such an ironic statement. When he didn’t, she sighed. “Hans … you are a ghost. You’re all ghosts.”
He rolled his eyes. “I don’t mean ghosts like us. Whatever was left behind at this castle … I think it’s angry.” He blinked at Serilda. “You can’t feel it?”
Which is when she realized that the five children could feel it … whatever it was.
She swallowed. “Well, let’s just hope it’s angry at the dark ones, and not us.”
* * *
The next day, Fricz claimed the most interesting discovery.
He had spent the morning helping the stable boy reorganize some of the outbuildings, where he found the wagon that had transported Serilda’s body from Adalheid to Gravenstone. With no more reason to keep it a secret, Serilda had told them that first night about Agathe’s betrayal, and when Fricz saw the wagon, he’d hoped that maybe he’d found her body, too.
But it was empty.
He brought Serilda and the others to see it, to be sure it was, indeed, the same wagon, now with no sign of the open coffin.
“Where do you think he’s moved it … her … you to?” asked Anna.
“Who knows?” said Serilda, trying not to feel defeated. “Maybe we’ll stumble across it, if we keep exploring.”
They knew it was unlikely. Gravenstone had even more nooks and passageways than Adalheid.
“It doesn’t really matter,” she said with a sigh. Then, hearing how crushed she sounded, she plastered on a smile. “I could never leave you, anyway.”
The children stared at her, frustrated and dismayed.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Serilda,” said Nickel, in the same tone he might use to explain to Gerdrut why it actually is necessary to wear gloves during a blizzard, “if you ever find your body again, you’ve got to break your curse.”
She glanced around at their resolute faces. “But I couldn’t.”
“You have to,” Nickel insisted.
Hans jumped in. “As long as you’re here, the Erlking has something to hold over Gild. He’ll keep spinning straw.”
“And then the Erlking will win,” said Gerdrut, earnest and wide-eyed.
Serilda’s breath caught. She looked at each of them, horrified at the thought of leaving them behind. “But how could I ever leave you? It’s my fault you’re here. If I abandon you—”
“No, it isn’t your fault,” said Hans. “The wild hunt took us.”
“Because of me!”
“Because they’re monsters,” said Hans. “Because they’ve been kidnapping people for hundreds … maybe thousands of years. Are you going to blame yourself for all those deaths, too?”
Serilda sighed. “You don’t understand.”
“No, you don’t understand.” Hans’s voice grew louder. “We love you, Serilda. We don’t want you to be trapped here, and we hate seeing you as his … his wife.” He grimaced. “If you ever have a chance to leave here, you have to take it, with or without us. If not just for yourself, then”—he gestured at her stomach—“for the baby.”
Serilda swallowed.
They all understood now that her unborn child was growing inside her physical body, but that Serilda’s belly would not swell until she was mortal again. She wanted to argue with them, to insist that she couldn’t possibly abandon—
Gerdrut launched herself at Serilda. She buried her face into Serilda’s stomach and wrapped her arms around her and said in her muffled voice, “Please, Serilda. It would be better for us if you were free. If we didn’t have to worry about you all the time.”
Her mouth ran dry as she squeezed Gerdrut against her. Never had it occurred to Serilda that they might worry for her as much as she worried for them.
Finally, she dragged in a long breath.
“All right,” she whispered. “If I find my body, I will try to break the curse and get away.”
Serilda didn’t have much hope of ever seeing her physical form again. Not until it was time to give birth, she supposed, and by then it would be too late for her to break the curse, save her child, and disappear. Gravenstone was a labyrinth, full of dark halls and winding stairwells. Wherever her body had been hidden now, she was sure it was somewhere secure and protected. Somewhere she was not meant to go.
* * *
On the third day, the children were summoned to help with washing and hanging all of the castle’s drapes and table linens, leaving Serilda to explore the castle on her own.
The Erlking had mentioned a library over their evening bread. He said it was filled with ancient tomes collected long ago, and it was this that Serilda sought to find. Her lord husband had given vague directions—the south wing, past the lunar rotunda, turn before you reach the solarium—but Serilda was hopelessly lost. She had found neither rotunda nor solarium, just a never-ending chain of parlors, sitting rooms, and galleries filled with more disembodied heads than a chicken farm.
Serilda was making suspicious eyes at an astoundingly impressive stag with great silver antlers when she heard a distant giggling.
She spun around, straining to listen.
The sound came again.
“Gerdrut?” she called, stepping into a dim study. She saw no one, only paintings of gloomy, stormy oceans on the walls. “Anna? Is that you?”
Another giggle, farther away.
Serilda hesitated. It did sound like a child, but was it one of her children?
She passed through to the far side of the room and entered a long corridor. To the left, a rumor of sunlight filtered into the hall. She squinted into the unexpected brightness and drifted toward it, stepping out into an enormous circular room with a domed ceiling.
Her breath snagged. The walls were painted deep sapphire blue and scattered with constellations of shimmering stars. Though the ceiling was mostly glass, the panels between the panes had been illustrated with the moon phases, along with the annual moons around the edges, from the Snow Moon at the start of the year to the final Dark Moon at its end. What, this year, would be called the Endless Moon, as the Dark Moon crossed with the winter solstice.
Serilda stared, amazed. This must be the lunar rotunda the Erlking had mentioned.
It wasn’t just the moon phases, but an entire calendar depicted on these walls. As she craned her neck to peer up at the glass ceiling, she wondered how the moon passing overhead would fall across these shimmering walls. How the stars would swim in and out of view as the nights passed by.
But while the rotunda ceiling was glorious, the room itself was in disarray, the floor littered with detritus and signs of labor. Hand-drawn carts half-filled with rock and debris. Chisels and axes scattered about the tiles.
And once again, she heard a strange noise. Not giggling.
More like … whispering.
A distant sound.
Like a group of children hidden behind a curtain and unable to keep quiet.
Serilda swiveled around.
The door was set back into a shadowed alcove, easy to miss. Not a door at all, she saw, moving closer, but the opening of a cave. Blackness spilled forth from that hole. The walls around it were rough-hewn rock and dirt and thick, tangled roots.
Something was moving. Writhing, crawling along the walls.
Snakes?
Breaths coming in quick gasps, Serilda approached the cave on hesitant feet.
No, not snakes. It was brambles. A mess of thorn-covered vines slithering across the broken tiles on the rotunda floor. Masses of them had been hacked away, leaving broken thorns and splintered edges behind.
But they still appeared to be alive. Reaching for her. Writhing in the light, as if seeking the sun’s warmth.
Serilda …
She froze. That was not a child’s voice.
That voice belonged to an adult. A man. Someone familiar—
Her pulse drummed in her ears.
She had heard wrong. Her mind was playing tricks on her, cruelly taunting her.
It came again. Her name.
Serilda…?
Louder now. More uncertain. More … hopeful.
“Papa?” she breathed, the word tenuous and fearful. She was sure the whisper was coming from this opening. She was sure it was her father calling to her.
But it was impossible.
He was dead.
She had seen him, turned into a nachzehrer, a flesh-eating monster. She had seen Madam Sauer drive the shovel through his neck.
He could not be here, in this awful castle in the middle of the Aschen Wood.
He could not be there, just beyond that yawning blackness.
Seril … da …
With a strangled sob, Serilda leaped forward and grabbed one of the vines, meaning to yank it away from the opening, to clear a path through the cave’s mouth.
Pain lanced through her palm. She hissed and pulled back. A thorn had dug into the flesh below her thumb. The wound was slight, but burning, as she pressed it to her mouth to stop the bleeding.
Her gaze lifted. She stilled.
The brambles had begun to grow together, clustering in vicious knots over the cave’s mouth, forming a thick barrier.
She drew back, shaking.
“Get away from there!”
She spun around, startled to see a hunter marching toward her, pickaxe in his gloved hand. She cried out and scrambled away. Away from the hunter, away from the thorns.
“Foolish human,” he muttered. “Did you let it touch you? That will cost us hours of work.” He snarled at her. “Get out of here, before you ruin anything else!”
Serilda opened her mouth, wanting to tell him what she’d heard, wanting to ask where this cave led to, what was down there?
But the dark one had already turned away from her, inspecting the vines that had knotted back together as he shook his head in irritation.
She knew she would not get any answers from him.
Besides, the whispers had gone quiet now. She had probably imagined it all.
Without waiting to be yelled at again, she ran from the room. Only once she’d caught her breath did she consider whether or not to tell the children about the discovery. She didn’t want to scare them—they were already frightened enough—but she also knew that cave with its slithering vines would have no competition for the most interesting discovery of the day.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The children had taken to sleeping in Serilda’s rooms with her, as they had in Adalheid. She didn’t mind. She wanted to be alone at night about as much as they did, and was glad for the company. If she ever lost out on a bit of sleep because she was squashed in the middle of five small, cold, slippery bodies, she never complained.
What did upset her, though, were the children’s nightmares, which had become nightly occurrences since their arrival in Gravenstone. Before, they had all slept like groundhogs. But now it was almost nightly that one of them awoke in tears.
A thrashing body was the first thing that pulled Serilda from her slumber. In her half-dreaming state, she squinted into the shadows of the room, trying to remember which of the children had fallen asleep at the foot of the bed, where the troubled groans were coming from.
Rubbing hazy sleep from her eyes, Serilda sat up, trying not to disturb the others.
“Gerdrut?” she asked, reaching for her shoulder. “Gerdy, wake up. You’re having another nightmare.”
But her hand did not find Gerdrut’s satin nightgown.
Instead, she felt something … leathery. A thin membrane and brittle bones.
She gasped and yanked her hand back. A hiss sounded in her ears.
She half crawled, half fell over Anna to get out of the bed so she could light the candle on her nightstand. As soon as she did, her gaze fell on the shadowy shape.
A creature with enormous yellow eyes and bat-like wings. Its talons digging into Gerdrut’s shoulders as its tongue snaked toward her face.
Serilda screamed.
Instinct took over as she lunged for the drude, swinging the candle at it. But the wick flickered and went out, plunging them back into darkness.
Serilda screamed again, and her scream was met with the children’s, scrambling terrified from their sleep. She struggled to relight the candle, while desperately trying to think what she might use as a weapon when there was little more than hairpins and a washbasin in this room. The water pitcher. It would have to do.
But by the time the candle sprang back to life, the drude was gone, and five children were flailing madly about the room, hiding behind the mattress and tugging on bedcovers, trying to protect themselves, though no one had any idea what was happening.
Her door was cracked open.
Serilda flew toward it, just as the Erlking yanked open his door on the other side of the hall.
Ignoring him, she peered down the hallway, one way, then the other.
The drude was perched behind one of the unlit chandeliers.
“There!” Serilda cried, pointing.
The drude hissed and leaped, spreading its wings. It landed on the wall and skittered across the stone, claws scrabbling for purchase, trying to make it to the far window.
No sooner had it found the window’s ledge than a dagger struck, pinning one of its wings to the wooden ledge.
Serilda pressed her hands to her chest, surprised yet again when she felt no heart racing beneath them. She looked at the Erlking, whose hand was still outstretched. His eyes were narrowed, his face calculating.
“Th-thank you,” she stammered. “It attacked Gerdrut.”
The Erlking brushed past her. He was wearing flaxen trousers and, disconcertingly, no shirt, and his silver-pale skin glowed in the dim candlelight as he approached the struggling beast and pulled out his knife.
The drude collapsed to the floor, but immediately popped up onto its hind legs and bared its teeth.
Unperturbed, the Erlking wrapped his fist around the wounded wing and squeezed.
Serilda heard the crack of bones and flinched.
As the monster shrieked, the Erlking lifted it to eye level and studied it for a long, awful moment.
“We have been looking for you,” he said. “Why have you been hiding from my hunters?”
