Cursed, p.23
Cursed, page 23
In response, the drude hissed again, its forked tongue darting at the Erlking’s face.
Serilda could not tell whether the Erlking expected an answer, but he seemed neither surprised nor disappointed as he used the point of the dagger to unfold the uninjured wing, inspecting the creature from every angle.
“I want to know what has happened since we left,” he said. “Where are the rest of my monsters?”
The creature’s eyes brightened until they were almost golden orange. Its talons clicked.
“Go ahead,” said the Erlking. “I do not fear your nightmares. Show me.”
Serilda’s lips parted. The Erlking wanted the drude to enter his mind, to give him—not a nightmare—but the truth of whatever had come to pass here since the dark ones had been gone.
But the drude did not.
Instead, the small beast took its talons and drove them into its own chest.
The Erlking’s eyes widened and he dropped the drude to the floor. He stepped away, and together he and Serilda watched as the life bled out from the beast in rivulets of dark, viscous blood.
“Well,” said the Erlking, with a sharp edge to his tone, “I suppose it had nothing to say.”
Serilda let out a shaky breath. “I … I need to check on Gerdrut.”
Without waiting for his response, she darted back to the bedroom.
The children were gathered on the bed, holding one another. Protecting one another.
“Gerdy,” said Serilda, sitting beside Gerdrut and taking her hand. “Are you all right?”
Gerdrut gave her a weak smile. “I’m all right.”
“Good. It’s over now. The drude is dead. It won’t hurt you again. And I swear … it was a nightmare. Only a nightmare.”
A haunted look crept over the child’s expression. She glanced at Hans, who gave her an encouraging nod.
“She was telling us about the dream,” Nickel explained. “Go on, Gerdy. Tell Serilda.”
Serilda braced herself. She had been the victim of a drude’s attack before. She had seen things in those visions that still sometimes woke her, shivering, in the middle of the night. She had heard tales of the drudes causing so much terror that a person had literally died of fright.
She hated to think what that beast had done to this poor, sweet child …
“Go on,” said Serilda. “I’m listening, if you want to tell me about it.”
Gerdrut sniffled. She’d been crying, and Serilda’s heart would have broken, if she’d had one.
“I saw m-my grandmother,” said Gerdrut.
Gerdrut’s grandmother had passed on to Verloren just over a year before. She had always been a kindly lady, the sort that had extra sweets for the children on holidays, and who was one of the few that had never turned a suspicious glare on Serilda.
“She was helping me make dolls out of leftover muslin scraps,” Gerdrut went on. “I was cutting out the pieces and she was adding buttons and flowers. And then…”
Serilda bit her lower lip, waiting for the moment when the dream turned to nightmare.
“She hugged me,” said Gerdrut, falling forward with a sob. “And told me how much she loved me and couldn’t wait to be with me again. She said she was waiting for me, and that someday we’d be together again. And I … I miss her so much, Serilda.”
As the other children swooped forward to embrace Gerdrut, Serilda leaned back, confused.
“That … doesn’t sound like a nightmare.”
Gerdrut shook her head, still crying. “It was … such a lovely dream!” she said between her sobs.
Serilda opened her mouth, but closed it again. She looked from Gerdrut to the other children, then finally to the closed door.
It didn’t make any sense.
“All right,” she finally said, taking in a deep breath. “All right, my loves, we should try to get some more sleep, if we can.” She stood and did her best to straighten out the covers and get them all to lie back down. “Snuggle in now, and I will tell you a story.”
“Will it be a happy story this time?” asked Anna.
Serilda laughed, before she realized that Anna meant the question in seriousness.
“Well,” she said hesitantly, “I suppose I can try.”
The veil had been created. Without full access to the mortal realm, the dark ones could no longer torment the humans, and a sense of balance was restored. The gods returned to their solitary lives.
But Wyrdith was unsatisfied.
Stories are only half told until they’ve found a listener, and though Wyrdith had long preferred the brutal beauty of the ocean as it crashed into the northern basalt cliffs, they found themselves growing more and more unhappy. And so, the god of stories decided to venture out among the mortals.
Wyrdith took to traveling throughout the human world.
They would take the shape of a common sparrow and perch on a windowsill, so they might listen to the tales a mother told to her children.
They would don the guise of an old man and hunker into the corner of a public house to listen to the local fishermen tell their tall tales of whales and merfolk.
There was a time when Wyrdith even disguised themselves as a traveling minstrel, performing for peasants and royalty alike. In between their own performances, they took note of the stories told in every village they passed through.
The more they heard, the more enamored the god became with humans, who could find as much pleasure in a quiet bedtime tale as they could in an epic adventure. Their stories were full of joy and struggles, victories and defeats, but always there was an undercurrent of hope that filled a place inside of Wyrdith that they had not known was empty.
One could say the god began to fall in love with those mortals.
A year came to pass in which Wyrdith gathered with the villagers of a small town on the autumnal equinox to enjoy Freydon’s Harvest. But that year, there was more worry than joy, for the harvest had been so poor that the villagers feared they would not have enough food to last them through the winter.
Rather than cast blame on Freydon, god of the harvest, the villagers accused Wyrdith. They were sure the trickster god had spun their wheel and this year, the wheel had dealt them a great misfortune.
Wyrdith was baffled, for they knew the wheel was not to blame.
Unable to understand why Freydon would abandon their responsibility to ensure a bountiful harvest, and angry that blame had been put at their own feet, Wyrdith took the form of a great bird and flew off to find the god of the harvest.
Freydon was enjoying a simple life on the eastern plains of Dostlen, where they tended a tidy garden and spent afternoons fishing at the delta of the Eptanie River. They were most surprised to see their old friend, the god of stories, and gladly invited Wyrdith to sit with them in the shade of an ancient fig tree to enjoy a game of dice and a cup of pear cider.
But Wyrdith was too angry to be appeased.
“This year’s harvest was abysmal,” said Wyrdith, “and the people are suffering! Why have you not made the grain plentiful and the orchards abundant? Why have you forsaken the good villagers who rely on you?”
Freydon was most taken aback by Wyrdith’s ire. They set down their mug and leaned forward with an almost pitying expression. “My dear friend, I have not interfered in the affairs of mortals for many centuries.”
Wyrdith did not understand. “But only last year, the autumn harvest was most bountiful!”
“Yes, as it has been for more than a decade, I am told. But that is because the rain fell and the sun shone and the farmers properly tilled their land and sowed their seeds.”
Wyrdith’s eyes widened. “I see,” they said. “So I should speak with Hulda, who must have made the farmers lazy this year. And I should speak to Eostrig, who must not have blessed the new-planted seeds. And I should speak with Solvilde, who betrayed us all with a summer of drought.”
At this, Freydon gave a boisterous laugh. “No, no, you do not understand. The others have sequestered themselves in their own sanctuaries, as I have, preferring to avoid the cycle of blame and blessings foisted upon us for so long. The seeds and the rain—they have their own will now. As for the farmers, if they gave in to laziness, they have only themselves to blame.”
Seeing that Wyrdith was still confused, Freydon sighed. “Tyrr has not meddled in a human war for eons, yet wars go on just the same. There are conquerors and there are the conquered, as there ever were, but now it is the humans who strike their own path. Likewise, Velos may still guide souls on the bridge to Verloren, but they have not impressed their will on who should die and when they shall pass for ages. And yet, death comes for all mortals regardless.” They shrugged. “We are the old gods, Wyrdith. The world has gone on without us. Mortals have gone on without us. They may invoke our names and leave their offerings and whisper their prayers, but it is up to them, ultimately, to devise their destiny.”
Seeing that Wyrdith’s expression had twisted into something hollow and sad, Freydon frowned. “Do not despair, my friend. There will be struggles. There will be tragedies. But humans can thrive better without our interference.”
“That is not what troubles me,” said Wyrdith.
“Then please unburden yourself to me.”
“That I cannot do. For you see, it is suddenly clear to me why it is always my name that is cursed when misfortune comes to good people, through no fault of their own. I see now that I am the only one who truly loves these mortals. But to them, I shall always be the trickster god with the unfair wheel—and, I fear, for that, they shall never love me back.”
Freydon placed a hand on Wyrdith’s shoulder. “You are more than fortune and fate. You are the world’s historian. You are the keeper of stories and legends long forgotten. If the mortals cannot love you for your wheel, they will love you for that.” Freydon’s eyes gleamed. “For there is not a soul alive—even among the gods—who does not enjoy a good story.”
Wyrdith left Freydon feeling disconnected from both the world of the gods and the world of mortals, wondering if they did not belong to either. Yet, they could also see the wisdom in Freydon’s words. Humans did love a good story, and if that was all Wyrdith could offer to them, then that is what they would give.
The god of stories returned to the world of mortals. They continued to live among them for many years.
Always listening to tales well told.
Always gathering the legends and lore of the greater world.
Always prepared to spin their own stories to any who would listen.
And sometimes—just sometimes—Wyrdith would look into the faces of their audience, cherubic children with rosy cheeks or old women with foggy eyes or young men weary from days in the fields, and the god would see love radiating back at them.
For a long time, that was enough.
THE HARVEST MOON
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Weeks after telling the tale of Wyrdith, Serilda still couldn’t stop thinking about it. All her life she’d had a complicated relationship with the godparent she’d never met. The god who had cursed her before she had even been born.
Despite all the trouble stories had brought her, she loved telling them. She couldn’t help it. The way star-crossed romances and unexpected villains wound themselves around her heart and made her feel like she was floating above the world as the story wrote itself. Made her feel like she was a part of something important, something eternal.
Never before had she wondered if the old god felt the same way. Did they also live for the rush of a perfectly executed resolution? Did they yearn for the reveal of a mystery, the unfolding of destiny, the troubled path of an impossible quest?
And did they ever wonder, like Serilda so often did, if their stories ultimately brought more harm than good? Stories might be an escape, but in the end, that’s all they were. In the end, reality always crashed back in.
She couldn’t help wondering where the god might be now. Had they eventually tired of mortals and gone the way of the other gods, taking on the life of a recluse? Or were they still wandering about the kingdoms, enthralling princes and peasants alike?
Serilda had never met a traveling bard, but her father told her that one had come to town when he was a young man and spent three straight nights spinning an epic tale about a hero knight who crossed land and sea, battling monsters and warlocks, in order to rescue a princess who had been turned into a constellation of stars. Papa said that story was all anyone would talk about for weeks after. When the bard traveled on, the children of the village had cried.
Could it have been Wyrdith?
For some reason, the thought sent a happy flush along Serilda’s skin. After her birth, the people of Märchenfeld had grown wary of stories, out of fear of the cursed girl with the golden eyes. But she liked to think there had been a time when they, too, had gathered in the village square to hear a tale of enchantment.
It was just as Freydon had said. There is not a soul alive who does not enjoy a good story.
The days were long in Gravenstone, and at least these ongoing questions helped Serilda keep her mind from wandering to Gild, locked up somewhere, all alone, forced to spin day and night. Her insides had been tied in a constant knot as she dwelled on every horrible thing that might be happening to him. She imagined a flea- and rat-infested bed, and then wondered if he’d been allowed any sleep at all. She pictured his hands raw and bleeding from handling the straw. She could hear his sardonic voice, telling the Erlking what he could do with his spun gold, and Gild’s groans at the beating that would follow.
It was enough to make her sick with worry, especially when she was helpless to do anything for him. She yearned for a distraction.
The children had been kept busy at first, working beside the other ghosts to dust and shine and clear away the cobwebs. But once the work was done, they had to find new ways to entertain themselves in this dismal place. They invented board games and begged the castle’s musicians to teach them songs on the zither and mandolin. They spent hours crafting paper lanterns that they planned to fill with candles and hang from the boughs of the alder tree on the Mourning Moon, a tradition they’d cherished in Märchenfeld. Hans was also helping Gerdrut make her first poesiealbum, filling a booklet of loosely bound pages with paintings and dried flowers, snippets of poetry and happy memories. Nickel had taken to drawing, and Anna was back to her old self—immutable and energetic and bounding off the walls when the boredom got to be too much. Meanwhile, Fricz was determined to learn how to cheat at bone dice.
All in all, they made the best of it, though the air in the castle felt oppressive in a peculiar, intangible way. There were secrets hidden in these walls. Mysteries in the flickering candlelight. Adalheid might have been haunted, but it was Gravenstone that filled Serilda with a lingering dread whenever she made her way through the unfamiliar halls.
It could have been her imagination, but it seemed that even the dark ones were uneasy. They spoke of their things being moved or stolen when no one was around—and for once, no one could blame the poltergeist. The hellhounds howled at all hours, as if trying to commune with monsters no one else could see. The stable boy said the horses, too, were jittery, always whinnying and wild-eyed. And there were strange noises. Whispers and scratching claws and hollow knocking that filled the corridors but had no obvious source.
Perhaps, after so long away, Gravenstone was no longer their home. Perhaps they’d grown too comfortable in Adalheid. Or perhaps it was the mysteries of the place that had them rattled. The angry presence that had all the ghosts looking over their shoulders. The phantom whispers. How the entire castle felt more like a mausoleum than a sanctuary. The Erlking’s court might have been used to living in a haunted castle, but there was something about Gravenstone that troubled them all, and it had gotten worse after the drude attacked Gerdrut.
Even though the drude had, in fact, not attacked her. In the days that followed, Gerdy’s story did not change. It had not been a nightmare at all, but a dream. A happy dream that filled her with hope to think that someday this, their real-life nightmare, would end. Someday she would have peace and rest and be with her family again.
It made Serilda unspeakably sad to hear such poignant, bittersweet words spoken by a child so young.
But more than that, it made her confused.
Why in the name of the old gods would a drude sneak into their chambers to give a little girl a dream about her deceased grandmother?
She had not told the Erlking the truth of Gerdrut’s vision. He was already in a sour mood. He, too, had been unusually tense since their arrival. His eyes shifted about the rooms, as if he expected the very shadows to attack. Or … speak. Or sing or dance or whatever it was that dark ones were afraid of shadows doing.
Serilda didn’t mention her father’s voice calling her from the opening in the lunar rotunda, either. She found her feet leading her in that direction more than once before she forced herself to turn away.
Her father was gone. He had been taken by the wild hunt, thrown from his horse, and left to die on the side of the road, because the Erlking had not valued his spirit enough to bring him back to the castle. Her father’s corpse had become a nachzehrer—a rotting, mindless creature that had attacked Serilda, hungry for the flesh of his own kin. He might have killed her if Madam Sauer hadn’t saved her. Afterward, they had thrown his body into the river. He was dead. He was never coming back.
Whoever, or whatever, had been calling her was not her father.
“Your Luminance?”
Serilda started from her reverie, staring out the parlor window at the Aschen Wood, to see Manfred at her side.
“The honor of your presence has been requested by His Grim.”
She shivered at his words, exactly the same as the first time she’d seen him, when he’d come to the gristmill with a carriage made of rib bones and summoned her to Adalheid.
“What does he want? Evening bread isn’t for hours.”
“It has something to do with … the poltergeist,” he said.
