“You mean … they’re always like that?” I asked.
“If you went back there right now, the storms would still be going on,” the guardian confirmed with a shudder of distaste. “They’re caused by the Blacklands.”
I looked out the window again.
The last stretch of the journey seemed endless, for Obernewtyn was some distance from the tainted pass. The country grew more fertile and ordinary, though very jagged and uneven, with great outcrops of stone rearing up here and there from the dense forest. It was still a hard, wild sort of land, but it seemed fair and rich after the devastated terrain.
My sense of time was utterly confused, but I realized now that night had given way to the early morning, for its dense blackness had transmuted into a frigid, dark blue.
“There,” said the guardian suddenly, and I saw a sign swinging between two posts. In dark lettering, it read OBERNEWTYN. KEEP OUT.
The sight of it chilled me more effectively than all the Blacklands in existence. Just beyond was an iron gate set into a high stone wall. The wall extended as far as I could see in both directions. Enoch pulled the horses up and unlocked the gate. He walked the weary team through, then relocked it from the other side. I wondered why they bothered—surely Obernewtyn’s remoteness barred the way more effectively than any locks. I tried to see the house, but thick, ornately clipped trees hid their secret well in the curving drive. Someone had gone to great lengths to keep Obernewtyn from prying eyes.
“Obernewtyn,” whispered the guardian, looking out the other window. Her voice was low, as if the somber building that had come into view quelled her as much as it did me. Even the horses seemed to walk softly.
It was a massive construction and outwardly more like a series of bleak buildings pushed haphazardly together than one single mansion. It was constructed of large, rough-hewn blocks of gray stone streaked with flecks of darker stone. Aside from the stone itself, no effort had been made to make one section harmonize with the rest. In some places, it was two or three stories high, and turrets rose up at its corners, with steep little roofs ending in spires. Each wall was pocked with hundreds of slitlike holes that I realized must serve as windows.
The drive curved around an ugly fountain, from which rose a lamppost. Its flame flickered behind gleaming panels, making shadows dance along the walls of the building. Atop a set of wide stone steps, the entrance seemed to move in the shifting light, making me think of an opening maw.
The carriage had drawn to a stop at the foot of the steps, and Enoch unlocked the door. I climbed out after the guardian. The cold air gusted and made my cloak flap violently enough that I clutched at it, fearing it would be wrenched away from me. The branches of the trees were filled with the blustering wind, and the noise they made seemed a mad whispering that made my skin rise up into gooseflesh.
I shivered and told myself sternly not to let my imagination get the better of me.
Only when we reached the top of the steps did I see that the two broad entrance doors were deeply and intricately carved wood. The beauty of the carvings struck me, particularly because the building itself seemed so utterly utilitarian. I studied them as the guardian rang a bell. Men and all manner of queer beasts were represented, many seeming half man and half beast. Whoever had done the work was a true craftsman, for the expressions on the faces portrayed the essences of the emotions that shaped them. Framing the panels was a wide gilt border decorated with exotic symbols. The symbols seemed to me a sort of scribing, though I could make no sense of them.
At last the doors opened to reveal a tall, thin woman holding a candelabrum. The light shivered and twitched in the wind, giving her gaunt features a curious, almost fluid look. She bent closer, and I wondered if she found me as indistinct in the wavering light. I was too tired to pretend dullness and hoped weariness would do as well.
“You’ll get no sense out of her,” said Guardian Hester scornfully. “I thought Madam Vega did not intend to bring up any more dreamers. This one doesn’t even look strong enough to be a good worker.”
The other woman raised her eyebrows disdainfully. “If Madam chose this girl, she will not have done so without purpose,” she said very distinctly, and peered into my face in much the same way Madam Vega had at Kinraide, but without any of her hypnotic power.
“Elspeth, this is Guardian Myrna,” said Hester.
“You may leave now,” the other woman told her abruptly.
“But … but I thought, since it was so late …” Guardian Hester hesitated and faltered before the gaze of the other.
“It is not permitted for temporary guardians to stay in the main house. You know that. If our arrangement does not please you, I am sure another can be found.”
Guardian Hester clasped her hands together. “Please. No. I … forgot. I’ll go to the farms with the coachman,” she said.
Guardian Myrna inclined her head regally after a weighty pause. “You should hurry. So much talk has delayed you, and I think the dogs are out,” she said. The other woman paled and hastened to the door. Guardian Myrna watched her go with a cold smile; then she took some keys from her apron pocket. “Come,” she said.
We went out a doorway leading off the circular entrance chamber and into a long hall pitted with large doors. Clumsy locks hung from each, and I thought that if this was an indication of the security at Obernewtyn, I would have no trouble getting away. Distantly, I heard the bark of a dog.
The guardian unlocked one of the doors. “Tonight you will sleep here, and tomorrow you will be given a permanent room.” She shut the door behind me and bolted it.
I stood a moment in the total darkness, using my mind to ascertain the dimensions of the room. I was relieved to discover that I was alone. It was too cold to get undressed, so I simply slipped my shoes off and climbed into the nearest bed. I drifted uneasily to sleep, thinking I would rather be anywhere than Obernewtyn.
9
THE DOOR BANGED violently open.
A girl stood on the stone threshold with a candle in one hand. With her free hand, she continued to hammer loudly at the open door with a peculiar fixed smile on her face.
“What is it?” I said.
She looked at me through lackluster eyes. “I am come … I have come …” She faltered as though her brain had lost the thread of whatever message she wanted to impart. She frowned. “I have come to … to warn you.” There was a glimmer in the depth of her muddy eyes, and all at once, I doubted my initial impression that she was defective.
“Warn me about what?” I asked warily.
She made a warding-off movement with her free hand. “Them. You know.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. I am new here. Who are you?”
She jerked her head in a spasm of despair, and a look of anguish came over her face. “Nothing! I’m nothing anymore.…”
She looked across the room at me and started to laugh. “You should not have come here,” she said at last.
“I didn’t choose to come here. I am an orphan, and now I am condemned a Misfit.”
The girl giggled. “I was no orphan, but I am a Misfit.”
Unable to make any sense out of her, I reached out with my thoughts. At once I learned that her name was Selmar and her mind was a charred wreckage. Most of her thought links did not exist, and little remained that was normal. I saw the remnant of someone I could have liked. But whatever she had gone through had left little of that person. Here was a mind teetering on the brink of madness.
Her eyes rolled back in panic, and cursing my stupidity, I realized she could feel me! She must have been one of those people with some fleeting ability. For an instant, her eyes rolled forward, and she looked out with a sort of puzzlement, as if she was struggling to remember something of great importance. But all too quickly, the muddiness in her eyes returned, and with it a pitiful, cowering fear.
“I promise I don’t know anything about a map,” she whispered.
I stared. What was she talking about n
ow?
“Selmar …,” I began, throwing aside my covers and lowering my feet to the cold stone floor.
Before I could say more, a voice interrupted. “Selmar, how is it that you take so long to wake one person?”
It was a sweet, piping voice, high-pitched and querulous. Not a voice to inspire fear, yet, if it were possible, Selmar paled even further as she turned to face the young boy behind her. No more than eleven or twelve years, he was as slender as a wand, with delicate blond curls; slim, girlish shoulders; and large, pale eyes.
“Answer me,” he hissed. Selmar swayed as if she would faint, though she was older and bigger than him.
“I … I didn’t do anything,” she gibbered. “She wouldn’t wake up.”
He clicked his teeth. “You took too long. I see you need a talk with Madam to help you overcome your laziness. I will make sure to arrange it.” The sheer maliciousness in his beautiful face angered me.
“It is as she told you,” I said, stepping between them. “I had trouble waking, because I arrived so late last night.”
Selmar nodded pathetically.
“Well, go on with your duties, then,” he conceded with a nasty smile. Selmar turned with a frightened sob and fled down the hall, her stumbling footsteps echoing after her. Chewing his bottom lip, the boy watched her departure with thoughtful eyes.
“What did she say to you?” he asked, turning back to me.
“Nothing,” I answered flatly, wondering by what right he interrogated me.
He frowned petulantly. “You’re new. You will learn,” he said. “Now get up and I will come back for you.” He closed the door behind him.
Rummaging angrily through a chest of assorted clothes, I found a cloak. It was freezing within the stone walls, and pale early-morning light spilled in wanly from the room’s sole window. There were no shutters, and cold gusts of air swept freely through the opening. I would have liked to look outside, but the window was inaccessible, fashioned long and thin, reaching from above my head almost to the ceiling.
The door opened suddenly. “Come on, then,” the blond boy snapped.
As we walked down the hall, I noticed a good deal more than I had the previous night. There were metal candle brackets along the walls, shaped like gargoyles’ heads with savage mouths. Cold, greenish drips of wax hung frozen from the gaping jaws. I eyed them with distaste, reflecting that whoever had built Obernewtyn had no desire for homely comfort.
We passed the entrance hall with its heavy front doors and continued along a narrow walkway on the other side.
“Where are you taking me?” I asked.
The boy did not answer, and presently we came to a double set of doors. He opened one with something of a flourish. It opened onto a kitchen, a long, rectangular room with two large dining arbors filled with bench seats and trestle tables. At the far end of the kitchen, almost an entire wall was taken up with a cavernous fireplace. Above it was set an immense mantelshelf, laden with stone and iron pots. From its underside hung a further selection of pans and pannikins. A huge, blackened cauldron was suspended over the flame, and stirring the contents was a woman of mountainous proportions.
Her elbows, though bent, resembled large cured hams, and a large white bow sat on her hips and waggled whenever she moved. The roaring heat of the fire had prevented her from noticing our entrance. Tearing my eyes away, I saw that there were several doors besides the one we had come through and a great number of cupboards and benches. A young girl was sitting at one of these, scraping potatoes, and they sat in two mounds on either side of her. She watched me with currant-like eyes buried in a slab-jowled face. The knife poised above the potato glinted brightly.
“Ma!” she yelled, waving the knife in agitation, throwing its light at me.
The mountain of flesh at the stove trembled, then turned with surprising grace. The woman’s face was flushed from the heat and distorted by too many chins, but there was a definite resemblance between her and the girl. The thick ladle in her hand dripped brown gravy, unheeded.
“Ariel!” she cried in dulcet tones. Her accent was similar to Enoch’s but less musical. “Dear hinny, I have nowt seen ye in an age. Ye have not deserted me, have ye, sweet boy?”
She gathered him in a bone-crushing embrace and led him to one of the cupboards. She took out a sweet and gave it to him.
“Why, Andra, thank you.” Ariel sounded pleased, and I wondered why the cook treated him with such favor. Surely he was only a Misfit, unless he was also an informer. Yet he seemed too arrogant for the latter. Most informers were clinging and contemptible, and even those who used them tended to dislike them.
The girl with the knife giggled violently, and again the blade flashed its silver light. The older woman glared ferociously at her.
“Ye born noddy-headed thing. Shut yer carrying on an’ get back to work.” The girl’s giggles ceased abruptly. Catching sight of me watching her, she scowled as if I were to blame.
“Now, Andra,” Ariel said. “You recall how I promised you some extra help? Well, I have brought you a new worker.”
Responding with enthusiasm, the cook launched herself at him with much lip-smacking. I thought with suppressed glee that it served him right. He caught the amusement on my face. Disentangling himself, he ordered the cook to make sure I worked hard, as I was assuredly lazy and insolent. Andra promised to work my fingers to the bone as he departed with a look of spiteful satisfaction.
As soon as the door closed, her daughter leapt toward me, brandishing her knife. “Misfit pig. What sort of help will she be? Ye can see she don’t have a brain in her,” she sneered venomously, menacing me with the knife.
The syrupy smile dropped from the cook’s face. She crossed the floor in two steps and dealt her daughter a resounding blow with the wooden spoon. “If she has no brains, then she’ll be a good match fer ye, fool that ye are, Lila. If Ariel gives us th’ gift of a fool, then ye mun show pleasure!” the cook snarled. “Oh, th’ trials of my life. Yer no-good father gives me a fool fer a daughter, then disappears. I have to come to th’ end of th’ Land so ye won’t be declared defective. I find a nice powerful boy to bond ye an’ yer so stupid I got to do th’ charmin’ fer ye. Lud knows ye’ve little enough to offer without gollerin’ an’ gigglin’ like a regular loon,” she added succinctly.
With some amusement, I realized that the cook intended a match between her daughter and Ariel. It seemed he wasn’t a Misfit. But what sort of power could such a young boy possess?
With a final look of disgust at her daughter, the cook turned to me. “As fer you, no doubt ye are a fool at that. An’ work ye hard I will, if that’s what Ariel wants. Ye’ve angered him somehow, an’ ye mun pay. He’ll see ye do. He ain’t one to let petty angers gan away. Ye’ll learn,” she prophesied.
Turning to the sink, she explained that I was to wash the mountain of dishes and then scour the pots. I looked in dismay at the work ahead. In the orphan homes, there had been a great many of us, and a share in duties was always light. Yet there was nothing to do but obey.
I had been working for hours and had just managed to finish the dishes when the cook announced that the easy work was over since it was nearly time for midmeal. I felt like weeping. Already I was exhausted, but as Lila and I set the tables, I channeled my despair into fueling a growing hatred of Ariel, whom I regarded as the initiator of my woes. I was hungry, having missed firstmeal, but I dared not complain as I carried bowl after bowl of stew to the tables. Lila moaned endlessly and received endless slaps for her pains. I judged it wiser to hold my tongue.
Presently, the cook rang a bell. Young people of varying ages filed in through the double doors. Soon all the tables were full. The diners did not look at us at all but ate with steady concentration, then left, their seats soon taken by others. The meal consisted of a bowl of thick stew and freshly baked bread. The food smells made me feel dizzy with hunger. In town, food had seldom been this good or this fresh, but we had never had to work too hard. I w
ondered wistfully what the others did and regretted that I had fallen foul of Ariel.
“Ye gan eat now,” the cook said finally, and thrust a generous helping into my hand. My stomach growled in appreciation. I sat at a nearly empty table and devoured the food. Only when I had spooned up the last morsel did I look up.
“Hello,” said a soft voice at my elbow. I turned to look at a young blond girl sitting nearby. She smiled, and I was astonished that anyone would ever want to condemn her. Even her ungainly clothes could not hide the delicacy of her features and her slender bones. Her hair was like cream silk. She endured my examination without embarrassment, until it was I who looked away from her clear, naive gaze.
“I am Cameo,” she whispered. I looked at her again, and such was the sweetness of her expression that I might have smiled back, but Lila, seated at the end of the table, was watching us.
“I am not interested in your name,” I said in a repressive voice, worried that Ariel would punish the girl for her kindness toward me. But when the brightness of her face dimmed, I wished I had not been so terse.
A sharp cuff on the side of my head was the cook’s signal that my short respite was over. I rose and began to clear plates. The afternoon was spent washing all the midmeal dishes and scrubbing down the jagged kitchen floor, then serving stew and unwatered milk for nightmeal.
Every bone ached by the time Ariel took me to my permanent room, and I was too exhausted to care that I was not alone. At that moment, the Master of Obernewtyn himself could have been my roommate and met as little response.
10
MY INITIAL EXHAUSTION wore off as I became accustomed to the hard physical labor in the kitchen, but it was replaced by a terrible mental despair. I could not endure the thought of going on in such a way forever, and yet there seemed no opportunity of finding Enoch’s friend who might be able to help me move to the farms to work.
My sole comfort came from a conversation I had overheard at midmeal one day, which had implied that most of the house workers went down to work on the farms to prepare for the long wintertime. I prayed this was so, and that I would be among those dispatched to the farms. But I had arrived in the spring, and my calculations told me no extra workers would be required until the beginning of summerdays.