Joffrey just stared at her, perplexed. Occasionally he sang “Tra la, tra lee” quietly while she spoke.
“You made us go into the Impassable Wilderness, Mr. Unthank. You put weird stuff in my sister’s ears and you gave me some kind of pill. And then you sent us into that place. Without food or water or anything. Do you remember? We would’ve starved if we hadn’t found the other Unadoptables there. Do you ever think of that, Mr. Unthank?”
The man continued to babble under her words; he shuffled the index cards in his hands nervously. Elsie thought she saw tears spring up in his eyes.
“But you know what, Mr. Unthank? I think you’re really a good person, somewhere down there in your belly. I think you just made a lot of bad choices in your life. You sent us into the Impassable Wilderness for your own weird, greedy reason, but we made it out. We made it out and we’re the better for it, too. I know more about myself now, I know that I have a special power that I didn’t know I had. And wanna know something else?” Here, she knelt down so she was looking Unthank directly in the eye. “I think it’s going to help me find my brother.”
She waited for a response; none came.
“So there. For all your greediness, you only made me stronger. How does that make you feel?”
More mumbling, singing. A full, bulbous tear dripped down from his eyelid and ran down the end of his nose.
Elsie started to feel very sorry for the man. “You can make things better, Mr. Unthank. You can help us. You can help us get our friends back. You can stop being crazy just for a bit and stop crying and stop singing and do your part to help us. Do you think you could do that? And then, maybe. Maybe then we’d all just get a little closer to maybe forgiving you. What do you think of that, Mr. Unthank?”
The man nodded, tears now streaming down his cheeks. He’d stopped his mumbling. He was holding the index cards firmly in his hands; they were crinkling under the pressure. Elsie heard a voice sound from behind her: It was Jacques.
“Easy, Elsie,” he said. “The man’s under a lot of pressure. He’s got a lot to get ready for.”
“Sorry,” said Elsie. “I just wanted to talk to him. He just seemed so sad.”
Jacques nodded gravely, turning to Unthank. “How’s the practice going?”
Unthank brought one freshly scrubbed knuckle to his eyes and proceeded to wipe it free of tears. A steely look of determination had emerged from somewhere, deep inside that lumpy sweater-vested frame of his, and he wrinkled his brow in concentration. He dropped the index cards to the ground and said, “I’m ready.”
The little dish, the dish of her mother’s, the little brass bowl on top of her dresser, now contained two things: a mottled eagle feather and a smooth white pebble. Zita placed this last thing in it as she settled in for the evening, with her father turning the damper down on the woodstove just outside her room and the light of the day’s dimming sun having seeped away through the veil of trees.
She climbed into her bed and waited, listening for the gas man turning on the lamps on the street outside, for her father to pad softly down the hall toward his bedroom. She watched the mirror on her dresser, waited for the mist to come. She wanted to find out more about this Verdant Empress; she suspected that the spirit was not the one that was whispered about in the schoolyard, the one whose son had been murdered. She suspected that the stories got the details wrong. This was no ghost called forth from the time of the Ancients. This spirit was someone else. And she had an idea who it was.
The moment in Wildwood, when she’d stumbled onto the Plinth, all surrounded by the bed of ivy, lingered in her mind. She’d felt something there, a kind of electricity running through the forest that seemed to connect her and the pebble to that white, fluted pedestal. It had confirmed her suspicions, that she was not simply calling some long-sleeping specter back from the dead for a kind of sideshow séance. She was implicated in something much bigger. It had been the eagle, the one that had kindly donated the first of her requested items, that had planted the seed: What did this thing want from the land of the living?
The night descended; Zita waited.
The moon climbed in a slow, shallow curve across the horizon; it shone into her bedroom window.
She must’ve dozed off, there in her bed, because the very next moment she opened her eyes and heard the clock in the hall chime midnight, and she’d toppled sidelong into her pillow. She pulled herself upright and smoothed back her hair—for what, she didn’t know. For some reason, tonight she wanted to make herself presentable to the spirit. She wanted to be seen.
The clock ticked in the hall; her father snored in his bed. The mist came and clouded the glass. Zita’s heart rate quickened.
GOOD, wrote the spirit.
“I know who you are,” said Zita.
The glass remained unchanged.
“You’re the old Governess. The one whose kid died. The one who went crazy.”
The glass clouded again. Zita waited. Still: nothing.
“Is that right? Is that you?”
A breeze rippled through the room; she could feel the chill.
Zita spoke again: “It’s okay. I’ll still get the things for you. I just wanted to say that I know who you are. I know what happened to you. And that I guess I understand.” She felt calmed, like she was speaking to an old friend. The words came quickly. “My dad told me about you. I wasn’t even born yet. He said you were a great woman. He said that you went through the worst thing that anyone could ever go through, that you lost your son. He said that you maybe were a little extreme, afterward, but it was to be expected and that any parent of a child would understand. That’s what he said.”
Quiet; fog on the mirror.
“And while I’m not a parent of a kid, I’m just a teenager, I think I kind of get it.” She paused here, drumming up the courage to say the next words. “The opposite happened to me. My mom died. About seven months ago now.” She laughed a little, saying, “Funny. I haven’t really talked to anyone about it. You’re the first person—I mean, whatever you are. She was really sweet, my mom. She liked playing guitar and gardening. She was a really good singer, too. She was just a good person, you know? Just good. And then she got sick and she died. Just like that. Like, you think only bad people get punished and have to die in awful ways, but she was really good, my mom, and she just slipped away. So fast. Like, you’d never in a million years imagine that that sort of thing could happen to you and then it does and your whole world is just crushed, right?”
The mirror gave no response.
“I’m just saying, I know how you feel. I know why you did what you did. And maybe in some way my helping you is me just trying to help myself, you know? Does that even make any sense?”
A breeze rustled the curtains. The word YES scrawled across the mirror’s glass.
Zita beamed. “You hear me! So is that you, the old Governess?”
YES.
“What’s your name?”
The glass fogged. Then, the sound of a finger against a windowpane as ALEXANDRA appeared on the mirror.
“Right! Wow,” said Zita. “Well, I’m glad we got that cleared up. Just so we know. Who we are. You’re Alexandra, and you lost your son. I’m Zita, and I lost my mother. So we’re a pretty good team, don’t you think?”
She didn’t wait for a response; instead, she leapt up from her bed and walked to the bowl on the dresser, her eyes glued to the foggy mirror with the scrawled words on it. “Okay,” she said. “What’s next?”
The words appeared, written in the fog by the spectral finger of the deceased Dowager Governess, and Zita blanched to see them, though now that she knew the identity of the spirit, it seemed to make a kind of cold, eerie sense. What’s more, she felt like she’d found a new well of sympathy for the woman, deep in her heart, and she understood. Now she understood.
CHAPTER 15
The Sway of the Blighted Tree
“Eat,” the Elder Caliph repeated. “And be free.”
More people had arrived; the line had grown so long that it snaked away from the Blighted Tree like a long, rippling ribbon. Prue recognized more faces in the crowd: the Spokes who had carried the rickshaw when she’d first arrived, the girl who’d given her flowers when she first stepped into the Mansion. They all stood quietly and obediently, one behind the other, waiting for their time to be fed the strange substance by the hooded Caliph. The ever-present HUM continued unabated in Prue’s mind, and her vision swam as she teetered by the tree and tried valiantly to reconstitute her thoughts. The Elder Caliph, Elgen, had taken the spoon of Spongiform from the acolyte and was holding it some few inches from Prue’s lips.
“Esben,” murmured Prue. “I need to get to Esben.”
“Esben is safe,” said Elgen. “He’s in good hands.”
This seemed to shake Prue from her swoon. “He’s hidden. You don’t know where he is.”
The man was growing impatient. The fungi quivered on the proffered spoon; it was a glowing brownish green. “As we speak, your friend Esben is being fetched and brought here. Soon he will be united with his old compatriot, Carol, and the reconstruction of the mechanical boy will commence. We’ve achieved your directive, Prue. We’ve done it together.”
“No!” shouted Prue, deeply shaken. “That’s not how it was supposed to happen!” The HUM grew louder; a shimmering rainbowlike aura had overtaken the margins of her vision. She wasn’t sure what was happening; she was feeling the world giving way.
“It’s all foretold, Prue. It was all written, long before you arrived. See: Even now, your friend the badger is here for the fungal communion.”
Sure enough: There was Neil, shipped to the front of the line, preparing to receive his dose of Spongiform.
“We are the eyes and ears of this forest, Prue. No action goes unnoticed. Surely you didn’t think we wouldn’t follow you, wouldn’t want to find out where you were keeping your ursine treasure.”
Prue stared wildly at the badger; he seemed oblivious to her presence, so great was his desire to receive the substance being fed him. “This can’t be happening. This isn’t happening. I must be dreaming. This isn’t real.” The words came flowing from Prue’s mouth; she couldn’t shake the HUM, the incessant ticking from the surrounding acolytes. The ticking grew louder as she felt two figures come up behind her and hold her shoulders, hard.
The Elder Caliph persisted, “Your life, one way or another, is forfeit, Prue. Your mission is finished. Your sentence had already been written; think of this as a commutation of that sentence. In exchange for a lifelong devotion to the birthing of the One Tree. Yes: The Mansion has already turned against you. They did the moment you started speaking that hogwash about reviving the ‘true heir.’ Do you think for a moment that they wouldn’t want to defend their positions? Do you think for a moment that your black magic interests wouldn’t strike fear in their hearts? Feed on the Blight and save yourself from a fate worse than death.” Elgen held the spoon to her mouth. She could feel the cold moistness of the Spongiform touching her upper lip. “Come now, Prue. Just eat it.”
PLEASE, thought Prue, and she felt the grass below her feet spring to life. It wrapped around the feet of the Elder Caliph, and he choked back a shout of surprise. He merely needed to look down at his ankles for the grass to release its hold, though; new tendrils sprouted below Prue’s feet, and suddenly she realized that it was her feet, instead, that were now tied to the ground.
“Foolish,” said Elgen. “You have no power here.”
He nodded to one of the acolytes at her side, and she felt fingers curling around her neck, under her jawbone. She felt her mouth forced open. The ticking emanating from her captor was jarring in its volume. She strained to see his face; it was covered in a silver mask.
“Who are you?” she managed. His grip tightened; her mouth was opened wide now. The fungi made its way into her opened lips; she felt the cold of the spoon on her tongue.
Elgen answered for her: “They are the voice of the Wood, Prue. The sons and daughters of the forest. The midwives of the new world. And now you will join them.”
Prue let her body go slack; her jaw slid open to receive the Spongiform.
She felt the hands at her jaw loosen their pressure. The bodies at either side of her seemed to relax, assured of their subject’s surrender.
And that was when she acted.
The weird fungus had barely touched her tongue, an acrid, bitter flavor spreading out through her taste buds, when she spat it out with all the power she could muster. It exploded into little pieces and spackled the gold mirrored mask of the Elder Caliph before her. Simultaneously she jabbed her elbow as hard as she could into the stomach of the acolyte to her left and felt his body crumple at the waist. Pivoting to her right, she faced her second captor and, despite a prevailing instinct to not hit anybody, let alone someone wearing a mask that looked decidedly hard, she seized her right hand into a taut fist and slammed it into the acolyte’s masked face.
The mask, seemingly made of crystal, shattered.
The face beneath was revealed.
“Brendan?” she managed, completely shocked. The red beard, the quiet eyes, the tribal tattoo on his forehead. It was all there.
Whatever energy, whatever momentum she’d collected in her adrenaline-fueled surprise attack on the Caliphs of the Synod was gone in that moment. She was floored by shock and despair. Her hand, aching from the strike, fell to her side. The HUM was everywhere. She stared into the Bandit King’s eyes in disbelief, trying to find her old friend somewhere in there. His eyes were still, almost lifeless. The ticking seemed to grow from his eye sockets, from his nostrils, and it soon became the only thing she could hear.
Until another voice spoke. “Your chance has come and gone.” It was Elgen. He spoke now to a mob of acolytes who’d arrived at the scene of the scuffle. “Get her on a ship,” he said, wiping the bits of Spongiform from his mask. “Let her rot on the Crag.”
Prue, in despair, let her body surrender completely, and she was pushed rudely away from the congregation at the Blighted Tree. Every possible iteration of the previous year’s events was flowing through her mind as the HUM receded and she stumbled in the captivity of the two acolytes down the sloping hill toward a line of trees. She found herself numbly mumbling to herself, saying things like, “Brendan. Here. The Synod. How could this?” She looked up at her captors: the masked acolytes. “Who are you?” she asked. They did not answer.
The illumination of the line of torches in the meadow had faded away; a group of men holding lanterns met the group of Caliphs and their prisoner at the tree line at the far side of the meadow. The men seemed shocked to see it was Prue.
“This is the one? The one for the Crag?” asked a bearded man in a dark mackintosh.
The acolyte at her side said nothing; she was pushed forward into the arms of the group of men. They held her fast, each one looking at the others in confusion. Prue shook herself from her reverie and said to them, “This is a terrible mistake. The Synod, they’re poisoning people. All the acolytes, they’ve been drugged!”
The men looked back and forth between Prue and the acolytes, drawn between two resisting forces. In the end, the more powerful won out.
“Bind her wrists, men,” said the bearded man. “Get her down to the ship.” His tone was sorrowful, surrendering.
“NO!” shouted Prue wildly. Tears were now streaming down her face. “I need to get to Esben!”
“Shhh, Maiden,” said the man at her right arm. “Don’t make it worse for yourself.”
They marched her into the trees, down a well-worn and rutted path. A thick cord had been tied quickly around her wrists, and the tough material bit into her skin. The men smelled of sweat and pitch; Prue noticed they each wore the same little black stocking cap, the same weathered mackintosh; the thick, waxed material of the coats reached down to their knees. They seemed to be fully bearded, to a man. “Where are you taking me?” asked Prue, when she’d gathered her sense
s.
“I’m very sorry it’s turned out like this, Maiden,” said one of the men. “But it’s for the good of all.”
“What ship? What ship are you taking me to?”
“The Jolly Crescent, Maiden,” said another man. “She’s in dock now. Won’t be long. Best to just be quiet. Don’t put up a fuss.”
Prue frowned and watched the road ahead of her; with her hands shackled behind her, she could feel her shoulders smarting in their sockets. She tried to relax, to focus on something other than the pain her rope manacles were causing her. She looked to the vegetation surrounding the path and began to speak.
WHIP, she thought.
A branch above their heads bowed a little, but soon shot back into place. That ever-present ticking noise, the one coming from the acolytes, had suddenly risen in a crescendo, and she looked behind her to see that they were being closely followed by a group of hooded, masked Caliphs. She tried again: willing her thoughts to the surrounding woods in hopes that some assistance might be given, the way that she had briefly ensnared the shape-shifting Darla Thennis when they had faced off in the refuse heap. Still, nothing. She was being blocked somehow.
She tried another angle: “You know they’re cutting peoples’ heads off for stuff like this. I mean, I’m the Bicycle Maiden. I’m the face of the revolution.”
This got no response. The men’s faces were steely and quiet.
“Aren’t you afraid? I could raise an army! I could have all of you, each one, up against the wall in the bat of an eyelash.” The color was rising in her face, she could feel it. She was speaking from some deeply recessed well; she was channeling all her anger into her voice.
“Times have changed,” said one of the men dolefully. “It’s the Synod, now, that everyone is looking to.”
She jerked her head over her shoulder, looking at the several Caliphs who were following them down the rocky path. “You!” she shouted. “Who are you? Are you bandits? Are you Wildwood bandits?” She focused on them, hearing the ticking noise, trying to deduce some kind of language or syntax from the sound. The Caliphs did not respond. Their mirrored face masks glinted in the low light.