“Right,” said Felix distractedly. “Jeremy. Nobody’s dead yet.”
“Not yet,” agreed Loki, placing extra emphasis on the word yet.
Felix cleared his throat, jolting Loki’s attention to him. “That’s enough fantasising,” he said to the boys. “We’re going to be late.”
“Oh. Of course,” Alistair said with a nod. “We’ve been waiting.”
“You can stay here, Bronwen,” Felix told her, noticing her puzzled expression.
“Why?” she asked. “Where are you going?”
Without answering her question, they set off for the trees, calling their goodbyes and waving over their shoulders.
Bronwen held out her palms, baffled. “Where are you going?” she called after them.
The sound of Felix’s laughter floated on the breeze. “The same place we go every morning…” he called back vaguely.
****
Bronwen wandered through the quiet courtyard. A bronzed leaf rolled alongside her, scraping against the stone as it went. Leaving it behind, she ambled up the staircase, mulling over possible ways to bide her time until the boys returned from wherever they’d gone.
Actually, when she thought about it, they did always seem to be out of the castle by the time she’d woken up. Where could they be going every morning? Town was certainly out of the question, judging by the extreme reaction they’d had to her suggested library trip.
So that leaves… Bronwen pondered it. Where? Some sort of eternal life support group? The concept made her smile.
She was about to enter the kitchen, but paused as her fingers skimmed the doorknob. Surely there was more to the castle than the kitchen. She glanced along the corridor. It wound around in a neat loop, beckoning her with its seductive mystery.
She let go of the doorknob and boldly strode along the corridor. She came to a stop at an unexplored door and heaved it open, wincing as it moaned under the strain. As she caught sight of what was revealed, her heart began to beat a little faster. Directly ahead of her was a narrow stone stairwell winding steeply upwards. The air that drifted out smelled stale and damp from years of imprisonment.
She was about to let the door fall shut, having abandoned the idea of exploring, when she heard a noise. It sounded like tapping, and it was coming from the stairwell. The hairs on the back of her neck bristled.
Tentatively Bronwen crept onto the first step. The tapping was much louder inside the tower stairwell. She moved onto the next step, letting the door fall shut behind her. It was darker now, but a stream of light poured in from a barred window. She continued forward, following the constant noise.
The stairs curved, concealing anything beyond her immediate footing. For all she knew, she could have been heading for a sheer drop. It was like a giant game of Snakes and Ladders.
At last the stairs came to an end, stopping at another oak door. This one was rickety and chipped, and looked as though it might crumble under the slightest nudge. Bronwen pressed her ear to the wood. Whatever the noise was, it was definitely coming from behind that door.
Very slowly, she twisted the handle and peered inside.
For several second, she merely blinked in disbelief. The mystery had been solved.
Clocks. Dozens upon dozens of clocks. Everything from pocket watches to alarm clocks, from huge wall clocks to free-standing grandfather clocks. Countless second hands ticked away in a loud, out-of-sync melody. Some of the hands had stopped, proudly displaying their final times like a badge of honour.
Bronwen wandered around the room in awe. She’d never seen so many clocks before, not to mention heard so many clocks. Absentmindedly she began working her way through them, winding up the ones that had stopped and resetting their times. When she was finished, she sat on the wooden floor, watching the minute hands move in unison. She watched as time passed and changed before her very eyes.
It was five past eleven by the time the boys returned.
“Bronwen!” Felix’s voice met her ears above the ticking.
“I’m here!” she called back, rising to her feet.
“Where’s here?”
“Clocks!”
Moments later, Felix’s footsteps clicked up the tower staircase. “What are you doing up here?” he said, emerging into the room. “You never usually stray beyond the kitchen. Am I going to have to fix you with a tracking device now?”
“Why do you have a room full of clocks?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Because we have a lot of them. It made sense to keep them all together.”
“But what do you do when you need to find out the time? Do you have to come all the way up here?”
“Why would we need to know the time? It’s not like we’re going anywhere.”
Bronwen frowned. “Then why all the clocks?”
“Why all the questions?” he shot back.
Her frown deepened.
“If you must know,” Felix surrendered resignedly, “they’ve become somewhat of a game to us. The Clock Racing Championships two-thousand-and…whatever year we’re in now.”
“You race the clocks?”
“It seemed like a good way to pass an eternity, yes.”
“Oh. Then you’re probably not going to like the fact that I reset them all.” She smiled sheepishly.
Felix grinned. “I’ve come to expect nothing less from you.”
“I’m sorry. Although in my defence, I’d never heard of clock racing before.”
“Then, my dear, you have not lived,” Felix laughed smoothly. Lowering his voice to a whisper, he added, “Don’t tell Loki, but I’ve been winding my own all century. That’s my game.” He winked. “I have something for you, by the way.” He paused to dig through his pocket, then handed her a small pinecone. “For your collection.”
Bronwen stared down at it. “I hate to break it to you, but I don’t collect pinecones.”
“Well, someone does. They’re all over the kitchen and I’m fairly certain that I didn’t put them there.”
Bronwen pursed her lips.
“I know, I know. I shouldn’t have,” Felix gushed, lifting his palms in a show of over-the-top modesty. “I am generous to a fault. Now, enough of your gratitude—you’re making me bashful. Let’s walk.”
Bronwen placed the pinecone on top of a cuckoo clock that was propped against the wall. “Where do you want to walk to?”
“Along the hillside. The scent of pine is strong today. I want you to experience it.”
Bronwen glanced to a small, round window in the wall. Beyond the pane, grey and sullen clouds floated by, threatening a downpour at any moment. “Shouldn’t we wait for the sky to clear?”
Felix glanced vaguely at the clocks. “No,” he said, and for a moment he became pensive. “I don’t want to waste any more time.”
And so, as they left the shelter of the castle, the poignancy of Felix’s words lingered in the air, accompanied by the contraltos of ticking clocks.
Chapter Fourteen
Incomplete
The following morning Bronwen awoke to the sound of voices. She rolled over in her alcove and blinked, adjusting to the misty light of the approaching dawn.
“Have you been awake all night?” she heard Alistair say.
Felix grunted in response.
“You’ll need to sleep eventually,” Alistair told him.
“No I won’t.”
Bronwen frowned. Felix’s voice hadn’t come from the alcove beside her, but from his chair at the fireplace. Her gaze travelled across the room to where Felix sat staring absorbedly into the dormant fire, cradling the Piriot in his arms. With the toe of his boot he kicked absentmindedly at the fireplace.
“Any sign of the Severan?” Alistair asked.
“Does it look like there was?” Felix snapped. His focus remained transfixed on last night’s cinders.
Loki’s bedding rustled as he stirred. “Maybe it’s given up. Maybe we’ve won.” The hopefulness in his voice rang with childlike innocence.
> “I find that very unlikely, Loki,” Felix groused. “I expect we threw it off our trail the night we stayed at the cottage. Either that or it’s lying in wait, holding out for the perfect moment to strike…” He clenched his fists around the Piriot.
“Try not to fret, Felix,” said Alistair. “Remember, it’s no match for us. Not now that we have the B14.”
“Then let it show itself. I can’t stand the thought that it’s still out there, hunting her…”
“It won’t get to her,” Alistair assured him.
“I know it won’t,” Felix scoffed. “Because I will not let that happen.”
Bronwen listened to the sound of Felix’s ragged breathing. He was so angry, so upset. She hated that she was making him feel this way.
“I don’t want to wait anymore,” she blurted out.
Felix jerked his head towards her, startled by the sound of her voice.
“You’re awake,” he said. “How long have you been awake?”
“I don’t want to wait around, afraid of when and where this thing will show up next,” she declared, sitting upright. “I want to take my life back. I want the control. I don’t want to be hunted—I want to hunt it.”
Loki burst into a round of applause. “Then let’s do it!” he cheered. “Let’s turn the tables!”
Bronwen peered over the alcove partition and grinned at Loki.
“Fabulous idea,” Felix drawled sarcastically. “Not a flaw in sight.”
“What’s the flaw?” Loki pressed. “We know its scent. We may not be hunters, but between us I’m sure we can pick up a trail.”
“Yes, and it knows our scent too, remember? It’ll figure out what we’re doing and steer clear.”
“So I’ll go alone,” Bronwen suggested. “It won’t steer clear of me.”
Felix rolled his eyes in response.
“Or at least I’ll make it think that I’m alone,” she elaborated.
Loki clapped his hands again.
But Felix still wasn’t convinced. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “So what exactly do you plan on doing, Snow? Wandering the hills, pretending to be alone until it finds you… and kills you?”
“If that’s what it takes,” she replied. “Only, without the killing part.”
“Over my dead body!” Felix spluttered. “Insert your own immortality quip, I’m too furious to pun.”
“Then what’s your alternative? We keep waiting for it to find me? No,” Bronwen said, shaking her head vehemently. “I’m going out there. Tonight. I’m going to take my life back.”
Loki whooped in delight.
“Absurd,” Felix said with a huff. “Alistair, talk some sense into them, would you?”
There was no response.
“Alistair?” Felix prompted.
“I don’t know,” he offered at last. “It doesn’t sound like a bad idea to me. In fact, it’s certainly an improvement on you staying awake all night, waiting for it to make the first move. Come on, Felix. It’s not like you to be so cautious, my friend.”
Felix kicked the fireplace roughly. “It’s a damn good thing one of us is executing some caution here. She will not go out there alone!”
“I don’t need your permission,” Bronwen told him gently.
“Ha!” he mocked.
“But I’d like it if I could have your blessing,” she added. “And your help.”
“I could stop you if I wanted to,” he said. “I could keep you here, and there’d be nothing you could do about it.”
“I know. But I’d like your help,” she repeated. “And I’d like to do this my way.”
Felix stewed over it for a long moment. “If we do this,” he began, already frustrated by the idea, “then we won’t be doing it your way. We’ll do it my way.”
“No change there, then,” Loki jibed.
Felix glowered at him.
“Fair enough,” said Bronwen, accepting the compromise. “Tonight we’re going to finish this. Felix’s way.” She paused. “And a little bit my way,” she added under her breath.
The room fell into a thoughtful silence. When morning light began to stream in through the windows, Alistair spoke again.
“Daybreak,” he said, leaving his alcove and strolling across the room. “We should set off.”
Felix sighed wearily. He placed the Piriot on the floor and rose to his feet. Loki followed his lead.
“Where are you going?” Bronwen asked.
The boys seemed to glance surreptitiously between one another. No one dared answer.
“Where is it that you go every morning?” she tried again.
Felix and Alistair pursed their lips, conferring through their eyes. For the first time, Bronwen noticed a deep similarity between the two boys. Although their appearances were as different as night and day, they suddenly looked like a mirror image. There was a bond and a likeness that had developed over many years in each other’s company.
“I want her to come with us,” Loki decided, breaking the silence.
Alistair gave a small nod, seconding Loki’s judgement.
“Very well,” Felix concurred. “I think it’s time we showed you where we disappear to every morning,” he said to Bronwen. “If you want to see, that is.”
She nodded happily. “I do! Where are we going?”
Felix grinned. “We’re going to visit our families.”
****
A mile from the castle, across the terrain of tangled bracken that spread vastly along the hillside, were the ruins of an abandoned church. A rusted, black iron gate still stood marking the entrance to the church’s forsaken graveyard, which was overgrown with weeds and long, yellowed grass. Most of the gravestones had toppled over, or were weathered from decades of harsh winters and neglect. Only four small clusters of headstones stood unscathed.
The rusted gate screeched as Felix opened it. “Come on in,” he said to Bronwen. “You needn’t worry about snakes. It’s too cold this time of year.”
Speechless, she took in her surroundings. The air felt thinner here somehow. She noticed that, on the four plots of untouched headstones, the grass and reeds had been pulled away and replaced with wildflowers and meticulously arranged pebbles.
The three boys regarded her carefully as she absorbed the scene.
“Your families,” she murmured.
Loki took hold of her elbow. “That’s mine,” he said, pointing to the farthest plot. “Come and see.” She followed him, stunned to silence.
Loki guided her through the tall grass to several rounded slabs. “My mother and father,” he said, gesturing to two stones. One was engraved Matthias Ballatyne, and the other Lilith Ballatyne. The graves had been decorated with acorns, rocks, and a gathering of twigs sprouting up from the earth.
“If you look back there,” Loki said, directing Bronwen’s gaze to the headstones behind his parents, “those are my younger brothers. Although I’m not sure how long they stayed younger. According to the inscription on his gravestone, my brother Tobias lived to a very old age. Forty-two, he would have been.”
Forty-two, Bronwen frowned. That didn’t seem very old at all. Well, I’m sure it was considered an old age back in the eighteen hundreds, she realised.
Loki grew suddenly wistful. “I don’t suppose Tobias remembered me, though. He was only three years old when I…” he trailed off.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“My other brothers, Jonathan and Eli, they were a little older. Seven and nine…”
Bronwen listened compassionately as he spoke, her eyes moving between the graves as he explained each one. She helped Loki lay down fresh flowers, and only looked up when she heard Alistair calling her name. He beckoned to her from across the field.
She left Loki rearranging the twigs and made her way to Alistair. The uneven ground dipped and rose with no warning, and at one point the long grass almost reached her shoulders.
Pushing aside the grass as she went, she fought her way to Alistair, where he
proudly stood at his family’s plot. Just as Loki had done, Alistair showed the headstones of his parents, Arthur and Elizabeth Wesson, and his elder sister, Margaret, who had gone on to have five children of her own.
Bronwen plucked wildflowers and lay them down as a mark of her respect. At times she found herself tearful, moved by the love and honour in the boys’ eyes as they talked about their families and introduced her to what was left of the lives they had once had.
“My turn now,” said Felix, stepping up behind her and placing his hand gently on her arm.
Bronwen turned to him, letting his hand slip down and entwine with hers. They walked through the field in serene silence until they reached two lone gravestones, standing almost as tall as the grass itself.
“That’s my mother,” Felix told her, nodding towards the stone engraved Florence Cavara, devoted mother to Felix and loving wife to Henry.
“Henry’s your father?” Bronwen guessed, her gaze wandering to the next grave along, where Henry Cavara’s name was etched into the stone.
Felix smiled sadly. “Yes. He was… a wiser man than I.” His smile turned ironic.
“I think you’re wise, Felix,” she told him quietly.
He laughed. “If I had been but half as wise as my father, then I wouldn’t be standing here right now. Although,” he glanced at Bronwen, “I have prospered because at least I stand beside you. But them,” he gestured to Loki and Alistair in the distance, “they’ve suffered for my foolishness.”
Bronwen frowned. “Why would you say that?”
“It’s my fault they’re here. It was my idea to taunt Margo Bates,” he spat out the name.
“Alistair and Loki don’t blame you.” Whatever had happened in the past, anyone could see that the three boys shared a close brotherhood. There was no resentment between them, Bronwen knew that.
“I know. And, in some ways, that’s the worst punishment of all. I should be blamed. It was my fault. It was my decision to go to Margo’s house. I accepted a drink from the witch, and I dragged them along for the ride. I was self-centred and spoiled, and thought only of myself.”
“That was hundreds of years ago. You’re not that person anymore.” Bronwen tightened her fingers around his.
“Aren’t I?” he challenged. “I thought not, but I’m still the same selfish boy I always was. I still choose my own needs over…”