My True Love

The child, Anne, stirred in her bed. The low murmurs summoned her from sleep. At first she thought it was the distant rumble of thunder. But it wasn’t an oncoming storm, only a soft impassioned whisper that seemed to brush against her cheek. She turned and cuddled into the soft down pillow. There was warmth beneath the covers and safety within this room. But outside the chamber, the world was a bitterly cold place as Dunniwerth shivered beneath a mantle of snow. The moon waned, the chill air frosted the lips and made painful the breath.

“Oh, my little love, I do not know. But I must go and be with her now. You must be strong and brave, Stephen.” A faint scream punctuated the words.

“I will, Betty.”

Anne was enticed into awareness by the sound of a boy’s voice. Young, still, with a hint of what it might be when he grew to manhood. She rubbed her fists against her eyes, then blinked them open and yawned. It was dark, perhaps even midnight, when the world should be shadowed and still. Instead, there were people in her room.

Anne sat up and peered through the opening of the bed hangings at the foot of the bed. There was no one there. Her parents slept on the other side of the castle, their chamber reached through a long and wide hallway that loomed with shadows and drafts.

It was only the edge of a dream, she told herself, and lay back against her pillow, wrapping her arms around it.

“Please. Do not let her die.”

She blinked and sat up again. A frown marred her eight-year-old forehead as she scrambled to the side of the bed. She pulled open the hangings but there was no one there. She slipped from the bed, made a face as her bare feet touched the cold wooden floor, then pulled the extra wool blanket from the foot of the bed. Wrapping herself in it, she scurried to the window.

She had to stand on tiptoe in order to open the latch. The shutter opened silently on oiled hinges. From here she could see the moonlit outline of a sentry on Dunniwerth’s square tower, his breath a whisper of white against the dark sky. But no one stood on the walk outside her window. She closed the shutter and darted to her chamber door.

She drew it open, peered outside. The hallway was empty, save for a sentry seated on a stool near her parents’ door. She lifted her hand in a wave, but he did not respond. Hamish was asleep again.

It was only a dream.

She was Anne Sinclair, the only child of Robert Sinclair, laird of Dunniwerth. She was very much her father’s daughter, and he highly prized courage. For that reason, she always pretended not to be afraid of storms, and dared herself to touch bugs. Now she pushed aside the bed hangings and slipped into her bed again, huddling beneath the covers. But instead of laying down and pulling the blanket over her head, which was what she dearly longed to do, she scooted along the soft feather mattress until her back was against the carved headboard. Her arms went around her blanketed knees as she stared into the chilled darkness.

It was only a dream. Just like a storm, it had passed.
There is nothing to be afraid of, Anne
.

“I will be very good if you let her live. I’ll not go to Langlinais, and I’ll be more diligent with my Latin. I’ll try to like my father. Only, please, let her live.”

A voice, not her own. The sound of a young boy’s entreaty to God.

She knelt up on the bed and clenched her fists together, hid them beneath her arms.

Ian told her that ghosts liked to frighten young girls. But Ian was a ten-year-old bully who liked to frighten her.

They wait until you’re asleep, Anne, and then creep up to the side of your bed, all soft and silent-like. If your foot falls over the edge, they gnaw on it
.

They know if you’ve disobeyed and come to punish you
.

Ghosts would like you, Anne. You’ve eyes like a puppy
.

She should waken her mother. She would come into the bed with her, reassure her with a soft voice. But Anne was eight, not a bairn.

Was it Ian, come to play a trick on her? Her eyes darted around the room. Her father would not take kindly to anyone invading the sleeping chambers of Dunniwerth, let alone a boy who had made her life miserable ever since she could remember. He was a bully, was Ian, and she tried to ignore him when she could.

“Please, God. Do not let her die.”

Anne clenched a fist tight against her mouth until her teeth bit against her knuckles. There, in front of her, at the end of the bed, the air seemed to waver, turning silvery along the curved edges. It looked not unlike one of the bubbles escaping from the laundry tubs on wash day, gliding on the air and rising as high as the treetops around Dunniwerth.

But it wasn’t wash day. She was at Dunniwerth on a Monday night in January. All these things she repeated to herself even as the bubble expanded.

A boy sat on the edge of a bed.

Suddenly it was silent in the room. The faint screaming had stopped. The boy brushed the backs of both hands against his cheeks as the door opened and a tall woman entered. Her apron was spotted with blood, her brown hair damp from sweat.

“There, now, I knew I’d find you still here,” she said gently.

The boy looked up at her, a look of concern on his face. “Is Mother all right, Betty?” There was a quaver to his voice.

“Have you seen nothing of your father, then?” the woman asked.

He shook his head.

“It’s all well and good then,” she said, wiping her hands on her apron, “that he’s stayed in London.”

Betty knelt on the floor before the boy, reached out with large, red-knuckled hands to touch his shoulder.

“Your mother’s gone to God, Stephen, just as we all must one day. She’s taken your baby brother with her.”

She brushed back his black hair when he said nothing. “Such things sometimes happen, my dear boy. Women do not always survive childbirth. It is the way of the world.”

Betty cupped his cheek, smiled gently into his face. He only bent his head, but Anne could see that his hands were clasped into fists on either side of him. A moment later, the woman left the room.

“I don’t want her to be with God,” Stephen whispered. “I want her to stay with me.”

Tears fell down his face, unchecked. As she watched, Anne felt a tear slide down her own cheek.

What would she do if her mother died? Even the thought of it made her hurt.

Anne could not bear to see the boy’s silent grief. It seemed so much worse because he was alone. She stretched out her arms to him, as if she could pierce the bubble that separated the two of them. If she could be with him it would be better.

“Don’t cry, Stephen,” she said, her voice a chilled whisper in the wintry night. “Please, don’t cry.”

Her hands stretched out imploringly, palms up. As if she expected him to put his hand on hers and pull her through the silvery mist. She wanted to touch him, to help him.

Nothing happened, even as she wished it with all her heart. She could hear the sounds of his tears, felt them on her own cheeks. Felt, too, the horrible gray pain surrounding him.

It hurt, this grief. More than anything she’d ever felt. As if she cried inside, too, but those tears were hot.

One moment he was there, the next he was gone. The bed hangings were simply bed hangings, not a giant bubble. The ceiling was straight and flat, not curved. The only silvery shimmer was the moonlight filtering into the room from between the shutters.

Anne sat back against the headboard and studied the shadows around her. There was nothing there, nothing but soft silence. Even the sentries outside on the walls seemed to be mindful of the sleeping occupants of Dunniwerth.

Her hands clenched on the edge of the sheet as she brought it up to her face.

She stared into the darkness, certain of only one thing. It had not been a dream. Her tears were proof enough. That, and the aching emptiness she felt inside.

The loch bordering Dunniwerth land was not large; Anne could see its dimensions clearly from her chamber window. The island in the middle of it was mostly overgrown, a place of trees and green shrubbery.

The island had always been forbidden to her. Up until this moment she’d never questioned such a dictate. Nor had she dreamed of disobeying it. This morning, however, she sat in the flat-bottom boat and pushed herself away from the small dock. It took her some time to figure out how to use the oars, but finally she did.

This is wrong, Anne. You should not do this. Father will be angry
. The admonitions accompanied the journey, but they made no difference. She had to see the wise woman. She had to know.

Other books

Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon

Caught Dead in Philadelphia by Gillian Roberts

Blood Moon by Angela Roquet

The Night Crew by John Sandford

A Great Kisser by Donna Kauffman

Lumen by Joseph Eastwood

The Sagan Diary by John Scalzi

Tabitha's Guardian by Blushing Books

Damnation Marked by Reine, S. M.

Barbie & The Beast by Linda Thomas-Sundstrom