The Wealding Word (21 page)

“To the Chamber Beneath: only Mummy Ann goes there.”

“But what’s inside?” Nell noticed more designs, oddly like skulls grinning in each of the corners. A pair of gates constructed of stout iron bars stood open on either side of the doors. It looked as though they could be swung shut and locked.

“Mummy Ann’s things are inside,” Evelyn sang. “Come on! The tower is this way!”

The majesty of the place surpassed even Lady Zel’s magical dwelling. Nell needed her candlestone to navigate the sorceress’ tower at night, but Evelyn’s palace was lit with torches that burned constantly, without fuel or smoke. Paintings in ornate frames lined every wall. There were rows of exotic potted trees towering to the ceilings in every hall. Intricate carpets covered the floors wherever they went, and the delicate hint of incense spiced the air. But despite its grandeur, there was something unwholesome about the place.
Nell could not identify the feeling precisely, but it came to her when she passed a vase scrawled with unnerving symbols, or looked upon some of the curiously gruesome pictures in the halls.

Evelyn didn’t seem to notice the oddities of the palace. “This is my room,” she announced as they came upon another opulent chamber. Huge windows of alternating clear and colored glass looked out upon the morass of kelp. “Isn’t it wonderful? You can sleep here with me tonight!”

Nell noticed a disheveled man leaning against the wall outside of Evelyn’s room. He was the only other person she had seen on her tour. His lips were frozen in a dazed grin, his eyes soul-weary, dark and sunken. They seemed to roll about, as though he hadn’t the will to focus anymore. As Nell watched, his hand drifted up to scratch a black, festering hollow just below his neck. “Hello,” Nell greeted him tentatively.

“Oh, that’s just Gadnik, my servant. He doesn’t talk,” Evelyn said. “Get us some sugar cookies and cream.
Pretty please.”
It wasn’t a request but rather a command, punctuated by her impudently clapping her hands in his face. Gadnik blanched back to the present, tottering away as though the place were reeling like a ship.

“Where are all the other people?” Nell asked.

“There aren’t any. Mummy Ann says that a noble woman cannot have a proper education with all the distractions of court. Besides, the world isn’t safe for young girls.”

“You’ve never been anywhere but here?” Nell asked, incredulous. She couldn’t imagine living her whole life confined to an island in the middle of the sea. A queer smile crept across her face, mingling disbelief and pity at the absurdity of it all.

Evelyn caught the look and sniffed, “Someday when I’ve been properly groomed, Mummy will take me to the land where I will rule as queen. That’s how it works. You don’t know
anything
about being a queen.”

Nell shrugged. That much was true.

Evelyn’s bed dominated her chamber. It was a sea of silk sheets, with islands of pillows cunningly stitched with sequenced fish, rabbits and wolves. A flowering canopy of wisteria hung above the bed, filling the room with a heavenly scent and dropping lovely petals upon the sheets. It was a bed straight out of a fairy tale, one certainly fit for a queen. “Would you mind if I lay down on it?” Nell asked, longing for soft comfort. She yawned, “I’m so tired.”

“Of course,” Evelyn grinned. “And I can read you a story! But wait a moment.” At least ten cats were napping among the flower petals and glittering pillows on the bed. Though there was room enough for both girls and ten more cats, Evelyn tugged at the sheets. “No, kiddies!” she scolded them. “Off! That’s my bed and I want to lay on it.” Two jumped down, a few raised their heads, and the others went on dozing. “Off!” Evelyn roared again, red in the face. One spotted cat jumped back up on the bed.

“Cats,” Nell said knowingly. “I can share with them. Back at home I used to sleep with my cat every night.”

“They never listen! OFF!” Evelyn commanded again. When none moved, she threw up her hands in a fit.

Nell thought the sunken-eyed girl was about to cry. “No problem,” she consoled, “we can just shoe them off the bed.” She was just picking up a kitten balled among the covers when the Word inside her stirred.

Evelyn stood nearby with one hand raised in the air, jabbing the other at the cats. Her eyes glinting with fury, she forced a crackly sound from her throat. It burned strangely in Nell’s mind. The room at once grew frigid, and dark powder like coal dust sifted down from an unseen source. Then, each cat on the bed jerked violently into the air as if by unseen hands. They floated there for a moment, yowling and flailing their paws.

“What – what are you doing?” asked Nell. Dread crept over her.

“This is what happens to bad kiddies,” Evelyn hissed. She repeated the same dark syllable, and the room started blinking white and black, white and black.

Nell shut her eyes against the flicker, wishing she could block her ears to the grotesque popping sound, but she didn’t dare let go of the cat in her arms. When she finally looked again, the floating felines were gone. Just coal dust remained.

Evelyn lowered her arms, acting as though nothing had happened.
“Now
I can read you to sleep. How about the Dancing Princesses?”

Nell cradled the mewing kitten protectively. It was the only one left. She didn’t know what Evelyn had done, but she sensed a savage kind of power still resonating in the air. A fluttery feeling descended on her, like she had just glimpsed the long, scaly tail of a monster, and knew for certain that someday she would meet it again.

The other girl was patting a place next to her, inviting Nell over to the now-empty bed with a smile.

Not sure what else to say, Nell finally managed, “That sounds great, Evelyn.” She curled up on a heap of fluffy blankets, weary from her travels. Despite her reservations, the soft covers and Evelyn’s prim reading voice quickly lulled her into a deep and sorely-needed sleep.

Sunlight poured through the stained glass windows of Evelyn’s room, spilling a brilliant array of colors across the bed. The glass to the left showed a radiant woman wearing only her long yellow hair as a shift. Head cocked over her shoulder, the woman held a red branch in her hand. Dozens of blue chips formed a nimbus around her. Above her left shoulder rose a tower, and above her right loomed a snake equal in size to the tower, its head facing her feet. Lazily, Nell wondered who the figure was, guessing her a priestess of some kind. Try as she might though, she couldn’t read the word painted
at the bottom of the glass. Opposite this window was another mosaic, equally exquisite, but done mostly in browns and grays. It showed a wild-eyed bird caught amid a confusion of blowing leaves. Flecks of yellow glass, like lightning, streaked through the frozen whirlwind.

Nell liked to study the patterns worked into the glass back in Reginald’s castle, but they now seemed crude in comparison to Evelyn’s picture windows. Not even the glass in the king’s grand audience chamber, with its victorious knight and writhing serpent, rivaled the intricacy before her. Her eyes eventually wandered to the waiting plate of cookies that Gadnik had delivered the day before, after Nell had fallen asleep. She gobbled them down, drinking the cup of curdled milk he left as well. “I guess it’s morning,” she said to herself.

After a moment she heard a high voice echoing down the hall. She had just enough time to knock the cookie crumbs from the bed when one of the doors creaked open. A round face framed by blond ringlets peeked inside. “Oh, I thought you might still be sleeping,” Evelyn said. “Look, Mummy Ann is here!”

She pushed both doors open and smiled proudly, “See Mummy, I have a real friend.”

Into the chamber shuffled the most ancient woman Nell had ever seen. Hunched almost in two, the black-robed crone leaned upon a stick that clicked on the marble floor. Even from this distance she smelled like the back room at the village butcher. Her face was scored by deep lines of age, and wiry hairs sprouted from her upper lip, chin and neck. “Who…” she rasped, “Who do we have here?” It seemed to take all her energy just to speak. “Come to me girl,” she beckoned with a gnarled finger.

Nell slid down off the bed, coming to stand before Mummy Ann like a wary animal. She couldn’t help wrinkling her nose at the putrid stench.

The woman lifted a haggard hand to clutch Nell’s jaw, turning her face roughly to the left and right. Nell blanched when the crone made contact with her skin. Involuntarily she startled back a step, but Mummy Ann hung onto her with an unrelenting grip. Her eyes flared at Nell. “You have the power of the Weald in you. Tell me your name.”

Suddenly, all the stories she had heard from Lexi, the Hermit, and Lady Zel flooded back into Nell’s mind. The mad crone at the tree, the keep overlooking the water, the Widow of the Sea… “Rhiannon,” Nell breathed, struggling out of her bony grip.

“Nell,” the old witch chuckled. “I thought so.” She scuttled over to a leather armchair and lowered herself down, looking pleased. “You’ll excuse me… if I sit.” Her black lips lifted in a smile. “I hope my little Evy has been kind to you.”

Nell expected Rhiannon to be much younger than Lady Zel – seething with jealousy and power in the prime of her life. Instead, here was a frail old biddy on the brink of death. In fact, judging by the stench of her, Nell wondered if grave rot hadn’t already taken hold. She swallowed her disgust saying, “Yes… Evelyn has been very kind, Lady.”

“Good,” Rhiannon crooned. “And how came you to this place? Professor Domani was to escort you to my castle.” There was a flimsy concern in the old woman’s voice. “What has become of him?”

Nell’s thoughts drifted to the serpent’s bite, the misfortunes of their trip, and the bearded warriors making off with her. The hungry squeal of the Malady echoed in her mind.
It
was the cause of her suffering, and the reason she was here with Rhiannon. Unconsciously she rubbed her wrist, though the sprain was almost healed. “Peter was bitten by a snake. He’s still back on the coast.” Nell hoped he wasn’t dead. “I was waiting for a leech when raiders came and took me.”

“Well, I must send word that you have arrived safely… Unless you have some other means of sending news.” The woman’s eyes sparked behind sty-cluttered lids.

“No. Lady Zel doesn’t know what’s happened,” Nell answered.

Rhiannon’s lips parted before a mottled cob of brown and black teeth. “That is unfortunate.” Still smiling, she turned to Evelyn, “The pearl, dear.”

Evelyn unclasped the chain about her neck and handed it reverently to the witch. When she removed it, a dark red spot showed where the stone rested against her skin. Gently, Gadnik replaced it with another chain holding a pearl exactly the same size and shape.

Nell couldn’t help but wonder at the ritual of the pearl, and the solemn care with which all three seemed to treat the stone. The witch’s words shook her from her thoughts. “…That is why I’m so glad the two of you got to be friends. But now you must say your goodbyes to Nell. She needs to go back to her own Mummy.”

Evelyn broke down in tears. “But! But! She’s my friend! She just got here!”

Nodding in sympathy, Rhiannon creaked, “I know, pet. But Nell is far from home. We must not keep her too long.”

The sunken-eyed girl squeezed Nell in a long hug, offering no objection other than her sobs.

Nell could feel Evelyn’s hot tears meet her skin, and was struck through with sadness for the girl. She didn’t think they could ever be friends the way she was friends with the girls from her own village, but still, it wasn’t right that Evelyn had no one to keep her company. “Well, maybe you could come to visit me,” Nell offered.

Evelyn brightened immediately. “Really?! I would love that! I know just what I would wear!”

“
This
is your home, Evelyn,” Rhiannon corrected. “You have all you could want right here. Other children shouldn’t plant silly ideas in the head of a princess.”

Nell stepped away from Evelyn, unsure whether the girl might lash out in anger. Oddly though, Evelyn simply bowed her head and let her tears fall to the floor.

“Come along Nell,” Rhiannon commanded. Gadnik fetched the stick for her to lean on, and she tucked the pearl away in a pocket of her robe. Just before the servant closed the doors behind them, Nell looked back to see Evelyn weeping before her giant bed, her shoulders jerking with every sob.

Rhiannon shuffled down the hall unconcerned, with Nell and Gadnik walking a few steps behind. The crawling pace gave Nell time to consider the way the witch treated Evelyn. Finally she worked up the courage to ask, “Why don’t you let Evelyn leave the island? She should have a fr–”