The Sweet Far Thing

“The key holds the truth,” I say to myself. “The key to what?”

Nothing, as far as I can see. I abandon the slate beside my bed and cross to the window, gazing at the woods beyond, toward the Gypsy camp. I wonder what Kartik is doing now, if he is still tortured by dreams of Amar, of me.

There’s a light below. I spy Kartik with his lantern, looking up at my window. My heart gives a little leap, and I have to remind it not to beat faster for a man who can’t be trusted. I close the drapes, turn down my own lamp, and crawl into bed. Then I shut my eyes tight and tell myself I am not to get back up and go to the window, no matter how much I’d like to.

I can’t say what it is that wakes me. A sound? A bad dream? I know only that I am awake with my heart beating a bit faster. I blink, adjusting to the dark. I hear a noise. It’s not inside the room; it’s above me. The roof groans over my head as if something very heavy were moving about. A long shadow crosses my wall, and I’m up.

Now I hear something else in the hall: a faint scuffling like the rustle of dead leaves. I open the door a crack, but there’s nothing there. I hear it again; it’s coming from below. I tiptoe down the corridor and around the stairs, following the sound. When I reach the great hall, I stop. From deep inside the vast room, the noise is stronger. Scratching. Whispers. Moans.

Don’t look, Gemma. Pass it by.

I peek through the keyhole. Moonlight falls across the room in windowpane blocks. I search each small box of light for movement. A slight shift catches my eye. Something is moving in the dark. I snuff the candle and wait, my knees weak with fear. I count silently—one, two, three—ticking off the seconds. But there is nothing. Thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two…

Whispers come again. Soft and chilling as rats’ claws on stone. I press my eye to the keyhole again and my heart bangs against my ribs.

The column. It’s moving.

The creatures molded to it slowly reveal themselves in raised fists and the faint fluttering of reanimated wings. Gasping and gurgling, they squirm and push against the thinning membrane of stone like things ready to be born. I cannot scream, though I want to. A nymph breaks free of the ooze with a snap. She shakes the vestiges of the column from her body and glides through the air. I gasp. She cocks her head, hearing.

Quick as wind she’s at the keyhole. Her eyes are as large as a doe’s. “You can’t stop us,” she whispers. “The land is awakened and we with it. And soon will come the day when your blood is spilled and we rule forever. The sacrifice!”

“Here now, wot are you about, miss?”

I fall back against something with a shout and turn to see Brigid staring at me, her hands on her hips, her nightcap on her head. “You should be in bed!” she says.

“I h-heard a n-noise,” I stammer, gulping down my fear.

Brigid frowns and flings open the doors. She lights the lamp nearest us. The room is hushed. Nothing is amiss. But I hear those beastly scratches. Feel them under my skin.

“Don’t you hear that?” I ask, and my voice is desperate.

Brigid frowns. “’Ear what?”

“The column. It was alive. I saw it.”

Brigid’s face shows worry. “Now, now. You’re not tryin’ to scare your old Brigid, are you?”

“I saw it,” I say again.

“I’ll get awl the lights on, then.”

Brigid scurries for the matches.

Scratching. Above my head. Like hell’s messengers. Slide my eyes up, and there she is—the nymph, flattened against the ceiling, a wicked smile on her lips.

“Up there!” I scream.

Brigid turns up the lamp and the nymph is gone. She puts a hand to her chest. “Mary, Mother of God. You frightened the life out of me! Let’s ’ave a look at that column.”

We inch closer. I want to run. Brigid peers at it, and I half expect something to pull her in. “Well, it’s right queer, like ever’thin’ in this place, but it’s no’ alive. Jus’ ugly.”

She pats the column, and it’s solid. Or is it? For I think I see an empty space in the marble that wasn’t there before.

“Did you have the cabbage?” Brigid asks, turning down the lamps.

“What?” I say.

“Cabbage for dinner. It can give you wind somethin’ terrible and then you’ve got the most ’orrible dreams, too. No more cabbage, if you want m’advice.”

She turns down the last lamp, and the room is cast in shadows again. Brigid closes the door and locks it. As we travel the stairs, she speaks to me of what foods and drink make for pleasant sleep, but I’m not really listening to her. My ears are tuned to the dark below us, where I hear that soft scratching and the faintest of cackles.