“Some people are repelled by darkness. Others are drawn to it, to the static crackle of power in a place. To the hum of magic, or the presence of the dead. They can see these forces staining the world like ink in water. Our family was like that. I told you Gallant wasn’t built by Priors. The house was already here. Empty and waiting. And the Priors came. They felt called to the house, and when they arrived, they saw the wall for what it was—a threshold. A line between.”

  Matthew’s voice is low and steady. He knows these words the way she knows her mother’s.

  “By day, the wall was just a wall. But at night, when the lines between shadow and source grew thin enough, it became a gate. A way from one world into the other. And the thing in the dark began to press against the stones. The center of the wall began to split and crumble, and the Priors knew that soon enough, the thing in the dark would force its way out.

  “So they forged an iron door and mounted it over the cracking stone, to keep the darkness back. And for a while, it was enough. And then it wasn’t.

  “One night, it escaped. The stone broke, and the iron fell, and it simply stepped into this world. Everywhere it walked, things died. It fed on every living thing, every blade of grass, every flower and tree and bird, leaving only dust and bones in its wake. It would have eaten everything.”

  Matthew drags a finger along the turning sculpture until it slows and slows and stops.

  “The Priors all fought, but they were still flesh and blood and it was a demon, stealing every life it touched. They couldn’t win. But they managed not to lose. They forced the creature back beyond the wall. Half the Priors held it there, and the others put the door back up. And this time, they soaked it edge to edge in their blood and swore that nothing would ever cross that gate without their blessing.”

  Olivia looks down at her bandaged hand, remembering her cousin’s rage when she first cut herself. The way her skin split open as she pounded on the door, desperate to get free. Matthew’s bleeding palm as he pressed it to the iron and sealed it shut again.

  He guides the model on its arc until the two houses face one another. As they come to rest, the metal rings align between them.

  “It is still there, the thing beyond the wall, still trying to get out. It’s fighting now, harder than ever, not because it’s strong, but because it’s weak. It’s running out of time. Out of us. There must always be a Prior at the gate. That is what my father said. And his father, and his, and his. But they were wrong.”

  Matthew lifts his head, and there is a defiant gleam in the dark of his eyes.

  “It will not end until there are no Priors left. Don’t you see? Anyone can guard the wall. Mend the cracks. Keep it standing. But we are the keys to that prison. Only our blood can open the door, and that thing in the dark will do anything to get it from us. It will torture us, turn every dream to nightmare, bend our minds until we break or—”

  He grits his teeth, and she sees his father on his knees in the grass, the gun lifting to his temple.

  “As long as there is a Prior in this house, it has a chance. That is why you should never have come. It is strongest here, beside the wall. If you go far enough, perhaps it will not find you.”

  Olivia swallows. Could that be true? No, it is a chance, perhaps, but not a promise. Her mother left, and still the darkness found her. And she is a Prior after all. Matthew may want to be the last, but he is not alone.

  She shakes her head.

  Matthew’s fist hits the table, the force sending the metal rings back into motion.

  “You have to go!” he shouts, but she doesn’t. She won’t.

  He folds forward, lank curls shadowing his face, and she sees something drip onto the desk. Tears. “It cannot be for nothing,” he says, throat tight. “I am so tired. I can’t—” His voice breaks.

  Olivia goes to her cousin, reaches out a cautious hand, expecting him to pull away. But he doesn’t. Something in him breaks, and then the words spill out.

  “It took my brother first.”

  Olivia pulls her hand back as if burned.

  “It was two years ago,” he says. “The darkness had never come for children. It always went for the older Priors. It was easier to get inside their heads. But it didn’t come for my father. It didn’t come for me. It came for Thomas. It drew him barefoot out of bed one night.”

  That is why they strap him down, she thinks. That is why his wrists are bruised and his eyes are dark.

  “He was still asleep when it led him through the house and across the garden and around the wall. He was only twelve.”

  Her mind spins as she thinks of the boy she saw on the other side, the one curled at the bottom of the fountain. How old was he? His hair and skin looked faded, gray, but perhaps it was only a trick of the light, perhaps—

  “I went after him, of course,” says Matthew. “I had to. He’d always been afraid of the dark.” His voice wavers, almost breaks. But he presses on. “My father wanted to go, but I said it should be me. I told him I was stronger, but the truth is, I simply couldn’t bear the thought of losing them both.” The breath catches in his throat. “So I went. And I saw the house beyond the wall. But I never went in. I didn’t have to. The door on the other side was soaked with blood. There was so much of it. Too much. Someone had painted the door with my brother’s life. Covered every iron inch.” He tugs at the bandage on his palm.

  “But that thing slaughtered my brother for nothing. Only a Prior’s blood can open the door, but it has to be willingly given. Now it knows, and every night, I dream that he is still alive, still there on the other side of that godforsaken wall, calling out, pleading to be rescued and—what are you doing?”

  Olivia has rounded the desk. She pushes him aside and pulls open the drawer, searching for a pen, even though she knows there isn’t one, nothing but the little black book filled with places she might be. She pushes off the desk and plunges past Matthew out of the study and into the hall, hurrying toward the foyer, to her suitcase, because she knows, she knows, that she has seen him.

  She kneels and throws it open, dragging out her sketchbook and her pencil. Doesn’t even bother standing, just crouches there on the foyer’s patterned floor and starts to draw.

  Matthew’s footsteps sound nearby, and then he’s there, bracing himself against the banister as her pencil hisses over parchment, carving out a scene.

  A boy, lying at the bottom of an empty fountain, bound to the feet of a broken statue. Folded in as if sleeping, his face half-hidden by curls.

  She shoves the sketchpad into Matthew’s hand, tapping it with the butt of the pencil.

  “I don’t understand,” he says, looking from the paper to her and back. “What is this? Where did you . . .”

  Olivia lets out an exasperated breath, wishing people would stop and think sometimes, fill in the words so she doesn’t have to. She takes the sketchpad from him and turns back to the drawing she did of the wall. And it seems impossible for Matthew to get paler, but he does.

  And then he grabs her wrist and pulls her up the stairs and down the hall, to the room she has only seen once, in the dead of night, when the screams drew her to the door. His bed is made now, the covers smoothed, his nightmares erased, at least from the sheets. But the cuffs peek out from under the bed, and he absently rubs one wrist, the bruises still bright against his too-pale skin.

  Matthew goes to the far wall, the shape propped against it, covered by a white sheet. He pulls it back, revealing a picture frame. A family portrait.

  The one missing from the downstairs hall. In it, her uncle stands in the garden, stern-faced but human and whole, one arm wrapped around his wife, Isabelle, holding her close. And there, before them, a pair of boys seated on a stone bench. Matthew, thirteen maybe, already long and lean, tawny hair swept half across his face. And a smaller boy, looking up at him with adoration.

  “Is that who you saw?” asks Matthew, his words tight and small, as if they’re caught inside his chest.

  Olivia sinks to her knees before the portrait, studying Thomas Prior, laying this image over the one in her mind. He is younger than the boy she found in the fountain, but not by much. Here his eyes are bright and wide, there they were closed; here his curls look light brown instead of gray. But everything is gray beyond the wall. And there is no denying the slope of his cheek. The line of his nose. The angle of his chin.

  “Is that him?” presses Matthew.

  Olivia swallows and nods, and her cousin folds into the nearest chair, his bandaged hand pressed to his mouth.

  “It’s been two years,” he says, and she doesn’t know if he’s thinking that the boy in the fountain can’t be his brother, or about how long he left him there. How long he thought him dead.

  All the movement in the halls has drawn Hannah. She stands in the doorway, uncertain.

  “What’s going on?” she asks.

  Matthew looks up. “It’s Thomas,” he says, eyes bright with fear and hope. “He’s still alive.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “I have to find my brother,” he demands. “I have to bring him home.”

  They are standing in the kitchen, the only four people in the too-large house. Edgar scrubs the garden from his hands, and Hannah twists a kitchen towel between her fingers, and Matthew paces, the color high in his cheeks, and Olivia wonders if she’s made a terrible mistake.

  Back at Merilance, she learned about life. The way it started, and the way it ended. It was always talked about as a one-way street, first alive and then dead, and even though she knew it was more complicated—because of the ghouls, who had clearly been alive, and then dead, and now were something else—the truth is, she isn’t sure what to make of the boy in the fountain.

  She doesn’t think the boy was dead, but she also didn’t see the rise and fall of his chest, the subtle stirrings of a body just asleep. If it is a spell, she hopes it’s one that she can break. Hopes that she will touch his hand and he will wake.

  Then there is the fact of time. It’s been two years. He should be fourteen, but the shape on the cracked stone floor was still a child. Then again, nothing seems to grow beyond the wall. Perhaps it is the same for people.

  “Is it even possible?” asks Hannah, busying her hands with a pot of soup no one intends to eat. Olivia has told the story now, of her trip beyond the wall, or at least of finding the boy, and Edgar has done his best to translate, his brows knitting more with every word.

  He clears his throat. “I hate to say it, but it could be a trap.”

  As if that isn’t obvious. Of course it is a trap. A stolen child, left out like bait. But traps are like locks. They can be picked. They can be opened. A trap is only a trap if you get caught. Olivia knows better now, and when she goes back—

  “I’ll go tonight,” says Matthew.

  “No,” say Hannah and Edgar and Olivia at the same time, two out loud, and one with a single cutting swipe.

  “He’s my brother,” persists Matthew. “I left him once. I will not be the one to leave again.”

  Olivia lets out a short breath. And then she walks up to her cousin and pushes him once, hard. Matthew staggers back into the counter, looking more shocked than hurt, but she has made her point. He can barely stand. The color in his cheeks is not health, but sickness. He is worn thin, hollowed out by lack of sleep, and she has been beyond the wall and back again. She has seen what lurks in the shadows, what lives in the dark.

  She looks from Matthew to Edgar to Hannah.

  She doesn’t know how to tell them about the ghouls, the way they rise to meet her when she calls. She makes no mention of the life that stirs beneath her fingers there, sudden and wild. She doesn’t say that she is her father’s daughter, too, that some part of her belongs beyond that wall. That if anyone can cross into a world of death and come out alive again, it’s her.

  Matthew’s hand clenches into a fist against the counter. “He’s my brother,” he says again, a pleading in his voice. Olivia nods and takes his bandaged hand in hers.

  I know, she says with a look, the subtle squeeze of her fingers. And I will bring him back.

  They have six hours until dusk.

  Too much time, and not enough.

  Hannah thinks she should eat, and Edgar thinks she should rest, and Matthew thinks he should be doing this instead. Olivia cannot eat or rest or hand the burden over. All she can do is prepare—and the more she knows about the workings of this place, the better. She has spent the last few days learning the layout of the halls, but now she looks around, at the walls and the floors, and wonders.

  The world you saw beyond the wall is a shadow of this one.

  Matthew’s words turn inside her head, like the houses in their metal frame. The houses, Gallant and not Gallant, one soft and frayed, the other in a state of disrepair, but otherwise, they are the same.

  Olivia returns to the study, her cousin on her heels.

  She goes to the wall behind the desk, to the place where shelf meets paper.

  “What are you doing?” he asks as she runs her hand over the wall, trying to find the seam. It was there in the other house, and so—

  Her fingers find a groove in the papered wall. She presses her palm flat, and the hidden door gives, just a little, before swinging open onto a narrow corridor. She knows if she follows it, she will find herself standing in the kitchen.

  Matthew stares at her as if she’s just performed a magic trick.

  “How did you know . . .” he begins, and she doesn’t have the time to tell him, to draw the ghoul, its hand over her mouth, so she goes to the model with its two miniature houses, its concentric metal rings. She points first at one house and then the other, drawing an invisible line between the two.

  Matthew’s eyes narrow and then brighten.

  “What’s there is here,” he muses, and she nods and turns to the drawing she did in the garden, the one of Gallant itself, taps the pencil expectantly as if to say, Where else? Understanding blooms across his face.

  “Follow me.”

  Every house has secrets.

  Merilance had no hidden tunnels or false walls, but it did have a loose floorboard in the hall, a nook just wide enough to hide in at the top of the north stairs, a dozen cracks and shadows to exploit. Gallant’s secrets are far greater.

  Olivia learns them now, presses each into her mind like a wildflower between the pages of her sketchpad.

  There is the passage she’s already found, the lightless tunnel that runs between the study and the kitchen. Matthew shows her another. He leads her to the ballroom, to the wooden molding that runs along the far wall, as high as her waist. She watches him feel along the wood until he finds the notch.

  “Here,” he says, taking her fingers and guiding them to the trim. It feels like a chip, broken away, but when she presses down, the wooden panel swings out, revealing a cubby too small for all but a child—or a narrow girl. She crouches down, squinting into the dark, until Matthew lifts a lamp, and by it, she can see a set of squat stone steps.

  “It leads down into the cellar,” he explains.

  The cellar. She has only seen it once, the morning after she arrived, when Hannah emerged with the basket on her hip. But she can think of a hundred places she’d rather go than the drystone crypt beneath the house. Still, as she eases the door shut, she forces herself to note the chip in the wood, how far it is from the corner, until she’s sure she could find it in the dark.

  They are not alone on their quest. As Matthew leads her through the house, she sees them, watching. A ghoul in the corner. Another on the stairs. Half-formed faces she knows from the paintings in the hall outside the study. Members of a family she never knew she had. Priors, just like the ghouls beyond the wall, the ones who never made it home.

  She follows Matthew into the music room next. Her fingers itch, wishing they could simply sit and play, wishing he would teach her another song. But he doesn’t stop at the piano. He goes past it, to the right corner of the room, finds the groove where two strips of wallpaper seem to meet.

  “Right here,” he says, pressing his hand flat to the wood. And for a moment, she expects him to command the hidden door, to order it open or closed the way he did the garden gate. But there is no blood on his palm, and he gives no order, simply presses down, and a panel pops out.

  “Come on,” he says, gesturing for her to follow.

  The stairs are so steep and narrow, they are nearly a ladder. He leads the way up and at the top, they step out into Matthew’s room.

  He sinks onto the edge of his bed to catch his breath.

  “My brother made a game of it,” he says, “finding all the secret places.” And though he’s hiding it well, she can see the weariness sweeping through his face, the faint tremor in his hands.

  He gestures at the wall across from the bed, at a garden tapestry that hangs there. When she draws it back, she finds a door. Not a hidden one, folded straight into the molding or the wood, but an ordinary door, the tapestry obviously added to put it out of sight.

  A small gold key hangs from the lock, and Olivia looks to Matthew for permission. He nods once, and she turns the key. It whispers in the lock, and the door opens, not onto a bathroom or a hall, but another bedroom, a little smaller than his own.

  The shutters are open, the curtains pulled back, the late afternoon light spilling in over a desk, a chest, a bed. A tattered bear propped on the pillow, a pair of shoes nestled neatly by the bedside table. Thomas’s room.

  She pictures Hannah coming in here every morning. Edgar latching the shutters every night. They may go through the motions, but the room still feels abandoned. The floorboards too stiff, the dust that hangs in the air, even after being swept from every surface.

  Olivia returns to Matthew’s room and closes the door, turning the little gold key in the lock. He sighs and rises from the bed. And as she follows him out, down the main stairs, she thinks of all the halls and all the rooms and all the hidden doors in Gallant. Perhaps she won’t need any of them. Perhaps the boy will still be there, in the fountain’s empty bowl, and she will never set foot again inside the other house. Perhaps it will be that easy—but she doubts it.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20