These hills have the color palette of a long-dead corpse.
I stare out the window of the coach as we bounce along what might be the most unforgiving road in the country, watching the wind blow through miles of bone-colored wheat. A stark difference from the bustling livery of the city we left behind. Above, dark clouds stretch to the horizon and it’s oddly… satisfying how well my surroundings fit my mood. The view looks about as desolate as I feel.
I tug off my glove and let my hand hang out the open window, hoping to feel the breeze. Even that proves a disappointment. The air is too stale and tinged with moisture, like someone’s breath on my skin. I suddenly want a bath more than anything in the world. I highly doubt the country house is set up for baths yet, the pipes have probably rusted themselves shut in the years since the house was properly maintained.
I’d have better luck flinging myself into the ocean.
I snap the window shut with a scowl.
Mother stirs in the seat across from me, her gaze fixed on the empty fields. Father stares down at his newspaper. This has to be his tenth time skimming it since we left the city. Nothing new has appeared, yet he pretends to read anyway, circular glasses perched on the end of his nose. I hope he isn’t keeping busy to deter me from renewing my argument against this move. Even though the words have swelled in my chest, near to bursting this entire journey, I’ve successfully held back. My parents have made it more than clear that our relocation is not up for discussion. No matter how miserable it makes me.
Everyone present knows it’s a misery of my own making.
As if she knows what I’m thinking, Mother leans forward and presses the tips of her gloved fingers into my knee to get my attention. Her hair, so blonde it’s almost silver, falls over her shoulders in waves. “Maeva, darling, are you all right? You look pale.”
That happens when one hasn’t slept in days. I must look ready to dig myself a grave, but I don’t want her to worry. I’ve caused enough of that. “Of course. I’m only tired, it’s been a long journey.”
A tiny crease forms between her eyes. “This time away will be a good thing. You’ll see, once we’re all settled.”
I nod, but there’s no conviction behind it. The further we travel through these lifeless fields the more inescapable they feel.
“It’s only for a few weeks?” I ask.
She sits back and her smile is a tight-lipped thing. “We’ll stay as long as it suits us.”
The dread that’s been festering all day solidifies in my gut. “You promised. A few weeks at the country house to allow things to blow over, that was the agreement.”
“Don’t worry yourself, darling. We’ll be home before you know it.”
Her smile is too brittle. Her eyes too bright. My mother is a terrible liar.
Father turns the page, fluttering the paper to straighten it out. Brown eyes that match my own flicker toward me over the top. When he catches me staring, the bored expression he’s harbored for most our journey is replaced by sadness.
“I’m fine,” I say, before he can speak. He’s already been exceedingly patient with me of late. More than I expected, honestly, considering the tenor of the rumors spreading like wildfire through the city. I half expected him to toss me out with nothing but my shoes. Instead, he’s been the one assuring me everything will be okay. It’s a kindness I’m not certain I deserve. “Mother is right. It’ll be a relaxing few weeks in the country.”
He folds the paper and sets it neatly in his lap, never looking away from me. “I want you to know that I don’t blame you. You didn’t know what you were doing. We should have kept a closer eye on you.”
The knots in my stomach tighten. I want to tell him that I knew exactly what I was doing, and he couldn’t have stopped me if he’d tried. I never wanted to embarrass my family, or Jane, but I don’t regret a single moment. Even if my reputation never recovers.
But they wouldn’t understand.
Because neither of them know him.
Not for the first time today, I regret my choice of carriage. When I stepped out of the townhouse this morning, nine hours trapped in a confined space with Nanny Addison and my three year old twin brothers sounded like a waking nightmare. But right now? I’d trade a full day of screaming and tiny elbows to the ribs if it meant escaping this purgatory of polite judgement.
What feels like hours later, the carriage jerks to a halt and I nearly slip from my seat. Mother falls back against her side of the coach, and the sound of the driver shouting ahead has me leaning forward to see why we’ve stopped.
The barren fields have been replaced by thick, dark trees. Up ahead, a sharp hillside rises before the road, with a stone tunnel carved into the face of it. The road disappears inside. The tunnel looks to be about fifty feet from end to end and barely a dozen feet across, but the holdup is immediately apparent. There’s another carriage inside, slowly making its way in our direction.
We begin to roll backward until there’s enough space for them to go around us. The approaching carriage emerges from the shadows. First, four gray and black horses, then two hooded figures up front, followed by a coach as black as night with brilliant gold accents. A girl sits inside, still as ice, staring up at the sky with faraway eyes. Curly red hair flutters around her face and she’s so deathly pale that for one horrifying moment I wonder if she’s alive.
I lean closer to the window, and her eyes suddenly flicker to me, blinking rapidly. I jump, and press a hand to my heart. She is alive, then. She holds my stare until the carriage drags her from view. Goosebumps prickle on my skin and I rub my hands up and down my arms to smooth them away.
That was… odd.
We roll toward the tunnel, but before we disappear under the hillside I look back one more time. The jet black carriage moves quickly in the opposite direction, their horses prancing happily ahead of the drivers. A window in the side of the coach snaps open and the girl leans out until the lip of the glass presses into the waist of her silver dress. She stares back at me with the strangest expression. Something like anger and curiosity and regret all at once.
Panic claws at my insides.
Does she recognize me from the city?
The gossip certainly gained a fair bit of traction, but I can’t fathom that word has made it all the way out here. We’re over seventy miles from home, and I haven’t seen anyone else on this road in hours. The odds of a tiny, out of the way, coastal town having an influx of city gossipers passing through seems slim, at best.
But why else would she be staring at me like she knows something she shouldn’t?
My goosebumps grow goosebumps of their own and I quickly turn my attention to what’s ahead. With any luck, she’s on her way out of town, never to return. Country living will be insufferable enough without everyone staring at me.
The driver shouts a warning as we approach the hillside. The tunnel looms ahead of us like a mouth lined with stone teeth and then we’re plunged into darkness. The carriage wheels splash noisily through puddles, and the temperature of the air drops.
It feels as if the hillside has swallowed us whole.
“Well, this is rather terrifying,” Mother mumbles.
“Calm yourself. We’ll be on the other side soon,” Father says, rustling his paper.
“Is this route necessary?”
“This is the only convenient way in or out of Hollyhurst, I’m afraid. The town is nestled between the hills and the coast. The tunnel was carved through the thinnest portion of rock and the town built around it. So, unless you’d like to gather your belongings and start climbing instead…?”
To that, she has no response. But the mental image of my prim and proper mother trudging up a muddy incline with her hat box clutched in her pearl laced gloves is almost enough to crack my scowl.
The carriage rolls through what I can only assume is a pond in the middle of the road, and we finally emerge back into the light. I wince at the brightness and when my eyes refocus, the first thing I see is a bouquet of fresh black roses in the grass beside the tunnel. They look so wholly out of place I’m sure I imagined them but they’re still there when I look back. Why would someone leave a bouquet at the base of a hillside? Did they fall out of the redhead’s carriage? Before I can make sense of them, the road curves and they’re out of sight.
We turn a corner and a weathered sign appears by the side of the road. It’s old and chipped, but the big black letters on the front look freshly painted.
Welcome to Hollyhurst
Est. 1647
“Cras es noster”
Cras es noster? I mentally scramble for whatever’s remained of my old language lessons and it takes a few moments to translate. “Tomorrow, be ours?”
Father folds his newspaper for what looks like the final time, tucking it into the inside pocket of his wool coat and adjusting his glasses. “It’s the town motto. Part of the history, I believe.”
“Well that’s… uplifting,” Mother says.
And as if our new home is going out of its way to mock her, the very next thing we pass is an expansive graveyard.
“Uplifting indeed,” I mumble.
She ignores me and turns her attention to what lies ahead. Before today, my father’s the only one who’s ever set foot in this town. The estate belonged to his father, who died before I was born. We’ve lived the entirety of my life in the city and never felt the need to waste a full day of travel to visit a house my grandfather supposedly let crumble around him.
Until now.
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