ONE DAY AT WISTERIA, AND BLYTHE ALREADY KNEW SHE’D MADE A grave
mistake.
It was as though the manor had decided to punish her for staying by plummeting the temperature overnight. Cold as a corpse, she’d hardly managed a wink of sleep, having woken up coughing several times before she eventually rifled through her travel chest. She threw on some of her thicker wool dresses, layering them in an attempt to soothe her dry throat and chilled body so that she might find some modicum of rest.
If the temperature wasn’t enough to keep her awake, the noise surely was. She was used to gusting storms and branches scraping at her windows. What she wasn’t used to was a home that moaned and quivered with every breeze. At one point Blythe could have sworn that pieces of the ceiling crumbled to the floor, though they were gone by the time the sun rose. And she could tell, precisely, when the sun rose because she had no curtains to guard her against it. When she finally had managed to fall asleep, she woke what felt like minutes later to the burn of light behind her eyelids.
Fists curling, she promised to find a way to make Aris pay for this ridiculous behavior as she pushed from the bed. Out of habit she made to ready herself, only to think better of it before she took a brush to her disheveled hair. Who did she have to impress? Certainly not Aris. And if he wasn’t going to allow her a good night’s rest, then why should Blythe bother to make herself presentable for him?
She did not dress, clean her teeth, or do so much as pinch color into her cheeks before she slammed her feet into her slippers. She grabbed a robe
out of sheer desperation for warmth, then pounded her way down the stairs.
To her surprise, the first sign of life was not Aris himself but the small black fox that they had rescued several months prior. It had been a kit at the time, though the creature was now fully grown as it slept curled on the stairs. The fox alerted at the sound of Blythe’s stomping, and the moment she reached down to stroke its head, the foul thing hissed and lunged for her hand. She barely managed to yank her fingers back before the blasted creature could bite her.
With a chittering that sounded as if the beast was scolding her, the fox scurried down the stairs and out of view as if offended by Blythe’s existence.
“I helped save you, you ungrateful beast!” she called after it, sharper than she meant to. She supposed she had the lack of sleep to blame for that.
As she continued down into the parlor, Aris was nowhere to be found. She hadn’t seen him since the past night’s dinner and looked toward the window in an unsuccessful attempt at finding some sign of his general direction from the slant of light. Her brows furrowed. How strange it was to search for magic and find none after being so entrenched in it.
The hearth was as glum as ever as Blythe took a seat to warm her hands. Though she knew the fire was not sentient, she couldn’t help but pity the flames and hoped that by sitting there she might somehow inspire it to burn brighter. It didn’t work in that present moment, though she intended to continue her efforts.
Blythe remained seated awhile longer, silent and listening for signs of Aris. He didn’t seem to be anywhere in Wisteria, and though she should have been annoyed that he was able to somehow leave while she was pulled back any time she so much as thought of abandoning the palace, Blythe was surprised to find that she didn’t mind. She’d never before been in a home entirely by herself. There had always been maids or a governess. Cooks, and men tending to the stable. Such a quiet was unfamiliar, and for a long moment Blythe remained motionless by the fire, unsure what to do other than listen to the crackle of the flames and the fox’s claws scratching against the floors. When she could take no more of it she stood, deciding there was no better time to investigate Wisteria than with Aris gone.
She gave no thought to her first stop, for it had been on her mind since the prior night and throughout her few minutes of dreaming. She hurried up
the stairs, skirts in hand—which were quite heavy when one had multiple layers of them to hold—and all the way to the highest floor where the ballroom and Life’s looming portrait awaited her. As mysterious as her husband was, this was her chance to learn more about him and his magic. And so she reached for the door woven into Life’s portrait, biting back a yelp when the knob stung her palm.
She reeled back, and upon further investigation saw that a thousand golden threads covered the door, barring it from entry.
So much for that plan.
A soft chittering sounded behind her, and Blythe glanced down to find the fox sitting several feet from her heels. She glared at the foul creature as it swished its black tail like a broom. The beast sounded as though it was laughing.
“Is everyone who lives here a monster?” Blythe asked.
The fox’s glowing eyes observed her for a second longer before it jumped to all fours, head swiveling to look behind it. Blythe followed its gaze, choking on her breath when she saw a faint haze of what was most definitely white hair disappearing down a hall that Blythe was certain hadn’t been there moments before.
Her body remained frozen even as the fox hurried after the figure.
“Aris?” Blythe hissed his name under her breath, arms winding around herself to quell her body’s shivering. “If that’s you, then stop this foolishness. This isn’t funny.”
It wasn’t her husband who responded but a feminine laugh that should have made every hair on Blythe’s body stand on end. Yet the sound was reminiscent of a summer breeze, soothing Blythe’s fussing nerves and loosening her locked limbs.
Perhaps it was a hallucination. It wouldn’t be the first time Blythe had had one, though it’d been months since she’d been plagued by that symptom of the belladonna poisoning. Still, how else was she to explain the hallway that emerged seemingly from nowhere, or the flashes of light in the corner of her vision that guided her path as she hurried forward?
The deeper she traveled, the more the palace began to shift from a drab Wisteria into the unfamiliar. Gray walls gave way to ivory paneling. Stone floors turned not to any wood or material she knew, but to patches of grass and clover that ensnared her ankles. It wasn’t like wandering through a
palace at all, but into a forest glade.
Whether this was real or happening within the confines of her own mind, Blythe knew she should be terrified. And yet she couldn’t stop herself, one foot following after the other until she came upon a single door at the edge of a long, narrow hall. Behind it pulsed a warmth so grand that Blythe’s longing flared to life.
Door was a loose term for what she saw, for it wasn’t so much a door as an opening that appeared to be carved into the bark of a tree. It had a handle not of brass or iron but of wood carved into a spectacular design of a wisteria vine. Again Blythe heard the trill of butter-soft laughter, this time from behind the door.
“Do you hear her, too?” Blythe whispered to the fox, who wove between her ankles to scratch at the door. “Perhaps it’s a trap. Aris might have my head if we go inside.”
The fox did not care one bit about Blythe or her head. In the midst of her hesitation, it scratched harder and hissed its dissatisfaction. Blythe hissed back, and she’d have likely bopped the beast’s rump with her toe had its teeth not looked so sharp.
“Fine,” she told it. “But I’m opening it for you, not for me.”
Against her better judgment, Blythe took hold of the handle and cracked the door open. Immediately, the fox slipped inside.
Blythe looked at once for the source of the laughter, though there was no one apart from herself and the fox inside this summer glade. It was so warm that Blythe could have stripped down to her bare skin. Though it was very much a room with its four-poster bed that was somehow carved into the base of a tree, it was also an impossibility. Another one of Fate’s wonderscapes.
She tipped her head to the tree that towered over her. Once upon a time it might have been a wisteria, though now it was a husk that littered dried petals across a bed with sheets that had yellowed with age. Blythe circled the tree several times, believing it had to somehow be a wooden carving since there were no roots to be seen. Given the rotted wood that flaked against her palms, however, it couldn’t be anything but real.
There were other oddities, too, like a vanity made of withered vines that were one touch away from snapping into dust. There was a mirror of chased silver and several portraits toward the back of the room painted in a vintage
style one might find in a museum. In them, a man smiled as he danced with a woman whose hair shone as pale as moonlight. They wore nothing of the current fashion, but ancient clothing from a time long passed.
There was another portrait, too, of the same golden-haired man seated beneath the shade of a towering wisteria tree, his head leaning against the trunk as serene eyes looked back at the painter. It took Blythe a long moment to recognize that the man was Aris, as it was the first time she’d ever seen him wear such a placid expression. It took even longer to recognize that the woman in the first portrait was the one Blythe had been chasing down the hall only moments ago. She should have recognized who it was the moment she saw the white hair—Life.
The realization had Blythe backing into the wall, unconvinced that what she was seeing was more than a figment of her imagination. But the wall was firm against her back, and the trees chalky beneath her fingertips.
Which meant that, somehow, this place was real.
“What do you want with me?” she whispered to a room that met her only with silence. “If you’re angry with me about Aris, you by all means can keep him. I lay no claim.”
The heat of the room pressed against her again, firmer this time, and Blythe’s head began to spin as a bead of sweat trailed down the back of her neck.
Blythe turned to the portraits, frowning at the man within them. At one point Aris had been an entirely different person, and the longer that Blythe stared and her vision swam, blurring the edges, the more she felt as if she were there before him. She could feel the painted moss against her bare soles and the pulse of the autumn forest that surrounded the two lovers against her skin. Heat from a waning sun bore down on her as fallen leaves crunched beneath her heels. There was music, too. Music that Blythe swayed to as she shut her eyes and let the story play out in her mind’s eye. She watched as Aris smiled and drew her into his chest, able to feel the firmness of his body. The heat of his touch as he pulled her close, and—
Blythe nearly lost her footing when the fox scurried over her slippers, jarring her back into the long-forgotten suite and away from the handsome man she’d been dancing with in the middle of the woods. It took a moment to ground herself and remember that it hadn’t been a handsome man at all, but Aris. And it hadn’t been her, either.
This wasn’t the first time such intrusive thoughts had entered her mind. Since around the time of Charlotte and Everett’s wedding, Blythe had been plagued with visions of a faceless man whose laughter could ignite an inferno within her and whose touch she burned for. Never had such a person existed, and yet it always felt so real. Like the ghost of someone Blythe had spent her entire life waiting to meet.
At first she’d wondered whether it had anything to do with why she could see Death. If something within her had fundamentally shifted after the many times she’d been meant to die, only to be brought back from the precipice. Now, she wondered if it was Life, angry and toying with her for taking up this role in Aris’s life.
Blythe held on to the wall for a good while as her mind swam with slivers of smiles and flashes of skin. Echoes of laughter and music. Always the same lilting music.
The longer she stood in the room, the more it felt like its walls were pressing against her, the weight so suffocating she thought she might fold into the floor. As odd as Thorn Grove was, there had been a charm to its eeriness. Her childhood home had embraced the rumors and leaned in to its quirks. But this once-thriving suite was merely a shell of something that had once been extraordinary. Something that was digging its claws beneath her skin and begging not to be forgotten.
Blythe picked up her skirts, ready to flee when she caught sight of a hand mirror lying among the vines on the vanity. It was of considerable age with a handle inlaid with gold filigree. Trembling, Blythe picked it up, surprised by how familiar it felt in her grasp.
It was then that the lights flickered, blurring until they simultaneously slanted to the door. The fox perked its ears, and as it sprinted to greet its returned master, Blythe clutched the mirror to her chest. She knew she should return it to the vanity. Knew that she should flee and leave this place behind. Yet her fingers refused to unfasten from its handle, her thumb stroking up and down the filigree.
Perhaps it was to prove to herself that this was real, or perhaps it was another reason entirely that drove Blythe to tuck the relic into the folds of her dress. It was only a mirror after all, pretty but trivial. Yet there was no time to ponder it as pale light spilled through the doorway and flooded the floorboard as Aris grew nearer. She tossed the door open before he could
find her and sprinted through Wisteria with the nimblest steps she could manage.
Blythe did not stop until she’d made it back to her room, the memory of Life’s laughter still ringing in her head.
Dearest Father,
Do forgive my delay in correspondence and the briefness of my letter; I’m writing to you from the frosted wonderland that is the city of Verena.
Though it is barely winter, Aris’s home is Christmas incarnate, full of quaint shops and streets blanketed with snow so powdery that special shoes are sometimes required to avoid sinking into it. Though Verena is not necessarily how I envisioned spending a honeymoon, I am glad to see where my husband comes from. I do wish I had packed a few more coats, though Aris is having several made for me as we speak.
While we had hoped to make it to the countryside to visit Byron and Eliza, I’m afraid that foul weather has cut our bridal tour short. It seems that we will be spending the next several weeks here in Verena. I do so wish that you could come, as I’m certain you would love it.
Do not worry for me. The city is splendid, and I will undoubtedly find countless ways to entertain myself. Also, I would be remiss not to mention the food, as the palace chefs are the finest I have ever known. I do not say this so that you might think I’ve moved on from life at Thorn Grove, however, for nothing could be further from the truth.
How are you faring? I eagerly await stories of all the adventures I hope you’ve been having, and assurance that everyone at Thorn Grove is doing well. I miss you dearly, and I will see you as soon as I’m able.
And before I forget—Aris keeps a fox for a pet. Isn’t that a delightful and purely random fact?
Yours always,
Blythe
My Wonderfully Strange Cousin,
I begin this letter by expressing to you, with full sincerity, that I am well. Aris has yet to murder me in my sleep, though every so often I admit to catching a gleam in his eyes that convinces me he’s considering it.
Fear not, as if either of us are to perish from the other’s hand, I assure you that I will not be the first to die. Perhaps that is dramatic, but fret not, dearest cousin. I do not regret the deal I made with Aris. In fact, this war between us has become rather like a game, and I do so love to win.
I hope that you are warm and well at Foxglove, and that the estate is treating you well. I say warm because Aris has turned Wisteria Gardens into an everlasting and uninhabitable winter, much like the kind you read about in fairy tales. I fear how much worse it may become once it truly does begin to snow, though I have some time before then to plan my next move. It’ll have to be a memorable one, as Aris has forbidden me from leaving Wisteria for at least one month’s time so that no one
will question the validity of our honeymoon. What kind of honeymoon anyone might have believed we’d have in mid- November is beyond rationale. I told my father I was in Verena, and think that perhaps I have a career in fiction-writing. As I cannot sleep, I’ve made up the entire town in my mind’s eye.
It’s so maddeningly thorough that I’m almost disappointed it’s not a real place. How fun it would be to rule a land of winter!
Though a month may seem brief in the grand scheme of things, I know in my heart that I will wither if I must wait that long to see your face. Which brings me to the purpose of this letter—not to lament Aris (though I do find great satisfaction in doing so), but to inform you that every morning for the past week, he has left me to fend for myself in Wisteria while he engages in who knows what. I find myself with ample time alone and must admit that after months of languishing in Thorn Grove, solitude does not suit me.
You mentioned at the wedding that you had something to share with me, and I’m eager to know what it is. Boredom has made me impatient.
While I won’t pretend to fully understand your abilities, I hope that upon receiving this letter, you will merge with the shadows and slip through the darkness to come and fetch me. I trust you will find a way, as I am eagerly looking forward to seeing you very soon. For the sake of my sanity, please hurry.
Eagerly awaiting your visit,
Blythe
