Part two of a story that was meant to be a standalone, but that has begun to unfurl into a serial. While I don’t know how many chapters there will be, yet, I know there is more to be told.
Enjoy <3
The painting of the fox woman had changed.
Grace stood before it, only half-awake, her thoughts smudging in the dreamy morning. The pale golden light of dawn splintered through the curtains, brightening the painting at strange angles, so that the forest seemed shadowed, sinister, while the fox woman’s eyes shone with auburn light. This morning, the fox woman appeared to be a benevolent spirit, guiding the lost and the wandering away from the clutches of the dark forest. Her beauty, too, shone. Grace wondered dreamily why she had imagined the fox woman to be evil, only the night before.
Until her gaze wandered to the deer, still hanging from the fox woman’s bladed nails.
Her heart thudded, awakening like a storm.
The deer was dead. The illusionary sheen in its eyes vanished, its neck slumped, as though broken. Its other antler hung against its cheek, the wooden stem snapped. Blood dampened its snout and stained its fur – below it, she could see the ragged incision where its ribs gleamed, and its heart had been torn from its chest.
Her rosary tangled in her fingers.
Forgive me, Mother, for I have sinned.
In the looking-glass, the rosary was dark against her white skin… as white and thin as parchment, so that the necklace of bruises stood stark against it. She left her curls down, once more, dressed, and left her bedroom to a house now empty of her father.
The grief and sorrow laced her ribs, tore through her heart like the fox woman’s nails.
The stairwell felt steeper and longer than usual. Her hand trailed against the balustrade; her breaths came in soft puffs of exertion. When she reached the end of it, she smoothed her skirts and masked her breathing, as best she could, before crossing the hallway to the dining-room doors. Her cheeks had pinkened. She frowned to herself, her hand resting against the cold, golden door handle. She was so distracted, that she did not even notice the statue of the crone, nor the shadows that puddled about it, until a voice spoke out.
“Miss Grace.”
Grace gasped, whirling about in a storm of black-and-white skirts. Her rosary was clutched in her palms. She threw her hands before her, in warding.
The young man that stepped out from the shadows was dressed in the black-and-gold uniform of the servants, yet she knew she had never before seen him. Her father had only a handful of servants, all of whom she had grown up with, and he rarely brought on new ones. Besides that, the young man had bronzed skin and dark curls that reminded her, strikingly, of the painting of the fallen angel. She half-expected wings to thrust out from his shoulder blades.
Fool, she chastised herself, the pink in her cheeks deepening.
The young man’s hands were thrown up in a lazy performance of innocence, a smile crooking his lips. “Apologies, Miss Grace, I never meant to frighten you. I have orders from the lovely Miss Daniels to be your escort for the foreseeable future.”
The pink glow fled from her cheeks. “Escort?”
The young man shrugged a broad shoulder. “I know little more than that, Miss Grace.” His tone was deep, lilting. “You may know, but Miss Daniels does not offer much in the way of information. She rather prefers commands.”
Grace was not one to flaunt status before the servants, but she found she did not like his smug, warm tone, nor the familiarity in his dark eyes. She was certain she had never seen him before, amongst the servants, and she had half a mind to ring for Miss Daniels, or one of the other girls, and ask about him.
Instead, she lifted her chin and said, “What is your name?”
The young man bowed his head. “Jehezkiel.”
She tilted her head. “Is that a Biblical name?”
His smile was crooked, tugging on one side of his lips. “In a sense.”
She hadn’t noticed before, how his hand lay against the statue of the crone; possessive, splayed across the length of her thigh, below the fluttering robes she wore. Her cheeks felt hot… but there was also something unsettling about the beautiful young man, with the servant’s uniform and the jagged lilt to his words.
“Tell Miss Daniels I will ask for an escort if I need one,” she said.
And she yanked open the dining room doors, sweeping from the hallway in a billow of skirts and shame.
In her dreams, her skirts were heavy with mossy coins, and she was drowning.
She floated through the dark, starry waters of the pond where she had met the fox woman. Her rosary had been stolen by the waters, sunken far below her. She ought to have felt afraid, perhaps, but she felt peaceful. In the pond’s watery embrace, nothing could harm her, no grief could splinter her heart.
She let her eyes flutter shut.
A soft, cold hand broke through the waters and grasped her arm.
Her eyes pooled open. Her drowning thoughts stirred. Nails bit into the skin of her arm and she understood that the fox woman had her in her clutches. She could not fight, could not run, as the nails tore five-fingered gashes into her arm, and fished her from the pond’s gentle grasp.
Grace lay against damp, night-scented grass, her hair smeared against her cheeks, her wet skirts clinging to her bare legs. Her arm shrieked, but she could not bring herself to look at it. Instead, she found her gaze drawn to that of the fox woman, who leaned so far over her that her black curls danced along Grace’s ribs, and her beautiful features were inverted.
Run, Grace’s thoughts warned.
But, as the fox woman’s tongue darted out across her bloodied lips, she could only hear her own thundering heartbeat.
The fox woman smelled of a nightly forest; frosted berries and damp bark and the old blood of a long-rotted corpse. The scent whisked away all thought. Her grief felt faraway, a veil clinging to a forgotten grave, and the burn in her arm had become a gentle warmth, like a hand holding her. The glint in the fox woman’s eyes was dark, predatorial, and Grace felt herself sink into it, as she had sunk into the waters of the pond.
The pond…
She remembered the coins in her skirts.
Her hand drifted down towards them.
The fox woman stilled.
Grace froze, her gaze rooted to the fox woman. But her beautiful face had darkened, her head tilted toward a sound only she could hear. When she lifted herself and bounded away, the scent of the forest and the warmth of her nearness and the soft touch of her hair disappeared, all at once, and the agony crashed into her in its stead.
Her arm burned like hellfire, and her lungs felt iron-heavy with the pond’s waters. She struggled to her knees, keeled over, and coughed, so harshly, she thought she might splinter a rib. There was something caught in her throat. She coughed, again, and her tongue slickened with the copper taste of blood. Had she swallowed a coin in the pond?
Something tore loose from her throat, and she retched out a single, gleaming bone.
The bone lay in the palm of her shaking hand, as small as one of the coins in her skirts. Her gaze was fastened to it. A cold, dawning horror crept through her, slow as breath. It looked an awful lot like a bird’s wing.
White agony tore through her stomach. She clutched the wing bone – if that was what it was – desperately, as she felt herself heave. A spray of blood painted the grass. Her breath came in sharp flutters. Hot tears welled, as she heaved again, her stomach churning. Through their gloss, her hands became twin smears of white, and the dead bird that she coughed out a clump of mottled brown and red.
Her skirts were stained green when she stood, damp with the grass.
The sparrow’s corpse was still warm.
Her hand shook, violently, as she held the sparrow up – glassy eyes, torn wing, bloodied feathers. She thought she would be sick again. She knew she would be. The sparrow was gazing at her, gazing through her, and she gazed back, unable to tear herself away. Its other wing was broken, bent at an odd angle. She studied it. A strand of hot bile clambered up in her throat. She swallowed it.
And then, she remembered the tome in her father’s office.
The fox spirit demands monthly sacrifices.… These can be animal in nature…
Mother Mary, forgive me, for I have sinned.
She turned on wooden legs, her wet skirts sloshing about her ankles, the dead sparrow cupped in her palms. She stepped towards the black mirror of the pond.
No, a voice inside her told her. The well.
When she looked about, she found a well nestled along the shore of the pond, moss and ivy clambered through its old, cracked stones. A crooked roof hunched atop it. Crumbling stone drew a ring of dust around it, and tarnished, stone statues of angels guarded it, dark and mocking. She crossed towards it. Her heart lurched. She held the sparrow as far from her as she could, until she reached the mouth of the well.
The angels’ blind gazes were cold and heavy against her shoulders.
A whispered prayer tumbled from her lips, as though rehearsed. The dead sparrow fell into the velvet darkness of the well. Grace looked into the well, long after the sparrow had fallen, and listened for a splash that never came.
A rustling whisper came from behind her. When she turned, she caught the gleam of the fox woman’s eyes, vanishing into the dark green of the trees.
The porcelain of her arm was marred by five bloody scars.
If she narrowed her eyes, the scars smudged into a star made of red string. She had read, once, that red string was believed to tie the fated together. Her eyes, in the looking-glass, held the dark, watery sheen of fear.
She had no one to tell of the curse, the dreams, the true fate of her father. The servants could not be trusted… she understood this through the same, ancient knowledge that gave her the whispered prayer of sacrifice, that led her to swallow the mossy coins. She was alone. And if she could not find a ritual to unbind herself from the fox woman, she would meet the same end as her father.
A torn cloth from an old dress served as a bandage, wrapped around her arm five times to hide every trace of the scars. Blood seeped into the cloth, darkening it to the shade of spilt wine. She dressed, choosing a dark, billowing dress to cover the makeshift bandage.
Her gaze wandered to the painting of the fox woman, hanging against the far wall of her bedroom. Her heart thumped in her chest.
Vanished were the deer, the blood, the predatorial shine in the fox woman’s eye. All that remained was her beauty, dark amidst the bright, ethereal glow of the forest. A spirit of peace, her three tails trailing behind her, like winding paths.
Appeased.
For now.
Grace’s gut churned.
When she opened the door to her chambers, she nearly leapt from her skin at the sight of the beautiful young man – Jehezkiel? – standing, his broad back to her, his posture straight and sharp as an arrow. She frowned, yet he did not turn at her coming out of her bedroom. She made a sound in her throat, high and raspy. She winced.
“Miss Grace.” His voice was low, throaty, like velvet scraped against stone. “You’ve arisen.”
“And you’ve disregarded my words,” she said. Her throat felt flushed. “I do not need an escort.”
“My mistress believes otherwise.”
At that, Grace stilled.
Mistress? Hadn’t he said it was Miss Daniels, the head of the servants, who had sent him?
She stepped around him, slow as to hide her unsteady limbs, and backed away to the tip of the stairwell – something within her, some deep instinct, knew not to let him out of her sight. His eyes were dark, pooling like the black pond in her dreams. Her cheeks pinkened. Her frown deepened.
“And who is your mistress?” she asked, her words spilling out soft and smooth, despite the frenzied dance of her thoughts.
Jehezkiel’s gaze dipped – to her arm, to the bandages below the fluttering fabric of her dress. His smile was knowing. Her heart, cold as the pond waters, fell into her stomach. She took a step back, her foot flailing against the sharp, precarious edge of the stairwell.
“She cannot visit you, in the waking world.” His voice was soft and raspy as the night, as a strange dream. She wondered if she was still asleep. “She needs me here. She needs me to… guard you, from any foolish ideas you might succumb to. Your father, rest his soul, was a victim of such ideas. I wouldn’t wish the same for you, and neither would my mistress.”
Grace fell onto the stairwell, her foot thudding against the cold wood, her heart thudding into her ribs. She was dreaming; this could not be the waking world. None knew of the fox woman, the being that visited her in her sleep, the spirit her family had bound itself to. Her arm, adorned with the fox woman’s gashes, burned, as though scarred by hot wax. She folded it behind her back, instinctively, and watched as the young man’s smile deepened.
He moved towards her, slow and languorous, and she forced herself to stand still, despite the tension stringing her limbs, despite the feeling that she was being approached by more than a young man… by a predator. His body brushed past hers, as he descended the curving stairwell, leaving her in the fog of dim candlelight and still quiet. His scent filled her nose – damp and pine and the old, coppery scent of mossy coins, or rotten blood. For a breath, she was standing on the shore of the dark pond once more, the fox woman’s arms curving around her, pressing into her back. Then, his whispered words sliced through her dreams.
“My mistress thanks you for your sacrifice.”
Grace’s heart was a startled dove in her throat, her words made of thought and breath as she spun around to face the beautiful young man, who had vanished along the stairwell’s curve. Her words – questions, answers, or both – died against her tongue. Her hands were damp, as she pressed them to her skirts, and gazed into the gloom at the base of the stairwell, not knowing whether she ought to follow the young man, or flee in the other direction.
She stood there for a long while, her cold hands twisting the fabric of her skirts.
Eventually, she found herself following the steep curve of the stairwell, descending into the smoky shadows below. Her fingers were white against the balustrade; her steps were halting, uncertain. The manor spread before her like fog – gray and cold with the dawn. The quiet was ashen. Oppressive.
Jehezkiel had vanished. His disappearance needled at her shoulder blades, dusted apprehension across her skin. The servants, too, must have been in another wing of the house, for she met no one at the base of the stairwell. She stood at a crossroads of hallways – one led deeper into the house, towards the dining-room and her father’s office, the other was narrow and winding and threaded alongside the manor gardens. Between them, there was a statue of a young maiden, wrapped in a cocoon of pale lace that hid her eyes and ears and lips. She stood in a puddle of glass shards, the lace pooling around her bare, bleeding feet.
See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.
Her father had loved that proverb.
Grace’s gaze caught on the glass shards, and the lace maiden’s bloodied feet, and she remembered what her father had told her when she had asked about them. His smile had been soft and sad, his quiet words nearly swallowed by the dark tangle of his beard.
Nothing in this world comes without agony, sweet child. You will understand that one day, no matter how I pray that God might shield you from it.
Grace swallowed, feeling as though the glass shards had caught in her throat. She understood, now, what he had meant. She understood.
She chose the narrow, winding hallway that led towards the gardens. She needed crisp, sweet air, not the dark, grief-stained shadows of the manor. Her thoughts were a pale, haunted smudge, and her shaking hands were trapped in her skirts. The hallway curled like fallen string. The candlelight painted thin shadows against the floors. Her skirts trailed behind her, as her thoughts did, trapped in the memory of Jehezkiel’s words to her.
My mistress thanks you for your sacrifice.
She shuddered… and then, as though awakening from a deep dream, she found herself standing at the arched, glass doorway to the gardens. The doors collapsed outward at her touch. A cool, sweet breeze tangled in her curls and swept against her cheeks.
Grace breathed in, deep and blissful; for that breath, she forgot about her strange dreams and the beautiful young man with eyes like deadly ponds. Her own eyes fluttered shut. Her hands uncurled from her skirts.
Something shifted in the breeze.
Her breath became a gag, torn from her throat with a sour, searing rasp. Her eyes gasped open. A hand fluttered to her mouth; burning strands of bile hung from her lips, dripping to the dead grass below her feet. She fell into a crouch, her skirts hitching around her waist, and tasted silvery rot on the breeze.
Her eyes were wet with a sickly sheen. Behind it, she glimpsed a faint, bony shine against the grass, and understood what it was with the same deep intuition that plagued her in her dreams. Her hands fell against the grass as she stumbled back on cold, crouched legs. Her thoughts whispered, impossible. As impossible as the dreamed gashes on her arm.
She blinked away the soft sheen, and her gaze sharpened against the small pile of bones in the center of the garden. Bones as fine and delicate as those of a sparrow’s wing, cleaned of any meat or blood.
Grace stood, her legs needling, and moved to the pile of bones, and cupped them in her hands. They were cold. So fragile, she could splinter them herself, between her fingers. She thought of the warmth of the dead sparrow, in her dream. She studied the polished bones in the gasp of her palms.
One of the wing bones was cracked, hanging at a broken angle.
What a beautifully atmospheric piece! I love the contrast between gothic imagery and the stark reality of Grace’s grief and fear. Compelling stuff
can’t wait for the fox lady and grace to kiss and fall madly in love ❤️❤️