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Ellery wanted to believe that he could make this right, that they could uncover the answers they needed and find their happy ending. But looking back through the crowded marketplace, he wondered at the certainty he had felt when he had tried to reassure Nara.
He took her hand again, pushing through the scraggly edge of the market, and then they were standing in a field. The sweet scent of the crop blocked out any scent of the market, and the gentle wind blowing through it gave the green a silvery appearance as it moved back and forth.
“It is beautiful,” Nara said, squeezing his hand. He wondered how long they could stay away from the manor and whether that was a good idea.
The hounds came into view then, their thick grey coats lost momentarily to the silver green of the stalks they stood before. But then their red eyes became apparent. For a moment they appeared as monsters, barely recognisable as the hounds Nara and Ellery had followed into the fields. Dark and distorted. Ellery squeezed Nara’s hand tighter. He was tempted to draw his sword, but the people behind him still bustled, and he heard a child cry out.
He turned back to the market from the hounds and the fields, but he couldn’t see a child, any child. He glanced at Nara, who was also searching the crowd with him.
“Did you hear that?” he asked.
She nodded, then put her hand to her head as though it ached. A hound, or whatever the creatures might be, barked behind them.
“How are they here?” Nara asked.
“Are they your father’s hounds?” Ellery returned, stepping towards them. The sounds of the market were lost completely.
As Nara stepped forward with him, the hounds raced towards them out of the fields, leaping about and yipping like puppies. The red eyes Ellery had been so sure he had seen were solid black. For a moment they appeared as eyes should, dark brown, and then they were lost again to the solid black. When Nara reached out to run her fingers through the coarse hair of the closest one, Ellery pulled her back.
She looked at him as the hound sat on its haunches. They all did in unison, and that worried Ellery more than the eyes. He turned, and the market was gone. They were surrounded by fields again, no sound other than the hushing wind moving through the stalks.
In the distance ahead of him, he could see a town, the bustle of people moving between buildings. Did the wren understand what she had visited—that they were able to interact but not as they had? That they too were creatures from another time and place?
“How far do we go?” Nara asked, travelling back along the narrow path towards the manor. It should be away from the manor, but Ellery understood that the path would take them back that way.
“Do you want to try the river?” he asked, wondering now how far Nara might have floated if he hadn’t leapt in to save her. They had travelled some distance from the house, but not far enough.
“Are they keeping us here, or keeping us safe?” she asked, reaching again for the hound, and he let her go. As her fingers met the thick fur, the eyes changed momentarily and then went back to the solid black. Ellery hadn’t seen that before. They had been red when they had been circling, but had that been to keep him and Nara there while the old man returned?
“I don’t know,” he admitted, and the hound turned towards him.
He glanced at the others all doing the same.
“We will return,” he said, although a part of him didn’t want to. He knew it was where they would find the answers. They might be able to explore other parts of the manor to determine what was going on, such as the cells beneath. Ellery wondered where the old man stayed when he was there. Or was he always there?
The hounds raced off as one back through the edges of the field, across the path, and down the hill towards the grey house that sat amidst a sea of green. When they paused at the view, he too thought it something else, a ruin like the remains of a forest. In a blink, it was as he remembered it. He wondered at the people within it, the servants, the field workers he could see dotted amongst the green and the two living within it—what they truly were.
Did it matter? Would finding out their curse or the reason behind their existence here matter? As they walked, the hounds raced back and forth, running ahead and then back all together. As one brushed against him, Ellery wondered if they were in some way connected to him and Nara and the life they were living.
Before they were even on the road to the manor, which appeared just as wide and well maintained as it had that first time he had travelled along it, Lord Millard stood in the doorway, waiting for them as though they were expected guests.
He appeared just as he had that first night, although his beard was greyer. Where it had shimmered with strands of silver the first time, it was all silvery grey now. He didn’t stand quite as tall as he had, and Ellery wondered if he might see the man for what he truly was. He didn’t take his eyes from them as they walked. One of the hounds tried to trip Ellery up, running back and forth and squeezing between them. He held tight to Nara in case it was trying to separate them, determined not to let her go.
They stopped as he became tangled with the hound, and it took all he had not to fall over. “Enough!” Nara snapped. The hound looked at her and then at Ellery, as though he might have a different approach. He was tempted to run his hands through its thick fur between its ears, but he restrained himself.
When he looked back up, the man in the doorway was gone. The light had started to dim around them, and torches flared to life along the entrance. When he looked at Nara, she held her sword in her hand.
“What can you sense?” he asked.
“It is getting dark, and I don’t like the dark here.”
He was tempted to draw his own sword, but he didn’t want to let her go. There had barely been a change in colour to the sky around them. It had changed from deep blue to darker blue to black in the moments they had stood before the manor. He glanced down at the hound still before him. Had it stopped them for a reason, and was that to help them or to put them in more danger? Helping the old man instead.
“What is your purpose?” he asked the animal.
It turned its head a little to the side as though contemplating an answer. Then it took off, gravel flying as it raced along the road and disappeared with the others around the side of the manor. The door appeared to be open. Even in the dark, the torchlight revealed it as a dark hole in the building, and yet they had gone elsewhere. Ellery wasn’t sure if they should follow.
“Have you always feared the dark here?” he asked, squeezing Nara’s hand.
“I don’t know that fear is the right word,” she whispered, her voice carrying through the dark. “I just think of that cell and the cold.” She shivered in his hold. He wanted to draw her in close, but she stepped away from him, and he allowed her to lead them.
They followed the path of the hounds. He could hear a distant bark, as though they were calling, but he couldn’t see where they might have gone. There was only one torch on this side of the house, as though it wasn’t needed. His boots crunched on the gravel, reminding him of those final moments when they were dragged across it to the ring of soldiers.
Nara’s sword lit up her features but little else as it glowed gently in her hand. The same golden glow he had seen in the dining hall. He wasn’t certain if her eyes were glowing again or reflecting the sword. He was tempted to draw his own, but to do so would mean he would have to release his hold on her hand, and he didn’t want that. He feared he would lose her in the dark, and he was determined they would not be separated this time.
At the far corner of the house, only just visible in the dim light of the torch, sat a hound. It appeared to be patiently waiting for them. He wasn’t sure which light the eyes reflected, whether the torch or Nara’s sword, but even at a distance they appeared golden.
The hound lifted its head as though to howl, but no sound could be heard. Nara raced towards it, and Ellery tried to keep up. He nearly tripped twice, his boots too loud on the gravel. And then the hound disappeared. He had been watching it, racing towards it, and in the dim light it had just gone.
He wanted to pull Nara to a stop, but she continued. When they reached the place where the hound had been, it was gone, and Ellery half expected it to have turned back into whatever monster he had seen in the field. A door squealed open, drawing his attention to the darkness that lay beyond. He realised that this was the entrance to the cellar they had been in that night.
Nara released her hold on him and headed straight into the dark. He drew his own sword then, following a step behind and lighting it up with its brilliant white light. It seemed so much smaller as they made their way down the narrow staircase built within the walls. He felt the return of the rush of fear he had felt when he’d been directed up these stairs, behind Nara and out of her reach.
He glanced over his shoulder, but he could see nothing behind him. He wondered what they would find down here and whether this was a good idea. But then, he had no sense of fear for anything other than the memories of this house. The stone was cold when he put his hand to it, and it smelt damp. It was very different to the tunnels they had travelled through with the stone creatures in search of a tree.
But there was something else down here. He could smell vegetables, or something similar. When they reached the base of the steps, he held his sword out, and the space was stacked with barrels and baskets of food. It was a small space, much smaller than he had thought it to be. He turned slowly. Against the far wall were two cages. One contained cases of bottles, although the door was open, and the other was empty. Completely empty—not even a hint of the straw they had slept on.
Ellery took a step forward, wondering if it had been left empty for a reason, and Nara sucked in a frightened breath as he turned to see a carcass hanging from the ceiling. It was large, a deer perhaps. It had been skinned and cut open. He wondered if that was why the hounds had been close, but there was no sign of them here.
“Was it like this before?” he asked.
“No,” she replied. “It was empty that night.”
“Had you been in here before then?”
She shook her head, looking around the space.
“Was it always a store?” he asked.
“I...” She turned to him then, looking frustrated rather than frightened. He wanted to pull her into his arms and never let her go, but he had to focus on why they were there. Nara’s sword still glowed, although not as brightly, and he wasn’t sure if there was a gentle glow to her eyes or if it was a simple reflection of the light. “I don’t know this place,” she said, her voice quiet. He wondered at the lack of echo and whether that could be attributed to the damp or simply because it was a small space filled with food.
“I’m sorry.” He didn’t want to push her. He wanted to understand, and he wasn’t understanding this life. Not that he understood any, but they usually had some sense of the reason they were there. It was usually a need for something, to find something. Even if that was to find a tree to recover all of Nara’s stones.
She put her hand to the pouch at her belt. She had been holding them before, but he was getting confused or losing track of when she did so. When they were back in the pouch, he wanted to hold them. He stepped in close and put his hand over hers.
There was no sense as to why they should be there. He knew they needed to be, but not in the same way as in previous lives, and maybe that was the difference. The lack of understanding, the lack of a sense—he knew the reason behind it was here, and that was why they needed to stay.
“Do you think he wanted the stones, rather than me?” Nara asked. “He had some understanding that I didn’t think he had before.”
“You didn’t have the stones on you when you met him,” Ellery said. It wasn’t a question; he could remember the moment he had entered her room and she’d held them tight in her hand. Determined that they would die. “You had the sense in the first life. You understood what was to come.”
“Not all of it,” she said.
“You knew you were going to die.”
“I didn’t know you were coming,” she whispered, raising her hand towards his face.
“It is not your fault that we died,” he said. Had she always thought that way, that she had drawn him in and caused his death?
“I’m lost,” she said, the same strange look on her face as when he had pulled her from the water.
“We are here for a reason,” he said.
“But who or what is behind that reason? It isn’t really here,” she whispered. “None of it is truly here. The house, the people, Lord Orman, even the hounds are not what they appear to be. We are trapped in another life with no understanding as to why we are here or where it will lead us.”
“The fire tree,” he suggested, but she shook her head and looked around the room again. “It looks real,” he said. She glared at him as though he were contradicting her, which he would never do. She had never looked at him that way before. Every life they had lived appeared real in some way, and yet it wasn’t; it was some twist on reality. “Birds,” he murmured.
“There were many of those in the last life...” Nara looked up at him, her eyes aglow, and this time he was certain it was caused by something within. “They were long lost,” she said, then shook her head as though that wasn’t the right term. “Like the hounds,” she added.
As though on cue, like the birds in the forest, a hound howled in the distance. It sounded far away, but they might have been shielded from the sound by the thick stone around them. If they were to call out in return, would they be heard by the hounds or by anyone in the house above them?
“Did Wren know you were here that night?” Ellery asked.
Nara shook her head, but his experience of her sister was always in the shadows. She might have seen far more than Nara realised. The wren was watching them, and Ellery wondered if Nara had known her as well as she had thought. She might have just been a child, but she was more than that. She was more than that now. If this was the life she and her father had lived after Nara.
“She doesn’t like to be called that,” Nara said sadly.
Something moved in the dark, and Ellery turned quickly from Nara to the piles of baskets and crates as a hound appeared. It was dark, mottled, and he thought patches of skin were missing. There were no eyes, nothing watching them, and yet he knew that it had been. It opened a mouth slowly to reveal sharp, pointed teeth. Ellery thought of the Mer as the lip curled and the hound growled low and long, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood up.