Azalea hesitated.
Unlike the rest of them, she had heard this story before. Only in snippets, sometimes in hushed tones when the maids walked by, or reading in Tutor’s Eathesbury Historian when he had dozed off. No one ever spoke it aloud.
Those hundreds of years ago, the High King had captured Harold the First’s daughter, in the gardens. Back then the gardens had been made of thornbushes that grasped at persons’ hands and necks of their own accord, pulling them into their prickly branches. He took her into the palace, and several days later, a box appeared at Harold the First’s manor. Among the tissue papers lay a hand. It belonged to her.
The story then echoed Keeper’s, with the High King drinking her blood, swearing to kill her father. Her body was found later, in pieces in the thorny garden. Azalea shuddered. She hated thinking of the next part of the story.
At night, the palace windows lit with a weird, bright yellow light, Harold the First’s daughter could be seen wandering the halls, feeling her way about with both of her hands. The High King had somehow kept her soul. And she felt about with both hands—because…because…Azalea couldn’t bring herself to think of it in a complete sentence, but it involved a needle, a thread, and the soul’s eyelids.
Azalea nearly dropped the lamp she held, her hands shook so. She managed a smile, set it on the round table, and began to help the younger girls undress.
“It’s only partly true,” she said firmly. “Yes, he drank blood, but it didn’t do anything. You know the picture of Harold the First, in the gallery? He died of old age. He killed the High King. The blood oath didn’t work. Drinking blood can’t do anything more than if you’ve pricked your finger and sucked on it. It’s all tosh.”
“He made it sound so vivid,” said Flora, huddled with Goldenrod under their bedcovers. They hadn’t bothered to undress.
“The High King did a lot of awful things,” said Eve as Azalea pulled the twins gently from their bed and helped them into their nightgowns. “He trapped people in mirrors. They died there.”
“That’s—not—as bad as—capturing souls, I should—should think,” said Clover, stammering more than usual.
“What a great load of rot,” said Bramble. She threw her slipper at the wall. It hit the wainscot next to the door and fell into the basket. “And what a rot of Keeper, telling a story like that. Didn’t he realize it would scare the tonsils out of the younger ones?”
Azalea rubbed her skirts, still feeling Keeper’s hands against hers.
No one slept well that night. Azalea brought up two steaming kettles of tea for everyone, cooing and soothing them when they awoke with a cry. The younger girls crawled into her bed, burying their noses into her sides, patting her cheeks each time they stirred.
When Azalea awoke, it was late and she was cranky. She became doubly so when she discovered that Mr. Bradford’s pocket watch had been left at the pavilion.
“I didn’t mean to leave it,” said Bramble, in the same beastly mood. “It wasn’t my fault—we were in such a hurry to leave, after that ghastly story!”
“Mr. Bradford trusted us,” said Azalea, angry with herself. “He trusted me.”
Bramble looked at Azalea up and down, an odd light in her lemon-green eyes.
“Go to it, then,” she said, herding the girls out the door. “I’ll start the wee chicks on their lessons.”
Several minutes later, toes curling in her boots, Azalea rubbed her handkerchief against the mark until it burned and the light burst. She had never been to the pavilion in the day. Descending alone into the silver brilliance felt different. Everything was muffled, and Azalea’s boot clacks left no echo.
When she reached the pavilion, it stood dark, shadowed in the silver mist. Keeper was not there. Azalea knocked, lightly, on the arched doorframe.
“Sorry, hello?” she said.
Knocking made her feel less intrusive. She slipped onto the dance floor, and nearly jumped out of her boots when the orchestra burst into a lively jig.
“Shh!” she seethed. “Quiet! Hush!”
The orchestra cut off, except for a violin that screeched a happy solo. When it realized the rest of the orchestra had quit, it slowed with an embarrassing rosined whine.
Azalea searched the pavilion for a sign of the watch, and as she turned, felt the prickly, uncanny sensation of someone’s eyes on her. She looked up, and let out a cry.
There, on the ceiling like a big, black spider, was Keeper.
Azalea’s heart nearly leaped out of her corset. She stumbled back.
Keeper pushed off from the ceiling and flipped to the ground in a swoop. He landed, catlike, on his feet, and straightened. His cloak settled around him.
Azalea darted for the entrance. Keeper was there in an instant, blocking her way. He smiled a long-dimpled smile.
“My, you startle easily,” he said.
“You—it—on—ceiling…” Azalea choked.
“Oh, do calm down, Miss Azalea.” In a silky movement he brought Azalea’s shaking hand around his arm, smoothing her quaking fingers over his black suitcoat sleeve. “Living in such a small pavilion for so many years makes one, ah, creative. And you, Miss Azalea, I am pleased to see you here. Even if you are here for another gentleman’s watch, and not for me.”
Azalea tried to pull her arm away, but Keeper only smiled, pressed his long fingers over hers, and escorted her to a sofa next to the dessert table.