The Briar Book of the Dead E-Book

A.G. Slatter

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 549

Beschreibung

Set in the same universe as the acclaimed All the Murmuring Bones and The Path of Thorns (one of Oprah Daily's Top 25 Fantasy Novels of 2022), this beautifully told Gothic fairy tale of ghosts, witches, deadly secrets and past sins, will be perfect for fans of Hannah Whitten and Ava Reid. Ellie Briar is the first non-witch to be born into her family for generations. The Briar family of witches run the town of Silverton, caring for its inhabitants with their skills and magic. In the usual scheme of things, they would be burnt for their sorcery, but the church has given them dispensation in return for their protection of the borders of the Darklands, where the much-feared Leech Lords hold sway. Ellie is being trained as a steward, administering for the town, and warding off the insistent interest of the church. When her grandmother dies suddenly, Ellie's cousin Audra rises to the position of Briar Witch, propelling Ellie into her new role. As she navigates fresh challenges, an unexpected new ability to see and speak to the dead leads her to uncover sinister family secrets, stories of burnings, lost grimoires and evil spells. Reeling from one revelation to the next, she seeks answers from the long dead and is forced to decide who to trust, as a devastating plot threatens to destroy everything the Briar witches have sacrificed so much to build. Told in the award-winning author's trademark gorgeous, addictive prose, this is an intricately woven tale of a family of witches struggling against the bonds of past sins and persecution.

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Leave us a Review

Copyright

Dedication

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Acknowledgements

About the Author

PRAISE FOR THE BRIAR BOOK OF THE DEAD

‘Slatter nestles stories within stories, immersing readers in a richly imagined world, and leading them on a journey full of unexpected twists and turns. This is an expertly woven tale of intrigue, magic, family, and righting old wrongs.’

A.C. Wise, author of Wendy, Darling

‘Slatter writes witches like none other, and her newest is a darkling feast, jewelled and blood-stained, rich with secrets and seething with unbearable power.’

Cassandra Khaw, author of The Salt Grows Heavy

‘Dark, witchy, and downright delicious, The Briar Book of The Dead is the perfect read for shorter days and longer nights.’

Ally Wilkes, author of All the White Spaces

‘Angela Slatter hits it out of the park again. With gorgeous prose and a heart-breaking story about family, magic, and the weight of the past, this is a darkly fantastic masterpiece that shouldn’t be missed.’

Gwendolyn Kiste, Lambda Literary and Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Reluctant Immortals and The Rust Maidens

‘This is a ghost story like no other, weaving past, present and future, life, death and the in-between. Angela Slatter is at her very best in this masterful blend of folkloric storytelling, family conflict and dark horror. That the shadowy pathway is illuminated here and there by a flickering candle of kindness makes The Briar Book of the Dead even stronger.’

Juliet Marillier, author of the Sevenwaters and Blackthorn & Grim series

‘Lush prose, complex, compelling characters, and an examination of the tangled webs of both the past and family roots left me flipping pages long into the night. What Slatter has crafted with The Briar Book of the Dead is nothing short of an immersive, dark magic.’

Kristi DeMeester, author of Such a Pretty Smile

‘The Briar Book of the Dead is entirely enchanting. Angela Slatter has magic in her pen instead of ink.’

A.J. Elwood, author of The Other Lives of Miss Emily White

‘Angela Slatter’s The Briar Book of the Dead will, with its wonderfully clear yet enchanted prose, cast a spell on readers.’

Jeffrey Ford, author of Big Dark Hole

‘A legend-netted fable of enchantment, The Briar Book of the Dead is decadent with jealousies, voluptuous with duty, upholstered with love and death. Slatter’s world is warm and vicious, soft with forgotten crimes and protected by rites and duties. But while its boundaries are marked with ink and blood and fire, a cold wind curls in frombeyond…’

Kathleen Jennings, author of Flyaway

Also from A.G. Slatter and Titan Books

ALL THE MURMURING BONESTHE PATH OF THORNS

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The Briar Book of the Dead

Print edition ISBN: 9781803364544

E-book edition ISBN: 9781803364551

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd.

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

www.titanbooks.com

First edition: February 2024

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Copyright © 2024 A.G. Slatter. All Rights Reserved.

A.G. Slatter asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

To Lulu, the wickedest little Irish Terrier, common farm dog,snatch-pastry, faithful companion, so sorely missed,the once and forever best dog.

1

My great-aunt takes the knife to my wrist.

Maud means well.

I catch glimpses of my cousins and grandmother behind her, four figures not too close, but jostling for a peek. Hoping to catch the moment when what’s meant to happen does. All of us equally anxious – gods know the others proved themselves well before this. At eight, I’m a very late bloomer.

Around us, the stone circle, the sacred place, deep in the woods. If it’s going to happen, it will – must! – happen here. Above, bright blue sky, summer-solstice warm. Beneath me, the cool smoothness of the sandstone altar. Birds singing somewhere, the murmurings of my cousins, the jingling of Maud’s silver chatelaine at her waist, our grandmother Gisela calling her sister’s name.

However: nothing.

Still.

My forearm’s littered with cuts, mostly shallow, all red. I feel no pain and I’m urging Great-Aunt Maud on because I share her belief that if I just surrender enough blood to pay the red price, my magic will – finally – manifest. That I will be like my family. That I’ll belong.

And she slashes again – a little frenzied by frustration – and I think she’s done it because I’m getting dizzy. The menhirs are beginning to spin, I’m light as a feather, lifting up, flying, and at last – at last! – I’m a witch.

Except Gisela isn’t calling anymore; she’s yelling and doesn’t sound relieved. Sounds panicked. ‘Too deep, Maud! She’s bleeding too much!’

And after that I don’t remember a thing about the days that followed, nothing except the cold and miserable disappointment of knowing I’d failed yet again.

*   *   *

The autumn sun on my face is gentle, shining red through my eyelids, and the scar on my wrist feels like thick silk under my fingertips.

Such a deep cut, no less noticeable than it was eleven years ago. Malice was absent from the act – or mostly – although vexation at my lack of ‘development’ ran high. Maud had been trying, I believe, to shock something out of me. Or into me. To awaken the magic that should have been lying just beneath my skin, or deep in my bones, or growing at the roots of my light-brown hair – but was clearly missing from any part of me.

It serves as a reminder of my basic flaw, that ridge of healed flesh; hastily pulled together with cousin Eira’s neat stitches even though she was only a year older than me – because everything’s a learning experience – but her magic wasn’t quite good enough to leave no cicatrice. Every morning, my family take their fine silver knives and make small cuts in arms and hands and thighs, release a little blood, offering the red price, the crimson tithe for any magic they might do during the day. A ritual from which I’m forever excluded.

Out past the hedge-fence that surrounds the Briar House, Silverton bustles at its usual afternoon pace, the particular sort of babble a town of almost two thousand souls makes. People going about their days, working hard, preparing for what comes next. For life. For tomorrow night. Not me, though. Not at this very moment, no.

I think about Great-Aunt Maud’s little office with its shelves filled with account books, banking records, rules and regulations and procedures, letters patent of the guilds, applications and permissions for various activities, records of censure and acclamation, maps, schedules for civic maintenance, rolls of citizens and their businesses and what they owe to the Briars, lists of those who wish to access the communal stores in the tithe-barns, and what others have contributed to them. Neat as a pin with everything in an ordered fashion, notebooks and pens aligned perfectly on the large blotter, two stained-glass desk lamps perfectly positioned at each corner for symmetry. And her leather-bound grimoire in green and gold lying on the carved wooden lectern in one corner – admittedly with a covering of dust because I’ve not been near it since she died. I do my best to keep it as Maud did.

A perfect little office for a steward.

The little office that’s been mine for the past six months, give or take, and has been suffocating me in the days and weeks leading up to tomorrow night. Which is why I took the opportunity – when the banker’s clerk had delivered a message that Mr Aberwyn was unwell and could we reschedule? – to sneak outside and hide in this corner of the garden. And to contemplate my major failing, wondering if it will lead to A Terrible Thing.

It was lovely and quiet for all of ten minutes before an avian screech came from above and almost immediately after a screech from Grandmamma Gisela. From the clarity of the sound, she could only have been standing on the front veranda.

‘Ellie Briar, where are you?’

I stay very still and quiet. Gisela may well be a witch – the witch – but she doesn’t know everything and can’t see through hedges or walls, nor can she sense the presence of those who might be staying out of sight for reasons of their own.

‘It’s no use hiding, Ellie Briar.’ She mutters, ‘I know where you live.’

Indeed.

Still, I keep my mouth shut. Eventually, there’s the clip of footsteps and a door closing. My fingers seek the scar again. Forcing my muscles to soften, relax, I lean back on the bench. Another five minutes, I think, calculating how far I can push it. Ten. Fifteen at the most.

*   *   *

‘The letters,’ begins Grandmamma Gisela, but I’ve heard this all before and am staring out the library window.

The owl is large, with a tawny lace pattern for camouflage, limned with gold; the feathers appear delicate as spider webs. My grandfather, on one of the rare occasions when he told me anything interesting, said they have no oil on their plumage; this makes their flight silent, much to the detriment of mice and rabbits and even runty lambs. This one, early roused, sits in the yew tree that’s grown up too close to the house. Round eyes wide in a blankly pretty face. It notices me at the open window, shivers, chest puffing, doing a discontented little dance on the branch. Doesn’t take off, however, merely calms its feathers, gives me a haughty stare. It had best hope Nia’s not around with her hunting bow.

‘The letters,’ repeats Grandmamma Gisela loudly from her desk, ‘are very important. They keep the ecclesiastical wolf from the door. After I’m gone, make sure they continue.’

‘Uh huh.’ Behind me is a room lined with books (far more interesting than those in the steward’s office next door), and in it the grandmother I adore − she who raised me − but I’m staring out the tall broad window because she’s talking about matters I don’t want to discuss.

‘Ellie, are you paying attention?’ A sharp tone, something I seldom hear because – unlike some in this house – mostly I am biddable, mostly obedient. Mostly because I feel a need to make up for what I lack.

‘Not really, no.’ An honest answer which makes Gisela laugh. The heavy polished ebony chair scrapes on the floor − almost a throne, with roses and apples carved across its arched top − then her steps pad light and sure as she crosses to me.

‘My mother,’ says Gisela fondly, ‘insisted on politeness to the owls because they might be more than they seemed. She didn’t hold with shifters − rash creatures, most like to get themselves and others killed − and you never knew with whom you were dealing until they revealed themselves. Owls, she said, were wiser than most, though they are knowledge thieves. Mind your manners around them until you know if they are feathered both inside and out.’

Proper witches, Gisela’s always said, don’t take other shapes – although I’ve read of some who do – and shifters are our cousins at best, generally with no inherent ability to cast spells. They’re too close to the beasts they turn into, inclined to either fight or flight, nothing in between. As a result, they are most commonly caught.

And yet still closer to true witches than I.

The owl gives us one final flickering glance – strangely irritable – then unfurls its wings and takes off with a great displacement of air and evergreen leaves. I feel a quick tug of envy, though I can’t say precisely why: its freedom? That it might take another form? I press the ache down, shove it under my other jealousies, all the things I know to be foolish and pointless, and watch the bird’s flight. Over our front garden, over the high hedge-fence, then the market square busy with customers, stallholders and shopkeepers clustering around the fountain and its bronze sculpture of the Three Brothers Bear. Over the roofs of the shops (butchers and bakers and candlestick makers), businesses like solicitors and coffin-makers, fabric merchants and carpenters, tiny modistes, perfumiers and jewellers, and the church, the townhall, the bank, the papermill and one of the flourmills, the smithy and the tearooms and coffeehouses. The big houses of grey stone and black wood and thick shining glass, the smaller ones and smaller still until they become tiny cottages out at the edges before Silverton bleeds into fields and the forest that hides the stone circle. The owl, no more than a speck now, continues on towards the deepest part of the mountains where the river begins. I wish my resentments onto its back, that they’ll be taken far away, dropped into a ravine, lost somewhere I’ll never find them again.

My grandmother nudges my shoulder with her own, nods downward. A small, neat figure darts from Prothero’s in Butchers Byway around a corner and into Eldin’s Bakery. Beres Baines in a bright pink dress, wicker basket hanging heavy, filled with treats. Not for the festival, I suspect, but to tempt an appetite that’s fled.

My stomach swoops. Once more I’ll try; once more before I admit defeat and speak to Audra. Ask for help.

Gisela pulls the windows to, not completely closed, the pigeon’s egg ruby ring glinting on her wedding finger – no promise to a husband, but to her family and home. The symbol of the Briar Witch. There’s a fire in the grate but Grandmamma has begun feeling the cold more and more. A sign that time is marching on her, when we’d have it otherwise. We must prepare, she keeps saying, for a passing of the old and a herald of the new; we insist she’ll be with us for many years. It’s also the reason I’ve come to hate these conversations, these preparations for when she’s no longer here. Gisela wishes to make me consider things I cannot change. And in truth, the loss of Great-Aunt Maud is still too fresh.

‘I trust you’ll listen to me now it’s gone, lovely distraction though it was?’ Gisela asks mildly.

I smile. ‘Of course, Grandmamma. The letters.’

Except whenever Gisela mentions the letters I feel adrift and uncertain; the clicking of the grandfather clock in one corner doesn’t help, feels like a reminder. Tempus fugit.

‘Heed me, Ellie Briar. No matter what else Maud forgot or ignored, she always sent the letters.’

For all the good such diligence did her.

Gisela purses her lips as if reading my thoughts, then gestures to the sofa. It could fit four comfortably and is set in the middle of a colourful silk rug that’s been worn by too many feet; until there are actual holes in it a replacement is considered an unnecessary expense. As if we are paupers. We sit, and I nod, show her I’m taking it seriously, just as I do every time she mentions Maud and the missives. She doesn’t mention other things about her sister, however.

‘Have you been practising?’ Unconsciously, she plucks at her long, thin fingers. A small silver vial of unguent hangs from the chatelaine at my waist (once Maud’s, but unlike her I wear it to the side, tuck it into my pocket so the jingling doesn’t give me away), and I take her hand; the ointment helps with the arthritic chill. Blood warms beneath her papery skin as I massage. She smiles. ‘Thank you, sweeting. But: have you?’

‘Of course. Maud had me write the last few. She trusted me.’

The letters are a twice-yearly annoyance. Reports to the Archbishop of Lodellan, written in the script (or an excellent approximation thereof) of Father Tobias, the last god-hound to grace Silverton with his presence. He was also, by the by, my grandfather and Gisela’s paramour for quite some time. Such reports assure said exalted princes of the church that the Briars are behaving themselves. ‘Never fear, Grandmamma, I’m well-trained and careful with my calendar. I may not be a witch, but I am a clever little steward. I’ll not fail in this, nor in any other task you set me.’ I sound sulky. I am sulky.

She’s beautiful still as she smiles, with silver hair and violet-blue eyes, cheekbones sharp and high, lips with no sign of wrinkling or subsidence of the teeth behind them. Though none of us are by any means ordinary-looking, only Audra can truly hold a candle to her.

‘I nag, my dear, because this single task is the one to keep us safe. You are sensible, if stubborn, and your cousin will need you, when the time comes, Ellie. Audra has talent for many things, but administration is not one of them. She can be hot-headed as you well know and a little autocratic’ – a little! – ‘but I’m teaching her to lead. Audra’s had her wild times, but she’s settled now. However, it will be you who keeps the wheels of Silverton spinning. People need to know her power is here for their protection, but you’ll be the one who makes their lives bearable.’ She clears her throat, corrects: ‘You already do so. You’ve stepped into Maud’s shoes admirably.’

When the time comes, we cousins (Nia and Eira and I) will bend to Audra’s will as those before us bent to Grandmamma’s, and so on back to when Gilly Briar was the very first Briar Witch. When the time comes, I will toil away with no more acknowledgement from Audra than Gisela gave Maud in her lifetime; in death, Gisela’s praise of her sister is effusive. I’m the steward and I’ll serve with nary a glimmer of glory. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad if Audra wasn’t already so favoured…

I love her and know bitterness is foolish when I could never have been the Briar Witch anyway – not without any kind of eldritch power. I’m good with brewing potions, making medicaments, my powders can calm fevers, cure headaches and coughs, speed up recovery, even drag the sick from the doors of death. Yet no matter my intent or how closely I adhere to a spell-ritual, I can’t make any sort of enchantment work, cannot perform miracles of any stripe, either good or ill, small or large.

There’s not a scintilla of magic in my bones.

Gisela changes tack: ‘Did you hear, Ellie? Edgar’s tale this morning?’

The tinker – or ‘gentleman-merchant’ as he prefers – had recounted it as he laid out his wares on our kitchen table, fine and strange things from far-off places. Gisela adores histories of ill-fortune visited upon the godly: a fire in an abbey that hoarded its profits and let peasants starve; a cathedral collapse while a grand prelate delivered a fire-and-brimstone mass; a bishop’s palace overrun by rats and locusts (‘There’s one of our kind behind that, you mark me!’). Best of all, some crashing catastrophe such as the one Edgar shared.

The Monastery of Saint Ogg’s-of-the-Way (far from us, close to the tiny hamlet of Jago’s Rise) would allow nothing female within its walls, neither human nor animal. The hens and nannies and geese, the sows, cows, ewes and mares were all penned outside the compound and attended to by three laymen from the nearby village so the holy brothers would not be tainted by contact. When word came of a fearsome group of bandits bearing down upon the area, the villagers presented themselves at the monastery gates, seeking sanctuary. Men and boys were admitted; women and girls were left outside to await inevitable violation and death that accompanied such events – because compassion could not be allowed to bend the rules.

However, something unforeseen happened: the rogues and ruffians had other ideas, perhaps because, to a man, they were women. Retribution was their intent − the abbot was notorious for giving absolution to murderers, rapists and men who denied their own children − and these women came with fire. As the monastery burned with each and every heartless monk, each and every traitorous man and boy inside, the leader of the troupe made an offer to those who’d been left to fend for themselves: Join us.

And if we do not? asked one of the newly widowed.

The robber-in-charge shrugged. Then do not. Go your own way; if you must marry again, be more particular in your choices.

The raiding party, Edgar reported, was much augmented that day.

We’d all laughed heartily and Audra had described the loss of priestly life as a good start.

‘Yes, Grandmamma, I heard it as well as you did. Have you forgotten I sat by your side? Does your memory slip from you so soon?’ I ask archly and she slaps my wrist.

‘My point, facetious child, is that you never know what the future brings, and what looks like certain death from one angle may well be salvation from another.’ She gives an exasperated huff.

‘Edgar also said that there were whispers of other bandits setting up camps in the forests not so far to our north,’ I point out. ‘I’d suggest sending—’

‘I’ll discuss reconnaissance with Nia.’ She raises a finger. ‘Now, the letters…’

I roll my eyes.

‘Ellie Briar, you’re the only one I’ll trust with this task. I have raised you all to be mindful of your duty to your family, to the Briar Witch, and to the town. Promise me you’ll stand by your cousin and support her in all things.’

I should simply answer Yes, but instead I choose to be a brat: ‘As long as I am able.’ And she who’s known my voice longer than my own mother did hears that I feel obligation hung around my neck like a noose.

Gisela lowers her lids until only slivers of violet-blue show. ‘And what might make you unable?’

‘Death,’ I say defiantly. Confess: ‘Love. Marriage.’

‘Ellie…’ Gisela’s expression is pained; her head drops back, the silver hair falling over her shoulders. I count the beats before she gives me the full strength of her glare. This is a performance I’ve seen many times (not always directed at me) and I’m keen to its nuances. ‘Ellie, that boy—’

‘He’s the one I want,’ I declare, then with less certainty, ‘and he wants me.’

‘Does he?’ she demands. ‘Do his eyes rest only on you? Or are you too busy mooning over him to notice that he watches others? Are you drinking in his face, Ellie Briar, when he’s drinking in another’s?’

I go cold all over and hate her. Years of adoration and loyalty swept away in seconds as I feel I’ll never love my grandmother again, before remorse rushes in and makes me despise myself more than I ever have her. There’s a pricking in my mind, a questioning that my desire for Dai Carabhille could have made me loathe the one to whom I owe everything. I push the thought aside.

Gisela says more gently, ‘He’s a boy, Ellie, and not fit to marry a Briar.’

‘Dai will marry me when the time’s right.’ I say this with more conviction than I feel.

Gisela, with her witch’s sense, knows it. She knows, too, that I’ve been enamoured of him since first I laid eyes on him, when we were both small and I would follow him at a distance, too shy to do otherwise. That I’ve loved him so intensely it’s like a pulse in my veins. Yet I still have no certainty that he’ll be mine. My bottom lip begins to tremble, and I look away.

Grandmamma hooks two fingers under my chin and makes me meet her gaze. ‘Ellie Briar, Dai Carabhille is all well and good. Fine men are few and far between. He may well be one in years to come, but he’s definitely not now – and I have my doubts about his future prospects, my darling.’ She pauses as she always does when she’s about to say something hurtful. ‘I’ll not trust our safety to some blow-in boy even when − especially when − you’ve got your nethers all in a tizz for him. And certainly not for some boy who’s not yet done with others.’ She shakes her head. ‘Mark me, my girl: you need a partner who supports you in what you do, doesn’t take your attention from your duties – like Eira’s Sally. We Briars must choose our mates carefully, it’s how we survive.’

And I want to hurt her in return, so my tone’s as mean when I say, ‘And did you? With Grandfather Tobias?’

The barb strikes home. She clenches her hands into fists in her lap. I shouldn’t have said that. My grandfather’s actions scarred us all.

When Gisela next speaks, her voice is rough though even. ‘If you need a lesson in choices, child, then let my example be your warning.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I say quietly.

‘You’re nineteen, Ellie Briar, old enough to make bad decisions as well as good. And old enough to bear the consequences − but do not let those consequences affect your family.’

I bite at the inside of my mouth; the grip of teeth on tender flesh helps me focus. I swallow and say what I could have said in the first place to avoid all of this: ‘I will stand by Audra no matter what.’

‘Good girl.’ Grandmamma nods. ‘We need a little discontentment in life, Ellie, for how else would we recognise joy but by contrast? Remember to put the family first, Ellie, in all things, even ahead of your heart.’ She pulls me into a hug, speaking against my hair, tawny as hers once was; she smells like old roses. ‘We are so few these days, my girl. I’ve not schemed and kept us safe all these years for the Briars to go up in flames through carelessness.’

She holds me a moment longer before pushing me gently away. ‘The last report was sent just before… before. The next letter is due for despatch in a few weeks, yes?’ I nod. ‘Edgar will collect it on his return journey.’

‘Yes, Grandmamma.’

‘Tomorrow is your first Balefire Eve – yes, yes, as you well know. Remember: it must go smoothly.’ She’s silent for a moment, letting me chew on the comment. ‘Make sure your cousins are doing their parts’ – utterly unnecessary, as if any one of us would shirk this duty, as if the others have not done their parts for years, but she’s giving me busywork so I don’t fret, or no more than is reasonable – ‘And don’t forget the lanterns. We’d never live it down.’

‘Yes, Grandmamma.’

‘And, Ellie?’

‘Yes, Grandmamma?’

‘Someone will come for you. The one you need.’ She gives me a serious look. ‘I don’t ask you to forgo the pleasure of a husband, I don’t ask you to be as your great-aunt was – as she chose to be. All I ask is that you wait and are wise.’

When I nod she smiles and rises. Remaining on the couch, I stare at the three items above the mantlepiece: a black obsidian mirror, a woodcut, and a framed document. The mirror is meant for scrying but no one’s got the knack of that anymore. The woodcut shows a couple, she sitting, he standing behind her chair (the same chair that’s at Gisela’s desk even now). There are drawings of them, too, in some of the books on the shelves, but I’m partial to this carving because of its fineness; their features are clear, as are their expressions. Gilly and Sandor Briar started here – or rather, they fled here, found a place to call home, a foundation, and we remain three hundred or so years later. The wood’s tinted so I can tell that Gilly had blue eyes and golden-brown hair turning to silver at the temples, her mouth in an obstinate set; Sandor’s mid-brown hair is mostly greying, but his eyes remain a light green, his expression sweet. I wonder if I’d be a disappointment to them. The document, the dispensation with its purple script and a gold and purple seal, is our guarantee of safety.

Shaking my head, I stand to leave. Gisela giggles as I close the door behind me. It’s not directed at me. My grandmother’s still thinking about St Ogg’s; it will keep her amused for days. I’ll seek out my cousins soon, but first there’s another visit I must make.

2

‘How are you, Deirdre?’ I speak softly so as not to startle her; she gives no sign of having heard.

All I can see is the back of her head, the dirty blonde, dishevelled hair she’s neither washed nor brushed since she gave birth seven days ago. She’s not washed herself either even though her mother’s tried to talk her into it. Beres Baines’s daughter faces the bedroom wall. Before, this was a pretty space in tones of lavender and blue, the floor polished, the dresser and ’robe of honey-wood, the bedlinen of finest cambric. Now the curtains are closed, the only light is from a dim lamp; there are the smells of old blood and dried excrement, stale body odour and fresh vomit. Deirdre’s not keeping down the small amount of food Beres feeds her. I suspect she eats just to get her mother to leave, then brings it up again into the chamber pot beneath her bed, not too fussy how much gets in and how much misses either. Deirdre Baines was one of the prettiest girls in Silverton before all this (a dead ringer, so it’s said, for her Aunt Seren, who ran away). Today, like many days prior, she’s a broken doll.

None of this is a surprise, really. Even before she began to swell, before anyone realised what was happening to Beres Baines’s only child, she’d become monosyllabic and morose until at last she stopped speaking at all. The baby’s not yet been buried; he’s in the mortuary attached to Eira’s infirmary even though A’Lees’ Coffin-makers have begun their work on a tiny death-bed. Beres didn’t want the wee thing in the house, not with Deirdre so fragile, so she’d swaddled the boy and handed him to me. Just until her daughter can be persuaded to name him, then there’ll be a funeral. We do not consign our dead to the earth without a name; in such a state they are not whole, they are lost, they wander. Not ghosts, no, for Silverton has no ghosts – but nameless newborns become something else… and it’s only a matter of time before Deirdre’s stillborn son changes.

I delivered the child – the other Briars were all occupied elsewhere and it’s not as if I’ve not done it a hundred times; the birth was uncomplicated, timely, easy even. Except the child was dead.

Gingerly, I sit on the edge of the mattress and put a hand on Deirdre’s shoulder, which has grown thin, the bones more pronounced as if trying to escape her skin. She trembles, the movement going through her like a ripple on a pond. We were at school together; she was always happy, laughing. Hard to believe now. I’ve checked on her every day and kept Gisela informed of progress or the lack thereof. Last night I barely slept for worrying what I might find this morning – there’s no real change, which somehow feels worse.

‘Deirdre. Deirdre, you need to talk to me. Please.’ There’s a long, frozen moment broken only when she turns, a slow rolling from her side to her back, and I’m reminded of a dead fish sinking into the depths; belly up, then down, then up, then down, a terrible spiral that can end only one way. I’ve known her all my life. She’s a little younger than me, fatherless, and no one would have cared that her own child was thus. The face I see bears little resemblance to the girl who’s sung at weddings and celebrations, been her seamstress mother’s apprentice, always chattering. This girl looks like she’s being devoured from the inside out, her eyes pale grey stones weighing her down.

My words dry up; I force them out. ‘Deirdre, I know it hurts.’

She gives me a glance that I can only interpret as scornful. How can you know, Ellie Briar?

‘I—’ There’s the urge to shake her, but I remind myself she’s in pain. ‘Deirdre, you need to name the little boy.’

My hand trembles as I brush hair from her brow, slick with sweat. She doesn’t shake me off, nor does she lean into my palm either. It’s like she’s impervious to the world. Deirdre doesn’t want to live. She doesn’t care about herself, anything, anyone. I suspect the only satisfaction she can find is in pointing her pain outward. ‘Deirdre. I do know loss. But I also know that if you don’t give your son a name you’ll never find any peace, either in this world or the next or the one after that.’

Nor will the rest of us.

She stares, lips quivering, fingers grasping at each other and pick-pick-picking at the already-torn skin; blood’s dried in the cuticles, over the knuckles and in the webbing between thumb and forefinger. I touch her cheek, shivering at the chill. ‘Deirdre, what’s your boy’s name?’

But she doesn’t answer, just turns to the wall again and will not speak. I want to shake her, slap her, pull out the black part of her heart that will selfishly leave a little child wandering forever. But I don’t. I pat her shoulder and rise, leave the foetid-smelling bedchamber, and step into the sitting room where her mother anxiously awaits.

I’m almost blinded here – curtains are open to let the afternoon sun in. Beres is a small woman with the same dark-blonde hair as her daughter and red-rimmed eyes. Her hands, like Deirdre’s, have been tortured and tormented, scratched crimson, though hers are meticulously clean and held firmly in the lap of her pristine white apron; she wouldn’t want to bleed on the fabrics with which she works. She’s sitting on a loveseat embroidered with roses and jasmine, and the entire room is filled with floral patterns, like a wild garden. Through the window behind her is a carefully tended vegetable patch and beyond that the river, running sluggish now as the cold weather approaches. Beres looks up hopefully, but that hope quickly crumbles at my expression. I’m keenly aware that she has no other family in a place where such a thing means a great deal; parents and husband long dead, her sister disappeared many years ago. Family means comfort and protection, the difference between feeling wanted – needed – and being excluded. Not always, of course.

‘I’m sorry.’ I sit across from her, smoothing my sage-green skirts and tucking my booted feet neatly beneath them. ‘Could you guess at the father? Even if he’s married, perhaps we could ask him privately? A mother’s naming is better, but a father’s will do.’

Beres shakes her head, not with disapproval but despair. ‘She won’t say. Probably one of those tinker lads who come and go with Edgar, and I didn’t notice.’

She could be right. Edgar’s had some handsome apprentices in tow; I’ve even been tempted but the idea of Dai has always crowded them out. Besides, I doubt I’ve ever seen the same tinker lad twice. No one cares that Deirdre’s got herself pregnant, nor that the father’s nowhere to be seen, but they’ll care if her baby goes without a name. They’ll care if a melyne comes upon us as a result.

‘Beres, I’ll send Audra. I’ve no other choice. Heart’s ease is all we can try now,’ I say and Beres nods resignedly. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say again and I truly am.

‘You’ve done your best, the Briars always do.’ She gives a fractured smile. ‘She’s all I’ve got.’

‘See if you can get her to come out tomorrow night.’ It’s a foolish suggestion. ‘She’s always loved to dance on Balefire Eve. If she won’t, then come yourself, Beres, at least for a little while. You need a break. We can give her a sleeping draught…’

But Beres is shaking her head.

*   *   *

I maintain my composure as the door closes, as I walk down the stairs, out the garden gate of the Baines’ cottage. I even make it through the market square and the four or five brief conversations I have with townsfolk who have questions about Balefire Eve. Silly questions, really; a little insulting in fact. Checking to see if I’ve remembered the most basic things, as if I wasn’t trained by Maud Briar. As if I’m an idiot. I force myself to smile and answer politely, remind myself that they’re as nervous as am I about this first festival without my great-aunt. I have so much to prove, and I know they’re trying to judge whether I’m up to the task. It’s made even more difficult when I already feel like a failure because of Deirdre.

It’s only when I’m free of the press of bodies, ducking down a narrow alley between two blocks of shops, that the tears win out and I press myself into the shadows, a wall of stone at my back. No matter how hard I try, sometimes my potions and powders and words and care have no effect. In this very moment, it doesn’t matter how many times I’ve helped. Without magic, I can’t fix anything bigger. More important.

When I’m spent, empty but feeling no better, I continue on my way. Stepping onto a wider thoroughfare, I hear a voice, clear and melodic. Familiar. Coming from the schoolyard a little further along Adalind’s Row, and not unexpected.

‘Is everyone comfortable?’ Audra’s on one of the carven benches in the middle of the small playground, the school mistress, Rowella Bisbee, standing a little way off, always an observer at such times. My cousin comes once or twice a week to tell tales, as she does with all four of the schools in Silverton. Classes should still be in progress, but of course all things grind to a halt when Audra appears. In a semi-circle before her, a crowd of children, faces avid with anticipation. I lean against a tree just outside the fence, draw no attention. ‘Hmmmm.’ My cousin taps a finger to her lips, as if pondering – she’ll already have chosen her story but, as she says, the performance is part of the pleasure.

‘Something brief, I think – I do have pressing duties, after all – something sharp and clever to keep you focused.’ Audra lifts her hands as if about to conduct a symphony. ‘So: The Tale of the Girl and the Mage.’

An intake of breath from her audience. I smile in spite of everything, let myself be carried along by the enchantment of her tone, her words, her invention. Admiring how effortlessly she makes the children feel they’re blessed to get part of her attention.

‘Audra’s had her wild times,’ Gisela had said by way of understatement. What my cousin had were several years of disappearing for a day or two each week, with friends Gisela wouldn’t let in the house. Maud hissing what if Audra got herself pregnant and Gisela shrugging, saying what did it matter when we needed new blood, new witches? What were they going to do, she and Maud, dried-up old women – and with the rest of us showing no signs of reproducing, what did it matter where the seed came from? And Gisela was right: while Audra sowed her drunk and disorderly rebellions, all those friends fell away to be replaced by better society as she prepared to be the next Briar Witch. No pregnancies, though. Now, here she is, telling stories to children.

‘Once upon a time, there was a girl who was sold by her parents to a mage. They didn’t consider themselves bad parents – do they ever? – but they had six other mouths to feed and the price of the oldest child would keep the family afloat for a good year or more. After that, surely their fortunes would have turned around – and if not, there were always other offspring to sell. Oh, no. Such a thing would never happen here!

‘But, back to the once-upon-a-time girl.

‘The mage, who was awful and satisfied to be so – they say monsters don’t know they’re monsters but that is, quite frankly, frogshit. That mage put our girl in a chamber at the top of a tower and there was nothing in it except ash. Not piles as such, because ash doesn’t lie that way, it’s too light and fragile, it builds in tentative layers, and in the usual way of things flies at the slightest provocation. Now, though the window was open and shutterless and there was plenty of opportunity for this ash to take wing – it never left, merely made the air thick with grey-black shards of things-that-no-longer-were. The mage told the once-upon-a-time girl that if she could make a rope of it, she might escape the tower. Why did he say such a thing? Mages are a strange breed.

‘And then he left, safe in the knowledge that she was a stupid village girl and she’d still be there in the morning, or the afternoon, or the day after, or whenever he decided to return and put her to his purpose.

‘But this girl was different.

‘She’d learned things from a wood-wife who lived out in the forest. Whenever she’d been sent to gather sticks and twigs for the fire, berries and mushrooms for the table, that girl would visit the tumbledown cottage and talk to the old woman. She’d mastered tricks her mother didn’t know – although let’s be honest, the lessons our mothers teach never really sink in until years later, when we’re older and find her pain growing in the very soil of our being. But that’s by the by and a different story altogether. It meant, however, that the once-upon-a-time girl knew what to do.

‘She pulled three dark hairs from her head and curled them on the windowsill. Then she gathered a small, shivering covey of ashes and balanced them on the strands. Next, she cut her palm with the little knife (unsuspected by the mage) she always carried deep in the pockets of her skirt or the side of her boot and sprinkled the crimson droplets over the accumulation.

‘She whispered to it, the little pile, secret words to make the components dance and twist and entwine. The other ashes joined in, and soon enough she had a length of dark red rope. Our clever girl tied it tightly to a hook in the wall by the window (for there are always such things in towers), hitched her skirts and tucked them into her belt, then clambered over the sill.

‘Yet before she went, she cut off a piece of this newly forged cord and coaxed it into a noose, which she hung from the wooden ceiling beam. She whispered to it a wish – compelling, a spell in and of itself – that the mage would find it irresistible.’

There’s a collective gasp from her audience, a mix of delight and shock, some horror. Rowella Bisbee – a Silverton girl and graduate of Mater Hardgrace’s Academy in Whitebarrow – had been as rapt as her charges. Now, lips pursed, she seems to break from a trance, and thanks my cousin, no doubt hoping no nightmares will visit her pupils. There’s nothing can be done about Audra’s visits, and Rowella’s not silly enough to complain; her tuition fees were paid by the Briars on the understanding that she’d return home for a few years at least, to teach and live in the neat yellow cottage in the schoolgrounds. She knows which side her bread’s buttered on. With a word of thanks, she gathers up her charges and shepherds them back into the small building to resume their studies.

I push away from the tree, grinning as Audra exits the school gate. ‘Now, did that really seem appropriate for your audience?’

Audra startles – I’m good at not being seen though on occasion I wish it weren’t so – then laughs. She wraps me into a hug, warmth radiating through her lilac woollen frock even on this cool day. Then she examines my face. ‘A regular little shock never hurts, Ellie. Lessons to remember.’

‘Wait until they wake screaming and tell their parents about your amusements, cousin.’

‘Pish.’ Her eyes are sapphire blue, hair pure gold, skin porcelain, lips as red as blood. She looks like a doll, perfectly beautiful. Eyes narrowing, she runs a gentle finger across my cheeks, perhaps noticing the remaining dampness. ‘Whatever is it, cousin, to cause you tears?’

‘Deirdre Baines. I can’t help her. A week since the baby came; she won’t rouse, she won’t name him. Won’t speak at all. She must name him. There’s only one thing left to try.’ I swallow. ‘Will you give her heart’s ease?’

It’s a rare power (not a spell to learn or skill to acquire), to be able to make burdens feel lighter. It won’t remove them, the effect generally isn’t permanent, but the pain will be bearable for a while at least. They’ll be able to do the things they must – like naming dead babies. We use it reluctantly for it means changing an integral part of a person’s nature, for however long it sticks. And it doesn’t give a chance to work through grief, to mourn properly and learn from it – merely postpones it. Some few, it takes to like a weed and remains forever; others find it’s a temporary solution only, all their sadness rushing back in later, as overwhelming as a flash flood. Some do not survive. Of all the Briars, Audra is the only one with heart’s ease.

Audra knows I would not ask lightly. She does not question me further, merely nods. She hooks a curl back behind my ear and smiles sadly. ‘I’ll go this evening.’

‘Thank you.’

‘And, Ellie? It wasn’t your fault. The child would have died no matter who’d delivered the baby.’

I wish I could feel as certain as she sounds.

3

Audra and I part, and I continue on my way through busy thoroughfares. Saddlers Street, Leatherworks Lane, Butchers Road, Gilly’s Byway, Dorothea’s Lane, Holda’s Alley, Smithy’s Court, Romelia’s Road, and the like.

We live far from anywhere, anything, everything. A town that began as a village. A town that was dying when Gilly Briar arrived, or so the stories say, and she brought it back to life. Somewhere that attracted those who valued their privacy, liked mountain air, were sometimes running from other places and found Silverton is as good a spot as any to settle down. For those who sought a little less church oversight, an isolated town far from where the god-hounds held sway was ideal. We Briars must, ostensibly, answer to the princes of the church, but our past few years have been relatively untroubled.

I pass by the large church – smallish cathedral really – built of stone quarried from nearby. It hasn’t really kept pace with the population. It hasn’t really had to. There are no great basilicas here, no chapter houses, no seminaries; there’s only the priest’s empty house beside it. No cardinals or archbishops reign there in the magnificent purple-hued robes of silk and brocade their God commands them to wear. It’s meant to set them above we dull sparrows; Grandmamma says it makes them easier to find by whichever divine is taken by the mood to strike. The folk here (hardy and obstinate) know they owe their survival to the Briars, not to the god-hounds or their deity. Not to something the existence of which there’s no proof – unlike the power of the Briar Witch.

The sound of rushing water grows louder as the crowds bleed away.

The Carabhilles’ papermill is a broad, long, wooden building about ten minutes’ walk from the centre of town. The shopfront’s an elegant hunter-green and gold room with glass-topped display cases and shelving. Through a narrow door is the workshop, filled with tubs and presses, frames, machines for beating wooden fibres into pulp, racks for hanging, guillotines to cut things to size, and that peculiar damp smell. The family have a large home in one of the finer areas, but two apprentices live above the mill. It’s similar to the three flourmills upstream, having its own waterwheel dipping into the river beside it.

The Carabhilles are bookbinders as well. You’ll find leaves of different thicknesses and textures and colours, envelopes and scrolls, journals and account books, invitations, calling cards, screens, handheld fans, and pretty boxes for storing trinkets and love letters. Originally from the cathedral-city of Lodellan, an ancestor apparently found the quality of the water in Silverton produced astonishingly good paper and moved his family to the mountainous middle of nowhere; their products are traded far and wide. In fact, Carabhille’s Birth of the Book, though several centuries old, remains one of those tomes still sought after by collectors, creators and libraries (there are two copies in Gisela’s library). They also stock exquisite hand-carved pens, some made locally, others imported by other merchants, and even rarer ones brought in by Edgar.

They also make lanterns, lovely things, light as a soul, carefully fashioned in hues of red and yellow and orange, perfect for Balefire Eve. Folded into shapes like boats and bells, some are towers, some balloons; all have a recessed well for tiny, short-lived candles to sit. Sending me to collect our annual order is Gisela’s idea of a sop to my hurt, a chance to see the object of my desire.

I almost knock, then remind myself this is a place of business. My palms are sweaty. I push open the door, feel my face begin to burn with a blush.

There’s no sign of Dai however, only his younger brother Hari, who’s nice enough but pallid in comparison. Dai’s black hair and blue-blue eyes are faded to muddy brown and grey in Hari, the imposing height not nearly so impressive in the younger sibling, and the muscles not as pronounced beneath the shirt. Unfair – Hari is handsome and even I will admit that he’s the cleverer of the two, sharper. But what appeals to me about Dai isn’t rational or intellectual; I’m clear-eyed enough to know that my brain does not engage when I see him. And there’s nothing about Hari to make a shy girl give him small gifts for no reason at all, as if laying offerings at the foot of a deity.

Hari, pen in hand, looks up when the bell over the door tinkles, and gives a smile. He’s polite and prompt, whereas Dai would take his time acknowledging me, grinning slowly, finishing whatever task he was doing. Hari straightens and turns to a shelf behind him, retrieves a neatly wrapped bundle, its string knotted into a carry-handle.

‘Hello, Ellie,’ he says. ‘Dai said you’d be looking for your lanterns.’

Instinctively I know he’s not here and the disappointment flows over me. That he didn’t wait for me to stop by, just left the parcel with his brother. I swallow down an idiot’s question – So, he’s not here then? – and fumble in my skirt pockets for the black velvet purse that was Maud’s for the silver bits we owe. Usually, we pay on invoice, but not for this – not for a sacred service; for this there may be no debt owing. My fingers graze Hari’s palm as I hand the pieces over.

‘Thank you.’ My tone’s a little flat.

‘No trouble at all. Is everything ready for tomorrow? Anything I can do to help?’

I shake my head, manage a smile. ‘No, but thank you. It’s all under control.’

‘Well, then, good luck, Ellie, with your first Balefire.’ I know he says it to be kind, to make conversation, but it feels as if he’s like everyone else: expecting me to fail. His face goes red so there must be something in my expression that’s unfriendly.

‘Thank you.’

‘Well, then. Bye, Ellie. We’ll see you tomorrow night.’

I nod, repeat thank you, and wonder how much more careful people might be around me if I had any magic at all. If I were someone to fear.

*   *   *

Discontented, swinging the parcel, I go in search of Nia, my least favourite cousin.

Down the sloping path and onto the common, which is a hive of activity. A wide expanse, roughly circular, bounded by the lake on one side, trees on the other – pine, oak, yew, blackthorn, alder, hawthorn and cedar. No holly, however. The early Briars made sure those were winnowed out for they dilute a witch’s power, weaken us (not me, obviously), and there’s not much point in tending something that can be used against us.

Nia’s bright red hair picks her out, in the middle of the green, hands on hips, standing head and shoulders above most of the army of husky young men and women she’s bossing around. Members of the various trade guilds and several of the uniformed vigilants who answer to her in her capacity as marshal. They’re arranging trestle tables where food will be laid out and served, and where a variety of innkeepers will set up barrels of ale and wine, whiskey and mead. Others are digging firepits for oxen and boar to roast. Yet others – and these are the most important from my point of view – are setting a thick pole into the ground. Not far away lie mounds of kindling and Nia’s latest creation, stretched out as if exhausted. She’s done this task since she was ten and every year it’s a success; beautiful.

But this is the first time I’m the one at the helm. The first time without Maud, even though I’ve assisted her almost since I could walk. A failure tomorrow night will tell everyone that I’m not even fit to do this despite my Briar name. I’m the one with most at stake, yet I can tell I’m nowhere near as anxious as Nia. Perhaps because she’s used to success and here I am, just waiting to mess things up. That and the resentment.

Her face sours when she spots me. She doesn’t even try to hide the irritation. I don’t let it intimidate me, just stride steadily towards her.

All these months since I took over from Maud as steward have been filled with an increased tension between Nia and I. Of all the cousins, she’s most frequently taken the chance to remind me that I’m not like the rest of them. As we grew, Audra and Eira fell away from the habit – and Audra even took to defending me – but Nia’s never really stopped no matter how many spankings were administered by Gisela. We’re not tiny anymore.

‘Good afternoon,’ I call.

‘What do you want?’

‘Merely to see if there is anything you need.’ If I say Gisela told me to check up on you there’ll be an outbreak of temper and I’d rather not have that today. Nia huffs. I jerk my chin at the sculpture lying not far from us. ‘She’s glorious, Nia. As ever. Thank you.’

And she is, there’s no denying that. Nia’s expression softens; she might have been less fussy this year if she were less proud of her skills. But even making my life difficult isn’t sufficient incentive to make her ruin her art. She nods, an abrupt movement. ‘I don’t need anything.’

‘Then I’ll see you at dinner.’ I turn on my heel and head back towards town and the Briar House.

Gisela has always insisted my cousins love me, even after it became clear I wasn’t like them, but our differences remain an abyss between us. Grandmamma has always said that my lack of power was not a bad thing. That one day I would find my place. Grandmamma has always said that my calling would make itself known at the right time. What she meant, I’ve come to realise, is that I would settle in to being Audra’s right hand. I am an able administrator and organiser; I’ve a fine eye for seeing what is required, a sharp mind for analysing how things should be done; I’m very good at seeing the bigger picture and all its working parts. A perfect steward as long as no magic is required. If we were at war, Ellie, I would want you by my side: no one would starve in my ranks, there would always be the required weapons and others for just-in-case, horses would be fed and fierce and trained to do their duty, and my soldiers as well, all due to Ellie. In a war – a Witches’ War like the one Audra’s mother used to tell tales of – I’d be a general. But we are not at war and I am, instead, a glorified secretary. So, what Gisela actually meant was that I would accept my fate.

Perhaps it wouldn’t bother me quite so much if another area of my life were fulfilled.

*   *   *

In the kitchen of the Briar House the air is rich with the smell of spices and wine and sugar about to burn. In the large oven are trays of Balefire biscuits, seconds from flaring from gold to brown to black. No sign of anyone; not Mistress Reynard who cooks for us, nor Gisela, nor my cousin Eira, who’s in charge of this festival delicacy and therefore freed of her physick mantle for the day. Swiftly I remove the trays and slide them onto the plain pine table, leaving them to cool; new scald marks to join the old. No one’s in the pantry or laundry room. It’s an otherwise comfortable kitchen in blue and white hues, copper pots suspended from the ceiling, a sideboard to hold crockery and glassware.

The door to the cellar is ajar however. A glow’s emanating from somewhere down there. I call ‘Eira?’ but there’s no reply.

The cellar’s extensive, even bigger than the house that rises above it, a series of rooms for varied purposes, some open, others locked and their keys kept elsewhere. It’s cooler here. My footsteps are soft on the stone floor. Up ahead, near where the last of summer’s peaches are preserved and a legion of dried meats are suspended from a beam, comes a series of noises: gasps and whimpers, someone in pain. I rush forward, thinking Eira must have fallen and hurt herself – there’s no other reason why she’d have left the kitchen unattended.

Except I’m wrong about that. I find her in a far corner, or rather I find them