“And where will you be heading, Mr. Madigan?” Lennox was asking. He was a blurry shape at the corner of my eye, but I saw how he cradled the book of nightmares in an awkward stance. The weight of the book had caught him by surprise.
“Wherever the wind blows,” Papa said.
He helped me and Imonie settle in the wagon bench before he climbed up himself. His hands trembled as they took the reins and he clucked to the horse, urging the gelding onward.
I wanted to look back at the cottage, at our friends, one last time, but I didn’t. Because I feared I would break into hundreds of pieces if I did.
We didn’t talk until eventide, each of us lost to our own thoughts until Papa drew the wagon off the road and we chose to camp in a copse of oak trees. Imonie built a fire and made a quick stew of wild onions, potatoes, and some summer sausage, and we gathered around the light and ate, our mood somber.
I had noticed the mountains were growing distant. My father was taking us east, and it made me feel lost. I wrapped a blanket around my shoulders as Dwindle curled up on my lap. And I looked for something I recognized, something to ground me. I found it on the dusky horizon, where the fortress in the clouds was carved into the mountaintop, so distant now I could hardly discern it. But it was a familiar sight and made me feel less adrift. Weary of the silence, I asked, “What do you think is up there? In the fortress?”
Imonie was sitting in the grass, knitting a shawl. “Nightmares. And the lost one.”
“The lost one?” I echoed. It had been a long time since she had told me a mountain story, and she knew I was playing innocent in order to draw that tale out of her.
She was quiet for a moment, her focus seemingly on her knitting. But then she began to speak, her voice rich and vibrant.
“Over a hundred years ago, there was a woman who lived in the mountains, alone in a small house in the city of Ulla. In her younger years, she was a faithful lady-in-waiting for the duke’s sister, but as she grew older, she preferred solitude, and she listened to the wind that blew in the morning and the evenings. Stories were wrapped within such gusts, and they kept her warm on the darkest of nights. She lacked for nothing and wanted nothing more.
“But a rap sounded on her door one summer midnight, when the moon was full and the wind was quiet and the air was warm. When she answered it, no one was there. No one, until she heard a wail and realized a large basket had been left on her stoop. And in the basket was not one baby but two.
“The woman had never cared for children. They were loud, messy, fragile, demanding. They were wholly dependent on their caregiver, and she did not want to be fastened to such responsibility. But nor could she be heartless and leave the babes on her porch.
“She brought them into her home. Two boys, perhaps only a month old. Ugly and floppy, and she did not know how to hold them. But hold them she did, and their weeping eased. She spoke to them, and they smiled at the sound of her voice. When they grew hungry, she filled a bottle with goat milk and fed them. For months, she sought their parents. For months, she tried to find a new home for them. But in the end, she chose to keep them with her.
“They were identical twins, she swiftly discovered as they grew. It was nigh impossible to tell them apart, and many days she confused them, until she came to learn their personalities. One was intelligent, drawn to books and quiet spaces, and the other was wild, adventurous, a boy who wanted to roam the mountains and drive stakes into rabbits. The quiet one she could raise, but her wild boy . . . the woman did not know how to tame such a heart, if such a heart could be tamed without breaking.
“For all their differences, they both held a vein of craftiness. This she learned when they began to play each other’s roles. Her quiet boy would deceive her, acting as his wild brother to take his punishments. And the wild boy would act as his quiet twin, to avoid her wrath when he strayed too far.
“The woman had no choice but to send them both away to school in the city after a decade had passed. Let one become a warrior, she thought, and the other a scholar. And maybe when they grew into men, they would serve the duchy in mighty ways. But even if they did not, she would be proud of them, and she loved them each for their different strengths.
“Grow into men they did. They visited her often in the beginning, after their schooling was complete. Her quiet boy was devoted to his books and knowledge, and her wild one had fallen prey to love, wedding a beautiful girl of the summit. It was good in those days. And then her boys forgot her, distracted by the allures of life. A storm brewed on the horizon. The duke was a cruel ruler, oppressing his people. And it did not matter how much the woman prepared for it. The storm broke and with it the duchy, and her home, her land, was shadowed by the curse.
“She had no choice but to leave. All the people of the mountains . . . they could not stay there. The nights were treacherous, their dreams woven with terror. No one could step foot in the fortress, where the duke had been slain. In the pandemonium of leaving, she could not find her boys. They are wise and shrewd, she thought. She made it to the mountain doors, where the summit opens into a valley, and she waited for her boys there.
“Soon, they came. One passed over the threshold freely, into the grass. The other, however, could not. The mountain held him captive, and he could not leave its shadow. When the mountain doors began to close, the woman wept and rushed to her son who was bound to be lost to her, only to be held back by his twin. They watched the mountain doors close and seal, devouring brother and son. Those doors have not been open since, nor will they until the remaining wraiths—the heiress, the lady-in-waiting, the advisor, the guard, the master of coin, and the spymistress—all who once planned the duke’s demise, return as one to break the curse.”
I was silent, soaking in Imonie’s tragic story. When she did not speak again, I realized she was done with her tale, and it left me hollow. I should have asked for a happier story, and I lay down in my bedroll, listening to the wind rake through the grass and the crickets chirp their starlit lullabies.
“Clem.” Papa’s voice caught my attention, and I turned to see he was holding a remedy vial out for me to take.
I reached for it, the glass cool against my palm, but I hesitated. “Do I still need to drink this now? Since we’re no longer wardens?” That had been Papa’s reasoning as to why I shouldn’t dream at night. It would be difficult indeed to face my own nightmare in the streets of Hereswith. Dreams often revealed one’s greatest vulnerability; dreams were doors that led into hearts and minds and souls and secrets.
“Best you do,” my father replied, and I watched as he drank one himself before settling in for the night.
Even Imonie took a remedy. I followed suit, uncorking my vial and letting the bittersweet liquid rush over my tongue and coat my throat. A familiar taste, one I had been drinking every night since I could remember.
I lay down in the grass, my eyes growing heavy with exhaustion, and I looked to the mountains, now darker than night against the constellations. And I wondered what sort of things would haunt my sleep, if I ever gave my mind and heart the chance to dream.
Travel was miserably slow.
My father was in no hurry, Dwindle meowed the entire time, and our horse and wagon took a plodding pace as we traveled across the Bardyllis Duchy. But all too soon, the mountains faded away and we were surrounded by crop fields still golden with summer heat, pine forests, and rings of small villages reminiscent to Hereswith. We passed over the Starling River and I noticed the shift.