“The key holds the truth,” I say to myself. “The key to what?”
Nothing, as far as I can see. I abandon the slate beside my bed and cross to the window, gazing at the woods beyond, toward the Gypsy camp. I wonder what Kartik is doing now, if he is still tortured by dreams of Amar, of me.
There’s a light below. I spy Kartik with his lantern, looking up at my window. My heart gives a little leap, and I have to remind it not to beat faster for a man who can’t be trusted. I close the drapes, turn down my own lamp, and crawl into bed. Then I shut my eyes tight and tell myself I am not to get back up and go to the window, no matter how much I’d like to.
I can’t say what it is that wakes me. A sound? A bad dream? I know only that I am awake with my heart beating a bit faster. I blink, adjusting to the dark. I hear a noise. It’s not inside the room; it’s above me. The roof groans over my head as if something very heavy were moving about. A long shadow crosses my wall, and I’m up.
Now I hear something else in the hall: a faint scuffling like the rustle of dead leaves. I open the door a crack, but there’s nothing there. I hear it again; it’s coming from below. I tiptoe down the corridor and around the stairs, following the sound. When I reach the great hall, I stop. From deep inside the vast room, the noise is stronger. Scratching. Whispers. Moans.
Don’t look, Gemma. Pass it by.
I peek through the keyhole. Moonlight falls across the room in windowpane blocks. I search each small box of light for movement. A slight shift catches my eye. Something is moving in the dark. I snuff the candle and wait, my knees weak with fear. I count silently—one, two, three—ticking off the seconds. But there is nothing. Thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two…
Whispers come again. Soft and chilling as rats’ claws on stone. I press my eye to the keyhole again and my heart bangs against my ribs.
The column. It’s moving.
The creatures molded to it slowly reveal themselves in raised fists and the faint fluttering of reanimated wings. Gasping and gurgling, they squirm and push against the thinning membrane of stone like things ready to be born. I cannot scream, though I want to. A nymph breaks free of the ooze with a snap. She shakes the vestiges of the column from her body and glides through the air. I gasp. She cocks her head, hearing.
Quick as wind she’s at the keyhole. Her eyes are as large as a doe’s. “You can’t stop us,” she whispers. “The land is awakened and we with it. And soon will come the day when your blood is spilled and we rule forever. The sacrifice!”
“Here now, wot are you about, miss?”
I fall back against something with a shout and turn to see Brigid staring at me, her hands on her hips, her nightcap on her head. “You should be in bed!” she says.
“I h-heard a n-noise,” I stammer, gulping down my fear.