Page 4 of The Herlequin: Pitch & Sickle 6
Silas did not feel quite connected to his mood. As though his mind had forgotten something he was terribly morose about but his heart had not. He flicked his fingers in annoyance, sending droplets scattering.
Every single resident of this house was not quite themselves. They were all frightened. Unsettled. Why should he be any different?
Silas pushed on towards the cottage, a basic wooden structure that could not seem to decide if it was meant for storing gardening accoutrements or housing a living soul. Inside, he’d found piles of discarded gardening equipment, empty wooden crates, and some crudely carved furniture: an impressive dining table, though with only one chair; and a bed frame with the sad remains of a straw-stuffed mattress. The rustic nature reminded him of Ottelie’s forest home, sadly without the fantastical floral carpeting or her wonderful cider.
Silas pushed against the swollen door and stepped inside.
He took off his greatcoat and frock coat beneath. The greatcoat was courtesy of the absent owner of the residence, but the forest-green frock coat, which fit him perfectly, had come via Old Bess’s marvellous magick. The Child of Melusine, as different to his dastardly sister Palatyne as light was to dark, had transformed a steamer trunk he’d found in one of the rooms into a mailbox of sorts. Clothes and necessities for the empty larder had been appearing in the trunk for the past few days. A secure system of delivery, Silas was assured. No living creature could travel between the Sanctuaries this way, and even if Harvington Hall was found and then breached, the passageway between the Sanctuaries had been described by Old Bess as a combination lock, and he the only one who knew the sequence.
Ronin, Old Bess’s dour but handsome tsukumogami, was keeping constant watch for any signs of trouble beyond the boundaries of the hall and its village when he was not seeing to the lists of requirements Old Bess was sending. The poor chap must be run quite ragged by now. Silas managed to find some sympathy for him, even though he recalled very well how the tsukumogami had thrown himself into the task of convincing Pitch to bed him at the hall. Ronin had been waved beneath the daemon’s nose like a treat when Sybilla and Bess were trying to persuade the ailing incubus to feed and restore his strength.
Silas was foolishly grateful they’d not returned to Harvington Hall.
He set his greatcoat on the solitary hook by the door and draped the frock coat over the lone chair. He removed his socks and boots and stepped back out into the drizzle. With a suck of the air against his teeth Silas traipsed bare feet along the haphazard lay of a stone pathway that was mostly swallowed by fallen leaves and creeping weeds. Mud oozed between his toes, raindrops scurried between the collar of his shirt and his skin, and a blackberry bush tried to lay claim to his trousers and the skin beneath.
Silas moved through the leaning ghost-white timber of a rose arch. Several paces later he found himself staring down on the pond. Its size was unpleasantly similar to that of the pond he’d been forced into at the greensward. It blotted the garden like smudged paint on a watercolour.
Just the mere sight of the body of water set a wave of trepidation rolling through him, and he swallowed against an appalling whimper.
‘Get ahold of yourself, man,’ Silas hissed. ‘You are no use to him if mere pond slime renders you catatonic.’
They were headed to a place called Blood Lake, for goodness’ sake. What choice did Silas have but to quash his marrow-deep fear?
The water had stolen the sky’s dull grey hue and mingled it with a tinge of green. The colour matched the skin of a sailor roiling on a monstrous sea.
Silas curled his fingers but could barely feel the tips against his palms. Bloody hell, it was cold.
‘This water is a home for eels and frogs,’ he muttered, to keep his lips from freezing shut mostly. ‘Nothing more. Now get in there, Mercer.’
It was very unlikely an insidious panlong hid in the murky depths. Old Bess would have noticed that surely when he wove the Sanctuary’s walls about this place.
Silas nodded to himself. ‘Certainly he would have noticed.’
He continued closer to one of the few gaps in the wreath of bulrushes surrounding the pond, where the ground sloped and the water lapped at the drenched soil. He was unprepared for how slippery it was there. He lost his footing, only just managing to halt his slide where the shallows lapped the edge with a thin film of liquid that could not have drowned a mouse. He set his jaw, teeth grinding hard to stop their infernal chattering, and took a step forward. Then another. Until his feet were covered entirely, barely seen through the heavy silt, the icy-cold water encircling his ankles.
He bent to roll up his trousers. A senseless act really, considering the entire point of this was to get himself soaked.
The pond’s surface was a patchwork of waterlilies and duckweed and floating pennywort, each fighting the other for space. The pennywort was winning the battle for the most part. Fortunate, he supposed, for it was a much finer plant, with delicate tiny leaves that should cause little bother to push through. He shuddered. Damn, this idea of his was terrible.
The rain dimpled what clear surface there was, giving the water a life he’d rather it didn’t have. The downpour came from a sky streaked with stormy colours reminiscent of Lalassu’s coat. He faltered, with the water lapping at the bottom of his knees. He hardly needed another concern right now, but there it was. The absence of his horse, of Sanu too, tugged at him daily. If Sybilla knew why they were absent, she wasn’t saying. But then the Valkyrie wasn’t saying altogether much these past few days. She was as distracted as the rest of the household by her concerns. They were anchorless, drifting as they waited for Edward to wake and give them direction.
Silas’s resolve faltered. Between forcing himself into dreaded water and the heavy settling of gloom that would not leave him, he felt bloody wretched.
He pulled at his shirt, wincing as the material drew off his nipples, which were so hard from the cold that they could have cut glass. The rub of the material was painful in a not-so-pleasing way. Though Pitch would disagree, he was sure.
He closed his eyes.
And took himself to a much more pleasant place.
Silas took another step. Another followed. The ground sloped beneath him, and he fought back the stirring of a very familiar terror. He drew back his shoulders and pushed on.
One step after another. The weeds beneath the surface rather unsettling against his legs. But onward he went. The same act repeated over and again, until the water encased Silas’s thighs, caressing them with cruel hands of melted ice.
No matter how lovely his thoughts, the cold could be ignored no longer. He halted, shivering hard, his teeth dancing against one another behind lips that must surely be blue by now.
The pond was roughly the length of four rowboats. A swimmer would take a handful of strokes to move from one side to the other, but it seemed much deeper than he’d imagined. There was no letting up of the slope of the ground, and he was still a decent way from the centre. He crossed his arms and shoved his hands into his armpits, where there was no more warmth than anywhere else on his body, but at least embracing himself felt more fortifying. Something soft brushed at his inner thigh, and his shivering burst into a jerky movement that unsettled the water lilies about him.
Pond weed. Nothing more.