His family—could it be possible for him both to have killed them and mourn them?
“I’ve been here since before he was born,” Florence says. “His mother, Marian, and I grew up together. When she was handfasted, I came with her to be the keeper of Lakesedge Estate. We were friends.”
Were. The word hangs, loaded and low. “How did she die?”
“She was the second to drown. Kaede, Lord Sylvanan, was the first. They found him dead on the shore the morning after Rowan’s thirteenth birthday. Marian died the year after. And then, last year … Elan.”
Her eyes go to the portrait. Rowan’s brother has a sweet smile and rounded cheeks. I can so easily picture Arien at that same age. His scraped knees. His demands for stories. The elaborate plans he made for a playhouse we could build in the orchard.
Elan. I’ve heard his name before.
The cries in the dark, on my first night here. It was Rowan. Clover told me he drinks the sedative-dosed tea to help him sleep. The sounds I heard that night, echoing through the halls, tangled and tortured … It was him, calling out for his brother.
“I know Rowan,” Florence goes on. “And I know he isn’t capable of such a terrible thing. Whatever happened, it was an accident.”
“Three members of his family all drowned in the exact same place.”
“Four,” Clover murmurs.
Florence turns to her abruptly. “He told you about that?”
“Not exactly. But … people sometimes get conversational once you’ve given them a sedative.”
“What do you mean, four?” My pulse starts to beat a hard, panicked rhythm.
“When Rowan was five years old, he vanished for an entire day. At sunset we found him in the water. And at first we thought he was dead, but then he opened his eyes.” Florence pauses as she gathers herself, her face toward the window. The afternoon light streaks gold through her pale hair. “And when he did, the lake turned black. That was the start of the Corruption.”
I sit down heavily, landing in a chair before my knees give out.
When we were small—when Arien’s dreams brought their first wisps of shadows—Mother warned us about the Lord Under. If you step too close to the darkness, then he can touch you. Touch you, and send you back into the world, corrupted. I didn’t want to believe it. But it made sense, in a terrible way.
He’s the lord of the dead. He comes at the end of our lives and guides us into the world Below. And if he came to you, if he left you alive … then all the years you lived, marked by his touch, would bring him so much more power than a simple death.
“He—he was dead,” I stammer out. “Rowan was dead, and the Lord Under—”
Arien takes my hand, his brow notched with concern.
“Leta, he didn’t die. I mean, obviously. He’s still here.” He gives my shoulder a little shake, trying to tease me. “Or maybe you’ve spent all this time arguing with a ghost.”
“The Lord Under tends the souls in the world Below,” Florence says. “He doesn’t bring them back. I’d have thought you’d know not to believe that superstition.”
But in spite of her words, she draws her fingers across her chest.
Clover pours out the tea and passes me a cup. I slump back in my chair and clasp my teacup tightly. Let my face be washed by the rise of bergamot-scented steam. All I can think of are the shadows in my room. The water that poured down and the whispers that spoke my name. Then a deeper memory pulls at me.
The Vair Woods in winter. The voice I heard as the darkness gathered between the trees.
What I saw, it wasn’t real; but when my eyes shutter closed, I see Rowan, five years old and pale and still. Black water streaming from his mouth, his eyes, as the earth turned dark beneath him.
Could it have only been a dream, those things I saw in my room? The water on the walls, the whispers in the dark. Maybe my thoughts just tangled themselves into those hideous visions of voices and shadows. Only dreams.
It’s like there are two stories about Rowan, about Lakesedge, written side by side in a single volume. The ink from one bleeding through to mar the words on the opposite page. A boy who almost died. A boy who did die. A boy who drowned in a lake and came back as a monster.
But which story is real, and which is just a ghostly specter of rumor and fear?
We finish our tea in silence. I help pack away the notebooks and the inkpots and pens. The sunlight fades, and we trail down the stairs to dinner. Outside the kitchen window the waning moon hangs luminous in the twilight sky.