“You said you would do anything,” Tom reminded her.
She turned to him then. She could see the left-handed path and she understood how lonely it was. What would you do for the one you loved? Would you place yourself in exile, see wrong as right, forsake all others, do what you must?
“Anything,” Kylie said.
* * *
In the morning she stared at herself in the mirror over the bathroom sink. It had happened, she had changed. Her hair was black. The reddish chestnut color was gone and now seemed to have belonged to another girl entirely, a naive person who had walked another path. A bargain was a bargain, and you always paid a price. Impossible for her hair to turn pitch black, and yet it had happened in a single night, just as the vines had grown to cover the entire house while they slept in the grass. She woke up covered with ashes, her skin burned by sparks. When they left, Tom didn’t bother to lock the door. The landlord would eventually arrive to find the place deserted and in shambles. Tom had half a mind to start a fire in the parlor, for he’d learned Lockland Manor had been burned from the inside out, with flaming arrows flying through the windows to meet their mark, but he hadn’t the patience for such things when he was so close to getting what he wanted.
The vines were growing so fast the chimney could no longer be seen. There were thorns on all the trees and the grass was singed in a circle. They had done that. Solomon’s circle, Solomon’s Key, the oldest magic on earth, and the darkest. Kylie pulled on a clean black T-shirt and jeans borrowed from Tom, then threw on Gideon’s raincoat, which had also turned black, perhaps from the ashes rising from the bonfire.
Kylie had her backpack and Tom carried two sleeping bags strapped to his back along with his own rucksack filled with whatever dark materials he might need. It was early and the air was fresh. They had to hack through vines to get through the yard. A thorn pierced the palm of Tom’s hand and a vine tore his shirt. “Careful,” he told Kylie. As she ducked down Tom ran a hand over her newly dark hair, pleased by her appearance. This was the work of the left hand and his handiwork as well. He’d changed her. “Beautiful,” he said with a tinge of pride.
It wasn’t yet light, still the birds were singing.
“That’s the nightingale’s song,” Tom said.
Kylie stopped in the road to listen. The song was so beautiful she nearly cried, but what was done was done. They were headed to the forest. As they walked, the ferns Kylie passed turned black. She belonged to the darkness inside her. That is how curses began. A desire that cannot be held back. A wish that must be granted. Beneath Kylie’s feet, the grass turned to ash. The gash on her hand still bled and black drops fell onto the path. She could almost hear Gideon. He was in a room that had no key. He was calling her name.
The trees were so old in the forest they were protected by the government; they had stood by in times of magic, plagues, love, betrayal. It was an ancient woodland, untouched for centuries, still home to plants that could no longer be found anywhere else. Most of the old forests had been destroyed as roads were built and villages clustered in places where the trees were once as tall as the sky. There were wild bluebells beneath the hazel trees and hundred-year-old pollarded beeches. All around there was ash and oak, hornbeam and field maple, many so old they had been listed in the Domesday Book, written in 1086 as a survey of all that grew in England and Wales. The trees had been protected by brutal dictates. Anyone caught stealing from the royal forests during Richard the Lionheart’s reign would face a punishment that included the removal of the thief’s eyes and private parts. The forests were thought to be living creatures, with breath and fire and water and air, revered as the owners of the earth, while men were shadows that walked through the trees for the brief period of a lifetime. Wild mistletoe, clover, sorrel, bee orchids, St.-John’s-wort, all grew wild on the forest floor. Fields were covered with buttercups and yellow archangel flowers and the bark of trees was covered by gray-green lichens. There were several thousand-year-old oaks but perhaps the oldest tree was a two-thousand-year-old lime tree.
Beside the manor house was an orchard of apple trees, a variety the locals called Witchery, that Rebecca Lockland had planted from the seeds in an amulet given to her by Hannah Owens when she tried to break the love spell she’d set upon her husband. Soon the trees would bloom with pink and white flowers; only a few remained, for Tom had been chopping them down, using the fragrant logs as firewood that fueled the massive fireplace in the great room. It was here he stored his axe and some cookery items. It was his house, after all, abandoned or not; no one was taking it from him. Vines twisted through the windows that no longer held glass, and the once gray stone was black with smoke and ash from the time when the house was burned. Every now and then a visitor stumbled upon a forgotten treasure. Some hikers had come exploring and discovered an ancient pair of leather gloves, used for riding, and a velvet cape, riddled with moth holes.