The Rose Master (14 page)

“Not the wisest thing to do.”

I looked up into his face, afraid of what I’d find, but his eyes were as still and quiet as always. Nothing flickered behind their stare.

“Let me see.” He gathered an edge of his shirt and wrapped it around his hand so that no bare skin remained. He then extended the cloth-wrapped appendage toward me, but I pressed my injured hand with my left one and shook my head.

“I don’t think so, sir.”

With an impatient release of air, he yanked my hand toward him with a stronger grip than I would have imagined. I felt no new pain at his touch, but my palm’s numbness had begun to fade, leaving behind a trail of hot thorns.

“I did warn you, if you recall. It’s a minor burn, nothing to sob over, but I’m sure it hurts.”

I nodded.

“Come, I have something to help with the pain.” He released my hand and headed for the stairs.

Against all reason, I followed.

Lord Grey lit all the lights in his antechamber, giving the room a comforting glow, a square of light amid the pressing darkness. Then he glanced through one of his cabinets stocked full of jars with different colored pastes and powders.

“Here, put this on your hand.” He unscrewed the lid of a little round container and passed it to me. It smelled sweet, yet spicy, a hint of pepper tickling my nose.

“What is it, sir?”

“It’s a balm for burns.”

My face must have betrayed my skepticism, because he chuckled. “It’s not poison.”

I dipped a finger in the cool cream and spread it on my pulsing palm. I gasped as the salve seemed to gather the pain to it, erasing it from my hand.

“Yes, it’s quite good. My own creation.”

I handed the jar back to him, careful not to graze his skin with any part of mine. I didn’t know why, or how, he’d burned me, but I did know I didn’t want to experience it again.

He turned away from me to close and lock the cabinet behind him. As the lock clicked in place with the dry turn of a key, Lord Grey spoke:

“I suppose I should begin with the roses, with how I created them. It’s the most logical place to start . . . maybe the only place.”

I shook my head. “Sir, what do you mean,
you
created them? You planted them?”

“No. That is not what I mean. I thought them into being.”

I blinked, the words still not making sense. “How is that possible, sir?”

His thin shoulders shrugged. “How can someone sing, or draw, or play the piano? It’s an ability I was born with and that I’ve nurtured, but I think you’re not as foreign to this type of thing as you’re letting on.”

I opened my mouth, but he waved my words away with a sharp hand.

“It doesn’t matter.”

Lord Grey’s hands twined around each other. The words he had already shared with me seemed to have erased some of the weary marks off his face—his brows were relaxed, his forehead smooth. He looked rather handsome.

The thought took me by surprise, making me blush in the lamplight.

“You don’t believe me,” Lord Grey said.  

“Sir, I would never question your words.”

“But you don’t believe me.”

I took a breath. “Sir, it just seems unlikely.”

Without shifting his eyes off of me, Lord Grey exhaled, once, and my knowledge of the world tilted, never to be righted again.

The chair next to me, trembling with books, slid across the floor, not even a single book shifting in surprise.

“What just happened?”

“I made the chair move.” He said it with such lightness, such boredom, that I began laughing. Loud hiccups of hard laughter traveled up my body, shaking me from head to foot.

“Are you quite finished, Anne?”

I wiped my eyes, attempting to also wipe away what I’d witnessed. “Sir, I need to see it again.”

He rolled his eyes. “Fine.”

Without warning, the chair scurried back to its place.

My eyes were about to slip out of their sockets.

“If we are quite done with the demonstrations, I would like to continue. Sit.” His words were seeping with irritation. I wasn’t sure I had any words left.

“If it’s all the same, sir, I’d rather not.”

“Sit.”

I obeyed without another moment’s hesitation.

I placed the thick books on the floor and sat with care on the richly upholstered seat. He remained standing, fiddling with a loose string from his shirt cuff for an instant, then headed for one of the overburdened bookshelves. With only the slightest sign of hesitation, he plucked something from behind a pile of books and walked back to where I sat. He opened his hand, holding up the object: a small, perfectly round, silver mirror.

“Please don’t touch it, Anne. I’d rather not have to replace this, if at all possible. Can you see into it clearly?”

My face looked back at me, my dark eyes wide and my skin pale. “Yes, sir.”

“Good. Now pay attention, I’ll only do this once.”

He said one more word, one I couldn’t understand, and everything around me was swallowed by darkness. Everything except for the mirror, which glittered more than anything I’d ever seen before, more than any jewels any Lady could ever buy.

“Look in, Anne,” Lord Grey said.

I did.

Rosewood Manor rose in front of me, resplendent in the morning light. I blinked. How had I gotten here? How was it morning already?

I turned, hoping to spy some clue from my surroundings, but nothing explained what I was doing out here, when I’d just been in Lord Grey’s chambers.

Nor why all the roses were gone.

They were conspicuous in their absence, the red blooms which I’d grown so used to seeing and smelling. Actually, the entire manor looked different. Younger. But that wasn’t possible.

The front door opened without warning, and out came a woman dressed in a gown the color of lavender sprigs, her dark hair pinned in a perfect bun on her head. Behind her, his face turned up to her as if she were the very sun, was a small boy. He couldn’t have been more than six or seven, but one glance told me who he was. I held my breath.

It was Lord Grey. That boy was the man with whom I’d just been sitting.

“Come, August,” the woman said. Her eyes passed over me as she looked down the long carriageway. “Your father is almost here.” She stretched out a hand and the boy took it, the smile on his face so bright it seemed to radiate outward. “Let’s see what he’s brought you for your birthday, my darling.”

The boy looked out as well, his eyes resting on me for just an instant, his brow furrowing with curiosity. But the unmistakable sound of a carriage pulled his eyes away.

“He’s here!” August cried, leaping into the air in excitement. The air around him shivered with his energy, with his absolute glee.

That was when it happened: the roses, all of them, all the ones I’d seen since the moment I had arrived at Rosewood, appeared. They rose up from the bare ground, from the many planted bushes, from in between the stone steps leading to the door.

The woman gasped, but August’s eyes never wavered from where his father’s carriage would be appearing.

“August,” she said. “Oh, my darling.” She brought a hand to her mouth and knelt down beside him. Her skin blushed in pale imitation of the flowers all around her, and her laugh wove itself around me much like the roses’ scent.

The horses’ hooves drew nearer and nearer, until we could all see the carriage and the two men who rode it—the coachman, a large man with drooping skin, and a man who could not have been anyone but August’s father. His face was harsher, his eyes dark as oak, but I could see the resemblance in the way he moved as he opened the carriage door.

His smile dimmed, then disappeared.

“Jane, what in God’s name?”

“He made them grow, William!”

“Who did? What are you talking about?”

“Our son did this!” She laughed. “He’s our little wonder!”

August’s father shook his head, fear etched clearly on his face.

There was a sudden soft peal, almost like Lady Caldwell’s bell, and the scene around me froze. The day’s light started to ebb, quickly contracting into a small circle on which only I stood. Then, even that vanished.

I reached a hand out to steady myself and felt fine linen against my palm. I opened eyes I hadn’t realized I’d closed and looked about.

There were young men all around, fourteen or fifteen years old, their tailored suits belying their uncombed hair and rumpled shirts.

It was a large space, with two rows of beds spanning the room’s length. A boy’s dormitory, I realized. My cheeks warmed as that knowledge reached my head. What would Father say if he saw me here, surrounded by young men in various stages of undress?

Like before, no one seemed to see me as I edged around one of the beds, passing two young men washing their faces at the numerous white basins left between the rows of beds for just such a purpose.

“It happened again, August,” the young man on the left said, bringing me to a stop. I turned so that I faced them, only the basins separating me from their image. There was Lord Grey. He looked less like the boy I’d just seen beaming at his mother and more like the man he’d become, someone too pale, too thin, someone who had forgotten what happiness felt like.

“It’s a good thing I get up early, or you’d be thrown out of the school,” the young man said. “What is happening? How are you doing it?”

Lord Grey shook his head. “I don’t know, William. I didn’t even know it was occurring until you told me.” His eyes moved through the room, making sure no one could hear their conversation. As his gaze landed on me, he frowned. “What—”

But the boy next to him grabbed his arm, pulling his attention away from where I stood. “You didn’t just rearrange the chairs this time, August. I could put up with that, or knocking things over, ripping our notes to shreds; they’re all inconveniences, but manageable.” He shook his head. “You set the curtains on fire. We could have been killed if I hadn’t woken up.”

Lord Grey’s thin face lost the little bit of color it had. I feared he might collapse right there, without me being able to do anything about it. It was a surprisingly painful thought.

“I’m sorry, August. I will have to say something to the Headmaster about this. You are my friend, and I feel terrible about doing it, but you are putting all our lives in danger.”