He was excited to return to Seelie Lake, to the place of childhood comfort, but when it came into view, stretching out like an icy maw, Tom fought the urge to recoil in disgust. It was as if someone had replaced a close friend with a terrible creature, a monstrous thing.
Tom stood there, considering the tableau—the icy gray nothingness before him, the bleakness, and suddenly he knew there would be no return to the kind of innocence and simple happiness he’d known before Fiona’s death. For Tom the world had changed, and he had changed with it. Inside, he was as much a wasteland as the icy landscape before him.
But Rowan seemed unaffected by it. She danced along the rocks and took a seat in their regular spot.
“You coming, slowpoke?” she called.
It seemed to Tom that Rowan stood somehow apart from the tragic emptiness of the place, as if she were lit by a different source. She appeared to glow, so full of life she was, and when she smiled at him, he realized that it wouldn’t get any better than this. Something inside him had died, and he now knew it was never coming back, but there was always Rowan and the happy strength that radiated from her. As long as he could be near that glow, life didn’t have to be completely bleak.
It was later that day that he spoke to his mother about marriage.
“You’re sure?” she asked, her eyes bright.
“I know it’s unexpected.”
“No,” she said, smiling. “No, it’s not unexpected at all. I must say, I’ve been waiting for this day … hoping for it for years.”
“You have?” he asked, surprised. “Then you think I should do it?”
“Yes, of course I think you should do it. Oh, my boy,” she murmured, wrapping her arms around him. “I can’t tell you how happy you’ve made me. Oh, my blessed boy.”
When Rowan arrived home that afternoon, she found the house to be uncharacteristically cold and quiet. Walking past her father’s office, she noticed that although the door was wide open, the room was empty. She stepped inside and saw that his desk was cluttered with papers, which was very unlike her father. Curious, Rowan made her way over to the desk to see what he could have possibly left out, and she was struck by what she saw. The top two pages—the ones her father must have been examining earlier—bore strange images. Pencil drawings. One was of a cage of some kind set upon wheels. For Pema, she wondered? To transport her to the palace city when they eventually set out? She lifted the page, and examining it, she saw that the dimensions were enormous. She set it back down and then focused on the other drawing—a circle within a circle, and between the two circles, seven spokes. She was lifting the paper to scrutinize it further when she was startled by her father’s booming voice.
“Put that down,” he snapped, and rushing over to her, he snatched the sheet away, quickly collected the other pages, and shoved them inside his desk.
Rowan, shocked by her father’s behavior, took a step away from him. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know.”
“You never,” he said, turning on her, red-faced, “ever go through my things.”
At first she thought he was giving her a directive, but then she realized it was an observation, and that mixed with his anger was some other emotion. Fear?
“Father,” she said, “I’m sorry.”
His brows arched with worry. “Not once,” he sputtered. “Not once have you gone through my papers. Why now, Rowan? Why?”
Inside, her emotions were warring. She wanted to go to him, to apologize with all her heart for the wrong she’d done, but for the first time in her life, she was afraid of her own father. And yet he too seemed afraid. What could he possibly have to fear?
Dropping his eyes from her, he shook his head. “Go to your room,” he said. “Do not speak of this again.”
Rowan was stunned. She wanted to beg for her father’s forgiveness, but instinct told her to do as he asked—to leave quickly, and to try to put the unhappy experience from her mind.
Turning, she headed out of the room and down the hall. She took the stairs two at a time, and as she was rounding the corner to her chamber, she saw a small dark figure looming over her desk.
Merrilee stood very still, staring through the legs of the silver candelabra out to the woods beyond. What was she seeing there? Rowan wondered, but her curiosity was overwhelmed by frustration that the girl had entered her room without permission. The fact that Rowan had just been chastised for the same offense only added to her ire.
“What are you doing in here?” Rowan snarled.
The girl stepped away from the desk and turned to Rowan, grinning at her. Rowan began to wonder if she might be slow-witted.
“You’ve a lovely room,” Merrilee said, and after adjusting one of the pearl buttons on the navy dress that fastened clear up to her throat, she clasped her hands behind her back.
“That doesn’t mean you can explore it whenever you like,” Rowan said, trying to seem taller as she strode into the room.
The girl looked up at her with her half-moon eyes. “I just came to see if you might want to play a game of cards with me.”
“Do I seem like I want to play cards with you?” Rowan snapped. “I’m not a child.”
Merrilee, her face suddenly contorted with disappointment, bowed her head and started toward the door. “I only want to be your friend,” she whimpered.
Rowan was hit with a wave of guilt. She stopped the girl. “Look,” she said. “I’ll play cards with you later, I promise. I just want to be alone right now.” Merrilee, seemingly on the verge of tears, nodded, and Rowan felt even worse. She realized she knew nothing of the girl’s past, but that it couldn’t have been a happy one. Otherwise she wouldn’t be a ward. Rowan took a step toward the girl and placed a hand on her little bird shoulder. “I promise I will play with you later. I’m sorry I’ve not paid more attention to you since your arrival. I know you must feel out of sorts being in a new place. Tomorrow we shall spend some time together. Would you like that?”
“Yes,” the girl said, and a shy smile crept onto her lips. She turned to leave, but Rowan, a question suddenly upon her, stopped her just as she reached the threshold.
“Merrilee, what was it you were so intent upon when I came in?”
“Excuse me?” said the child, clearly confused.
“You were looking out the window. You seemed very focused on something.”
The girl seemed at a loss for words for a moment; then she shrugged. “I thought I saw something—something moving—among the trees.”
A cold shiver of fear swept over Rowan. “I see,” she said, and the child turned to go again before Rowan called out for her once more. “Merrilee,” she said. “Be sure to lock your door tonight.”
The child nodded and then disappeared around the corner. Quickly, Rowan went to the window and gazed out into the forest. But all was still. Whatever Merrilee had seen out there, it was gone now. Rowan shuddered to think that she and Tom had been deep in the woods only an hour earlier. From now on she would be extra careful about going into the forest—daylight or no.
Rowan was stepping away from the window when she noticed smudges all over her candelabra. The girl had clearly been fiddling with it while she was looking out the window. Rowan sighed with frustration and started cleaning the prints off with the sleeve of her blouse. She would try her best to be nice to the girl, but she had to admit the child did not make it easy.