Hawthorn Read online

A feeling of relief washed over me. Helen’s eyes struggled open, their whites startling in her muddy face.

  “Ava, whyever are you covered with mud? And why are you crying? What’s happened?”

  “We fell down a hole!” I exclaimed, streaking more mud over my face when I tried to wipe away my tears.

  “You needn’t make it sound such an accomplishment . . . ow!” Helen moaned as she sat up, rubbing her elbow. “You’re not Alice and this hole doesn’t look a bit like Wonderland. And what do you think all those crows are looking at?”

  I swiveled around. The rim of the cavern was lined with crows now, their black eyes fixed on Helen and me. “They’re shadow crows,” I said as quietly and calmly as I could. “They came out of the trow—that’s why it was acting so strangely. It was possessed by the tenebrae.”

  “All those crows couldn’t have come out of the trow,” Helen said. “They must have been waiting . . .” Helen looked around the muddy pit. “Like they wanted something in here. What do you think they want?”

  To rip our eyes out and burrow inside us until we’re their creatures, I thought. But to Helen I said, “You’re right. There must be something here they want. We should tell Gillie . . .”

  “Yes, we’ll give him a thorough report typed up in triplicate . . . but, um, Ava, how exactly will we get past those crows?”

  “Remember how Miss Sharp mesmerized them with her dagger? I think I can do that.” As I reached for my dagger the crows cocked their heads at the same angle at the same moment as if they were ruled by the same mind. They were controlled by Judicus van Drood, the Shadow Master. He had sent them . . . but what could he want in this muddy pit? Well, we’d have to worry about that later. My hand closed on the sheath—and found it empty.

  “I don’t have my dagger! It must have fallen.”

  “Well, I have mine, but even if we mesmerize the crows, we’d have to keep them mesmerized while climbing out of this pit. And I’m not sure I can climb on account of my ankle, which I believe I’ve sprained.”

  I looked back at Helen, who had lifted her skirt to inspect her ankle. It was swollen and was turning as blue as the trow’s face had been.

  “Helen, that looks painful.”

  “Yes, it is rather. I will mesmerize the crows while you climb out and go for help. You can bring our friends back to get me out—”

  “I’m not leaving you alone here,” I said, looking around at the muddy pit. Even with the last of the golden light shining into it, it was a gloomy place. Once the light was gone it would be terrifying. Those tangled roots would assume monstrous shapes—leering faces, looming monsters—even now I could see pictures in them.

  “Helen,” I said, “do you notice anything about the walls?”

  “I notice that they’re very steep. Now help me remember Miss Sharp’s spell.” She drew out her own dagger. A ray of sunlight glanced off one of the gems encrusted in its hilt and sent a beam of ruby light arcing through the gloom. The crows rustled their feathers above us but I didn’t look up. Where the light struck the wall a pattern had emerged.

  “Keep the dagger just like that,” I told Helen as I got up and moved stealthily toward the wall. The crows cawed over my head and I felt the skin on the back of my neck prickle as I imagined the bite of their sharp beaks. I concentrated on the bit of wall I could see through the roots—it was a wall, a proper stone wall with carvings on it. I moved the tangled roots away, cringing as a centipede slithered over my hand, and stared at the carvings of tiny winged creatures, their wings encrusted with jewels. Lampsprites. Moving more roots away, I saw other figures—tall graceful men and women in long medieval robes, falcons perched on their arms and graceful deer walking beside them like tame greyhounds. Some of them carried jeweled coffers.

  “It looks like some kind of ceremonial procession,” I said to Helen.

  “I’m sure it’s very interesting, but I think you should start climbing. I’ve got the birds under control.”

  I looked up and saw that the crows were following the movement of Helen’s arm. She was sweeping the dagger in the air, murmuring Latin words. The runes carved on her dagger floated free and hovered in the air like dragonflies. Then they darted across the cavern and landed on the wall, burning straight through the roots. I could see the pattern now. The lords and ladies in the procession were carrying their coffers toward three enormous urns, big as houses. The chests held by the figures closest to the urns were opened. Dark shapes flew out of them—some abstract, others shaped like crows, snakes, bats, and wolves. The tiny lampsprites herded the shadowy shapes into the urns. They were lowering the lids onto the last of the urns.

  “Helen!” I cried. “The pictures tell the story of the three vessels. Raven told me about it.” As I said his name I felt a pang at the memory of our quarrel but I pushed it away. “Ages ago the fairies drew out all the bad qualities of mankind and stored them in three urns. But then humans missed some of those qualities and found one of the urns and broke it. The shadows flew out and possessed the first shadow master. He found another of the vessels and broke into it.” I glanced at the middle vessel and saw that the runes around it were glowing. I put my hand on the wall and felt that it was trembling.

  “That’s a fascinating story, Ava, but I’m not sure how much longer I can hold the crows at bay.”

  The entire wall was shaking now. The outline of the middle urn was glowing like a rim of fire. The runes from Helen’s dagger had unlocked something. From deep in the earth came a rumbling. The middle urn was moving, swinging inward like a giant door. Above me I heard the crows let out a raucous caw as they took flight, diving down into the pit. Helen screamed as one landed on her. I reached behind me and grabbed her hand and pulled her through the open doorway. I turned back to see if the crows were following us, but they had all flown back to the opposite rim of the pit, squawking and beating their wings.

  “Come on,” I said, “they’re afraid to follow us.”

  “Do you think it’s really a good idea to go someplace that scares shadow crows?” Helen asked.

  “The crows must want something here if they’ve surrounded the place even though they’re afraid of it. I think we’d better find out what it is. Look, we’re in a tunnel—and there are lanterns hanging on the wall.” I removed an oddly shaped glass lantern from a hook on the wall. It was shaped like a jam jar with a wire around the rim affixed to a handle with some kind of wick inside. I shook the jar and the “wick” unfurled its wings, stretched its arms, and yawned.

  “It’s a lampsprite!” Helen cried. “In a lamp! How droll!”

  The lampsprite came flying out of the open jar, brushing its wings against Helen’s and my faces. Not so droll waiting years and years in a jar! I heard its voice transmitted into my head through the powder in its wings. She flew toward the pit and then backpedaled on the threshold when she saw the crows.

  Shadow-things! She hissed. Come, come quick, we must go tell the guardian. She flitted past us and flew deeper into the tunnel.

  “Is this guardian down there?” Helen asked, looking nervously into the dark tunnel.

  Yes, yes, yes, the guardian is always here, since before and forever. He guards against the shadow-things but he won’t harm two humanlings. . . . She flitted back to us and brushed her wings over our faces again. Humanling and . . . She cocked her head at me. Half-bloodling.

  “Hey!” Helen said. “Don’t call her that!”

  “That’s what I am,” I answered. “Half-human, half-Darkling. Will this guardian of yours have a problem with that?”

  Oh no, the lampsprite chirped. He’s been waiting for you.

  We followed the lampsprite—whose name was an unpronounceable word that Helen decided sounded like Primrose—deep into the tunnel, her light illumining the walls in fitful bursts.

  “Are you quite sure there’s a back door to this place?” Helen asked. “I d
on’t know how much longer I can walk on this ankle. It seems like we’ve been walking forever.” She peered down at her wristwatch and shook it. “My watch seems to have stopped. It must have broken when I fell.”

  I withdrew my automaton repeater from my pocket and opened it. Two figures—a winged man and woman—hammered out a frantic little melody and the watch hands spun backward. “Primrose,” I began warily, “these tunnels . . . are they . . .”

  “At an end!” Helen cried pointing toward a light at the end of the passage. “Finally!”

  I followed Helen into a large domed chamber. “Oh! I thought we’d come out, but it’s only a room of sorts.” She was turning around in a circle, looking at the walls, which were so grown over with thick, twisted roots that we seemed to be in a basket. In fact, the roots seemed to be moving, creaking like a wicker laundry basket when you pick it up. I looked around for a door but couldn’t find one. I turned around to point this out to Primrose, but my eye was caught by a long pale root with a strange pattern in its woody fiber—almost like a face. I could make out two eyes—large pale celery-colored eyes that blinked at me.

  I started back and bumped into Helen, who clutched me with one hand while pointing her dagger with the other. “What is it?” Helen asked, her voice trembling.

  Primrose flitted over to the root and brushed her wings against its face. At the touch of her powder the root creature yawned and stretched its long limbs, which hung in the thatch like a scarecrow hanging on a pole.

  “Are you sure you want to wake it up?” Helen asked, watching the root man warily.

  The guardian never sleeps, Primrose chirped, only waits.

  The guardian must have been waiting a long time. He was so knitted into the fabric of the roots that he was having trouble pulling his arms free. I wondered if we ought to run, but then, where could we run to? The only way out led to the pit with the shadow crows. I decided we might as well help him.

  “Can we give you a hand?” I asked, holding out my hand to the creature.

  He blinked his celery-colored eyes at me, and his face—which looked rather like a rutabaga—crinkled into a smile. “Thank you,” he said in a creaking voice. He laid his long thin hand in mine. It was cool and limp, like wilted carrots, but then he squeezed with surprising strength and pulled himself free of the roots in one splintering burst. Dirt and moss fell to the ground along with a dozen centipedes and worms. When he unfolded himself to his full height he towered over Helen and me. He brushed dirt from his long cloak, revealing it to be more green than brown and embroidered with runes and sigils. The symbols resembled the ones in the carvings.

  “My stars, it’s been a long time since I had a visitor,” he said, looking down at his tattered, dirt-stained cloak. He bowed to Helen and me. “Welcome, children of men and . . .” He sniffed at me, which would have seemed rude had he not done it so delicately. He himself smelled like a turnip. “And Darkling. I am Aelfweard, of the race of Alfar, Guardian of the Vessel.”

  Helen, no matter how flustered, knew a formal introduction when she heard one. “We’re pleased to meet you, Mr. . . . er, Mr. Ward. I am Miss Helen van Beek of Washington Square and Hyde Park and this is my friend Miss Avaline Hall, of Fifth Avenue and Blythewood.”

  “Ah, the Blythe Wood. I had another visitor from the Blythe Wood some time ago but the poor fellow was so agitated he wasn’t able to tell me very much. When my sisters sent me here they told me they were founding an order to protect the vessel. Do you belong to that order?”

  “Er, we belong to the Order of the Bell,” I replied, wondering who his visitor might have been. “But we haven’t been taught anything about a vessel.”

  Mr. Ward screwed up his pulpy face and sniffed at us again. “I don’t smell shadow on you. But if you aren’t here to protect the vessel, why are you here? Is all well in the Blythe Wood?”

  “Not really,” I said. “Shadow crows have gathered around the entrance to your, er, home.” I glanced over the walls again, hoping for a door I hadn’t noticed. Where Mr. Ward had broken free was a bit of curving wall with a large crack running through it, but no door.

  “Shadow crows!” Mr. Ward exclaimed, blinking his large pale eyes. “They didn’t get in, did they?”

  “No. They seemed afraid to follow us.”

  “Ah, good, then the wards I put in place are still sound. But if they came to the entrance to the tunnel they must be trying to get in. I may have to reinforce the wards.” He was wringing his long hands, his knuckles popping like twigs snapping.

  “Mr. Ward,” Helen said, “if you don’t mind me asking, why would they want to get in here? There doesn’t seem to be much of value here.”

  Mr. Ward’s eyes widened. “Much of value? My dear child, this is one of the three vessels of Aelfrir, forged by Volundyr in the fires of Hel to hold the darknesses of mankind. What could be more valuable?”

  “This is one of the vessels?” I asked, turning around in a circle. I noticed now that the curving walls tapered upward to an opening, like an oculus . . . or an opening in a bottle. “We’re inside one of the vessels?”

  “Yes, yes!” Mr. Ward’s large bulbous head bobbed up and down on his thin neck.

  “But then where are the shadows it held?” I asked, chilled at the thought of all the evil once imprisoned inside these walls.

  “Fled when the vessel was broken,” he answered, his voice so thick with grief I was afraid he might collapse in front of us. “A great army came, too many to defend against. They broke the vessel and the shadows flew out. I am told the world became a much darker place, and I have heard rumors from my friends the lampsprites that one of the other vessels was broken not long afterward.”

  “But if this vessel has already been broken,” I asked, “what are you guarding that the shadow crows want so badly?”

  Mr. Ward blinked his large celery-colored eyes at me, clearly taken aback by the question. “Why, the location of the other two vessels, of course.”

  3

  “THE WALLS OF each vessel were carved with the locations of the two other vessels,” Mr. Ward explained. He brushed back a heavy curtain of roots to show us the carvings on the wall depicting a huge vessel shaped like an amphora buried beneath the earth. Above it grew a tree.

  “A hawthorn,” Mr. Ward said, tracing the tree with a long tapered finger. “Above each vessel was planted a hawthorn tree to guard against dark creatures.”

  “That’s the white flowering shrub we saw in the woods,” I said. “But that can’t be the only landmark. There are hawthorn trees all over Europe and North America.”

  “If you look closely you can see a drawing of the surrounding landscape. Here . . .” He traced a line with a long twiggy finger. “Here is the river and the mountains . . .”

  “I recognize that ridge!” I said. “It’s the Shawangunk ridge across the river. The drawing depicts this vessel.”

  “Lot of good that does us,” Helen remarked. “Wouldn’t it be more helpful to show us where the other two vessels are hidden?”

  “How perceptive of you, Miss van Beek of Hyde Park. Here is the second vessel.” Mr. Ward pointed to a drawing of another urn buried beneath a hawthorn tree. This one was beside a lake below a mountain, on top of which was a stone tower that looked like a finger pointing to the sky.

  “That’s not a lot to go on,” Helen said. “Do we even know which of these other two were already destroyed?”

  Mr. Ward shook his head heavily. A fat, resinous tear appeared in one eye and streaked down his face, slow as sap in winter. “It is kept secret to make it harder to find the last remaining vessel. No fairy is allowed to talk of the vessels. But if the shadows are looking for them you must find both vessels and protect them—especially from the hope-eaters.”

  “The hope-eaters?” I asked, shivering at the name. “What are those?”

  “All of the shadows prey o
n the worst emotions of mankind, but the hope-eaters are a particular kind of shadow that sucks every bit of hope out of the person it attaches to. If those get loose . . .”

  “We won’t let that happen,” Helen said. “We’ll tell the Council.”

  “And the Darkling Elders,” I added. “We ought to copy down these pictures. Maybe there’s something in the libraries that can help identify them.”

  Helen took out the little notepad she carried in her pocket and began drawing the pattern of the mountain and lake in the second picture.

  “Is there anything else you can tell us about the locations of the other two vessels?” I asked.

  “Well,” he said, stroking his chin with his long fingers. “They are, of course, always located by a door to Faerie.”

  “Why is that?”

  “So the fairies can guard it. They couldn’t put the vessels in Faerie because the shadow creatures—or those touched by them—can never cross over to Faerie.”

  I recalled what van Drood had said to me in the fun house in Coney Island: that the Darklings could never enter Faerie because their race had been infected with the shadows when Aderyn was attacked by a shadow crow. But I had been to Faerie and I was half-Darkling. I tried to focus back on what Mr. Ward was saying—something about the vessels always being buried near a door to Faerie. “. . . however, I hear from the lampsprites that there are fewer and fewer of my kind.” He smiled at Primrose, who had come to perch on his shoulder. “Perhaps they were all killed by the shadow creatures or some other enemy.”

  Helen looked up from her drawing and met my gaze. We had been taught that the Blythewood School for Girls had been founded on this spot precisely because the door to Faerie was here, so the knights and ladies of the Order could patrol the woods and keep fairy creatures from straying out and invading the world. Although the Order was changing its policies now, it had been the cause of untold numbers of fairy massacres. Perhaps we were to blame for the destruction of this vessel.