Briar Queen_ A Night and Nothing Novel - Katherine Harbour Page 0,5
was Anna’s birthday?” Absalom, with that unsettling way he had of abruptly changing topics, turned to face Anna. He was, suddenly, holding a long gift box wrapped in pink satin ribbons, with a little porcelain doll’s head in the center. Anna looked delighted.
Jack, rising, told Anna, “Don’t accept tha—”
“Thank you, Absalom.”
“Open it.” Absalom glanced slyly at Jack as Anna unwrapped the package and lifted out . . . an umbrella. The handle and tip were made from wood painted white, and, when she snapped the umbrella open, an extraordinary painting from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was revealed.
“How lovely,” she whispered, eyes wide as she turned it.
“An umbrella?” Finn arched an eyebrow at Absalom.
“Now, it’s just a regular umbrella—don’t go trying to do a Mary Poppins off a roof or anything,” Absalom said to Anna. Then he turned to address Jack, and shadows seemed to fall across his face. “We think the Wolf is here. Phouka believes he’s been here since All Hallows’ Eve.”
Frost-glazed leaves skittered across the tombstones and snow as silence followed Absalom’s words. Anna snapped shut the umbrella, looked from Jack to Finn, and said, “The shadows in my dreams are wolves.”
“See?” Absalom regarded Jack, who remained grimly mute. “Talk to you later, Jack. I’ve got to be on my way.”
“Wait.” Finn stepped forward, but Absalom had already disappeared between one tree and the next. Finn turned on Jack. “What is the Wolf?”
He raised his eyes to hers and said, low, “Not in front of Anna.”
“I’m not a kid.” Anna’s voice was calm. “And I’m not slow, like people think.”
“No, of course you’re not. But the Wolf is not a bedtime story for little girls.”
“I’m not a little—”
“We’re taking you home, Annie.”
ANNA LIVED ON MAIN STREET, in a two-story apartment above Hecate’s Attic, the shop her parents owned. Since the shop was just across from the park, Finn and Jack left the car and walked Anna home, then went for a stroll. As they wandered down the park path, Jack said, “Do you remember the Fata I told you about? The one I first worked for in Ireland? I thought Reiko was his wife?”
Finn tugged up the hood of her red wool coat. “He was a very bad man.”
Jack gently corrected, “He was never a man.”
Finn knew he was about to tell her about the Wolf and braced herself. “Go on.”
“His name was Seth Lot. In 1800s Dublin, he was Reiko’s lover, the one, I think, who made her what she was, cruel and reckless.”
“What you’re saying is—he’s evil.”
“There are levels of evil. I saw the worst kind in Seth Lot’s house.”
The winter night became threatening. Finn began to wish she was home.
“His house was like some of the abandoned mansions here in Fair Hollow, but it’s older than any human residence. It was called Sombrus. And it could move, appear and disappear in and out of the world. Once, he and Reiko argued and she pinned his house in place. It took him and his pack a week to find the wand of sacred wood she’d staked into the roots of a tree in the courtyard, to hold the house down. For a while, he was stuck where he could do no harm.” Jack looked down at his hands. “Then he and Reiko made up. They surrounded themselves with pretty young things, unfortunates who would eventually disappear. Reiko would never tell me what happened to them.”
Finn could guess.
They were approaching the other end of the park, where a quaint white chapel stood for sale on the corner. There was a fire escape along the chapel’s side, and a mass of fir trees darkened the street beyond. It was quiet here, free even of the sounds of traffic.
“Come on.” She tugged him toward the building. The moonlight glittered on the snow, and the white chapel looked charming, not creepy.
“The chapel’s closed.”
“We’re going to sit on the roof.” She reached up and grabbed the handle of the fire escape to pull down the lower half. She felt a heady rush of fear and recklessness.
“Don’t you think it’ll be a bit icy?” He watched her, amused.
“It’s all melted and the roof’s flat.” She was still trying to tug down the ladder. “Scared?”
“You’ll break your wrists, doing that.” He took hold of the bar and pulled the fire escape down with an ease that made her feel all warm inside.
They clambered onto the roof, which was damp but not icy. The view of Fair Hollow was magical. The moon was a