next to my sister.
“Bring her back, Bram. I want her back. I don’t want her to go. I love her.”
“We need to go to Artane Castle, to the tower.”
* * *
? ? ?
MA AND THORNLEY didn’t return until nearly suppertime. They had found no sign of Nanna Ellen in town, and none of our neighbors had seen her. She was simply gone.
We awaited nightfall, for all in the house to give in to slumber; then Matilda and I crept silently from our rooms, down the stairs, and to the front door of the house, as we had the night before. The wind was still, hauntingly so, as we stepped out of the house and I gently closed the door behind us. We crossed the fields at a run, doing our level best to keep to the shadows and avoid those places where we might be spotted.
Matilda uttered not a word as we went, which I found troubling. Under most circumstances, it was difficult to prevent her from chattering, particularly when nervous. I glanced at her from the corner of my eye and found her brow furrowed, her gaze riveted straight ahead. I could not expect her to believe what I had told her about Nanna Ellen; even after what we had already seen, it was too fanciful. Yet I wanted her to. I didn’t want to be alone in this pursuit. She witnessed Nanna Ellen walking into the bog, just as I had. She witnessed Nanna Ellen disappearing beneath the surface of the bog, and remaining submerged far longer than any normal person could, just as I had. Matilda hadn’t seen the hand emerge from the water and snatch the dragonfly from the air, but that didn’t make it any less true.
* * *
? ? ?
WHEN I GLANCED BACK UP, we were approaching the coltsfoot and scutch grass, made worse by the brambles and vines that surrounded the castle on all four sides. Matilda’s gaze was still fixed ahead. When she finally did speak, she whispered, “Can you still feel her?”
“So you believe that, but not what happened in my room?”
“I—” she stuttered. “I don’t know. Maybe. I’m not sure, I don’t know.”
“I have never lied to you, Matilda. Why would I make up such a thing?”
Matilda let out a sigh. “She was—is—our friend. I’ve known her my entire life; you have known her your entire life as well. She has never harmed us. She has done nothing but care for us as if we were her own children.” She paused for a second, her mind searching for the right words. “The way you described her, you made her out to be a monster. A thing of nightmares, dropping down upon you in such a horrid manner, and to what end? She tells you to sleep? Look at you. You have not left that bed in months. I don’t recall a time when you ever left the house without assistance, and yet within one day’s time you go from the brink of death to a fitness that rivals my own. Is she responsible for this? If yes, why would she wish you harm?”
“I don’t know that she meant to harm me.”
“And your arms,” Matilda went on. “For the wounds left behind by the leeches to disappear so, it isn’t possible. Yet it happened. I presume they are gone from your legs as well?”
I nodded.
“How?”
“I wish I knew.”
The itch was there, though, always there. I found myself scratching at my arm even now.
“And that incessant itch?” Matilda stomped ahead. “I don’t understand what to make of any of this.”
I dropped my arm to my side and chased after her, pushing through the thick weeds.
Matilda stopped and stared up at the castle looming ahead against the night sky. “You didn’t answer my original question.”
“What question?”
“Can you feel her?”
I fell still and peered up at the forbidding castle. The weathered stones dripped with ivy and moss. As I focused my eyes, I spotted tiny ants crawling over the surface, skittering this way and that, unnaturally active considering the frosty air, with