Ash & Bramble Read online

  The fluff-covered Jack brings them, and a ladder. As I thread the needle, I push the other Jacks out of the way and climb the ladder. Here it doesn’t matter if my stitches are tiny and straight, and quick as a flash I stitch up the seams of the leaking mattresses. Then I run the thimble along each seam. I don’t know what its powers are, but perhaps this will help. “They’ll hold,” I say, hopping to the floor.

  Our Jack looks up at the teetering stack of mattresses. Then he gives me a brisk nod. “That was well done.” He lowers his voice. “You want that hook, do you?”

  “Yes, I do,” I say. I can see it; the Jack has the same rebellious flame in his heart that I do. Just a spark, but it’s there. I give him a quick grin.

  He gulps. “When she catches you, don’t tell her it was us you got it from. Right?”

  “She’s not going to catch me,” I say.

  “Well then,” the Jack says slowly. “We’ll make your grappler, right enough.”

  “Thank you.” On my finger, the thimble gives a warning throb, and I know it’s telling me that it’s time to go. “I’ll come fetch it soon,” I say, and I lead Shoe out into the hallway. This time I turn right, toward the sewing room, and Shoe falls into step beside me.

  He is furious. I can see it in the set of his shoulders, in the line of his jaw.

  “I have to try,” I explain. Hook or no hook, I am going to try. I stop and face him. “I have to escape from here.”

  “Where?” he asks roughly. “Even if you could get away, there’s nowhere to go.”

  “Yes there is,” I assure him. “There’s the Before.”

  “No.” He shoves his fists into his coat pockets and frowns at me. “There’s no Before. It’s gone.”

  “An After, then,” I tell him, and point down the hall to where a door leads to the courtyard, past the post, over the wall, and beyond. “To whatever’s out there.”

  “There’s nothing out there for you,” he says bleakly, and shakes his head. “It’s too much of a risk.”

  “Staying here is the biggest risk you could ever take,” I tell him.

  “I can’t—” he starts, then breaks off and closes his eyes. “There’s worse things than the post, Pin.”

  “Shoe,” I say. “We get barely enough to eat and hardly any sleep, we’re not permitted to speak, we’re frightened all the time, and we will work here until the day we die.” Now I step closer to him. We are much the same height, and as I lean in to whisper into his ear, my cheek brushes against his, and he flinches. I put my hand on his shoulder to steady him. “We don’t touch,” I breathe. “We don’t kiss. We don’t love. How could anything be worse than that?”

  He closes his eyes. Then he bends his head, leaning against me, taking comfort. I can feel the tension in his body, the weight of his hand on my arm. I lean into him, giving him warmth for warmth. “Come with me,” I whisper.

  “Pin . . .” After a long moment, he takes a shuddering breath, as if he’s going to say something else. But he doesn’t. He opens his eyes, steps away, and I see that his pale face has turned even paler. “Don’t do it. She’ll find out. She’ll catch you. You’ll end up . . .” His voice breaks, and he shakes his head.

  He really has learned his lesson. “You don’t have to come, Shoe,” I say, trying to keep my voice light even though I’m far more disappointed than I thought I’d be.

  And I leave him there and go back to the sewing room, where I will stitch and stitch and plan my escape, and Marya’s, into the Before, or perhaps the After, that waits for me beyond the Godmother’s fortress walls.

  CHAPTER

  4

  SHOE TRUDGES UP THE STAIRS TO HIS WORKROOM. HE takes off his coat and hangs it on its hook, gives the door a savage kick to close it, and sits down at his bench. The measurements of Pin’s feet are marked neatly on the piece of paper he’s left there.

  Pin. She is braver than he is, with her plan to escape. She has no way of knowing what is outside, beyond the walls of the fortress. Even if she manages to get over the wall, the Godmother will track her, and catch her. Then it will be Pin chained to the post, feeling the icy wind on her bare skin, and the deep bite and burn as the whip slashes into her back.

  On the day he was flogged, the guards left him chained to the post until the sky turned black with night. He’d gotten so cold that the blood from the lashes he’d been given had frozen on his back. The cold hadn’t been enough to numb the pain, though. He hunches his shoulders and presses the heels of his hands over his eyes, trying to put that memory back into the past, where it belongs.

  Taking a shaky breath and opening his eyes, he stares down at Pin’s measurements. A very neat foot, she has, and cold, he imagines, on the stone floors of the fortress.

  Outside, winter is coming.

  He has glass slippers to make for the Godmother—and fur ones, just in case. He picks up his tools and gets to work.

  SOMETHING PERHAPS ONLY a Seamstress—even a poor one like me—would know is that even though silk is light and lovely and flows as smooth as moonbeams over the skin, it is a very strong material. It is good for making ball gowns, and it is good for making ropes.

  In the sewing room, I keep my head down and stitch. I have filched every scrap of silk cloth and silk thread that I can, and when the Overseer is busy with the other Seamstresses I work it. My rope is narrow and braided and well stitched, and with every hour that passes, it gets longer, but it is not yet long enough. When the Overseer slithers closer to see what I am up to, I hide my silk rope workings under my apron, and she blinks her slitted eyes and flicks her forked tongue and goes away again. The other Seamstresses cast me sidelong looks, and some of them pass me scraps of silk under the table, but they say nothing. Even Hump stays silent, though perhaps she is waiting until later so my crime will be all the greater when I am caught.

  Except that I don’t plan on getting caught.

  I lean closer to Marya to whisper. “I’ll take you with me when I go.”

  Marya doesn’t answer. She stares down at the apron she is stitching, her face blank. With a chill, I realize that she is not really Marya anymore, just Seamstress.

  “You can go back to your village and marry your handsome boy,” I whisper when the Overseer’s back is turned. “You will be happy again, after that.”

  Marya’s faded blue eyes blink. But she doesn’t speak.

  To my surprise, on one afternoon when a damp chill is lurking in the corners and my fingers are stiff with overwork, Shoe comes into the sewing room. His glance at me is swift, just a flash of green, but it is enough to set my heart pounding.

  I keep my head carefully lowered, but my skin prickles with awareness of him. The set of his shoulders. His frown as he discusses a requisition with the Overseer in a low voice. Like picking at a loose thread, I have been thinking of him since we parted ways. I imagine him up there in his little room, his fair head bent over his work, his hands quick and competent. I’m curious about him. What does he think about? Does he ever imagine the world outside the fortress walls?

  We don’t kiss, I told him before. I wonder what it would feel like to kiss him.

  But I stay rooted to my seat with my head lowered over my work. Before he goes, I steal one quick glance at him. The skin over his high cheekbones is flushed, and I know that he is as aware of me—of my every move and breath—as I am of him.

  And then he goes.

  I barely know Shoe, really. Yet I don’t want to leave here without him.

  I KEEP MY ears pricked, and when the Overseer is busy, I scoot forward to sit on the edge of the bench so my skirts come down to the floor. I play out my thin, silken rope to see how long it is, hiding its coils under my skirt as I measure it. How many arm’s lengths will I need? More than this, I think. Carefully I reel in the rope again, coiling it on my lap, under my apron. It makes a heavy heap no bigger than a curled, sleeping cat. It is not enough, but it is almost enough.

  It will hold Shoe’s weight, I think. If he will com
e with me.

  A sudden movement jolts me out of my calculating. Marya lurches from the bench. Her eyes are wide and staring; her mouth is a determined line. The apron she’s been hemming falls to the floor.

  Across the room, the Overseer’s back is still turned.

  Marya stands, swaying.

  “Wait,” I whisper.

  With a trembling hand, Marya presses my shoulder, keeping me in my seat. She does not speak. Then she stumbles to the door, opens it, and slips out. For a moment I stare after her—it’s too soon—I’m not ready—does she want to end up at the post?—and then I jerk my eyes back to my work so I can pretend I didn’t see her go. But my every muscle, every nerve, is clenched with dread. My ears strain to hear a sound from outside the sewing room, the sound of Marya’s screams as she is captured again.

  But there is nothing. Only silence.

  Candles flicker. The other Seamstresses keep their heads lowered as they work, but I can feel their tension as they wait. The Overseer is busy with a mistake made by the Seamstress with the gnarled, age-spotted hands; she hisses as the trembling old woman unpicks a seam under her slit-eyed gaze.

  At last, the Overseer straightens. She turns and surveys the room. And she sees that Marya’s place is empty.

  “Ssssahhhh,” the Overseer breathes, and I see a flicker of something—is it fear?—in her eyes. In a flash she is at the door, flinging it open and calling for the guards, and then from outside there is shouting, and the rush of feet and paws in the passageway, and then . . .

  Silence.

  For a long time, nothing happens.

  Marya’s seat remains empty. I hide my rope beneath a pile of scraps under my bench. We are taken out for our stretches, our meager meal, our sleep; we come back and stitch. The old Seamstresses make more mistakes. Their hands shake and their eyes run with tears, and the Overseer hisses at them with increasing urgency. The tension in the air gets thicker and darker. They pass me more scraps of silk, more than I can use. I keep my head down and wonder what happened to Marya. She has been gone for a long time. She must have gotten away. My rope, finished, is coiled on my lap.

  THE SOUND OF footsteps and curt orders is heard outside. The door flies open and several guards rush in, their naked tails waving behind them. The Overseer slithers up, hissing her displeasure. A lesson, she is told.

  The Overseer wrings her scaly hands. “Stand silently,” she orders.

  We Seamstresses set down our work and get to our feet. I hide my rope on my bench under the dress that I am hemming. A knot of tension tightens in my chest. Where are they taking us? The Seamstress beside me, Oldest, puts her gnarled hands on the table to push herself up, and I steady her with a hand on her arm. She leans against me as we are ushered out the door.

  Two pig-snouted guards are waiting in the passageway. Four more guards with twitching furry ears join us as we come out into the courtyard, blinking at the light. The sky overhead is gray—is it always gray? I wonder—and I shiver as I walk beside the shuffling old Seamstresses. The guards lead us across the courtyard—past the post, its chains and manacles clanking against the wood—to the high wall that surrounds the fortress and the courtyard.

  The wall is what they have brought us to see.

  It is the height of two tall men, I would guess, and covered with gray brambles about the thickness of my arm. The brambles are studded with thorns as long and sharp as daggers.

  Halfway up the wall, impaled on thorns that are crusted with dried blood, is Marya’s body. It looks like a giant rag doll. Its back is to us; its head lolls to the side; its arms and legs are splayed and pierced by the bloody thorns. Marya was stabbed by the thorns as she climbed the wall. And she was left there to die.

  The guards say nothing. The Overseer stands with her mouth slightly open, and I see her forked tongue testing the air, as if she can taste the smell of blood. The other Seamstresses glance quickly at Marya’s body and then stare down at the cobblestones.

  I can’t pull my eyes away. My arms and legs feel cold as lead. My heart trembles in my chest.

  The arm of the body twitches. I blink and hold my breath. The air is still and heavy, and then I hear, faintly, a moan. A bead of blood—fresh blood—trickles down Marya’s impaled foot, gathers at her toe, and then drops, splattering on the cobblestones.

  I turn to the Overseer. “She’s still alive,” I gasp.

  The Overseer’s slitted eyes glance aside at me, but she does not speak.

  I dare to reach out and touch the Overseer’s sleeve. “We must get her down from there,” I say, more loudly.

  “It’s a lesson,” the Overseer says. “She stays.”

  “No,” I say wildly, and make a move toward the wall, but the Overseer grips my arm and snakes her other arm around my waist, holding me beside her.

  “Stop,” she hisses, and I feel her forked tongue flicker against my ear. “Stop. Or you will be punished.” She nods at the wall, and I see what she means—if I protest I will be impaled on the thorns beside Marya.

  Trembling, I stand beside the Overseer. My ears strain, listening for another moan, but I hear nothing. I want to help Marya, to climb the brambles and ease her from the thorns and wrap her in a blanket so she’ll at least be warm as she dies. I want to whisper that her handsome young man is waiting for her. But it is too late for that.

  This lesson, I feel suddenly and coldly sure, is meant for me. A wave of prickling dread washes over my skin. Shoe said that the Godmother would know I was planning to escape, and she does—she must. Even now, her guards are discovering the hidden rope; they are questioning the Jack about the grappling hook. They must know about Shoe, too. I’ve dragged him into more trouble and he can’t bear any more—I know it—and he’ll be broken, the way Marya was broken. Shoe was right. I feel hot and cold at once, and shivery with terror. When we go back to the sewing room, they will be waiting for me.

  My heart is pounding, and my knees are shaking. The healing welts on the back of my neck burn. But all I can do is stand silently with the other Seamstresses. I put my hand into my pocket, seeking strength from my thimble, but for the first time, it stays cold.

  Drops of blood from Marya’s bone-white foot fall onto the cobblestones. One drop, two drops, a third, and fourth.

  After a long time, the drops stop falling. Quietly, softly, what was Marya has gone, and she is just a body now, hanging limply from the thorns.

  The Overseer hisses, and the guards lead us back across the cobblestones to the sewing room. I hold my breath, waiting for the accusing finger, for the guards and the screaming, but all is quiet. We settle at the long table. With trembling fingers, we take up our needles, our thread, our damask and velvet.

  My silken rope, undiscovered, is a weight on my lap, under my apron. Now that I have seen the wall, I am sure that my rope is long enough.

  Maybe the Godmother knows.

  It doesn’t matter if she does.

  They will not take Marya’s body down. It will hang there, this lesson.

  But here is the irony: the lesson I am learning is not at all what they intend. Their lesson has made me even more determined to escape.

  THE WAX CANDLE at my elbow gutters; it’s burned down to a stub. Until this moment, I am not sure how to continue planning my escape, but as my candle flickers out, I hide the rope under the bench and get to my feet. The Overseer sees and glides over to me.

  “We need more candles,” I explain, bowing my head with false meekness. “I will fetch them, if you like.”

  The Overseer fixes me with a long stare. “Sssahhh,” she breathes. Then she writes out a blue requisition form and leads me to the door, where she tells me how to find the Candlemakers.

  I go straight to the workrooms of the Candlemakers. In exchange for the requisition, they give me a box full of the best wax candles, and, when I ask, a few extra. I start to carry the box back to the sewing room, but on the way I make a few stops, have a few words with the Spinsters of straw into gold, and with
the Bakers, and do a little sniffing around. More rags and patches for my plan.

  It’s getting late and I should stay away, but I can’t. If I’m going to escape from here, I at least need to see Shoe again before I go. So I climb the stairs to his workroom and, setting the box of candles on the floor, tap on his door.

  No answer.

  Quietly I open the door. The room is not large, just his shelves of supplies and racks of tools, a work bench, and a table and chair. Shoe is at the table with his head down, resting on one arm. I ease inside the room and close the door behind me, and come around the table to see him better.

  He’s fallen asleep while working. One relaxed hand is holding a charcoal pencil; on a piece of paper he’s been noting numbers, shoe measurements, I assume. His handwriting is neat, and he’s made a sketch of a shoe. Blue-green satin, it says. Match to tea dress. Low heel.

  I study his face. A lock of shaggy hair has fallen over one eye, and my fingers itch to brush it aside so I can see him better. I lean closer.

  Marya was right, I realize, and my stomach gives a little flip. He is very good-looking. I still wouldn’t call him handsome, exactly, because handsome is really just a bland regularity of features. But even in sleep, there is something about Shoe’s face that draws my eye. Maybe it’s the clean line of his jaw, or the set of his mouth, so grim and almost stern when he is awake, but softer now, or the way his stubbornness is belied by the surprising length of his eyelashes.

  The pencil falls from his hand, rattling against the tabletop. His eyes blink open, and he stares at me, barely awake, as if he can’t quite believe that I’m here.

  “Hello,” I whisper, my voice shaking.

  He straightens, rubbing his forehead, making his hair stick up. “Hello,” he says blearily. He shakes his head and his eyes focus. “Pin,” he says more sharply, pushing himself to his feet. “What are you doing here?”

  I steady myself, leaning my hip against the table. “I had to ask again. I want you to come with me.” Carefully I reach out and rest my hand against his chest. Under my fingers I can feel the rough weave of his shirt and then the warmth of his skin, and the accelerating beat of his heart.