Chapter 1: To be Eaten by Wolves Under a Riot of Stars

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Chapter 1

To be Eaten by Wolves Under a Riot of Stars

There are two trees. It would be helpful if the trees in question did not look like every other perfectly normal non ceremonial tree in a vast forest, but that would have been playing fair and this forest is not and never has been playing.

Lady Constantine takes a blade from her skirts drawing it across her left palm. A branch reaches out for her hand. To a less careful eye they could be old friends reunited.

Two headstones rise one on either side of her skirts. She does not look at them or read their epitaphs. It is not their custom. She has broken tradition once and regretted it. Never again. Her new name will be obvious as soon as her sister sees her and her old one is worn thin.

She removes her clothing. Each piece shed and discarded with only a soft echo of stars to observe. Her clothing drifts, shrouding the headstones. Her sister is waiting, as said the note from the hawk. Agitation where there should be calm sensible word. Adjectives where there should be clarity. Sentiment where instructions should be clear. Turns of phrase that could only be clarified with a visit.

The blood debt was paid now she had entrance. Entrance, but not safe passage.

To be eaten by wolves under an infinite sky of stars. If only she did not have to make this foolish journey into a woods that pricked at her fingertips and bled her feet. If it were possible to avert this journey Lady Constantine would lay down under an anarchy of stars and call the wolves herself. Meeting with her sister left a dread and a metallic distaste in her mouth, though that might be the penny she lay under her tongue. No matter what she wished, the box exists and her sister holds it close and closed. Nothing was in the box, if an unfathomable void was nothing.

The deals we make in the end often echo what we promise and swear we would never do. At the beginnings we make very different promises. Ask for useless things and swear sillier oaths. Babes in the woods succulent, silly, and meandering in bright clothing. Shining eyes and babbling feelings. Ignorant to what they, what we, what I  will do gladly before they arrive at the cottage in the woods.

The Manor was many things since it appeared and presently is a boarding school for young ladies of certain abilities. Stones built themselves around a story of a box holding the void. As the manor grew into itself so did a forest and a lake hospitable to creatures who were best left behind in the margins of myths and fantasies. The woods made a modest cottage where the girl with the box preferred to reside with her two geese and a pet rabbit. The cottage far from the boarding school should not have felt the magic that preserved the structures out of time and out of place, aging, unravelling, and yellowing at the edges.

Even the professors who were with her the longest remained ignorant of the boundaries and horizons of the estate. Something changed when the last parcel of books was purchased at auction by one of her less respectable sources. As she read the auction catalogue, black stars glittered in her eyes. When she arranged the call her tea turned colorless, then the cream and steam yellowed into a painting of midnight horrors. Now, now the next group of girls were expected and there were things that refused to remain buried.

          When the school term ended the girls who were brave enough, clever enough to solve the labyrinth ended up here at her sister’s cottage to face the ultimate test of their fortitude. The final test.  The newly graduated students drank their tea and were given their book. The one that matched the shade of their skin. The book that each chapter began with a drawing of the ring they wore. The one that told their story from beginning to end.             

            Occasionally, if the young woman was a favorite, of value, or if it was an extraordinary occasion when there was nothing better to do Lady Constantine joined these unusual book readings. If merely to observe and pretend at silly things: feeding the geese, catching up with the rabbit, and taunting the newest kittens.

After a month, a year, or a decade in the farthest region of the library the young woman’s book appeared. The volumes always leather bound with the graduate’s name engraved in gold on the spine. She never opened these books possessing a vague thought of it being forbidden, and after a few centuries even avoided searching for the books. Where her charges went, what their purpose, and outcome was not a secret and Lady Constantine wished not to know why the book was in her care again. Curiosity and imagination were her sister’s peculiarities, Lady Constantine preferred facts and plain truths if they could be discovered.