Haven (War of the Princes) (4 page)

Getting to my small room, I dropped my sopping wet jacket beside my desk and flopped onto the pile of cloud shaped pillows on my bed. One by one, I threw them against the wall until my arms were tired.

I realized after it was too late that I was still soaked from my leap into the lake. Now the sheets and blankets on my bed were wet too. In that moment it struck me that my family hadn’t found it odd that I was fully clothed and drenched from head to toe.

I put on a sleeveless white linen nightgown, sat in my desk chair and used the mirror to help me braid my long black hair. As usual, I tried to ignore the light spattering of freckles that marred my cheeks. I was the only person in the family with them. They were like a big, bright flag reminding me of why I was different. Thanks for nothing, Mother.

Like I would often do, I pulled a square of clay from my drawer and began molding it into a fat little bird. This one looked like a partridge. I had dozens of them on my desk. There were herons and hawks, sparrows and crows, cardinals and owls, all with little sticks for feet. I guess you could say it was my hobby, just a little quirk that almost no one knew about. My real mother had made me one before she left. It was a hen. I wasn’t making them for her, I just enjoyed it.

I caught the movement of a tear rolling down my cheek in the mirror and glared at it as though it was my mortal enemy. People like Calvin and my Mother didn’t deserve tears.

Taking a deep breath I wiped my red eyes, put the new little bird aside and forced myself to finish my homework assignments. I thought about going to sleep straight away, but it would only speed me toward the agony of tomorrow. I needed a distraction, something to keep me going.

I drummed my fingers on the cover of The Settling of
Rivermarch
.

There was a world outside of Haven Valley that no one had seen in seven hundred years, a world that no one thought to document as they fled into the Valley and destroyed the only opening. Calvin’s lies were no match for such a vast box of secrets.

Biting the bottom of my lip, I considered the idea of looking for a way out of Haven Valley. My knack for finding things might help me, but how well would my luck hold up to something as huge as this?

It wasn’t like I’d go out, anyway. I’d just find the
way
out if there was one. It was just simple curiosity. My mind was made up.

In a sudden rush, I threw on some pants, pulled on a pair of elbow-length, purple, fingerless gloves, and flung a hooded coat over my
nighty
. My boots were missing. It didn’t take me long to find them. In fact it took me just as long to find them as it would have taken if I knew where they were all along. That gave me heart. If there was a path out of Haven Valley, I would find it.

Digging through my closet I grabbed my leather satchel and an old, round, rusty iron lantern. It may not have been state of the art, but it was the only one I had that was small enough to carry comfortably, and it fit in my pack.

           
Silent as a shadow, I crept out of my room into the dark hallway just to run face first into my dad. I almost had a heart attack.

           
“Good night Bug,” he said, kissing me on the forehead, completely unperturbed by the fact that I was sneaking around the house, wearing a
nighty
, mismatched with outwear and a round lantern peeking out of my open satchel. “Don’t be late for school tomorrow. But if you are, I can tell them you were sick. Diarrhea this time, just so we both have our facts straight.”

           
“Dad!” I objected. Sometimes I wished he’d yell at me and send me to my room for a change.

           
“Well, Bug, there are only so many times a person can have the stomach flu,” he said, wandering down the hall to his room.

           
I sighed, descended the stairs to the kitchen, and packed some bandages, matches, a spare pocket watch, a bottle of water, and three wrapped sandwiches that Mom had made for tomorrow. She always kept extras fresh and ready at hand.

It was best to be prepared. There was a very strong chance I’d be traveling quite a distance, not that I planned on going all the way tonight. The foothills alone were a good two hour ride away.

Making my way down to the bottom floor, I tacked up
Grendel
, our grouchy piebald gelding with mismatched eyes. Molly, our sorrel mare, whickered lazily, probably grateful I wasn’t taking
her
out at this dark hour.

I mounted
Grendel
, who grunted noisily as he always did, and we made our way out onto the dimly lit street.

The clouds had sunk lower, so much closer to
Rivermarch’s
stacked cottages than they had been when I was outside, little over an hour ago. The street lamps that hung from their crooked poles rocked ever so slightly in the lazy breeze. Their glow was dim and they were spread far enough apart that one could still see the stars on a clear night. The way was lit brightly enough for
Grendel
to see, and that was all that mattered.

Light spilled out of some houses, while others remained dark, and I could hear laughter and music wafting out of a Pub on a far away corner. Any peace officers or constables on duty would be joking and gossiping at the station. If you saw an officer patrolling the street at this time of night, he was probably looking for a beer. For a girl riding alone on the streets, there was no reason for fear and it didn’t even occur to me to be worried.

“If there is a nearby passage to the outside world, where are you?” I said aloud, as if speaking to a ghost. Asking questions wouldn’t make a difference, there wouldn’t be any kind of reply or enlightened picture of where to go. I just went, and it usually ended with me finding something.

Little drops of rain pattered on my hair. Rain in Haven Valley was a lot like my father’s temper: mild and unthreatening. At its fiercest, it was little more than a heavy drizzle. I pulled up my hood anyway and smiled. I loved the rain.

Grendel
trundled down Market Street, over a bridge beside
Plumwedge
Watermill, through
Falwich
Gardens and
Dallon
Square, and even had to trot very quickly through Mayor
Fasteer’s
back lawn. Just when I thought that I’d be on my way to the main road leading out of the city to the Mountains, or one of the other towns, I turned, just because I knew that I should.

Bewildered at the odd direction of my own path, I rode past Garth
Greywater’s
old vineyard. I knew this route would take me beyond the town’s graveyard. What I didn’t expect was my sudden desire to cross under its gate.

“You have to be kidding me,” I mumbled.
Grendel
grunted, maybe in agreement.

Haven Valley might be a safe place to live, but that didn’t mean we didn’t have nightmares, believe in monsters as children, or have a healthy fear of dead people in the dark.

I thought maybe we’d wend our way through and come out on the street on the other side. Maybe I was hoping, but it didn’t do me much good. I rode
Grendel
down the narrow cobblestone pathway that cut through rows of tombstones and angel statues. The trees here were limp and dreary, the flowers clustering around the graves were dead or colorless in the near dark, and stream-fed ponds were stagnant and overgrown.

Grendel’s
hooves clattered over a short bridge and momentarily interrupted the chorus of toads in the murky waters below.

My skin prickled at the sound of critters rustling in the tree branches, just out of reach of the light from the sparse lampposts. Traveling out there alone was too much for my imagination to handle gracefully. I startled at the slightest provocation, expecting to see ghosts or ghouls drifting from their resting places at any moment.

We came to a halt in the center of the cemetery, surrounded by lesser tombs, facing
Rivermarch’s
Mausoleum. It was a building constructed entirely of the hardest white stone. There were no windows or doors. It was well known as the oldest section of the graveyard, and because there was no way in or out, there was no proof that it was actually a Mausoleum; none aside from the bold etchings that framed each wall reading, “HOUSE OF THE SLUMBERING DEAD.” It wasn’t a great mystery why no one had found a way inside.

Suddenly my desire to find a path to the outside world was as damp as my hood.

Grendel
stamped a hoof and shocked me back into focus.

It occurred to me then that as far as I knew, no one had ever looked for what I was looking for. Curiosity reinforced my resolve.

I dismounted, leading
Grendel
beneath the shelter of a gazebo beside the Mausoleum and left him happily nibbling overgrown flowers.

As I paced around the
doorless
, windowless structure, I found myself wishing I wasn’t quite so good at finding things. My own cowardly sentiment wasn’t enough to stop me from crawling into the bushes beside one wall.

           
My discovery was a gaping, wide hole that tunneled under the wall. I’d seen burrows like this before, and they always belonged to badgers.

           
 
“What am I
doing
?” I asked myself, lighting my little round lantern with trembling hands.

           
Peeking back through the bushes, I saw
Grendel
, contentedly munching flowers, completely neutral to the fact that his rider was about to climb into the oldest tomb in
Rivermarch
.

           
I took a deep breath of fresh air and hoped the badgers that created this passage weren’t home.

Chapter 6: Inside

           
Just as I’d hoped, the burrow was a short tunnel that dipped under the wall and up through crumbled floor tiles within the mausoleum. Lucky for me it was so wide. I was able to scoot right through without much trouble, avoiding a branch tunnel that probably led to the badger’s actual den.

           
I resurfaced on the other side coughing and wishing it hadn’t been raining. My clothes were covered in dirt and mud. I did my best to dust myself off and wipe my eyes, then held up the lantern high to get a better look around.

           
The air was close and stale like nothing I’d breathed before.

           
The inside was mostly unadorned, and square, with a very high, cobweb clouded ceiling. It was just what you would have imagined if you were standing on the outside, only there were no coffins. On the far side of the room, a patch of darkness on the floor consumed the dim light of my lantern. When I’d peered at it long enough, I realized its shadows hid a stairwell leading down. My heart beat faster.

           
Pacing, I bit my knuckles and fretted, staring at the ominous black passage through the floor that was my only way forward. My courage waned. Wasn’t it enough that I was here... alone? I backed up and bumped against the wall behind me. Something crunched under my heel. A chill washed down my spine like someone spilled a bucket of ice cold water on my back. It was a rodent skeleton, our friend badger’s meal.

           
The thick walls and ceiling were oppressive, like a great, square monster of stone, poised to smother me. I loathed feeling trapped.
 
There were no windows, no doors, only that badger hole to let me out. My breathing was getting out of hand, and I had to struggle not to hyperventilate as I peered down at the staircase.

           
Was the blackness getting closer? I couldn’t tell. Was it oozing its way nearer, ready to lash me into its deep shadow and drag me down the stairwell? Forcing myself to blink, I concentrated on taking slow, deep breaths.

           
“Get a grip Katelyn,” I told myself aloud. “You aren’t some kid who’s afraid of the dark. You’ve explored every inch of
Rivermarch
… except for this.”

           
The sound of my own voice comforted me, and made me feel a little less alone.

           
“One step in front of the other,” I muttered, shuffling toward the stairs and the sinister darkness that pooled there.

           
When I reached them, I held my lantern out. My light trickled down the cracked stone steps and stopped at a wall where the stairwell turned.

           
“Just down some stairs,” I said to myself, trying to make my voice confident. Reaching the wall was my goal, I could make it that far. The longer I hesitated to descend, the more I felt like my back was exposed to the rest of the room. It would be so easy for something to attack me from behind. All it would take was a simple push and I’d go crashing down the stairs to an early grave.

           
At least no one would have to bury me. My chuckle was nervous and shallow.

           
After four measured breaths, I stepped cautiously down, then leaned against the wall and let the stone comfort me. Nothing could sneak up behind me. I glanced at the two crooks of stairs, one leading back up, the other further into the deep darkness. I fought the overwhelming urge to want to run all the way home to my bed and throw myself under the covers.