Goddess Born Read online

  The carriage came to a stop at the front entrance where I saw our head housekeeper, Mrs. Ryan, waiting to greet us along with the rest of the household staff. In general, we did not stand by such ceremony, and I assumed Mrs. Ryan had called everyone from their duties to welcome the new Master of Brighmor Hall. She had most certainly acted in haste as there could not have been more than a few minutes’ notice before we arrived.

  Alice and Mary, the two chambermaids, wore friendly smiles, while Karta, the cook, appeared her usual somber self. Evie, the scullery maid, was an anxious girl who looked like a nervous child next to Karta’s mountainous form. I studied each of their faces, struck by the realization that, along with Ben, these women were the closest thing I now had to a family.

  Henry stepped out of the carriage and then turned to assist me, his jaw clenching from the strain to his injuries. I released his hand the moment my feet touched the ground, and we stood side by side in the shadow of the big stone manor.

  “Welcome to Brighmor Hall, Mr. Kilbrid,” I said. “Let me present the staff and then you may get situated in your room.”

  Eager to be by myself, I kept the introductions brief before disappearing in through the front door and dashing up the stairs. Without stopping in my own chamber, I continued on to my father’s. Although he had died the day after I left for Philadelphia, and most likely been buried in the family plot by sundown the following day, I needed to be near him somehow, to sit among his things and feel his comfort.

  Mrs. Ryan must have ordered the drapes to be left shut out of respect, but I found little solace in the dark room. Crossing to the windows, I pulled back the heavy panels, hooking each one around the black iron tiebacks to let in the last of the day’s light. Though the sun sat low on the horizon, it chased away the worst of the shadows from the room.

  As in my father’s life, everything remained in perfect order, without a speck of dust in sight. The bed was neatly made, and a single book rested on the nightstand next to a fresh candle, giving the impression of his imminent return. At his dressing table, his hairbrush and comb sat alongside a large porcelain pitcher and bowl, as if he had just used them this very morning. On the other side were his shaving razor and a clean hand towel. Taking a seat at the table, I pulled in a long deep breath that carried my father’s familiar scents. Filled with the heady smells of leather and bergamot, it was easy to imagine that he still lived until my eyes fell on a gold pocket watch toward the back of the table. Resting on a silver tray with his other accessories, it vanquished any remaining doubts of his death—he never left the room without the watch directly on his person.

  I reached out and picked it up. Flipping it open, I read the inscription:

  To my dearest, with all my love

  The sole reason he hadn’t been buried with his beloved watch was because it had once belonged to my maternal grandfather, and my father insisted I would someday want to pass it along to my own husband. At present, this seemed highly unlikely with my fiancé dead, and his proxy being a surly servant bent on hating me. If each girl was allotted only one Prince Charming per lifetime, mine had unfortunately been struck with the palsy and tossed overboard into the Atlantic, along with my best chances of a happily ever after.

  Holding the watch firmly in my hand, I crossed over to the windows to look out over the hundreds of acres of newly sprouted wheat. The past several days had been a whirlwind, leaving me little time for anything other than making it from one minute to the next. Now alone in my father’s room, I felt the magnitude of my situation and knew it would be impossible to run Brighmor by myself. I had minimal knowledge of how to manage labor or keep books, let alone how to successfully grow crops. My cousin, the real Samuel Kilbrid, was supposed to take over all of this upon my father’s death. Overwhelmed by the responsibility, I was just about to sit down and indulge in a much-needed cry when I heard someone approach the door.

  “May I come in?” Henry asked.

  “Of course.” I didn’t move from the windows, and he crossed the room to where I stood. “Is there anything you need?” I asked.

  “Well,” he started hesitantly. “Mrs. Ryan has had my belongings delivered to your room, but I was sure you’d want to make other arrangements.”

  I grimaced, realizing I had neglected to tell her otherwise on my rush into the house. “Yes, I will have your things brought to my brother’s old room.”

  He let out a breath of relief. “Thank you.”

  Unsure if he needed anything else, I looked at him expectantly, but he was staring down at the watch in my hand. “May I see that?” he asked.

  Caught by surprise, and lacking a ready excuse, I reluctantly surrendered the watch. “It belonged to my father,” I said as Henry turned it over in his large hand.

  “It’s an amazing piece. My father has something very similar. I believe this one was made in England.” He opened the lid and read the inscription.

  “Most likely, since it came over with my grandparents. It was supposed to go to my husband when my father died.”

  Henry nodded in response.

  “Oh!” I said suddenly struck by the idea that he may have misunderstood my intentions. “I didn’t mean...the watch was my father’s, and I couldn’t just give it away. I hope you don’t think I was offering it to you.” Good heavens! I sounded like an imbecile, but in my panic the words tumbled out before I could sort them into something less insulting.

  Hazarding a peek at his face, I caught sight of a frown. “I would never assume such a thing,” he said brusquely, handing back the watch. “Please excuse me for interrupting.” He gave a curt bow and left the room.

  Well, that was positively awkward, I thought once he was gone. No denying my words had been clumsy and even offensive, but what else was I supposed to do under the circumstances? I wasn’t about to give up a family heirloom to have it hawked within a week for passage to Boston or even all the way to England. His dignity may have been smarting, but it would mend soon enough—the watch, on the other hand, was irreplaceable.

  Any hopes I had that Henry might forget my rudeness by evening meal were gravely misguided. He spoke not a word to me directly, and the moment his boiled beef and carrots were gone, he excused himself from the table. When the front door shut, I assumed he had gone out for a walk, which suited me fine considering what lousy dinner company he had been. I finished my meal at leisure and then went into the small sitting room to read.

  Two hours passed without sign of Henry, and I found myself glancing out the windows to look for him. It was full dark, and I hoped he hadn’t gotten himself lost, or worse yet, opted to walk all the way back to Philadelphia. Close to midnight I went up to my room, determined to send Ben out in the morning if he hadn’t come back.

  I got ready for bed, but couldn’t sleep a wink. Instead I sat up in an armchair near the empty hearth, jumping at every sound. My mind bounced uncomfortably between worry that he had somehow fallen into trouble and anger at being so quickly abandoned. What if he had discovered the small clearing in the woods? Crossing into the Otherworld carried enough risk, I didn’t need Henry poking around and asking uncomfortable questions about the altar.

  At my wits’ end, I was debating whether to wake Ben rather than waiting till morning when the front door finally opened. Practically holding my breath, I listened as Henry walked up the stairs, coming to a stop right outside my bedroom door. Unsure of his intentions, I picked up a book from the side table, setting it back down with a small bang to let him know I was still awake. A few more seconds passed, and he crossed the hall to his own room.

  For a good while, I sat completely still, wondering what he would do next. It was quite possible that he had been innocently walking for the past four hours, taking in the cool night air before returning home to sleep. It was also equally possible that he had spent the time devising an escape plan and had only returned with the
hopes of finding the house at his disposal.

  My stomach dropped when I thought about my father’s watch sitting unprotected on the silver tray in his room. I had jumped up to retrieve it when I also remembered my mother’s jewelry. Going room by room, I took a mental inventory, from the silver candlesticks sitting out in plain sight to the sword hanging in my father’s study. There were so many valuables scattered throughout the house, it would be ridiculous trying to haul everything to my room.

  Silent as a mouse, I stepped into the hall to listen outside Henry’s door. If all was quiet, chances were he had simply gone to bed and would cause no more trouble tonight, allowing me to think things through in the morning. For a good minute I heard nothing, and it seemed I might have overreacted, when he stirred and began pacing the room.

  Sorely tempted to steal a look through the keyhole, I stumbled upon a cunning plan and scurried down the stairs to my father’s study. The top drawer of his desk held a large ring of keys, each one etched with the name of its correlating lock. Aided by a single candle, I found the one I needed and then slipped back up the stairs. Standing outside of Henry’s room again, I inserted the key into the metal hole and turned the bolt. In an instant he was at the door, testing the iron knob.

  “Selah,” he growled threateningly. “Unlock this door at once!”

  I took a step back and shook my head in reply, heedless that he couldn’t see me through the door. His fist crashed against the wood. I spun around, the key clamped in my hand as I flew back to the safety of my own room.

  Chapter Five

  Truce

  I woke in the midst of a nightmare early the next morning. It was a reoccurring dream that first came to me the night my mother died and had been exactly the same ever since. Dressed in no more than a white linen shift, I was floating on my back in a pool of dark water when a hand suddenly grabbed me from below and pulled me beneath the surface. As I tried to struggle free, the hand tightened, dragging me farther down until I became entangled in the long grass growing up from the muddy floor. Starved for air, my lungs expanded, flooding my nose and mouth with water and bringing me to the very brink of death. At this point the nightmare always withdrew, leaving me gasping for breath and fighting the bedclothes for escape.

  The initial terror abated as I stared out at my room, the familiar objects barely discernible in the dark gray light. Getting out of bed, I pulled on a simple cotton dress, managing the laces the best I could with trembling fingers. After drowning in my sleep at least once a month for the past four years, it should have become somewhat routine, but each time felt like the first. Fresh air was always the best remedy to counter the dream’s residual effects, and luckily I had enough work to keep me busy outdoors for the next several hours at least.

  A shadowy stillness pervaded the main house when I left my room and tiptoed down the stairs to assemble the necessary supplies. Hurrying to the kitchen, which was located in the newer wing with the servants’ quarters, I pushed through the heavy wooden door and stepped from the gloomy silence into an entirely different world. Karta was moving at a frenzied pace, preparing breakfast for a full table of servants and farmhands. Unaccustomed to my presence at so early an hour, their lively chatter stopped the moment I entered.

  “Good morning,” I said cheerfully, pretending not to notice.

  A small chorus of greetings followed in return. I didn’t like intruding on their personal time and meant to be quickly on my way when Evie burst through the cellar door with a fresh crock of butter. She gave a startled cry and dropped the clay pot to the floor where it broke into pieces, spattering both of our skirts with the sticky contents.

  “Ye clumsy girl!” Karta hollered. “Jumping at yer own shadow again. Go fetch another crock and then clean up that mess before someone slips to their death!”

  “Sorry, ma’am,” Evie squeaked, then fled back through the cellar door.

  Good heavens! I’d never met another soul who suffered from such nerves. Grabbing a napkin from a nearby cupboard, I started to wipe the pale yellow bits from my gown.

  Mary dutifully got up from the table to help with the mess.

  “Don’t bother yourself, Mary,” I said. “Have your breakfast while it’s still warm. This dress will be soiled from top to bottom by the time I’m done today.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Mary said. “I’ll see to it this evening then.”

  More than a dozen pair of eyes watched me as I grabbed two hardboiled eggs and a small jug of cider before continuing on down the corridor into the next room.

  Small in comparison to the other rooms in the house, this insignificant space served as my private sanctuary. Most people referred to it as my apothecary, but the term fell short in describing all that it was for me.

  A well-worn wooden table stood in the center of the room, on which rested a mortar and pestle, a set of scales, and numerous leather journals containing the recipes for remedies passed down from my mother and grandmother. Shelves lined one wall, holding all manner of jars filled with tinctures, decoctions, and finely ground herbs. The wall adjoining the kitchen was primarily taken up with a stone fireplace and an assortment of iron pots and kettles that ranged in size from a few cupfuls to one large enough to boil a bushel of licorice, pennyroyal and yarrow during the grippe season. Numerous bundles of healing plants, collected during the fall and this past spring, hung from hooks that Ben had nailed into the long wooden beams that ran along the length of ceiling. On the only exterior wall there was one good-sized window and a door that led out to my herb garden.

  From under the table I fetched a large basket to hold my breakfast provisions along with a hand trowel, gloves and clippers. I then grabbed my straw hat, plunking it on my head as I went out the door. Ben had offered to give Henry a full tour of the property this morning, which was fine by me—I had other things to do.

  First, I planned to visit the family burial plot to pay proper respect to my father and other family members. Out of habit, I dallied on the way to gather a large bundle of wild flowers, and the sun was just rising when I reached the spiked iron fence that enclosed the plot in a generous square. The gate swung open with a creaked greeting, and I continued forward in search of solace amongst the deceased.

  Over the years the graves of my mother and grandparents had become a familiar sight, but the newly turned dirt over my father made my eyes sting hot with tears. Determined to be strong, I brushed them away with my gloves. Then taking the trowel and clippers from the basket, I knelt down to weed and trim the grass. This was no small job, and my arms ached and dark patches of sweat showed on my gown by the time I had finished. Removing my filthy gloves, I arranged the flowers into bouquets and placed one on each grave.

  Pleased with how it looked, I sat down to rest and to eat. My stomach grumbled loudly, and although the eggs and cider were not a feast by any means, they would suffice until I got back to the house.

  A narrow strip of grass ran between my parents’ graves, offering just enough room to stretch out for what needed to be done next. Lying flat on my back, I stared up at the clear, blue sky and started recounting all that had happened since my father had died. My confession was thorough from beginning to end. I apologized for my poor behavior, promising to do better just as soon as everything was resolved with Nathan Crowley. Unsure if they could actually hear me in the next life, I talked anyway, on and on until my eyes grew heavy with sleep and I dozed off in the shade of the towering oaks that stood sentry around the graveyard. The sun hung high in the sky when I finally woke. With my conscience greatly relieved, I bid my family farewell and headed off into the forest.

  To be sure, I wanted to visit the Otherworld next, but it was too dangerous in the daytime, no matter how well the altar might be hidden. So instead, I spent the next several hours in search of healing plants that thrived on my family’s estate, most likely from the power that seeped out each time t
he altar was used to open a passage between the worlds. Over the years the surrounding woods and farmland had become infused with this power, giving us not only an abundance of highly potent plants, but also the best wheat in all of Pennsylvania. As a result, my father had always received the highest prices at market while my remedies were considered a staple to many folks in Hopewell and the surrounding villages.

  Susanna Appleton was expecting a baby this summer and would want raspberry leaf tea to help with the labor. Lucy Goodwin, the mother of my best friend Nora, suffered regularly from depression and needed more tincture of St. John’s wort. Then there was Gideon Boyle, who complained often of indigestion. He swore by the healing benefits of my marrow tea, which he much preferred to skipping second helpings of his wife’s delicious pies. While searching for these plants, I also stumbled on a cluster of catnip to aid with fevers and headaches and some fine looking sumac leaves for poultices. My basket brimmed full when I returned home in the afternoon.

  Subsisting on nothing more than two eggs and cider since morning, I left the basket on the wooden table in my apothecary and went into the kitchen, drawn by the smell of freshly baked bread. Karta looked up from chopping onions when I entered. Evie stood with her back to me, pumping a small bellows into the oven.

  “Good day,” I said. Loaves of bread rested on the table and I cut a piece along with a thick slice of cheese.

  “Good day, Mistress,” Karta said, but in such an odd tone it caught my attention at once.

  Evie only peeped at me nervously before turning back to her work.

  “Is there something the matter?” I asked.

  Just then Alice came in with a bundle of laundry on her way to the washroom. “Oh, goodness,” she said, coming to a halt, her voice sounding as queer as Karta’s had the moment before.

  I looked between the two of them, their eyes gone wide as they exchanged glances and tried to communicate without actually speaking. “It’s none of our concern,” Karta said at last, so quietly the words almost went unheard. She pursed her mouth and continued chopping onions.