The Greykeep Chronicles

It was Faelan who made us decide.

He came to our door at seven on Friday morning, the day after Io and Lexander went home, in his nightshirt and Roderic’s blue scarf, with the green ledger held flat in both hands the way he’d held it the morning Ansel’s page went gray. He knocked three times. When I opened the door he didn’t say anything. He just held the ledger up, open, so I could see.

It was my son’s page.

Faelan made it the day he was born. Uriah. Son of Garrick and Seraphina. And in the middle column, where you write what someone does, Faelan had written, in an eight-year-old’s careful hand: Says Up. And on the right, under favorite thing: Jam.

It had balanced for a year and a half. A baby is mostly up and jam.

This morning there was something else in the middle column. Under Says Up. In a hand that wasn’t Faelan’s, or anyone’s. Fine and gold and very faint, like the thread in Helena’s blanket, as if the page had written it on itself in the night.

Keeps people warm.

* * *

”I didn’t write that,” said Faelan.

”I know.”

”Nobody wrote that. It was there when I woke up. The page doesn’t balance anymore. There’s something on it that wasn’t before, and it’s heavy, and it’s gold.” He looked up at me with his enormous gray eyes. ”Garrick. What did he do?”

* * *

I stood in the doorway with my brother looking up at me, and the house waking up around us, and I thought: this is how it’s going to be.

We’d told my father and my mother and Adriana. We’d told Io and Lexander. Carol knew, and Ignatius, and Helena, and Aurelia. Mary had it on a page that only she knew the place of. And we’d thought, the four of us at the kitchen table at four in the morning, that that was enough. That we could hold it there, small and close, until we knew what it was.

And now it was in Faelan’s ledger. Because Faelan’s ledger always balances, and a boy who keeps people warm is heavier than up and jam.

You can’t hide a thing like that in a house like ours. Not for long. The house itself starts writing it down.

”Come in,” I said to my brother. ”I’ll tell you. And then we’re going to have to tell everyone else. And then we’re going to have to decide what everyone means.”

* * *

We met at ten, in our sitting room again, because my father still said the south solar was too big for it. It was very crowded. My parents. All seven of us children; Mirelle on Roderic’s knee because there was nowhere else, Faelan on the floor with the ledger, Elenos by the window with his eyes half closed, listening the way he does. Seraphina and Ignatius. Helena in the passage doorway. Aurelia by the fire. Mary, at the little writing table, with no book open in front of her at all. Just her hands, folded.

And Grandpa Garrick, in his old brown cardigan, holding the half-carved horse he always has in his pocket, turning it over and over.

”So,” said my father. ”A secret.”

He said the word the way you’d pick up something you’d found in the grass and weren’t sure was safe to touch.

* * *

”We don’t have secrets,” said Carol.

She was on the window seat with her knees up. She said it quite quietly. But everyone in the room went still.

”We don’t,” she said. ”That’s the whole house. Mary writes everything down. Anyone can read it. The Castellan logs every door. The Thursday hearings are open to anyone in the kingdom. When Ansel had something to tell, he told all of us. When Aurelia had a secret, she sat in front of everyone and gave it away.” She looked around the room. ”The only people I’ve ever known who keep secrets are on the other side of the sea. Malachar. Kessavel. The man who holds a name inside a hollow god so it can’t ever be said.” Her voice was very steady. ”That’s what secrets are for. Holding.”

Nobody answered for a while.

* * *

”There’s a difference,” said Adriana.

Everyone turned. She was on the settle beside my father, with her reading face on, the one that finds the clause the writer was ashamed of.

”Between a secret,” said Adriana, ”and something that’s kept private.” She looked at Carol. ”A secret is kept from someone. Against them. To have something they don’t. That’s what he does. That’s holding.” She paused. ”Something private is kept for someone. On their behalf. Until they’re old enough to decide what to do with it themselves.”

Carol looked at her.

”Your mother does it every day,” said Adriana. ”Don’t you, Evelyn.”

My mother nodded slowly. ”Every woman who’s ever come into the infirmary,” she said, ”and told me something she didn’t want her husband to know. Every man who’s told me he’s afraid. I don’t write those in Mary’s book. I don’t tell your father. I keep them. For them.” She looked at the nursery door. ”That’s not holding. That’s being trusted with something.”

* * *

”He can’t decide,” said Carol. ”He’s not two. He can’t tell us whether he wants anyone to know.”

”No,” said my father. ”Not yet.”

He got up and went to the nursery door, and stood there looking in, the way he’s stood every time since Thursday.

”So we keep it for him,” he said. ”Until he can. That’s all. Not from anyone. For him.” He turned around. ”And the day he’s old enough to stand on the hearthrug with his hands on his hips and tell us what he wants done with it, he decides. Not us. Him.” He looked at Carol. ”Is that holding?”

Carol was quiet for a long time.

”No,” she said at last. ”That’s Mary’s separate page.”

At the little writing table, Mary didn’t say anything. But her folded hands tightened, just slightly.

* * *

”Then who knows?” said Caitlin.

She had the blue book open on her knee. Of course she did. She’d already ruled two columns.

”Everyone in this room,” said my father. ”Io and Lexander. That’s the household.” He paused. ”The family.”

”And the Castellan,” said Roderic.

”And the Castellan.”

”And Melody,” said Mary quietly. ”If I’m keeping something, she’ll know I’m keeping something. She always does. I’d rather she knew what.”

”And Melody.”

”What about everyone else?” said Caitlin, and began reading down a list she’d already written. ”Ansel. He lives here. Iselle. She lives here. Saba. Wend. Loki, half the time. Thor, the other half. Selvane, when she’s not at Ternhollow.” She looked up. ”They all live under this roof. They all knocked. Are they household?”

* * *

That was the hardest part. I’d known it would be.

Because they were. Every one of them. Ansel had sat on the stone with me at midnight. Iselle had opened her own hands in the lesser hall. Wend had drunk his first cup of tea in Helena’s kitchen. They’d all knocked, and been let in, and stayed.

And every one of them had been close to the hand. Ansel had been taught to reach by it. Wend had carried for it. Iselle and Saba were its blood.

”I won’t decide that for them,” said my father. ”That’s theirs. We’ll ask.”

”Ask what?” said Faelan.

”Whether they want to know,” said my father.

* * *

We asked that afternoon. One by one. My father and I.

Ansel first. In his chair by the Council door, with his hands folded on his knees. My father knocked on the doorframe and said, ”Ansel. There’s something in the house. Something about my grandson. It’s being kept for him. Would you like to know what it is? You can say no.”

Ansel looked at him for a long time.

”Is he safe?” he said.

”Yes.”

”Is it his?”

”Yes.”

”Then no,” said Ansel. ”Thank you. No.” He looked down at his hands. ”I was Othellos for a thousand years. I don’t know everything that’s still at the bottom of me. I’d rather not put anything down there that someone might come looking for.” He looked up. ”Ask me again when he’s old enough to tell me himself.”

* * *

Iselle was in the orchard with Roderic and Saba, picking the last of the apples. My father asked her the same way.

She stood very still with an apple in her hand.

”It’s about the fire,” she said. ”Isn’t it. The gold. I saw it under your door on Wednesday night. I thought I was dreaming.”

My father didn’t say anything.

”No,” said Iselle. ”Don’t tell me.” She put the apple in the basket very carefully. ”My father is the hand. My brother is the hand’s son. If anyone ever comes for me, and they might, they will, I want to be able to stand in front of them and say I don’t know and have it be true.” She looked at my father. ”That’s the only kind of not-knowing that’s worth anything. The kind that’s real.”

”Iselle,” said Roderic.

”I’m all right,” said Iselle. ”I’m choosing it. That’s different.”

* * *

Saba didn’t answer the question at all. She looked at my father, and at me, and put down her basket, and said:

”May I tell you something instead?”

”Please.”

”When my daughter was born,” said Saba, ”and her father ran, I knew she had something in her that he was afraid of. I didn’t know what. I just knew someone would come looking for it one day.” She looked at her own hands. ”So I taught her to hide it. Fists, little fish. Every day. Close your hands. Don’t let anyone see. Keep it small.” She looked up at me. ”It kept her safe. It did. And it took her twenty years and a whole country and a boy in an orchard to open them again.”

Iselle had gone very quiet beside her.

”Whatever you do to keep your son’s thing safe,” said Saba, ”don’t teach him to hide it. Hide it around him. Build the walls on the outside. Not in his hands.” She picked up her basket again. ”That’s all. I don’t need to know what it is. I already know what it costs.”

* * *

Wend said no before my father had finished asking. ”I carried things,” he said. ”For a long time. I don’t want to carry anything else. Not even good things.” And then, after a moment: ”Is he warm?”

”Yes,” said my father.

”Good,” said Wend. ”That’s enough.”

Thor said ”Aye,” before he’d finished asking too, and then, ”Wait. Yes or no? I meant yes. He’s my nephew. I’m in.” And then she cried, which Thor does more often than people think, and blew her nose on her sleeve, and said, ”Gold. Of course it is. Of course it’s gold.”

* * *

And Loki.

Loki said yes. Then he said: ”You’ll want me. You know you will. You’ve got a thing that’s hard to hide in a house that’s never hidden anything. You need someone who thinks like the other side.” He sighed. ”I’d like it noted that I’m doing it for the baby, and not because I enjoy it.”

”Noted,” said my father.

”I enjoy it enormously,” said Loki.

* * *

So that night we built the walls. On the outside. The way Saba said.

* * *

The Castellan was first.

My father went down to the inner court at dusk and stood in front of it, with its lights going soft gold in the evening, and told it. All of it. The Castellan listened without flickering once.

”I will not log it,” it said, when he’d finished.

”Thank you.”

”You misunderstand,” said the Castellan. ”I do not mean I will begin not logging it. I mean I have never logged it. I have never logged the nursery.” Its lights flickered once. ”Since the first child. Since Carol and Garrick. The nursery is not a room I report. It is a room I keep.” A pause. ”I should have liked to tell you that sooner. Nobody asked.”

My father stood there in the court for a long time.

”I’m asking now,” he said. ”Is there anything else you keep?”

”Yes,” said the Castellan. ”But it is not mine to tell. It belongs to the people I keep it for.”

* * *

Eleanor came at nine, with her spectacles and her chalk and a small wooden case of the little brass wards she puts in windows. She didn’t ask what it was for. My father had told her only the nursery, please, and the windows on that side, and I’m sorry I can’t tell you why yet, and she’d said, ”That’s all right. You’ll tell me when you can,” and come up the stairs with her case.

She set three wards in the nursery window. One in each corner and one in the middle, where the lead comes together. Small brass discs, each one cut with a pattern I couldn’t follow.

”What do they do?” said Seraphina.

”Most wards keep things out,” said Eleanor. ”These keep things in. Not people. Not doors.” She tapped the middle one with her chalk. ”Light. Warmth. Sound, a little. Anything that might go out through the glass and be noticed by something listening on the other side.” She looked at me over her spectacles. ”You told me once, Garrick. At Westmere. On the sand. You said you felt something listening for fire.”

I had. I’d forgotten I’d told her.

”I’ve thought about that every night since,” said Eleanor. ”Now I’ve got something to do about it.” She snapped the case shut. ”There. If anything’s out there listening, all it’ll hear from this window is a baby asleep.”

* * *

Carol did her lamp.

She stood under it in the nursery, the little plum-sized light on its silver thread, and reached up and put her hand around it without touching. And it brightened. Not much. Just a little more white. Just enough.

”If he lights up at night,” she said, ”anyone who sees the light under the door will see white. My white. The way they always have.” She took her hand away. ”A lamp to hide a lamp.” She looked at the cradle. ”He won’t mind. He likes my light. He’ll just think it’s being friendly.”

* * *

And Loki did the lie.

”Rule three,” he said, sitting on the end of our bed with his knees up. ”A good lie has to be something the other person wants to believe. What does every person in Havenreach already believe about this family?”

”That we’re strange,” said Seraphina.

”That you’re on fire,” said Loki. ”You. Specifically. The Concordian princess with the First Flame, who went into the canal last week, whose hands half the city’s frightened of.” He spread his own. ”So if anyone outside this room ever sees gold near that boy, gold light, gold warmth, a gold spark on a sleeve, they’re already going to think one thing. That’s his mother’s.”

Seraphina looked at him.

”It’s not a lie, quite,” said Loki. ”It’s just letting them believe what they already want to. You stand near him. You carry him. You let your own fire show a little more than you usually do, in public, when he’s on your hip.” He shrugged. ”Your fire’s very loud, Sera. It’ll stand in front of his like a coat on a hook. Nobody will look behind it.”

”That’s horrible,” said Seraphina.

”That’s why it works,” said Loki.

She was quiet for a long moment.

”I’ve spent my whole life keeping my hands in my pockets,” she said. ”So that nobody would be afraid of what was in them.”

”I know,” said Loki gently. ”I’m asking you to take them out. For him. You can say no.”

Seraphina looked at the nursery door.

”No,” she said. ”I mean yes. I’ll take them out.”

* * *

And Elenos listened.

That was his idea. He came up at midnight, when everything else was done, and asked if he could sit in the nursery for an hour. ”I’d like to hear the house,” he said. ”With the wards in. To make sure.” So I let him, and sat with him, and he sat on the floor by the cradle with his eyes closed and his hands in his lap and listened.

After an hour he opened his eyes.

”There’s nothing listening,” he said. ”Not in here. Not in the east range. Not anywhere I can hear.” He paused. ”There’s something listening at Westmere. Far off. The black stone in Tamar’s washtub. It’s always been listening. But it can’t hear this far, now. The wards stop it at the glass.” He looked at the cradle. ”All it’ll hear from here is him breathing.”

”What does he sound like?” I said. ”To you. When you listen.”

Elenos thought about it for a long time. He doesn’t answer that kind of question quickly; he says most things sound sad when you listen properly, and he likes to be sure.

”Like a hearth,” he said at last. ”In a house where everyone’s come home.”

* * *

Faelan was the last.

He came in at half past twelve, in his nightshirt, though he’d been sent to bed three hours before. He had the ledger. He opened it to my son’s page, and laid it on the floor by the cradle, and looked at the gold line in the middle column.

Keeps people warm.

”I can’t cross it out,” he said. ”I tried. It won’t. It’s true.” He looked at me. ”But anyone who reads the ledger will see it. And people do read it. The gods always want to see their own page.”

”What do you want to do?” I said.

Faelan thought about it.

Then he took a small square of plain paper out of his nightshirt pocket. He’d cut it very carefully, with Mother Adriana’s scissors, exactly the size of the middle column. And he folded it once, and slid it into the ledger over the gold line, like a little door. You could lift it. It wasn’t stuck. But it covered the words.

And on the outside of the little paper door, in his roundest hand, he’d written: Says Up.

”There,” he said. ”It’s still there. It’s still true. It’s just got a door on it. You have to knock to see.” He looked at the page for a long moment. And his face did the thing it does when a sum comes out. ”It balances,” he said. ”It balances with the door.”

* * *

Mary didn’t say anything all day. She’d sat at the little writing table in our sitting room through the whole of the morning with no book in front of her, and gone back to the library at noon, and I hadn’t seen her since.

I went down at one in the morning. She was still there. At her desk. With the black book open, and her pen in her hand, writing the day.

She looked up when I knocked.

”Is it kept?” I said.

”It’s kept,” said Mary.

She didn’t tell me where. I didn’t ask. She went back to writing. And after a while, without looking up, she said:

”Your father asked me, when you were born, to promise him someone would always write it down. Every year since, I’ve thought that meant everything. Every word.” She dipped her pen. ”This week I’ve learned it means the important things. In the right order. At the right time.” She went on writing. ”I’m not young, Garrick. I’d have liked to have learned that sooner.”

* * *

Mary’s book. The public one.

Friday. A quiet day in the east range.

Eleanor set wards in the nursery windows. She didn’t ask why. She said we’d tell her when we could.

The Castellan has never logged the nursery. Nobody asked. It would have liked to say so sooner.

Loki, at midnight: ”I’d like it noted that I’m doing it for the baby.”

Faelan made a little paper door.

The dragon rang noon on time.

And under that, there wasn’t a line in anyone’s hand. Not that day. Just a small round smudge at the bottom of the page, right in the middle. A thumbprint. Jam, mostly, by the color of it, from a very small thumb that had been allowed, for the first time, to put something in the black book of its own.

Mary showed it to me the next morning. I put my finger on it.

It was very slightly warm.

Only if you were looking.