The Petrified Flesh Read online

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  Albert Chanute was standing behind the counter, wearing a grim expression, as Jacob entered the dingy taproom. Chanute was such a gross hulk of a man that people suspected him of having Troll blood running through his veins, not a compliment in Mirrorworld. But until the Ogre had chopped off his arm, Albert Chanute had been the best treasure hunter in all of Austry, and for many years now Jacob had been his apprentice. Chanute had shown him how to gather fame and fortune behind the mirror, and in return Jacob had prevented the Ogre from hacking off Chanute’s head.

  The mementos of his glory days covered the walls of the taproom: the head of a Brown Wolf, the oven door from a gingerbread house, a cudgel-in-the-sack that jumped off the wall whenever a guest misbehaved, and, right above the bar, hanging from the chains with which he used to bind his victims, the right arm of the Ogre who had ended Chanute’s treasure-hunting days. The bluish skin still shimmered like a lizard’s hide.

  “Look who’s here!” Chanute’s grouchy mouth actually stretched into a smile. “I thought you were in Lotharaine, looking for an Hourglass.”

  While Chanute had once been legendary as a treasure hunter, Jacob had now gained an equally famous reputation in that line of work, and the three men, sitting at one of the stained tables, were curious and lifted their heads.

  “Get rid of them!” Jacob whispered across the counter. “I have to talk to you.”

  Then he climbed the worn stairs to Chanute’s guest rooms. Jacob had rented one years ago to keep some things safe, when he was traveling. There was no place he called home, neither in this or the other world. He always yearned for unknown places, secrets revealed, treasures found… there was so much he still hadn’t seen. And it felt like home to travel with Fox by his side.

  A Wishing Table, a Glass Slipper, the golden ball of a Princess—most of the treasures Jacob had found in this world, he had sold to kings and queens, or rich men and women, whose wishes only magic could fulfill. Some, though, he had kept for himself in the chest, which was hidden under the bed in the small room and had been made by a Troll, whose talents as a carpenter were legend. The objects guarded by his masterly carvings were the tools of Jacob’s trade. Now they would have to help him save his brother.

  The first item he took out of the chest was a handkerchief made of simple linen. When it was rubbed between two fingers, it reliably produced one or two gold sovereigns. Jacob had received it years ago from a Dark Witch in exchange for a kiss that had burned his lips for weeks. The other items he packed into his knapsack looked just as innocuous: a silver snuffbox, a brass key, a tin plate, and a small bottle made of green glass. Each had saved his life on more than one occasion.

  When Jacob came back down the stairs, he found the taproom empty. Chanute was sitting at one of the tables. He pushed a mug of wine toward Jacob as he joined him.

  “So? What kind of trouble are you in this time?” Chanute looked longingly at Jacob’s wine; he only had a glass of water in front of him. In the past, he’d often been so drunk that Jacob had had to start hiding the bottles, though he had often paid for that with bruises or a split lip. Chanute had frequently beaten him, even when he was sober—until Jacob one day pointed his own pistol at him. Chanute had been drunk in the Ogre’s cave. He would have probably kept his arm had he been able to see straight, but after that he had quit drinking. Albert Chanute had been a miserable replacement father but a very good teacher, and on most days, even a friend, and Jacob had asked countless times for his advice, although never before with his brother’s life at stake.

  “What would you do if a friend of yours had been clawed by the Goyl?”

  Chanute choked on his water and eyed him closely, as if to make sure Jacob was not talking about himself.

  “Who is it?” he grunted. “The guy you went hunting the Bluebeard with? Or the one with the rat tail, up in Albion?”

  Jacob shook his head. “You don’t know him.”

  “Of course. Jacob Reckless likes it mysterious. How could I forget?” Chanute mocked but he sounded slightly injured. Jacob sometimes suspected that he considered him the son he never had. “When did they get him?”

  “Four days ago.”

  The Goyl had attacked them not far from a village where Jacob had been looking for the Hourglass. He had underestimated how far their patrols were already venturing into imperial territory, and after Will had been clawed, he’d been in such pain that the journey back took them days. Back where? There was no “back” anymore, but Jacob hadn’t had the courage to tell Will that yet.

  Chanute brushed his hand through his spiky gray hair. “Four days? Forget it. He’s already half one of them. You remember the time when the Empress was collecting them in all their skin colors? And that farmer trying to peddle us a dead moonstone as onyx after he covered the corpse in lamp soot?”

  Yes, Jacob remembered. The Stone Faces. That’s what they were called back then, and children were told stories about them to prevent them from stealing out of the house at night. During his travels with Chanute, he had often witnessed Goyl hunts. But now they had a king, and he had turned the hunted into hunters.

  There was a rustling near the back door, and Chanute drew his knife. He threw it so quickly that it nailed the rat to the wall in mid-jump.

  “This world is going down the toilet,” he growled, pushing back his chair. “Rats as big as dogs. The air on the street stinks like a Troll’s cave from all the factories, and the Goyl are camped just a couple of miles from here.”

  He picked up the dead rat and threw it onto the table.

  “There’s nothing that helps against the Petrified Flesh. But if they’d gotten me, I’d ride to a gingerbread house and look in the garden for a bush with black berries. It’s got to be the garden of a child-eater, though.”

  “I thought the child-eaters all moved to Lotharaine after the other Witches started hunting them.”

  Chanute wiped the bloody knife on his sleeve.

  “Their houses are still there. The bush grows where they buried their leftovers. Those berries are the strongest antidote to curses I know of.”

  Witch-berries. Jacob looked at the oven door on the wall. “The Witch in the Hungry Forest was a child-eater.”

  “One of the worst. I once looked in her house for one of those combs that you put in your hair and they turn you into a crow.”

  “I know. You sent me in there first.”

  “Really?” Chanute rubbed his fleshy nose. He’d convinced Jacob that the Witch had flown out.

  “You poured liquor on my wounds.” The imprints of her fingers were still visible on his neck. It had taken weeks for the burns to heal.

  Jacob threw the knapsack over his shoulder. “I need a packhorse, some provisions, two rifles, and ammunition.”

  Chanute didn’t seem to have heard him. He was staring at his trophies. “Good old days,” he mumbled. “The Empress received me three times. Personally! How many audiences have you clocked up?”

  Jacob closed his hand around the handkerchief in his pocket until he felt two gold sovereigns between his fingers.

  “Two,” he said, tossing the coins onto the table. He’d had six audiences with the Empress, but the lie made Chanute very happy.

  “Put that gold away!” he growled. “I don’t take money from you.”

  “Here,” he said, handing his knife to Jacob. “There’s nothing this blade won’t cut. I have a feeling you’ll need it more than I do.”

  6

  TRUTH OR LIE

  Provisions for two weeks, a packhorse, and two horses for him and Will… although Jacob wasn’t sure the pain would allow his brother to ride. Ammunition. Yes, he had bought plenty of that and an additional rifle. What do you think will happen to him here? From now on everyone they met, be it man or Goyl, would be their enemy. A Man-Goyl had no friends and that’s what his brother would be called.

  Jacob had bought a hooded cloak for Will to hide his face in case the jade began to show there. In case? The
Petrified Flesh grew fast.

  All the way back to the ruin Jacob tried to come up with the right words to break the news to Will that he couldn’t go home. For Will there had never been a doubt where that was. As far as Jacob knew his younger brother had never longed for other places, to leave the all-too-familiar behind… Should he tell him about the gingerbread house? Or finally explain to Will what was happening to him? No. He simply couldn’t bear to tell him. Truth or lie… he had always chosen the lie, to spare his little brother any unpleasant truth. His mother had done the same. Don’t tell Will! But it had been Will who had watched her die.

  What will you do, Jacob?

  Lies.

  Yes. For now he would lie.

  But when he led the horses through the ruin’s withered gates, Will was gone.

  “I tried to stop him, but he is as stubborn as you.” The vixen appeared as usual without a sound between the charred walls. The night dyed her fur black.

  Curse you, Jacob. He should have taken Will with him to Schwanstein.

  He tied the horses to the trees and hastened toward the tower.

  The ivy grew so densely on its walls that the evergreen vines covered the entrance like a curtain. The tower and a chapel farther down the hill were the only parts of the castle that had survived the fire nearly unscathed.

  “Will?”

  There was no answer. Only a few bats were startled by his voice. The rope ladder Jacob had installed to replace the burned staircase shimmered like silver. The Grass-Elves liked to leave their dust on it.

  The tower room was filled with the light of the red moon, when Jacob pushed himself through the trapdoor. It reflected on the mirror’s glass and drew his brother’s silhouette into the night.

  Will was not alone.

  The girl moved out of his embrace when she heard Jacob behind her. She was even prettier than in the photos Will had shown him.

  “Have you lost your mind?” Jacob felt his own anger like frost on his skin. “You told her?”

  Over the years Jacob had often considered moving the mirror from his father’s study to a place that only he knew, but he had always decided against it, worried it would lose its magic. Fear was never a good reason.

  “Clara.” Will said her name as if he had pearls on his tongue. He had always taken love too seriously. “This is my brother. Jacob.”

  Jacob brushed the Elven dust from his hands. It granted sweet dreams when inhaled.

  “Send her back. Now.”

  What did you expect, Jacob? Will had talked about her all the time. Her name had been the first thing that came over his lips after the Goyl had injured him. But Jacob wished for one of those Wishing Sacks that the King of Lotharaine used to make his enemies disappear.

  She was afraid but tried her best to hide it. Afraid of the place that could not be, the red moonlight—and of you, Jacob. She seemed surprised he actually existed. Will’s older brother. He probably appeared as unreal to her as the world she had stepped into.

  “What is that in your skin?” She pointed at Will’s arm. Ah, she came straight to the point. “I have never seen a rash like that.”

  Of course. Student of medicine. You don’t want to know the answer, Jacob thought. And neither does Will. How she looked at his brother. She was just as lovesick as Will. So lovesick that she had followed him into another world.

  Why didn’t he just send them both back? Who could say? Maybe Fairy curses didn’t work on the other side. After all… any magical object Jacob had brought through the mirror had lost its magic on the other side. But he knew it wasn’t true with this. Will would take the Petrified Flesh with him.

  From the rafters above came a scraping sound, and a scrawny face peered down at them from one of the beams. The Stilt’s teeth were still as sharp and yellow as when it had dug them into Jacob’s hand. He had tried quite a few times to get rid of it, but so far in vain. Its ugly face quickly disappeared behind the cobwebs when Jacob drew his pistol. It was an ancient weapon from his father’s collection, but Jacob had had a gunsmith in New York put the workings of a modern pistol inside.

  Clara stared in disbelief up at the Stilt and then at the gun.

  “Send her back, Will.” Jacob pushed the pistol back into his belt. “I won’t tell you again.”

  “Can I go with her? We came here to go back, didn’t we?”

  “Not yet. We have to find something.”

  Will returned his gaze with the same silent persistence he had used to hold up against him as a child. He knew all too well how much his older brother loved him. Even when he was that angry. But finally he turned to Clara.

  “He’s right.” Jacob heard him whisper. “I’ll be with you soon. It will disappear. You’ll see. Jacob will find a way. He always does.”

  Nothing had ever been able to shake that trust in him, not even during all the twelve years when Will had barely seen him. There had been too many times he had protected him on schoolyards and playgrounds. Will and the injured birds and stray dogs, he found everywhere. And all his friends, who, equally gentle and wide-eyed, were so easily pushed around by bullies. “I get my brother. He is not afraid. Of anything.”

  Everybody is afraid of something. But that was not a truth to reveal to one’s little brother. And neither was the truth that he had stumbled into the wrong world and would soon have a skin of stone. Or that this time his older brother might not be able to protect him.

  “Let’s go.” Jacob turned around and went toward the hatch.

  “Go back, Clara. Please.” He heard Will say.

  He had already reached the bottom of the tower by the time Will finally grabbed the rope ladder. He climbed down slowly, as if he wished to never reach the bottom. When he finally stood by Jacob’s side, he stared first at the Elven dust on his hands and then up to the still-open trapdoor.

  “I had to call her. That’s the only reason why I went back. She hadn’t heard from me for weeks! I didn’t expect she would come after me!”

  That was a lie. Will had always been a bad liar. Jacob was sure that he had waited for her, staring into the mirror. Had he searched for the first traces of jade in his face?

  Fox was waiting where Jacob had left the horses. She didn’t like that Will came back with him.

  No one can help him, her eyes still said.

  We shall see, Fox.

  The horses were restless. They sensed the stone and backed away from Will. A new experience for him. Will usually made friends with every creature. As a child he had cried bitter tears over poisoned rats in the park.

  “Where are we going?” He looked up at the tower.

  Jacob gave him one of the rifles. “To the Hungry Forest.”

  Fox lifted her head.

  Yes, Fox, I know. Not one of our favorite places.

  Jacob’s mare didn’t like the sound of it either. She shoved her head into his back. He had paid Chanute a whole year’s earnings for her, and she was worth every farthing.

  “The Hungry Forest?” Fox sat down by his side. “With your milk-face of a brother? Did Chanute come up with that idea?”

  Jacob didn’t get a chance to answer. The vixen uttered a growl.

  The ivy covering the tower’s entrance moved. Clara pushed through the vines and looked in disbelief at the scorched walls, the horses, the fox…

  No.

  Will’s face lit up but then he looked at Jacob. No, Will wasn’t sure he wanted her here either. Will knew too well by now how dangerous a place this was.

  Clara looked at Jacob. She knew whom she’d need to convince she should stay.

  “I won’t go back.”

  She took a deep breath when a wolf howled in the distance. But she didn’t move.

  “Please!” She still looked at Jacob, not at Will. “He needs me. And I need to know what happened.”

  Fox eyed her like a strange animal. The women in her world wore long dresses and kept their hair pinned up or plaited, like peasant girls. This one’s hair was almost as short as a
boy’s.

  Will pulled Clara to him. For a moment her face reminded Jacob of their mother’s. Why had he never told her about the mirror? Lies there as well. It had always been too easy for him to come up with them. Sometimes the truth was the only thing that frightened him. To tell it. Or to face it. Maybe this world could have wiped at least some of the sadness off his mother’s face.

  Too late, Jacob. Much too late.

  A second wolf howled. They were usually quite peaceful, but lately there had been a few brown ones farther down the hill and those did like the taste of human flesh.

  Will was still pleading with Clara.

  “We should leave.” Fox looked at him. Eyes of pure amber. “Take her along.”

  “What? She will only slow us down!” And he didn’t have to tell Fox that his brother was running out of time. Although he still had to explain that to Will.

  Fox turned.

  “Take her along!” she repeated. “Your brother will need her. Or don’t you trust my nose anymore?”

  7

  THE HOUSE OF THE WITCH

  At some point all fairy tales lead into the woods. And their heroes first have to get lost to come back with what they have set out to find. If they find it. The Hungry Forest was known to have swallowed many men who went in to hunt treasure amongst its trees. Treasure, healing, or a darker kind of magic—to win love or to curse a neighbor. The Hungry Forest was old. Very old. A thicket of roots, thorns, and leaves, ancient trees covered in moss giving way to saplings shooting up between their roots, ferns so high a man could get lost underneath their fronds, swarms of will-o’-the-wisps above ponds filled with rotting leaves, clearings where toadstools were drawing their red-capped circles…

  Jacob had last been in the Hungry Forest four months earlier, to find a Man-Swan wearing a shirt of nettles over his feathers. But the sting of a fever thistle had forced him to abandon the search.

  It took them until midday to reach the forest because Will had been in pain again. The jade had spread all over his neck, though Clara pretended not to see it. Love makes you blind—she seemed intent on proving that proverb. She never left Will’s side. She wrapped her arms around him whenever the stone spread a little farther and he doubled over in the saddle with pain. Only when she felt unobserved did Jacob see his own fear on her face. He gave her the same lies he had given his brother: that only Will’s skin was changing, and that there was plenty of magic in this world that could heal the jade-colored rash. She hadn’t taken much convincing. Both she and Will were only too happy to believe whatever comforting lies Jacob told them.