Slatter The Briar Book of the Dead

1. Auflage 2024
ISBN: 978-1-80336-455-1
Verlag: Titan Books
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 400 Seiten

Set in the same universe as the acclaimed All the Murmuring Bones and The Path of Thorns (one of Oprah Daily's Top 25 Fantasy Novels of 2022), this beautifully told Gothic fairy tale of ghosts, witches, deadly secrets and past sins, will be perfect for fans of Hannah Whitten and Ava Reid. Ellie Briar is the first non-witch to be born into her family for generations. The Briar family of witches run the town of Silverton, caring for its inhabitants with their skills and magic. In the usual scheme of things, they would be burnt for their sorcery, but the church has given them dispensation in return for their protection of the borders of the Darklands, where the much-feared Leech Lords hold sway. Ellie is being trained as a steward, administering for the town, and warding off the insistent interest of the church. When her grandmother dies suddenly, Ellie's cousin Audra rises to the position of Briar Witch, propelling Ellie into her new role. As she navigates fresh challenges, an unexpected new ability to see and speak to the dead leads her to uncover sinister family secrets, stories of burnings, lost grimoires and evil spells. Reeling from one revelation to the next, she seeks answers from the long dead and is forced to decide who to trust, as a devastating plot threatens to destroy everything the Briar witches have sacrificed so much to build. Told in the award-winning author's trademark gorgeous, addictive prose, this is an intricately woven tale of a family of witches struggling against the bonds of past sins and persecution.

A.G. Slatter Angela has won a Shirley Jackson Award, a World Fantasy Award, a British Fantasy Award, a Ditmar, three Australian Shadows Awards and eight Aurealis Awards. Most recently, All the Murmuring Bones was shortlisted for the 2021 Queensland Premier's Literary Awards Book of the Year and the 2021 Shirley Jackson Award; The Path of Thorns won the 2022 Aurealis Award for Best Fantasy Novel and the 2022 Australian Shadows Award for Best Novel. She has an MA and a PhD in Creative Writing, is a graduate of Clarion South 2009 and the Tin House Summer Writers Workshop 2006. Angela's short stories have appeared in many Best Of anthologies, and her work has been translated into many languages. She lives in Brisbane, Australia.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Slatter, A. G.

Leseproben

2

‘How are you, Deirdre?’ I speak softly so as not to startle her; she gives no sign of having heard.

All I can see is the back of her head, the dirty blonde, dishevelled hair she’s neither washed nor brushed since she gave birth seven days ago. She’s not washed herself either even though her mother’s tried to talk her into it. Beres Baines’s daughter faces the bedroom wall. Before, this was a pretty space in tones of lavender and blue, the floor polished, the dresser and ’robe of honey-wood, the bedlinen of finest cambric. Now the curtains are closed, the only light is from a dim l there are the smells of old blood and dried excrement, stale body odour and fresh vomit. Deirdre’s not keeping down the small amount of food Beres feeds her. I suspect she eats just to get her mother to leave, then brings it up again into the chamber pot beneath her bed, not too fussy how much gets in and how much misses either. Deirdre Baines was one of the prettiest girls in Silverton before all this (a dead ringer, so it’s said, for her Aunt Seren, who ran away). Today, like many days prior, she’s a broken doll.

None of this is a surprise, really. Even before she began to swell, before anyone realised what was happening to Beres Baines’s only child, she’d become monosyllabic and morose until at last she stopped speaking at all. The baby’s not yet been buried; he’s in the mortuary attached to Eira’s infirmary even though A’Lees’ Coffin-makers have begun their work on a tiny death-bed. Beres didn’t want the wee thing in the house, not with Deirdre so fragile, so she’d swaddled the boy and handed him to me. Just until her daughter can be persuaded to name him, then there’ll be a funeral. We do not consign our dead to the earth without a name; in such a state they are not whole, they are lost, they wander. Not ghosts, no, for Silverton has no ghosts – but nameless newborns become something else… and it’s only a matter of time before Deirdre’s stillborn son changes.

I delivered the child – the other Briars were all occupied elsewhere and it’s not as if I’ve not done it a hundred times; the birth was uncomplicated, timely, easy even. Except the child was dead.

Gingerly, I sit on the edge of the mattress and put a hand on Deirdre’s shoulder, which has grown thin, the bones more pronounced as if trying to escape her skin. She trembles, the movement going through her like a ripple on a pond. We were at school together; she was always happy, laughing. Hard to believe now. I’ve checked on her every day and kept Gisela informed of progress or the lack thereof. Last night I barely slept for worrying what I might find this morning – there’s no real change, which somehow feels worse.

‘Deirdre. Deirdre, you need to talk to me. Please.’ There’s a long, frozen moment broken only when she turns, a slow rolling from her side to her back, and I’m reminded of a dead fish sinking into the depths; belly up, then down, then up, then down, a terrible spiral that can end only one way. I’ve known her all my life. She’s a little younger than me, fatherless, and no one would have cared that her own child was thus. The face I see bears little resemblance to the girl who’s sung at weddings and celebrations, been her seamstress mother’s apprentice, always chattering. This girl looks like she’s being devoured from the inside out, her eyes pale grey stones weighing her down.

My words dry up; I force them out. ‘Deirdre, I know it hurts.’

She gives me a glance that I can only interpret as scornful. How can you know, Ellie Briar?

‘I—’ There’s the urge to shake her, but I remind myself she’s in pain. ‘Deirdre, you need to name the little boy.’

My hand trembles as I brush hair from her brow, slick with sweat. She doesn’t shake me off, nor does she lean into my palm either. It’s like she’s impervious to the world. Deirdre doesn’t want to live. She doesn’t care about herself, anything, anyone. I suspect the only satisfaction she can find is in pointing her pain outward. ‘Deirdre. I do know loss. But I also know that if you don’t give your son a name you’ll never find any peace, either in this world or the next or the one after that.’

Nor will the rest of us.

She stares, lips quivering, fingers grasping at each other and pick-pick-picking at the already-torn skin; blood’s dried in the cuticles, over the knuckles and in the webbing between thumb and forefinger. I touch her cheek, shivering at the chill. ‘Deirdre, what’s your boy’s name?’

But she doesn’t answer, just turns to the wall again and will not speak. I want to shake her, slap her, pull out the black part of her heart that will selfishly leave a little child wandering forever. But I don’t. I pat her shoulder and rise, leave the foetid-smelling bedchamber, and step into the sitting room where her mother anxiously awaits.

I’m almost blinded here – curtains are open to let the afternoon sun in. Beres is a small woman with the same dark-blonde hair as her daughter and red-rimmed eyes. Her hands, like Deirdre’s, have been tortured and tormented, scratched crimson, though hers are meticulously clean and held firmly in the lap of her pristine white apron; she wouldn’t want to bleed on the fabrics with which she works. She’s sitting on a loveseat embroidered with roses and jasmine, and the entire room is filled with floral patterns, like a wild garden. Through the window behind her is a carefully tended vegetable patch and beyond that the river, running sluggish now as the cold weather approaches. Beres looks up hopefully, but that hope quickly crumbles at my expression. I’m keenly aware that she has no other family in a place where such a thing means a great deal; parents and husband long dead, her sister disappeared many years ago. Family means comfort and protection, the difference between feeling wanted – needed – and being excluded. Not always, of course.

‘I’m sorry.’ I sit across from her, smoothing my sage-green skirts and tucking my booted feet neatly beneath them. ‘Could you guess at the father? Even if he’s married, perhaps we could ask him privately? A mother’s naming is better, but a father’s will do.’

Beres shakes her head, not with disapproval but despair. ‘She won’t say. Probably one of those tinker lads who come and go with Edgar, and I didn’t notice.’

She could be right. Edgar’s had some handsome apprentices in tow; I’ve even been tempted but the idea of Dai has always crowded them out. Besides, I doubt I’ve ever seen the same tinker lad twice. No one cares that Deirdre’s got herself pregnant, nor that the father’s nowhere to be seen, but they’ll care if her baby goes without a name. They’ll care if a melyne comes upon us as a result.

‘Beres, I’ll send Audra. I’ve no other choice. Heart’s ease is all we can try now,’ I say and Beres nods resignedly. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say again and I truly am.

‘You’ve done your best, the Briars always do.’ She gives a fractured smile. ‘She’s all I’ve got.’

‘See if you can get her to come out tomorrow night.’ It’s a foolish suggestion. ‘She’s always loved to dance on Balefire Eve. If she won’t, then come yourself, Beres, at least for a little while. You need a break. We can give her a sleeping draught…’

But Beres is shaking her head.

*   *   *

I maintain my composure as the door closes, as I walk down the stairs, out the garden gate of the Baines’ cottage. I even make it through the market square and the four or five brief conversations I have with townsfolk who have questions about Balefire Eve. Silly questions, really; a little insulting in fact. Checking to see if I’ve remembered the most basic things, as if I wasn’t trained by Maud Briar. As if I’m an idiot. I force myself to smile and answer politely, remind myself that they’re as nervous as am I about this first festival without my great-aunt. I have so much to prove, and I know they’re trying to judge whether I’m up to the task. It’s made even more difficult when I already feel like a failure because of Deirdre.

It’s only when I’m free of the press of bodies, ducking down a narrow alley between two blocks of shops, that the tears win out and I press myself into the shadows, a wall of stone at my back. No matter how hard I try, sometimes my potions and powders and words and care have no effect. In this very moment, it doesn’t matter how many times I’ve helped. Without magic, I can’t fix anything bigger. More important.

When I’m spent, empty but feeling no better, I continue on my way. Stepping onto a wider thoroughfare, I hear a voice, clear and melodic. Familiar. Coming from the schoolyard a little further along Adalind’s Row, and not unexpected.

‘Is everyone comfortable?’ Audra’s on one of the carven benches in the middle of the small...