The Dogwood Chronicles:

Hound Fatale

Sample

What do you do when time is no longer of the essence? When high waters douse hell’s fire only to come lapping gently at your toes?

He picks his way toward me now, with flowers in his hair, placing his bare feet carefully on the mossy rocks that bridge the creek.

How long have we been here?

When did I stop counting days and start counting seasons? And how long ago did I lose track even of those?

 Prologue

When Owen was very small, before he was “Owen” at all, he lived in the old church in the woods with the other orphans, playing in the weeds amongst the crumbling headstones, eating cold tinned stew and peaches in syrup. They were wild things with dirty faces, but never truly without guardians, for the wolves watched them always from the woods encroaching like a rising sea.

But when he was six, or some number very close to six, the man who delivered food and blankets caught the-boy-who-would-be-Owen and put him in the cab of the pickup truck. It was a rare and exciting day when one of the orphans went away. Owen was not even the biggest or the oldest to choose from, and he had to stand on the seat and hold onto the backrest to watch the other children chase after the truck till the wolves came out of the woods and turned them back toward the church.

Without other orphans to take his cues from, he felt his aloneness like a freezing ache. Worse still, the woods lining the dirt road leading away from the churchyard lacked the comforting gleam of wolves’ eyes. He sat stiff and silent on the bench seat of the pickup with his knees folded under his chin. He had never ridden in the truck that he could recall, and the children who had gone on before him had never returned, so he knew from the moment he’d been chosen that he’d be going someplace else—perhaps to wherever the food and blankets came from, since that’s what the truck always delivered. Every hungry urchin huddled up in the moldering church at night dreamt of one day being taken away from that cold, damp place. But dreaming and doing are two different things.

Ash Donovan had been delivering very small children to the care of the wolves at the church and taking children who were six or some number very close to six away from it since he was a teenager. By thirty, he knew that some kids wailed when they were caught and loaded up, some shrieked, and some, like the very small one next to him, made no sound at all through the tears. Ash was used to it by now. He was used to all of it.

The forest opened up and the truck grumbled across a misty lawn before turning onto a paved driveway lined on both sides with fiery orange trees. These were the famous Donovan’s Stupendous Dogwoods, their signature bioluminescent white flowers still in bloom even as autumn folded into winter.

At the end of this tree-lined curving lane loomed the Donovan mansion with its many dark windows and cold chimneys, a sprawling house tucked into the rolling hills of the estate. Daisy Donovan stood at the top of the porch steps, her chestnut hair flowing over one shoulder, her small white hands clasped in front of her apron. Haloed by the porch light, she looked to Owen just like the stone angel in the church graveyard at sunrise.

The Donovan siblings took him inside, up creaking stairs and down cramped halls to a drippy bathroom. They shaved his head, flushing the lice-infested mats down the toilet and rinsing the rest away under the stinging cold shower spray. Years of grime turned the porcelain tub brown, and Owen, who had never had a bath, fought like a drowning cat till Daisy slapped him.

He stopped fighting after that, not even to protest when they threw his clothes—his only belongings, fought for and won from the other orphans—into the woodstove to burn. He stood, stunned and vacant, as Ash pulled his unresisting arms and legs into new clothes from a cardboard box before cuffing his skinny ankle to the leg of the stove.

Daisy held the fire poker in the coals till the iron tip glowed red.

Autumn

This story begins in autumn. It will end there too, in its own time. The cool, crisp, lovely days had yet to arrive. It was early September and hot outside.

Kenzie Fischer was in her dorm, admiring all her things in jars, dead and alive, life consuming death, feeding her pets before she left. She dropped a cricket in with the hellbender no bigger than her finger, and brought the container up for a closer look as it ate.

The door opened and a boy walked in.

Highly unusual.

Her first look at him was through the curved glass of the hellbender’s bowl: short and dark and wide. This image was not far off from the real thing.

“So.” She tipped the little salamander out of its feeding bowl back into its terrarium amongst the other tanks, cages, and specimen jars. “Are you an assassin, or a spy?”

His tanned face with its dark freckles meant nothing to her. She would forget every detail the moment she looked away. But she paid attention to his eyes, black-coffee brown, widening in surprise as they roved about her attic dorm, over the scattered books and laundry, all the little creatures behind glass, the plants crowding the windowsill, the anatomy and botany posters on the sloped-ceiling walls. His alarmed gaze settled briefly on her person one last time before darting for safety in the corner of the room, where an empty bed and nightstand were pushed together, out of the way. Kenzie had already claimed the second dresser and desk for her own use.

He dropped his backpack at his feet. “I’m your roommate.”

“Likely story.”

“This side’s mine, then?”

“Don’t bother unpacking.” Kenzie snatched up her day-bag and jacket. “You’ll be out of here before classes start.” She had already knocked him out of the way and put a hand on the door before she thought to add, “And if you touch anything, you’ll be leaving on a gurney.”

His face turned white; away she went, riding boots clattering down the metal exterior stairs that served as the bridge between her tiny, private corner of the world (though now invaded) and the rest of campus. 

Refurbished miners’ houses in tight rows made up the student housing: four dorms and a communal kitchen to each two-story clapboard house, and never enough toilets. She stepped off the bottom stair and into the chaos of move-in weekend. Doorways and walkways seethed with her peers, most of them sunburnt from summer jobs, lugging bags and boxes into their dorms, trampling the flower beds. Kenzie kicked aside the suitcases and pumpkin vines in her way as she sped down the path leading away from the dorms, past the academic buildings with their brick faces and beards of ivy.

To either side of the academic buildings, like outstretched wings, lay the polo pitch and grazing pastures, beyond which stood the stables, one for student-owned animals and the other for the school’s highland ponies. The Militia College of Equestrian Arts was a sporting school, but for those students less inclined to polo, racing, or the shadowy society of mounted rangers working closely with the Donovan family, the college offered a handful of science programs—though with slightly fewer classes this semester than in previous years, due to the sudden loss of two professors.

Kenzie stopped just outside the stable and looked back across the expanse of lawn. While the dorms frothed with activity, the polo pitch was empty, the pastures were dotted with grazing ponies, flicking their tails in the September heat. There was no one else around—no one following her. Her so-called roommate was no doubt still up in her attic room, pawing through her belongings. Let him! She had nothing to hide that was not already hidden, and she needed him distracted long enough for her to saddle Pest and make it off campus.

Few of the Donovans’ militia rangers patrolled the wilderness north of Swallowsaw; most were stationed along the southern and eastern borders, to keep out the blitzers: raiders and bandits occupying the rubble of former-New England and the stretch of territory north of DC. Swallowsaw sat in the middle of that no-man’s-land, an independent city-state formerly known as Pennsylvania. 

Night fell before she reached the hidden entrance into the mines, just a crack in the mountainside, shielded by rocks and pines. Despite the sweltering heat wave, frost rimed the boulders and tree trunks nearest the crevice, and an icy wind whistled up the natural tunnel. Her parents’ first expedition had been cut short by their lack of winter gear, but they’d delved far enough into that darkness to see what the cold wind carried: the bioluminescent petals of flowering dogwood trees, and a hint at the priceless origin of the Stupendous Dogwoods.

Over a year later, her parents three months in their graves, Kenzie dismounted and tethered Pest amongst the pines growing near the cave entrance. The pony shivered, flanks damp with sweat from the long ride. She toweled her pony dry and gave her a blanket before turning on the headlamp and squeezing into the crack in the mountainside.

It was not her first spelunk, and she knew by now what to wear for that long and crouching, sometimes crawling, journey through the natural tunnel: a backup flashlight; goggles, so her eyes did not dry out and freeze in the wind; wool socks and sturdy boots; a heavy winter coat and hat; and gloves so her fingers and palms did not stick fast to the frozen rock.

The natural tunnel ended when it joined up with the coal mine tunnel. The hole through which she had to squeeze had been too small for her father, and nearly too small for Kenzie in her heavy coat. But the discreet chalk marks were still on the floor, tight to the wall where they’d go unnoticed by patrols, and partially obscured by powdery snow; a wrong turn would take her straight into the company of armed rangers standing guard outside the coal mine. 

The manmade tunnel continued underground for nearly a mile before running up suddenly against an old iron gate, intricately wrought with rose filigree. The coal mine was old, decommissioned over two hundred years ago, but the iron gate felt ancient, like some relic pulled from another time and place, only to be forgotten down here in the dark. Frost rimed the lock, burning impossibly cold even through her gloves. She traced the keyhole, big enough a pinkie finger should have been able to wriggle in and spring it open. But her mother had tried all manner of lock-picking techniques, including brute force, without success.

She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out the heavy black key, a hard-won prize, the spoils of the last job her father had given her: sneaking around the Donovan mansion without getting caught, raiding the curio cabinet in a dead man’s study. The beam of the headlamp accentuated the key’s pitted surface, blackened as if by fire. It slid into the frozen lock with ease, to turn with the gentlest click.

For a moment, she could only stare as the gate swung lazily inward. All those months of fiddling, bashing, cursing, and otherwise abusing the weary old lock, and now that war was at its end. Whatever she had expected to feel, it wasn’t disappointment, coupled with something like grief.

The lamp flickered. She did not have batteries to waste on sentiment. She switched to the heavy flashlight, saving the headlamp for the return journey through the claustrophobic natural tunnel.

As she stepped through the open gate, the wind changed, becoming more like whispers, swirling and clawing at the seams of her clothing. Barely breathing, she crept along, following the tunnel to its end, where she found an old-fashioned wishing well, complete with crank, pulleys, and ropes. She swung her flashlight left and right, but there was—nothing. No underground laboratory, no classified weather technology to explain the endless winter gripping this pocket of the forest, and nothing at all pertaining to the Stupendous Dogwoods’ bioluminescence and year-round blooming, that so-called miracle of selective breeding and genetic mutations her parents had been willing to risk everything to uncover. There were only the petals, blowing around on the icy wind amidst flurries of snow.

She peered into the wishing well, her flashlight beam splashing down the stony walls to pool on the bottom: dry and empty. The rope continued down into solid concrete.

Her light flickered again and she smacked it against her leg. She was still smacking it when she heard the squeal of the iron gate, followed by a BANG! as it slammed into the tunnel wall and bounced off.

She wheeled around. Her flashlight threw wild shadows across the walls before dying at last, flooding her veins with ice water. Standing in the darkness, just yards from her, was a human figure limned in the dull reddish-orange glow of heated metal.

The figure lurched toward her, its uncanny movement triggering some primal survival instinct in Kenzie. She swung the dead flashlight with all her strength. The metal housing connected with the figure’s skull with a sound like a gong. The batteries gave one last surge before the glass shattered. That burst of light was enough to send the figure reeling back a step, covering its eyes. Kenzie groped for the gate but found only the arch, which she flung herself through and away.

She raced blindly up the tunnel, arms outstretched, fingers skimming the wall. The dull red light emanating from the figure faded behind her. The stone disappeared from under her hand and she dove into the natural tunnel, squeezing and clawing, not letting herself imagine what fate awaited her if that thing caught up to her. She scuttled and groped her way around several sharp turns before she dared turn on her headlamp. Never had she made the journey so quickly; her gloves and the knees of both pantslegs were worn through when she squirmed out of the tunnel and into the open.

Pest whinnied in surprise, hooves skittering. Kenzie seized the reins and flung herself into the saddle.

“Home, Pest!” Her terror infected the mare and they were off like a jackrabbit. She glanced back in time to see a fiery light pulsing from the crack. Her hand flew to her pocket, taking reassurance from the heavy iron key. Her earlier sense of failure evaporated and her laughter burst forth on a gust of frosty air.

She’d awoken something.

Whatever the Donovans were hiding, Kenzie Fischer was on the cusp of discovering—to blow open their private lives and fling the secrets of the bioluminescent trees to competing nurseries. And then, when the family’s one claim to relevance and their greatest avenue of income was strangled by competition, then—

then—

Kenzie would take back guardianship of her sister, the spoils of the war the Donovans waged against the Fischers, a war which Daisy Donovan so foolishly believed she had already won.

* * *

Once wolves walked out of the woods to find man had discovered fire, and fey had been feigning indifference toward humanity’s shenanigans ever since. So, too, did Grady’s Hound emerge from the trees onto a vast expanse of lawn to stand straight-backed and unbudging in the path of a roaring metal beast for which there were no names in his time.

The small tractor chugged to a stop and the roaring died down with pull of the throttle. The driver leaned forward in the seat and folded his hands on the steering wheel. Dark, perceptive eyes fixed on the Gatehound, while a thoughtful frown deepened the lines in his weathered face. He seemed particularly interested in the Gatehound’s collar, the only thing between his glamoured skin and the morning air.

Without the roaring din of the mower, the Gatehound could once more hear the hush and creak of swaying branches above him. Though he lifted his arm, there was no soft caress of wind against his skin, no fresh green scent of cut grass, nor the damp, spicy musk of forest loam. He could see and hear the world perfectly well, but he moved through it like a numb phantom through a world he could only see and hear.

“Are you all right, son?”

The Gatehound’s attention snapped back to the man on the lawnmower. Grasping for some reply, he feared the words would not come; that speech, like taste and smell and breath, was deemed unnecessary to complete his task. But the air moved through him and back out again like a fire bellows, forming the words: “Where is Grady?”

The man’s eyes fixed with forced steadiness on the Gatehound’s face, as though determined not to chance glancing at the rest of him, the reconstruction of what he’d been in life, naked but for the leather collar and grime from the coal mines. “Grady…?”

“Grady Donovan, whom I serve.”

“You’re one of them, aren’t you? Come up out of the mines.”

Hot fury zipped along the Gatehound’s iron skeleton. Who was this—this common laborer to compare him to one of them? The very creatures the Gatehound had devoted his short life to eradicating.  He lifted his chin and nocked his shoulders, saying, “I am the Hound of Grady Donovan, and Gatekeeper of the Glade. You will take me to my master, who is lord of these lands, or I will commandeer your metal steed and seek him myself—and I will not have kind words for him about you.”

The man’s cheeks puffed out before the air escaped like the sigh of an annoyed horse.

“All right. You want to see Grady Donovan. All right.”

The Gatehound’s fingertips traced the dates carved in stone, seeking any proof this was all in jest, though his gut sensed the truth of what lay before him. The towering oaks, the withering graves: Of course Grady Donovan was dead, they all said. The Gatehound had known it from the moment he saw the pines growing straight and tall on the mountainside, despite the persistent cold out of the coal mine where—only seven years ago, by his count—he first met the boy who would become his master. The crushing weight of time and the roaring winds of its passing filled his ears with a shrill ringing and the echo of the Hag’s words:

No more will our kind go among each other freely. And you, Grady Donovan, who have built your empire on the bodies of my children, will keep the way between us. Keep your riches and your titles, and may you be blessed with many daughters, and their sons with many daughters. May there always be a Donovan to bear the weight of everything you wanted, and a wretched Hound to guard it.

The Gatehound tugged at the collar. When his fingers brushed the clasp, an unpleasant buzz travelled up his arm. His hand fell. A crow landed on Grady’s headstone and screamed in his face.

“Look—son…” The older man shooed the crow away. “I never actually got your name.”

“What does it matter now?”

“I’m Stephen, for what it’s worth to you. Groundskeeper of the college and Donovan Estate. Why don’t you come with me for now? Back to my place, and we’ll get you decent.”

“Decent.” The Gatekeeper glanced down at his own nudity with disinterest, his body strange and familiar at the same time, figure fine enough but lacking genitals, scars, calluses, and any proof that he had ever lived at all. He was a painting, a slapdash rendering wound up like a clock and set into motion for one purpose: to serve Grady Donovan. And now Grady Donovan was dead.

“Where does the family live now?” The thought of his master with a family, a wife and children, tore through the Gatehound like a knife. But someone must have loved Grady after the Hag ripped out the Gatehound’s soul, leaving his master to carry on alone; none of Grady’s men would have given him a headstone so fine, and the Hag had mentioned daughters and their sons.

“Up the way a bit. Big house in the foothills. But I can tell you now, Daisy Donovan is not going to give you a warm reception if you bust in on her morning coffee without even a pair of drawers.”

The Gatehound suppressed a frustrated snarl. “Fine. I will accompany you to your dwelling and accept your offering of raiment.”

“Right.” Stephen gestured for him to climb back into the cab of the pickup truck in which they’d ridden to the graveyard. The Gatehound bared his teeth at it, still perturbed by anything that moved forward without horse or oxen team to pull it.

Stephen said, “I commiserate with the difficulty of your situation, but at my age, I have to listen to my knees.”

The Gatehound climbed into the seat and slammed the door behind him, wondering if Grady had lived long enough to complain about his joints. His fists clenched on his muddy bare knees as the truck started forward. Everything you ever wanted—those were the Hag’s words. And just like every deal with wolves, it ended in a hole in the ground, leaving the Gatehound to pick up the pieces of yet another life he would not see through to the end.

They bumped along the rutted trail leading to and from the Donovan family plot, turned onto a gravel drive, and eventually rolled to a stop in front of a stone cottage overgrown with climbing roses. The Gatehound’s tongue flew to his teeth, but he swallowed his outrage when he saw the elm tree, its arching branches sheltering everything within thirty paces of its bole. His fingers had wrapped all the way around the trunk the last time he’d seen it, holding the sapling steady while Grady filled in the hole they’d dug for its roots.

Some of the storm raging inside must have shown on his face, for Stephen said, “Hasn’t changed much since your time, I’d wager. Can’t plant a row of collard greens without getting the historical society’s approval… It’s only the groundskeepers are permitted to live here anymore. One of the perks of the job, if you don’t mind the regular inspections.”

He parked the truck under a metal roof on spindly legs erected next to the cottage, then led the way inside. The Gatehound refused to look at the fireplace flanked by bookshelves, where he used to lay stretched out in the warmth of the fire, while Grady read aloud by the light of the candle. He focused instead on all the updates: the modern appliances, electric lights, and upholstered recliner.

Stephen disappeared down the hall and returned with a clean-enough set of blue coveralls, nearly identical to the ones he currently wore. While the Gatehound zipped himself into this hideous yet alarmingly practical garment, Stephen said, “I wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight if I let you leave without a word of caution. The Donovans aren’t exactly friends of the fey.”

The Gatehound smirked. At least some things never changed.

“Can I get you something to eat before you go?”

“I have no need for sustenance. What is the shortest route to the Donovan house?”

“As the crow flies? Through the swamp. But I can give you a ride—”

The Gatehound’s irritation boiled over at last. “Why do you show me such kindness? I am not one of the fey as you know them. I can no more repay your hospitality than curse you for denying it. I have one function: serve the Donovans, return the key, and turn back into iron.”

Stephen’s level gaze was enough to make the Gatehound squirm.

“What’s that like?”

“Frustrating!” the Gatehound turned away, ashamed. “I have no idea where to begin my search, and all eagerness to be done with it.”

“I meant, what is it like being iron?”

“I—” The Gatehound paused, taken aback. “It is like the sleep before dying.”

Stephen regarded him coolly. “And that is what you want?”

Grady’s headstone sprang into mind, weathered by the years, furred with moss and shaded by oaks.

“I do want it. Very much.”