The White Rose by Amy Ewing

Author:Amy Ewing
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2015-07-22T16:00:00+00:00

Fourteen

THE DOOR TO THE FARMHOUSE OPENS. A SHORT FIGURE, silhouetted in the light, walks out onto the front porch.

“Lucien!” a gruff female voice calls. “Stop skulking out there like a damned burglar.”

“That’s Sil,” Lucien says as he helps me up to sit beside him on the cart and sets the horse at a trot toward the farmhouse. There’s a little path that leads us there, and I see a weathered sign sticking up from the grass. As we pass it, the lantern illuminates the faded lettering: THE WHITE ROSE. I glance back at Ash and Raven. Ash looks confused and a little suspicious, but Raven’s face is joyous as she takes in our surroundings.

“Who is Sil, exactly?” I ask Lucien.

He hesitates. “I’m going to let her explain that herself.”

As the farmhouse comes closer, I see a wild garden, dead now in winter, spreading out in front of the porch. Garlands of ivy wrap around the railings and climb up the redbrick facade.

Lucien stops the cart. The woman—Sil—doesn’t come out to greet us. Instead she stands in the doorway, the light from inside the farmhouse obscuring her features.

“How many damned people did you bring?” she snaps.

“This is Violet,” Lucien says, gesturing to me.

“I know who she is,” Sil says. “Who are they?”

“They’re my friends,” I say.

“They’re not welcome here.”

“I’m not going anywhere without them.”

Sil snorts. “You don’t like to make things easy on yourself, do you?”

I don’t say anything. I haven’t come all this way to abandon Ash and Raven now. I won’t.

“Sil—” Lucien begins, but she waves him off.

“Get inside, all of you,” she says. “Before we freeze to death.”

I’m not sure what to make of this woman, and from the looks on Raven’s, Ash’s, and Garnet’s faces, they don’t either. But we follow Lucien up the steps of the porch and into the house.

The first floor of the farmhouse is completely open—one large room that contains a living room, dining room, and kitchen. The floor is covered with handmade rugs in a variety of colors and patterns. Some are animal skins, others woven out of dyed wool. A loom sits by the wall to my left, the beginnings of something blue and purple at its base. Much of the furniture looks handmade, too—though not as high quality as the furniture my father used to make. An overstuffed sofa. A rocking chair, next to a fireplace that flickers with a dying fire. A dining room table. The kitchen hosts a large cast-iron stove, a massive sink, and a rack on the ceiling from which hang an assortment of pots and pans. A set of stairs in the far corner leads up to the second floor.

It’s strikingly different from the opulence of the Duchess’s palace, with its plush carpets, and chandeliers, and canopied beds. But I like this house better. It’s cozy in here. It feels lived in and cared for. It feels like a home.

Something bubbles in a pot on the stove, filling the whole room with the scent of cooked meat and vegetables.

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