Wildwood Imperium (Wildwood Chronicles 3)

As she’d been told, as she’d heard from the older girls in her class (who whispered around her in the back of the small schoolhouse classroom, who smoked illicit cigarettes in the schoolyard and who sneered when she approached), as she’d finally learned when she’d got older: The Verdant Empress was a ghost who inhabited the house, who’d lived in the house, centuries before, when the Wood was an empire. She’d run afoul of the old government and they had sent knives to exact their final revenge. But rather than take her life, the assassins went after something more precious to her: her son. They stole into her garden one afternoon and cut the child down in front of his mother. To greaten her suffering, they let the woman live. The Empress, it was said, lost her mind over her murdered child and spent the rest of her many years wandering the Wood asking after his whereabouts, her addled mind having ceased to believe that he was dead. It was said she died of a broken heart, a forgotten and embittered old woman. Her gray hair became so filled with leaves and twigs in her wanderings that the locals coined a new name for her: the Verdant Empress. It was almost as if she was becoming a part of the forest itself. It was said her body was never found, that h

er corpse had simply decayed into the earthen ground of the house. And it was common knowledge, at least among the village teenagers, that when someone does not receive a proper burial, her soul is cursed to wander the world of the living for eternity.

Learning the story was like a coming-of-age benchmark for teenagers in South Wood; everyone knew it. However, very few acted on the promise of the story, the dark epilogue: With the right incantation, at the right time of the month, when the moon was full and the sky bright with stars, the Empress’s soul could be called from her hellish purgatory to be witnessed by the living. Once she’d been called, though, there was very little information about what she would do: Some said she would do your bidding for seven days. Others swore she would administer revenge on whomever you named. Still others claimed only her shade appeared and wept for her murdered son, keening like a banshee. In any case, it was enough to drive the macabre fantasies of Zita and make her determined to bring the woman’s ghost from the ether.

At Zita’s instruction, the three other girls gathered around her in a tight circle in the center of the structure. She set the mirror at her feet. Taking the censer from Kendra, she opened it and filled the chamber with the sage leaves Alice had brought. The girls were silent as they followed Zita’s instructions, staring at their friend with the quiet expressions of parishioners before a solemn clergyman. Finally, she produced the blue bottle from her pocket and proceeded to pour its contents into the censer: By the light of the lantern, held by Kendra, the stuff appeared to be a grainy, gray powder.

“Match,” said Zita.

Alice brought out a small box labeled THE HORSE AND HIND PUBLIC HOUSE. Pulling a match from within, she struck it against the side and the thing flickered alight. Zita took it from Alice and held the flame to the now-closed censer.

A light exploded from the object.

Kendra shrieked; Alice threw her hand to her face. Only Zita and little Becca remained calm as an eerie illumination blew from the holes in the censer and flooded the ruined house like someone had tripped a floodlight. The smell of sage filled the air, sage and another scent that none of them could properly identify: Perhaps it was the smell of water. Or the smell of air released from an attic room long closed off.

“Okay,” said Zita calmly. “Everyone join hands around me.”

The girls did as they were told. Zita stood in the center with the glowing censer, thick tendrils of smoke now pouring from the teardrop-shaped holes in the brass. Taking a deep breath, she began her recitation:

On the first of May

Too loo too ray

Before the dark succumbs to day

When sparrows cry

Too loo too rye

We call the Verdant Empress

She looked at the small circle of girls surrounding her. Their eyes were tightly shut. The littlest, Becca, furrowed her brow in deep concentration. “Now you all repeat,” said Zita, “after me.”

And they did:

We call you

Verdant Empress

We call you

Verdant Empress

Verdant Empress

Verdant Empress

Then Zita spoke alone. “Now count off. I’m going to turn.”

The girls hummed the count as Zita made slow pirouettes in the center of the circle.

ONE

TWO

THREE

Suddenly, the light from the censer was snuffed out, like an extinguished candle flame.