Free Mistle Child (Undertaken Trilogy) by Ari Berk

each his own way.”
    Silas saw something half-hidden behind her in the water and moved forward again, closer to the water’s edge.
    “Is that one of my shirts?”
    “Aye. I’ll be finished with it soon, I hope.”
    “Did I leave that at my mother’s? Why are you washing it? And why here?” Silas asked, though he knew he hadn’t left it. He had worn that shirt within the last week.
    “Bloody stains! It’s the very devil to get them out! I used to wash all the clothes of the family and don’t mind this sort of work. And the water of the stream is most suitable. Don’t worry, Master Umber! I shall not cease, I shall not. Not till all be clean. Not till all be washed clean of their earthly troubles.”
    Silas didn’t want to ask more. He was strangely positive that he didn’t want that shirt back, ever. He decided to think of it as an offering. To the stream or Mrs. Gray, he wasn’t exactly certain. Looking at the old woman standing in the black water, he said, “Are you sure you won’t let me help you out, Mrs. Gray? You must be freezing.”
    “Nay,” she replied as she swung the wet shirt against a rock. “We both have our chores; you to yours, me to mine, Master Umber. Besides, there’s worse things than a bit of cold.”
    Silas said farewell to Mrs. Gray and crossed the bridge onto Fort Street, moving into the shadows cast down by a low winter sun behind the trees growing tall and wild there. Spiky bushes rose up from enormous cracks in the pavement, and high brown weeds and gray ropey vines ran with abandon from the gardens of the dilapidated mansions out into the street. Even now, with most of the trees bare as bones, Silas wondered how long it would be until everything on Fort Street was covered in green, hidden below broad leaves and aspiring creepers. Up ahead, he saw the gate to his great-grandfather’s house, the path still clear from his many visits. But as he walked across his great-grandfather’s yard, Silas could see how the vines and shrubs were merely waiting for the spring. The winter-paused plants were poised, ready to renew their assault on the house where his great-grandfather had lived and died and yet endured.
     

L EDGER
     
It is their particular and willful insistence on continuation that is most unnatural and abhorrent. The Restless make a mockery of the living, pretending to take part in life’s minor and major scenes and acts. They pay no heed to death and so bring down the wrath of Mors upon every family or dynasty in which they endure. And so we must work the Doom against them though they be kin and our love for them be true and enduring. Only the Doom may dissolve both stubborn flesh and wandering spirit both without prejudice or preference. There is no other way. “Earth to Earth” must be the motto of all, or else all is lost.
    — M ARGINALIA OF J ONA S U MBER
     
At that time the Pharaoh possessed a scarab of dark blue stone that allowed him to walk where he would, unharmed, in the manner of Anubis, throughout the Two Lands. And, when he wished, the doors of the Land of the West were also open to him. With the scarab’s enchantment, he went forth without fear among the living, the dead, and the ever-living. Even the fearful demons who haunt the plains of Caanan and the lands of the sons of Ammon could be struck down should Pharaoh raise his hand against them and utter the words inscribed upon the stone. And of his travels, perfect memory was granted also by the might of this stone always.
     
    —F ROM THE E GYPTIAN C OFFIN T EXTS, S UPPLEMENTAL S CROLL VI , TRANSLATED BY A MOS U MBER
     

 
    S ILAS ENTERED HIS GREAT-GRA NDFATHER’S MANSION and crossed the tiled foyer to the stairs, preparing to make his way up to the usual audience chamber on the second floor. But he heard movement somewhere on the ground floor, and paused.
    “Hello?” Silas called down the hall.
    “In here, boy-o! Right on time. I’ve been expecting you!” his great-grandfather’s voice