The Dark Hills Divide Read online

  “The leaders of Ainsworth thought this was a wonderful idea. Their own prison held only four hundred men, and was full to capacity. Giving the convicts to Warvold allowed them time to plan a new, larger prison. And besides, hard labor had been part of every convict’s sentence.

  “The deal was done, and within a year the Lunenburg prison was complete and the convicts delivered as promised. Warvold was not one to take chances, so he devised a plan of his own to make sure the convicts never escaped unnoticed. The branded C on every convict was always easy to see, making clear to everyone in Lunenburg who was a criminal and who was not.

  “The rest is as I’ve told you a hundred times, Alexa,” said my father. “Warvold put the criminals to work, and in three years they built the wall to what is now Bridewell. By that time, more people flooded into the valley. When the walled road was completed, Lunenburg popped like a cork from a bottle of sour wine. People streamed out of it to settle Bridewell, and many even helped build the two miles of wall that now surround the city. As quick as the wall around Bridewell was complete, two more walled roads were started by the convicts under Warvold’s lead. Over the next several years the walled roads to Turlock and Lathbury were finished, thus completing our kingdom.

  “Warvold brought the convicts back to Ainsworth as he promised. Many years ago, he returned all except a handful that had died of disease or injury.” With that, my father was finished.

  And we were at the gate to Bridewell.

  CHAPTER 3

  BRIDEWELL

  Bridewell was at the center of everything in our small universe. It had three gates, just like the one we entered that afternoon — one gate for each walled road. Each gate was made of solid oak and iron, and was raised and lowered by chains with thick metal links the size of a horse’s head. Towers flanked each gate so guards could observe everyone entering and leaving the encircled town.

  “Raise the Lathbury gate!” yelled the guard atop the lookout to our left. “Mr. Daley has arrived.”

  The gate creaked ominously before us, stalled, and then burst back to life. It roared open, the chains grating against the stone wall, and the town crept into view as the sun hit the earth in front of us. I crouched down to see under the rising gate, and then I rose up along with the giant groaning door as the inside of Bridewell came into full view.

  It was just as I had remembered it: full of tightly packed houses and buildings crisscrossed by narrow streets. Not a single house was constructed more than two stories high, so none was tall enough to look out over the wall. The houses and the streets were simple, well kept, and crafted with extraordinary care. The homes were a mix of stone and wood: stone for the walls, aged hardwood for the doors and windowsills, and wood shingles for the roofs. The roads and walkways were cobblestone, worn to a rustic brown but free of garbage and debris.

  In the distance I saw the one building that was a full three stories, which peeked just over the west side of the barrier between the town and The Dark Hills outside. This was the old prison building, a place where I had slept, eaten my meals, and looked for secrets in the many rooms and passageways.

  Once the convicts had been returned to Ainsworth, there was no longer a need for a prison in Bridewell. It had been converted, renamed Renny Lodge, and was currently home to a library, two courts, and several classrooms for art masters and apprentices of various trades. A portion of the large building was also devoted to the annual meeting we had come to attend. Fancy rooms for boarding, a large kitchen and dining area, a meeting room for official business, and a smoking room with a large fireplace (though hot during the day, it was cold at night in Bridewell, and a late fire was common even in summer months). The basement contained a musty old cellblock, hardly ever used except as a holding area for prisoners transported from town to town.

  We were a simple, passive society and we generally kept to ourselves. The summers, though, were a time of trade for our craftspeople. In addition to the usual doctors, blacksmiths, storekeepers, and such, each of our towns housed facilities for bookmaking and repairing. We were known in Ainsworth as the finest and most reliable creators of ornate covers and sturdy spines; and it was said far and wide that we were a people skilled at the task of restoring the most treasured books and manuscripts.

  In the heat of summer, Bridewell was deserted. Most of its inhabitants were in Lunenburg collecting damaged books for repair, taking on new projects, delivering finished volumes, and otherwise attending to the trade business of our society. Visitors from outside our kingdom would enter Lunenburg through a small, heavily guarded gate to collect finished goods. Often they brought along more books for repair and written manuscripts for setting into type and developing into finished books. With so many of our inhabitants traveling and working elsewhere, summer in Bridewell was calm: few people, an occasional quiet breeze, a place clean and tidy and ideal for exploring.

  We approached the ponderous square mass of Renny Lodge and lurched to a stop. I was immediately down on the hard stone drive, glad to be free of the bumpy ride. A servant emerged and took my father’s bags. I kept my own, and we walked the few steps up to the entryway. I hopped on each, counting as I went — one, two, three — and entered the stone building.

  Renny Lodge was divided into several sections. The entryway was a large open space with a hallway leading to first-floor classrooms, courtrooms, and apprentice chambers. Red velvet drapes were pulled back from the windows, and a dust-filled streak of sunlight poured onto the wood staircase leading to the second floor. Another set of stairs, hidden in the shadows, led down to the cellblock.

  “Oh, dear me, it is hot today. I imagine it only gets hotter as we get higher. Up we go!” said my father. He was bounding up the stairs ahead of me, two steps at a time. I scurried after him, pulling myself up by the banister, just catching his shirttail as we arrived at the top.

  Father was prone to grand entrances, and he burst into the smoking room with both arms raised, clamoring for a hug from anyone who would offer one to a weary traveler.

  “Well, if it isn’t my favorite little lady!” came a voice, completely ignoring my father and whisking me into his arms. It was Ganesh, the mayor of Turlock, an amusing and lively man with a dry wit and a grandfatherly love for almost everyone he encountered. If Warvold was the brains of Bridewell, then Ganesh was its heart.

  “It’s so dry around here the trees are bribing the dogs,” he said, his full black beard tickling my bare shoulder.

  The smoking room was easily the most comfortable place in Renny Lodge. Lots of large windows adorned with velvet drapes — this time purple — filled the room with cheery light, and beautiful furniture was placed comfortably on ornate throw rugs. An imposing rock fireplace, surrounded by inviting couches and chairs, took up one wall. On another wall were double doors leading into the official meeting room.

  I glanced over Ganesh’s shoulder and saw Warvold, his weary old body crumpled in a heap on a plush red chair. He smiled at me and winked, then reached his arm out toward me. Ganesh set me back on the wood floor, looked my father up and down, and said, “James Daley! Still as full of wind as a corn-eating horse?”

  Ganesh and my father talked while I walked over to Warvold and took his dry and bony hand in mine. He drew me near his weathered face, his eyes still the bright green of a young man, and he whispered in my ear, “Later, when the sun is low and things have gone quiet, meet me in the dining room and we will take a walk down the streets of Bridewell.”

  With the greetings complete and work to be done, it was time for me to go off to set up my room. On my way up the creaking oak stairs, my one bag in hand, I looked back at the massive smoking room — stone walls, dust dancing in the air, the echo of important men becoming reacquainted. I felt much too young to care about the politics of running our towns, and I sensed a strange sensation as my father glanced my way. His look told me I was not welcome in these discussions because it was not safe for me to know what they would speak of. Lurking in dark corner
s and listening would be met with unpleasant results.

  For as long as I could remember, we always stayed in the same rooms, and no one else ever came with us or was a guest while we were visiting. Warvold had but one child, a son, who managed the affairs of Lunenburg in his absence. My mother did the same in Lathbury, which was why the annual trips to Bridewell were for me and my father alone. Warvold’s wife had passed away only two years after the wall was completed, and he had not remarried (her name was Renny, thus the naming of the lodge). Ganesh remained restless and enjoyed the freedom of solitary life, and so always arrived alone and seemed perfectly content to do so.

  Along the third-floor hallway, the smell was musty and dry, a smell I acquainted with adventure and freedom. A few steps beyond the stairwell were the doors to my favorite place in Renny Lodge: the library. There were many wonderful books in Bridewell Common, and most of them were kept at Renny Lodge, guarded by my best friend in Bridewell, an old codger named Grayson. The library was closed at this hour, so I turned in the opposite direction and walked to my room near the other end of the hall. I could hear distant voices traveling up the stairs, rising into a meaningless garble.

  My room looked out over a sea of bright green ivy climbing up and over the wall. I gazed out along the edge where the rock became entwined with distant colors. I would be in Bridewell for the next thirty days with almost no supervision. While my father was busy running the kingdom, I would be busy exploring. And maybe, just maybe, this summer I would find what I had been looking for every other summer that I had come here:

  A way outside the wall.

  CHAPTER 4

  PERVIS KOTCHER

  From my room, and as far as I knew my room only, a person could catch a glimpse of the world outside of Bridewell. If I stood on the sill of my window, which was about three feet off the floor, I could look out from the top edge of the opening. From this vantage point I could see over the wall and into the distance. As soon as I arrived in my room I perched myself on the sill and looked out as far as I could in every direction.

  I hopped down and went to my bag, unfastened the strap, and flipped open the leather cover. My father had scolded me for not packing more warm clothes, but the truth was, I needed the extra room in my bag for other things.

  Once all my clothing was put away, I went to work untying the lace in the center of what appeared to be the bottom of the bag. I had sewn in two extra leather flaps, which met in the middle and were tightly tied together. This created the illusion of a bottom and covered the lower third of the space in my bag. Now I flopped the covers back, uncovering a curious collection of objects.

  Hard candy from home, a pouch of coins, and a book; a wallet with small metal tools purchased from a traveling merchant in Lathbury; a compass, stationery with pen and ink, my letter seal, candles and wood matches, an old watch. I rifled through my collection and found the item I was searching for: a small, ornate spyglass, an item that I had borrowed without asking from one of the drawers in my mother’s bedroom.

  I slid the cylindrical overlapping sections open and ran my hand over the smooth, decorated surface. Paisley patterns of orange and purple flowed watery along its face, with smart brass rings at the end of each section. I clawed my way back onto the sill and peered through the spyglass. I could see rolling hills in the distance, mostly treeless and covered with thick brush in different shades of green.

  To the right, just in view, was the Turlock gate and its twin guard towers. This was where the one person in Bridewell who despised me spent a good bit of his time, a wretched little man who was convinced that everything outside the wall was evil and dangerous. For reasons I never understood, Warvold loved him, and had even made him captain of the guards. I had to concede that his tenacity for patrolling the streets and walls of Bridewell was legendary, but his suspicious demeanor weighed heavily against him. He seemed to naturally sense my interest in the world outside, and on every visit I had made in the past, he shadowed me relentlessly. Mean, nasty, and always watching me — to my thinking, that summed up Pervis Kotcher.

  My eye caught a tick of movement, and I was distracted from my thoughts of Pervis. Outside the northeast wall, the valley floor quickly turned to rolling hills, each one growing steadily higher and higher until it disappeared in the mist. The brush was thick and gnarly, colored in greens, browns, and reds. The farther the hills, the more the brush created a tapestry of color, ever darker. In the distance, they took on a somber, uninviting appearance.

  I saw the movement again, about a hundred yards from the edge of the wall in a patch of red. Could it be a large animal roaming The Dark Hills or an evil beast stirring in the dense thicket? I drew the spyglass to my eye, squinting into the lens as I panned back and forth. Except for a rustle from the prevailing wind, the brush was still. Maybe all I had seen was a bush shaken by the breeze.

  I continued inspecting the area, but eventually my neck burned and my back grew sore enough that I took a break. I collapsed my spyglass and turned to jump down off the sill, and there he was, standing in front of me.

  “Well, well, well. Alexa Daley.”

  I yelped, lost my balance, and came tumbling out of the sill. It was Pervis Kotcher.

  “What am I to do with you, Alexa?” he said, a condescending grin smeared across his thin lips. I rubbed my knee with one hand and placed the spyglass in my pocket with the other. I hoped he hadn’t seen me using it. I rose and looked at him, feeling even smaller than my four-and-a-half-foot frame.

  Pervis was barely a foot taller than I was. He wore his black hair at shoulder length and he had deep-set dark eyes. One can become lost in the depths of certain dark eyes, especially those of the handsome or pretty. But Pervis had eyes that reminded me more of rats and other creatures of the night, and I was forever turning away when I encountered them staring back at me.

  He held his finger to his mouth, tapping on his thin lips as he stared at me. He had added a wimpy mustache during my absence.

  “I see you’re back and as careless as ever.” He paced around my room until he neared my open bag. “It’s been a nice summer so far in Bridewell, hardly a reason to work if you’re a man of the uniform these days — just one lazy day after another. But of course, now that you’re back I’ll have plenty to keep me busy, won’t I?” He hovered over my bag, ready to reach inside and dig through its contents.

  “I think the mustache makes you look shorter,” I said, knowing I was taking a risk in a room alone with him. He jerked his hand back from my bag and pointed it at me.

  “Let’s get one thing clear right now,” he said. “If I see you on the sill again, I’ll have a chat with your father.” He paused, glared at me, and placed his hand upon the black stick hanging at his side. “I’m watching you, Alexa Daley. So much as go near the wall and you’ll find my club against your knees — do we understand each other?”

  I nodded.

  “Oh, and one more thing — I’ll take that spyglass in your pocket,” said Pervis. “I wouldn’t want any crazy ideas getting into your head.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Pervis raised his voice. “Give me the spyglass now, or I’ll march you downstairs and make you give it to me in front of your father, Ganesh, and Warvold.”

  If my father found out I’d been spying outside the wall, let alone with a telescope I’d stolen from my mother, he would seriously restrict my freedom for the duration of the trip. I pulled it out of my pocket, had a last good look at it, and tossed it to Pervis.

  “You’re a nobody, Alexa. A worm. And, just between you and me, so is your father.” He started back for my bag with a surly grin on his face. He was about to put his hand in when footsteps approached my room. Pervis quickly concealed my spyglass in his jacket and ran his hands through his stringy hair.

  Into the doorway strode Warvold, looking curiously at Pervis. “Kotcher, what are you doing here?” he asked, standing his ground between my room and the hallway.


  “Just catching up on old times with Alexa. We haven’t seen each other for some time, you know,” replied Pervis.

  Warvold stared at him accusingly, then moved out of the doorway.

  “Back to work with you, protecting the city from evil hordes and all that. Alexa and I have a date for which you have already made us late.”

  Pervis glanced my way. I could tell he was thinking about revealing the spyglass, but he didn’t.

  “Very well, sir. As you wish,” he said. Then he bowed and slithered out the door.

  Warvold escorted me out of my room, down the stairs, and into the night. The walk ended in his death, as I’ve explained, and it left me all alone, far away from the lodge, too scared to move.

  After he died, I huddled up against the wall, searching for what little warmth remained locked away in the giant stones. My eyes fell upon the locket around Warvold’s lifeless neck, and then to his closed fist clutching the locket key, which got me to thinking about things one really should not be thinking about at such a time. If ever there were a person who would know how to get outside the wall, it would have been Warvold. I didn’t know what other things the key might unlock, but I had a suspicion that possessing it might get me one step closer to sitting with my back against the other side of the wall.

  My desire for the gate key gave me an ounce of courage, just enough to touch the cold, bony wrist of a dead man in the dark.

  Without his coat on, old Warvold’s wrist was thin and bare, cold and clammy, covered with a dry dust of desert skin. Wrapping my hand around the wrist, I lifted his heavy and lifeless arm. At that moment all the shock I had been feeling left me, and I realized for the first time that my old friend Warvold was really gone. I’d never talk to him again, or hold his hand in mine, or listen to one of his frightening stories. I expected to feel dread when I touched his spiritless skin; instead I was sad and lonely. I sat in the dark, held Warvold’s comforting hand, and cried bitterly.