Seventh Bride by T. Kingfisher Page A

in the air were empty, except for one that had an end-table with a vase of flowers on it.  
    The abyss underneath was endless and very, very black.  
    Oh, Lady of Stones, if I fall in there I’ll have time to pray and confess my sins before I hit the bottom.  
    This was not as comforting a thought as one might wish.
    “How do we get down?” whispered Rhea. She hadn’t meant to whisper, but she couldn’t speak any louder.  
    The silent woman sighed again.
    There was another noise—this one grinding, ratcheting, like the millworks starting up—and then a tile flew upwards out of the abyss and snapped into place in absolutely empty air.  
    I’ve gone mad, said Rhea conversationally to herself. The hedgehog was probably a warning sign. The saints only know what I’ve really got in my pocket.
    Another tile popped up, only a few feet beyond, and then another, and then they were all rising, like fish surfacing in a pond when you throw breadcrumbs into the water. They fitted themselves together, each of them in the right place, black bordered by grey and grey by black, and then there was a tile fitting into their tile, and another, and then the noise stopped and the whole floor was intact.  
    The silent woman dropped Rhea’s collar, and strode out across the floor.
    It took Rhea a minute longer to gather up her courage. She put a foot on the next tile and tested it worriedly.
    What if they fall?
    Her guide had reached the far doorway and was waiting impatiently.
    How could she take a step? What if—
    What if they fall again and I’m still standing here?
    Rhea crossed the vast floor in less than three seconds flat.  
    The silent woman snorted, and pushed the door open.  
    Rhea stepped inside—surely the floor in here could not fall? No, of course it couldn’t, there was an enormous table and a chopping block and all those things would have fallen into the abyss as well.
    The room was a kitchen, built to a scale that befitted the size of the house. There was a gigantic hearth with fire irons around it, and a brick oven that radiated heat. Pots and pans hung on nails overhead, and another doorway stood open, leading to what was presumably a courtyard with a pump. Cool night air came in through the doorway, cutting the heat from the banked hearth and the oven.  
    Two women sat at the table. One was enormously fat, and one was very pale and had a bandage wrapped around her eyes.  
    “Good heavens!” said the fat woman, looking towards the doorway. “At this hour, too?”
    “The floor,” said Rhea, hearing her voice rising hysterically. “The floor! It—did you see—does it—it fell, and—”
    “Happens every night at midnight,” said the fat woman matter-of-factly. “And sometimes at a quarter after four in the afternoon, although not always. Depends on her mood, I should think.”
    “The—four in the afternoon— her?”
    The silent woman made a wordless sound of contempt and shut the door. Rhea could hear her shoes clicking on the tiles as she strode away.  
    “Her,” said the fat woman. “The clock-wife.”
    Rhea said “Oh,” as if that explained things, which it didn’t in the slightest.  
    “Have a seat, honey,” said the fat woman, rising to her feet. Rhea saw that she was not merely heavy but tall as well, and powerfully built across the shoulders. “You’ve had a shock, and probably a long walk on top of it. Let me fry you a bit of supper.”
    “That would be wonderful,” said Rhea, sitting down, while half of her mind gibbered about the floor, what had happened to the floor, the world was not a place where things like the floor falling away and then coming back two minutes later happened —and the other half had smelled ham and was ravenously hungry and felt the floor could wait.
    “Is it her?” asked the woman with the bandaged eyes. Her skin was much paler than anyone in the village, and she had wispy white-blond hair. “Maria, is it her?”
    The big woman—Maria—was