by Nix, Garth
“We must have a visiting Clayr,” confirmed Tizanael. “That was very swift. I trust it means they have actually done what I asked, for once.”
“Which is what?” asked Terciel. He started down the steps, grunting as his calf muscles complained. He shivered again, this time from the cold. The spell for warmth he’d cast at the Charter Stone had long since worn off, and the wind was biting. There was ice on the Ratterlin, chunks of it floating downstream from the north, where the river would be partly frozen, only the deep, swift-moving central channel remaining clear year-round. There would be more ice floating down soon as the riverside sheets began to thaw and break up with the coming of spring.
“Find a book in their vaunted library and bring it to me,” said Tizanael. She paused, looked around, and added, “Don’t get careless. Those stoat fingers might not be all that’s around. The Sendings in the passage are old, and not as sharp as they might be.”
“Yes, Great-Aunt,” replied Terciel, but he didn’t slow down or lift his head to look around.
“I mean it,” said Tizanael sharply. “The Abhorsen Keramitiel was killed on the riverbank, shot by an archer hiding in the reeds in that little corner upstream by the big boulder.”
She pointed at a spot a hundred yards away, though the reeds were invisible in the night, only the boulder standing out in the moonlight.
“Depending on your sense of the Dead isn’t enough, and my eyes, like my ears, are not what they were either. Even if your ears are better, the waterfall is noisy enough to cover even the clumsiest of assassins. So be alert.”
“Yes, Abhorsen,” repeated Terciel. This time, he meant it.
They reached the river without incident, though Terciel had stopped three times to stare at deep drifts of moonshadow, until he was certain they did not contain enemies and he had jumped and half drawn his sword in response to the sudden passage of an owl overhead.
The river seemed particularly swift and rough in the night, and the stepping-stones smaller and wetter than they did in daylight. But there was no other way to reach the House, and the deep, swift water, while threatening to Terciel, was also comforting, as a most powerful defense against the Dead.
“What are you waiting for?” asked Tizanael. “You’ve crossed a hundred times or more. Get on with it. I need my bed.”
Terciel nodded and jumped to the first stone. As always, once committed to the crossing, it was better than anticipating it. He let his momentum carry him forward and jumped to the next stone, and the next. Though the stones looked slippery, they were crosshatched for grip as well as spelled for safety, and soon he was in a familiar rhythm, jumping from stone to stone with practiced ease. The roar of the waterfall was so loud it blanketed everything else out, and the spray rolling back from the waterfall drenched him from head to foot. But it was familiar, and he welcomed it, for it was also a sign that a hot bath, a good breakfast, and a proper bed awaited just up ahead, behind the whitewashed walls of the island in the river.
The last jump was to the landing stage that thrust out from the rocks. He made it, gripped the rail, and turned to look back. Tizanael was farther back than he’d expected, jumping with slow deliberation, pausing on each stone for several seconds rather than adopting Terciel’s continuous movement.
When she neared the landing stage, he stepped back, but stayed close enough to lunge forward if she fell. He’d never done that before, but he’d also never considered it might be possible.
Tizanael did not fall. She immediately strode along the landing stage, taking the lead. The gate in the wall swung open ahead of her, and she marched in, her hobnailed boots striking sparks on the redbrick path. Terciel followed, hurrying to catch up. Whatever magic controlled the gate, it was either breaking down with age, or had been imbued with a sense of humor, for it had shut in his face more than once when he had not followed close enough on Tizanael’s heels.
Once through the gate, the roar of the waterfall vanished. The quiet peacefulness of late night replaced it. Terciel looked up at the moon, which was no longer so high, nor so bright. Soon the first flush of dawn would start to fill the eastern sky, slowly spreading across the river.
Tizanael looked back at him.
“We will not have your usual lessons in the morning,” she said. “I am very weary. We will meet whoever the Clayr have sent at noon. You should rest, too, Terciel, though I suppose you must first perform your strange ritual.”
“Um, yes,” said Terciel, a little embarrassed. As Tizanael walked slowly to the front door of the House—which a Sending had already opened, standing by to take Tizanael’s pack and boots—he walked across the lawn to the great fig tree. Dropping his own pack, he divested himself of cloak, bell bandolier, sword, stockings, and boots, and he started to climb.
It was stupid, he knew, particularly when he was so tired from the long walk through the night, and without his heavy cloak the sweat was already freezing on his skin. But it was something he had always done, ever since that first time, when Tizanael had brought him here as a small boy. When he returned to the House, he climbed the great fig. It had started as some sort of rebellion, an act of independence. He wasn’t sure why he continued with it, now that he had basically completely acquiesced to Tizanael’s plans for him. He was the Abhorsen-in-Waiting. He would be the Abhorsen.
But climbing the tree, he could forget that, at least for a little while. He was just a boy again, leaving his problems behind him on the ground. Reveling in the height and solitude, completely separate from the world—
“Welcome back.”
Terciel stopped climbing and peered up through the branches, his heart suddenly hammering. Bright emerald eyes peered back down at him. Moregrim, the strange white-haired dwarf, was sitting on a higher branch, his stubby legs dangling.
It was a shock. Terciel had seen Moregrim only twice since that first time, and at that only fleetingly, and within the House. Tizanael had never explained what Moregrim actually was, other than to say he was a servant of the Abhorsens, but not bound as tightly as one might want. She also always reminded Terciel he must never remove Moregrim’s red belt or collar, whichever it was, and whatever shape he was in, without explaining how it was he had different shapes or what they were. It was one of many subjects where Terciel wished she was more forthcoming.
“What are you doing here?” asked Terciel crossly. “Tizanael ordered you to stay in the House. The actual house part of the House. I remember it distinctly, the day I came here.”
He did, too. His arrival at the House was seared in his memory.
“I can usually slide out of an order that is not repeated,” said Moregrim, peering down. “Eventually. You’re not going to tell her, are you? I could be very useful to you.”
“Of course I’ll tell her!” snapped Terciel.
“I know things,” said Moregrim. He grinned, showing off those too-sharp teeth. “Far more than you Abhorsens. You’ve lost so much. I can answer all your questions. Tizanael doesn’t, does she?”
“I’m not interested in your answers,” said Terciel. “Do as you’re told, and go back into the House. The house proper, I mean.”
Moregrim hissed, an unnerving sound from something that at least looked like a man.
“Go,” ordered Terciel. “You’re a servant of the Abhorsens. I am the Abhorsen-in-Waiting. Go!”
Moregrim hissed again. White fire flared inside his mouth, and the Charter marks on his collar suddenly blazed up. He dropped down, and for a second Terciel thought he would fall, but he gripped a branch below and swung down to another, crouching on it in a very inhuman way, before descending farther. Terciel watched him swing from branch to branch to the lawn, there to stalk away toward the House, luminously white in the gloom, his red belt still bright with many golden Charter marks. The miniature bell, Terciel now knew, was Saraneth. The Binder. Which was a very disturbing thing to see swinging freely, whatever sound it made heard only by Moregrim, all the bell’s power directed inward.
> Terciel slowly started climbing again, his limbs leaden.
Somehow, the House did not feel quite like the refuge it always had before.
Chapter Nine
Elinor begrudged spending five shillings on a horse and carriage to convey her from the railway station at Wyverley Halt to Wyverley College, but she knew it was necessary. Walking there would disorder her neat clothes, and though she wanted employment, most likely as a servant, she thought it would be best to initially approach Magistrix Tallowe as a gentlewoman, so she needed to look the part.
“You want me to wait, miss?” asked the driver as they wheeled past the open wrought-iron gates and up the drive toward the front of the school, an imposing structure of some antiquity, being built almost three hundred years ago according to the sign at the gate. The main building ahead had four towers, two large ones at the front and two somewhat smaller ones at the rear. The central core was five stories high with some sort of open quadrangle in the middle, and there were numerous outbuildings. Over to the east, Elinor could see teams of girls in blue-and-white sports uniforms playing cricket on the oval. She felt a momentary pang at that. She had played cricket, of a sort, with Ham. They had often used cricket balls in their juggling.
“Um, I’m not sure,” she replied, handing over the two half crowns agreed in advance and a threepenny bit as a tip. “I can’t afford to pay you to wait . . .”
“That’s all right, miss,” said the driver easily. “The head gardener here is a friend of mine. I’ll nip around the back to his cottage and have a jar with him. One of the school servants will know where to find me. Send one when you’re ready to go.”
“Yes, thank you again,” replied Elinor hurriedly, stepping down from the carriage. It was both odd and unsettling to think she might soon be one of those servants, at the beck and call of even visitors to the school.
The front steps were marble-faced brick, giving a suitable impression of stolid prosperity. The heavy front doors looked somewhat out of place to Elinor, being oak and massively reinforced, both leaves heavily peppered with iron bolts, the heads green with verdigris. They looked more like the doors to some ancient castle than a school.
The right-hand leaf was slightly ajar. Elinor looked through the gap and saw a broad hall, wainscoted in mahogany, with a decorative plaster ceiling and dark floorboards showing lighter paths on the left and right sides, the timber polished by the passage of many girls. There were numerous plaster or perhaps even marble busts of significant persons lining the walls, on stands evidently procured at different periods of the school’s history. One of the closest was a bust Elinor knew well, the depiction of Breakespear’s head, which featured as an engraved frontispiece of her own copy of the Collected Plays.
Closer to the door than Breakespear’s bust, a schoolgirl sat upright in a wicker chair under a sign that read in gilt, mock Gothic script, “Hall Monitor.” She looked about sixteen to Elinor, and apart from wearing a rather ugly pale lavender beret with the school badge pinned on it, was dressed in much the same way—a long full skirt and a many-buttoned jacket of navy blue over a pale cream blouse whose collar and cuffs were ruffled. A scholar’s robe of dark blue edged in red hung over the back of the chair.
The girl saw Elinor looking in, sprang up like a jack-in-the-box, and got herself in a bit of a tangle trying to get her Fifth Form scholar’s robe on far more quickly than was sensible, at the same time gabbling out a stock welcome.
“Good afternoon and welcome to Wyverley College. I am . . . curse it . . . oh, I’m sorry, don’t tell . . . please . . . I am the hall monitor, my name is Miss Congrove, please state your business.”
That last was said with a flourish as she settled the robe properly on her shoulders, stepped forward, and pulled the partially open door back toward her. It moved very easily despite its weight and size, clearly set on most superior hinges.
“Hello,” replied Elinor. “My name is Miss Elinor Hallett, and I am here to see Magistrix Tallowe.”
“Magistrix? You mean Mrs. Tallowe?”
“Yes,” agreed Elinor hastily.
The girl frowned and looked up at the ceiling, as if hoping for inspiration.
“Perhaps you could direct me to Mrs. Tallowe?” asked Elinor. “Or . . . or send word that she has a visitor?”
“I’m not sure,” replied the girl anxiously. “I mean, I’ve been hall monitor before, but the visitors at the front door are always for the headmistress.”
“What do you do with them?” asked Elinor. She had expected to feel shy and overawed coming to this large and imposing school, not knowing any more of such places than she’d read in the Billie Cotton books, which began with Billie Cotton New Bug and concluded with Billie Cotton Rules the Sixth. But instead she felt so much older and more collected than this blushing girl who didn’t know what to do with her.
“They sign the book and I take them to the school secretary,” said the girl.
“Let’s do that,” replied Elinor. “Then I will become the school secretary’s problem, Miss Congrove, rather than yours.”
“Oh, good idea!” said Miss Congrove, very much relieved. She pointed farther along the hall to a table with an inkstand, several quills, and an enormous leather-bound ledger.
Elinor signed her name and gave her address as Coldhallow House. That was still true, for another month or so, when the sale would be finalized. For a moment she wondered who might have bought the property from the bank, but quickly dismissed the thought. That part of her life was over, and she did not want to think about the house, for this invariably led to thoughts of Mrs. Watkins and Ham, and Maria and even her mother. Thoughts she had to keep at bay or she would be overwhelmed by them.
Miss Congrove read over Elinor’s shoulder, and then led her along the hall to a room with an open door, adorned with a sign in the ubiquitous mock Gothic gilt letters “School Secretary.”
Inside, a thin, elderly lady wearing a gold-rimmed pince-nez was working behind a long green leather-topped mahogany desk that would not have been out of place for a senior partner at a bank or solicitor’s firm. An electric lamp shone brightly on her desk, making Elinor realize the light in the hall had also been electric. The only place she’d seen electric lights before was the railway station in Bain.
“A visitor for Mrs. Tallowe,” announced the girl. “Miss Elinor Hallett of Coldhallow House.”
“Good afternoon,” said the woman stiffly, rising from her chair. “I am Mrs. Harmer, the school secretary. Is Mrs. Tallowe expecting you, Miss Hallett? I had not had word, and the staff do not generally entertain visitors during the week.”
Elinor inclined her head.
“I am sorry to say that it is a family matter that brings me to see Mrs. Tallowe,” she said. “A death, in fact.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Mrs. Harmer. A slight intake of breath from behind Elinor made the secretary glare through the gold-framed eyeglasses. “Return to the front door, Wilhelmina.”
Elinor was unable to stop herself exclaiming “Wilhelmina!” though she did manage to lower her voice.
“Those silly books,” said Mrs. Harmer with a heartfelt sigh. “We have a dozen Wilhelminas currently at the school. We do not allow them to use ‘Billie,’ of course.”
“Of course,” muttered Elinor.
“I will have someone inform Mrs. Tallowe you are here,” said the secretary. “Would you care to wait in our visitors’ drawing room? I will have tea sent in. Tea is calming when bad news must be imparted.”
“Thank you,” replied Elinor. “You are very kind.”
“Not at all,” said Mrs. Harmer. She walked out from behind her desk to give a surprisingly hefty tug on a bellpull in the corner of her office. “The drawing room is to the left as you go out, the second door on. It has a sign.”
Elinor nodded and went out. Wilhelmina had returned to her seat by the front door, and was sitting stiffly at attention. Other than the hall monitor, there was no one else about, but Elinor could hear the su
surrus of a large number of girls reciting something somewhere deeper inside the school, perhaps mathematical tables.
She walked past the next door, which bore the sign “Deputy Headmistress,” and stopped before the one after, which was indeed marked as “Drawing Room—Visitors.” Someone at the school liked everything labeled, Elinor thought. The signs were all uniform, written in the same hand, and didn’t look that old.
The drawing room was rather dim, lit only by a single electric lamp and what light made its way in from the lone window. There were several armchairs and, surprisingly, a piano in the corner. The walls were not wainscoted as in the hall, but painted plaster, in what Elinor considered a slightly bilious green. There was another door, which surprisingly did not have a sign on it. Unable to help herself, Elinor went to it and tried the handle, but it was locked.
A slim bookcase in the corner proved of little interest, containing only dusty volumes of classic works Elinor had either read or knew enough about that she would never willingly read them. Apart from that, there was a single moderately good painting on one wall, of the school itself at some earlier date, which bore a bronze plate engraved with “The School, by a former student.” It was signed in the bottom right corner, but Elinor couldn’t make out the name. Judging from the clothing and the parasols of the girls promenading down the front drive, it had been painted a hundred years ago, or thereabouts.
The door opening behind her drew Elinor away from the painting. A maid in a white pinafore over a very plain brown dress came in with a teapot, cups and saucers, milk jug, and a battered sugar bowl on a tin tray.
“Tea, miss,” she said, putting the tray on a side table by the chairs.
“Thank you,” said Elinor. The maid ducked her head and hurried out again. Elinor watched her go, and wondered how she would perform even such basic tasks. She could make and serve tea, of course, but there was the ducking of the head, the not meeting people’s eyes, the being humble and not joining conversations and so on. Mrs. Watkins hadn’t been like that, or Cook, or even Maria. But Elinor knew Coldhallow had not been a normal household.
