by Emma Newman
She dumped the letters on the sofa, closed the curtains and put on the TV. Somehow checking that all of the things she’d set to record whilst she was working at the Emporium seemed so much more important than reading her mother’s words. After another sideways glance at the letters, rearranging her entire book and DVD collection alphabetically took on a sudden urgency. She scanned the shelves, dithered over the Battlestar Galactica box set for a few moments before plucking out Aliens instead. Survival horror seemed more appropriate.
Finally she mustered the courage to read the letters. She had considered burning them, but she’d only wonder what had been said, and besides, if her mother realised she hadn’t read a single word when she got back, it would only make things worse.
Cathy turned the pile upside down so the top one would be the first sent. If she was going to do this properly, she needed to see the progression.
She noted the wax seal and quality of the paper. A dull throb was building behind her eyes as she picked it up. She turned it over and read the elegant calligraphy.
Miss Catherine Rhoeas-Papaver,
Where-so-ever-you-are
Mundanus
She shuddered at the sight of her mother’s handwriting. Something about the slant of the upward strokes in “Where-so-ever-you-are” conveyed her mother’s irritation at her being so difficult to contact and the sight of her full name brought back her old life with a monstrous clarity.
She broke the seal and opened it out. The red poppy of her family’s crest was emblazoned at the top of the paper. The date was one week after she’d cast the Shadow Charm and fled Cambridge.
Dear Catherine,
I have no idea what you think you are doing, but I’ve received a letter from your former chaperone informing me of her resignation and giving profuse apologies that she was unable to improve your wilful nature. She had more courage than your minder who has singularly failed in his duty to keep you safe and seems to have absconded.
I do hope the two of you are not together, lost in the foolish romantic notion of running away to elope. I will be able to keep this from your father for less than a week, so I suggest you return immediately and explain to me why you have abandoned the university course you demanded so brazenly. It embarrassed us immensely to have to acquiesce to such a selfish and unreasonable request. The Patroon was not impressed as you well know.
Do not make this worse. Come back before your father realises what you have done, otherwise I am sure you can predict his response.
Your Mother
Cathy folded the letter and slipped it back into the envelope. It was too easy to predict her father’s reaction when he saw her again and she didn’t want to think about it. She sucked in a deep breath and made herself eat the rest of the noodles. As she twisted them around her fork she remembered when Josh had introduced them to her as a good thing to keep in the cupboard. They only needed boiling water and were quick to make, as he demonstrated. That was the first afternoon they’d spent together after he came across her in the laundry room of the first-year halls of residence. She was standing in front of the machine with a palm full of coins trying to read the instructions without looking like she had no idea what she was doing.
“Are you OK?” he’d asked and made her jump, sending the coins rolling in all directions. She hadn’t got used to men just being able to come and talk to her when she was unchaperoned and her inherent shyness wasn’t making it easy to get used to.
They picked up the coins together. She liked his smile and his soft brown eyes. He was skinny and tall and when they stood up again after collecting the errant coins she only came up to his shoulder even though she wasn’t exactly short herself.
“Want me to show you how they work?” he offered and she nodded. “You put two fifty-pence pieces in here. Is the powder in?”
She blinked at him. Only two powders sprung to mind: face powder and the powder used in pistols for duelling and she was certain it couldn’t be either of them. She regretted not having her laptop and wished she’d Googled it all before leaving her room.
“Washing powder?” he said slowly.
“Oh, is that what goes in that tray bit?”
“So your mum did all your washing then? I’ve got some you can use, give me the fifty pences.”
She searched through the coins in her palm, still getting used to handling change. He gawped at her. “Have you been living abroad or something?”
“…Sort of,” she replied and managed an awkward smile. When he returned it the constant terror she’d felt for the past two weeks subsided. Even though she’d spent an academic year at Cambridge, the maid her family insisted on sending with her dealt with all the practical matters, including all the things involving small change. She researched as much as she could before running away, but it was impossible to learn about every aspect of life in Mundanus, and the more time she spent there the more she realised how ill-prepared she was.
He helped her with the washing machines and chatted as they waited. That was the first time she lied about where she’d come from to someone she wanted to spend time with, and it made her guts knot as she lied again and again, weaving threads of lies to make an unusual but plausible story.
The noodles finished, Cathy turned her attention back to the letters. The next one was similar to the first, only more angry, so she chucked it aside. In the third her mother detailed how the minder had finally turned up, cap in hand, and had been interrogated by her father.
He assures us that there were no signs of your plans to leave, and only the brief note you left apologising for the inconvenience is stopping us from assuming you’ve been kidnapped. Your father has not ruled out that possibility, so for goodness sake, Catherine, return home immediately and explain yourself before we’re forced to report this to the Patroon.
Cathy shook her head at the empty threat. There was no way in the split worlds they’d go to the Patroon and tell him their wayward daughter had run away. She wondered what they’d been telling him. They were lucky he was such a relic and had no real understanding of life in Mundanus anymore. He was hundreds of years old and had no concept of how much the world had changed as he spent all of his time in the Nether. They’d be able to string him along perfectly well until he suspected something and asked for verification from one of the other Papaver lines. If that happened, her family would be in serious trouble.
That made her pause. Was that guilt she felt?
She ripped open the next letter, dated a month after she’d left.
Dear Catherine,
We are beside ourselves with worry and missing you terribly.
Rubbish, Cathy thought, but carried on reading.
I know you must be afraid to come back, but I want you to know I understand this isn’t your fault. You were corrupted at a tender age by Miss Rainer. Ultimately, the blame lies with me for letting that evil woman into our household, and I will never forgive myself.
Her wicked scheme to put the most ridiculous ideas into your head and expose you to entirely unsuitable literature is what brought about this terrible situation we find ourselves in.
The words blurred. Miss Rainer. Every single day she wondered what had happened to her old governess. “Ridiculous ideas, Mother?” she muttered under her breath. “I suppose you would call human rights and women’s suffrage ridiculous.” Cathy looked up at the bookshelves, filled with “unsuitable literature”: science fiction, fantasy, volumes of political discourse and social history, feminist masterpieces and graphic novels. Pride of place, with a shelf all of their own, were the works of HG Wells, Jules Verne, the Dune novels, Asimov and all the others Miss Rainer had smuggled in and hidden under her pillow. Not the originals. They’d been ripped apart and burnt by her father. She could still feel his hand on her throat and smell the burning paper as he’d forced her to watch.
Everything had changed that day. It was hard to believe it had been over four years ago; the memory of it was so fresh. She remembered the beati
ng that had taken weeks to recover from fully, the hours alone, locked in her room, sobbing until the turn of the key in the lock made her wipe her eyes and sit up straight and be polite to whoever came in, be it her mother or the maid. She recalled the hours her mother had spent coaching her in the lead-up to her coming of age, the sleepless nights spent weighing up whether to play by the rules or risk everything on asking for the wrong boon.
It had taken months to get to university. They’d had to say yes, it was the family tradition, but most good little Papaver children diligently requested whatever their parents had told them to.
Cambridge was a stepping stone to freedom; it gave her the chance to get out of the family home, which was her first objective, and saved her from the stress of being launched onto the social scene in Aquae Sulis. Whilst she didn’t have the same freedom as all of the other students there, she had enough exposure to others in lectures and her tutorial partners to learn enough about Mundanus to know where to look for more information. Everyone had computers and it didn’t take much persuasion to convince her minder she needed one for the course. A fellow student bought a dongle for her and helped her get online in return for lunch, and that was the breakthrough she needed. It took a year in Cambridge to plan and execute her escape to Manchester and it had worked perfectly, until that bastard Shopkeeper had ruined it all by tipping off Lord Poppy.
Cathy still had no idea what happened to Miss Rainer. After the night her father found the books hidden in her room all of her lessons stopped, but she’d learnt enough to know that she could never live the same life as her mother.
She went back to the letter.
Your absence has cast a shadow over our household and I am worried about how this is affecting Elizabeth.
Cathy snorted. Her younger sister was probably still gloating about her victory and was glad that her plain older sister wasn’t there to jeopardise her chances of a good marriage. Cathy would never forgive Elizabeth for what she did.
Thomas hasn’t been the same since he learned of your disappearance and asks whether there has been any news every evening. He’s lost weight with worry. I beg you to consider your brother and his feelings, Catherine. I know how close you are.
It was a low blow and the guilt brought tears with it. She wept at the thought of what Tom must think of her, how he must hate her now for being such a coward and fleeing instead of sticking it out like him. But then he was a son and the eldest child; it was different for him. He wasn’t seen as a piece of property but as the heir apparent.
She shoved the rest of the letters onto the floor and let herself curl into a ball. She imagined calling Josh, asking him to come over and telling him everything and somehow coming up with a new solution, but that was a stupid fantasy. Even if he did believe her tale of secret families with Fae patrons living just outside of everyday reality, she would only endanger him. She wanted to be held, to smell his aftershave and talk about Xbox games and music and do all the stuff that any other student at the same university could do. A week from now she’d be back in Aquae Sulis in her family’s grip once more and she would never see Josh again.
She needed a big cup of tea. She wiped her face and blew her nose on the way back to the kitchen. She needed to think, not cry like some helpless woman. Did Ripley fall apart when they were trapped on an alien-infested base with no rescue for days and limited supplies? “No, she did not,” she said out loud.
Dealing with her family wasn’t as bad as facing aliens with acid for blood, but they were still an unavoidable horror. And failure to impress Lord Poppy would lead to a worse fate than having to face her father again.
As the kettle boiled for the next round of tea, she leaned against the worktop and turned her mind to what she could possibly wish for. The Fae lords and ladies were fickle and fundamentally inhuman. How the Patroons managed to keep them happy she had no idea. She’d spent as little time as possible thinking about politics and the struggles of the Great Families when she was growing up in their world, and for the first time in her life she regretted it. The problem wasn’t a lack of ideas; like all Fae-touched children she’d diligently spent days of her early years dreaming up clever wish combinations just in case. She’d never prepared any to impress a Fae, however.
She made the tea, stirred in the milk. There was no one to ask for help, no books to consult, no website designed for fellow escapees of the bizarre Fae-touched life. If only she knew what would–
“That’s it!” she said with a laugh. “It’s so obvious!” She took a sip of tea and then a deep breath. “I wish–”
With a tiny pop and a shower of poppy petals, the faerie appeared, just above the pedal bin, making Cathy squeak in surprise and drop her mug. It smashed on the lino, the brown liquid landing in the shape of a faerie’s silhouette.
“That’s not funny,” she said to the tiny creature. “How did you get into my flat?” As far as Cathy knew, the Fae and their minions could only get into Mundanus from the Nether, and her flat had no reflection there.
The faerie ignored her question. “You were about to make your first wish,” it said in its melodic voice. “I want to know what it is.”
“Because you’re the one who grants it on Lord Poppy’s behalf?”
“I want to watch you make your first mistake.” She glanced around the kitchen, wrinkling her tiny nose. “Mundanus smells horrid. Why would anyone ever want to live here? There must be something very wrong with you.”
“Do you want me to make this wish or not?”
The faerie clapped its hands. “Yes, I do!”
“I wish I knew how to impress Lord Poppy,” Cathy said boldly, pleased with her choice.
A pulse of magic swept out from the faerie as she cast the wish into the world. It looked like a ripple of sparkling water rushing out from her, making Cathy’s skin tingle as it passed through her. She held her breath for the answer.
“See you soon,” the faerie chirruped.
“What?” Cathy gasped. “My wish first! Tell me how to impress him!”
“Oh, that.” The faerie shrugged. “The wish is cast. My work is done.”
“But!” Cathy fought not to stammer. “But you haven’t told me.”
“You never wished for that.” The faerie stuck out its tiny tongue. “You mortals never learn. You only wished to know. You didn’t specify when.”
8
Max slept for over an hour after the police officers left and when he woke his mouth tasted as if something had crawled in there and died.
The police were frustrated but he’d argued that whilst he might have been trespassing on the roof of the hotel, he was still a victim of a gunshot wound rather than a perpetrator. There wasn’t much else to go on until various reports arrived, and he suspected they’d want to bury it rather than have to admit the perpetrator’s body had gone missing. He noted they neglected to mention that when they interviewed him.
He waited for a nurse and asked if there was a telephone he could use nearby. When she offered to wheel one in he accepted, adding a request for a local telephone directory and a pair of crutches.
“It’s a little soon to be using those,” she said.
“I’ve used them before,” he lied. “I want to see if I can remember how to do it.”
She eventually relented, probably so she didn’t have to keep talking to him.
He had to leave before the other Arbiters came for him, and, without support from the Chapter, the only choice was to go directly to Mr Ekstrand, the Sorcerer of Wessex. Max was fortunate that he’d been picked to run the field tests on the glasses (now missing and potentially in an evidence bag somewhere); he was the only Arbiter apart from the Chapter Master who knew where to enter the Nether to find the Sorcerer’s house.
Two hours later he was sitting in a white van listening to an innocent talk about the last removals job he’d had. The gargoyle, masquerading as an eccentric garden ornament, was safely loaded in the back and they were heading down the M4 motorway t
owards Bath.
The conversation was one-sided and that suited Max perfectly. All he’d had to do was explain how he’d had an accident trying to move the gargoyle for a friend, pay the man all the money he had and they were on the road, no more questions asked.
Sweating from the pain, he drifted in and out, his thumb twitching for the morphine button left behind. He had a sense of his coat being too light and patted his pockets. They were empty. Occasionally he thought he could hear scuffs and knocks in the back of the van as the gargoyle fidgeted, but nothing made the driver break his monologue.
The city of Bath was mercifully quiet by the time they arrived. He directed the driver to a street as close as he dared, explaining that a friend would pick him and the statue up. Gargoyle unloaded onto the pavement, hands shaken, wishes of the best offered and Max found himself on a dark road at the edge of Bath.
He looked at the gargoyle. There were two of them briefly. “I can’t bear this pain much longer,” it said. “Let’s find Ekstrand’s house. Wait a second.” It reached into one of Max’s coat pockets and its muzzle wrinkled as it pulled its paw back out again. “Our stuff, what happened to our stuff?” It was rubbing its claws together. “And where did all this powder come from?”
“Ekstrand’s first,” Max said and limped along on his crutches, heading towards the end of the street. Expecting trouble, he sent the gargoyle off into the shadows when he heard a car pull up where the van had been but moments before.
The click of his crutches on the pavement was much slower than the brisk clip of shoes behind him. He focused on making it to the anchor property as quickly as he could without passing out. There was a scrape of stone on tarmac, a loud thud and then the gargoyle was at his side, taking a crutch and half holding him up.
