The Family Shame

by Christopher Nuttall

  “I hadn’t thought about it,” I admitted. It was true, although if Uncle Ira and Stregheria Aguirre were contemporaries it was fairly clear that Ira had to be a great deal older than he looked. Stregheria Aguirre had been in her second century and looked it. “Who are you married to?”

  Morag’s face darkened. Her hands twitched, dangerously. “None of your business, young lady.”

  I probably shouldn’t have asked, but I was curious. “Is that why you were sent into exile? You were married? Or you refused to marry …?”

  “Be silent,” Morag snapped. She drew back her hand, as if she was going to slap me again, then stopped herself. “You don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about.”

  “I …” I could barely speak. I’d crossed a line I should have realised was there. Normally, people were keen to talk about their partners, but Morag was in exile. I should have realised that she might not want to talk about it. “I’m sorry. I …”

  “I said, be silent,” Morag repeated. She half-rose from her stool, then sat back. Her face was reddening, slightly. I could tell she was angry. “I think you should go explore the grounds. Now.”

  I stared at her. “But it’s raining …”

  “The rain has stopped,” Morag snapped. She stood, looming over me. I was suddenly very aware of just how formidable she was. I hadn’t seen a woman quite so muscular outside the handful of female armsmen. If she wanted to slap me again, or hex me into next week, I couldn’t stop her. “Go outside.”

  “Yes, Senior,” I said. I inched away, unwilling to expose my back. “I’m …”

  “Go,” Morag ordered. She grabbed a wooden spoon and waved it at me. “Now!”

  I turned and fled.

  Chapter Nine

  Morag was right, I discovered as I opened the servants’ door and peered out into the outside world. The air was cold and wet, mist sweeping over the distant hillsides and drifting down towards the valley, but at least it wasn’t raining. I cast a powerful heating charm around me, then stepped out into the open air. The cold was biting, so badly that I could feel it leaching through the charm, but I could endure it. Water droplets hung in the air, taunting me, as I walked onto the grass. My feet squelched through the muddy ground. I had the uneasy sense that I was one false step away from falling into a concealed pond.

  The wards hummed around me as I made my way to the road. Ira had, I decided, understated just how powerful and complex the wards actually were. I’d seen complex wards before, at home and at Jude’s, but these wards seemed thrown together at random. One ward was new, I thought; another was very old. I couldn’t help thinking that they probably interfered with each other more than anything else. Getting through the wards might just be a matter of convincing one ward that another ward had already authorised my access.

  I kept walking, trying to ignore the magic swirling around me. Kirkhaven Hall didn’t seem to be able to decide if it was calling me back or driving me away, although neither one was powerful enough to compel me to run in either direction. The pressure grew stronger, just for a second, as I reached the edge of the wards, then snapped out of existence completely as I crossed them. Someone had worked some fairly powerful obscurification charms into the grounds. I could barely sense the wards surrounding the hall even when I was standing right next to them.

  Clever, I thought, as I reached the road. And odd.

  I stopped and turned slowly to study the hall. It looked worse than I remembered, water dripping off a rooftop that was probably held in place by magic and sheer stubbornness. I’d heard stories of houses where the wards were actually intelligent, capable of adjusting themselves to prevent damage, but I didn’t think Kirkhaven Hall was anything like that sophisticated. Rubén Hall certainly wasn’t and that was the seat of my family’s power. My eyes traced the windows for a long moment, picking out my bedroom and a handful of other rooms I’d explored over the past week. I’d left the shutters open, but it was impossible to peer through the windows. There was a charm surrounding them that rendered the interior opaque.

  A cold wind blew across the overgrown lawn, making me shiver despite the charm. I wrapped my arms around myself and looked around, noting just how badly the road had fallen into disrepair. No one knew precisely how the Thousand-Year Empire had made the roads and bridges that had knitted the empire together, but the technique had been lost when civilisation collapsed into madness. This road had been designed years later and no one had bothered to maintain it since Kirkhaven Hall had been largely abandoned. It was slowly coming apart, potholes and muddy puddles of water everywhere. I drifted down the road towards the boundary line, jumping between the puddles and trying not to get wet. It was the sort of place I would have loved as a little girl, before Mother had started drumming good manners into me. A well brought up young lady didn’t go jumping in puddles and soaking her clothes.

  But no one would know, I thought, as I eyed a muddy puddle. It was tempting, very tempting, to just jump into the water. No one would care if I came back drenched to the skin.

  I looked at the water for a long moment, then walked around it and down to the gates. A single cottage sat at the bottom, surrounded by a handful of wards. The boundary wall itself was smaller than I’d expected - I could have scrambled over with ease - but I could sense a handful of particularly nasty wards covering the stone. They looked to be in better repair than the ones protecting the hall itself, more than capable of stopping me in my tracks if I tried to climb over. I couldn’t make out the charms that would enforce my uncle’s orders, but I knew they’d be there. The last thing I wanted was to risk triggering them before I had a countermeasure in mind.

  Shaking my head, I turned and walked to the cottage. The wards parted at my touch, allowing me to push the door open and step inside. It was in surprisingly good repair - the ceiling looked watertight and the floor was dry - but it had been stripped bare long ago. I paced from room to room, unsure quite what I was looking for. The rooms were so bare that the only one I could identify was the kitchen and only then because there was a cooking stove placed over a wooden fireplace. I wondered, as I walked back outside and looked around, just who had lived there and what had happened to them. The cottage was in better shape than the hall. A family of four could live there quite comfortably.

  I grinned at the thought, then looked at the roads. One led back to the hall, while the other followed the boundary line. I shrugged and walked along it, frowning as I caught sight of hints of buildings hidden in the foliage. The trees weren’t trying to break down the road - not yet, anyway - but they’d grown so thick that I doubted I could find a way into the woods without magic. I peered into the gloom, feeling odd flickers of magic dancing through the overgrown forest. The trees were definitely showing signs of having been exposed to magic at some point in their lives. Their branches were entwined so tightly that they looked like knots of wood. I hadn’t seen anything like it outside the botanical gardens in Shallot.

  The building slowly came into view as the road curved around the edge of the boundary line. I felt a flicker of hope as I recognised the design - it had to be a set of stables - but the hope faded as the road rounded the wall. I shouldn’t have been surprised. It was indeed a set of stables, but they were clearly in poor repair. Puddles of water lay everywhere - I could hear dripping water from inside the buildings - and the horses were long gone. They’d been gone so long that I could barely smell hints that they’d been there, once upon a time. I almost started to cry as I peered into the largest stall. I’d loved horseback riding when we’d gone to the estate for summer. A horse of my own would have made the exile far more bearable.

  I moved from building to building, trying to choke back my dismay. The buildings were a nightmare; the stone walls were intact, but the interiors were stained, the roofs were leaking and the wooden ladders were rotting away. I touched a ladder that led up to the loft gently, then shook my head. I doubted that someone my size could climb up into the darkness, let alon
e a grown adult. And if they did, there was a very real prospect of plunging through the wooden floorboards to the stone below. I shaped a levitation spell in my mind, then decided there was no point in trying to get up. Besides, I didn’t think I could hold the spell long enough. Father had told me never to risk it unless I was desperate.

  The remainder of the small collection of buildings wasn’t in any better shape. The dovecot had been abandoned too, while a pair of tiny cottages that had probably been intended for the staff were so completely wrecked that I couldn’t help wondering if a pair of careless magicians had been letting off blasting spells without proper wards. The roof’s frame was still intact, but the roof itself was gone. Water dripped down the walls, oozing into what had probably once been a bedroom. I shook my head and turned away, picking my way back into the stables. Once, horses had probably been groomed here before being walked outside and handed over to the riders. Now, it was so bare that I could see right into the far corner and out into the forest. I hesitated, then walked through the door and into the woods.

  It felt … eerie. I looked around, feeling oddly unsettled. There was magic here, magic … magic that lingered on the edge of my senses. I reached out carefully, trying to locate the source, but it was everywhere and nowhere. The wood was silent, unnaturally so. I couldn’t even hear the steady dripping of water that had been prevalent just a moment before. Gritting my teeth, I forced myself to walk deeper into the forest. The trees seemed to close around me as I made my way up a muddy path. In truth, I wasn’t sure it was a path. It might just have been a place where the trees refused to grow.

  The temperature dropped rapidly as I entered a clearing. A handful of stones lay on the ground, surrounding … a chunk of stone. I walked closer, despite the cold. The stones might be all that remained of a building, but … I thought there was something more. A shiver ran down my spine as I looked up, into the trees. They were hiding a series of statues, resting in the gloom. The statues looked immobile, but there was something about them that chilled me to the bone. I didn’t want to turn my back. The sense that something was deeply wrong grew stronger as I looked from side to side. I’d heard stories about statues that moved when they weren’t being watched …

  My nerve broke. I turned and fled, half-expecting to hear something moving behind me. My footsteps echoed in the air as I squelched my way through the mud, not looking back until I was in the stables. There was nothing behind me, save for a handful of black birds flying through the trees. I nearly threw a hex at them before collecting myself. The birds were probably harmless. I was just imagining it … but, no matter what I thought, I couldn’t convince myself to walk back up that path.

  I turned and walked back through the stables, then onto the road. It sounded more natural here; I could hear birds singing as the sun slowly peeked out from behind the clouds, small animals moving through the undergrowth. I even thought I heard someone calling my name, although I might have imagined it. Morag probably didn’t want to see me anytime soon. I shouldn’t have asked her about her marriage. Perhaps she just wanted to pretend she was married. There were some girls who wore their hair in braids, even though they’d had their Season. I didn’t understand it, but presumably they had their reasons.

  I’ll stay out for a few hours, I told myself. The grounds were vast, larger than anything back home. And I’d been confined to the house for far too long. I can get something to eat later.

  The road twisted again, the boundary wall half-vanishing in the undergrowth. I followed it around, wondering just what the designer had been thinking as it twisted further into the grounds, then went over a bridge that was in surprisingly good repair. I kept a wary eye on the stonework as I crossed anyway, just in case. The stream was larger than I’d expected, constantly on the verge of breaking its banks. I’d have enjoyed splashing around when I was a child …

  … And I was being watched.

  The sensation crashed into my awareness with terrifying force. I stopped, listening carefully as I scanned the trees for movement. There was nothing, save for more birds flying high overhead. Sorcerers in disguise? It wasn’t easy to turn oneself into a bird - instead of having someone else cast the spell on you - but I’d heard of plenty of sorcerers who’d managed it. I eyed the birds for a long moment, then looked into the gloomy undergrowth. If there was anything there, it was concealed in the darkness or hidden behind an obscurification charm.

  I muttered a word I wasn’t supposed to know as I tried to decide what to do. The sense of being watched hadn’t faded at all. I concentrated, casting a locator spell that should have pointed me in the direction of any active magic, but there was no response. A magician hiding nearby should have been immediately obvious, even if he wasn’t the one spying on me. Unless, of course, he had enough power and foresight to hide from my spell. I cast another spell, trying to determine if someone was watching me from a distance. Again, there was no response. I shaped a counterspell Father had taught me in my mind, then cast it into the open air. Anyone trying to scry me would have to either back off or use a more powerful spell. And I’d be able to trace that spell back to its caster.

  Nothing happened, save for a long rumble of thunder in the distance. A gust of wind slapped against me, blowing cold water into my face. I looked up and cursed under my breath. It was darkening rapidly as the wind blew stronger, dark clouds roaring towards me. I thought I saw, just for a second, a face hidden within the clouds. I told myself that I was being silly as the thunder rumbled again. This time, it was closer.

  Time to go back inside, I thought. The sense of being watched was fading rapidly. Maybe I’d scared the watcher off, even if I hadn’t managed to trace them. I can ask Uncle Ira about it later.

  It crossed my mind, as I stared to hurry up the path towards what I thought was the hall, that Uncle Ira himself could have been spying on me. I didn’t think it was likely, but … I shuddered at the thought. Technically, he had every right to know what I was doing when I was on his land; practically … I shook my head as the rain started to fall in earnest. I couldn’t imagine Uncle Ira wasting his time watching me. Whatever he was doing was clearly important.

  I splashed through a rapidly-growing puddle as the rain grew worse, the hall coming into view behind a copse of trees. The mist was blowing in rapidly, visibility dropping so sharply that I nearly walked straight into another stream. Someone had dug a pond, only a few short metres down the hill from the hall; raindrops were splashing down, driving more and more water into the overflow and down into the stream. I wondered, morbidly, if there was a small colony of frogs within the pond. Perhaps I would have to start harvesting them for potions ingredients.

  We could set up a greenhouse, I thought, as I caught sight of a pair of disused tennis courts in the distance. It wouldn’t be hard to start growing most of what we needed …

  I made a mental note to raise the issue with Uncle Ira as I scrambled up the hill, nearly slipping on the mud, and hurried to the main entrance. The hall felt empty as I approached, a sense of uselessness nearly overwhelming me before I realised that it was the wards trying to push me away. I ignored the sensation as best as I could as I stumbled into the door and came to a halt. Water was dripping down my back and splashing onto the floor. The heating charms had failed completely.

  Odd, I thought, as I cast a pair of drying spells. What happened to the first set of spells?

  I turned and looked back outside. The mist had grown stronger and stronger, to the point where I could barely see my hand in front of my face. I dreaded to think what would have happened if I’d loitered outside for a few minutes longer. A locator spell would have pointed me back to the hall, but I might have walked straight into the pond - or something worse - if I hadn’t been able to see properly. I didn’t think the standard night-vision spells would allow me to see through mist.

  My clothes dried, slowly. I waited until I was sure I wouldn’t drip water onto the carpet, then closed the main door and walked into the lobby. I
t felt … odd, odd enough to worry me. I looked around, but saw nothing … no, there was something at the top of the stairs, something at the corner of my eye. I stared up the stairwell for a long moment, then dismissed the thought. I wasn’t sure if the wards were malfunctioning or not - it was easier to believe that they were, now that I’d seen the wards outside the hall - but I didn’t want to go chasing after shadows. It was all too easy to believe that something nasty was waiting for me up the stairs.

  “Well,” a quiet voice said. “Look what the cat dragged in.”

  I jumped. Morag had walked through one of the smaller doors without me noticing. How did she do that? I glared, then hastily remembered myself. I was probably in enough trouble without showing blatant disrespect. That had always got me in more trouble with my parents.

  “Your food is on the stove,” Morag said. She sounded cold, yet somehow amused. “And, after that, you can wash the dishes.”

  “Yes, Senior,” I said. As punishments went, it wasn’t too bad. “Ah … does it always rain so badly here?”

  Morag laughed. “These are the April Rains,” she said. “They’re not to be confused with the May Rains, or the June Rains, or the July Rains …”

  I swallowed, hard. I hoped she was joking.

  Chapter Ten

  The next few days were wet enough to convince me that Morag wasn’t joking. It rained constantly, as far as I could tell; it rained in the morning, it rained in the afternoon, and it even rained late at night. The handful of dry spells were nowhere near long enough for me to walk outside, even for a few minutes. I spent most of the day cooped up inside, working in the potions lab, writing my essays and trying to find something - anything - else to do. Uncle Ira seemed completely unsympathetic to my plight, although he did grunt acknowledgement when I told him I needed newer and better books. I hoped that meant that he’d read the list I’d given him and order the books. Perhaps he’d have a use for them too.