The Family Shame

by Christopher Nuttall

  I’d have to brew the right potion for this one, I thought, as I scanned the recipe. It insisted on brewing a particular potion, then adding the mixture to a hot bath and soaking in it for nearly an hour. I was fairly sure I could get the liquid up to my room without being noticed, but it looked as if the potion itself took a week to brew. Why don’t they want something that can be brewed quickly?

  I copied down the recipe anyway - I didn’t think Uncle Ira watched my work in the potions lab that closely - and then checked the second set of instructions. It called for a forged doll - really, a handful of metal sticks that looked vaguely humanoid - that would be imbued with the essence of the spellcaster. The tracking charm would shift onto the doll, which could then be either left somewhere - in hopes of convincing the tracker that the original victim hadn’t moved - or simply destroyed, taking the tracking charm with it. I didn’t think the ritual looked that difficult, although it was going to be more than a little humiliating. I copied it down, checked the clock - I’d been reading books for nearly three hours - and then hurried down to the workroom. The sooner I got started, the better.

  Father would probably not approve, I thought, as I started to forge the doll. Calling it a doll was laughable, but the spellbook was clear on that point. This spell is borderline dark.

  I frowned at the thought - I was doing what Uncle Ira wanted me to do - then kept working. Akin would have found it easy, I was sure; I found it hard to keep everything together long enough for the spells to blur into one. I had no idea if Cat would be able to make a doll or not - she could probably make something better - but I didn’t care. Rumour had it that Cat had forged something that had destroyed every spell on a girl’s body. I wanted one of those. In hindsight …

  No, I told myself. Stop feeling sorry for yourself and work.

  The doll rapidly took on shape and form. It looked more like a miniature scarecrow than a doll, but it would have to suffice. I checked everything carefully, time and time again, then packed the doll into a bag. I didn’t dare perform the ritual in the hall. Uncle Ira might be strikingly lax about some things, but I didn’t think he’d let me get away with performing a borderline ritual in his home.

  Wait for Callam, I reminded myself. And then he can watch as you perform the spell.

  I concealed the bag near the side door - I was fairly sure Morag wouldn’t notice - then went back to the library. There was usually a collection of maps in a library, if I recalled correctly; there’d been a vast collection of detailed maps and charts in the family’s country estate. I found a handful of maps that were only fifty years old and spread them out on the table, silently thanking Aunt Cecelia for teaching me to read a map. It took me longer than it should to find Kirkhaven Town, but once I did it wasn’t hard to locate the hall. My heart sank as I read the notation. Unless something had changed in the last fifty years, Uncle Ira was the de facto landlord for miles around. Pretty much everyone held their lands from him - or at least from the family. It wasn’t hard to convince myself that they’d take his side, if push came to shove. Uncle Ira could turn them into dispossessed wanderers with the stroke of a pen.

  Dismissing the thought, I traced out the handful of roads on the map. Caithness, the largest city within view, was roughly fifteen miles away as the crow flew, but probably further away by road. The shortest road twisted and turned around the hills, probably doubling or tripling the distance between Kirkhaven and Caithness. Callam had talked about townspeople going to Caithness for a week or two, but I’d thought he was joking. I didn’t think he was joking now. I wouldn’t be able to walk to Caithness in less than two or three days.

  I found myself something to eat, then wandered out onto the grounds, taking the doll with me. Callam had said he’d be back, hadn’t he? I hesitated, then hurried towards the treehouse - or, rather, where the treehouse had been. Up close, it was impossible to hide the fact that something had happened. The air stank of tainted magic, there was a faint smell of burning and, as I looked over the stream, the trees had been knocked down and the ground had been charred by a tremendous force. I felt a moment of admiration for Callam. He’d seen me lose control, he’d seen the firestorm I’d unleashed … and he’d run into the middle of it to save my life. I promised myself, silently, that I’d repay him one day.

  The wind shifted, blowing the stench towards me. I covered my nose, suddenly convinced that no amount of magic would keep the smell from my nostrils. Gritting my teeth, I scrambled down the embankment, hopped over the dry stream and walked around the edge of the charred zone. The magic was stronger here, marking what I’d done. I shuddered in disgust. Whatever Uncle Ira was doing was dangerous.

  I heard someone scrambling through the trees and turned, readying a spell to fight or hide if it wasn’t Callam. He appeared a moment later, his eyes wary. I held up my hands, then beckoned him closer. He was trying to hide it, but I could see the dismay in his eyes when he looked at the remains of the treehouse. It had been pathetic, compared to the one back home, but it had all been his own work. I understood, better than I cared to admit. He’d put a lot of himself into the work.

  “Isabella,” Callam said. “What happened?”

  “Uncle Ira was more concerned with listening to my story than shouting at me,” I said, as I surprised myself by giving him a quick hug. “I didn’t mention you.”

  Callam looked relieved. “Thanks.”

  “I didn’t want him banning you from the grounds,” I told him. There were a lot of nastier things Uncle Ira could do, but I didn’t want to talk about them. “And I need your help.”

  “Anything,” Callam said.

  I grinned at him. “I want you to fetch me a ray of light from the moon.”

  His mouth dropped open. “What …?”

  “Kidding,” I said. He stuck out his tongue at me. “But I do want you to keep an eye on me as I perform a spell.”

  “I don’t know what I can do to help,” Callam said, as we made our way deeper into the forest, the trees pressing in around us as if we were far from welcome. I had no idea what would happen if I tried the ritual so close to the tainted magic, but I didn’t want to find out the hard way. “I don’t know anything about magic.”

  “You managed to calm me down yesterday,” I reminded him. We found a clearing and stopped. I checked it for wild magic as I spoke. “Without you, I’d be dead.”

  “Your uncle is a very dangerous man, isn’t he?” Callam looked down. “Is there no way to get a letter out?”

  “How many people write letters here?” I sat down on the grass, silently grateful that I’d worn heavy trousers. “And how many of them send letters to Shallot?”

  Callam grimaced. “None. Half the people here don’t even know how to read and write.”

  I pulled the doll out of the bag and checked the connections, again. “I’m going to perform a spell,” I explained, as I drew the rest of my tools out of the bag. “Just … stay back and watch.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Callam said. “What does the spell actually do?”

  “It should get the tracking charm off me,” I said. “But I don’t know for sure.”

  I took a small knife and made a small cut in my skin, then carefully dabbed the blood onto the doll. A shiver ran down my spine as the makeshift head started to turn, slowly looking up at me. I wasn’t quite breaking any laws, but I was walking right up to the line … I heard Callam suck in his breath, behind me, but I didn’t dare take my eyes off the doll. I lay back on the ground, rested the doll on my chest and started to chant the spell. Power flowed through me, pain following in its wake. I cursed my own mistake as the spell grew stronger - it needed more magic than I’d expected - but I didn’t dare stop. Blood magic was always dangerous if allowed to get out of control.

  The power surged. I gritted my teeth as magic flowed into the doll. The tracking charm shivered, then followed the magic. For a moment, I had the weirdest sense that I was in two places at once, that I was both looking at the doll and loo
king at myself. And then the magic suddenly stopped. I lay back, gasping for breath. The doll was suddenly so heavy that it was pressing me down, choking the life out of me. Thankfully, Callam realised the problem and removed the doll before it was too late.

  “Thank you,” I said, as he passed me a canteen of water. I sat up and sipped, allowing the cool liquid to flow down my throat. “I … just put the doll on the ground.”

  “Very good,” Callam said. “What now?”

  “We wait,” I said. I closed my eyes for a long moment. The spell had taken more out of me than I’d realised. “Did you bring anything to eat?”

  Callam laughed and passed me a sandwich. We ate together in companionable silence. I forced myself to think, despite my exhaustion. If Uncle Ira had been monitoring his tracking charm, he might realise I’d shifted it to the doll. If he did … I’d have to tell Callam to hide, then face the music. And if he hadn’t been monitoring it, he might not realise that anything had changed at all. I wondered, sourly, just what the charm had been intended to do. Now it was no longer on me, perhaps I could examine it properly. I’d just have to be careful I didn’t accidentally destroy it.

  “I hope you didn’t get in too much trouble last week,” I said. “I’m sorry about it.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Callam assured me. “My Dad didn’t try to poison me.”

  “Uncle Ira didn’t have to brew something so elaborate if he merely wanted to poison me,” I said, slowly. “A man like him knows plenty of killing magics. No, he had something else in mind. He was experimenting on me.”

  Callam sucked in his breath. “On you? On his niece?”

  “I’m a little further away from him on the family tree,” I said. I muttered a curse under my breath. The only family tree I’d found in the library was one that was nearly two hundred years out of date. It included a couple of people called Ira, but both of them had died well before Uncle Ira had been born. “But yeah, he experimented on me.”

  “Dad never did that to me.” Callam sounded shocked. “I mean, he did test his teaching techniques on me, but … that only gave me a headache. It didn’t kill me.”

  My lips twitched. I’d once protested that advanced magical equations were designed to suck the life out of my body. Father hadn’t been impressed. He’d ordered the tutors to work harder until I could finally talk knowledgably about the concepts. It had helped me get ahead at school, when the time came to go, but I’d resented it bitterly at the time.

  “Why?” Callam looked at me, sharply. “What was the experiment for?”

  I shook my head. My magic had gone haywire and I’d nearly died, but - as far as I could tell - nothing else had happened. Unless … I thought back to the charred ground and destroyed trees. Had I had a magic boost? Had he somehow enhanced my powers? Or had he merely forced everything I had to surge out of my body? I couldn’t help wondering what the long-term effects would be. Everyone knew that magic powers grew stronger with use. What would I be in a year or two, if I kept taking the potion?

  Mad, probably, I thought. I don’t think I could go through that again.

  I closed my eyes for a long moment, reaching out with my magic. There was no sign of Uncle Ira or Morag, storming towards us in righteous rage. It looked as if we’d gotten away with it, although the real test would come when we crossed the boundary line. I stood, carefully picked up the doll and led the way towards the gatekeeper’s cottage. Someone might believe that I’d spend a few hours there without moving much, although they might wonder if they noticed I wasn’t moving at all. I thought about adding a pair of locomotive spells to the doll’s legs, then shook my head. Accidentally destroying the doll would be a deadly mistake.

  “What now?” Callam sounded relieved. “Do you want to play chase …?”

  “No,” I said. “I want to go down to town.”

  Callam stared at me. “Is this a good idea?”

  “… No,” I said. “But I’m going to do it anyway.”

  I hadn’t brought any wellies, but I didn’t care. I splashed though the water, ignoring the cold, and pushed my way through the gap in the wards. Nothing happened as I reached the far side; nothing happened as I climbed up the embankment and settled down to wait. Callam followed me, looking more concerned for me than himself. I felt a rush of affection. My old friends would have put themselves first.

  Take that, Uncle, I thought, vindictively. It wasn’t much, but at least I had the satisfaction of knowing he hadn’t terrified me into submission. You can’t keep me prisoner forever.

  We waited long enough to be sure Uncle Ira wasn’t coming after us, then started the walk down to town. The weather seemed warmer, all of a sudden; the lands seemed more beautiful on the far side of the walls. I saw a pair of butterflies fluttering through the air and smiled, even though I knew not to get too attached to them. Butterflies were used in a number of potions. I’d had to prepare them myself.

  “We don’t want to be seen too openly,” Callam reminded me, as we reached the town. “I …”

  He stopped as someone ran up towards us. I tensed, readying a spell, then relaxed - slightly - as I realised it was a stranger. A redheaded girl, a year or two older than me … she looked so much like Rose that I wondered if they were related. It was certainly possible. The look she shot at me - half-surprised, half-fearful - made me feel more like turning her into a frog than asking any polite questions about her family. I wondered, sourly, what the rumour mill was saying. Half the town had seen Morag dragging me back to the hall.

  “Callam,” the girl said. “You have to get to the schoolhouse. They’re organising search parties now.”

  Callam blinked. “For me?”

  “No,” the girl said. The hint of scorn in her voice was enough to make me really want to turn her into a frog. “For Hart and Hound. They’ve gone missing!”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Astonished, I followed the girl - who turned out to be called Raven - and Callam down to the schoolhouse. A handful of men and older boys were already gathered and being bossed around by an older woman who bore more than a passing resemblance to Granny McVeigh; two middle-aged women were sobbing together, surrounded by a small army of young girls and toddlers. I guessed they were Hound and Hart’s mothers.

  “They went out to watch the sheep in the morning,” Raven said, as we reached the schoolhouse. “Bill went up there to give them their lunch and there was no sign of them.”

  “They probably decided to run off and give everyone a scare,” I muttered.

  Callam shook his head as Raven pretended not to hear in a manner that left no doubt she had heard. “They’d be beaten bloody if they played games like that,” he said. “Watching the sheep is important. There are wolves in these hills.”

  I wasn’t sure I believed him. Hound and Hart hadn’t struck me as smart enough to watch the sheep without playing games. They’d been stupid enough to earn my eternal disdain, simply for ratting me out to Morag. Had they thought that Morag would literally kill me? Or make it impossible for me to take revenge? Or had they even bothered to think at all?

  “Callam, I want you to join Gavin’s search party,” the older woman said. She looked so much like Granny McVeigh that I couldn’t help wondering if they were sisters. “You’ll be responsible for searching …”

  “I have an idea,” I said, quickly. “Why don’t you use magic to find them?”

  The woman looked at me as if she wasn’t quite sure what to say. “Magic,” she repeated, finally. Her voice suggested she thought I was a complete idiot, but didn’t quite dare say it out loud. “And you think we know how to use magic to find someone?”

  “I do,” I said. I wouldn’t have put myself out for a pair of sneaks, but … I wanted to spend the afternoon with Callam, not go straight back to the hall. The longer I stayed outside the grounds, the greater the chance that someone would check on me. “Do you have someone who shares their blood? A sibling?”

  “They both have siblings,” C
allam said, quietly. He looked at the elder woman. “It’s worth a try, isn’t it?”

  “Perhaps,” the woman said. She nodded to the crying mothers. “Go join them. I’ll be over in a moment.”

  Callam nudged me as the woman resumed sending out search parties. “Are you sure you can make the spell work?”

  I nodded. Father had drilled it into our heads before he’d let either Akin or myself leave the hall. It was a relatively simple spell, one that pointed to a sibling or parent … I’d practiced it enough to be confident. I was surprised that Callam’s father hadn’t thought to try it. Perhaps he’d been told not to use magic or … perhaps he was already searching for the boys. The spell didn’t need that much magic to cast.

  The mothers looked old, so old that I thought - just for a moment - that they were grandmothers. Having kids like Hart and Hound would wear anyone down, I thought, but … they were almost too old. But then, they didn’t have cosmetics or glamour magics or anything else the Grande Dames used to hide the onset of old age. They probably worked harder too, I thought. Callam had told me enough about life in Kirkhaven that I was very glad I hadn’t been born there. Rose had been very lucky to escape her hometown, if it had been anything remotely like this.

  I nodded politely to the mothers, neither of whom seemed to know what to make of me either, then waited for the older woman. The kids were sombre, save for the toddlers who were too young to understand what was going on. They were running around in circles, despite a series of increasingly inventive threats from a desperate-looking girl a year or two younger than me. I remembered Sandy and felt a stab of sympathy. The poor babysitter would probably get the blame for the toddlers being … well, toddlers.