Changeling (Sorcery and Society Book 1)

by Harper, Molly

  2

  Parlor Tricks

  Mum had been horrified, summoned by her mistress’s call for a cup of rosehip tea, only to find me sprawled on sacred parlor furniture. I struggled through the white noise buzzing in my head to get to my feet. Mrs. Winter patted my shoulder, gently pushing me back on the silky upholstery.

  “Sarah, what in the world do you think you’re doing?”

  Through blurred vision, I could make out the soft, rounded lines of my mother’s brown dress against the stark colors of the room.

  Mrs. Winter took the rattling teacup from my mother’s hands and pressed the warm china against my palm. “Drink this, Sarah, you’ll feel better for it. Anna, please make sure that Mary isn’t listening in the hall and then close the door.”

  I raised the cup to my lips and took a long draw from the raspberry-colored liquid. The tangy, slightly floral brew flowed over my tongue, warming my throat and belly. In an instant, the white noise in my head faded away. I sat up straighter. I took another drink and felt the warmth spreading to my fingers and toes.

  “Madame,” Mum whispered, her voice fearful. “If Sarah is ill, I can take her to the kitchen. I’m sure she didn’t mean to dirty the sofa.”

  “I believe Sarah is perfectly fine. In fact, I believe she is returning to her natural state.”

  “I don’t understand,” Mum said, watching as I drained the last of the cup’s contents. I blew out a long breath, feeling in control of my body for the first time since I’d walked into the parlor.

  Mrs. Winter gestured toward the sofa as if Mum was an honored guest. Somehow, this made the nervous lines around my mother’s mouth stand out even more. “Please have a seat.”

  Mum lifted an eyebrow, glancing at the space next to me on the sofa. “I don’t think –”

  “Please have a seat,” Mrs. Winter repeated, considerably less friendly now.

  Mum dropped onto the cushion next to me without another word.

  Mrs. Winter gracefully sank onto the opposite chair, arranging her crumpled skirts around her.

  “Now, I’m going to ask you a series of questions. They will seem invasive and rude, but I will remind you that you are obligated to answer; even if that answer will make either of us uncomfortable.”

  Mum nodded slowly, clearly seeing Mrs. Winter’s use of such formal Guardian language as a bad sign. “Yes, I understand.”

  “Now, is Sarah your daughter?”

  My mouth dropped open like a gaping fish. Mum was equally startled, making an indignant squeal before clamping her mouth shut. “Of course, she is, Madame. You remember the night she was born, right there beside the stove in your kitchen. Please just tell me what is happening! My family has served yours faithfully for years. Why would you ask me these questions now?”

  Mrs. Winter eyed my mother shrewdly. “It would seem that Sarah has magical gifts that have stayed hidden up until now, very powerful gifts if her display earlier was any indication.”

  Mum’s lips curled into a shaky smile, but her unease didn’t quite show in her eyes. I knew, somehow, as sure as I knew that Mary was listening at the door, that Mum had been expecting these questions. She’d been dreading them for years, if the look on her face was any indication. Mum turned toward me. “This isn’t funny, Sarah, whatever you did to make Mrs. Winter think you have magic, that’s not a child’s prank. You could get into a lot of trouble. You owe her an apology.”

  “Mum, I didn’t–”

  Mrs. Winter silenced me with a wave of her hand. “Trust me, Anna, when I say that it was no prank. Sarah levitated a heavy vase for the better part of two minutes. She more than levitated it. She made it dance and spin like a top. That’s something that a witch with two years’ training at the institute might not be able to accomplish. Now, how do you think she managed to do that?”

  “I wouldn’t know, Madame. Are you sure that–”

  “Please don’t insult my intelligence by asking if I’m sure of what I saw,” Mrs. Winter snapped. “I know magic when I see it. I know what it feels like to be in the same room with magic. Now, if Sarah is your child, a child of the Smith family, a family that has no magical blood whatsoever in its known history… how could she suddenly possess such power?”

  Mum looked down at her fidgeting hands. “I wouldn’t know, Madame.”

  “Anna, you know there are far less pleasant methods by which I could extract the truth from you. It is a mark of respect for your years of service to my family that I am choosing not to employ them.” Mrs. Winter’s tone was all politeness, but I knew a barely veiled threat when I heard one. She could be referring to any number of tactics, from a bitter hypnotic tincture that would prevent Mum from concealing the truth to spells that could pull the truth from her lips. The Guild enforcement teams were known to use these techniques and more on Snipes who caused trouble. Mrs. Winter wouldn’t have mentioned them if she wasn’t considering using them.

  My breath quickened as I stared at my mother’s strained expression.

  Mrs. Winter cleared her throat, as if this next sentence marked a new beginning to the conversation. “So, Sarah has never shown any signs that she could have special gifts?” she asked, her eyes narrowed. “She’s never made the plates float at home? You’ve never seen an object suddenly move across the room when she had a temper tantrum? Fire and water have never behaved oddly around her when she was excited or upset?”

  I gasped. Mum rarely let me have birthday candles after an incident on my tenth birthday in which the flames somehow ignited the much-scrimped-for birthday treat into a butter-fueled inferno. I don’t think I’d ever cried harder than when Mum whisked the flame ball of cake into the rain barrel. The same rain barrel that froze solid when Mary provoked me into an argument during my first monthly course – in the middle of August.

  Mum had blamed that on a prankster, too, as if someone in our neighborhood could afford to take our rain barrel to one of the expensive public ice houses in the name of confusing us. Images whirled through my head. The hurricane lamps that shattered without warning. Papa’s smoking pipe flying off of the mantle.

  “Mum.” Horror had reduced my voice to a squeak.

  Mum’s eyes glittered with unshed tears as she clutched my hand in hers. Her chapped lower lip trembled before she bit down on it so hard I feared that the fragile skin would give way.

  “May I speak to my daughter alone, please?” Mum asked. “I’ll tell you whatever you want to hear, but I would like to explain it to her first.”

  Mrs. Winter shook her head, her mouth set in grim lines. “Better to get it all out at once.”

  The elegant black grandfather clock ticked the seconds away while we waited for Mum to speak. I wanted to take it back, take it all back, pull time backwards to this morning, when my biggest problem was choking down my stupid vitamin pills. Mrs. Winter turned her head and stared hard at me. I shrank back in my chair.

  “Whatever you’re thinking, you need to calm down this instant. Whimsical levitation of my objet d’arts is entertaining and acceptable - once. Making every bit of glass in this room explode because your thoughts are running away like a panicked rabbit, is quite another matter. Take a few deep breaths and focus on your mother’s voice… should she ever choose to use it.”

  My mouth fell open. How did Mrs. Winter know I was on the edge of blind, earth-shattering panic? Could she read my mind? She said “whatever you’re thinking,” but what did that mean? Where could I retreat to if even my own thoughts weren’t private?

  On this morning of firsts, Mrs. Winter did something I’d never seen her do before. She rolled her eyes at me.

  This was not good.

  “Right,” I muttered. “Calm thoughts.”

  Mum took a long, deep breath of her own and said, “I only did it to protect you, to keep you with the family. And if that’s wrong, I will throw myself on the mercy of the Coven Guild.”

  “I don’t think we would need a gesture quite that dramatic if you would simply expla
in what you did,” Mrs. Winter sighed.

  “It started with little things when you were just a baby. The flames of candles leaping whenever you cried. A teething ring turning up in your crib when we’d left it all the way across the room. Vines growing up the wall outside of your room and tangling themselves into knots trying to slip under the pane. We thought it was just coincidence until you were three. Mary took a favorite doll of yours, and when you tried to take it back, she snapped the left arm off. Your papa took it away to fix it, but you were so upset. And Mary, well, even at five years old, she didn’t understand when enough was enough. She laughed and told you to stop being such a baby. All of the sudden, you stopped crying and this calm, determined look came over your face. The next thing I knew, Mary was on the ground with her arm bent at an awful angle.”

  My stomach rose in my throat, what little I’d eaten for breakfast threatening to spill out on the carpet.

  Mrs. Winter shot me a knowing look. “More tea, Sarah?”

  I shook my head. “No.” With a severe look from Mum, I added, “No, thank you, ma’am.”

  “So, Sarah broke Mary’s arm?” Mrs. Winter asked conversationally. “I seem to remember a story about a fall off of a swing. And I believe that Sarah’s mysterious bout with the Japanese measles occurred around this time, correct?”

  Mum nodded. “The apothecary, Mr. Fallow, told us the measles were the best way to explain her looking so ill and skinny after we started giving her the pills. He was a member of the Guild, you see, before his bad habits got him kicked out of the finer circles. And he knew the signs better than we did. He knew just what to give Sarah so that her ‘problems’ would stop. Mr. Fallow had always liked Sarah, and he didn’t like the idea of her being handed off to the same people that kicked him out of his own home. So he helped us. Sometimes, if he got the dose wrong or Sarah missed a pill, some little problem would pop up, but we were always able to explain it away.”

  “And Mary never questioned those ‘little problems’ or the pills?” Mrs. Winter asked.

  “Mary has never been a particularly curious child.”

  Mrs. Winter snorted, a delicate sound that barely registered in my ears. “Suppressors are not a long-term solution,” Mrs. Winter said, her mouth turning down at the corners. “Your Mr. Fallow should have known that. We only give them to children who aren’t ready to handle their talents or adults who get themselves into trouble with the law. And even then, it’s for a few months, under the strict supervision of a physician.”

  “The pills?” I murmured. “Those vitamins you’ve been giving me every single day since I can remember? They were suppressors?”

  A change swept over Mum’s worn face, a sort of determination, stiffening her features. “We were so worried about keeping it hidden, that we didn’t spend too much time thinking about the why’s or what it would do to her in the long run.”

  “No wonder the poor girl has been so sickly!” Mrs. Winter scoffed. “She’s been deprived of her magic, as if you could cut a magical being off from the very source of her life’s energy. It would be like keeping one of your Snipe children out of the sun her whole life.”

  “She is one of my children,” Mum said stiffly. It was the closest she’d ever come to talking back to any of the Winters, and Mum was sassing the head of the household herself.

  “Clearly, she’s not,” Mrs. Winter snapped back. “Now, we could spend this precious time dithering over what was, but I believe it would be better to ask ourselves how we progress from here. It is clear that Sarah cannot stay in your custody any longer.”

  Mum made a distressed sound, which Mrs. Winter ignored.

  “Being able to perform untutored magic, even with the suppressors in her bloodstream, is evidence of a rare and powerful gift. And frankly, I do not trust you to protect that sort of treasure. You cannot be allowed to care for her. You’ve nearly killed the girl with your idea of ‘doing what’s best for her.’”

  “What does that mean?” my mother asked, her tight grip on my hand returned and made me wince.

  Mrs. Winter eyed the marks Mum was leaving on my skin and waved her hand. A powerful invisible current separated our hands and forced Mum’s into her lap.

  “Simply put, Sarah will become a member of the Winter household,” Mrs. Winter said, as if she hadn’t just psychically divided mother and child. “We will claim she’s a distant cousin, twice removed, or some such thing. There are so many Brandywine family branches, no one will have difficulty believing it. Sarah will be dressed and presented in the manner befitting a Winter relation and stay in the family wing, in the Lavender Room, I think. After a period of rest and recuperation, during which we will allow the poisons you have pumped into Sarah’s body to fade from her system, she will be sent to the Institute to study magic properly. She will be introduced to our social circles and find a useful, productive life within the Guardian community.”

  Stunned, I stared at Mrs. Winter with my mouth hanging open. She was joking. She had to be. This was some sort of trick to make me compliant and hopeful before she called the Guild enforcements on me. And if it wasn’t a trick, Mrs. Winter had managed to go quickly, quietly insane over the last few minutes.

  “And clearly, I will need to tutor her in etiquette and proper behavior,” Mrs. Winter said dryly. “Lesson One, dear, a lady does not leave her mouth hanging open as if she hopes to catch stray insects.”

  My jaw snapped shut with a click of teeth.

  “Why would you do that?” Mum asked. “Why would put yourself at risk for my child?”

  “Because it will save us from certain ruin, from losing our home, our standing, our fortune, to the Coven Guild as punishment for somehow not noticing that Snipe girl managed to develop magical powers while under our protection, without us noticing. Other families have suffered as much after rumors circulated about lax supervision of their Snipes. I will not have my family name besmirched in any way because of Sarah’s abnormality.”

  Mentally, I added, “harsh treatment of housekeeping staff” to Mrs. Winter’s list of qualities.

  “I won’t allow it,” Mum insisted. “You can’t just steal my daughter from me.”

  “You would rather lose her completely?” Mrs. Winter asked. “Because that is what will happen, when she is discovered by the Guild Enforcement. Do you really think they will just let her toddle along, flinging magic from her fingertips whenever she gets the least bit upset? She is a threat to our entire way of life. Her very existence calls into question everything we have been taught about the origins of our magic. Guild Enforcement will make ‘the problem’ disappear. She will be taken from you in the snap of a finger. And you will never see her again. We will never know what becomes of her. Even Mr. Winter doesn’t have the influence necessary to protect her from that. And you? What sort of punishment do you think you will face for trying to conceal it for all these years? My proposal is the only option available to you, if you want to continue to see your daughter. She will be here, at the house, where you and your family will be able to visit her every day.”

  Mum made a helpless noise that sounded suspiciously like a sob. Mrs. Winter’s voice softened as she leaned forward in her seat and gently patted my mother’s hand. “Sarah has potential to lead a better life,” she said. “Education, comfort, and in a few years, a marriage that will elevate her situation. Isn’t that what every mother wants for their daughter?”

  “I need to think about this,” Mum hedged.

  “You don’t have time to think about it,” Mrs. Winter said. “I need an answer now. We must act quickly if we are to work ahead of this debacle.”

  “You can’t expect me to just hand her over.”

  “I can, and I do,” Mrs. Winter told her. “And my patience is wearing thin. Now, what is your answer?”

  “Do I have any say in this?” I asked quietly.

  “No,” Mum and Mrs. Winter chorused without looking at me.

  3

  The Death of Sarah Smith
>
  And that was that.

  Without any troublesome opinions from me, Mum and Mrs. Winter negotiated the terms of my “death.” My parents were instructed to tell our neighbors that I had become so ill that I’d been rushed to a special hospital near London. With my reputation as being “poor, sickly Sarah,” this would come as a surprise to no one. This was the pattern for most of my parents’ conversations. They would tell people that my condition was getting worse and worse, until I “died” in a few weeks. Mr. and Mrs. Winter would arrange for a tasteful closed-casket funeral and headstone in the Warren’s boneyard. And I would no longer be considered part of my own family.

  Not everyone was agreeable to this arrangement. If my mother had been upset by the sudden change in my status in the Winter household, my father had been inconsolable. And Mary… While my father had wept openly as Mum led him away from Raven’s Rest, Mary hadn’t even looked back. She just marched away like she couldn’t get far enough, fast enough.

  My father, who normally wouldn’t have said “manure,” if his boots were covered in it, weakly protested the scheme as Mum shushed him. This was the pattern for most my parents’ conversations. By the time Papa had grasped what was happening and came up with what he wanted to say, Mum had already decided that he was wrong and found some way to keep him quiet. Mary had been smart enough to keep her mouth shut as Mrs. Winter made it clear that any discussion of my whereabouts would result in a “sharp rebuke.” I had my doubts that Mary knew what the word ‘rebuke’ meant, but Mrs. Winter made it sound very unpleasant.

  Sarah Smith was dead, or very close to it. No more pre-dawn walks to the house with Papa absent-mindedly quizzing me on proper Latin names for the plants in his garden. No more mornings in the kitchen bickering good-naturedly with Mary and Mum while we divvied up the chores. I would never walk through Rabbit’s Warren, listening to other children playing stick-ball or singing their silly jump-rope songs.