Light from the broad, stone-pillared portico flooded out to capture them. Auberon, with his black beard and twinkling eyes, his sweater patterned with holly and red berries, was like a dark Santa Claus, a Holly King. “Masks!” called Jessica, turning.
Rosie felt the cool satin lining grow warm against her face as her mother slipped the mask onto her. It covered eyes and nose, making it hard to breathe. Through the eye slits she saw her family transformed. They each had the muzzle of an exotic fox with red-silk fur, slanted eyes, black nose. The eyes were outlined with gold and red crystals, the ears tipped with jet.
Rosie grinned. Matthew suddenly pulled off his own mask and said, “This is daft. I’m not wearing it.”
“Oh, Matthew!” said Jessica.
“As you wish,” Auberon said lightly. “Come on, troops.”
They passed under the porch and into the light. An intense atmosphere enveloped them. Thrumming, heated air, shifting light, voices, the church-scent of stone threaded with the fragrance of pine needles; all coalescing in a great shimmering veil of sensation. The threshold of another world.
The last time Rosie had seen the grand reception hall, it had been desolate. Now it was lit with thousands of sparkling fairy lights. Four massive Christmas trees, glittering and glowing, stood as high as the galleries that lined the heights of the hall. Candles gleamed on the linen and silver of long buffet tables. There were masses of guests in costume or cocktail dress, fabrics shimmering in the softly flattering light.
When she began to notice animal faces scattered among the human ones, her heart skipped in excitement. Unknown jeweled eyes glanced her way from the symbolic visages of cats, hares, reptiles. She recognized most of the Vaethyr clans from Cloudcroft—among them the Staggs, the Tullivers, the copper-haired Lyon family—but she knew little about them. Aetherials kept their children strictly apart from adult mysteries.
As the crowd parted, she saw four figures at the far end of the hall, holding court before a huge stone fireplace. Elusive Aetherials who had haunted her dreams for years. Lawrence Wilder and his family.
There was an elegant woman in a figure-hugging white dress, her hair a sleek dark brown waterfall almost to her hips. With her stood a tall, imposing man in a cobalt-blue Nehru suit. Black hair, chin held high, long fingers slightly clawed with tension.
Beside them, the two boys that Rosie had so dreaded encountering were now lean young men. The younger one was in a white shirt and black trousers. His chestnut hair had grown long and hung in shiny waves on his shoulders. The older one, as if he couldn’t be bothered and wanted everyone to know it, wore faded black jeans, a charcoal T-shirt with a tie-dye pattern on it and a spiky steel chain around his neck. There had been whispers of him in trouble with the police, but no one knew the full story.
The woman was unmasked and smiling, but the Wilder males wore the faces of hawks, silver and haughty.
“This is weird,” said Jessica, tucking her hand through Auberon’s arm.
“It should be interesting,” he murmured from the side of his mouth. “You okay, Jess?”
“All ready with the smiley politeness,” she answered.
The walk gave Rosie a vision of dignitaries visiting a foreign court. When the two families met, there was a moment of ritual; an inclination of heads—then all masks were removed in a flourish.
The legendary Lawrence Wilder stood revealed. He had the same emphatic, stark features as his son Sam—handsome, but hard and threatening with it—and glacial eyes, thick ebony hair swept back from a high forehead and cheekbones. Rosie couldn’t believe he was real.
“Auberon,” he said. His voice was deep and quiet. “Jessica. I’m so glad you came.”
Her father leaned in to shake hands. “Happy Christmas, Lawrence. Yuletide greetings, blessings of the sun’s rebirth, and all that. It’s been too long.”
“Indeed it has. Allow me to introduce my wife, Sapphire.”
Sapphire was the antithesis of Lawrence, all smiles and quick movement, glossy hair swinging around her shoulders. Blazing white-rainbow gemstones flashed on her cleavage. Matthew couldn’t take his eyes off her. Rosie was tempted to poke him so he would shut his mouth.
“It’s wonderful to meet you all . . . heard so much about you . . . Don’t you all look splendid?” She came forward with air kisses, her fingers stroking them like butterfly feelers. Despite the cut-glass perfection of her English, there was an exotic trace of accent that suggested it was not her first language. “Matthew, so handsome . . . oh, Rosie, such lovely hair . . . and Lucas. What a fine young man.”
Jessica and Auberon were plainly startled by this overture, but responded in good heart. There was a moment, when Jessica leaned in to kiss her, that Sapphire’s smile slipped and Rosie heard her say, “I’m sorry?”—then the moment was lost in the general chatter. Meanwhile, Lawrence and the two boys stood back, detached. They were unreadable.
“My sons, Samuel and Jonathan,” said Lawrence. “I don’t believe you’ve met, at least not formally.”
There was a round of handshaking that Rosie couldn’t avoid. First came Lawrence’s icy impersonal grip, then Jon’s, soft and shy. Rosie didn’t want to touch Sam, but she had no choice. She looked away as she felt his alien hand in hers, bony and hard; felt his eyes slipping over her, chips of green-blue ice. It was over quickly. The world didn’t end.
When Matthew and Sam shook hands, they held the grip a little too long and she saw the tension of their mouths, their faces tilting belligerently towards each other. Matthew was a good six-footer now, fit from rugby. Sam was a couple of inches shorter and somewhat leaner, but in the war of aggressive stares, he won; his eyes held all the amusement of a hardened gangster.
“I can’t believe such close neighbors never see each other,” Sapphire said, placing possessive hands on her stepsons’ shoulders. “Ours are always away at school, poor things.”
“I like my family around me, where they belong,” said Auberon. “Nothing wrong with the local schools, you know. Excellent sixth form at Ashvale; Matthew got all the grades he needed for university.”
“Oh, what are you studying?” Sapphire leaned towards Matt, passionately interested. Her perfume wafted over them.
“Architecture,” he stammered.
“Sooner he graduates, the better,” said Auberon. “I need him on my team.”
“Oh, so Fox Homes is a real family firm, how marvelous. People like yourself and Lawrence are in a position to be such great benefactors to the community. Well, do help yourselves to drinks, won’t you?” Sapphire gently pointed them at the buffet tables. “We’ll talk later.”
“Looking forward to it,” said Auberon.
“What do you think?” Jessica asked as they moved to the drinks table. There were bottles of wine and champagne in gleaming rows, huge crystal bowls of jewel-red punch, uniformed caterers poised to serve. Rosie spotted her friends, Mel and Faith, and waved.
“Lawrence hasn’t changed,” said Auberon, passing cups of punch around. “All this is just his new wife being nosy.”
“Not us being nosy, oh no,” Jessica laughed.
“She’s very glamorous, isn’t she?” Rosie put in. Matthew grabbed a bottle of beer and was scanning the crowd.
“Very,” said Jessica as they moved away from the table. “She’s wearing about half a million pounds’ worth of Elfstones around her neck. She’s making a fantastic show, but does she know what she’s let herself in for?”
“Gossip?” said Aunt Phyllida, gliding up to them in an ivory Grecian-style dress, her gold bull mask hanging over her arm. Groomed and poised with glossy caramel hair, she was the opposite of bohemian Jessica. Phyll was the village doctor and had an open, no-nonsense manner that made Rosie feel shy around her. In her spare time she sang opera, and seemed to look down on Jessica’s folk-rock leanings. Rosie wondered if that was why her mother had stopped singing.
Jessica greeted her sister with a kiss. “You’re talking about the replacement, aren’t you?” P
hyll murmured from the side of her mouth. “Human. Definitely.”
Meanwhile, Phyll’s husband, Comyn, crinkled his eyes at Rosie and Lucas; it was the closest he ever came to a smile. He was a farmer, a wiry man with Celtic-pale skin and dark eyebrows; black hair cropped short, and watchful green eyes. He wasn’t bad-looking as uncles went, Rosie thought, but so serious and intense. No one quite knew what Phyll saw in him. To most people, he was a fearsome misery, but he always had a friendly word for Rosie and Luc.
“You agree, she’s not Aetherial?” said Jessica. She and Auberon exchanged glances. “That was our feeling, wrong aura, but you can’t always tell for certain. I could be mistaken.”
“You’re not,” said Phyll. “No color change in the Elfstones? She’s mortal, all right.”
“Even odder,” Jessica said, with an edge. “Lawrence is such a purist. I never thought he would look twice at a human.”
“I never could work the devil out at all,” Comyn said grimly. “And he’ll have hell to pay if he carries on like—”
“Comyn,” said Auberon, interrupting. “Not tonight.”
“Perhaps he’s gathered us for an announcement?” said Phyll.
Rosie took the chance to slip away into the company of her girlfriends. She heard her uncle complaining, “In the old days this would have been a full-blooded winter ritual that meant something. Now we’re reduced to ruddy cocktail parties,” and then his voice faded into the general murmur.
High up on one of the galleries, Rosie and her friends commanded a bird’s-eye view of the hall.
Mel was skinny and pretty, with platinum-bright hair and dewy skin. In khaki pants and a rainbow T-shirt she looked exquisite. Faith wore a charity-shop floral dress, her mouse-brown hair scraped back in a ponytail, spectacles perched on her nose. Rosie’s friends were human, but next to Mel she felt dowdy and lacking in Aetherial glamour.
“What’s with the fox face and medieval getup?” said Mel. “You didn’t tell us it was fancy dress.”
“Oh, it was optional,” Rosie said, touching the mask that hung at her hip. “It’s a family tradition thing. Like announcing, ‘Here comes the Fox family.’ I can leave it off now.”
The party was growing loud beneath them, music competing with conversation. Heat shimmered up from below. Her velvet dress was sticking to her.
“I’ve always said your family’s weird.” Mel grinned. “Nice, but weird.”
“I wish mine were weird in a nice way,” said Faith.
“Yeah, I’m lucky,” Rosie said quietly. “Really lucky.”
“I thought there’d be more decent boys here.” Mel was craning over the balustrade. “See anything you fancy?”
“Honestly, Mel, you never stop,” Faith remarked in admiration. Mel was already on her third or fourth boyfriend. Rosie and Faith weren’t ready to do more than spectate and dream. “My mum used to be Ginny Wilder’s cleaner, years ago,” Faith added, looking at the high gothic shadows of the rafters. “She reckoned this place was haunted. That’s why she quit.” Rosie had heard that Ginny had in fact sacked Faith’s mother for drinking on the job, but she said nothing.
“Hey, he’s not bad,” said Mel.
Rosie saw Sapphire chatting to her parents far below, hair swinging around her creamy shoulders as she laughed. There was no sign of Lawrence. She looked for Jonathan but couldn’t see him, either. “Which one?”
“The guy in the grey T-shirt. He had a hawk mask on earlier. Sam, is it?”
“Ew, no, not him,” Rosie exclaimed.
“You are kidding,” said Mel. “He’s gorgeous.”
Rosie turned her back to the party and folded her arms. “Only if you like psychopaths. Sam’s a really nasty piece of work.” She pushed her hair back to show the scar on her neck. “He did this to me.”
Mel was taken aback. “You said a twig hit you in the woods.”
“I know, that’s what I told my folks. Actually Sam ripped a chain off my neck. When Matt tried to get it back, Sam nearly killed him.” She shuddered at the memory. “Seriously, Mel, don’t. You only have to look at him to see he’s not right.”
Mel looked horrified. “Come on, it’s just a laugh. Okay . . . what about that guy with your brother?”
Rosie turned, saw Matthew below with a ginger-blond man; similar height, broader build. “That’s his mate, Alastair Duncan. They’re at uni together. He’s okay.”
“He’s more my type. Nice and rugged.”
“He’s a bit old for you.”
Mel shrugged and grinned. “So? We’re only window-shopping. Come on Rosie, there must be someone you fancy.”
She surveyed the scene, earnestly searching. “Nah. Don’t think so.”
“Can I tell you who I like?” Faith said unexpectedly. Her voice was intense and tremulous with embarrassment. Her cheeks flushed pink. “Matthew.”
“Good grief,” said Rosie. “As in, my brother?”
“I do, I like him. It’s stupid, I know. But I think he’s fantastic.”
Rosie gave a hollow laugh. “You don’t have to live with him.”
“Don’t worry, he’d never look at me in a thousand years.”
“Oh, Fai,” Mel sighed. “You know, if you colored your hair, and wore trendier clothes—”
“I couldn’t. My father would kill me.”
Rosie couldn’t face another session of Mel advising, and Faith finding a zillion reasons why she couldn’t change. “I’m going to find the loo. Won’t be long.”
As she walked into semidarkness, she heard Faith’s voice fading on a question, “Mel, have you ever, like, you know, gone all the way?”
Rosie found the bathroom without difficulty, but when she came out, she got lost. There was one broad corridor after another, high windows letting in chilly starlight. No sight or sound of the party, only desolation. Everything seemed to shift, as if the house had taken off its mask. Duskland strangeness prickled her skin, sinister in a way she’d never felt outside these walls. Prowling beasts seemed to stalk her, only to vanish when she looked round.
She stopped, took a deep breath and retraced her steps. This time she turned in to a different corridor; this one held a row of bedroom doors standing ajar. It was familiar. She saw a ghost image of Ginny Wilder, storming along with her mad black hair and her suitcase.
Possessed by curiosity, she tiptoed to the first door and peered into a huge room with a four-poster bed and muslin curtains flowing across the windows. It must be the master bedroom, where Lawrence and Sapphire slept. The next room was plain, with a computer desk and shelves full of files. Then a library with towering bookshelves, tables and armchairs set in acres of empty space.
Rosie stepped in. It felt cold and empty, all dust and moonlight; like one of her dreams. She went to the window to convince herself the real world still lay outside. The voices and footsteps came softly, hardly giving her enough warning to hide. At the last moment she pressed herself into an alcove, heart racing.
“Whiskey?”
“Very small one. I’m driving. Well, how are you?” It was her father’s warm deep voice. “You know, I miss the talks we used to have.”
The second voice was measured, gentle but icy. “You’re very gracious, considering all the circumstances.” Through a gap in the bookshelf that concealed her, she saw Lawrence and her father, clinking whiskey tumblers. “That always was a commendable trait in you, Auberon, one I lack.”
“So what’s changed? Why the party?”
“It’s Sapphire, of course,” Lawrence answered. “Convinced me that I should reopen the lines of communication.”
“I’m glad.” There was a silence. She saw her father with his arms folded, shuffling his feet. “How did you meet her?”
“Oh, she was working for me.” Lawrence spoke with brisk distaste for personal questions. “Marketing manager . . . she’s very good . . . we became close.”
“She’s lovely, but I wouldn’t have seen her as your type. Not old blood, eh?”
> “Quite. We’ve absolutely nothing in common.” A glint of amusement showed through the ice. “Except that we each like our own space . . . somehow it works.”
“Didn’t even know you and Ginny had divorced.”
“Well, I was as surprised by Sapphire as no doubt you are. But she has been . . . good for me.”
“Obviously. Does she know . . . who you are?”
“I told her everything.”
“Good heavens.” Another silence. “We’ve been wondering if the party meant a change—a thaw—a special announcement, or—”
Lawrence interrupted, “Nothing’s changed, in fact.” Rosie saw the eyes shining in the imperious face like flecks of light in a glacier. “I know what you want to ask, and the answer’s still no.”
“Lawrence, it’s been five years.”
“An eyeblink to Aetherials.”
“Not to our children.”
“And it’s for the safety of the next generation that I do this. It’s still not safe. I can’t guarantee it ever will be again.”
“Never?” Auberon sounded anxious.
“There’s nothing I can do. It’s too dangerous.”
“Still?”
“You have no idea.”
“If you’d be specific about the danger, perhaps I could help?” No answer. Auberon exhaled. “Since you refuse to speak to them, it’s me they come to demanding answers. All I can explain is that there are energy shifts between realms, like earthquakes or storms, and until you decide it’s safe, we must be patient. I don’t even convince myself. Is it so hard to tell me the truth?”
“That is the truth,” came the soft chill of the voice.
“And what about the inner realms? I wonder if the Aelyr are as distressed as the Vaethyr about this? Are they in danger, too? Why doesn’t the Spiral Court act?”
“A lot of questions,” said Lawrence. He paused to sip his drink. “I am the Spiral Court’s authority when it comes to the Gates. Keeping them closed keeps both sides safe. It keeps the flood still, as it were, like a dam. Since you ask, I don’t suppose the Aelyr much care, since they take little interest in Earth. It’s only the Vaethyr who insist on making this undignified fuss.”
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