I was in love with her to the degree of madness. I couldn’t spend an hour without wondering where she spent hers. I pressed too hard, and she showed her teeth. She was used to flickering away into the shadows of underwater caverns. My pursuit was, I now mark it, too aggressive.
I will not say I deserved the treatment at her hands.
No one deserves what she gave me.
“You disappeared,” says Miles. “Back then. I didn’t know where you had gone. I lost against Mordred because you weren’t there to guide me.”
I groan in deep agony. So much undone, because of one woman’s betrayal. All the good of Arthur’s Round Table, the men who brought order and purity to the rough kingdom, unraveled by her falseness.
“Where did you go?” he asks.
“She buried me.”
* * *
Before I can begin to plumb these scattered, half-remembered memories, we are back at the manor. Kate and Steven are still standing at the edge of the pit of swords. I take a shaky breath of relief as I see Phoebe’s mum come tearing around the corner of the building, pulling Tabby with her. Phoebe follows, her face grave. All I can think is, Kate is safe.
“Hello!” Steven hails his wife, but she doesn’t respond.
Rage and deep, fundamental terror mottle her fair skin and make her eyes a fearsome blaze. She runs to him, out of breath, staggering with effort. Still holding her mother’s hand, Tabby stands at her side and hugs her leg.
“You’ve seen the cemetery?” she asks him. She glances over at Kate Darrow and her face drains. She pushes at Kate. “Go home! Go!”
“Pardon me,” says Kate as she regains her balance.
“Anne, the cemetery? Yes, of course I’ve seen it. You’ve seen it, too, I might dare add,” says Steven in a reasoned voice. He puts a hand on his wife’s arm, which she violently shakes off.
“Not that one!” she screams.
“What’s going on, Phoebe?” I ask.
Phoebe’s caressing her sister’s hair for all it’s perceived or not.
Miles answers for her. “Anne found the second cemetery.”
So that’s why he couldn’t get Phoebe to come.
“I don’t understand,” says Steven.
“There’s a gate in the back of the cemetery and you push through and then there’s . . .” Phoebe’s mum angrily wipes at tears on her cheeks with her free hand. “You, my dear, really ought to go home now,” she says to Kate. She tries to muster up a smile. “I know I’m being terribly rude, but you may not know there has been a lot of trouble here recently.”
“I want to help,” says Kate. “I know about your elder daughter.”
Phoebe’s mum stares at Steven. “Who is this?”
“She just showed up,” says Steven. “She’s curious about the swords.”
“And you told her about Phoebe?”
“She sees ghosts.”
Silence descends as all parties try to figure out how to respond.
“I’m sorry if I’ve overstepped or come at a rotten time,” says Kate finally.
“Listen, Anne, let’s talk with this woman and see what she knows about the prophecy Phoebe was trying to tell us about.”
“Do you know what’s behind that gate?” Anne asks. “Phoebe told us about Madame Arnaud’s story but, Steven, until you see the rows and rows and rows . . .”
“I’ve seen it,” says Steven quietly, and I hear Phoebe give a dramatic and frightening inhale.
“You’ve seen it? Then you know this is not a place to bring children.” She pauses, and incredible torment etches her face. “Steven, why are we here?”
She takes a step back from her husband, and without seeming to realize it, turns her body so it looks like she’s shielding Tabby from him.
He winces. Phoebe kneels next to Tabby and closes her eyes as she hugs her without substance.
“Steven?”
He gives a growl of frustration. “You know why we’re here! Phoebe died!”
“But if we wanted to start fresh somewhere, why here?” She leans over and picks Tabby up. “I don’t know what to think anymore. You’re not the same.”
Good for Anne. It seems like she’s accusing him of having something to do with the missing teens.
“Of course I’m not the same!” he roars. “My kid is dead!”
She backs up, cowed by his anger. Similarly, Kate quietly turns and starts walking away.
“Don’t yell at me!” Anne says. “Do you see I have a child in my arms? You’re scaring her.”
“I’m sorry,” he says, but still in a loud tone. “Sorry, Tabby.”
“Steven,” Anne says in a small, persistent voice. “Why are we here?”
“I don’t know! It seemed like a good idea at the time. We were paying taxes on an empty home. England seems safe, different . . . and don’t lay this all at my feet. You agreed. You liked the idea of an eighteenth-century manor that needed attention.”
“I wanted to bury myself in a project, yes,” says Anne in tight tones. “But not in a place that’s dangerous.”
Kate opens her car door and looks over at the tense altercation. Limply, she raises a hand to wave good-bye, but no one sees her but me. “We’re losing our best resource for understanding things,” I mutter to Miles.
“So go with her,” he says.
I pause. I can always intention to her, and I desperately want to see the outcome of this confrontation. We know Steven loves Phoebe, but was his motive for moving the family to Grenshire not a clean one?
“Don’t worry,” says Miles abruptly. “I’ll keep an eye on Steven, and I’ll come get you if we need you. Go, see what Kate does.”
“All right,” I say. I take one last fleeting look at Phoebe entwined with her sister and mother, yet unseen by either.
And then I intention into Kate’s car as she makes a quick turn in the cobbled courtyard and heads back down the long Arnaud drive. “Holy ghosts of Britain, I didn’t see that coming,” she mutters to herself as whatever she’s doing creates unpleasant, grinding sounds from the motor.
* * *
Kate drives for an hour. I hold back from touching her, terrified at the speed at which we’re traveling. I don’t want to distract her in this important work of keeping herself alive. There are so many other cars around, and we travel at a pace that makes the roadside trees a green blur. I begin to feel dizzy. Is it possible people travel like this every day? As we pass other cars going our direction, I crane over to see their expressions. They evidence no fear. They’re used to this.
Kate leaves the fast road for a slower one, and drives through a town at a more modest rate. I’m relieved. We pass stores and churches, which give way to homes. Kate does some clever backward trick to get us into a line of cars at the side of the road.
I smooth down my black gown, marveling again at the loss of my apron. I’m a whole other person without it. She turns off the motor, and I lean my head back, exhausted.
She enters a brick house with an interior stairwell. At the top are two doors with numbers on them, and she uses her key to open the one with the number three on it. I gather this building has been divided into separate living spaces.
Kate puts on a kettle; I’m happy to see her sensibleness in taking tea after such an ordeal. She crouches between a set of drawers made of metal and pulls out the bottom drawer. Inside are tightly fitting papers, divided here and there with stronger beige paper with arching bits that stick up. On them she has written titles. She pulls out the one that is called “Arnaud Manor.”
She sits at her kitchen table and flips through the papers inside. She makes a satisfied sound when she finds a page that looks like one from a book, rather than handwritten. I’m not sure how she has this; it appears to be a copy. This is created of technology not available to me when I was alive.
As I lean over her, I realize it’s actually a copy of a page from Steven’s secret societies book. I reel.
There must have been more than one copy.
She said she hadn’t been to the manor before. So somewhere in a library there must be another.
In the margins, Kate has previously written out translations for the Old English words. “Let’s put it all together,” she says. She opens a computer sitting on her table and begins to type the handwritten notes in.
She pauses now and then to pull out her phone and check a word again. I begin to exult as I watch the words appearing on the screen, now comprehensible. This is the translation Raven Gellerman and her group should have made. We would’ve known more, earlier, if they had.
Kate types, “On a strand the king does slumber, and below the meadow the dragon battle.” She pauses and I see her handwrite in her notebook next to the word bataille, “noun rather than verb?” and she returns to her laptop. “The dragon battles the wicked trap with scorn from the damsel, and the goodness undone for she who betrays. But if you seek those of the same likeness and lineage, for a long time tolerate to come thereby the three people born on the day of such clamor for the king . . .”
She writes in her notebook, “day of clamor? Clue?”
I am hugging myself with fierce glee. This is about us! We are the three people born on the day Arthur fell.
She continues typing, “. . . and have them drink of Sangreçu blood . . .”
“Whatever that is,” she says aloud.
“. . . then they may learn the hiding places and bring the lost to might, once again will Britain arise to her glory.”
So that’s it.
All three of us have to drink the Sangreçu blood. Phoebe’s treachery in drinking my portion has landed us here in this wretched halfway station. I have to find the vials and drink to enact the last part of the prophecy: learning the hiding place and bringing the lost to might.
I’m the hidden one, buried by Nimue, and Arthur is the lost. His return to power will again bring England to glory.
Where am I hidden? Where did that traitorous wench Nimue put me?
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Were the incubus and succubus invented to explain the surprise of climaxing while one sleeps? Or, further, to shift blame away from the wanderings of restless fingers in the night? They are said to be demons—the incubus a male preying on female humans, and the succubus the reverse.
—Demons & Angels throughout History
I intention back to Phoebe.
She’s inside the manor with her mother and sister. Steven is nowhere to be seen. Tabby is watching a show on the telly while her mother stonily stares at the screen without truly watching it. Phoebe is sitting with her face in her hands. She isn’t moving.
Miles intentions into the room immediately; he must’ve sensed me coming. “Did you learn anything?”
“I did,” I say grimly. “We all have to be Sangreçu to face our next task.”
His face splinters into regret mixed with anger. He had tried to keep a few drops for me.
“How do you know that?”
“Kate sat down and very handily translated the prophecy. Something anyone could’ve done. So why didn’t Raven?”
“Or Steven,” says Miles. He whispers the next part so Phoebe won’t hear. “Anne has kicked him out. She’s scared he brought her and Tabby here for malevolent purposes. The door’s locked hard against him.”
“So where is he?”
“He’s just thrashing through the forest. I’ve been following him for the last hour. I’ll go back again immediately.”
“Do you think Anne is right?”
He glances guilty over at Phoebe. “Come with me,” he says.
We intention to the late-afternoon woods, where Steven is using a tree limb to smack at anything in his way, tree trunks, boulders, to express his anger. He’s walking like he can barely stand to be in his skin.
“Not an easy man to have a word with,” I say.
“No. He’s off the deep end. And so was his wife.”
We watch him. His branch splinters to the degree he throws it in the underbrush as hard as he can and then rakes his nails into the bark of the nearest tree.
“He’s unhinged,” I say.
“But he seems to truly love his children.”
“He may be in the influence of larger forces. Just like us.”
“So, we have to find another vial for you, and that’s the number one job, you say?” says Miles.
“That’s what will allow my former self to be found and your former self to be revived. Out on your island of Avalon, which you can doubtless see from the beach you and Phoebe tend to like to visit.”
He smiles gently. “It all went so wrong, didn’t it?”
“With you and Phoebe?”
“Yes. And with the three of us back then. I can’t remember anything but the swords flashing and the blood on the grass, but I understand from history that the kingdom of Camelot was very well received.”
“Indeed. It will be a pleasure to reestablish it,” I say.
We both laugh, his ringing a bit more like a snort. “It is ridiculous to think of, isn’t it?” he says.
“It’s all been ridiculous,” I say.
“A few months ago I was just a guy on the swim team.”
“A few centuries ago I was just a servant carrying a tray.”
“And what was Steven?”
We look ahead where he’s trampled a path through the forest like a questing beast. He’s not one of the three, but is he something?
* * *
Hours later, as darkness begins to sidle into the woods, Steven sinks to the forest floor and curls up on his side. He pulls leaves into his fists and crushes them until his breathing steadies and we understand he’s asleep. Miles and I hover over him, unsure what to do.
“Do we think he’s guilty?” Miles asks.
“I think he wasn’t strong enough to fight off the evil,” I say.
Miles nods slowly. “Poor Phoebe,” he says.
“And Dee and Alexander and Amey,” I remind him.
“I know, I know,” he says. “Seems like someone should just burn this forest and tear the manor down.”
“I have no objections,” I say.
“Speaking of Phoebe . . .”
Irritability courses through me. She’s all he ever thinks about. He’s about to ask me to stand guard over Steven, so he can go see her. So before he can ask, I say, “I agree. I’ll go see her. You stay here and watch Steven.”
His mouth opens to form a protest, but without waiting to hear it, I intention back to the manor, where Tabby’s mum is reacting to knocks on the front door.
“Is that you, Steven?” she calls through the wood. “I’m sorry, but I just need some time to think about things.”
“No,” comes a female voice. “It’s Kate Darrow. I’ve come back, and I think I have some good research to share with you.”
“No, thank you,” she calls. “Busy day here for us.”
Silence.
“I was here earlier. I was talking with your husband.”
“You were?” Tabby’s mum frowns. She’s in such a state she doesn’t remember who Kate is.
“I know about your elder daughter.”
At that, Anne undoes the locks and opens the door. “Come in quickly,” she breathes. “My husband’s out there and quite angry.”
Startled, Kate comes in, and Anne redoes the locks behind her.
“Have you seen my daughter?” she asks starkly.
I turn and look at Phoebe, who shakes her head and rolls her eyes at the same time.
“I might have done,” says Kate. “Before your husband saw me, I was standing alone and could have sworn I felt cold hands on my face. And then, as I tried so very hard to see the entity, I could see two forms.”
Phoebe’s mum breaks into incredulous laughter. “My God! It could have been her! And that boy!”
“I believe so. One shape seemed clearly female but the other had a more hulking substance. In fact, I turned tail and ran when I realized there were two. I wish I had stayed and tried to lear
n more.”
“Dear girl!” says Phoebe’s mum. She reaches over and hugs Kate, who makes a noise of surprise before she hugs back. “Sorry, such an American thing to do. But it moves me that you may have seen my Phoebe.”
“Thanks, Eleanor,” says Phoebe quietly. “It wasn’t me, but if it means something to her, that’s all that matters.”
I nod soberly as I watch Phoebe’s mum try hard to master her desire to break down crying.
“My younger daughter, Tabby, is asleep, so we can talk without her interrupting. You said you brought some research?”
They sit down at the kitchen table, and Kate pulls the translated prophecy pages out to show her.
“It’s all happening,” says Phoebe. “It just took someone who was really invested in figuring things out. Unlike . . .” her voice trails off.
I don’t dare look at Phoebe.Steven was never trying to find out the truth. He had turned away Miles’s parents. He hadn’t truly spent time in the library searching for the books that could help. He had fostered the appearance of looking, by leaving books on the kitchen table for us, open to certain pages, but he hadn’t managed to find what my Kate found in just a few hours of serious work.
“I don’t know what this Sangreçu is,” falters Anne. “But it let her come back to us, talk to us. Very briefly.”
Kate nods. “That is a powerful force.”
“And cruel. It wore off.”
“Imagine its force had she drunk while alive,” says Kate.
Phoebe makes a tiny sound, and I again resist the impulse to look at her. It would be unkind.
Tabby’s mum slumps forward, her face blanching. “I hadn’t thought of that,” she says.
“I’m sorry,” says Kate. “I hope I didn’t say the wrong thing.”
“There is no ‘wrong thing’ for me now. Please don’t worry. My whole system of what is upsetting has adjusted,” says Tabby’s mum. She sits back up and appears to make an attempt to square herself up. “It seems like the three people in the prophecy are probably my daughter and the two friends she told us about.”
Avenged Page 13
