“I can’t believe it!” says Kate. She extends a hand as if to shake mine, and I grasp hers in both of mine. So warm and sympathetic, that hand.
I am not ashamed to say that tears well up in our eyes.
“You’re my ancestor,” she says. “I’m looking at you. I’m . . .”
“Overcome?” ventures Phoebe, unheard by Kate.
“I’m so . . .”
“Overcome is actually the perfect verb,” says Phoebe. “Take it.”
“Shut it, Phoebe,” says Miles, but somewhat kindly.
“I feel so much love for you,” blurts Kate.
I surge forward and wrap my arms around her neck. We look, eye to eye, each feeling the poignance of seeing recognizable features. Maybe she has lost someone who looks like me. All my sisters are gone, of course, but it was Edie whose face in particular I see reflected in Kate’s. “I feel the same,” I say.
“Come on, Eleanor, tell her you love her. You might not’ve been able to in the eighteen hundreds but you can now,” says Phoebe.
It is hard for me to talk about love. I don’t think the word ever passed my lips in my lifetime except in church and Biblical scriptures. Even with Austin, I don’t think we used such direct language. I look into the shine of Kate’s eyes and muster my courage. “I must admit that I return your feelings of love,” I am able to say.
Miles guffaws but Phoebe reaches over and squeezes my arm. And Kate . . . oh, Kate’s reaction! The sunshine of her smile splinters my head apart.
“All right, I’d best get off the shoulder,” she says as we unwind. “Not safe. And we’ve hours to go yet before we return to Grenshire.”
“And we’ve a thirsty girl in the backseat,” says Miles.
“Give it to me,” says Phoebe to Miles, leaning over me to the front seat.
“May I present to you, dear Phoebe Irving, or perhaps and almost certainly Arnaud, the greatest and best of cocktails, only a drop of which is necessary for complete and total satisfaction?” Miles flourishes it like he is one of those medicine sellers who used to come to the kitchen door.
“You fool, you’re holding it in your bare hand? What if you drop it?” she scolds him.
“We don’t serve impudent customers,” says Miles, withdrawing the vial from her.
“How can you even joke?” she says.
“I can joke because I’m feeling fiiiiiiine. There’s a lot of love in this car,” he says.
“Fork it over,” she says.
He gives it to her, and I watch as she tilts her long neck back. A single pendant of the blood comes off the glass lip of the vial, and she opens her mouth as if she’s taking a large bite. It disappears into her mouth and she groans.
“Oh God,” she says.
“Indeed,” says Miles. “Hey, climb up front.”
Phoebe’s always been visible to me, but I watch the dawn of disbelief as Kate can now see her, too. “This is quite the day,” she mutters to herself.
“You’ve plenty of material for a sequel, eh?” Miles asks her.
She practically shouts with hilarity. “You don’t know the half of it,” she says.
Brazenly, Phoebe crawls into the front seat and onto Miles’s lap. Kate laughs aloud. “Hussy,” she teases, and catches my eye in the mirror to wink. She pulls back onto the roadway while Miles and Phoebe kiss as if nothing could ever tear them apart again.
I turn my head to the side. I’m still thrilling to the world of feeling and touch, but there’s a tinge of sadness seeing the lovers.
Austin. Why didn’t I try to run away with him instead of taking my life?
“Okay, Miles and Phoebe, if you could remove your tongues from each other’s epiglottis, let’s figure a few things out,” says Kate after a few minutes.
“No,” says Miles.
“You get thirty seconds,” says Kate. “PDAs are never pleasant for the others around, you know?”
“You get this all the time,” says Miles.
Kate responds by driving faster, making the engine shudder. “I’m like a well-oiled machine,” she says as she slides back into the lane between two cars with just a sliver of space between them.
“Phoebe,” I venture. “Can we return and release Myrddin? See if you can remember the spell?”
“Wait—you found Myrddin?” Miles’s face is an intense blaze.
“The Sangreçu helped me remember,” I say, “which is why I wish it would help Phoebe remember. He is buried upright in a stone well in the cellars, a level below the old altar we found.”
“I can’t believe I’m just driving my car while all this is happening,” says Kate. “I feel like I’m in a movie.”
“He’s just standing there?”
“Yes, with shield and sword,” says Phoebe. “Rather pathetically prepared for a battle he can’t fight.”
She shares a glance with me. The battle was to have been with Arthur.
“Tell me about this altar,” says Kate.
“It looks like a place where they sacrificed people,” I say.
“There’s so much yet to be learned about the pagan background of this area,” she says. “You know the manor’s address is Auldkirk Lane? That’s a Scottish way of saying old church.”
“So we are not only balancing Arthurian prophecies and our dismal deaths, but also pagan churches of an evil bent?” says Miles.
“Pretty much,” says Kate.
“So, Phoebe, will you go with me?” I ask again.
“It will last until we get back,” she says. “I want to be with Miles right now.”
“Release Myrddin first, then come back and spoon with him,” I say. “And don’t forget, we have some bodies in the pond to . . .”
“Eleanor, don’t tell me what to do!” she snaps. “I haven’t felt this good in so long. I want to spend this time with Miles. Last time we were Sangreçu I blew it. I’m not going to blow it this time.”
“Please!” I say.
She doesn’t say another word, but the two of them intention away, leaving Kate and me alone in the car.
“What just happened?” Kate asks.
I can’t believe Phoebe.
And worse . . . I can’t believe Miles.
I consider intentioning after them, ruining their time together as lovers, but as angry as I am, I can’t do it.
“Are you all right?” asks Kate.
I stubbornly turn my head away, watching the cars we pass and drifting into troubled thoughts.
They can satisfy their animal lust, and then I can only hope that Phoebe, newly endowed with Sangreçu blood, can stand next to Myrddin and remember what terrible spells she wrought to put him in that state.
* * *
When she and Miles return, Kate and I are already on the driveway to the Arnaud Manor. We’ve lost any head start we might’ve had. I refuse to talk to either of them. Kate pulls up into the courtyard and we get out, just like regular people, closing the car doors behind us.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
It is fundamental that when a servant has deliberately disobeyed orders that he or she be made example of, so that every other servant is informed of the misdeed and stands witness to the punishment that of course must be severe and of sufficient duration that each servant feels it as a stripe across their own back.
—Quelling Insubordination
My first thought, of course, is to go to the cellars, but Phoebe wants to check on Tabby first. I don’t even bother to argue. I put on a stony face and we intention inside the apartment.
We arrive to chaos.
In Tabby’s bedroom, Phoebe’s mum is screaming and crying.
“Mom,” says Phoebe.
Anne turns around with so much gratefulness in her face that it hurts to see it. “Phoebe,” she says in a guttural voice. She seizes Phoebe and hugs her so tightly I’m sure in some way it hurts.
“What’s wrong, Mom?” Phoebe asks.
“Tabby’s . . . missing.” A world of agony arises from that simple sentence.<
br />
Oh no. No. It can’t be.
Anne dissolves into raw sobs again.
“It’s okay, Mom, she can’t be far,” says Phoebe. “We’ll look for her. I brought Miles and Eleanor and Kate.”
Anne looks up and registers our presence, but just barely, in eyes completely clouded with tears. “I’ve looked everywhere.”
“Where’s Steven?”
“I locked him out. As far as I know, he’s still outside.”
“But, Mom, you need his help to look for Tabby.”
“No,” says Phoebe’s mum. “You’re here, you all can help.” I see her shudder although she tries to hide it. Of the five people in the room, only two are alive.
“How long has she been gone?”
“I was napping, and when I woke up I knew too much time had gone by but I never heard Tabby call for me,” says Phoebe’s mum, talking in ragged measure between sobs. “She wasn’t in her crib.”
“So then we look through the house for her, don’t we?” asks Kate in an overly bright voice.
“It’s just this one apartment,” says Anne, “and I’ve been through every inch of it. She’s either in the manor itself, in which case we’ll never see her again, or she’s out in the woods.”
“Well, then, we’ll look through the manor and call her name loudly. And then we’ll head to the woods. She’ll turn up, never fear,” says Kate.
“Your optimism is ringing as ignorant and stupid rather than motivational,” says Anne coldly, in between sobs.
Kate looks taken aback.
“I’ve lost a child, remember,” says Anne, grabbing Phoebe’s arm in a way that almost looks angry rather than loving. “And I know my husband is dangerous. What if he came into the apartment and took Tabby?”
I look at the floor. I can’t bear to look at Phoebe’s face. I kept her away from Tabby when she was trying to be vigilant. No one watched Tabby and her mother.
“I think I know where we should check,” says Miles in a low voice.
He’s probably right. The sacrificial table. The worst possible place for a child.
“Just give Mom a second to collect herself,” says Phoebe.
I know it’s selfish but I want to descend to the table for another reason besides saving Tabby. I want to station Phoebe in front of my inscrutable half-self until she remembers the spell to release me. We don’t have all the time in the world. For the dead, the Sangreçu effects fade.
I try to recall spells of my own, so I can say them and trigger memories in Phoebe. It’s astonishing how quickly they flood into my head once I try.
Welsh words, Gaelic, rudimentary syllables from around the primeval campfire. I say a few to her now, for her to hear the rough yet majestic sounds. She jolts, looks deep into my eyes. “I think I . . .” She whispers.
“Has this always been here?” asks Miles, interrupting. He’s pointing to an oddity in the wallpaper. A seam has appeared.
No . . . no . . . Phoebe was just about to remember. I saw it in her face.
“It’s just like the door at Versailles!” Anne cries.
Miles pulls, and a secret door opens, its outlines previously hidden in the busy pattern of the paper.
“She must have gone this way,” he says.
“Gone or more likely taken,” says Anne. “He knows this house. He’s studied the blueprints. He must’ve snuck in and taken her.”
“Mom, don’t say things like that! It’s Steven.”
Miles is already in the passageway, crouching down because of its short height. I spy a child’s flashlight in a wicker toy bin and pass the lighted ladybug to him. I have to set aside my own concerns for the sake of Tabby.
“Should we all go?” I ask.
It could be a trap, I say with my eyes. Miles responds, and I flush with pleasure that we can again convey information with our deep understanding as it was in days of old.
“Phoebe, you and your mother might stay,” he suggests. “What if Steven comes back? And surely you should call the police.”
Anne is torn. She wants to race down the passageway herself, no one faster than her when her child is involved. But his suggestion does make sense; she’s the only one who can make that phone call and then talk with the officers when they arrive. Seeing the face of the lad who died in a car accident, whose photo was likely plastered all over the newspaper, will cloud our cause. So, too, will someone dressed as a nineteenth-century servant, or in Kate’s case, a complete stranger whose visit to the manor could be seen as suspicious.
Anne and Phoebe stay back while the three of us enter the passageway and begin running. We leave a sweet, wallpapered nursery and enter a dark stone passage. I’ve always hated small, close passages like this, the tiny wine caves and tunnels under thoroughfares to protect on rainy days. But despite my anger at Miles and Phoebe, because of the Sangreçu blood I revel in every musty stink it offers, every rough rock surface my arm abrades if I tip off-balance from the uneven dirt flooring.
It seems the walkway slopes downward as we go, and I wonder if we are going to the cellars. Soon, I’m out of breath from running. I feel myself grin despite everything, even if the unsavory object of our mission hasn’t eluded me. I like being out of breath. Phoebe and Miles taught me to like it at Versailles, running along the banks of the Grand Canal. I almost think I should never like to sit again, if I could always feel this marvelous hitch of my own breath.
The slope of the passage deepens until it’s undeniable we are descending. “Tabby!” Miles calls ahead, as if she’s done nothing but gone exploring what lay behind an open door. She did that once before; it’s possible she’s done it again, although my heart tells me there’s more to it than that.
Abruptly, we spill into a cavernous room. I’ve never been here before. A tiled plunge sits in the middle of it. The water in it is dark as coffee.
“A swimming pool?” says Miles.
“Quite an innovation at the time, I’d say,” says Kate.
“Especially for a mistress who didn’t know how to swim,” I say darkly. We walk around the edges of the room, trying to discern where the passage continues, or if this is a dead end.
Miles swears.
He bends over and picks up a teddy bear at the edge of the pool.
“Oh my God,” says Kate in a tight voice. “Please, God, no.”
We look at the dark surface of the plunge, its surface slightly rippling. The water has been recently disturbed.
“I’ll go,” says Miles.
“Phoebe drowned,” I tell Kate. “This can’t happen again. It just cannot. The world is not so cruel.”
“Anne will kill herself if Tabby drowned,” says Miles matter-of-factly. He jumps in and is gone. I crouch at the side and put my hand in. The water is somewhat warm, but what device heats it?
Miles surfaces a few times and then disappears for a longer while.
“He’s okay, isn’t he?” Kate asks me.
I stare at her, too exhausted to frame an answer that will allay her fears.
He surfaces near the wall. “There’s an underground tunnel,” he says. “It’s short. We can do it.”
I glance at Kate. I’d rather use intention, but we’d be leaving her alone in this forsaken place to swim it by herself. So she and I lower ourselves into the water and follow Miles. I want to cry for the sensation of water on my skin. It is . . . I can’t even describe it.
It brings my mind back to the metal tub my mother poured kettle water into until it was warm enough for each of us children to bathe in. I can see the towels drying on the Sheila Maid hanging from the ceiling, dripping onto our floors as we giggled and danced around nude, awaiting our turn.
I go under the surface and see the tunnel, almost like a cave but filled with water. Miles and Kate are already swimming ahead, so I can’t do anything but follow. As we slip through the burrow, I see runes on the walls, glowing.
I can read them now, with Sangreçu blood in my veins. They’re warnings, but placed crookedly
as if by a gloating hand that actually took pleasure in the thought of the danger it supposedly warned against.
We emerge into the grotto of the room with the sacrificial altar. I pull myself out of the water and run to it, water coursing off my dress. There doesn’t seem to be any blood on the altar, thank God. I crouch down to see the capstone again covers the well. I fall to my knees and scramble to move it.
“No!” I cry.
It’s set in place by magic. It’s as if the spell repaired a rent in its gossamer with a few stitches and all is back as it was.
I hit my fist against it. My God, if time is running out . . . and where, where is the key? I had left it in the rock.
Horror dawns on me. The house doesn’t want us to succeed. Did it kidnap Tabby as a distraction, so Phoebe wouldn’t be able to come release Myrddin?
“Okay, she’s not here,” says Miles, and then, “Eleanor, are you all right?”
“No,” I say. “Myrddin’s under here. I had removed this capstone, and now it’s back in place just as tight as before. And the key that opened the stone is missing.”
“He’s under here?” he asks.
“Yes! And if you and Phoebe hadn’t disappeared to have relations with each other, the capstone might still be off!”
“I’m sorry,” he says.
“You made love while my one chance at being released vanished!”
“We can come back and I’ll help you with it,” he promises.
“You don’t understand,” I say. “It’s not just a heavy rock; it’s fastened with magic.”
He stares at me, and my anger penetrates finally to him. “We’re going to be stuck,” I say. “We’re not going to graduate. Even though we’re all born on the same day and we’re all Sangreçu, we’re not going to achieve the prophecy. Because of you two.”
“Eleanor, we’ve got to find Tabby. That’s our first job,” says Kate. “She’s still alive. We have to save her.”
I stare down at the capstone, sick at heart. Yes, she’s still alive, and Myrddin and Arthur and Nimue . . . they don’t matter. They had their chance. They tangled their fates with terrible decisions and badly placed trust. The idea that Arthur can rise up and save England . . . from what I’ve seen, it doesn’t need saving. No one wields swords anymore. The wars are over, or at least happening on some other soil. Phoebe and Miles have never talked of war. I don’t think Miles has ever fought.
Avenged Page 16
