Lilian's Spell Book

by Toby Litt

‘I was thinking,’ Peter said. ‘Why don’t we all go to the pub this evening? Just have a quiet drink.’

  ‘That would be lovely,’ I said.

  I looked at Peter. I felt sorry for him – all the things I was seeing and doing and he was missing out on. I decided I should try to include him, not by telling him but by showing him. The Water room was out of the question, but perhaps the stars would come out in Lilian’s book. Then I remembered that Mr. Gatward was expecting to take the home with him tonight. That left the Air room, but if water touched me, when Peter was watching, then air too would probably do something – stop supporting me or not lift me up in the first place.

  ‘Do you remember anything more?’ I asked. ‘From your first visit here? The very old man?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that,’ Peter said, as Jack celebrated scoring a goal. ‘I get the feeling my father brought me. I don’t remember rain or cold, so I think it was summer, like this. I remember cake in the garden. And I remember that I didn’t just see a stone phoenix, I saw a metal one as well, shiny brass – but it was smaller. I think they kept it in a cupboard.’ Peter’s eyes were closed now. ‘I remember being lifted up. The old man held me by the hand and then lifted me up.’

  ‘We’ll have to check the cupboards, then,’ I said.

  ‘I wish it had been my father who lifted me up,’ Peter was becoming sad. ‘I don’t have enough memories of him like that.’

  ‘Why do you think they were showing you the phoenix?’

  ‘I don’t know. Perhaps I’d spotted the one out here. Perhaps they thought I wouldn’t be interested in anything else.’

  ‘So you didn’t go in the cellar?’

  ‘No, I’m pretty sure I didn’t.’

  ‘Let’s have a look in the hall, see if we can spot a phoenix there.’

  ‘My eyes were better then,’ said Peter. ‘But I remember seeing it close up.’

  He looked away from me. There was so much more we needed to talk about, to sort out.

  ‘Hey, you see that bird over there on the wall,’ shouted Peter to Jack. ‘That’s a phoenix. Do you think you can help us find another one?’

  ‘I don’t see it, either,’ said Peter. ‘What about you, Jack?’

  We were all – even Mary – lying in a cross shape on the parquet floor of the hall, looking up at the ceiling. She was on top of a blanket, so she didn’t bang her head.

  ‘What about that one?’ Jack asked, and pointed. ‘That’s got birds on it.’

  We all squinted towards where he was pointing.

  ‘That’s a coat of arms,’ said Peter.

  ‘Is it a shield like knights had?’ Jack asked.

  ‘Yes, exactly,’ said Peter. ‘It showed who they were – who their parents were. But it was a kind of code. Those birds probably mean Jonson or another family name.’

  ‘Is phoenix for us?’ Jack asked. ‘Is that our bird?’

  ‘Probably,’ said Peter. ‘If we could find it.’

  I turned myself around on the slippy floor, to look at the ceiling from another angle. I’d always thought the carved panels were arranged randomly among the plain ones. But now, in a flash, I realized that they were dotted about like stars. That might mean nothing. Perhaps I was starting to see hidden meanings where there were none.

  I looked again. The carved panels were in clusters of two or three. If they had been just random, they would have been spread out more. The shape they made was like a headless man running along, two hunched arms and a very long trailing leg. But then, when I turned my head so it was lined up with the front door, feet towards the living room, I saw another shape – a bow. This was Sagittarius, just like in the curtain.

  I really wanted a closer look – and then something unnerving happened. I felt myself start to lift off the floor. Not much, only a millimetre or two, but my desire to have a better look at the ceiling was making me fly. Could I stop myself?

  Chapter 46.

  I’d thought that the Air room might be the only place I’d be able to fly. That way I could keep it under control. But if Jack could fly in the attic, why couldn’t I fly in the hall? Or anywhere else in the house?

  I sat up, and concentrated hard on being heavy (not hard), and was glad to feel my bum bump solidly onto the floor.

  I didn’t want Jack to be disappointed, so I said, ‘I know where we can find some more phoenixes.’

  Peter and Jack followed me upstairs, where I showed them the fire tools. I worried for a moment that Peter would have the same thought I’d had, and would want to try them out as keys.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ he said.

  ‘Do you remember these, from when you were a boy?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ he said.

  Jack had picked the poker up and was about to start swordfighting with it, a little too close to Mary’s eye for my liking. Peter swiftly disarmed him. ‘Look at this,’ he said, holding the phoenix end up for Jack on inspect.

  ‘Why is its bottom on fire?’ Jack asked.

  I explained about how a phoenix lived and died and was reborn.

  ‘I want an egg like that,’ said Jack. ‘Then I can have a phoenix as a pet.’

  ‘A bit difficult to house train,’ said Peter.

  I thought of William Jonson burning down the house. They couldn’t have had a phoenix as a pet, could they? With all the other wonders I’d seen, I wouldn’t put it past them. It would have come in handy for heating up their furnace.

  ‘We still going out to the pub tonight?’ Peter asked.

  ‘As long we don’t stay out late,’ I said.

  Peter gave me a significant look.

  ‘Yes, I can drive,’ I said.

  ‘I can drive,’ said Jack. ‘I can drive and I can fly.’

  He leapt into the air. I thought just for a second that he was going to take off and glide across the room, whooping, but he landed normally.

  ‘I can fly,’ he said. ‘I can.’

  ‘I have something else to show you,’ I said. This time, they followed me to the downstairs living room – where I repeated Mr. Gatward’s performance.

  Peter and Jack weren’t quite as wowed as I had been, but it gave me the chance to check that – yes – the constellation mapped on the hall ceiling was Sagittarius.

  It was also – because it wasn’t the V or the dead-end corridor or the bull-horned shape – probably the one the stars in Lilian’s book had picked out on the Fire page.

  In my wonder at Lilian’s sky tapestry, I had completely forgotten to get Mr. Gatward to answer my question. Which of the star signs were matched with which of the elements?

  If Sagittarius was the only one left, then Sagittarius must mean fire. I turned the lights off and on a couple more times. Earth was Virgo the virgin, Water was Pisces the two fishes – as I’d known already, and Air was Gemini the twin boys.

  ‘I think that’s enough,’ said Peter.

  ‘There’s never enough,’ I said. ‘Not here.’ I was marvelling at the way everything in the house had significance. And I was sure I wasn’t even picking up on a tenth of it. The whole place was like a code – a code that, with Mr. Gatward’s help, I was starting to crack. One thing in one part linked up with another in another part. If you understood the meaning here, it led you to another puzzle there. You didn’t have to be worried, though, because you knew that the solution was always going to be somewhere in the house. It was all of a piece. Because the place had been burnt down, they had been able to start again, and rebuild it as a place where this time alchemy would work. Everything we could see was for that purpose.

  ‘The house is a code,’ I said to Peter.

  ‘Right,’ he said. The lights were out. He pointed right at some of the holes that made up Sagittarius. ‘Dot dot dot.’

  The kids hadn’t had a bath for a few days, so I put Peter in charge of getting them decent. I knew we’d be on show for the whole village in the pub, and I wanted to make a good impression.

  While they were occupied, I went upstairs
to see how Mr. Gatward was getting on.

  As usual, he was sitting at the table with just a single book in front of him.

  I peered over his shoulder. The book was on astrology. I could tell because Mr. Gatward had it open at a page showing Sagittarius. Even after everything else, this was a little spooky. The book wasn’t old – from the 1950s or 60s. Probably something Mr. Jonson had bought when he wasn’t speaking to Father Trovato, when he was making his own investigations into the house. I wondered if Lilian had ever appeared to him. I didn’t like to think so.

  Mr. Gatward gave a jump as I touched his shoulder. He hadn’t heard me.

  ‘Mrs. Jonson,’ he said, rather quickly. ‘I was just mugging up. I realized I hadn’t answered your question – what you asked before I showed you the tapestry. The truth is, I’m afraid I didn’t know. I always thought astrology a load of mumbo-jumbo, so I never paid much attention to it.’

  ‘What have you found out?’ I said.

  ‘The signs of the zodiac, as you said, are divided up so they tally with the elements. Sagittarius – ’

  ‘Is fire,’ I said.

  ‘Oh,’ said Mr. Gatward, ‘so you’re ahead of me again.’

  ‘I don’t know many others,’ I said. ‘Pisces.’

  ‘Look at this,’ said Mr. Gatward, and turned back a few pages. There was a chart. Across the top were the words Cardinal, Fixed and Mutable. ‘There are twelve star signs and four elements – and four into twelve goes three times. So the star signs are divided into three groups.’ Mr. Gatward continued his explanation, but I’d already seen what I needed: the four constellations mapped in Lilian’s book – Virgo, Pisces, Gemini and Sagittarius – were all what’s called Mutable.

  ‘Does Mutable mean they are weaker than the others?’ I said, pointing at the word on the page.

  ‘Um,’ said Mr. Gatward, unsettled at being interrupted. ‘I think it means they work by affecting other star signs. Mutable meaning able to change. Not the dominant force. They’re not the thing that will make you one kind of person or another.’

  ‘Cardinal is the dominant force,’ I said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Mr. Gatward. ‘But for an alchemist, you see, mutability was everything. If a thing was one thing, and they knew it couldn’t be changed into another, or help change something into another thing, then it wouldn’t have interested them.’

  ‘I suppose not,’ I said, looking again at the four star signs beneath the word Mutable.

  And then I realized. The place to look for the key to the fire door was where the fourth star sign was – Sagittarius – on the ceiling of the hall.

  Normally, this would have meant tons of scaffolding and thousands of pounds of cost. But I’d already had a glimpse of myself flying in the hall. If I could get a little more time alone, perhaps I could find something up there – something on or hidden behind one of the panels.

  The very thought of it gave me vertigo, and I had to hold on tight to the edge of the table.

  ‘Oh dear,’ I said, thinking I was going to be sick.

  ‘Are you all right, Mrs. Jonson?’ Mr. Gatward stood up and allowed me to sit down on the chair.

  ‘I think it’s all starting to catch up with me,’ I said.

  ‘I must admit,’ said Mr. Gatward, ‘I’m feeling quite exhausted myself. If you don’t mind, I’ll come back tomorrow morning.’

  I thought about saying no. Mr. Gatward could have a day off to recharge his batteries. But I knew that he’d be disappointed if I didn’t let him keep going.

  ‘We have mass first thing,’ I said. ‘So, we’ll be up.’

  ‘Nine o’clock sharp, then,’ said Mr. Gatward. ‘Though I’d like to take this home for a little bedtime reading.’ He pulled Lilian’s book up so it was poking out of his breast pocket.

  ‘Please, be careful with it,’ I said.

  ‘You know I would guard it with my life,’ Mr. Gatward said, very chivalrously.

  He picked up the astrology book from the desk and slotted it back into its place on the shelf.

  Seeing I wasn’t about to move, Mr. Gatward said, ‘I’ll just go and call the taxi.’

  I grabbed a couple of minute’s rest, my head turned sideways and pillowed by my crossed arms laid out on the desk.

  I’d had enough for one day. A trip to the pub was just what I needed. No cooking. A half of cider then an early night.

  I could hear Jack’s shouts from the bathroom.

  My children were safe and happy. I could just doze off for a few…

  Chapter 47.

  At first, I thought I was being strangled.

  I couldn’t breathe.

  Someone had snuck up behind me and grabbed my throat.

  But when I turned round, the room was empty – and still I couldn’t breathe.

  Perhaps I’d swallowed my tongue. How could that have happened?

  I stuck my tongue out. It was where it should be.

  I felt my heart start to beat faster.

  Fast as I could, I ran towards the spiral staircase.

  Peter would save me. Peter would know what to do.

  As soon as I got down into the living room, I felt the air around me.

  I took a deep breath and sobbed with relief.

  But a second breath wouldn’t come. My mouth was open and air seemed to be going into my lungs. I wasn’t breathing, though.

  Again, I rushed down the stairs, around and around – feeling like I was about to faint with dizziness.

  When my foot touched the carpet, I was able to snatch another breath. Only one.

  Across the room I went and out onto the landing.

  A deep breath here.

  I rushed into the bedroom, expecting to be able to breathe in again. But it didn’t happen. I wasn’t allowed.

  I bashed on the bathroom door.

  ‘Can’t breathe,’ I hissed. ‘No air.’

  I’d never had an asthma attack.

  Peter pulled Mary out of the bath, rushed through into the bedroom and placed her on the bed.

  Then he started asking me questions.

  ‘Have you swallowed anything?’

  I shook my head. The world was going blurry.

  ‘It might be a panic attack,’ he said. ‘You need a bag. Come with me.’

  He grabbed my hand and pulled me out through the bedroom and onto the landing.

  I was about to faint. I knew it.

  The last thing I could do was grab hold of Peter, so I didn’t fall over.

  I was going to suffocate, going to die, and I didn’t know why.

  The last thing I saw was Mary, through the open doorway, kicking her little legs in the air.

  I woke up, with a huge gasp, on the floor of the hall.

  Peter was in the kitchen. I could hear him saying, ‘Bag! Bag!’

  I opened my eyes.

  Mr. Gatward was by my side, holding my hand.

  ‘She’s awake!’ he shouted.

  Another huge breath of beautiful air into my lungs.

  Everything I could see was starry with tears.

  ‘Oh God,’ said Peter. He came out carrying with a plastic shopping bag from the supermarket. ‘Oh thank God.’

  There was a toot-toot from outside.

  ‘I’ll tell them to wait,’ said Mr. Gatward.

  Peter lifted me up into his arms and gently held me.

  ‘You’re breathing,’ he said.

  ‘I’m breathing,’ I said.

  He hugged me tight.

  ‘Is Mummy okay?’ Jack asked, from the top of the stairs.

  ‘I’m okay,’ I gasped, then tried to smile.

  ‘Watch your sister,’ said Peter. ‘Mum’s fine now.’

  ‘Just let me lie here for a minute,’ I said.

  I closed my eyes and breathed and breathed. Then I looked up again, and saw Peter, and behind him Sagittarius mapped out on the ceiling.

  This hadn’t been a panic attack. I hadn’t felt less panicked in weeks. It was something else –


  I had been forced downstairs. The moment I tried give up on my investigation, to take some rest, the air had been sucked from the room. Or, like the water, the air had been there but I hadn’t been allowed to touch it. Lilian was forcing me onwards. As if there as no time to spare. No time at all.

  This was terrifying.

  Mr. Gatward came back in.

  ‘How is she?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I said, but I wasn’t.

  I fainted, and when I woke up I was in the four-poster bed – Peter sitting anxiously beside me.

  ‘What time is it?’ I asked.

  ‘Don’t worry about that,’ my husband said. ‘The kids are asleep.’

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Half past eleven,’ he said, and I can’t remember anything else about that day.

  I really did feel fine the next morning when Jack came in and woke me – as if the whole airless thing hadn’t happened.

  Jack wanted to watch TV, so I went downstairs with him and turned it on.

  I say downstairs, but Jack didn’t touch a one of them – he flew straight out into the middle of the hall, at least ten metres off the floor.

  ‘Jack,’ I whispered. ‘Come back here now.’

  Reluctantly, he dropped down at the bottom of the stairs.

  I hustled him through into the living room, then went down on one knee to look him in the eye. ‘You have to be very careful,’ I said. ‘If your father sees you, you’ll come crashing to the ground. I don’t want you to get hurt.’

  ‘But I will get fixed,’ Jack said. ‘So I am safe.’

  ‘What if you don’t get fixed?’ I sad. ‘What if it doesn’t work?’

  Jack thought about this with a big frown on his face.

  ‘Why can’t Dad see?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I wish I did.’

  ‘Watch this,’ Jack said, and started to whizz in circles around the room. ‘I’m Superman.’

  ‘Very good,’ I said. ‘Now stop flying, and sit on the sofa.’

  But I had to laugh at what a weird thing this was to find myself saying.

  Jack was still hovering when there was a knock at the door. I thought for a second it was Father Trovato, but today was Saturday, and he came earlier than this.