Digital Magic

by Philippa Ballantine

  The trees huddled together behind the church, lacing their hands and not letting any light past—not any cast by moon or lamp.

  Ella had seen this miniature wood from the street, but had never ventured in to test its depths. It seemed a place not to be dared, especially at night. But now that was exactly what she had to do if she wasn’t to be a complete chicken. Sometimes it was hard being an adult.

  Stepping carefully into the darkness, she called Penny’s name once. The girl had vanished somewhere ahead.

  Ella went further in. The trees bent reluctantly away for her, scratching her with their rough limbs as she muttered to herself in the back of her head. It was growing harder to ignore the weighty darkness around her.

  She pressed on until she broke through the hovering trees. Finally she saw Penny standing against the final phalanx wood. The moon had momentarily slipped free of the veil of clouds, and its light haloed the girl as if she were on stage in the spotlight.

  Turning about, Ella realized she'd been led into a thick circle. All around her was the rough bark of the same tree, mirrored over and over again.

  Penny's eyes were dark and unreadable, the light of childish pranks long gone.

  Ella's throat closed with an inexplicable fear. She'd heard the tour guides, like Toby from the Hall, talking about the Penherem Yew, but she'd never felt the urge to commune with those trees that had been ancient before even the birth of Christ. And despite the stories, neither did the tourists, from what she'd heard. Now, standing in the ancient circle that was one tree, she understood why.

  A young tree had once occupied the earth on which she stood. But, as the millennia passed, it had expanded, the middle dying while younger growth carried on—to create this menacing circle.

  Why had Penny bought her here? The girl was looking at her expectantly, like she was some hastily placed actor that knew the lines but was too stage struck to speak them. Ella’s eyelids were very heavy and the circle of trees felt as though it was drawing closer. A mad thought of Macbeth’s army of trees flashed across the surface of her brain.

  Sanctuary, it seemed to whisper. Wrestling control of her fluttering thoughts, Ella pushed such nonsense away. She needed the notebook, she needed to meet her deadline, and most of all she needed to stop this nonsense with Penny.

  The girl broke away just a moment before Ella’s hand could reach her, leaving only a rare sob behind. This time she was almost glad to chase after the girl, to break away from the circle of yew and move once more into less pressing darkness.

  The odd sort of race began again with Penny just ahead, sometimes moving closer as Ella's back allowed her short bursts of speed, and yet other times the girl would dawdle at corners for the woman to gain on her. By this stage Ella was too irate to even consider stopping, so they went in fits and bursts through the back meadows and fields of Penherem with only the silvered moon to guide them.

  A hundred planes of beauty passed them; the rustling wildflowers of the Webb’s farm, the knotted green streams between and through the light kissed woods. The solemn cry of the owl was all that Ella heard for a very long time apart from her own breathing. Finally they broke through into the gardens of the Hall and into the realm of Tania; a world of manicured lawns and well behaved mixed beds. The rain was now really beginning to fall hard, plastering Ella’s hair to her forehead and sending chills through her skin.

  The tourists had abandoned the calmness, and for that Ella could only be glad as she chased the child round the west wing of the Hall. Where on earth did Penny get so much energy from anyway? Ella felt more like she was chasing a unicorn than a little girl.

  And then, just like that, she stopped. Once again, Penny was waiting for her; this time beside the swirls and dives of Tania’s knot garden. She had the same serious look on her face and there was the same feeling in the air.

  Ella found herself making a little murmur in the back of her throat as if the girl were a frightened animal. Not that Penny looked scared. The dance of the knot garden blurred as though it was moving, and Ella swayed on her feet.

  Safety, the word whispered in the back of her head while the whole world shrunk to the burning darkness of Penny’s eyes.

  Ella swallowed the hard lump in her throat; getting her notepad back didn’t feel as important now. But the girl was still not done with her. She had already turned on one foot and begun to flee again, and Ella too began to scuttle after her. Her back no longer hurt and she was no longer intent on the girl’s bad behavior, she just wanted to know where she would be led next.

  A dark shadow moved between Ella and Penny, something that bought her up short and snapped her clear of whatever temporary madness had taken hold.

  Beneath an umbrella, Tania was all cool regard and perfectly arched eyebrow. As always, she made Ella feel like a total frump. “Not trampling on my flower beds, are you?”

  She cast a despairing look over the Baroness’ shoulder, but there was only a brief glimpse of Penny’s flying hair as she disappeared around the taller hedges that led to the rear of the Hall. And to top it all off, a gentle rain began to fall. “Ah, I hope not,” she managed. “Why didn’t you stop Penny for me?”

  “Penny?” Tania blinked, opening her hooded eyes as if for the first time.

  Ella sighed, somewhat used to the Baroness’ oddities. The little girl would not be caught now; she'd already vanished into the night. “Never mind—it’s not important...”

  “I hope she’s not gone into the Hall,” Tania was always inordinately concerned with the damage children could do—though how she’d ever had any experience with them had never been fully explained.

  Ella was beginning to feel like a drowned rat, while Tania only glowed in the wet mist that surrounded her. Hoping to level the playing field, she suggested going inside. “A cup of tea would be nice?”

  Tania hesitated a moment, but then showed her to the narrow door that led to her own quarters at the Hall. Ella had never been inside—indeed, she suspected none of the villagers had. Once up the curling, tight stairwell, the sanctuary was revealed to be much like Tania herself; Spartan but stylish. There was very little character anywhere in the room; no rows of books or sagging pot plants like Ella had.

  “I’m just going to to hang up this umbrella and get changed; it’s a bit cold tonight. Make yourself a cup of tea if you like.” Tania disappeared back into the corridor while Ella hovered nervously. Tania knocked something flat on her way out of the room, it looked accidental. Her visitor wasn’t fooled. Ella lifted one corner of what turned out to be an elaborate gold photo frame. A smiling Rob Claremont looked back at her.

  She’d heard that gossip too: the lady from the Hall and her gardener.

  Ella scuttled away from the table it stood on and went gingerly into the kitchen. Though there were enough gadgets in the cool gray and chrome room, none showed evidence of ever being used. Tania was either a neat freak or ate out every night.

  With a surge of bravery, Ella made the tea. Tania returned carrying a spare towel for her guest. She’d changed into a fluffy red jumper and warm black trousers, and watched Ella try to find some marginally useful milk in her fridge.

  “Sorry,” she said in that husky soft voice which was so deceptive.

  “No problem,” Ella bluffed before shooing her into a chair and locating some biscuits and mugs.

  They sat down at the kitchen table and watched each other drink like two cats deciding if they should be friends or have a dust up.

  Tania stared down into her milky tea, fingers clenching around the mug.

  “Did you see that strange man yesterday?” Ella finally blurted out, no longer able to bear the silence.

  “The one with the dark hair—good looking?” He was probably just her type. Tania brushed back her still damp hair. “He didn’t seem to be the usual tourist.”

  Ella hummed to herself and nodded. She wasn’t used to such discussions with women who looked like Tania. Her fiercely beautiful looks must be more t
han capable of drawing in someone like that man.

  Tania gave her a piercing look as though she had immediately seen straight to the heart of the matter. “He said his name was Ronan.”

  It stood to reason that he would have introduced himself to her. Ella cocked her head and tried to pretend the roar of the rain outside was suddenly interesting.

  Still, Ella couldn’t make herself get up from the table, trapped in a web of concern and fear.

  Sometimes it was a mystery why she bothered at all. Perhaps it was the bond only she knew of that held the two of them together. After all, the Lady of the Manor had been down that frightening path that had recently begun to interest and frighten her. The desire to know what knowledge Tania had bought back with her, or a vain attempt to win her own salvation; Ella couldn’t say which it was.

  So the two women sat, quiet and still, not quite content with each other but not quite ready for the world by themselves either. Around them the manor was silent, waiting for the rain to stop and wondering if it ever would.

  They found the first body the next morning.

  Bakari was dragging his feet in the direction of the library while the first sluggish lines of sunlight were making their appearance. He’d spent an uncomfortable night wondering what Ronan was up to, and plagued by something else—something far less capable of being named. Unease was understandable, but this indecision wasn't. He couldn’t shake it. Bakari was worried that when his moment came, he’d remain frozen.

  Stick to the plan, he reminded himself, it can still work.

  So engrossed was he in his own personal problems that he almost ran over the hollowed-eyed and weeping Mrs. Carew, not ten paces outside the Green Man.

  It was too early for drama, Bakari thought with a sigh, but he stopped in front of the woman. At least she wasn’t one of those library creatures that made his life hell. In fact, if anyone could be labeled harmless, Helen Carew could. She made her living sculpting little naked rotund earth-goddess figures and selling them in the local tourist haunts. And Bakari, looking down at her rather rubenesque figure, could see where she got her inspiration. Still, she had never harmed him, and in this world it never did to make more enemies than necessary.

  The morning was chill and Helen Carew’s fingers were even more so when they unexpectedly grasped hold of his. Like many Liners, Bakari didn’t appreciate too much human contact, but he bore it stoically considering her distress.

  “Have you heard, then?” Her voice had an edge of near panic in it, “They found him right on the Green!”

  A pit of fear began drilling itself through his middle, “What do you mean?”

  “Young Hamish Clearmont,” Helen’s eyes were pink with horror and he could smell it rolling off her. “He’d been dead for only a couple of hours. They’re saying its murder!”

  Bakari had seen plenty of death: Liners couldn’t really avoid it, but to find it turning up here in Little Penherem was a real surprise. But then again, with what was stirring here, perhaps he should have been more prepared.

  And what about Ronan? He’d only been in the village for only two days and already there was trouble.

  Helen pressed her fullness up against his side, drawing him closer to her horror, “Ned found him this morning. Aslan ran into the bushes and there he was.”

  How the ancient bulldog could have located anything more than his next meal was the real question.

  She would have gone on, but Ned himself emerged from the Green Man. The publican caught Helen’s eye and the stern disapproval in his glance made her turn tail and scuttle back to her studio across the road.

  Watching her beat a retreat, Ned shook his head and gave Bakari a compassionate look. “Told you then, did she?”

  He nodded.

  The publican snorted. “She’ll be straight onto it, I’d say, all around the village before I’ve had a chance to pull my first pint.” Not that Ned was adverse to the odd bit of gossip.

  Bakari waited, so stunned he was not quite sure what to say. Had he not disconnected from the Line properly? Death usually came to Penherem quietly and in good order, only when invited in by those that needed it.

  The other’s silence perhaps inspired Ned. “Nasty looking it was, I tell you.” He concealed a shudder by rolling up his sleeves. “Aslan found him in the ditch on the other side of the Green, almost in the stream. Not something that you want to see that early in the morning.”

  A thousand possibilities were racing through Bakari’s head. The least disturbing one was that perhaps he’d been tracked to Penherem by one of his lesser friendly acquaintances. He bit back a growing dread that it might have been that little bit of work he had put Hamish’s way. Surely it couldn’t be that.

  “Suicide?” He asked almost hopefully. These days, it was one of the leading causes of deaths.

  Ned looked him straight in the eye, all movement suddenly stilled. “Not unless he reached around and filleted his own spine.” He put his palms together and then opened them like miming reading a book. "If so, he’s a better butcher than Harriet down the road."

  Bakari whistled softly, even as his neck hair stood to attention and his heart began to yammer.

  “Yep,” Ned said, “Enough to keep me awake for a week. The cops got at it pretty fast after I called. Gotta give them that.”

  The mist had lifted a fraction. They could now make out movement and colour across the Green. They already had a dome over the area and droids could be seen darting about.

  “Expect they’ll have the killer found by lunchtime,” Ned added lightly, “so I better get on and get extra sandwiches for that lot.”

  "Yeah," Bakari replied faintly, already doing a one-eighty and heading back to his house. Ned and the rest of the village might be able to sleep easier in their beds thinking the killer was a lone lunatic—but then they didn’t have a notorious thief having breakfast in their kitchen. Coincidence was a fine thing, but something that Bakari didn’t care to believe in. If Hamish had been killed for what he guessed he had been, he should at least let his latest accomplice know about it.

  As Bakari retraced his steps, he could see that doors all down the street were already opening as the villagers got the news. They peered down the road to the Green, one foot in their own gardens as if this somehow proved they weren’t really interested. The smell of death disturbed all animals and the inhabitants of Penherem were no different.

  Bakari found himself having to put the brakes on each step back home. To be seen burning up the street at seven o’clock in the morning with a murder just behind him—now that would really set the tongues wagging.

  As he wrenched open the gate and went up the path, even his little cottage looked suspicious. Was it full of assassins or armed-to-the-teeth Crew who were, even as he set palm to door lock, eviscerating Ronan on his kitchen table?

  “You won’t believe what’s happening,” he called up the hall. But when Bakari opened the door at the end of the corridor he wasn’t prepared for what he saw.

  “Won’t believe what?” Ella’s blue eyes over the teacup just raised to her lips fixed him to the spot.

  Ronan was seated across the table, his face a mask of calm and his hands engaged in nothing more dangerous than spreading honey on toast.

  Bakari could feel his mouth flapping in the breeze and closed it with a snap. Then his memory caught up—dammit, he’d forgotten he’d invited Ella around for French toast. This whole project was totally screwing up the remains of his real life.

  “Back so soon?” He had only known the flesh world Ronan for two days, but already he could tell where he got his reputation from: he was as cold as the dead guy down the road. Those eyes looked as though they had never run against the corps, or spilled blood—both of which Panther had done numerous times. And yet the man still could sit there buttering his bread and quietly enjoying the morning sun.

  Bakari shot him a burning look but tried to stay calm. “You two know each other?”

  Oblivious to
it all, Ella smiled a little. “We met yesterday at the Manor—except I didn’t know he was one of your friends.”

  Ronan cocked an eyebrow at that and waited for the other’s reply.

  She doesn’t know a thing, Bakari told himself. Sliding himself into the chair between them, he pulled the pile of buttery toast over to himself. “He’s a mate from off the Line.”

  “Oh.” Just as he knew she would, Ella lost interest.

  The Line was a world she had never experienced, one of a growing minority. She stuck to the two dimensional archaic Line of messages and took what information the corps deigned to give out. She’d never felt the thrill of Third Step and the digital wind in her hair. He couldn’t understand it himself, but the woman had, like everyone in Penherem, her own ghosts and reasons—it wasn’t polite to ask.

  The butter was good, the thick creamy kind made by Rob on his family’s little farm, not the pretend kind that was ever so good for you but did nothing for the soul. Thinking of farms made him think of meat, and meat made him think of Hamish who even now was lying like prime rib roast just down the road.

  “You’ll never guess what’s happened,” he repeated before telling them the whole story straight from Ned and Helen’s mouths; not choosing his words, just telling them like he’d heard it.

  He got what he expected, though. Ella looked like she’d been hit in the face; she’d known Hamish pretty well from the Manor. Her hands flew up to hold her mouth on, while Ronan only seemed vaguely puzzled.

  Ella's eyes were wide. “My God, Ari, I ran across the Green last night. I could have seen him… it could have…” She stopped sharply before the words, ‘ it could have been me’ could slip out.

  Ella was a friend, a good person, and when she began to cry, Bakari moved to her side and held her. He looked at Ronan defensively over her head, trying to get him to retreat and leave them alone to grieve for someone he didn’t even know. But the man sat there, hands tucked under the table, not looking away either. Somehow he was curious—like he’d never seen grief before.

  “I’m OK... really.” Ella brushed Bakari off, not happy about showing her emotion in front of a stranger. Not that he could blame her; Ronan was so still it was pretty disconcerting. “It’s just not what you expect to happen in Penherem.”