Serpent in the Heather

by Kay Kenyon

  She snorted, but allowed, “A good answer.” She nodded her head in a little rocking motion that Gustaw recognized for her thinking mode. Judging him and how much to tell him or whether to pack him off with just the lemonade. But she went on.

  “I know Dries Verhoeven. From long ago. A good boy, and a smart one, you see. His mother taught at the school. You drove past it when you came into town, but you would not know that. The stones in the grass are all that is left.” She clucked a tongue against the roof of her mouth. The lemons had gotten to her after all.

  “We liked him, dear little Dries. But then his mother died and he was never the same.”

  “He was attached to her.”

  Her eyes narrowed. She did not like to be interrupted. “No. Not more than most children. It was that she was murdered, that is why.

  “It was during the war. The battle of Glencorse Wood. They thought the school housed armaments. How foolish, for it was just a school, and contained only children and their teachers, and that day it included Dries and his mother. But they had their opinions and they had their spies who said the school was just a pretense and so came the bombs.

  “We saw the front of the school—two stories tall it was, and made of lovely banded brick—we saw it collapse like toys falling, and such dust there was! But now a fire. Dries’s mother and a few of the other teachers, they took hold of a child or two and ran out into the field.”

  Gustaw considered this revelation: The school on fire. It was the source of the assassin’s vision of fire, reported by the police site view Talents. It was all he could do to keep from leaping up from his chair. Dries Verhoeven was, he must be, the murderer of Nachteule.

  Auberte held her glass in a claw-like grip. “But when the soldiers came, they saw there were no secret guns or stores in the building, that they had killed the schoolchildren instead. And so they had, twenty-six children. Two soldiers came around into the field, and here, Dries’s mother was kneeling next to a child dying of terrible burns. She screamed at them, how it was a school, and they were murderers and she would have justice. Dries Verhoeven was thirteen years old. He stood there, and later he told me how it was, and I knew he could not bear it, but what could I do? What could anyone do?”

  She took a sip of lemon water, and it steadied her. “His mother became, what is the word, for crying too much?”

  “Hysterical.”

  “Yes. And when they heard her German accent, they became angry and shot her. The gun against her forehead. For she was German, you see, and Dries’s father, Dutch, from Beselare.”

  Gustaw frowned. “But why were the German soldiers angry that she was German?”

  Auberte leaned down—it was not far to go—and petted Flaubert. “Because they were British soldiers, mon ami.”

  Ah, British soldiers. The fire, so terrible, and then the great calamity, that having almost survived, they shot her in the field. So this was why Dries Verhoeven was slaying children in Britain, as Julian Tavistock had reported in the packet.

  Auberte went on. “We tried to help him, of course. But there was more to come. He began to act strangely, and to say things to people that they didn’t like. I told him to hush and not to talk about such things, that some things are best left alone. But he was young and angry, and he liked having power to say things.”

  “Things?”

  She cut a glance at him, weighing him again. “He saw the secret powers, the powers to place a hand on a ring, and know to whom it belonged or to sense hungers of the heart. He had only to look at such a one, and he knew.”

  Flaubert abandoned the conversation and found a good place on the sofa to settle in.

  “You call it the blooming. That is one opinion, and it is not mine. The powers did not come all at once, like a lemon tree blooms. Some of us have always held powers. And died for it, too.”

  Like many of her generation, she had specific notions about the bloom, whether it was so or not, and how it had come about.

  She went on. “So, some people spoke against him, causing problems for Dries. He became unpopular.”

  Gustaw murmured, “Because he could see these powers.”

  A slow rocking of the old woman’s head, like a doll’s head on a hinge. “His eyes, you understand. Wild eyes, a thing you could notice when he took off his spectacles.”

  Of course the Germans had recruited him. And now they had a weapon of great import. “A crooked light,” Gustaw murmured.

  Auberte shrugged. “You could say. I would say broken. Ruined by the war, you see, like so much. A broken light.”

  It was a great relief to know that Polish intelligence did not have a mole. Tilda had not been betrayed by one of their own. She had been discovered, by accident even, at the doll seller’s stall in Cracow.

  “So,” Gustaw said. “Dries Verhoeven has a great power. He knows each Talent by looking at a person.”

  “Non, monsieur. He only knows how strong it is, but not which one. He told me that I shine with the great light, but I did not need our Dries to tell me that. You wish to know the name given for what he could do? Seeing the powers? Some call it aura sight, because Dries said it was a glow that surrounded one.”

  Gustaw thought that this birdlike lady did not need people to tell her much of anything. The woman outside the pub said that Auberte knew most things.

  She fixed him with a critical look. “You do not have a daughter.”

  Gustaw began rewrapping the Mein Liebling doll. “No, you are right.”

  “The owner of the toy, she is dead and buried.”

  “Yes. Her name was Tilda Mazur.”

  Auberte’s nodding became shallow and she closed her eyes. She was falling asleep. Gustaw stood up, dazed by the yellow afternoon sun sliding in the window, the sleeping cats, the axe with wood chips fallen around it, the old woman who knew too much. Who had the Talent of object reading, which had not come into her at the bloom, but which she might have had for nearly a hundred years. They said that Talents might have visited people through the ages. But for the masses, it was the war that broke through the barriers. The barriers. Whatever they were. Denial, superstition, religion, propriety. So many ways to deny the truth.

  Standing, he put his hat under his arm and when Auberte started awake, he softly thanked her for her hospitality. Unspoken between them was what Gustaw Bajek would do with Dries Verhoeven, and what awful thing he had done—for why else would a policeman come so far to find him?

  As he stood at the door, Gustaw turned. “Have you forgiven the British, madame?”

  Auberte gave a small, alert smile. “Never.”

  27

  SULCLIFFE CASTLE, WALES

  FRIDAY, AUGUST 28. With her sun hat, camera case, and shoulder purse containing the loaded Colt, Kim had just come down the turret stairs into the gallery to meet Powell.

  Dorothea Coslett stood in the archway to the salon, conferring with a few servants. Kim recognized the cook and a few others. Idelle was present too, gazing out one of the tall windows flanking the hall. She wore a Victorian-styled black dress with buttons from neck to mid-calf.

  It was a very new feeling for Kim, to think that her Talent might be obvious to someone else. Even before the intelligence service, she had always kept her ability secret. That it might no longer be—might never again be absolutely hidden—filled her with unease. How would she handle social settings, if confidences could be ascribed to her prying ways? And in clandestine work, it could jeopardize her pretense of artlessness. She might be dead wrong about the “burning bright” idea. She hoped that she was.

  The dowager noted Kim’s arrival. “Miss Tavistock,” came her voice, wavering and sonorous. “They told me you’d arrived.” She wore a gray Edwardian skirt with a long matching felt coat.

  Kim stopped to greet Idelle, who nodded to her. The view out the windows showed an almost-blinding afternoon sun warming the terrace.

  As Rian bustled off, Lady Ellesmere approached Kim and Idelle, accompanied by the thun
k of her cane on the flagstones. “Don’t sulk, Iddy,” she said. “You know I would join you if it weren’t for the fair.”

  Idelle smiled wanly and tucked a lacy handkerchief in her sleeve. She turned away and wandered off down the hall.

  Lady Ellesmere watched her go. “Tomorrow is the anniversary of Bowen’s death. We usually visit his grave together on that day, but we are rather getting on to be traipsing about. Idelle will go alone, but she’s sulking since I am not accompanying her.”

  “Is your husband buried here, on the estate, Lady Ellesmere?”

  “No, at St. Alban’s, the little church in Pengeylan. We have a lovely memorial headstone, carved at great expense, from France.”

  Kim was stuck on in Pengeylan. Idelle was going to Pengeylan.

  “My sister-in-law can speak, you know. But has chosen not to. She has been betrayed by life and protects herself from further loss. This is her attitude, though we accord her every comfort.”

  Kim glanced out the window, in the direction of the village. “I’m sure she’s very grateful to you.”

  “How nice that would be. Well, I expect you’re looking for Powell. He’s down at the camp right now. Awbrey will accompany you there. He’s just outside, assembling supplies.”

  “I’m looking forward to seeing everything,” Kim said. “It was so good of you to invite me.”

  “Well, you invited yourself, didn’t you?”

  Kim felt a smile flutter over her face. “I suppose I did. Please pardon my manners, if they’re too American.”

  “Allowances must be made, I expect.” Lady Ellesmere rested her hand on her cane and regarded Kim with a penetrating gaze. “There’s something brash in you, I must say. Perhaps it’s the American manner. But there’s something underneath, something you don’t let out.”

  “Oh. Do you think so?” Kim shot back. “I hope it’s nothing disagreeable!”

  A thin smile. “So do I.”

  They faced off. “My dear,” the dowager said, suddenly shifting her tone. “Is there something troubling you?”

  “Of course there isn’t.” It sounded too defensive. She must give something up to this woman who prided herself on getting to the bottom of people.

  “Except . . .” Kim stammered.

  The blue eyes narrowed, paying strict attention. Kim could imagine that this was a dowager maneuver of long standing. To claim to sense an emotion and then demand that the other party elaborate. She found her lie slipping out easily. If one was to be a spy, everything was grist for the mill of deception. Lives depended on it. Hers, perhaps.

  “Well, my family is not the happiest.”

  The dowager shook her head in slow regret. “That’s an evasion, my dear. You know it is.”

  “An evasion?”

  “It’s not your family.”

  What did the damn woman know? She tried to remember what the Bloom Book said about hyperempathy To perceive suppressed or hidden emotions. But which of her feelings was the woman picking up on? She was a jumble of emotions, including suspicion, wariness, and a nasty sense of being entirely out of her depth.

  “It’s not the family in general,” Lady Ellesmere said. After a hulking pause, she added, “It’s your brother, isn’t it?”

  She had it wrong, thank God. But now she faced the disagreeable prospect of telling her about Robert. She could not, no more than she would shed her clothes on the hallway floor.

  Still waiting for her to answer.

  “That was long ago,” she finally said.

  “But for you, it is like yesterday, I shouldn’t wonder.”

  The old woman liked to suck the darkness out from people. And Kim must feed her. “Yes. I always remember.” It was like a forced entry. Into her heart. And she was allowing it, for fear the old woman would see even more hidden things.

  “How did he die? You can tell me. Most people feel better when they do. Which battle was it?”

  It was Ypres. He drowned. “I beg your pardon.” Her voice lower, almost a growl. “I never discuss it.” An unwelcome flash of insight: she never discussed it; not with a nosy old woman she hardly knew, but not with anyone, really. The woman of the spill might not just lose friends from knowing too much, but for sharing too little.

  Lady Ellesmere narrowed her eyes, as though detecting her discomfort. She murmured, “Buried things have the most power over us. In time you will learn that.”

  She hadn’t expected wisdom from this woman. It was quite disagreeable.

  The dowager shook her head with a pitying smile. “You can’t hide things from me, you know. Especially about Powell.”

  “Powell?”

  “He’s not for you. You do see that, don’t you?”

  “Oh! I don’t think of him in that way.”

  Lady Ellesmere gave an indulgent smile. “Well, if you did, you can stop now.” Glancing at the camera, she said, “No pictures. Some of our people need their privacy. Leave it in the salon and I’ll have someone return it to your room.”

  Eager to be away, Kim went into the salon to place her camera case on the table beside the telephone. She had hoped to have some pictures of the castle and the estate; snaps could be pored over later for evidence, but it was not to be.

  Looking at the telephone, she made a plan to get back to it when she was alone. For Idelle was going to Pengeylan, and that could provide a chance for Alice and her trauma view if Alice could contrive to get next to her at the cemetery.

  Descending the entryway steps, she opened the door to the terrace. Idelle was waiting for her, close to the castle wall, where they would not be seen from above. The woman’s scalp was pink underneath the sparse mat of her hair. Fragile-looking, Kim thought, but tough. And she could speak, she reminded herself.

  “Idelle,” Kim said. “Who is Flory Soames?” The woman’s expression turned pained, but she said nothing.

  She thrust something small and hard into Kim’s hand before turning away and slipping through the terrace door.

  Kim glanced down. It was a key.

  PENGEYLAN

  Martin sat in the village green, devouring a scone, with one still to go, watching as motorcars tried to back up on the street, away from an upended cart. A horse still hitched to the cart reared and pawed at the air.

  The scones had taken the last of his coin, the last from his Wrenfell wages, but he’d made it to Sulcliffe. Or nearly. Three train changes from London, each one gut-wrenching with worry. Which platform, which direction? The station masters could tell you, but they weren’t always nearby, and if you asked someone on the train, they all said different things.

  He’d hoped that he might see Miss Kim at the railway station, or even in the village, but she’d left six hours earlier. She must be at Sulcliffe Castle by now, probably in the castle, so he didn’t know how he would get to her. But since it was a fair, and she’d gone to report on it, his best hope was that she’d come strolling through with her camera, and he would sidle up to her and tell her about the murderer. That the man who lived there—gentry, with a title, even—he had helped kill that girl. Martin had seen it, so he knew. Maybe other site view Talents working for the police had seen it too, but they didn’t know who it was. It was the man in the picture, sure enough.

  He set aside for now the fact that she was never going to believe him, since he had lied about her brother. Why did he always lie?

  But he’d had to, because of seeing things. Because of how his da looked at him with a corkscrew face when he knew something he shouldn’t know. If he didn’t want the back of his da’s hand, he had to come up with reasons for knowing things and acting on things that were none of his business. So when he started having site view, he’d lied, and everyone was happier for it.

  But then one day he finally told his mum, and she went and told da that he had what everyone was calling a Talent. And from then on, it was no good between them.

  The thing was, he supposed he was still a liar, because of what he’d done with the book he’d found
in his room at Wrenfell.

  In the street, the horse was pulling at the traces and kicking as the man tried to control him, and no wonder, because the cars honked and people were shouting.

  Martin tucked half of a scone into his pocket for later and went into the street. He spoke up and offered the man some help with the horse, and the man said, no, the beast would calm down, but he didn’t, and then Martin was talking to the horse like he did with Briar. Pretty soon, he was feeding him the scone, and the horse stopped rolling its eyes and settled down. The man said, “I told you to leave ’im alone,” and Martin backed off.

  Then he realized he’d just given his supper to a horse.

  THE SULCLIFFE ESTATE

  Under a brilliant sky towering with a few stacked clouds, Kim and Awbrey tramped across the meadow. The flag on an erected tent shuddered in the wind, blowing hard off the Irish Sea.

  “We’ll have a right good crowd by tomorrow mornin’,” Awbrey said. Already there were a half dozen workmen bringing in boxes of supplies. He gestured to the wide dale creased by a rippling stream. “It’ll be somethin’ to see, all her ladyship’s followers come together.”

  “I expect they’ll set up tents, then?” In the stiff breeze, the corners of a collapsed pavilion flapped like a great, wounded bird trying to fly. Idelle Coslett’s key was nestled in Kim’s trouser pocket. It looked like a door key, but she had thrust it away quickly without a proper look. Even so, she was furiously imagining opening a door to the castle skeletons.

  “Aye, an’ we put up the big tents in case of it rainin’.”

  Powell had come into the field from the tree line, and seeing them, waved. Kim waved back. “Will Lady Ellesmere come down, do you think?”

  “Oh, ’course she will.” Awbrey looked up at the castle visible over the short rise of hill, where it massively jutted from the headland. He gestured at the edge of the field to what Kim could now discern was a stone circle veiled in grass. “Her ladyship will join hands around the circle. Nor distinctions made, is her way.”