13 Secrets

by Michelle Harrison

  “About time too!” he grumbled in a nasal voice. Then he took flight and was gone, leaving Rowan hurrying to sweep the salt back into an unbroken line again.

  She knelt and collected the thing the fairy had dropped. It was a plain envelope with a single word printed on the front: RED. She stared at it, the name she had gone by for so long. The name she had tried to forget she’d ever had.

  She was sick of pretending. Sick of hiding. Sliding her thumbnail under the lip of the envelope, she tore it open.

  It was time to face her past.

  Tanya arrived at Elvesden Manor a week later. As she followed Warwick over the threshold, a thrill of excitement to be back at her grandmother’s old house rose up inside her.

  “All right, Oberon. Stop pulling,” she told the large brown Doberman straining at the end of his leash. His tail wagged erratically as she released the clip from his collar, then he shot through the house, claws clattering on the tiles.

  “I’ll take your things up to your room later,” said Warwick, leaving Tanya’s suitcase at the bottom of the stairs. “We’re just in time for lunch.”

  Tanya followed him into the kitchen at the back of the house. There, her grandmother and Nell were heaping fat ham-and-cheese sandwiches, boiled eggs, and salad onto plates and transferring them to the table. Slices of fruit were piled up for dessert. Florence’s face broke into a smile as she caught sight of Tanya, and after hastily brushing her hands on her apron she pulled Tanya into a warm hug, then stepped back to appraise her.

  “Look at you,” she said. “Brown as a berry—and freckled, as well!”

  “Hello, dear,” said Nell, beaming. “How was Devon?”

  “Good,” said Tanya, steering Oberon’s long nose away from the tray of sandwiches. “We got back last night. Mum said I should wait another day and have a proper rest before coming here, but I wanted to come as soon as I could. It feels like forever since I last visited. Properly, I mean.” There was an awkward silence. Tanya and her mother had last come to the manor only eight weeks ago, for Amos’s funeral.

  “Poppycock!” General Carver announced from his cage, his voice an exact imitation of Nell’s. He clicked and began to preen his feathers.

  “Sit down,” said Florence, ignoring the parrot. “Fabian and Rowan should be along any moment.”

  “Where are they?” Tanya asked, reaching for a plate at the same moment that the lid to the tea caddy on the counter began to lift. She watched as the ill-tempered brownie who lived there squinted out, then reached forward with his walking stick. With a stab of the stick, he looted a piece of tomato before he vanished beneath the teabags once more.

  “They’re outside, helping Rose with the animals,” said Florence, apparently not noticing the brownie’s antics, though Tanya knew she must have seen and was turning a blind eye. Like Tanya, her grandmother was second-sighted, and they, along with Rowan, were the only members of the household with the ability to see fairies, though everyone else in the house knew of their existence. Until last year, Tanya had not known of Florence’s gift, and the secret had prevented them from becoming close.

  “You haven’t seen the animals yet, have you?” Florence continued. “Rose has worked wonders with the old courtyard—you must go and see after lunch. Oh, that sounds like Rowan and Fabian coming in now.”

  “She’s here!” Fabian could be heard exclaiming from the hallway in evident excitement. “Look, there’s her suitcase!”

  He burst into the kitchen, grinning wildly, accompanied by Rowan and a woman with the same long auburn hair. While Rowan and the woman, Rose, went to the sink, Fabian pulled a chair up next to Tanya and started to sit down. Tanya noticed a light brown feather stuck to his shirt.

  “Just a moment, Fabian,” Florence interrupted. “Your hands.”

  Fabian looked puzzled. “What about them?”

  “You know what,” said Florence. “You’ve been up to your elbows in chicken droppings all morning. Wash them.”

  “Bleedin’ pest!” the General added, as though in agreement. Nell chortled and took a slice of apple to the cage. Sliding it through the bars, she gave a little coo as the parrot took it in his scaly claws and nibbled at it.

  “Oh, all right,” said Fabian, getting up again and going to the sink. He nodded toward a dish of speckled hard-boiled eggs on the table. “Have one of those, Tanya. Collected them myself this morning!”

  Tanya took an egg. Rowan sat down on the other side of her and began piling her plate with food.

  “How was your holiday? Did you visit that old house you were telling me about?”

  “What house?” Fabian piped up, sitting down again.

  “Chambercombe Manor,” Tanya answered. “It’s similar to Elvesden Manor but not even half as big. My mum’s wanted to go there ever since reading about it in a book of ghost stories—it’s supposed to be haunted.”

  “I’ve heard about that,” said Fabian. “That’s the one where they knocked down a wall and discovered a secret room with a skeleton on the bed! And it’s been haunted ever since!”

  “There’s a secret passage too,” said Tanya. “One that pirates used to smuggle their goods from the beach. But it’s completely caved in now.”

  “Huh,” said Fabian. “I bet their secret tunnel wasn’t a match for any of ours.”

  “Which none of you should even know about, let alone have been in,” Warwick added gruffly. Tanya stole a look at him. He looked older, but better than he had the last time she had seen him. His eyes had been red-rimmed then, and his cheeks sunken. Warwick had been the one to find his father dead one morning when he had taken up Amos’s breakfast. After years of a slow descent into madness, the old man’s last few months had been eased after his memories of Morwenna were erased, until finally, he had slipped away peacefully in his sleep.

  “Yes, but still,” Fabian persisted. “One of ours leads into a graveyard. You can’t get much creepier than that!”

  “I’ll say,” Nell retorted, her plump shoulders wobbling in a shudder. “You grisly boy.”

  Fabian smirked as though the comment were a compliment while Tanya watched him and wondered whether “boy” was quite the right word for Fabian any longer. He had grown taller and broader over the past few months and was losing the gangly appearance she was familiar with. He was not so thin, nor so pale, and his cheeks were flushed with good health from spending time out of doors.

  “How’s school been?” Tanya asked Rowan, quietly. “It seems like you’re settling in better now, from what you said on the phone.”

  Rowan took a bite from a sandwich and expertly smuggled the rest beneath the tablecloth to Oberon’s ready jaws.

  “It’s all right,” she said, “now that the attention has died down. It’s always worse when you’re the new person. The main thing is trying to catch up on the schooling I missed.” She made a face. “Rose wants to pay a private tutor to give me extra lessons. So far I’ve managed to convince her I’m coping.”

  “And how are things with her?” Tanya continued, lowering her voice even further.

  Rowan glanced over at Rose, who was chatting away to Florence, oblivious to the girls’ conversation. “Strange,” she said, chewing slowly. “We get along, but then we always did. Some days I completely forget, just for a moment, and it’s like it always was. Rose is just my oddball of an aunt, nuts about animals. And then she’ll look at me in a certain way, and I’ll remember—” She broke off as the conversation around the rest of the table lulled. “Talk to you about it later,” she muttered.

  Tanya ate the rest of her lunch in silence. Rowan had grown up believing that Rose was her aunt, and had only recently discovered that Rose was in fact her mother. When her aunt and uncle, whom she’d believed were her parents, were killed in an accident, Rowan was placed in a children’s home, along with her cousin, James, whom she had always thought was her brother.

  While they were staying at the children’s home, James was stolen by fairies, prompting Rowan to r
un away in search of him, using the name “Red” to remain unknown on the streets. Neither Tanya nor Fabian knew much of Rowan’s past, but what they did know was that she’d been involved in switching back fairy changelings left in place of stolen human children. It had been her hope that one day she would make a trade that led to her getting James back.

  Only by chance had Tanya discovered Rowan hiding out in the tunnels below Elvesden Manor. Since then, Tanya and Fabian had helped her in her search for James, but in finding him, the truth about Rowan’s parentage had come out—and had revealed not only that Rose was her mother, but that her father was fey.

  Now Rowan was rebuilding her life at Elvesden Manor… and building a new relationship with her mother.

  After lunch, Tanya helped her grandmother tidy up and chatted to her about school and her vacation. As they moved around the kitchen, the timid little hearthfay skittered away from the table, where she had been keeping the teapot warm, to her favorite nook behind the coal bin, nudging it slightly.

  Once she was finished cleaning, Tanya went out through the back and into the courtyard at the side of the house. Oberon followed close behind her, his nose bumping at her heels. Beyond the wild rosebushes, an area had been cleared of weeds. A fence had been put up, and small hutches were placed around the edges within it. An old goat with only one horn was tethered to a fence post, and a chicken coop was at the back.

  Inside the fence, Rose was bottle-feeding a calf. Tanya peered over the fence.

  “What happened to it?” she asked softly, not wanting to disturb the young animal.

  “Orphaned,” Rose murmured. “Won’t you come inside?”

  Tanya went through the gate, careful to latch it after her. She left Oberon outside. He jumped up at the fence and watched her, his nose resting on his huge paws. Further back, Rowan was leaning over a pen containing a small, rust-colored fox with a heavily bandaged leg.

  “What’s the matter with its leg?” Tanya asked.

  “Poacher’s trap,” Rowan answered. “Luckily nothing was broken, but he had a wound that was infected. Rose says it’ll be healed in a week or so. We can’t have much contact—we need to keep him wild for when he’s released.”

  “What if he comes back for the chickens once he’s better?” Tanya asked doubtfully, glancing over at the coop, where Fabian was scattering feed.

  “He won’t,” said Rowan. “Rose found him in Knook while she was walking her dogs in the fields. We’ll release him there. He won’t find his way back—it’s miles away.”

  Tanya nodded. “So what’s the deal with this place, then? I mean, who pays for it all? And is Rose keeping her cottage in Knook?”

  “Yes,” said Rose quietly, from behind them. The calf trotted along after her like a lamb. “I’m keeping the cottage. The animal sanctuary is off to a good start. I already have offers of sponsorship to pay for any medical treatment they need, and Florence and Nell have come up with some fund-raising ideas for the upkeep of the facilities here.” She smiled at Tanya, her green eyes crinkling. “It was kind of your grandmother and Warwick to offer to let me use the land for this. My cottage is so tiny, and there are so many animals that need helping.”

  Tanya shrugged. “Well, so much of the house and the land isn’t used for anything. I think it makes sense. It’s a good place for animals. Will you be bringing your dogs here? And Rowan mentioned that you’ve got geese too.”

  Rose shook her head. “No. The dogs are settled, and they have plenty of space. It’s the larger animals I was struggling with. And the geese, good grief, no! They’d terrorize the rest of the animals—better that they stay where they are, in the cottage garden.”

  “Thank goodness for that,” Rowan muttered.

  “You know… you can always come to the cottage,” Rose said quickly, her words directed at Rowan. “To visit, or even stay over. It’s perfectly safe… and protected.”

  “I know,” Rowan said, looking uncomfortable. “I’ll think about it.”

  Rose forced a smile. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then.” She left the enclosure. Minutes later Warwick’s Land Rover rumbled through the gates as he drove her home.

  “Give her a chance,” Tanya said, watching as Rowan fastened the fox’s hutch. “She’s trying, you know.”

  Rowan shrugged. “I know. So am I.” She left the pen and looked up as Fabian finally came away from the chickens to join them. “It was never going to be easy, was it?”

  “I suppose not,” Tanya conceded.

  The afternoon gave way to evening. After walking Oberon by the brook bordering Hangman’s Wood, Tanya went to her room to unpack. As she took her toiletry bag into the bathroom that she shared with Rowan, a gurgling from the sink caught her attention. Peering into the murky plughole, she saw two bulbous eyes gleaming back at her. In the autumn, a drain-dweller had taken up residence there. It was a slimy, amphibian-like creature with a fondness for all things shiny, much like a magpie.

  It had not been the first of its kind, however. Another drain-dweller had once lived in the bathroom, and it had taken a liking to an old silver charm bracelet given to Tanya by her grandmother. Tanya had learned that the charms symbolized the thirteen treasures of the fairy courts. She had also learned that her ancestor and the first lady of the manor, Elizabeth Elvesden, had been a fairy changeling. The subsequent bloodline running through the family ever since was the reason for Tanya’s second sight.

  Rowan came in through the adjoining door opposite the one that led in from Tanya’s room.

  “Oh, sorry,” she began. “I didn’t realize you were in here.”

  “It’s all right,” Tanya answered. “I’m just unpacking. But on second thought, I’ll leave my toothbrush in my toiletry bag—I don’t want that slimy drain-dweller crawling all over it.”

  “Good decision,” Rowan remarked. “Make sure you don’t leave any jewelry lying around, either—it’s an even bigger thief than the first one, according to Warwick. He’s had to unblock the pipes three times since the winter to get back all the stuff it’s stolen.”

  “I’ll remember,” said Tanya, watching as the gleaming eyes narrowed. Evidently the creature knew it was being spoken about, for it belched in her direction and then squelched further into the pipes and out of sight, leaving the smell of rotten eggs in its wake.

  Rowan went back into her own room, leaving Tanya alone with the unpleasant scent of the drain-dweller. She left her toiletry bag zipped up and placed it on the back of the sink, then went back into her room.

  It had been redecorated since her last visit. The peeling wallpaper had been stripped and replaced with a fresh coat of cream paint, and the cracked glass in the dressing table mirror had been renewed. It was warmer, more welcoming. A new painting above the fireplace had replaced the one of Echo and Narcissus that she had taken down a year ago following a cruel trick the fairies had played: making her repeat the last words of other people’s sentences. She pushed the memory from her mind. Things were different now.

  She didn’t have much to unpack, and soon everything was put away. She left the room, walked along the landing to the bedroom next door, and knocked.

  “Come in,” Rowan called.

  Tanya went in. Rowan was sitting at her dressing table, and Fabian was hunched on her bed, reading. He pushed his glasses back up his nose as she entered.

  “Oh, it’s you,” Rowan said in surprise. “You could have just come in through the bathroom.”

  Tanya sat down next to Fabian. He closed the book, a tome on folklore, and set it to one side.

  “So what do you think?” he asked, his eyes sparkling.

  “About what?” Tanya replied.

  “The animal sanctuary.”

  “It’s great,” Tanya replied. “I think it’ll be good for the manor if people know what’s being done here. Maybe it’ll go some way toward helping people to forget all the bad stuff that happened here… with Amos and Morwenna and everything.”

  Fabian nodded. “I helped Warw
ick build the fence, you know. And I painted the chicken coop.”

  Tanya nodded, only half-listening. Her eyes were drawn to the various charms and deterrents that were placed around Rowan’s room. Salt; dried rowanberries and leaves; an iron horseshoe on the wall above her bed. Fabian had told her about them on the phone, but Tanya hadn’t been able to visualize it. Even now, seeing it with her own eyes, she couldn’t believe it. Nor could she get used to the new Rowan, with her neat hair and clothes and her quiet manner. Was this really the fearless girl who had trekked around the countryside with only a knife and a meager bag of belongings just a few months ago? It seemed impossible.

  Tanya went to the window, looking past the unbroken trail of salt to the sprawling forest beyond the garden. Her mind swam with possible words, some way of broaching the subject gently. But before she settled on something she was comfortable voicing, Fabian interrupted.

  “We haven’t seen much of Mad Morag recently. I wonder if the compass she gave you is still working?”

  “I don’t know,” said Tanya, thinking of the old gypsy woman who had helped them in the past. “I haven’t even looked at it yet.”

  “We saw her in Tickey End in the spring, didn’t we?” Fabian said, looking over at Rowan, but she was staring into space, gnawing her lower lip.

  “Didn’t we, Red?” Fabian persisted.

  Rowan’s head snapped up. “Don’t call me that anymore!”

  “Sorry,” Fabian muttered, looking baffled and more than a little hurt. “I didn’t mean to. It’s just… an old habit. It just came out.”

  Rowan’s fierce expression softened. “No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped.”

  “Anyway,” Fabian continued uncomfortably, “we saw her in town. I spoke to her for a few minutes. I was hoping she’d let me have some more of that tonic to see fairies, but she said it wasn’t to be used lightly.” He sighed. “Warwick’s being really stingy with his too. Says I’ve got no business messing with it.”