Home From The Sea: The Elemental Masters, Book Seven

by Mercedes Lackey

  As if the little creatures had read the thoughts in her mind, the second answered her. “Magic is a power like any other, Mari. Master it, and it becomes a tool in your hand, and when you have tools, you also have weapons.” The water-girl looked about furtively, as if making sure she was not going to be overheard, and lowered her voice further. “Listen and remember. This is important. Because you have this gift of magic, even though you are untaught, you are valuable to us of the Water. And that alone gives you power. Remember. It is power to bargain. There will come a time, soon, when you are presented with something that appears to be no choice. But you can bargain within that. So think well on that day, demand your choice, and make your bargain.”

  She shook her head. “I haven’t the least notion of what you’re talking about,” she said, bewildered. “Bargain? What would I bargain over?” The only bargain she could think likely was in the market at Clogwyn.

  “It makes no sense now, but it will then. Trust us, and remember!” said the first, and the two of them suddenly dove down into the water and were gone.

  She filled her pails and trudged back through the calf-high grass, beginning to regret that she’d accepted these Tylwyth Teg-things after all. At least when she’d thought they were bits of fever-dream, that was the only part of her life that didn’t make any sense.

  Now… there didn’t seem to be much of her life that did, any more.

  4

  NAN held to her temper with both hands, and refrained from strangling that young ape Clive Waterleed. Clive, in his turn, glanced slyly up at her from beneath a fat comma of blond hair.

  “What did I tell you, young sir?” she asked, severely.

  “You told me not to put the ends of Jenny’s braids in the ink again,” he said. “And I didn’t.”

  Of course he hadn’t. “You put the ends of Jenny’s braids in the paint,” she pointed out.

  “You didn’t tell me not to do that!” he said, with an air of triumph.

  Indeed he had. And indeed, she had not, specifically, told him not to put the child’s hair in paint. The ayah was even now scrubbing the blue out of one braid, and the red out of the other, while Jenny cried because her favorite dress was spoiled.

  Nan wanted to pick him up and shake him until his teeth rattled. She didn’t remember any of the children she’d been in the school with who’d been as full of the devil as Clive was. Nor did she remember any of them being so persistently nasty to one particular child.

  She gritted her teeth and grabbed both his shoulders. “Why do you torment Jenny?” she asked, punctuating each word with a single hard shake—not enough to hurt him but enough to emphasize that she was very, very angry.

  She had shaken the hair out of his eyes, and he stared into her angry face, blue eyes blank and guileless. “I don’t know!” he said, as if he was shocked that she would say such a thing.

  She took a deep breath, and forced herself to be calm. “You listen very carefully to me, Clive. You are not to touch Jenny. You are not to make her cry. You are not to touch her things. You are not to say things to her that upset her. You are not to spoil her lessons. You are not to pretend that she does not exist. You are to be as polite to her as you would be to Memsa’b at all times. Do you understand?”

  She could practically see his mind working, trying to figure out a way around her prohibitions. “But what if—” he began.

  “You will be as polite to her as you would be to Memsah’b,” Nan reiterated, giving him another little shake. “If you make Jenny unhappy again…” she thought furiously. “I will not only tell Memsah’b and Sahib that you are to get no treats at all, no matter how many school prizes you win or how many treats the others get—I will tell Neville that for every time Jenny cries, he will be allowed to steal something from you. And keep it.”

  Finally she had gotten through to him. His eyes widened with shock. Everyone knew the raven’s propensity to take shiny things, things children valued, like marbles and toy soldiers, and try to cache them in his hoard in Nan’s room. Nan always made him give them back, because the children knew better than to try and dare that razor-edge beak to get their possessions back themselves.

  But if Neville was going to be allowed to keep what he stole from Clive… there would be no holding the raven back. And the raven was faster than a mongoose and as clever as a monkey when it came to getting hold of what he wanted.

  After all, what Neville couldn’t open—Grey could. There wasn’t a treasure-box made that could protect against bird-theft if both of them went to work.

  But as Clive trudged out to join the rest of his schoolmates in their arithmetic class, Nan shook her head. This wasn’t the answer. What was wrong with the little wretch? Why couldn’t she get through to him except by use of dreadful threat and force?

  And why, oh why, did he seem to spend every waking moment trying to figure out a way around the letter of the law that she had laid down to him?

  She was just grateful that it was nearly tea-time. At least when he was eating, he wasn’t tormenting Jenny. Though he wasn’t going to be happy about tea-time; she had left orders that he was to get nothing sweet, no jam, no cakes. He wouldn’t starve, not by any stretch of the imagination, but he wasn’t going to get a treat either.

  As she went in to her own tea with the adults, Memsa’b divined what she was thinking by her expression, and poured a cup for her immediately. Nan collapsed inelegantly in her chair, and took her cup with both hands.

  “Clive?” Memsa’b said sympathetically.

  Nan nodded, wearily. “I want to strangle him,” she said.

  “I can’t say as I blame you,” Memsa’b replied dryly. “I have some suspicions about him. I believe he is powerfully empathic—”

  Nan didn’t usually interrupt Memsa’b, but she did this time. “Surely you are jesting!” she exclaimed incredulously. “He spends every waking minute trying to torture the most sensitive child in the school!”

  But Memsa’b nodded. “That is why I think he is powerfully empathic. He’s an orphan; when he was barely old enough to toddle, his mother and father died when a rabid dog attacked them.”

  Nan covered her mouth in horror. “No—”

  Again Memsa’b nodded. “They didn’t die of the wounds, they died of the disease. Clive was kept away from them of course, but was still in the same house, which for an empath is close enough. Their suffering was terrible, and I believe that out of self-defense he tried to shut himself off. But being an empath, he instinctively understands that he should be feeling things, and now he can’t unless they are very strong. So he has gone straight to the most sensitive child here and torments her so at least he can feel something.” She tapped her index finger on the side of her cup as she thought. “It’s possible because he shut himself off, he is now unable to relate to others except as objects of passing interest. From being empathic, he has become the opposite.”

  Nan frowned. “That sounds… dangerous.”

  “It isn’t yet. But it could be. I believe Sahib and I will take over his education for a while. What did you do about his latest prank?”

  Nan described the rather one-sided conversation she’d had with the child, while Memsa’b listened intently. Then she sighed. “Well, you haven’t made things worse, but now he is not only going to devote himself to finding ways around what you told him, but to making it impossible for you to catch him. He’ll probably recruit a crony to help.” Her lips twitched a little in a smile. “You know that there are at least three of them who take great pleasure in outwitting you.”

  Nan groaned. “Only too well. There are days when I want to take some of those boys and dump them out on the street and let them live the life I used to, just so they will appreciate the one they have.” She grimaced. “Except that they would probably like it.”

  Memsa’b just sipped her tea. Nan gloomily reflected that she wasn’t much good at this teaching business. How did Memsa’b and the others manage?

  Her only com
fort was that Sarah looked just as forlorn as she felt, when her friend came in. “Am I cursed with the thickest heads in the school?” she demanded, as she took her seat and reached for the cup Nan poured and handed to her.

  “No,” Memsa’b replied, her lips twitching again. “The cleverest.”

  Sarah stared at her. “But—we have gone over the same lessons every day for the past week and they still haven’t mastered it!”

  “Because, my love, you are too soft with them. Why should they have to tax their little minds with anything new if they can play at stupidity and convince you to go over what they already know?” Memsa’b asked.

  Sarah’s jaw dropped. She closed it with an expression of dismay. “I—I must be the worst teacher in the school!” she said bitterly.

  “No,” Nan contradicted her. “I am.”

  Memsa’b sighed. “Neither of you are very good,” she said reluctantly. “I am very sorry to say this, but… if you were not who you are, I should ask you to pack your bags and find another position elsewhere.”

  Nan reached recklessly for the jam and spread it thickly on her toast, eating it glumly. “I’d have to agree with you,” she said between bites. “Curse it all. I’m going on the stage.”

  Memsa’b only raised an eyebrow. They both knew it was a hollow threat. Although Nan would probably enjoy the stage very much, she was no beauty, and would probably not get very far—which would make it a far from pleasant career.

  Not to mention that being on the stage would make it very difficult to pursue occult studies.

  “I thought we had everything planned out so well,” Sarah lamented. “We’d be teachers here, we’d settle down to a quiet life like you—”

  “And when have you—or I, for that matter—had a quiet life?” Memsa’b demanded. “Did you think that life was going to go on in the same way forever? Did you really want it to?”

  Nan made a face. “Memsa’b, Sarah and I saved all of England before we were out of leading strings, practically,” she pointed out. “It’s rather difficult to—”

  This time it was Memsa’b who interrupted her. “Sahib and I have spent the better parts of our lives together saving England, or parts of it at least, over and over again. You can’t rest on your laurels when you have the sort of gifts that we have.”

  Nan grimaced. “When you put it in those terms…” She stared glumly down into her tea. “But that isn’t all the time. It isn’t even most of the time. What are we to do with ourselves otherwise?”

  “Well, you tried teaching. What else is there?” Memsa’b replied patiently.

  “Nursing?” Nan and Sarah looked at each other and shook their heads. They’d already had a taste of that in Africa and it hadn’t suited them. “Being a nanny or a governess… well I don’t imagine that would go any better than teaching. What else is there?”

  “What else do you want there to be?” Memsa’b countered. “Don’t accept the walls that other people want to place you behind. In the meantime… Nan, Jenny is too soft and cry-babyish. Why don’t you take her on? Help her grow a little more backbone. Sarah, help ayah Gulzar with the babies. They’re too young to wrap you around their fingers, and Gulzar could use the help.”

  Nan and Sarah exchanged another pained look. This was make-work, and both of them knew it. But what else was there to do? Well, other than figure out just what they might be able to do with themselves…

  Don’t accept the walls that other people want to place you behind? Nan thought, as she took herself off to find Jenny. That’s all very well, but that means having to keep them from doing it in the first place, doesn’t it? And really, how many options did she have? She had no talent at writing or art. Clearly she had no talent for teaching. Nursing made her ill. She wasn’t any kind of a scholar. Working in an office or a factory or a shop would give her even less freedom than the stage for doing what she really felt she must do, the sort of occult work that Memsa’b and Sahib did. And she couldn’t, she wouldn’t, sit idle.

  “Bother,” she said aloud, crossly. Why did things have to be so complicated? It had all seemed so simple when they were children! They had it all planned; everything would be safe, they would know what to expect, and everything would go on much as it always had, except that instead of being the students, they would be the teachers. There would be no surprises.

  Wasn’t that how things were supposed to go?

  “So what do we do with ourselves?” Sarah asked that night, as both of them were brushing their hair before bed. She sighed. “Memsa’b suggested we should work with the women’s suffrage movement.…”

  Nan frowned. “I think that would be a very bad idea. You know what my temper is like. The first policeman who tries to bully or hurt someone is very likely to discover five inches of umbrella point in his belly or find his head broken by the shaft.” She gazed fondly at her new acquisition, funded—with some trepidation—by Sahib. It was an umbrella made to the same specifications as their patroness’s in Egypt. It had a backbone of stout steel as strong as a crowbar, the tip was sharp enough to pierce flesh, and the handle housed a small kit containing many useful objects.

  “Surely you wouldn’t…” Sarah trailed off as Neville gave a derisive quork, and Grey snickered.

  “See? Even they know I would.” Nan sighed. “You can take the girl out of Whitechapel, but you can’t take Whitechapel out of the girl.”

  “I wouldn’t say that,” Sarah said weakly.

  “You don’t have to; I already did.” Nan brushed her hair the last of the mandated one hundred strokes. “And there’s another thing. You know we’ll be thrown in jail. Have you any notion how haunted every jail in London is?”

  Sarah paled. “You’re right.”

  “And I can just see myself telling our jailor, ‘Please sir, let my friend out. She has thirty ghosts trying to talk to her; half are insane, and the other half are murderous.’ I’m sure that would do us and the cause a world of good.” She began braiding her hair deftly. “Neither of us are any good at public speaking, and we don’t have secretarial skills, so there we are again. The most use we could be is as slogan shouters. Not very useful. Curse it all, I want to be useful, not ornamental or idle.”

  “I wonder…” Sarah began, then shook her head. “No, that probably wouldn’t work.”

  “What?” Nan asked, a little more sharply than she had intended. “Come out with it! You never know unless you bring it out in the open.”

  “Well… I wonder if Lord Alderscroft could find something for us to do. He certainly hinted at it.” Sarah sounded hesitant, and Nan wasn’t entirely certain this was a viable idea either.

  “Doing what?” she asked.

  “Looking into things, I suppose,” Sarah replied vaguely. “I’m not sure how we would do that, though.”

  “Hmm. Looking into things… like Sherlock Holmes?” Nan hazarded. “Only looking for magic and the occult?”

  “I think that was more-or-less what he was hinting at.” Sarah toyed with the end of her braid. “I should think we’d need some skills or something, to blend in, though.”

  Nan sucked on her lower lip, thoughtfully. “Maybe not as much as you think. After all, it’s unlikely he’d ask us to investigate… oh… a haunted office. We wouldn’t need to be secretaries. We can easily fit in with Memsa’b’s class, we could pass as governesses for a little while, I think I can probably get back my street ways—though it would probably be safer to disguise myself as a young man—and neither of us are afraid of working with our hands, so we could slip in below-stairs among servants at need.…”

  Sarah clasped both her hands on her knees and looked intrigued. “When you put it that way—”

  “About the only thing we can’t pass as is country folk. But if it is possible to be… oh… romantical lady poets or something, we could probably tramp about the countryside with impunity long enough to find out what Lord A wants found out.” Nan found herself warming to this idea the more she talked about it.

>   “But do you think he’d have enough work for us?” Sarah asked, doubtfully.

  “There’s only one way to find out,” Nan countered, and grinned when Neville quorked and flapped his wings.

  “Ask! Ask!” the raven said, with great enthusiasm.

  “There, you see?” Nan spread her hands wide. “Even the birds like it.”

  Mari went to bed anxious. Tomorrow would be her birthday, and not just any birthday, but her eighteenth. As if that wasn’t enough, she had learned from experience that as her birthday went, so the rest of the year seemed to go. The year it had stormed on her birthday was the year there were so many storms that Daffyd Prothero had been almost the only fisherman to reliably bring in catches. That year had been good from a financial point of view, and that had been the year that many silver pennies went into the jar under the hearthstone, but it had been a nerve-wracking one for Mari, and more somberly, they’d attended three funerals of drowned fishermen that year. There had also been several wrecks, and bodies had even washed up in front of the cottage.

  On the other hand, the year that the day had not only been bright and clear but as warm as summer had been an unseasonably mild one, with just enough gentle rain for the garden.

  She had another reason to be uneasy as she went to bed. As the day had neared, her father had been acting strangely. She caught him staring at her with an odd, apprehensive expression on his face, many times. But whenever she tried to ask him anything that wasn’t a commonplace, he swiftly changed the subject. Maddening.

  And somewhat alarming.

  And there was the third thing. What would the coming year be like, if the day was marked by one or more of the Tylwyth Teg folk turning up? She shuddered to think.

  When she rose at dawn, at least one fear was assuaged. The morning was bright and clear, with no signs of storm. Daffyd had somehow managed to smuggle a posy of violets into the house and it was sitting in a teacup at her place at table when she came down from the loft to make breakfast. He managed to do this every year, and every year it made her smile. Her presents were laid out there too; extravagant ones that made her eyes go round—a tortoise-shell brush and comb and a matching hand-mirror so she wouldn’t have to use a bit of broken mirror propped against the wall. Two tortoise-shell hair-combs to put her hair up like a lady. And a string of beautiful blue glass beads, not the round cast ones, but the polished, faceted beads that sparkled like gemstones in the light.