by Rowan Casey
"I remember the night he gave her to me. It was a week after my mother died; seven days of rain, crying, funeral, rain, grief and more crying. I was five, and had taken to bed when he, my father that is, brought in this thing. At first I thought he was going to light up a fag and that this was an ashtray. You can imagine my surprise when the bloody thing started speaking to me. I was too young to consider the fact that I might have gone loopy. I talked back. And we've been talking ever since. Until now."
"What is she?" George asked as I paused to eat some more breakfast.
"Faerie magic, at least that's what my father said when he was lucid about it. A trapped fairy that was protected by our family or maybe she was just a secret thing that nobody knew about, something to keep me occupied through my grief and keep me out of his hair. Some, or all, of the above I guess. The romantic in me thought she was a trapped princess. That one day I'd free her and we'd live happily ever after. All that soft bollocks you get in your head when you're a moody teenager. She has never spoken to me of her own origins. I know she is old, as old as the hills, given some of the things she professes to remember. But really, she is, was, the closest thing to a mother I've had."
I didn't notice until I stopped, but I had tears in my eyes by the end. I wiped them away angrily, then brought George all the way up to date, telling him what had happened in the library with Black and the cold tower in the dark place.
To his credit, he took it all in without laughing at me, but I saw disbelief in his eyes when I finally finished my breakfast and looked up.
"You saw the big dog for yourself and where the leash went. But if it's more proof of the rest you want, that's the easy bit," I said. I leaned forward until I was over the table. "Hello, darling."
It wasn't Face who replied. The fog swirled in a spiral in the other mirror, and the sister spoke, or rather sang, to me.
"Will ye no' come back again?"
"And this isn't one of yon ventriloquist's tricks?" George said softly.
"Not even close," I replied. "And there's more yet for you to see. Hold on to your bunnet. You'll like this one."
I spoke to the mirror again.
"I'll be over for a visit soon, darling," I said. "But will you hold something for me, keep it with the watch?"
"Everything I do, I do for you," she sang again, and I took that as assent.
With George looking on, wide-eyed in amazement—he didn't actually have a bunnet, but I'm pretty sure he'd be holding onto it if he had—I fed the quarter-staff through to the other side, feeling her pull from her end. I let go just in time to stop the chewed end leaving splinters in my palm, and then it was all the way past the boundary leaving only fog swirling on the mirror's surface.
"Thank you, sweetheart," I said.
"My name's Agnes," she replied, with a girlish giggle, and the mirror went dim and finally quiet.
George got down on his hands and knees and waved his hands above and below the table for strings or any other signs of trickery. It took several minutes of him checking angles, lifting the mirrors, and even checking that I hadn't, somehow, slipped a six-foot length of wood up my sleeve before he was finally capable of admitting defeat.
"Okay, I give in, you really are a wee ginger magician—or are you some kind of warrior on the side of light and good and justice and all that pish? Because, you know, I don't always fly that way myself. I'm just telling you before you put your underpants over your trousers."
"I think you're safe from my awesome might," I replied, laughing.
George's gaze fell on the old book.
"You've convinced me about the wee mirror. But what's this? Some kind of bible?"
"Another family heirloom," I replied. "Or at least it might be. I'm pretty sure all of the copies were held in Seton libraries at one point or another. I picked it up because Black said it was important, and, maybe I shouldn't tell you this, but at a guess it's worth the best part of two million bucks."
"Well, that'll pay for your room and board for a few weeks anyway," he replied.
13
I fell asleep on the couch. One minute I was drinking coffee and talking to George about how long he thought we'd be hiding away, and the next I was gone and away. Thankfully, there were no dreams in the darkness this time, and when I woke I wasn't hanging in a dungeon, so there was that to be thankful for at least.
George was out on the balcony sitting in a chair that looked like it had seen plenty of use for the job. He sat, soaking up some sun, drinking a beer and was on the phone again. The sliding doors were shut so I couldn't hear him, but it looked like he was doing a deal.
I left him to it and finally paid some attention to the Concordances. I picked it up, and a single sheaf of paper fell out. When I bent to pick it up from the floor I saw it was a catalogue card. Before Black got it, it had been referenced and filed. The title of the card said it was from a library of a T.C. of 472, Cheyne Walk, London, and had a date on it in August, 1909. Below that, in a firm, neat hand, was the catalog entry itself.
Title: The Twelve Concordances of the Red Serpent
Author: Reputed to be Alexander Seton, scribe
Language: Old Scots.
Origin: Edinburgh, Scotland, 1329
Binding: Dark brown calf over wooden boards; heavily ornamented, gold tooled
Frontispiece inscription: Ye Twelve Concordances of ye Red Serpent. In wch is succinctly and methodically handled, the stone of ye philosophers, his excellent effectes and admirable vertues; and, the better to attaine to the originall and true meanes of perfection, inriched with Figures representing the proper colors to lyfe as they successively appere in the practice of this blessed worke.
Description: Illuminated manuscript on parchment. 28 leaves. 21 x 13 cm. Single column of 19 lines. Textblock: 14 x 8.5 cm.
Decoration: Text has illuminated Gothic initials "M" and "T" and bar borders ending in knotwork corners decorated in gold, red, blue, and purple paint on folio 2r. Some paint has offset onto facing blank. Headings and initials in red and blue throughout. Four full-color miniature paintings with gold within full-page floral borders; numerous vine-leaf and gold initials with floral pen work extensions.
The bald description did no justice at all to the beauty of the thing. I picked up the book and immediately thought of Face, of the old childhood tales I'd been told. Some of the stories she'd told me in the long, cold, winter nights in Scotland had even mentioned this book, maybe even this very copy. I held a big part of the history of my family in my hands. And the mere act of holding it brought back the memory, full and complete, of the first time I heard of its existence. I can't have been more than ten. It was a rainy day, we have plenty of them in Scotland, and I was bored. As always, Face fixed that for me.
"Let me tell you a wee story,” she said. "You’ll probably have heard some of it before, but not it all.
"It starts in Scotland, in 1328, while The Bruce was still on the throne," she started, before pausing. "Actually, it started a while before that. On the 24th of June, 1314 the armies of The Bruce, heavily outnumbered by their English rivals, but using tactics that prevented the English army from deploying its strength, won victory at Bannockburn. Scotland was taken back from English control. The Declaration of Independence signed at Arbroath in 1320 was the culmination of The Bruce's career and sealed his position. Scotland became the first nation state in Europe and the first to have territorial unity under a single king. This became widely recognized in May, 1328. A peace treaty with the auld enemy was signed at Northampton. Tired and disillusioned from decades of fighting, the English king finally recognized Scotland as an independent kingdom and Robert Bruce as King.
"Unfortunately The Bruce wasn’t going to live long enough to savor the moment. He was gravely ill, and had been for a long time. His enemies started to spread rumors that the king was a leper; a great stigma at that time.”
I interrupted her.
"Wasn’t his dad a leper? Didn’t I see it in that movie?"
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Face laughed.
"You saw that? Historical accuracy has never been Hollywood’s strongpoint, but they really pushed the boat out on that one. Did you know that The Bruce’s nickname was Braveheart—that name was never applied to Wallace? Now, do you want the story or not?"
I pleaded for her to continue.
"The father wasn’t a leper," Face said. "And neither was The Bruce. He had none of the disfigurement or lesions associated with the disease. But something afflicted him. These days we’d call it cancer, and treat it accordingly. But if it was cancer, it was one that had been with him for a long time, back as far as 1307. Doctors were called from all over Europe, and they diagnosed a variety of cures, from leeches and bloodletting to tincture of mercury and mandrake.
"Nothing worked, and the great man was getting weaker by the day. Until a stranger appeared, an old man. Some say he was a Templar, with lore learned in the Holy Land, others said he was a Necromancer—even a wizard. Whatever his story, the old man showed the Royal Court that he knew arcane secrets. He offered to help the king, in return for the Scottish throne's protection from Rome and the Pope.
"So began the experiment, the treatment of the king and the attempt to renew his vigor. It was all written down and collated, every detail recorded in a code known only to the writer himself. There were twelve steps in all; twelve Concordances."
"And after they were written down, and after the King was cured, the old man went off on his way, and the books, twelve copies of the Concordances made by the monks of Stirling Abbey, disappeared with him. The man was your ancestor, Alexander Seton, and some would say he walks the land yet, courtesy of the secrets he holds and the answers he found in his search.
"As for the books, they were never to be seen again."
In the years since I first heard the story, I'd learned a bit about the books—some had indeed surfaced in various places over the years, changing hands between Setons, between collectors, between adepts seeking knowledge, and between amateurs like Black who thought they could buy their way into enlightenment. And now here was one of them in my hands.
The cover was a work of art in itself; calfskin over wood, intricately pierced and embroidered with thread and copper, depicting the serpent Ourobouros, circling the world and eating its tail. I ran my hands over the surface. It was smooth, and cold to the touch. Not damp like the mirrors, but dry, almost like sand.
I opened it at random and got a passage of what appeared to be complete nonsense. It clearly also wasn't an original part of the main body of the book, but had been transcribed, in a shaky hand, over the top of an illustration long ago faded so far into the paper as to be indistinguishable.
Extractio Animae Solis: or a Triall upon Sol, for the Extraction of Philosophical earth. The Author has putt doon the consequences of his Experiments therein, from the beginning to the end, by way of Journal; in the sure and sertin hope of the resurrection and the life, in this year of oor lord sixteen hunner an forty. Putt doon here in the keep by the wee port by the shore.
Begin a fast of forty days starting during the full moon of May, drinking only May dew collected with a cloth of pure white linen and eating only a biscuit or crust of dried bread.
More family history; Face had told me the stories, of mad old uncles intent on becoming immortal. I wasn't about to start believing that one. Not until I met one and got to see the proof of it for myself, anyway.
I turned to the next page and got hit in the face with glory.
The illustration covered both facing pages, and the illuminated drawing—that seemed too small a word for its magnificence— took on a deep glow where sunlight hit it, like gold melted in a furnace. An artist with complete mastery of color, depth and form had obviously been involved.
It showed a figure standing on a border that ran down between the two pages and down the center of the standing figure, bisecting him from head to toe. On the right hand page it was summer. Children played in a field of green with lambs and foals gamboling alongside them. Soft, rolling hills tumbled away into a misty distance where a sea shimmered in the haze. A glorious sun in the top right hand corner lit everything in deep gold that seemed warm against my face.
On the left page it was a winter scene, an icy landscape that twinkled with frost and reflected harsh moonlight in dark shadows that crept across the view. Unlike the summer scene, this was a landscape I knew—I'd seen it only too recently. The line of jagged peaks went off into a dim distance under a gibbous moon that I knew should be yellow instead of the gold depicted here, and the flying things above might not be birds. Towers jutted skyward from the peaks, like broken fingers, and a sea—black and flat and deep and silent—stretched away under the watcher's gaze.
The watcher had two faces, one looking at each scene. I knew the symbolism: Janus, the two faced God, older by far than the Romans who had worshipped him, watcher over the gateway. That wasn't what concerned me. What concerned me were the faces themselves. Both of them looked like the same face I saw in the mirror when I shaved.
I was still processing that fact when the scene on the left hand page seemed to shift under my gaze, gaining depth until I felt like I was looking into it rather than at it. Things went gray, foggy, and I felt a cold tingling; one that I'd felt before. Mist gathered around me and a weight pressed on my chest, threatening to cut off my breath entirely. I slapped the book shut, the weight lifted, and the cold tingle went at the same time.
George was standing at the doorway, mouth open, staring at me.
"If that's going to happen regularly, let me know. I'll need to get a supply of clean underwear in."
"What did you see?" I asked, but I already knew. I'd almost passed over, to the other place, the cold place.
I was thinking something else, too.
Face might have gone dead and quiet and be refusing to come to me.
But maybe I could go to her.
14
George was not at all happy with my plan, and let me know it.
"Are you bloody daft, man?" he said over a mug of coffee.
"I refuse to answer that on the grounds that I might incriminate myself."
"No, I mean it, lad. You've got the book and we can sell that on…I probably know three buyers off the top of my head. Yon big angry dog has buggered off and we're free and clear of any polis trouble as far as I can tell. I call that a result. There's no need to be mucking about any further with fairy magic than is needed. Have you not seen Brigadoon? Leave it be."
In a way—in a couple of ways—I agreed with him, but he hadn't stood before Dante. He hadn’t heard the speech about destiny and battles and the triumph of the light and all that happy shit. Besides, I needed to know.
"It's Face," I said. "I need to know why she did it. Whether this is a recent thing, or if I've been no more than a mark all this time. I need to know."
George looked me in the eye.
"In all the time you've been at this game, have you ever met one—have you ever met a mark that needed to know he'd been conned? Has it ever changed anything? Has it ever made anybody feel better? Does it matter?"
"It matters to me," I said, but I was feeling less sure of that the longer he kept talking.
"There's one other thing," George said, "and I'm surprised you haven't thought of it yourself. What if she isn't playing you? What if the reason she's not talking to you is purely because yon hound got her? You sent the leash through to the other side. Maybe it went back to its ferocious ways and just ate her all up."
He was right. I should have thought of that. But given everything he’s said, I was more determined than ever that this was my path.
I bent to the table to lift the two small mirrors.
"And if you're thinking about taking them with you, that's a daft idea too," George said.
I looked over and raised an eyebrow.
"Do you know something I don't?"
"Think about it. Taking a magic portal—window—whatever the blazes these things are�
�through into another magic portal? That's just asking for trouble! One goes inside the other, then again and again and it's like you're inside one of those painted Russian Dolls, then into another, and another until you get too wee and disappear up your own arse."
It was colorfully put, but he had a good point and I didn't think now was any time to be testing the theory. I put the mirrors back on the table. But there was something I would definitely need on my travels. I bent over the more warped of the two mirrors.
"Agnes? Are you still there?"
"Always and forever, my lovely man," she sang. "Till a' the seas gang dry."
"I need the staff, please, darling. Nice and easy."
It came through slowly, chewed end first, cold and damp in my hand until the L.A. heat started to work into it. George looked on, as wide-eyed as before until I stood back and made a few moves with the weapon, making sure it was as well-balanced as I was used to. I'd used it up in the canyon house, but that had been instinct in extremis. Now I needed to use my training. I had a feeling my survival might depend on it.
I was wearing my L.A. street corner gear: leather jacket, boots, denims, hat and Ramones shirt. I had a quarter-staff in my hand, and nothing in my pockets but lint. I was as ready as I was ever going to be.
I bent to open the book at the winter and summer scene again, having to scan the pages until I found the right one. I held it there with my thumb at the page until I was ready.
"You're sure this will work?" George asked.
"Nope, not in the least bit. But if it does, and I'm not back in a couple of hours, sell the book before Black comes looking for it. And watch your back."
