Gloaming

by Charlotte E. English

  ‘No,’ agreed Margot. ‘That one we found in the house of Oriane.’

  If Sylvaine heard, she did not reply. She was too busy shaking out the coat, very carefully indeed, and turning it about. ‘I am sure,’ she was saying softly, ‘that it is the same one! Oh, yes — see here,’ and she thrust the coat under Margot’s nose, pointing to a slight irregularity with the weaving. ‘It is the same! How can it be the same?’

  ‘Is it yours, then?’ said Margot in confusion.

  ‘In effect,’ said Sylvaine. ‘It was… my mother’s.’ So saying, she laid the coat over her own shoulders and slipped her arms into its wispy sleeves. Margot thought privately that it looked made for Sylvaine, for the pretty mauve tint looked custom-matched to her wild hair.

  A day or two ago, Margot would have said it was her imagination only that made the embroidery glow like the moon, when Sylvaine put the coat on.

  Sylvaine rolled her shoulders and shuddered, suffering under some affliction Margot could not recognise. ‘Ah, well,’ she said softly. ‘After all, then, what choice is there?’ On which words she turned resolutely to the staircase and ascended it, calling to Margot, ‘I take it back, Margot. Sing as much as you like. Wear the ribbon. We are out of our depth entirely, but what of that? There is no knowing where any of this will go, unless we go along with it. And who knows what might come of it, if we do?’

  ‘Perhaps something bad,’ said Margot dreamily, draping the ribbon over her left wrist and tying it there. She noticed, distantly, that the box was almost empty, which did not seem right. Only the little bottle, filled with Pharamond’s elixir for Oriane, was left; had there not been some other things in there? Florian’s neckcloth, for one. She thought to ask Sylvaine about it, but the other woman was already halfway up the stairs, talking all the while.

  Margot put the elixir-bottle into her skirt.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Sylvaine. ‘That is the way of everything, is it not? And then, you know, we might also be…’ She hesitated. She had gone out of sight, now, and Margot heard only her voice drifting back down the stairs.

  ‘Be what?’ prompted Margot, ascending after her.

  ‘Oh, changed!’ said Sylvaine. ‘But in good ways, not bad. Or neither.’

  Margot came out at the top of the stairs into a large room which spanned, she judged, the whole width and breadth of the building. Anything she might have said in response to Sylvaine fled from her mind, lost to wonder — and a touch of fear. ‘Your father’s workroom?’ she enquired of Sylvaine.

  ‘The heart of the emporium,’ Sylvaine intoned.

  The first thing which caught Margot’s notice was the windows. There were eight of them, and they were impossible. Not least because each was filled with a single, unbroken sheet of glass, no matter that they were as tall as Margot herself and twice as wide. Such glasswork was beyond the capability of any craftsman, she would have thought. And they showed nothing that they ought. Instead of affording views over the narrow streets of Argantel and their complement of tall, slate-tiled and stone-built houses, they showed variously: a lake of green waters, its surface smothered in lily-pads; an ocean of clouds shot through with lightning; a forest of bejewelled trees clad in russet and gold; a web of rivers and becks, their swift-running waters criss-crossing each other in a veritable maze; a great chamber, ruined, its walls hung with rotting tapestries; a moonlit arbour of ancient, wizened trees; a jumbled village of tall, unusually narrow houses, thatch-roofed and leaning precariously; and a stretch of desert, sands glittering with jewel-dust in every colour.

  Three broad work-benches built from stout oak were lined up down the centre of the room, each cluttered with an array of tools. One held brewing and distilling paraphernalia, and was half-covered in bottles, flasks and jars filled with all manner of liquids; one held the tools of a bookbinder’s trade, and several partly-constructed tomes; and the third was devoted to some pursuit beyond Margot’s comprehension, for she could make no sense of the things that were assembled there. A kind of small, portable loom was one of them, with a length of fabric hanging from it, half-spun. The cloth resembled the ribbon she wore, though it was nowhere near so fine, nor so impossibly beautiful. Three great glass jars stood there also, something misty and insubstantial swirling dreamily inside each one. There was a box full of shards of glass, some coloured, some clear, and all shining softly.

  Margot took all of this in with a growing sensation of troubled awe, and said vaguely: ‘What in the world is your father up to?’

  ‘Quite,’ said Sylvaine, glancing about with the air of one who is so familiar with the contents of a room as to have stopped seeing any individual object long ago. ‘That is exactly the question in my mind, of late.’

  ‘Of late?’ Margot echoed. ‘Has he not always been…’

  ‘Strange?’ Sylvaine supplied. ‘Oh yes, always! And taught me the greater part of his trades. For the past three years and more, I have been the one keeping the Chanteraine Emporium stocked. I mix the elixirs, bind up the pocket-books, bake the sweetmeats and morsels and weave the scarves and the shawls, for father has been too… busy.’ She looked at the work-benches, and said with a faint smile, ‘This might rather be called my workroom, now.’ She focused again on Margot, and said in a troubled tone: ‘I do not know where he goes, Margot, or what he does. And he has not been seen at all since before yesterday, not by anybody that I have asked. Is it a coincidence, that my father vanishes just as chaos claims us all?’

  Margot’s head had cleared a little since her walk through the vale. She was able to parse the sense of Sylvaine’s words without having to untangle them first, and she could grasp the problem at hand quite lucidly, and without suffering the smallest urge to sing about it. ‘I see what you mean,’ she answered, slowly. ‘But you cannot think that your father has something to do with all of this?’

  Sylvaine crossed her arms and stared meaningfully out of the nearest of the windows: the one showing a roiling sea of thunderous clouds. ‘Can I not?’

  A bolt of lightning shot across that airy sea as Margot watched, and she blinked. ‘I see your point.’

  ‘Indeed. So.’ Sylvaine began to move about the room with a searching attitude, though what she might be looking for Margot could not guess. She lifted the tapestried drapes and looked behind them; drew up the thick, burgundy woollen rug from the wood-panelled floor and peeped underneath; opened each one of the cupboards that lined the walls and rummaged through the contents. ‘I don’t know why I am even doing this,’ she muttered under her breath. ‘It is not as though I haven’t searched all these places before, many times over.’

  Margot’s befogged mind had glided seamlessly over a certain matter before, but now its import hit her all at once. ‘You said that Florian is missing?’

  ‘Like Oriane, and like my father. Hasn’t been seen by anybody, since the day before last.’ Sylvaine did not for an instant pause in her labours as she spoke; rather, her endeavours became almost feverish, and she spun about the workroom like a little hurricane, delving and probing and prying into everything. ‘There can be little doubt that they are all vanished by the same means,’ she said. ‘Well — Oriane and Florian both, I should surmise. My father… I cannot say. Perhaps.’

  A knot of worry formed in Margot’s stomach, and she bit her lip. Florian was gone, like Oriane, and no one knew where. Oriane had not yet come back. Would Florian, either? Was he in danger? Was Oriane? A sense of helplessness left her frightened and disoriented, and she seized upon Sylvaine’s furious activity as a welcome distraction. ‘What is it that you’re searching for?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Sylvaine in frustration. ‘My father stopped working in here years ago, so what has he been doing with his time ever since? I strongly suspect that there is somewhere else he goes. I know that he has had some other project in hand, for he has hinted at it before, but he has never consented to tell me anything about it.’

  ‘A secret room?’ Margot guessed. ‘You think he might have a hidde
n workroom somewhere hereabouts?’

  Sylvaine suddenly stopped, her shoulders sagging. ‘It sounds absurd, doesn’t it? Where could such a room possibly be hidden? This room we are in fills all the space we have from wall to wall, and the rest above and below is equally well accounted for.’

  ‘Are you certain? Those windows are confusing. We could be several feet from the street and never know it.’

  ‘I’ve measured,’ said Sylvaine ruefully. ‘It was one of my first ideas, and I measured very carefully. There is nowhere in this house that might admit of a hidden space.’

  ‘Right,’ said Margot. ‘So there isn’t a secret room here. What about at home?’

  ‘Father never worked at home, nor would ever bring any of our creations there either. Even so, I have performed the same search, and found nothing.’

  Margot went to the window that overlooked the ancient arbour, and stood a moment admiring the trees all silvered with moonlight. ‘Are these visions only?’ she wondered aloud. ‘Or may one step through?’ Not that doing so would be wise, were it possible, for they looked down upon the arbour from some vantage point high above; the ground must be some considerable distance below them.

  ‘Visions,’ said Sylvaine absently. ‘They are only windows, not doors…’ Her words trailed off; she bent over one of the work-benches, the one farthest from Margot, intent upon something that lay upon it. ‘Now, how odd? I did not know that my father ever painted.’

  Margot went to look. A trio of miniature paintings lay atop the smooth wooden planks, each rendered in breath-taking detail. One depicted the emporium itself: the shop floor with its shelves of inviting wares, and the counter behind which Pharamond so often stood. The second showed a room at Landricourt with which Margot was very familiar: the ruined ballroom, holes in its ceiling and roses thick upon its walls.

  The third was by far the strangest. It was a large, domed chamber with many sides, windowless, and empty except for an unusually tall clock which stood in the centre. The clock was ornate, built from a reddish wood polished to a mirror-shine and elaborately carved. It had one great, pale face at its top, as was natural, but it also had many more; they were crowded together up and down the body of the clock, all different sizes, and all displaying different times. Margot thought that there was a mournful air about the painting, as though the clock were not quite happy about something.

  ‘Oh!’ said she. ‘I have seen something like these, before,’ and she dipped her hand into the left pocket of her skirt. But the book, which she had so carefully deposited in there, was not to be found; nor was it in her right skirt pocket, nor secreted anywhere else about herself that she might have decided to store it. She wondered uneasily how she had lost it. ‘I did have a book,’ she told Sylvaine, ‘full of paintings like these, and made, Florian said, by your father. He tried to send it to Oriane.’

  Sylvaine looked as though she did not know what to make of Margot’s news, or the three paintings either. ‘Well,’ she said at last, and straightened her spine. ‘Since this appears to be the only example of my father’s work I have come across in some time, I believe we should consider them important, and take them with us.’ She took out her own pocket-book and tucked the paintings in between their pages, handling them very carefully indeed.

  Then she paused a moment in thought, and said: ‘My father sent Florian into Landricourt, you know.’

  ‘It was mentioned,’ said Margot.

  ‘To search for… something. I heard him.’

  ‘Florian did not appear to know what he was meant to look for.’

  ‘I think either my father did not know himself, or he did not wish to prejudice Florian’s mind in any particular direction. What has ever puzzled me since, though, is: why? Why would not my father go himself, if he wanted something from Landricourt? He is ever welcome there. He and Madame Brionnet have been friends for ever, she would not send him away. And he is friendly with all the winemakers. Indeed, for many years he and I were always going there, and poking into every corner of the place just as we liked. Why did he send Florian?’

  Margot, much struck, bethought herself of another idea. ‘And how came it to be that Florian vanished, so soon afterwards?’

  She and Sylvaine looked long at one another, and Margot read the same uneasiness in Sylvaine’s face as she felt herself. ‘Your father would not…’ she began, but was unable to finish.

  Sylvaine spoke decisively. ‘Deliberately send Florian into danger? Gracious, no! We rely upon that young man for a great many things, and father always said he knew of few so trustworthy, or so dependable. No, if he sent Florian to Landricourt it was because he knew that Florian, of all people, would get the job done. But what was the job?’

  ‘And where has it taken him?’ Margot added.

  Sylvaine twitched the folds of the moth-wing coat more tightly around herself, and visibly squared herself up to face the inevitable conclusion; one which Margot herself was rapidly reaching. ‘It does seem rather like venturing into the eye of the storm,’ she said, ‘but of course we must go back to the house.’

  ‘I will probably sing again,’ Margot warned.

  ‘I imagine we will go singing all the way, and make fine fools of ourselves. But if there is a reason for everything — and my father has often said so — then there is a reason for your songs, too, and we could do worse than to find out what it is.’

  Margot checked that the ribbon was secure around her wrist. Its presence there felt warm and bright and comforting, and she had a sense that she would be unwise to take it off — or to lose it, like she had somehow lost the book. ‘To Landricourt,’ she said, and tried to speak with confidence.

  ‘To Landricourt,’ echoed Sylvaine, and led the way downstairs.

  2

  Outside, the Gloaming reigned still in a state of high glee. The sky was indigo, the clouds were silver, and everywhere was mist and starlight. Margot felt the pulse of magic as soon as her bare feet touched the road: a strong current streaming over the vale, and coming from Landricourt.

  There had always been an atmosphere of possibility, of expectation, about the Gloaming: plants stretched out their leaves, lifted their flower-heads to the skies, and grew with frenetic energy; the winds turned cool and warm by turns, snatches of lost melodies swept along with them; it rained, sometimes, out of clear, dark skies, a display presided over by the bright moon and the muted sun all at once. Things were different, when the Gloaming came in.

  But this was different again. Margot scarcely recognised her own town, for all seemed altered under this intense twilight. It was as though all the magic of Argantel, lost or perhaps asleep, came trickling back when the Gloaming came in — or came sweeping through the vale with a roar, as it had today. The effects — subtle before, and so regular, so ordinary, as to escape particular notice — could not now be ignored.

  Margot linked arms with Sylvaine, and they walked, two abreast, back along the Waldewiese and out the western gate. Some way into the vale beyond, Sylvaine paused, and discarded her shoes and stockings. ‘That’s better,’ she muttered, bare skin to the road, and the two women permitted the Gloaming, in all its mischief, to sweep them away.

  Ask the wind, sang Margot. Ask the rain, ask the night,

  Why the mist comes down in the deep twilight,

  Why the starlight gleams and the river flows,

  Oh! Ask the skies, ask the waking rose.

  Ask the wind! sang Sylvaine. Ask the moon, ask the sun,

  Why the Gloaming comes ere night’s begun,

  Why the mirrors drift, why the clock-tower cries,

  Ask the wind what he knows of the star-drowned skies.

  Sylvaine went on, but Margot ceased to hear the words, for something curious was happening. There had been but little breeze, when first they had stepped into the street outside of the Chanteraine Emporium. But as they forged onward, growing ever nearer to Landricourt, the wind picked up, and was by now become a powerful force against which Margot and
Sylvaine were forced to struggle in order to proceed. And though Sylvaine sang grimly on, unfazed, Margot was distracted, for the wind swept billows of pale, glittering mist before it, and it appeared to her magic-drunk mind that there were faces in it.

  There were faces in it; she did not imagine it. Or more rightly, there was the same face everywhere she looked: a thin, whitish face, with great, silvery eyes and a mane of starlight for hair. The mouth moved, but if words came forth, Margot heard them not.

  This went on for some minutes, and Margot felt that her regard was returned: that if she saw the face, the face also saw her. It was fascinated with her, indeed, and with Sylvaine, for those eyes scrutinised them both as it spun about, dervish-like. They were but minutes from Landricourt, and drawn within clear sight of the rambling, beshadowed house, when the dervish calmed, the hurricane of faces resolved into one, solid visage, and suddenly became a man.

  ‘You called me,’ he said.

  Margot surveyed him in astonishment — or, there was no real surprise; only the feeling that she ought to be astonished, and might have been were her blood not fizzing with magic, and the Gloaming all around. As it was, she took in the sight of this abruptly-manifested being with a glad interest. He was tall and waifish, and had an appearance of youth about him. His cheeks were hollow with gauntness, but he possessed an air of energy in spite of this apparent frailty. His hair, mist and starshine, fell in long, long lengths, and it might have touched the floor were it not drifting ceaselessly about, tossed by its own winds. He wore garments spun from the same silver-touched clouds that filled the Gloaming skies, and could easily have melded into them without trace if he so chose.

  He returned the dual regard of Margot and Sylvaine with bright curiosity, and when neither of them spoke he said again: ‘You called me. It was you, was it not?’