‘Thankfully, none of these entreaties were listened to. Each person was dismissed, and each night the Magician went to bed more firmly convinced that there were simply no words in all of Ireland powerful enough to lift him from his grief.’
Jack Gorebooth pauses. Notices that Morrigan appears as attentive as Luke in wanting to know what happened next.
‘It is very fortunate indeed that one of the Magician’s Gyant Messengers arrived here at Mountfathom. A whole season later, in spring, your great-grandfather Francis Mountfathom was out seeing to his vegetables in the kitchen garden when suddenly he was cast into shadow. He looked up and saw the thirty-two-foot tall Messenger standing over him. And he listened as the Messenger whispered the message he had been charged with. Your great-grandfather Francis was a tenacious and bold man – prone to all kinds of sudden passions and obsessions. And so he decided instantly that he must heed the message given him, and so threw down his trowel and readied his horse and made haste that very day for the Forlorn Mountain of Fermanagh!
‘When he arrived, the crowds of people awaiting an audience with the Magician were much depleted, though still your great-grandfather Mountfathom had to take his place at the rear of the line and wait for a full week and a half for his turn to see the man in his limestone cottage. Whilst waiting in line, he listened to the chat of the others around him. Much he discarded as nastiness and hearsay and gossip, but one thing he did find of interest: talk of a Skeleton Key the Magician had invented, its ability to take a person into the Gloaming, and how it could lead them anywhere in the world and anywhere within a person’s own life.
‘And when his moment came to enter he was full of nervousness and concern, which was not at all like him. But within moments, he felt he had the measure of this man. The Magician was seated deep in shadow, appeared sunken and so very weary. He was surrounded by so many towers of books that they appeared as pillars holding up the ceiling! And the room was packed with so many ingenious inventions, stacks of paper marked by intricate Spells and mirrors stained with ink from so much Predicting that your great-grandfather thought the whole place a very sorry sight – no life, he believed, should be so devoted to Magic. For there is so much more to the world than time spent alone and imagining. And so, your great-grandfather Francis felt only great pity for the Magician of Fermanagh.
“‘You have already expended half of your allotted time gawking around!” the Magician shouted at your great-grandfather. “So speak up for yourself now, or you may as well get out and give another their turn!”
‘And your great-grandfather thought long about his words. He checked his pocket watch – watched the small hand tick away the seconds until he had only ten remaining to him. And only then did he speak. “Sir, there is so little that can truly cure a broken heart. No amount of time – or moving forward or backward through it as someone would swim through a treacherous sea – will help you. Though if you so wish it, here is my offer: I would be your good friend so that you should not have to live so alone in this life.”’
Jack Gorebooth stops.
Luke has fought his way upright; is no longer coughing, his breath leaving his body more cleanly. And the eyes! His eyes have reclaimed some of the remarkable curiosity that burned in them since birth. The child sounds more like himself too as he asks, ‘And what did the Magician of Fermanagh do?’
Mr Gorebooth smiles. Laughs a little and finds that a single tear has left his left eye. He wipes it away gently as he says, ‘The Magician of Fermanagh made a decision – that he would leave his limestone mound on the slope of the Forlorn Mountain and go with your great-grandfather. Decided that he would abandon his many instruments and inventions of Magic, and that he would in fact and from that day on give up Magic entirely!’
‘What?’ asks Luke. Morrigan once more rises with back arched and tail poker-straight – the epitome of outrage at the words of Mr Gorebooth. ‘How can that be true?’
‘It simply is,’ says Mr Gorebooth. He stands – Works his hand in the air, Dismissing the Spell of Inertia holding Nanny Bogram and steers her back into the rocking chair where she resumes her snoring. ‘And as to the answer why … Why leave behind Magic? Why would the Magician leave behind his journeys into the Gloaming? Why abandon the chance to see again those long lost? Well, I shall leave that with you to wonder about, my boy. I shall allow you the very simple yet essential joy of finishing this story as you so wish.’
Fifth and Final Principle of Magic – Of The Necessity of the Unknown
‘No matter what awaits you in the great unknown of the world, there is nothing worse than being afraid of stepping into the dark.’
At the end of the hallway on the third floor, between one emerald wall and one crimson, hoards of portraits holding generations and generations of previous Orders of the Driochta, Luke and Lord and Lady Mountfathom stand before the dark door.
‘But how shall I know where to go?’ asks Luke. It has arrived. Five years – sounded such an interminable time when he was younger, and now he marvels at how suddenly it has come. He is fifteen, and to become a member of the Driochta, he must now do this last thing.
‘You cannot know for certain,’ says Lord Mountfathom. ‘When you step into the Gloaming on your own, there are a great many distractions and potential wrong turnings.’
‘What kind of distractions?’
‘I always try to think of it in this way,’ says Lady Mountfathom. ‘Imagine yourself a pioneer landing in a strange, uncharted country! No map, no compass, just a dim sense of landscape and shape. You do not know the correct way to go – perhaps there is no correct way. But still you must move on – navigate obscure roads and pathways, passing through light and dark. And in the end and when you are ready, you must find your way home.’
‘You must trust,’ his father tells him.
‘You must be brave,’ says his mother.
And Luke has no certainty, and doesn’t like it. But has learned well how to transform his fear into something else.
‘Alright,’ he says. ‘I am ready. Let us begin.’
And his mother takes from her pocket the crimson key and inserts it into the lock and turns it with a snap. A moment, now a long, echoing note: the silver handle shaped like an outstretched hand is turned and the dark door opens onto deeper dark.
‘Take my key,’ says Lady Mountfathom. ‘Use it well. Respect it, and it will lead you true.’
Lord Mountfathom says, ‘We shall see you very soon, son.’
In Luke’s hand, the crimson light of the key is inconstant – imparts only a little, though when he holds it tighter and thinks I must do this, it burns that bit brighter. And he feels braver.
‘Now or not at all,’ he whispers.
And so steps through the doorway and into the Gloaming.
Nothing now –
No one nowhere –
Luke’s breathing has a shallow sombre pitch – sounds unnecessary.
And he waits, tries not to hold his breath –
Realises: I cannot wait.
Realises: No Spell will help me here – this is instead something else, something different. This is the point of the Fifth and Final Principle – this is something that cannot be learned.
Luke walks.
As he walks through the unknown of the Gloaming, he thinks on the words of his mother as they climbed the stairs together to the third floor, unpicking the Spell of Cessation that was once set with the purpose of protecting him. She said, ‘Knowledge is not moving towards a place of smug satisfaction – not at all! That is not true learning. If anything, the opposite is true.’
‘Then why have I been learning for the past five years?’ he had asked. ‘What was the purpose of it all?’
His father told him, ‘That is for you to decide – it is merely a beginning. Though I would say this: if you are very fortunate, you will live long enough in this life to achieve a complete and blissful ignorance.’
What do you see?
Luke stops now.
He hears a voice deep and cold and full of echoes –
What do you wish to see?
Luke holds the crimson key higher, but the light will not lay a path as he has seen it do for his mother. He has been told not to wish for a destination – not to desire certainty and things familiar, but to crave this unknown. To stand and be and only endure in this undecided dark.
The voice of the Gloaming tells him –
You are frightened. And I have so many secrets to show you. Will you follow me? Will you learn the last and final thing?
Luke walks on – wanders, not knowing what is ahead but knowing that to stay in safety is no longer possible. The world has changed – he has grown and must take his place in the Driochta. No more games in the grounds of Mountfathom, no more time for such play.
And all the while he hears a voice telling –
You come from such a familiar place – somewhere you have hardly ventured from all your life. You have been happy there, content and safe. And this is nothing to bemoan – it is a great thing to feel so safe. But it cannot last. It will not last!
These final words shouted in a growl that shakes Luke’s spine and he fumbles the crimson key and is almost parted from it. He shouts back –
I am not afraid of the unknown! I am not afraid of leaving Mountfathom! I can leave if I wish and return if I wish and I –
And what, says the voice, if it is not there to greet you when you return?
Luke stops; his breathing has become a frantic thing, like the worrying of so many wings, a flock of dark birds panicked into flight and –
If the place you call home is not there, then where do you go?
The voice grows quiet. But Luke senses some close presence – feels on the back of his neck the breath of something wild and gloatingly full of knowledge and threat, and bloated with the wish to disabuse him of his threadbare ideas and petty learning.
Voice whispers –
I shall show you.
Something blooms in the darkness – a scene pale and washed of all colour. Luke moves towards it, recognises the Temple of Ivory that stands on a rise overlooking the grounds of Mountfathom. It is where his ancestors rest, where their bones are buried beneath ivory slabs and ivory casts of the Veiled Ladies. Closer and closer he moves and then stops – sees that the Temple itself is made not of cool ivory but human bone.
This is what you will one day know. This is what will one day undo you and all your wondrous learning – this is the end of all things.
The Veiled Ladies turn to face him.
And Luke can only cry out and scream for home.
Flees from the sight as the crimson key lays a livid path in the dark for him to follow, feeling all the while as though he is being pursued by this creature, this thing, this voice –
Run, Luke Mountfathom – but you will someday return to face me.
Now a doorway outlined in crimson light; Luke unlocks it and escapes to that place so familiar – to home, and the awaiting arms of his mother and father.
‘What is the creature in the Gloaming?’ asks Luke.
So much later, he is sitting in Valhalla with his parents – they play cards together, his mother almost always winning.
Lord Mountfathom says, ‘My own father called it only “The Monster”. I do think he was being a little melodramatic –’
‘So unlike his son,’ says Lady Mountfathom, and smiles.
‘Or perhaps,’ Luke’s father goes on, ‘he simply wanted to put me on my guard, which was no bad thing I suppose.’
‘Has anyone in the Driochta ever found out what it is?’ asks Luke.
‘What makes you so certain we can ever know what it is?’ asks his mother, glancing at her cards. ‘Have you learned nothing today, Luke?’
A pause.
‘I am sorry, Mother,’ says Luke.
‘This Monster,’ says Lord Mountfathom, ‘if we are going to call it that, is a something every member of the Driochta has had to face. From when the Order first began, each person selected from whatever field – medicine or science, agriculture or politics – has learned all Principles and then stepped into the Gloaming.’
‘The aim of it is not to work it out and so settle the matter in your mind,’ says Lady Mountfathom, sipping some claret. ‘It should unnerve you, Luke. There are many things in the world that should make you question yourself.’
She lays down her cards – wins once again. Full house!
Luke’s father leans back in his chair with a yawn. ‘The creature is akin to the Gloaming itself and also not unlike your mother’s extraordinary skill at poker,’ says Lord Mountfathom. ‘Both are a great and fascinating mystery.’
They sit quietly for a moment, contented. Though one question still turns and turns in fretful circles in Luke’s mind. He must ask it.
‘I shall have to face it again someday. It said it had some truth to tell me – something it wanted to show that I needed to see.’
‘Do not worry yourself,’ says Lord Mountfathom.
But Lady Mountfathom takes a different view.
‘You may worry, Luke, but do not let it stop you from being adventurous in life. No matter what awaits you in the great unknown of the world, there is nothing worse than being afraid of stepping into the dark.’
A Saturday in early summer and cousin Rose has come to visit. Chaperoned by a sour-looking maid from Goreland Hall, Rose is thirteen and tall for her age. Curls have softened into a sheet of sheer auburn. She is dressed in red with yellow socks and gloves and (it seems) likes to speaks her mind.
‘You never invited me back!’ she tells Luke by way of greeting. Then she smiles, embraces him on the doorstep. Some awkwardness – caused mostly by Mr Findlater hovering nearby, holding Rose’s bag and not the three years since they’ve last seen one another.
But suddenly, as though they are children again –
‘Want to play Secret-and-Secluded?’ she asks, and sprints off across the wide shingle drive. And Luke – fifteen years old and telling himself he is too old for such things – follows fast.
Past the labyrinth, around Mr Hooker with his head in a flowerbed and the Errander boys and maids playing tennis on the lawn and by the blank gaze of statues – previous Lords and Ladies of Mountfathom – and towards the lagoon and the unruly patch of rhubarb spreading wild by the waterside.
Suddenly Luke loses sight of Rose, as though she has Worked a Spell of Seclusion.
He stands beneath the golden willow and watches bright dragonflies swerve and dart over the blue-green surface of the water.
‘Here!’ A whisper harsh as a summons. ‘Under here!’
Luke stoops to see beneath the rhubarb – his cousin Rose crouched. She smiles and crawls off, moving deeper into shadows pink and green. He follows, and feels no shame in it – no care for how childish this is, how much an indulgence. He thinks of the last message received from Flann Dorrick in Dublin – seventeen Big Houses burned by the Land Grabbers in Mayo and Galway, more being destroyed each night. Thinks of the Driochta journeying to the remaining Big Houses to draw Spells of Reclamation – Magic that binds the property to its owners, repels any invader or attempt to destroy it. Thinks too of the uproar in Dublin and Major Fortflay’s threats of retribution for what he called in that morning’s issue of The Dublin Enquirer, ‘The law-breaking miscreants who would see this country burn!’ Luke leaves all this behind – sheds responsibility and worry like an unwanted skin as he joins his cousin in cool shadows.
Some more of that awkward silence. Luke breaks it by saying, ‘Here is an interesting fact, cousin – did you know that if you listen terribly hard you can actually hear rhubarb growing?’
And they sit together cross-legged and chat about any topic that arrives. Sit for how long? For some amount of time Luke would not be able to decide, but he feels each second as precious.
‘What Magic have you learned?’ Rose asks. ‘Can you change into an animal yet?’
‘No,’ says Luke. And then find
s himself saying, ‘But I will soon.’
‘How do you know?’
He smiles.
‘I just do.’
And because Rose pleads with him, he shows her only some of what he has learned: Conjures shapes from the air – pale forms of starlings and stoats, fox and hare; Works a Spell of Subterfuge to change the length of his hair and nose; makes it rain, makes it snow; makes the leaves of rhubarb wither and then ripen once more … all trifles, nothing too serious. But Rose is mightily impressed.
‘You’ve changed so much,’ she says. ‘Learned so much.’
And they talk on.
Conversation stumbles to a stop only when Rose says, ‘Father wants us to leave Ireland, to go and live in London. Says he is going to give Goreland Hall one more year and then to hell with it – is going to get on a boat and get away from here.’
‘I could never leave Mountfathom,’ says Luke. And means it: cannot conceive of walking away from this world, from the house where his parents and grandparents lived, from Nanny Bogram and –
‘Is that your father?’ whispers Rose, pointing to a place beneath the leaves. ‘And your mother too? Those are her wellies!’
The House of Mountfathom Page 9
