Her Perilous Mansion

by Sean Williams

  ‘I do not think so,’ said the giant. ‘I am Sofia Phronesis, and if I say this is my house, then it is my house.’

  Etta gasped. Sofia Phronesis – the most powerful sorcerer in the world – was standing before her!

  A terrible understanding came to her. Spells could fight back if challenged – and who knows what else? Maybe the spell’s last, desperate act in the face of their rebellion had been to call its maker for help.

  Sofia Phronesis had made the spell.

  They had defied her.

  And now they were all doomed.

  ‘You … uh … what?’ was all she could manage, but fortunately Doctor Mithily had more presence of mind, or at the very least an overpowering curiosity.

  ‘You are truly the author of the spell that has entrapped us for so long?’ she said, also stepping out of the wall. ‘To what end? What possible purpose could you have had?’

  The giant looked from her to Etta and then to Almanac.

  ‘You are lying,’ Sofia Phronesis said. ‘I made no magic here. Who attacks me this way?’

  ‘She’s not lying,’ said Almanac, finding his voice at last. ‘Read the scroll. Then you’ll understand.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ roared the mighty sorcerer in a voice so loud it threatened to actually bring the roof down. ‘Test not my patience! You would put words in my mind and bespell me. I will not be deceived, not here!’

  ‘Look in the hole I dug,’ he said. ‘See anything familiar?’

  The giant figure warily examined the hole in case it contained a trap, and saw something that compelled it to stoop and look closer. Elsie and Hackett took that moment to sneak away, coming to stand with Etta and Doctor Mithily, who were out of reach of those powerful, clawed hands.

  ‘You’re Etta?’ said Elsie. ‘You look exactly like I imagined! But see-through, like glass.’

  ‘Syhisyhy, little sister – that’s not important,’ Hackett hissed. ‘I got over the wall, Etta, I really did! Trees were coming down all around me and I used one of them to get close enough to jump, but that big bully caught me in mid-air and—’

  ‘Not now!’ said Etta. ‘I want to know what she’s doing!’

  Sofia Phronesis reached down into the hole and plucked free a delicate, silver necklace. Suspended from it was a pendant that spun and sparkled in the lamplight. The crow stared at it as though hypnotised, turning its head from side to side.

  Then the sorcerer blinked her bright black eyes and, with great gentleness, put Almanac down at her feet. He was powerfully glad of that, for the massive claws had dug tightly around his chest. He stepped backwards, looked up at his erstwhile captor, and blinked in puzzlement.

  Were his eyes failing him, or was she beginning to shrink?

  He was not deceived. Etta gaped as the giant retreated into itself like a woollen jumper washed in hot water. The details of its armour swirled and twisted; colours shifted and rearranged themselves. Etta’s nostrils tickled with a new magic smell, one quite different from the first.

  When this spell was finished, a tall but human-sized woman stood before Almanac, dressed in a golden robe lined with red. She was ageless, but had an ordinary head, long, grey hair, and the brightest green eyes Almanac had ever seen.

  No, that last wasn’t quite true. He had seen eyes so green before … in the painting he had just yesterday carried to the stables.

  ‘I know you,’ he gasped, recognising the girl’s narrow but strong nose and firm chin, now grown into full adulthood, and remembering her unusual name, Permilia Stormleigh.

  Ignoring him, Sofia Phronesis raised the scroll and began to read aloud.

  ‘I’m burying this time capsule,’ she said in a rich contralto voice, ‘to remind myself when I’m grown of the hardships I endured as a child at home. Mama and Papa argue all the time, while Kitty just endlessly whines about this and that, and Kendall is lazy and getting fat. Grandmama pinches me hard, and Uncle Samson thinks he’s so handsome. The only good thing in my life is this house, inside and outside. I know where to hide when I can no longer cry in silence. I love my home. It is my cornerstone.

  ‘Why can’t only happy, useful people live here? Instead, I am stuck in company I cannot bear.

  ‘When I grow up, I’m going to be a sorcerer – you wait and see! I’m going to leave the sorry lot I call a family – but I won’t forget it here. One day, when they’re all dead, I will come back and then I will make this house my home again. Nothing within it will change until then, except its name. My horrible family will be forgotten, for they are all rotten. Stormleigh or whatever it’s called will be a happy place at last, for all. That is my most fervent wish – apart from being a sorcerer, of course, and rich! Mrs Gardwistle in the village promises to begin teaching me after the harvest is in. If she can do it, there can’t be much to it. I will learn and work hard under her, and I will go to the University of Wonders, and one day I will be the best sorcerer in history.

  ‘This I vow. Signed, Permilia Stormleigh.’

  The sorcerer let the scroll roll up with a snap.

  ‘Eighty-three years have passed since I wrote that letter,’ she said in a softer voice. ‘What a fool I was.’

  With the second reading of the scroll, the magic ebbed even more. Etta felt herself become more substantial, enough to disturb the rubbish underfoot, and when she reached out for Elsie’s shoulder, the girl looked around, sensing her touch. Full opacity had not yet returned, however. Etta could still make out the outline of the sorcerer through her upraised hand.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘If you’re really Permilia Stormleigh and the letter is the spell … how is it possible that an ordinary letter became a spell? This spell?’

  ‘Words can be magic,’ said Almanac with pride, for he had guessed that much the moment he read the letter. ‘You told me so.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said the sorcerer. ‘But not just any words. They need a special … quality … that is part learned, part practised, and part innate. Look at the natural rhyming schemes in the words the young me wrote – no wonder I so quickly outstripped poor Mrs Gardwistle! Even without trying, my words had power. As an adult, I have learned never to write down the smallest phrase that might think itself a spell, but I didn’t know that as a girl. I did, however, love this house, my home. I wanted nothing to change, except that it should be filled with happiness, so I could come back to it again. My most fervent wish, I wrote. My vow.’ She sighed. ‘With careless words, sorcerers, even young ones not yet fully aware of their power, can do great harm.

  ‘And then to lock this spell away in the earth, where it could never be read and naturally undone – I see how it has been, now! This errant spell has done everything I commanded it, growing in skill as I grew in skill.’ She plucked at the air with well-manicured hands, as though teasing threads out of an invisible tapestry for her inspection. ‘Seeking people who were nothing like my family, who would appreciate living here … protecting their happiness … keeping its secret from them, even when doing so made them profoundly unhappy … ’

  Sofia Phronesis dropped her hands and hung her head.

  ‘My family did die, one after the other. Thankfully, the spell had nothing to do with that. I inherited everything but was too busy to come back here, and it is dangerous for a sorcerer to reveal too much about their past, so I rented Stormleigh to another family … I forget their name … ’

  ‘The Daggets?’ asked Doctor Mithily.

  ‘Yes! They re-named the house after their family and staff: “Dowsmoke Hall”, I believe. That re-naming must have triggered the spell, but honestly, if you had asked me this morning, I would have said the Daggets were still here, so little have I attended my former life. All these years I have kept my origins a secret from the enemies I inevitably gained, not knowing that the one place I hold in true affection has become a cage for innocents … for you all, who alone in the world now know my truth, at terrible cost. How sorry I am – deeply, deeply sorry!’

  ‘Does this mean
, um, mighty Sofia,’ asked Etta, still slightly in awe, ‘that you will lift the spell entirely? And while it’s great to be out of the scullery and everything, I’m still a bit transparent. All of us are.’

  Sofia’s eyes met Etta’s, sparkling emeralds with sharp facets. ‘Call me Permilia, child. You have earned that right. I would undo the spell at once, but I must study it closely first. Can you be patient a short while longer? In haste might lie further harm.’

  ‘How? Oh, I think I see. Most of us are ghosts, so if the spell goes up in smoke, we’ll go with it.’

  ‘Something like that. Now, speaking of smoke, let us retire upstairs to inspect the damage. You have gone to great lengths to attract my attention!’

  ‘That was me.’ Elsie skipped up to the sorcerer. ‘It wasn’t easy. The spell kept putting the fires out!’

  ‘I imagine so. One of its directives is to keep the house unchanged, and burning it down would certainly change it! You must be a very determined young girl indeed.’

  ‘I am!’ Elsie beamed.

  Hackett harrumphed unhappily.

  ‘And this fellow here … your brother, perhaps? He made it all the way over the wall, you know. What a remarkable pair you are!’

  Much mollified, Hackett joined Permilia and his sister as they crossed the mushroom maze and the clues, closely trailed by all the ghosts.

  Etta and Almanac hung back at the rear, enjoying this opportunity to talk freely.

  ‘You were right about the words in the library,’ he said. ‘They were a kind of catalogue.’

  ‘I know. The ghosts told me. Well done on figuring this all out on your own.’

  ‘I could have done it more quickly if I’d listened to you. Sorry.’

  ‘That’s okay,’ she said gratefully. ‘I’m sorry I tried to escape without you. I did plan to come back with help, though!’

  ‘Nothing quite worked out as we expected, did it?’

  ‘No,’ she said, reaching out to take his hand. She still couldn’t feel her heartbeat, but she was now solid enough for her grip to hold. ‘But it’s ended up okay so far.’

  He turned pink, wondering if he would ever get used to all the hand-holding, and nodded to where Permilia walked at the head of her procession. ‘Whoever thought we’d meet the great Sofia Phronesis?’

  ‘Not me. She’s nothing like I imagined! But brrr –that illusion! I would’ve wet myself if I were you.’

  ‘I very nearly did, believe me!’

  Laughing, they went up the stairs to the kitchen, where Permilia was observing Almanac’s sleeping arrangements with amusement.

  ‘Someone could learn how to make a bed,’ she said.

  Almanac opened his mouth to protest that he would have been tidier had he not been in a hurry to find the source of her accidental spell, but they had already moved on and he had to be content only with a tsk of annoyance.

  Up the servants’ stairs they went to the ground floor, which was a terrible mess of smoke-damaged walls, floors and ceilings. Almanac was amazed at the destruction. Elsie alone had set the fires that did all this? Incredible! But at the same time, he was pleased to see that, apart from the scorched rugs, most of the damage was superficial. He didn’t like to imagine the sorcerer’s wrath if her beloved home had been destroyed. No doubt, even for magic, fixing things was harder than breaking things, and sometimes impossible.

  ‘Tsk,’ she said, sweeping through the halls with an expression of dismay. Several portraits had been singed and one wall hanging looked like it might collapse into ashy threads at a glance.

  ‘We are not reckless vandals,’ Lady Simone said. ‘We did what we felt we had to do.’

  ‘I see that. This is simply not the state I expected the house to be in when I returned.’ Permilia ran a hand along the blackened fireplace of the sunroom. Her fingers came away covered in oily soot. ‘I am surprised the spell has not already made every effort to repair the damage.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s too weak,’ said Olive.

  ‘Or awaits your instructions,’ said Ugo.

  Doctor Mithily shook her head. ‘The spell already has its instructions. Perhaps it is running low on power.’

  ‘Interesting ideas,’ said the sorcerer.

  Once again, she plucked at invisible threads in the air, like a weaver adjusting the warp and weft of her loom. Etta guessed that she was inspecting the spell, and whatever Permilia Stormleigh found made her frown.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Etta.

  ‘You said before that you are ghosts,’ she said. ‘This is true.’

  ‘Oh, I was still hoping … ’ Etta’s transparent throat momentarily refused to obey her. ‘I was hoping that you might tell me we were wrong about that.’

  ‘No, you are definitely dead.’

  ‘Only the cleverest of us are,’ said Almanac, wishing he could do more to ease Etta’s stricken expression. ‘The ones who managed to escape.’

  He faltered, for the sorcerer’s powerful gaze had fallen on him.

  ‘Did you manage to escape too, you and your two young friends?’ she asked him. ‘And then come back somehow?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then that can’t be right.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Almanac, feeling Etta’s grip tightening on his hand.

  ‘I mean that you are dead too,’ she told them, gaze sweeping around the room, taking them in, the ghosts, Elsie and Hackett, returning at last to Almanac himself.

  ‘All of you.’

  ‘No,’ Almanac said in as firm a voice as he could muster, but his words seemed to come from far away. ‘That’s impossible. I can feel my heart beating. I’m warm!’

  ‘Illusions to keep you content. Your flesh is actually cold to the touch.’

  ‘But I would’ve noticed dying, surely!’

  ‘No one kills me without me knowing about it,’ exclaimed Hackett.

  Elsie pushed through the small crowd of ghosts to stand with fists on hips in front of Permilia. ‘Why are you lying to us?’

  ‘I am not,’ said the sorcerer. ‘Anyone with living eyes could see it’s the truth. Have you ever wondered why no birds or other animals ever come here? They are naturally scared away by the presence of death.’

  ‘But … how?’ asked Etta.

  ‘I don’t know how you died, but you inarguably did. Is there something that has happened to all of you? Perhaps the moment you arrived? That would be the moment the spell struck.’

  ‘The jolt,’ said Doctor Mithily. ‘When we entered the house, we all felt it. A magical attack that never recurred.’

  ‘This fits,’ Permilia said, nodding. ‘It wouldn’t recur because you can only die once. The thing is that some of you have died more … substantially … than the others.’

  ‘And that is the real reason we can’t escape,’ Doctor Mithily went on. ‘Outside the bounds of the spell, we wouldn’t exist. I’m afraid that it does make sense, painful though it is to hear.’

  ‘And it puts me very much in a quandary too,’ said the sorcerer. ‘If I read the spell one more time, it will be destroyed, but you will be too. So in order for you to exist, the spell must remain too. I see no easy way out of this situation.’

  The ghosts, including Almanac, Elsie and Hackett, looked at each other in dismay. They had challenged the spell and summoned its maker only to be told that the one chance of escape open to them was in erasure. Some, as Doctor Mithily had once suggested, might welcome that release, but far from all did. To have worked so hard to escape their prison only to have the last door slammed shut in front of them was a bitter disappointment.

  Their collective feeling was summed up by Elsie, whose bruised and blackened features perfectly expressed her hurt confusion.

  ‘I don’t fathom it. We came here because we were promised a better life – and now we’re dead? Why? Why did the spell do that? Why is it so mean?’

  Permilia dropped to her knees before the young girl and took her by the shoulders. ‘Magic is dangerous, like electr
icity is dangerous. It doesn’t care who it hurts. I would that it was otherwise.’

  ‘Yes, but why did it have to do that?’ Elsie was crying now, and so was her brother. ‘Couldn’t it have just asked us to stay? We would’ve, Hackett and me. We didn’t want to leave!’

  ‘Spells have minds of their own, just as they have their own special powers,’ Permilia said, trying to find the words to convey a deep magical truth to one so young. ‘Those minds and powers are limited, but spells are nothing if not determined. That is the blessing of a literal mind! So why did it kill you, even as it did everything in its power to make you happy? Here is what I think. This spell has been growing in strength for eighty-three years, and to grow it needed energy.’

  ‘Fuel,’ Doctor Mithily said, nodding. ‘I never found its source.’

  ‘You might have chosen to disbelieve it if you had. You see, life is the most powerful force known to magic, and I am ashamed to tell you that my spell chose to … harvest that force … from all of you … in order to fulfil its tasks. First, it took your lives. Then it took your bodies, for even more fuel to bring new people into the trap. But it didn’t erase you completely, even though you were no longer happy, because I didn’t give it the ability to do that when I wrote the spell. It simply drained what energy remained as its needs demanded. You, my poor ghosts, are therefore doubly victims: confined by a spell your own lives made powerful! The irony is exceeded only by my sense of shame, I assure you.’

  ‘What use is that?’ asked Lord Nigel, gruffly. ‘We’re still done in.’

  ‘That is so,’ said the sorcerer with a heavy sigh. ‘If I could find a way to restore life to you … maybe … ’ She shook her head. ‘But the art of necromancy is forbidden and largely lost. The last test, they say, is to die by one’s own hand, then bring oneself back from the dead. Not even I am brave enough to attempt that kind of dark mastery … ’

  ‘So we just give in and let you destroy the spell and die?’ asked Etta. Now she knew why she and the other ghosts had grown fainter while the spell was busy. ‘Or bury it in the cellar again and go back to the way we were? Some choice!’