A Study in Sable (35 page)

“Want Nan,” said Grey.

“Well, you won't get her!” Sarah snapped. “She's not interested in petty things like banishing ghosts.” Which was unfair—Nan hadn't refused to come. It was Magdalena who had pointedly
not
invited Nan, who probably would have come if she
had
been invited, but—

Magdalena probably saw through all that veneer of civilization that Memsa'b put on her to the dirty little street urchin underneath. Magdalena probably knew as soon as she saw Nan that you couldn't put her in this kind of society without her embarrassing us.

And as soon as she thought that, she was ashamed of herself. Why should she think that about Nan? Even if Magdalena thought Nan was “common,” she had never been anything other than the best of friends and partners to Sarah! And as for her lowly origins, when had Nan
ever
put a foot wrong with Lord Alderscroft and his guests?

And then she was angry with herself for being ashamed. After all, Magdalena must have seen
something
wrong with Nan—or why should she have pointedly excluded her from the very moment Sarah started protecting her from spirits?

“Want Nan!” Grey insisted. “Want Nan. Want Neville. Want Suki. Want Nan!”

Sarah glared at her. Grey glared back. It was very clear that she was going to
continue
to chant that she wanted her friends like a little repeating clockwork, whether Sarah liked it or not.

“
Will
you
shut up,
you stupid bird!” Sarah snapped, and got up and thrust her hand roughly at Grey, intending to shove her into her carrier, close her inside, and cover it with a cloth so she'd go to sleep and stop with her irritating litany of
Want Nans.

Grey growled—something she had
never
done to Sarah before—but Sarah ignored her, and shoved her hand at the bird again. “Up!” she barked.

And Grey looked at her face, then at her hand—and quick as a cobra, darted her head down and
bit
Sarah, hard, so hard that blood spurted from the bite as she clung on, grinding her beak on the finger.

Too shocked to shriek, Sarah instinctively shook her hand, roughly, and Grey was off like a shot through the open window. In a moment she was at the edge of the formal garden, flying hard for the trees, not looking back.

And as Sarah stood there, stunned, a black shadow dove from the roof after the flying parrot, flying swiftly in pursuit of her.

Now
she shrieked,
“Grey!”
and dashed out of the room, injured hand forgotten, trying to find a door to the outside. It took far too many minutes to find one, far too many to run around to the southwest side of the building where the formal garden was—

And by then, there was no sight of her, nor of the predatory bird that had followed after her. But she ran for the distant line of the forest anyway, because if Grey had been able to get that far, that is where she would have gone. She ran as hard as she could, holding her injured hand in the other against her chest and sobbing, over and over, one word.

“Grey! Grey! Oh, Grey!”

But there was no reply.

• • •

Sarah's side was aching, along with her head, and her eyes were sore from crying, as she craned her head to peer into the trees above her, looking for a sign of that red tail, listening for a reply. “Grey!” she sobbed, hoarsely. “Grey! Please come back, Grey! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! You were right! Magdalena is
horrid.
I never should have come here. I should have stayed with Nan and Suki, and now you're gone, and it's all my fault!”

Then her eyes dropped, and she saw it. A single red feather, lying on the grass.

And a vision flashed through her mind, of a hawk, talons outstretched, snatching Grey out of the tree where she had landed, as Grey writhed and gasped her last breath, and carrying her off, leaving behind a single, red tail feather to fall to the ground.

All that was left—

“Grey!”
she cried, and dropped to the grass, picking up the feather and sobbing over it hysterically. “Oh, this is all my fault! It's all my fault!”

“Why yes,” said a dry voice, “It is. You are the one with psychical powers. You know what they can do. You
let
Magdalena get into your head, and this is where it's brought you.”

Her head shot up and she stared in shock at Mary Watson, who was standing just inside the forest, arms crossed over her chest, frowning.

It didn't even occur to her to ask how Mary had gotten there, or why she had come. She had thought she could not possibly be more miserable until that moment, but grief piled upon grief as she realized Mary was right. She'd been so proud of herself, she'd been so thrilled that
she
had been singled out by Magdalena, made a pet of, flattered and spoiled, that she'd been pushing her friends away, pushing
Grey
away . . .

. . . and now . . . now it was too late.

All she could do was sob.

Mary let her weep hysterically until she ran out of breath from sobbing and began to cough. Only then did she push her way through the heavy grass and make her way to where Sarah was half-collapsed and offer a hand. “Come on,” she said. “Get up. Crying won't change anything.”

The sure and certain knowledge that this was true only made her cry harder, until at last Mary grabbed her by the elbow and yanked her to her feet, then gave her a little shake. “That's enough. Come with me,” she said, and turned on her heel and strode along the tree line.

Sobbing and shaking, Sarah stumbled after her, cradling the precious feather in her injured hand. Every throb of pain was welcome to her, a reminder of how much she
deserved
to be hurt for being so stupid.
Now,
now that she wasn't blinded by pride, blinded by thinking she was somehow superior to Nan, she could see it. Magdalena had shamelessly manipulated her. And now everything was lost. Nan would never forgive her for what she had done to Grey. She would never forgive herself.

Her thoughts circled endlessly in the same heartbroken circle as Mary led her around the front of Tottenham House to another hard-packed gravel lane that formed the top of the circular drive at the entrance. They followed that lane to the northeast, then it curved to the northwest, passing through a shorter avenue lined with trees, until they reached a huge, square building, two stories tall, made of the same pale yellow material as the main house. It was built in the same style, with a tall arching entrance into a central courtyard and a clock tower over the entrance. Grooms leading saddled horses into it showed what it was: a stable. There must have been room for fifty horses here. Mary took her elbow and led her through the arched doorway, beneath the clock tower and into the square courtyard. Open doors onto the courtyard showed various sorts of carriages and wagons all along the rear and the stable doors to the right and left. Grooms took horses in and out through the stable doors, casting curious, but averted, glances at the two women.

Mary, however, continued to lead Sarah on to one human-sized door in the middle of the left-hand side of the block. There was a staircase immediately inside; Mary pushed Sarah at it, and Sarah climbed it, half-blinded now with tears and her swollen eyes. At the top of the stairs, Mary took her elbow again and dragged her through an open room with beds lined up on either side beneath the windows—this was where the grooms and stable hands must live, at least the lowest and youngest ones on the staff. At the end of the room was a door, which Mary opened, pushed Sarah inside, then entered herself, closing it behind her.

“I hope you're properly ashamed of yourself,” said Nan, with Neville on her shoulder, cradling Grey in her lap.

Sarah burst into tears all over again.

Mary Watson pushed her down onto a narrow iron-framed bed, and Grey leapt into her lap with two awkward flaps of her wings. Nan handed her a handkerchief, then Mary handed her another, then John Watson handed her
his
when she'd turned the first two into soggy messes, and she cried until her throat was so hoarse she could scarcely speak.

Then she croaked out apology after apology: to Grey, to Nan, to Grey again, to the Watsons, to Grey, to Nan. She thought she would never be able to apologize enough, until Nan finally told her, in the kindliest voice possible, to “Shut up, you're starting to babble.”

Then Mary Watson handed her a glass of water, and she realized that she had cried herself literally dry. She drank three glasses in quick succession while John Watson bandaged her bitten finger. It hurt abominably, and she welcomed the pain.

All the time she kept Grey cuddled in her lap, until at last, the parrot looked up at her and said, “I forgive you. Don't do this again.”

Which only made her burst into tears again.

• • •

“I don't understand this,” Sarah croaked, Grey still held against her chest with her bandaged hand; from time to time Grey rubbed her
head gently against Sarah's thumb. “Why are you here? How did you get here?”

The room they were in was about the size of the sitting room in the London flat; it held two beds, a chair, a washstand, and two chests. There was a second door opposite the one they had come in; it was open, and Sarah guessed it led to another bedroom like this one; both were probably for “superior” stable staff. From the tweed coat draped over the foot of one bed and the skirt draped over the other, Sarah guessed the room was being used by John and Mary.

“
How
is simple enough,” John Watson said with a shrug. “Lord Alderscroft. The Stable Master here is an Earth Magician, and shortly after you told Nan that Magdalena was going to bring you here, Alderscroft began making arrangements. Alderscroft sent us by carriage with very fast horses the same day you left; we arrived not more than an hour or two after you did; we came in by another road, straight to the stable. No one knows we're here but the stable staff, and they are under strict orders to say nothing.”

“That was a hawk you saw chasing Grey when she flew away,” Nan added. “What you
didn't
see was Neville showing the hawk that his friend was not to going to become her dinner.”

“As for
why
we are here
,
it was abundantly clear to all of us that you were not yourself,” said Mary. “We certainly weren't going to leave you alone with her, every day, and give her the opportunity to separate you from your friends permanently. What we couldn't figure out was how Magdalena was manipulating not only you but anyone else she cared to use. When we spoke to Alderscroft about it, he became alarmed.”

“Why?” croaked Sarah, blinking her sore eyes in surprise.

“Because, although she had not done so yet, it was entirely possible she could use her power, whatever it is, to meddle in the business of Her Majesty's government in the future,” replied John. “At that point, she became a risk to our national interests.”

If she'd been able to do so, Sarah would have widened her eyes in alarm. “But—all she ever did was—get men to give her presents—” she said, feebly.

Nan snapped her fingers in front of Sarah's nose, and she started. “Wake up!” Nan said sharply. “She's
far
more dangerous and ruthless than you think!”

“I think,” drawled Sherlock Holmes, as he opened the door and entered the tiny room, “This is where I should join the conversation.” He sat down on the bed beside John Watson, who moved over for him. He leaned over and looked sternly into Sarah's eyes. “As you know, I was originally intrigued by Fraulein von Dietersdorf because of the absurd story about her missing sister.” He held up a hand, forestalling any protest on Sarah's part, but she actually hadn't intended to protest. “I've never heard a more feeble story in my life. And when, after sending me frantic letters begging me to look for her, her parents and her fiancé suddenly decided to accept that story, I became very suspicious, although I was not sure
what
to be suspicious of. Nevertheless, you and Sarah had just proven to me that psychical gifts are a reality, and I wondered if something like that might be at work.”

“You thought Magdalena might be—changing peoples' memories and thoughts?” Nan asked, as if all this was new to her. From the looks on John and Mary Watsons' faces, it was new to them, too.

“It seemed to me to be a possibility,” Holmes replied. “So I went to Germany to speak to Johanna's friends, where I learned several very interesting facts. It was Johanna, not Magdalena, who first began an operatic career, although both girls were given singing lessons by the most able of teachers. Magdalena only became interested when Johanna succeeded in eventually singing a leading role; once Magdalena applied to the opera, she quickly shunted Johanna aside. Then Johanna stepped back and devoted herself to the more conventional roles of a girl of her class and station. Magdalena confined herself to lording over her sister with new accomplishments . . . until Johanna became engaged at about the same time that Magdalena accepted the engagement to debut at the Royal Opera. The engagement was a complete surprise to everyone except their parents, and young Helmut was considered a fine catch. Johanna's friends say Magdalena was livid.”

“And what did Magdalena's friends say?” Sarah managed.

“Ah! Now
that
is fascinating indeed!” Holmes said, resting his elbows on his knees and steepling his fingers together. “Because although Magdalena left behind a plethora of friends and admirers when she traveled to London, by the time I had arrived . . . there were none who would admit to being a friend
or
an admirer. And every person I queried about her would respond in the tones of acute bitterness that only a baffled German can produce, indicating that he could not imagine what he—or she!—was thinking when he allowed her to lead him about like a monkey on a leash. I must say it was mostly males, however. Magdalena does not often exert herself to charm females. You, Sarah, are an exception to that rule.”