Black Wolf (21 page)

"Wren,
Aindry," Floria said. "Ian just took her brother Jaisan upstairs
for a bath."

"Hi," Aindry
said shyly.

Wren wheeled
the chair all the way into the kitchen, and nodded amiably. "Be
nice to have kids around the house for a day or two. Make
yourselves at home. I'm the resident healer, let me know if you
need me."

The microwave
beeped, and Floria handed Aindry the plate and a fork and knife.
"Table's right there, honey, go have a seat and eat. I'll get you a
glass of milk. And no silliness about not eating until your brother
does," she added sternly, as Aindry hesitated. "I'll make sure he
gets some as soon as he gets done. Sit, eat, I'm going to go track
down clean clothes. You make sure she does, Wren."

Hours later,
warm and clean and well-fed, Aindry and Jaisan snuggled into the
twin beds in the room that had belonged to Floria and Wren's
daughters.

"'Night,"
Jaisan said drowsily.

Aindry smiled
to herself, suddenly remembering this same day, eighteen years
before. Remembering slipping quietly into her mother's room, once
the healer left, and peeking into the old-fashioned wooden cradle
next to the bed, to see the two sleeping, rather funny-looking
creatures that she'd been told were her new little brothers.
Remembering her mother's eyes opening, and her warm, if exhausted
smile. Intent on finding them a meal and maybe a bed, she hadn't
thought of it until now.

"Happy
birthday, Jais," she whispered.

The
Quicksilver Sphynx

Miscellanea, April 1994

Nick 'Winter

Well, we all survived
winter, I think. Ever notice that everyone in Haven seems to be in
higher spirits after the spring equinox? Beltaine's coming! Check
out the happenings on the back page! Beach bonfire with live music
and the usual potluck? That's hard to beat!

Drua 'Windstorm and
Morey 'Rowan are having a baby! It's due in June (how come nobody
told me until now?). And Haven gets another Aurelian-Lioren
elf!

Camilla Fitzgerald is
moving away from us, to go to Falias in Newfoundland. Why is
anyone's guess, (don't hit me, Sonja, I'm joking, Falias is a great
place!) but I gather it has something to do with a newly-forming
coven, possibly. I suppose we can stand to lose her for a good
cause, and they don't come any better than that, but Exotica won't
be the same without her there to play wonderful villains, right
from lecherous human princes to angry faerie queens to vengeful
ghosts.

There's a healer's
convention the 23rd and 24th (Saturday and Sunday). Don't ask me
about plans, Liam won't tell me; if you're a healer call Mandisa,
she's organizing it.

There's a witches'
convention coming up, too, the 14th and 15th of May (another
weekend). If you're a witch, call Dion and he'll tell you what's
going on.

The database idea is
going well, Deanna 'Sundark tells me, and I'm to thank everyone who
for the last two months has given them so much information on gems
and crystals. They're going to put it on the library computers and
they're working on an effective way to put it on our very own BBS,
so anyone who wants to access it can. The next subject is
herbalism, so all you herbalists out there, sit down and list every
kind of herb you use and what you do with them. Obviously, there's
more to the art than can be crammed in, but the idea is to get a
wide range rather than extreme depth. Again, give it to Covens
Sundark, Merrymoon, Moonstone, Dragonfire, Tabbycat or Harpsong, or
to Grant Londry. In two or three months, I'll let you know the next
topic.

We're coming quickly
up that time when Bryan keeps the library open extra hours for
couple of months, and he has no one lined up yet to help out. If
you're interested, stop in and see him.

And now, what everyone
has been dreading: historical notes. Brydie Isadore was born April
18th, 1763. Morgan and Victoria were married April 23rd, the day
after they met. No, not love at first sight. Victoria was born into
a mundane family, almost condemned as a "witch," and Morgan married
her to get her out of there. He brought her home to Alessandria and
Brydie, and a few months later Victoria was part of Starluck. She
even left the most awesome sketches of her coven and their friends,
and she signed them all, and they were still in the attic of their
old house! Okay, Brittany's standing right behind me so I have to
be good. April 11th is the birthday of our other Adept, the one
whose birthday it wasn't back on October 19th. However, I've once
again been forbidden to tell name or age. What is it with our
Adepts, anyway?

In April 1989, one of
our standing mysteries occurred: a recently-founded village
north-west of here, called Unity, died, apparently overnight.
There've been rumours of survivors but nothing confirmed.
Government investigation was inconclusive. Ours turned up the
strong scent of werewolves but no elves or dryads, bizarre as that
is. No one knows anything about who the wolves were, only that they
died too. Nothing else gave any answers at all, despite all
attempts with various scrying, seeing, and related techniques. At
this point, it's unlikely we'll ever know.

Enjoy spring and
Beltaine!

15

Jesse made his
way up the driveway to the door, hoping he was remembering the
right house, and knocked.

Zarah, who
was, Jess thought, Deanna's mother but he might be wrong, opened
the door, and smiled. "Hello, Jesse. Come on in, I'll call..."

She didn't
need to; Gisela came racing down the stairs and narrowly avoided
hitting Zarah.

"Hey, Jess!
You're back! Took you long enough."

He couldn't
help grinning. "Well... despite things trying to keep me busy,
you're irresistible."

"No I'm not,
just crazy."

"I went out to
the house, but there's no one there. They moved?"

"Mmhmm.
Cynthia's been working on it for months trying to get a loan on her
inheritance from her grandmother to buy it. She died a couple of
years ago, but Cynthia's not supposed to get it until she's
twenty-one next year. Nobody said anything 'cause they wanted to
surprise you. Wait until you
see
this place! And it has lots
of bedrooms so you get your own room. Bye, Zarah. Let's
go
,
Jess! She really wanted this one because it was built like two
hundred years ago, it was one of the first in Haven, and it was
built by her ancestors and Kev's and it's made to be perfect for
the kinds of magic they do."

She kept on,
telling him the historical reasons why Coven Sundark deserved it,
and the practical reasons why they wanted it—it had been designed
to house an entire substantial coven and their children, among
others. She refused to describe it, though.

Outside the
village proper, of course. It seemed like most houses were, around
here, like everyone valued the private space. The village itself
was primarily devoted to stores and schools and library and similar
such public places.

Gisela stopped
in front of a six-foot grey stone wall. Or, actually, a greenish
metal gate in it with a high arch overhead. The archway was large
enough for the van to drive through and then some.

"Here," Gisela
pronounced.

"You're
kidding."

"Nope. Go
in."

How long must
that wall be, if it surrounded all of this, and how much stone had
it taken? Snow covered the ground yet, but he could still see trees
in clusters, with clear space around them. Straight ahead, there
was another sizeable arch, framing a view of the lake; there was
another to the left, with trees beyond, but smaller and the gate
was closed. There may have been to the right as well, but the house
blocked that. The house belonged perfectly, huge and grey and
sprawling irregularly across the landscape, in some places only one
story, in some places three or possibly four, all porches and
balconies and windows.

"See?" Gisela
said in delight.

"Good god.
Just how much is this inheritance of hers?"

"She won't
tell. Not even her coven, I think. But it paid for the van and now
for this, and I don't think it's all gone. Aren't you going to go
in? Or just stand here? Wait until me and Cynthia and Dia and Naomi
and Nick and Liam get to work on the yard once the snow's all
gone!"

"Where's the
door?"

"Follow the
driveway."

Past a two-car
garage of similar stone set apart from the house, up onto a porch
the size of the apartment he and Shaine shared. Double doors, of
course, rich tawny wood, each carved with a crescent moon, horns
facing outward, the two crescents flanking a six-armed star.

"Just open
it," Gisela urged.

"I feel like I
should be expecting ghosts or something."

"No ghosts. We
checked."

He glanced at
her to see if she were serious. She was.

The door was
heavy, he found, pushing it open.

There was a
hallway right inside, with hooks for coats. He kept going without
stopping, and stepped through a doorway into a larger hall with
rooms all around it. The doors, all wood-trimmed glass, French
doors he thought they were called, were all closed.

"Hey, guys!"
Gisela called. "Where are you?" It echoed eerily.

"Upstairs,"
Kevin called back. "Stay, I'm coming!"

"Jesus. You
could get lost in this place, I bet," Jesse said.

"I have a
couple of times," Gisela admitted. "It took me a while to find my
way out. We'll get used to it."

"In a hundred
years or so."

Kevin came
around a corner, paint splattered all over him, and grinned. "Hi,
Jess. Thought I felt you come in. So. What do you think?"

"Can't you
guys ever do anything on a normal scale? I mean, a big house, okay,
but this is ridiculous!"

"Does that
mean you like it?"

"That means I
can't believe it."

"Oh, it's
real. Nobody's lived here for eleven years. It needs too much work
to not be real. We started with right here, but the rest is still
like something from a ghost story. Except bedrooms and a bathroom
and a kitchen. We did those already, too, between everybody. Well,
five bedrooms, one's yours."

Gisela
laughed. "Just wait 'til you see it!"

Jesse shook
his head. "This place is unreal. Even more than the rest of
Haven."

Kevin echoed
the laugh. "Help us work on it for two days and you'll never think
again that it's not real. It's going to take us months to finish it
inside."

"Good. At
least you didn't just step into a perfect mansion."

"It will be.
Grand tour?"

"Sure." He
shed backpack, jacket, and shoes, and followed Kevin. Gisela
trailed along behind.

He got lost
quickly. Everything was old-looking, and dingy with disuse, but he
thought that the house must once have been beautiful. There was
surprisingly little dust.

Kevin saved
the bedrooms for last. Deanna's was on the ground floor, with an
enormous window that had a red maple outside that might be as old
as the house. Bane's second-floor room had its own small balcony,
Bane's familiar belongings not entirely filling the space.
Cynthia's, a short distance away, was bright with windows on three
sides beginning two feet off the floor and continuing to the
ceiling.

"And, of
course, yours and mine. You weren't here to choose, so we thought
about which one you'd like best and set it up just for you."

Up to the
third floor. A broad hallway that went straight ahead, with a door
at the end, and a doorway on each side.

"Our
territory," Kevin said. "As in, our own bathroom, or it will be,
right now I keep thinking something will come to life and try to
drag me down the toilet, and there's nothing else here but it and
two rooms. Mine's the right one, yours is left."

Jesse touched
the handle of Kevin's door. "Can I look?"

"Sure. But you
might want to see yours first."

Jesse
hesitated, and decided to take the advice. He opened the other
door.

Kevin's hand
steadied him when Jesse dropped back a step in sheer disbelief.

"You're not
serious."

"Completely.
We've had a wonderful time. What you're seeing is the contributions
of a lot of people. This coven and 'Sela, Covens Dandelion and
Winter, Sam and Caitryn..."

"Well? Go look
around!" Gisela prompted.

The room
seemed like it should have been a small dance studio or
something—well, other than the slanted ceiling that reduced the
headroom along the far third of the space, broken by two windows
that each had an honest-to-god window-seat. The walls were painted,
he was sure freshly, in a plain soft creamy not-quite-white, a
contrast to the dark shining wood floor and the dark curtains and
the black-and-glass furniture.

In the far
end, head to the wall under a smaller window, stood a double bed;
two small tables flanked it, a lamp on one and a clock-radio on the
other. On the inner wall, overlooking the bed, were three shelves,
and on one sat an expensive-looking compact stereo. At the nearer
end, built out from the wall, was a sizeable closet of wood that
almost matched the floor and near it a free-standing full-length
mirror. Even the addition of a loveseat, more or less balancing the
bed, failed to make it look crowded instead of comfortable.