The Midnight Witch (30 page)

Amelia thinks for a moment. “I might know,” she says. “But why should I tell? What will you give me if I tell? Will you let me feel the sun on my face again?”

“I’m sorry, my dear.” The Master of the Chalice steps in gently. “It is not in our gift to do such a thing.”

She looks at him sulkily. “But I want so to sit in the garden once more.”

“You are welcome to visit my garden,” I tell her.

“But only like this.” She stamps her foot. “Like a ghost. I want to feel warm again. To smell the flowers.”

“Amelia…” I try to comfort her, I want to. For her own sake, as well as ours. But she is upset now, and does not want to listen.

“Then I shan’t!” she says crossly. “I shan’t help you.” She scowls at me now. “Especially you! You are the one they want. You could save those boys. You know you could.”

“Amelia, I could not…”

“Yes you could, if you wanted to. And they will make you do it. They will take you away and make you do it!” she shouts.

There is consternation in the chamber now. None of us can know exactly what she means, but it is clear her vision involves me and my abilities as a necromancer.

“Who will take her?” the Master of the Chalice demands of the girl. “Who is it who threatens our Head Witch?”

“I’m not going to tell you. I don’t want to. I…” She stops suddenly and glances anxiously about her, over her shoulder, searching above her head and then behind her. All at once she has become terribly frightened.

“What is it, child?” the Master of the Chalice asks her. “Do not be afraid.”

“I can hear them!” she cries. “Oh! Can’t you hear them?” She begins to run now, and even tries to jump out of the circle. When she finds she is unable to do so tears of terror stream down her pale cheeks. “Oh no!” she cries.

Now I hear them, too. We all do. Bees. In seconds, dozens of them have come up from below and joined the girl in the circle. She flaps her arms and hands, batting them away with her flowers, screaming. The smell of honey grows stronger. Now I understand. Now I see the curious mark on her top lip, which I had taken for a mole or birthmark but which must have been the bee sting that killed her. And here we have brought her into a confined space and now it is filled with the greatest fear she has ever known.

“Send her back!” I hiss at the Master of the Chalice.

The earl of Winchester objects. “No! We must hear more.”

“She must go back.”

The earl is on his feet now. “We need to know more. She has given us nothing!”

“She is terrified,” I tell him. “She is suffering. She will tell us nothing further now.”

Amelia is on the floor of the circle, desperately trying to cover her head and her face, to protect herself from the bees.

“I don’t understand,” says the Master of the Chalice. “How did the bees come through? We did not call them.”

“Send her back now!” I shout at him.

He nods and quickly chants the necessary words. He does so with skill and speed, but even so it seems an age before Amelia begins to fade before our eyes, the sound of her cries growing ever more faint, until all that remains is the echo of the buzzing bees as they, too, vanish.

The chamber is in commotion. Those who were spoken to are in shock and others seek to console them. Some start talking animatedly of what action should be taken, and how soon we might call another spirit who could help us. They are all so shaken by what has happened that few among them seem to hear what I can hear. A low, distant voice. A whisper almost. Or rather, a strong voice, but far away, slowly growing stronger, coming nearer. Now I can see, in the center of the sacred circle, a shimmering shape, the beginnings of a figure, starting to take form. How can this be? We have neither called nor summoned anyone further. The crossing is strongly protected by our own magic, so that the uninvited shall not enter the Land of Day.

And yet the bees came. The bees got through. Someone, or something, enabled them to do so. Someone, or something, who knew what they meant to Amelia. Who knew what they would do. But why? Why torment the girl? Why, if not to prevent her from helping us?

Which can only mean that malevolent forces are at work here. Self-serving, dangerous, wicked forces. The protective magic Druscilla and I worked so hard to place about the chamber was not sufficient. And now a powerful force is materializing as I watch, and I know that I am once again in the presence of the wicked spirit of Edmund Willoughby. Only this time he is not content to pursue me only in voice. This time, he plans to show himself. The figure is not yet sufficiently formed to have human features, but it is without doubt a tall, thickset man. And I can hear the words he speaks more clearly. Or rather, the word. One word, over and over and over.

Lilith! Lilith! Lilith!

I step as close to the edge of the circle as I can without touching it and raise my hand. Some of the senior witches are aware of the spirit’s presence, but without pausing to confer with anyone else, without arming myself with the grimoire or Maygor’s Silver Thread or anything that might protect me, I send a spell of banishment as boldly as I am able.

“You may not enter here!” I tell the fearsome spirit that chants my own name. “You are not welcome. You are not wanted. You were not called. You were not summoned. Return from whence you came!”

The voice twists into a loud hiss. The figure dissolves and is gone. The circle is empty once more. I find I am holding my breath. I release it, and gulp steadying air. As I turn away from the circle I find the earl of Winchester watching me, his face dark, his eyes full of tears.

16.

Bram realizes his defenses against the winter weather are inadequate when he finds a small drift of snow on the floor in his room. The wind has dislodged the newspaper and clothing scraps he used to stop up the holes in the roof, and thin, dry flakes have been falling all night. He climbs out of bed, stumbling about in the half light of the December dawn. He has taken to sleeping in his clothes, with a woolen hat jammed onto his head, and two pairs of socks to prevent his toes being numb by morning. Even so, he quickly shrugs on his coat. Rubbing his hands together, he casts about for matches and then stoops to strike one and set it to the wick of the paraffin stove. He has scant fuel left, and is eking it out as best he can. The money from Charlotte’s portrait will not last long, though at least he has an appointment at the end of the week with another prospective client. A Mrs. Wilding has twin daughters who wish to be painted together as a birthday present for their father. They have agreed on a price for the work, and he is to paint them at their home.

At least I shall be warm there,
he thinks,
even if it means I must trudge across London four times a week until the portrait is finished.

He reaches out and touches the canvas. The paint is still sticky. A freezing space with air damp from the stove is a poor environment in which to attempt to work with oils. The moisture in the air means the painting takes forever to properly dry, so that he has to wait many hours, sometimes days between sessions. The low temperatures mean the paint all but freezes in the tubes and is difficult to mix, but at least his new stove has gone some way to remedying this. He has chosen to depict Lilith using a limited palette of muted browns and blues. The effect is dramatic, if slightly somber. And somehow mysterious.

The thought of not seeing her, of there coming a time when she might disappear out of his life completely, causes him real physical pain.

Footsteps on the stairs shake him from his thoughts. There is a knock at the door and, without waiting for a reply, Gudrun lets herself in. She has two cups coffee on a small tray and a cigarette between her teeth. Bram takes one of the drinks from her, wrapping his fingers around it gratefully, sniffing brandy in the steam.

“I heard you stamping about up here,” she tells him. “It is as if I am living beneath an elephant.”

“Did I wake you? I’m sorry.”

She shakes her head. “Who could truly dare sleep in this cold? We might never wake up.” She saunters over to the easel. “Ah, your little
liebling.
Very good, Artist. Really, it is very good. You have found your muse at last.”

“Oh, I think she will only let me paint her once.”

“Pity. She stirs something in you.” She gives him a blatantly vulgar glance which, much to his annoyance, causes Bram to blush. “So, you have not yet taken her into your narrow little bed.”

“I don’t see that is any of your business.”

“Don’t be such a prude. In this house everything is everybody’s business.”

“Perhaps I prefer to keep some things private.”

“Why?” She shakes her head, genuinely baffled by this. “Do you think your sex life is so very different from anyone else’s? What do you think Mangan is doing to me when you hear him roaring in the night, hmm? What is he doing with Jane, on the days when she can be bothered to care? How do you think the house came to be full of children?” She folds her arms, still smoking, sighing at him. “You English make too much fuss about sex, anyway. How long are you going to go on torturing yourself with Beauty? What are you waiting for? She’s never going to marry you.”

Bram frowns now and looks away from her, contemplating his feet.

“You surely do not think this?” Gudrun laughs flatly. “My God, Artist, you do! You think Lady Lilith, daughter of a duke, who has ridiculous amounts of money and could marry a prince if she wanted to … you think she is going to marry you?” She laughs again. “Has she even broken off her engagement to that handsome viscount of hers? I have not read of it in the paper.”

“If you’ve just come up here to mock us, mock me, you can take your nasty coffee and leave.”

“Oh, I have hurt your feelings. Forgive me, Artist. I grow cynical. Why shouldn’t she marry you? Why not marry for love? There is plenty of space in here, after all. Jane can help look after your beautiful artist babies. And Mangan won’t mind, though of course he will expect you to share her with him. Do you think Beauty would like that? Some highborn ladies find the wild man exciting. Perhaps yours is no different.”

Bram has never in his life wanted to hit a woman, but he knows he is as close to doing so now as he will ever come.

“Get out,” he says.

Gurdun shrugs, drops her cigarette butt to the floor, and grinds it out with her heel.

“I’ll go,” she says. “I’ll leave you to your dream of love in a perfect world.” She pauses as she passes him. “Just don’t leave it too long to enjoy her, Artist, or you may miss your chance. Because one day she won’t come knocking on your door anymore, and it will be because she has married some dusty, dry aristocrat with a big house and a grand title. Still, there is always, as you English with your relentless optimism will say, the lining of silver in the cloud.” She smiles at him from the doorway. “An artist always does his best work when his heart is broken. You will see.”

*   *   *

We passed a dreary Christmas at Fitzroy Square. Father’s absence was all the more painful for the memories of happy times gone by. Against all odds I persuaded Freddie to stay at Radnor Hall, so it was just Mama and I who sat down to a Christmas day meal for which neither of us had any appetite. For the sake of the servants, we observed the traditions the house ordinarily followed for the festive season, though of course these were muted by our status of mourning. Mama was reluctant to take part in anything, but I convinced her that the staff should not be done down. Duty, as always for someone of my parents’ generation, is the clarion call to arms. Christmas Eve saw her giving out small gifts beneath the exquisitely bedecked tree in the hall. Together we attended a service at St. Bartholomew’s on the Strand at midnight. She was even persuaded to come to the door to listen to carol singers on one occasion. She and I knew, however, that such involvement did not necessarily reflect her own inner spirits, and we were both relieved when the festivities came to an end, the decorations were put away, and life in the house was allowed to return to its quiet winter rhythm once again.

Aside from fretting about Father and how he now thinks of me, and watching my mother struggle with the endlessness of her grief, the most difficult thing for me to bear has been separation from Bram. We have scarcely been able to meet at all these long, dark months. Mangan finished his sculpture of Charlotte in time for it to be presented to the Pilkington-Adamses by Christmas, so there has been no excuse for me to accompany her to the house in Bloomsbury. She has been stalwart in providing an alibi for us when she can, but since her mother decided to take the family to their Scottish estate for the New Year and has seen fit to keep her there, we are without our best ally. We write notes and letters, but must be careful that even these are not seen by Mama, who would set about asking all manner of questions. She would not approve of Bram. Indeed, I can think of no way of presenting him in a light that would make her look at him favorably. Any thought of the future casts me down, and my cowardly tactic for enduring this is simply not to think of it.

As if there were not obstacles enough in the path of our seeing each other, the events of Yulemass have complicated things still further. An emergency meeting was held, with only the senior witches present. It was decided that I should not be left at any time unguarded. I railed against such a decision, reasoning that I have my own guardian spirits who accompany me whenever I am out of the house. It is well known among coven members that I have an able and trustworthy escort in my Cavalier captains. But there is fear among my fellow witches now. The threat to me is unavoidably a threat to the security and perhaps even the continuation of the coven itself. Those who were singled out by Amelia for the dreadful prophecy of loss she brought with her are understandably anxious that we strengthen our position. Further spirits have already been called or summoned in an effort to gain more detailed information of what lies ahead, and of what might be done to change things. Sadly, we have found little comfort, for the consensus seems to be that war is inevitable. Amelia was, alas, right about this.