The Midnight Witch (8 page)

“It seems to me,” I say, “that you have no shortage of custom. Is it too much to ask that the next time my brother appears on your doorstep you turn him away?”

“Ah, Lovely Lady. If Mr. Chow Li say no, Freddie go some other place. Maybe someplace bad.”

The irony of this reasoning leaves me open-mouthed. I want to shout at the odious man, to make him admit the harm in which he is complicit. But, the sad truth is, I know him to be right. At least if Freddie comes here I know where to find him. I pray to the spirits that I do not come one day to recover only his body.

Once we are safely returned home, and Freddie is sleeping soundly on the daybed Mrs. Jessop has prepared for him, I return to my room. Violet has waited up for me, but I send her to bed. There is little of the night left and I am too disturbed in my mind to sleep. Instead I sit on the padded window seat, leaning my head against the cool glass and gazing out across the slumbering square. The first indications of dawn are beginning to lighten the horizon, but the streetlights of the city still glow brightly against the gloomy background. The trees in the garden of the square are still nothing more than a tangle of darkness behind the iron railings.

Iago, sensitive as ever to my mood, springs onto my lap, where he curls up, closes his eyes, and settles to purring softly. His presence is indeed a comfort, for just now I feel I have a mountain to climb, and despite Father’s assurances that I will have help from him and from the coven, I know in truth I must scale it alone. Freddie seems utterly beyond my reach at times. I believe I am all that anchors him to what is safe and good in our lives. Am I sufficient? He, too, must live beneath the burden of a secret, and he is so ill equipped to cope with what knowledge he has of the coven. I know Father worried that he would speak to the wrong people, when he was not in control of his mind or his tongue. That he would say things that, once said, could not be taken back, and that might threaten the secrecy that protects the Lazarus witches and the duties we are charged with. What would my father have done to control him had he become a danger to us? I wonder. How far would he have gone to silence his own son? It was always made clear to me that I was a witch first, and a daughter, sister, or even wife, only after that. The coven must come first. Always. No matter the personal sacrifice. Will it fall to me, one day, to sacrifice Freddie for the good of the coven? Could I?

Both Father and Druscilla spent many hours explaining to me the importance of what it is we do in the coven. Druscilla, in particular, strove to make me understand what was at stake.

“I know about the dangers of summonings going wrong,” I told her one day, while we sat in the darkened chamber, “and I can see that there are risks that something might escape the Darkness, but, well, aside from that, I don’t see how what we do is dangerous. I mean, we gain insight from the spirits we talk to. And they tell us of things that are going to happen, or warn us about people who might do us harm. How can that hurt anyone? And why should not others want to talk to the spirits, too?”

Druscilla sighed. I could not see her shake her head, but was becoming accustomed to conversing with her without being able to watch her. My other senses were heightened, so that I not only heard the minute movement, but sensed it, too, in a way that I could not have done a few months before. And I sensed her slight disappointment in me, too. Disappointment at the fact that I had not yet grasped such important points. It was all there, in that tiny, hidden gesture. When she spoke, however, there was no note of frustration in her voice, rather a sincere wish to help me understand.

“While the Lazarus Coven practice Elemental Necromancy,” she explained once again for me, “which wakens only the souls of the dead, there are those who choose the dark path of Infernal Necromancy. These people are followers of the First Sentinel, a disbanded and discredited coven who, centuries ago, regularly reanimated corpses and caused the dead to walk. Such practices have long been outlawed, and their followers disgraced and banned from either joining or forming a new coven. But ambition is a fearsome thing, and all witches have heard tales of the Sentinels, a mysterious clan who wait and watch and long for the moment when they might pry the Great Secret from the Lazarus Coven and return to their gruesome and amoral work.”

“Gruesome and amoral? What could they wish to do that is so terrible?” I asked.

“Child, can you not imagine how wrongly such skills could be used? Leaving aside, for the moment, the repugnance of wantonly raising the dead, whether they wished it or no, using them cruelly, holding them hostage to the need to be sustained as revenant beings without, perhaps, revealing to them the means for doing this … Apart from that, there is the question of how other covens, or other necromancers who are not witches, how they might use the Great Secret.”

“But, Druscilla … even you do not know what it is.”

“I do not. That is information only the Head Witch has. This is precisely to protect it from the likes of the Sentinels. I do not need to know all the information to know that such power in the wrong hands would be ill-used. I trust the spirits. I trust the teachings of the coven. I trust the Head Witch. And all of these tell me that with the Great Secret comes an even greater responsibility, and that should the wicked have it in their hold, tremendous suffering could be caused.”

She waited for me to respond to this, and when I said nothing—for what could I say?—she added, “You need to acquire an understanding of faith, Lilith. Faith is not built on knowledge. Faith requires no proof. No evidence. No explanation. Faith is entirely a matter of trust and belief. We cannot
know,
we can only
believe
.”

I believe. I trust. I have faith, and I will keep it in silence. Whatever that requires of me. Yet even as I form these crucial points in my head I find I am distracted by another thought. Something altogether unexpected. Or rather, some
one.
After all the turmoil of the night, following as it did from such a testing day, through all the conflicting concerns that now occupy my mind, comes the faint but clear image of a strong, lithe figure, a strikingly good-looking face, and a pair of dark, dark eyes. I shake the picture from my head, tutting at my own foolishness for recalling a stranger, so briefly met, who I am unlikely to ever encounter again.

*   *   *

Bram stands in the center of the shabby space that is his new home and takes a long, reviving breath. The forty-eight hours since his arrival at the Mangan home have passed in a dizzying blur of domestic drama, unfamiliar faces, and noisy children. Mercifully, Jane Mangan does not allow any of her offspring up to his attic rooms. He briefly thought this was a sign of some respect for his privacy, or to let him work in peace. He liked that notion; that his art was sufficiently valued by others in the house that they thought he should not be disturbed. It didn’t take him long to realize, however, that the real reason the children are forbidden to venture beyond the second floor is the perilous state of the stairs. They are old and wooden and worm-ridden, and suffering greatly from neglect, as is most of the house, so that to tread them without caution is to risk serious injury. Only the previous evening he was hurrying to reach his garret before the spluttering candle in his hand burned out and had stepped onto a stair that simply was no longer there. His foot disappeared through the hole, and his leg up to the thigh. He had to struggle in deep darkness for some time before he was able to free himself. His shin is still sharply painful. At least he has managed to beg two oil lamps from Perry, who agreed that candles were not sufficient. The house has not been fitted with electricity, and there is no money to pay for gas, so, as Perry put it, “It’s every man for himself when it comes to light. Or heat. Or food, for that matter.” Which doesn’t seem to Bram to be the spirit of communal living he had expected.

What surpasses his expectations, however, is the accommodation he has been allocated. So long as one navigates the stairs with care, the rooms at the top of the climb reward the effort. The floorboards here are rotten in two places, and he has already positioned furniture above them to prevent disaster. For the most part, though, the floor is sound. The room runs the width of the house and has windows at both front and back. These are dormers, set into the sloping rafters, and not particularly generous, but the fact that there are many of them allows ample light in the day, perfect for painting by. Gaps in the tiles admit further pools of sunshine, as well as welcome air. Indeed, were there not so many openings, the room in the roof would be unbearably hot and stuffy in the heat wave.

Something shall have to be done about them before winter,
he thinks,
else I shall freeze.

He has moved the dusty bed to the far wall and unpacked his few clothes and personal belongings into the tallboy to one side of it. There is a low trestle table, which will serve very well for his artist’s materials, two scruffy armchairs, a full-length mirror, a washstand with jug and bowl, a chamber pot, a tin cupboard with mesh door (in which he is able to store food safe from mice), and a hat stand. Being so sparsely furnished makes the attic singularly suitable for his purposes. It will make a better studio than it will living quarters, but he prefers it that way. It feels workmanlike. Professional. Gives a clear indication of where his priorities lie. He sets up his easel so that the north light will fall upon the canvas it holds and whatever he is painting, and stands back to admire his new domain. It is not hard to imagine what his parents would make of his chosen home. He knows his mother would be appalled at the lack of hygiene, the dangerous stairs, and the general dilapidation of the place. His father, on the other hand, would be aghast at the rowdiness of the children, Gudrun’s manner of dress, and what he would no doubt deem the corrupting morals of the Mangans themselves.

Looking at the pristine blank canvas in front of him, Bram is overwhelmed by the urge to begin, to actually paint. He has been so taken up by the mundane business of settling in, and so distracted by those he now shares a house with, his attempts to start work have been frustrated.

But what to paint? I have no sitter, no subject. Except perhaps …

He hurries over to his stock of paper and pulls out the sketches he made in the graveyard. It pains him to see how inadequate they are, but they are all he has. Looking at them now he can clearly recall the mood of the scene, the sharp shadows, the glare of the sun, the angle of the girl’s jaw as she turned her head away.

And those eyes. The second time fate placed her before me, when she stood outside that shabby house in Bluegate Fields, those eyes shone with such an intensity of color, her skin appeared so pale …

He finds a pin and secures the sketches to the wall behind his easel. Next he takes up tubes of oil paints and selects a limited palette—burned umber, raw sienna, lamp black, chalk white, cadmium yellow—colors he knows will assist him in finding the drama of what he saw.

If only I knew who she was, oh how much better to be able to have her sit for me! Surely the funeral will be among the notices reported somewhere? I could search for her. But why would she agree to so much as speak to me? She found me at an opium den, with a raving drunkard. I fear if she remembers me at all it will not be with high regard.

When he saw the woman outside Mr. Chow Li’s house he recognized her at once as the same woman he had seen standing at the graveside in the cemetery that morning. The woman he had felt so compelled to draw. She had taken off her hat and veil and replaced them with a cape and hood, but there was no mistaking her. Bram was shocked to think of her frequenting such an establishment. Could such an elegant, apparently wealthy, well-spoken woman, a woman of unmistakable presence and poise, could she really lie among the dead-eyed clientele he had seen at the place? It made no sense to him.

She is too special for such habits. Too … powerful, somehow.

He surprises himself with the thought, but the more he recalls her, the more he knows he is right. There was a curious strength about her. There was something uncommon in her green eyes when she held his gaze.

What color were they exactly? Viridian? Emerald? How I would love to paint them from life; to see her here, in front of me. A man could surrender all his will to eyes such as those.

He is brought back from his memory of that night by the sound of Jane Mangan calling his name. He goes to the door and peers down the dark staircase.

“Ah, there you are.” She stands on the bend in the stairs on the second floor, a child on her hip, seemingly able to get around the house in the gloom without anything more than the small storm lantern she raises aloft. “We are about to eat. Mangan wondered if you ’d like to join us for supper. Do say you will. Nothing fancy, you understand. Just a simple stew.”

Bram hesitates. Oil paint glistens on the palette in his hand. The canvas still stands maddeningly empty. He is on the point of refusing, of letting himself be ruled by his passion, of losing himself in the act of creation once again. But he is only two days here, and Jane is so good and so gentle. She reminds him of his mother, and he cannot bring himself to snub her.

“I’ll come right down,” says Bram, immediately conscious he has nothing to contribute to the meal. This is the first time he has been invited to dine with the family. Indeed, it is the first time he has been aware of them having a meal. For the most part the children seem to graze, or dash past nibbling some bread or fruit. How the adults sustain themselves he isn’t sure. He has bought some cheese and bread which he keeps in his room, along with a few tins of this and that, though mostly he has so far not felt troubled to eat much. It has been too hot, and he has been too busy settling into his studio to bother. Quantities of tea and some shortbread have kept him going. At least there is no requirement for him to dress for dinner.