Unnatural Issue (31 page)

“My family is prosperous and my father is the local squire, but I spent most of my life doing the work of a servant. My mother died when I was born, and my father did not even want to see me until a few weeks ago,” she was continuing. “Housekeeper and Cook raised me. I spent my life with the servants and did what they did, and when I came early into my power, Robin taught me the magic. My father never left his rooms. I never even saw him until just after May Eve. Then suddenly, as if he had just discovered that I existed, he wanted to make it all up to me . . .” She faltered and grew a little pale.

Peter leaned forward over the table and patted her hand, all the while thinking,
Whitestone . . . where do I know that name? And the story sounds familiar.
“I take it that there was something more going on than just an old man’s remorse,” he said quietly.

“It just didn’t feel right,” she whispered. “I didn’t know why, but it all just didn’t feel right. He set me to lessons, all sorts of lessons, and kept telling me that I had to learn all these things to be fit for my place, that I had to remember I wasn’t just a servant. He knew I hadn’t been properly educated, and I didn’t know all the things that girls of my age and class should. He said when I was ready that he was going to send me off to school, even University. He bought me all new clothing, and he corrected my lessons himself. But he didn’t seem to realize that I had magic at all.”

“Wait—he knows about magic?” Peter interrupted.

She nodded. “He is an Earth Master. He was the one who should have been tending to the land, not me.”

She had grown very pale, and her obvious distress distracted him from what he was trying to remember. “I cannot explain what was so wrong. It was as if he wasn’t ever really looking at me, just at something he wanted to be there, something he . . . owned. As if I were a
thing
and not a person.” She took a deep, shaking breath. “And he was
watching
me. All the time. Even when I slept. Even when I did things that couldn’t possibly interest him, he was watching me. I didn’t understand why. But then I found out he had a secret room, and I got into it and that—”

She gulped, and her face went red and white by turns. “The first time, he had books and things in there, and the books were . . . they felt
wrong
. I couldn’t read them properly, but in my hand, they felt wrong. The second time, he was there already, and I heard him, saw him. He had a picture of me in there, and he was talking to it, and he was saying—he was saying things, horrid things. Things no one should ever say to a
daughter.”

Peter blinked, puzzled. “I’m afraid I’m being a bit thick,” he apologized. “What sort of things now?”

She hung her head. “Things . . . things you should only say to a wife. Things you plan to do to her . . . with her . . . when you’re alone together. It was horrid, horrid. I mean, that’s all right and good and proper if it’s your wife, but . . . Why would he want to do those things with his
daughter?
”

“Eh?” said Peter, then “Oh!” as it dawned on him. He flushed with anger. “By Jove, did he?”
If I ever find him, I’ll thrash him within an inch of his life.
He patted Susanne’s hands. “And so you ran. Sensible girl. Well you’re safe enough here, now.” He tried to keep his tone light to avoid frightening her further. She looked up at him and managed a tremulous smile.

“I don’t understand how he could be like this,” she continued. “He used to be the Earth Master for thereabouts, I mean, really, truly, the Earth Master. Robin said so, that he not only tended the land, but he did things for the Chief Master in London—”

“He what?” Peter interrupted.
Whitestone! That’s where I remember the name! Richard Whitestone, the one Alderscroft was telling me about, the recluse!

“He used to be the Earth Master, and it was his duty to see to the land all about Whitestone Hall,” Susanne said, and a touch of irritation came into her voice. “The land needed him! But when my mother died, he just threw it all away, he completely neglected his duty to the land. He closed himself into his rooms and never left, and the area all around the Hall just
died.
It’s worse than neglected, it’s blighted. I had to enclose it to keep the blight from spreading farther. And you would think, wouldn’t you, that a Master would notice that someone had taken over his duties? Would notice someone had shielded the area around the Hall? And you would think it might come to him that the person might be his own daughter . . .”

It was beginning to sound as if Susanne did indeed know who the necromancer was, and it was her own father! But perhaps—no, she’d said nothing about the sort of magic he was doing, or even if he was doing anything at all.

“Did you ever see anything—” he groped for words. “—nasty about? Elementals that were not something you’d care to run across?”

“What, boggarts and kobolds and all?” she asked, and before he could reply, shook her head. “Never. All I got were those feelings of being watched. The only thing that was . . . nasty . . . were the books.”

“Books?” Peter repeated sharply. “What sort of books?”

“Well, I don’t know precisely. They just made me feel a little sick when I touched them, and he was keeping them all in that secret room.” Now besides her pallor, she was looking a bit green.

Peter made up his mind. “Come,” he said, closing his hand around hers, standing up, and tugging her upright. “We need to go straight to Charles about this.”

He could see the puzzlement in her eyes. Not surprising, considering he was referring to the son of the house by his first name. “But—”

“Now,” he insisted.

She let him draw her to her feet and lead her out of the cottage and down the path to the Great House.

 

While having Charles Kerridge notice her was very high on Susanne’s list of desires, she was not sure that having him notice her in this way was going to get her the sort of attention that she wanted.

Nevertheless, when Peter’s way of speaking changed to something very much posher, and he insisted that she come with him, she was so taken aback that she found herself following him as faithfully as any chick following a hen. It was still light out, which was a good thing, as otherwise she was so dazed that she would have stumbled along like a little fool and probably tripped over something and gotten her gown all dirty. She hoped her hair was tidy. Oh, how she wished that she had something better to wear than this uniform! Right now she would have given a great deal for one of those pretty gowns she had left behind! She didn’t want him to look at her and see just a faceless dairymaid, she wanted him to look at her the way Peter did, seeing
her
and not the uniform.

She fretted so much during the long walk that she hardly noticed they were at the Great House until they were literally at the door. And not the servants’ entrance either, but the door closest to the path to the gamekeeper’s cottage, which was one of the family entrances, used only by the estate manager and the Kerridges. She was shocked into silence at that point and just let Peter lead her. He stopped once to send one of the housemaids after Charles Kerridge; the girl obeyed him with no question. Another shock.

In no time at all she found herself in Charles Kerridge’s office. There, the gamekeeper addressed him familiarly and by his given name, and Master Charles reciprocated. In fact, they sounded like old friends. Clearly, this man was not just a gamekeeper, anymore than Robin had been. She stood there with her hands clasped under her apron and listened, flushing with embarrassment, as Peter—
could it be
Lord
Peter?—
summed up everything she had told him.

Finally the two of them turned to her. “Sit down, Susanne,” Charles said, with the same understanding smile he’d worn when she first saw him. Gingerly, she took a seat on the very edge of the chair he offered and clasped her hands tight in her lap. Peter took another chair, and the two of them began a gentle but very firm interrogation.

From time to time they paused in their questioning to confer, but then they came right back to her, asking more details. She understood then that she knew far more about her father than she had thought she did.

And all those little details meant a very great deal to
them.
Especially the part about the books.

“Were you there?” Charles asked Peter. “No, wait, we were both too young. But Father might have been. He told me about the Exeter necromancer, the library he had. I had always thought the books were destroyed. What was Alderscroft thinking?”

“That this was an Earth Master who could be trusted and that we might one day need what was in those books,” Peter countered. “No, I can understand that, and far safer those volumes were in the hands of someone as sound as Whitestone was then.” He pinched the bridge of his nose between two long fingers. “It’s obvious the death of his wife unhinged him.”

“More than unhinged him,” Charles replied grimly, looking a bit sick. “I can think of a damn good reason for that obscene behavior Susanne described—once you add ‘necromancer’ into the sum. Think about it, Peter.”

“You can—oh, lord.” Now Peter looked sick. Susanne looked from one to the other as if she were at a tennis game. “Oh, so can I, now.” He looked at Susanne with an expression of horror. “He wouldn’t—”

“He would,” Charles said, and stood up. “I’d better go consult with Pater and Mater. They knew him after all.”

“Master Charles, wait!” Susanne exclaimed urgently. “He wouldn’t
what?”

“Don’t worry your little head about it,” Charles said, and rushed off.

Peter rolled his eyes. “That is just about the worst bit of idiocy Charles has ever spoken. I’m sorry, Susanne. Being told not to worry about something is only likely to give you nightmares.” He paused. “Although, I can’t imagine you could have a worse nightmare than what we think Whitestone has in mind.”

“Tell me!” she demanded, sounding shrill even in her own ears. Charles might still intimidate her, but Peter did not.

“Well . . . let me start at the beginning.” He leaned forward a bit, looking at her earnestly, and she wondered then how she could ever have thought he was “just” a gamekeeper. It was obvious, when you looked at him, that competent as he was at the job, he was right out of the peerage.

Then again, he seemed to be something of a chameleon, able to take on the color of wherever he was.

“There is an organization of Elemental Masters out of the Exeter Club in London; it’s led by Lord Alderscroft. We call him the Old Lion, and he has his finger on the pulse of most of what goes on in England, magically speaking. He got wind of something in this part of the world that he didn’t much like and sent for me. The long and the short of it is, I was sent here to find a necromancer, and with what I’ve done and what you’re told me, Charles and I are both pretty sure that your father is that necromancer. Now, do you know what I’m talking about?”

Susanne shook her head.

“Necromancers aren’t the sort of thing you run into very often, thank goodness. They’re a kind of perverted Earth Master, and everything they do has to do with the dead. They can talk to the dead, but mostly they don’t just talk to ghosts, they force spirits to come to them and then tether the spirits to something in the real world and keep them here. They can animate dead bodies and even bones, which is sickening enough, but they can also drag unwilling spirits back by using bits of those bodies, an’ they can imprison those spirits in a body to make it self-controlling, so the necromancer doesn’t have to act like a puppet master all the time.”

Peter spoke very calmly, but Susanne was feeling sick at the mere thought of all of this. It completely revolted her to the core, it was so very wrong. “But how can you
do
that if—if the person has gone to heaven?” she asked, unable to think of how God could be so thwarted.

“You can’t. But if they’re lingerin’, and a lot do, then you can. And there’s always deception.” He drummed his fingers on the desk. “See, if a spirit wants a body again, and they’re clever enough, they can make the necromancer think they’re the right one.”

“So if the person has gone to heaven, it won’t matter if the necromancer has . . . bits,” she said, and Peter nodded. “And if a clever spirit comes and says that she’s the right one, the necromancer might not know.”

“The thing is, old girl,” Peter continued, “We’re both pretty sure that unhinged as he is, he’s been trying to do something about bringin’ his wife back, and she might be the sort that lingers, makin’ sure that you are all right, for instance. Except, of course, at this point she wouldn’t be very pretty, eh what? But if he can drag her spirit back, there’s one thing he
can
do that will give him a livin’ body rather than a sack of bones. He can shove your spirit out of your body and put hers in it. Which is what, we think, he was goin’ on about when you overheard him.”

For a moment Susanne was quite sure she hadn’t heard him right.

But then she remembered those horrible moments when she’d listened to her father talking to that painting . . . and of course he couldn’t possibly have a painting of
her,
now, could he? He hadn’t even really known she existed until a few weeks ago. Paintings required that you sit for them, and they required an artist to paint them. There’d been no artists about Whitestone Hall, and she certainly hadn’t sat for a painting.

So the picture had to be of her mother.

Which meant that Peter was right.

“I think I’m going to be sick.” she said, faintly. She fought down both a wave of nausea and one of absolute terror.

“I’m not going to say it’s going to be all right,” Peter told her with candor that was as good as a glass of cold water to the face. “But of all the places you could have come, this is the best and safest. It’s absolutely stiff with Earth mages, and I’m a Water Master. “To get to you, he’ll have to get through us, and I don’t think he can do that. I’ll be letting Lord Alderscroft know all about this immediately. And you are an Earth Master, so you are not exactly defenseless. You might not know the sort of combative magic that I do, but you have many allies among the Earth Elementals, and their sort don’t much like necromancy. You’ve been keeping your side of the Compact all this time, doing the land-work. They’ll honor their side.”