SEVEN

They found their aunt on the first floor, sifting through a pigeonhole desk. Even indoors she wore her hat and veil, and Eluned thought it an appropriate underlining of her status as stranger to the family.

“Feel free to pick bedrooms,” Aunt Arianne said, turning toward them. “If we concentrate on getting the dust out of those, and part of the kitchen, that should be enough to go on with until Dem Makepeace deigns to let me know whether this constitutes some form of alternative employment, or is merely his idea of a meeting place.”

“Could anyone be that silly?” Griff asked.

“Never underestimate any person’s capacity to ignore the convenience of others.”

Aunt Arianne stepped toward the open window. Eluned didn’t need to see her aunt’s face to recognise surprise, and narrowly beat Griff and Eleri in crossing to look out.

The wall dividing the hidden grove in two was not as tall as the outer one, but still rose higher than the first floor. The well-spaced trees allowed Eluned an almost clear view of the top of the wall, and the row of half a dozen glossy black birds.

“They’re watching us.” Griff, who tolerated very little that was furred or feathered, moved back from the sill, and even Eleri shifted uneasily.

“Crows or ravens?” Aunt Arianne asked.

Unless one took flight, Eluned couldn’t be more than half certain. “They’re very quiet. Crows hardly ever shut up.”

These didn’t speak at all. They perched in a close group, their only movement an occasional head bob or settling of feathers. People were forever pointing to passing crows or ravens and spouting rubbish about the Morrigan watching, or Odin’s spies. This was the first time Eluned had believed it.

Griff tugged Eluned’s sleeve. “But why would any—”

A blur of green struck the row of observers, and five crows launched skyward, a riot of wings and harsh cries. The sixth was gone. Gasping, Eluned craned to see, spotting only a lone feather spiralling down. The body—presuming there was one—had to be on the far side of that dividing wall.

“More than trees, then.”

Wondering if Aunt Arianne had maintained that light, amused tone even while a vampire nearly killed her, Eluned said: “Unless it was a tree. It looked leafy.”

“Perhaps.” Aunt Arianne turned abruptly away, crossing to pull the dustcover off a high-backed armchair tucked in the far corner of the office. Sitting down heavily she added: “Another question for Dem Makepeace.”

“But why would anyone be spying on us?” Griff asked doggedly, from the position by the door where he’d retreated. “Do you think it’s Them?”

‘They’ were the unknowns behind Mother and Father’s deaths. But Eluned, reaching to close the window, shook her head. “If it was Them, we’d surely have noticed birds hanging about before now.” She began folding the panels of the interior window shutter back into place.

“Something to do with the grove,” Eleri said. “No sign before.”

“Maybe.” With the room now restored to stuffy gloom, Eluned turned to their aunt. “You’re getting worse.”

“So it would appear.” Aunt Arianne lifted off her hat and veil. “Don’t worry: I’ll give fair warning if I develop an urge to bite.”

Griff giggled, but Eluned was focused on practicalities. “Vampires drink blood if they’re hurt by the sun. Do you think eating something would help?”

“That’s possible.” Aunt Arianne fished in the flat pouch laced to her day belt. “Shall we anticipate lunch? Bring enough food to tide us over until tomorrow, and some soap. See if they have salve for your shoulder, as well.”

Eluned took the coin purse without commenting on this, but Eleri spoke up:

“Needs a new arm, not salve.”

“Can she not have both? I’ve budgeted for necessities, so don’t hesitate to tell me what’s required. It’s luxuries that will need to be postponed until I’ve settled the question of employment.”

“Will give you a list,” Eleri said promptly, and led the way out of the room, her attention clearly diverted to her design for a replacement arm. But as they opened the door into the vestibule, she returned to less technical matters.

“What did he say to you? That Carstairs? You’ve been different towards the Aunt since.”

Eluned didn’t answer immediately, not quite able to explain even to Eleri the anger and frustration she’d struggled with ever since Mother and Father died. She did not like nor want to admit to the roiling at the back of her thoughts, the longing to find and hurt, to demolish whoever had taken their parents away. The police’s quick dismissal of the idea of murder had left her seething, and the slow steps of their search had been like fingernails down her spine, working her anger into tighter and tighter knots. For a while she’d almost hated Aunt Arianne for not once crying, for being the person they were stuck with instead of Mother and Father.

“Dem Carstairs said Aunt Arianne nearly died,” she admitted. “And asked me to look after her.”

“She’s supposed to be looking after us,” Griff pointed out, emerging into the street and frowning at three men gawking from the entrance of the next warehouse down. “She hasn’t even asked why we were expelled.”

Eluned took care to nod politely before turning in the opposite direction and striding toward the corner. The rising wind tugged at her hair and shendy, and she gazed determinedly ahead.

“It’s not all that important why. We’re not going back there. Besides, the kind of person Aunt Arianne is doesn’t matter to me nearly as much as who I am. What does it say about me that it keeps surprising her when I notice she’s in pain?”

“Says you’re observant,” Eleri replied. “Take your point—no value in being at war—but not going to sit about while the Aunt chases after this Alban woman. Should be working on that mannequin.”

“No, I agree with her there.” Aunt Arianne had refused to allow Eleri to even unpack their grandfather’s mannequin. “If those sphinx statues are hunting the artificial fulgite, then recharging it or trying to release charge from it might draw their attention.”

“Do nothing? Stupid.”

“She’s going to ask her vampire about it,” Griff put in.

“Him? Connections to the palace and to a grove? Investigating the wind storms? Could even be one of Them.”

“If he is, he’ll be able to order Aunt Arianne to Tell Everything anyway,” Eluned said. “Besides, he already thinks she’s connected to the sphinxes somehow, and if he’s involved in the rest, he’ll know about the fulgite.” A far from satisfactory situation, but there was nothing they could do about it.

They turned the corner into a full gale, roaring down a long row of warehouses on one side, and terraces the other. The morning windstorm.

“What we can do is see whether anyone else has been investigating haunted or unresponsive fulgite,” Eluned went on, struggling to be heard. “You’ll have to visit at least one workshop putting together the new arm. There’s a lot we could find out.”

“Like how much it would be to buy one of those dragonflies,” Griff said, and they discussed this delightful if unlikely prospect for all of the windy walk down the long boundary of their unexpected back garden.

The street that ran behind the Deep Grove was much wider, lined with grander buildings, and busy with a flow of through-traffic. Directly opposite, buildings framed the northernmost entrance to the Great Barrows, while the nearest corner of the crossroads held a cluster of stores centred round a grocer’s.

“Cobbler and baker, and a teashop across the road,” Griff said. “Not bad. D‘you think they’d sell the makings of a kite here, Ned?”

“I think kites probably count as luxuries. And there’s so much in that house that we might have enough for a dozen kites and not know it.”

“Not ours,” Eleri said. “Last Keeper died and all her things were packed up, left there. Why?”

“No heirs, perhaps?” Eluned suggested, then quieted as they turned to climb the double step into the grocers‘, and discovered a crowd. There was scarcely room in the customers’ area of the store for them to slip in at the back out of the gale.

“…to be the new Keeper,” an elderly woman was saying authoratively. “The Moonfire Feast is less than a year from now. Dem Comfrey can hardly do that himself, so it only makes sense that he’s appointed a replacement for Dama Fulbright.”

“But another of the stone blood?” a portly man asked. “That’s far from likely. Are you certain, young Nabah?”

“Clothing that covered her completely, a veiled hat and an umbrella. In this heat, what does that mean but vampire?”

The self-assured voice belonged to the Daughter of Lakshmi, her orange and yellow sari barely visible through the small crowd. Eluned exchanged a glance with Eleri, thinking it would be best to step back out, but then a single voice rose clear above the murmur of discussion.

“Aunt Arianne’s not a vampire. She’s only bound to one.”

It was one of Griff’s special pleasures to make unexpected pronouncements, and he did not quail as nearly a dozen people turned to stare.

The elderly woman, her daybelt a most impressive piece of tooled leather with many dangling pouches, produced a muted bark of laughter. “Never was curiosity so swiftly rewarded,” she said. “My pardon, children.” She added a conspiratorial smile. “Not that I won’t push for more: do you mean that your aunt is bound to Dem Comfrey?”

“Someone called Makepeace. He sent her a key.” Griff, still wearing the key on its knotted shoelace, displayed it proudly.

“Indeed! This is grand news. Welcome to Lamhythe, young damini. I am Reswen Chelwith, Warden of the Borough.”

Her gaze, like that of the crowd, had gone from Griff to Eleri and Eluned behind him, and inevitably to Eluned’s right arm. This was a progression Eluned was entirely used to, although she could never train herself not to notice it. Instead she hefted her glass shield, and smiled politely as Eleri introduced them all before looking firmly toward the tall girl behind the shop counter.

“What can I get you, dama?” the girl asked obligingly, just as the man behind the opposite counter—one dedicated to postal services—cleared his throat.

“Customers only, please!” he called out, in a surprisingly deep voice for such a stretched and skinny man. “Make room, make room.”

In excited good humour the crowd decamped, leaving only the Tennings and the Daughter of Lakshmi, who produced a letter and a coin for a stamp.

Taking a relieved breath, Eluned smiled her thanks at the shop girl, who said: “Not that I’m not madly curious myself, mind you. I’m Melly Ktai. That’s my Dad. Welcome to Lamhythe.”

“Thanks.”

Now that the crowd had cleared out, Eluned’s attention had been caught by the rows of gleaming jars on the shelves directly behind Melly. Through the glass she recognised old favourites—sugared almonds, humbugs, marzipan mice—but many more colourful shapes.

“We’ll have three of everything over there,” Griff said immediately.

“We’ll have thruppence worth mixed,” Eluned said, equally firmly. “And…” She briefly scanned the selection of things that were not sweets, and listed enough to cover their needs at least for a couple of days, conscious of the weight of her aunt’s purse. The windstorms had done terrible things to prices.

Melly’s father came around and reached down one or two things from the highest shelves, although Melly was almost tall enough to manage. The pair moved with a dancer’s ease around each other, almost identical but for height, and Melly’s cloudy hair puffing out in three distinct triangles, while her father’s was so short it was barely visible against the rich dark brown of his scalp.

“Ned!” Griff said imperatively. “Get these as well!” He had found a collection of illustrated maps—four sections of London with miniatures of all the buildings beautifully drawn.

“You’ll have to ask Aunt Arianne,” Eluned said firmly. If he was given his way, Griff would buy a dozen atlases‘ worth of maps every day.

“Seen any of the folies yet?” Melly asked, as she knotted string around their freshly-wrapped purchases. “I only saw one the once, back when Dama Fulbright was still alive. At least, I’m sure that’s what it was.”

“Don’t know what that is,” Eleri replied, as Eluned asked: “Is it something green, and fast?”

“That’d be them,” Melly said. “It’s good luck to see them. Unless, of course, you’re in the Deep Grove without permission.”

“In which case, very bad luck indeed,” Dem Ktai said. As his daughter turned to make change, he handed Griff a gleaming toffee apple, one eyelid dropping. “A turn of fortune would be most welcome.”

Griff promptly hid the apple behind his back, but his clear elation won a puzzled glance when Melly handed over their coin. As Eluned led the way out, swinging parcels by their strings, she heard the girl’s voice lift in an exasperated “Da!”, but was distracted from more by Dama Chelwith, waiting at the bottom of the steps.

“Do let your aunt know I’ve mustered the Wings,” the woman said. “And that we’ll be down directly. After eight years without so much as an airing, I can imagine the state of Forest House. Knowing Dem Comfrey, he won’t have put an ounce of effort into preparing the place.”

“All dust and cobwebs,” Griff said agreeably, pausing in a stout effort to bite into the side of his apple. “What happens at this Moonfire Feast?”

“Why, the Queen and the princesses—Sulis in the form of the Suleviae—come to the Deep Grove,” Dama Chelwith said, whisking a smear of dust from his shoulder, and then ruffling his hair. “It’s very important there be a Keeper able to let them in.”

Beaming, she nodded at Eluned and Eleri, and then turned, waving a hand at someone on the far side of the crossroads. Off to organise the Wings—the county volunteer force—to clean the house of the Keeper of the Deep Grove.

“What happens if this Makepeace person really does only want to meet Aunt Arianne here?” Griff asked.

“Then he’ll have a clean house, for when he does appoint a new Keeper.” Eluned shrugged, ignoring the throb of skin beneath straps. “We can’t change any of that.”

She glanced toward Vine Street. Ahead the Daughter of Lakshmi marched, back straight, resolutely not looking in their direction. Only one of the many who seemed to consider their arrival an event. “I think the bigger question is what happens if we stay.”

Eleri clicked her tongue, impatient but resigned.

“Better get back, warn the Aunt. In case that urge to bite has come on.”

* * *

Forest House was large, but the dozens of people who flooded there in response to Dama Chelwith’s summons made a short afternoon’s work of the cleaning and minor repairs required. The grove itself needed the most attention, and Eluned helped pick up fallen branches and pull up the thistle thicket.

The stones they exposed were thin slabs, uneven in height and shape, and etched with symbols too faded to read. Once the bulk of the crowd had departed, Eluned returned to trace her fingers over the worn faces. She was puzzling out the shape of a triple luck spiral when a group of new arrivals approached with apologetic smiles.

Retreating through the trees, Eluned watched as a woman circled the newly-cleared stones, reaching up to touch the crown of each as she passed, then stepped reverently within. Stopping in the precise centre, she raised her face to the fading sky, tilting her body back, and letting her arms hang loose and relaxed. Eluned wondered what she prayed for. Most prayers to someone as vast as Sulis only reinforced personal or territorial allegiance, but in the stronger circles sometimes a small blessing might come your way, a tiny piece of luck.

The grass and dirt at that centre spot was already distinctly flattened, for the woman was far from the first to pray to the sun in a grove of the horned king.

“A place where Sulis and Cernunnos meet.”

Eluned blinked, then turned to her aunt, who was veiled once more, but had left her umbrella behind now that the sun had dropped below the shielding walls.

“The circle isn’t quite in the Deep Grove,” Aunt Arianne went on. “That’s the area beyond the gate, dedicated to Cernunnos. Every twenty-five years, the Suleviae come to renew the Treaty of the Oak. This is one of the most important groves in Prytennia.”

Looking back at the circle as the woman swayed and dropped to one knee, Eluned said: “Did anyone explain what the Keeper’s supposed to do, exactly?”

“Let people in. Keep people out. Strictly speaking, it appears that the Keeper’s only true duty is to open the gate to the Suleviae every twenty-five years, but some public access to the circle is usually permitted. Dama Fulbright inherited the position from her mother, and did not care for it. She allowed the public in to the circle once a year if the neighbourhood was lucky. According to Dama Chelwith, at any rate. Others have insisted it was every month, every week, every day.”

Aunt Arianne followed a narrow path between the trees and the kitchen windows, and stopped to survey the service passage leading to the street. The outer door to this had been concealed by more posters, and it opened only from the inside. A wholly practical space, it featured a freshly restrung clothes line, a collection of stone bottles, two bins, and, currently, many trodden fragments of thistle.

A shrunken, white-haired man was busily sweeping this last away, but stopped when he spotted them, and propped his broom against the passage wall so he could come to greet them.

“Dama Seaforth. You will keep the Grove open a little longer, won’t you? So those held up by their professions can visit?”

“While the light holds,” Aunt Arianne replied. “After that, it will be up to Dem Makepeace.”

As the man retreated, Aunt Arianne tilted her head back, her veil swaying. At first Eluned thought that she, too, was praying, but her stance was wrong, and following what seemed to be the direction of her gaze, Eluned spotted a curious patch on a branch near the top of the garden’s dividing wall. Not mistletoe, as she first guessed, but a finer, denser clump of leaves, tucked flat against the branch. Tiny spots of colour caught the eye: flowers or berries among the foliage.

“Why is it interesting?” Eluned asked.

“Because it has a heartbeat.”

Two startling revelations in the one serene comment. Eluned responded to the more immediate. “That’s a folie?”

“Most likely.”

“It’s so small! The way they’ve been talking about these things, I was expecting something more impressive.”

“The most dangerous thing I ever met didn’t exactly make a strong first impression.”

Aunt Arianne dropped her hand from where it had crept beneath her veil, then walked away. The clump of leaves above didn’t so much as quiver, but Eluned still found it difficult to turn her back on it. She took a long breath, and—as she sometimes did when particularly nervous—activated her right arm and made the precise movements of her shoulder to bend the artificial arm as if to applaud. Meeting the hand with her left, she pressed skin to metal joints and beautifully-carved wood, and closed her eyes against fear.

Then she returned her arm to resting mode and hurried to catch up with her aunt, who was inspecting the freshly-polished gate blocking entry to the rest of the garden.

“You can hear heartbeats?”

“Blood. I am enormously aware of blood.”

“That’s not a very reassuring thing to say, Aunt Arianne.”

Her aunt laughed, and turned away from the coiling metal snakes. “I am being very grim and portentous, aren’t I? I shall balance myself thinking up intricate plans of revenge, should Dem Makepeace leave me to pass some point of no return. How are you feeling?”

“I like the house,” Eluned replied, sidestepping the question.

“So do I. Your sister has been rearranging the attic into a workroom, somewhat hampered by Griff’s attempts to discover kite-making materials.”

The long attic, when they reached it, had been dusted and then divided into two distinct halves. Anything resembling a bench had been cleared and placed down the right end, and all the other furniture crammed into the left half. This done, Eleri had joined Griff in unearthing the attic’s hidden treasures, ably assisted by Melly Ktai, the Daughter of Lakshmi called Nabah, and a handful of others closer to Griff’s age. Eluned was always impressed by how her brother and sister could start chatting away to people.

“No,” Griff was saying. “Dem Makepeace was chasing the monster when it fell through the ceiling. And when the monster nearly killed him, he killed Aunt, nearly. And bound her to keep her from dying, which meant that she couldn’t be bound to Lord Msrah. Then he didn’t even stay to finish the binding properly, just sent her that key. Is he always like that?”

Melly Ktai shrugged. “Like we’d know? He talked to Dama Chelwith when Dama Fulbright died, asked her to have the house shut up, but otherwise he’s like the folies: we all know they’re there, but hardly anyone’s seen them.”

“Still the real Keeper?” Eleri asked. “How long?”

“Grandama says he used to come to Forest House parties, back when there were lots of Fulbrights,” offered the youngest of the helpers, a boy around ten.

“And he’d been Keeper before there were Fulbrights there,” added a slightly bigger girl. “He’s old old.”

Griff, excavating a chest of old-fashioned clothes, held up a girdle curiously, then said: “What sort of vampire is he, Aunt? You said he wasn’t a Thoth-den.”

“No, not Thoth,” Aunt Arianne said as—to Griff’s obvious glee—the other occupants of the attic spun to look at her. “Your trunks have been delivered, and are waiting in your rooms. Re-pack these first, and wash for dinner.”

With unusual abruptness Aunt Arianne retreated down the stair, and Eluned supposed that the attic, bathed in a lovely sunset, was still too bright for her. Forest House was definitely not arranged for the convenience of vampires.

“Didn’t answer the question,” Eleri said.

“I’m not sure she knows.” Eluned picked up a red pleated shendy and tossed it into the nearest trunk, well aware that Eleri and Griff wouldn’t remember being told to clean up when there were more interesting subjects taking their attention.

“Ma‘at,” said the girl called Nabah. She also stooped to collect a piece of clothing, and folded it neatly. “My mother checked at Demar House when first we heard of this vampire who is the true Keeper. Dem Makepeace is one of only five Ma’at vampires in Prytennia, and has been on the Register of Blood since twenty-nine fifty-five.”

“Over two hundred and fifty years old?” Melly clicked her tongue. “I wonder if Ma’at’s a particularly strong line?”

“Or if the Aunt’s vampire is close to becoming stone.” Eleri ignored the re-packing in favour of examining an old lantern.

“I didn’t even know there was a Ma‘at line,” Eluned said, and poked Griff until he started helping to clean up. “What can they do?”

“Ma‘at is Order, isn’t she?” Melly said. “And she weighs the spirits of the Egyptian dead. And Ma’at’s wings protect, of course. Maybe it’s something to do with protection—that would go with being Keeper.”

“Ma‘at vampires can tell when you’re lying.”

A boy a few years older than Eluned strolled from the stair to the clear area set aside for Eleri’s workroom, and Eluned reflected that Forest House was going to be a difficult place to live if the whole neighbourhood thought themselves free to wander about as much as they pleased. But it was an unusual day, and after all the front doors were wide open.

“Only that?” Griff asked. “How boring.”

“Very much so,” the boy agreed, ignoring how they all stared at him. He looked out of place, dressed formally in a tunic and ankle-length pleated shendy of pristine white. “An incredibly dull lot. They usually end up as judges. The occasional detective.”

He started to say something else, but paused, stepping closer to the line of open windows. Eluned immediately crossed to the nearest.

“They’re back?” Griff hurried to join her. “This is the third time. Did you see them after lunch, Ned?”

Eluned shook her head, trying to make out the dividing wall. The south-western sky might be cherry-painted, but during the climb to the attic the grove had been swallowed by shadow. The one clear point below was the path up to the near edge of the circle, where a family were nervously heading toward the light of Forest House.

“I can only sort of see the top of the wall,” Griff complained. “How many are there? There were five after lunch, and there should only be four…”

Griff fell silent, gripping Eluned’s shirt. No-one spoke. Below was shadow, stillness, and something on the dividing wall. Not crows or ravens, but a great mounded shape. A momentary gleam of gold had led Eluned’s eye to it, as if the night had blinked.

Fascinated, and also reluctant to risk drawing the thing’s attention, Eluned remained as still as possible. The line of open windows felt like an exposed throat.

“The Aunt.”

After a confused moment, Eluned again peered over the lip of the roof. One of the people who had gone inside was leading Aunt Arianne toward the circle. But then Aunt Arianne stopped short, head turning in the direction of that waiting bulk upon the wall, and she said something to send the other person back. Alone, without her hat and veil, she looked tiny and defenceless, and Eluned drew breath for a warning.

“No, don’t call out to her.” The older boy had moved to the central windows of the attic. “This place has a reputation for a reason.”

“People know not to trespass, sure.” Melly had caught up an old walking stick and held it at ready. “Still no reason to stand here and watch.”

She, too, drew her breath to shout, and then let it out in a gasp as the grove exploded into movement. Branches whipped and snapped, and there was a low rumbling noise, followed by a hard thud. Details were impossible to make out, but the intensity of violent battle was clear. Eluned put her arm around Griff as he pressed into her, and Eleri tucked in protectively on his far side as something bulky clawed upward to the roof and bounded away in a scattering of tile.

Smaller shapes appeared briefly on the very rim of the roof, then dropped back down into the grove, while a distant shout suggested the creature had leapt to the street on the far side of the warehouses.

“Grandama was coming to collect us!” one of the younger children cried, pelting off, and they all streamed after her down Forest House’s series of stairs, slowing only when they reached the landing on the first floor.

Dama Chelwith, obviously just arrived, turned to look up at them, and then held out her arms. The younger children rushed down, but Eleri and Eluned stopped with Nabah and Melly, staring. Aunt Arianne was walking back inside, followed by the boy in white.

“He jumped out the window!” Griff gasped, catching them up. “That’s Aunt’s vampire!”

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