Reaching their destination, Allen motioned them into the front sitting room. It was strikingly similar to Madam Barrington’s parlor in Atlanta, at least as far as antique taste was concerned. It seemed rather more finely decorated than an eccentric such as Allen would have preferred, but being one of Savannah’s historic homes, perhaps it had come that way.
The women took seats on a richly embroidered settee while Sir Kipling crouched at its side, eyes following the slowly circling hands that seemed to follow Allen from room to room. Allen himself did not sit but paced nervously, stopping occasionally to stare at Lily and mutter. As he moved back and forth, Lily marveled at the difference between this man and her father. He was John Faust’s polar opposite in stature, looks, and demeanor, though Lily thought she could detect the same hungry intellect in him as she saw in her father. Obviously, the famed LeFay prowess in magic hadn’t passed Allen by, as evidenced by his abode and the wonders in it.
For a long time they sat in silence, waiting for Allen to speak. Or at least, speak to them. But he seemed to have forgotten their presence, pacing back and forth and carrying on a muttered conversation with himself, mustache dancing as his lips moved. Finally, Madam Barrington tired of his antics and addressed him sharply. “Allen!”
The slight man jumped in surprise, recalling their presence.
Madam Barrington continued in a stern tone. “While I’m pleased to see my tutoring in magic was not wasted on you, I am quite sure I taught you better manners than this.”
“I do—um—apologize, Madam…Miss…I don’t…well, it’s been a long time…you see, I’m not accustomed. To visitors, that is,” he muttered, looking down in contrition. His words were abrupt, almost staccato, as if he were a bird pecking at seeds.
“Then this will be an excellent opportunity to practice,” Madam Barrington said, back straight, eyes piercing. “Allen, allow me to present your niece, Miss Lillian Singer. Lily, Mr. Allen LeFay.”
Lily was torn, not knowing if he expected her to rise and embrace him—being a family member—or if that would be terribly presumptuous. She opted for a bow at the waist from where she sat, painfully aware of her informal attire. Fortunately, Allen didn’t seem to notice. He gave a jerky bow in return and muttered, “Pleased. Quite pleased. Miss.”
Silence fell again, though now, instead of pacing, Allen simply stood and stared at her. He still twitched nervously, muttering to himself and looking over his shoulder every now and then, but she could tell his curiosity was getting the better of him.
With a sigh of forbearance, Madam Barrington broke the silence again. “Well, I suppose that was as good as could be expected. Now, Allen, I’m sure you have questions—”
“Yes! Yes, yes,” he interrupted, suddenly resuming his pacing and wringing his hands. He seemed extremely upset about something. “Questions. I do, in fact. Most urgent. I don’t suppose. Could it have been possible? Do you know if…J—j—j…” unable to continue, he stopped himself, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath, visibly controlling his tremors. Opening his eyes again, he glanced back and forth between them. “Do pardon my, my little quirks. They are, hmm, courtesy of my d—dear brother.” He looked about to start twitching again but rallied himself and continued. “I am usually quite, yes, quite calm. Your unexpected appearance…it put me to mind…most distressing…”
He trailed off, and Lily and her mentor looked at each other, both wearing a similar look of concern. The fact that this brilliant man was clearly terrified at the mere mention of his brother's name boded ill for their quest. Yet Lily thought she understood, and she felt a pang of sympathy for her poor uncle. She knew what it was like to suffer under the manipulative and brutal control of John Faust, and she’d only had to endure a few days of it. Imagine spending a lifetime under John Faust’s, not to mention Ursula’s, thumb. But what had John Faust done to his brother to make him so frightened?
Madam Barrington must have had similar thoughts, because she spoke in a soothing voice. “Do not worry yourself, Allen. We came by means of fae magic. There is no way John could have followed us. Your secret is safe.”
With a whoosh of air, three mechanical hands dove from the ceiling towards one of the sitting room’s chairs, pushing it behind Allen just in time for him to collapse limply onto it. They immediately returned to their slow hover around the ceiling, moving so fast Lily barely had time to process it. She wondered how in the world her uncle was controlling them without speaking.
Allen drew a hand across his brow, but he looked considerably better already. “I had assumed, no, hoped, that you—being familiar with the family—would take precautions. Silly of me to doubt, no doubt.” He smiled weakly at his old teacher, who pursed her lips in reply, though in that way you do when you’re trying not to smile.
“If you had left any way to contact you, we certainly would not have disturbed you so unexpectedly,” Madam Barrington said, half in apology, half in reprimand.
“No, no, not safe. My brother has eyes and ears everywhere. I needed to disappear. Find a place of my own. Somewhere I could be, well, myself. So sorry, Madam. Couldn’t be helped. You can imagine…rather disturbing to—to be found. I’d be very interested to know how you, hmm, did it. Fae magic, you say? Fascinating! How exactly—”
“Perhaps at a later time, Allen,” Madam Barrington cut him off, firmly but politely. “At the moment, we have more pressing matters to attend.”
“Indeed?” Allen asked, one of his eyelids twitching, almost as if he knew what was coming.
“Yes. I’m sure it won’t surprise you to know that your brother is making a nuisance of himself again.”
Lily thought that was the understatement of a lifetime, and apparently Allen agreed. His barking laugh, tinged with nervous hysteria, rang out in a startling burst, then cut off abruptly, as if he only had so much mirth to spare. “Of course. Of course. Always my brother. And I thought, well, I thought I might…shall we say, be rid of him. But no. I suppose that was a foolish hope.” He glanced at Lily as he said this, and she felt a flush rise to her cheeks. Did he mean her? Did he fear and hate his brother so much that he didn’t even want to associate with his niece?
He must have sensed the direction of her thoughts, or at least noticed her red face, because he backtracked quickly. “Not that I don’t…I mean to say, the rest of the family, that is…” He took a calming breath and leaned forward, guilt plain on his face. “Your mother was the bravest woman I’ve ever had the pleasure to, well, meet. We thought she might, hmm, soften J—John’s”—he forced the word out—“rough edges, shall we say. Alas, his edges are not exactly pliable, but she never, hmm, bent either. Stood up to him. I admired that. Wished her well when she, when you, um, disappeared. It was her actions that, well, gave me the courage to do the same.”
At his confession, Lily felt the same flash of anger she’d felt toward Henry and Ursula when she discovered they’d turned a blind eye to her father’s abuse. Yet, she had forgiven them, however grudgingly. The least she could do was extend the same courtesy to her uncle. With an effort, she smoothed her expression and nodded in mute thanks to Allen’s tribute.
Relief passed over his face, and he leaned back. “So, dear Madam. What is, hmm, J—Johnny up to this time?”
Madam Barrington’s mouth twitched in a smile, “If I recall correctly, he tried to curse you any time you called him that when you were boys.”
“Quite,” Allen agreed. “Though, after Mother punished him for withering my tongue, he discovered better, hmmm, more subtle ways to deter me.”
Gripped by a horrified fascination, Lily found herself leaning forward. When Allen didn’t elaborate, she asked, “What did he do?”
“Ah, hmm. Many things. But the straw that broke the camel’s back—my back, so to speak—was the live spiders.”
“What happened?” she asked, not sure if she wanted to know.
“Compelled me to eat them. Not very, well, pleasant.”
Lily recoiled in horror.
“Indeed,” Allen agreed. “He could be a perfect angel. So courteous, so generous and, hmm, kind, when it suited him. Buttered you up, made you feel important. Never malicious without reason. But as soon as you crossed him…” he trailed off with a shrug.
A chill washed over her at Allen’s words. Dark memories rose to the surface and crowded around so that when she tried to speak, her breath caught in her throat, frozen in echoes of dread.
Sensing her distress, Madam Barrington smoothly took up the slack. “Well, as you might imagine, he has not changed for the better. In fact, I believe he has grown a good deal worse…”
For the next half an hour as the sky lightened, the birds twittered, and the streets stirred with life, Madam Barrington told Allen the whole story. Lily chimed in when needed, filling in the gaps and adding insight to John Faust’s actions. Allen listened avidly, occasionally exclaiming or muttering to himself. When they came to the part about Lily’s imprisonment, he became very agitated, especially when Lily told him of the enchanted shackles that had suppressed her ability to use magic.
“Hmm…bad, very bad,” he muttered, rubbing his wrists in a nervous fashion.
“You’re telling me,” Sir Kipling meowed sarcastically, giving a tail twitch that Lily had come to realize was the cat equivalent of an eye roll. “Careful, don’t mention the spying raven or he might have a heart attack.”
Lily shot her cat a suppressive look, unable to scold him properly with a stranger looking on. Given the unprecedented nature of Sir Kipling’s abilities—supernatural even to a wizard—she and Madam Barrington agreed it was best to keep them under wraps, passing her impudent feline off as unusually smart and nosey, but nothing else.
Fortunately, Allen seemed not to notice. He was too busy muttering to himself, occasionally consulting a small book bound in midnight blue leather that he’d conjured up from somewhere. It looked to be an eduba, and Lily wondered where it had come from, since John Faust undoubtedly possessed the family eduba passed down the LeFay line.
“So,” Madam Barrington prompted, when Allen showed no sign of resurfacing from his own little world, “do you know of the text we are looking for? Or rather, did such a text ever exist in the LeFay collection?”
“Hmm? Oh, yes, sorry. I mean, no…wait, what was the question?”
With a look of consternation, Madam Barrington repeated herself. “As I said earlier, we need to find out more about Morgan le Fay, so as to stop John Faust from finding her and acquiring her powers. There was a rumor the LeFay family possessed primary-source material on her history and location. Are you aware of any such book in your family’s collection, and if so, have you read it?”
“Ah, yes. I was just, hmm, checking my library. I can’t quite find…that is, rather jumbled…it might be best to, ah, do it the old-fashioned way.”
Lily couldn’t help but smile at the wizard’s apologetic look. She knew well the difficulty of keeping records organized and properly indexed, and she was a neat freak. She couldn’t imagine how much harder it would be for someone as scatterbrained as her uncle.
“Yes, well…shall we?” He gestured politely, clearly making an effort. When the two women simply looked at each other in confusion, he realized his mistake and jumped up to lead the way, his pale face flushing pink. Lily's heart warmed, feeling an odd rapport with her newly met uncle. She’d always assumed she’d gotten her awkward nature from her father, because it certainly wasn’t from her mother. That was, until she’d met her father. Her new theory had been that Henry was to blame, the trait having skipped a generation and manifested in her. Apparently Allen had gotten a healthy dose of the same gene.
Sir Kipling was the first to rise, trotting forward with his fluffy tail held high, followed in turn by Lily and Madam Barrington.
4
Bachelorhood and Its Pitfalls
Their host led them back down the hall and to the right, into the library. In contrast to the rest of the house, the library was a jumbled mess of stacked books, papers, and bric-a-brac, most of it covered in a liberal layer of dust and cobwebs. Lily noticed that the hovering constructs didn’t follow them into this room, their fluttering process halted by an invisible barrier. Allen must be more obsessive than she’d thought, if he didn’t want his magical housemaids touching all this carefully arranged mess. Her own fingers itched to organize. She felt an almost physical pain at the sight of precious books and documents being treated in such a haphazard manner. It was scandalous. No book deserved such treatment, especially not ones that looked as old and fragile as some of the ones she spotted around the room.
The system seemed to work for her uncle, however. He moved through the stacks with an odd, stork-like grace, weaving between piles of books while deft fingers gently flipped through papers and poked around objects in his search. Again, she was reminded uncannily of herself: so awkward in social situations, yet completely sure and steady in her natural environment. Now if only she could figure out how to maintain her surety in all situations, like Madam Barrington did.
Allen delved further and further into the labyrinth of books, finally disappearing behind one of the massive, freestanding bookshelves near the back.
“Ah-ha!”
The cry of triumph was soon followed by a head poking out from behind the bookshelf. Allen carefully extracted himself from the mess and wound his way back to them, his tartan robe and slippers now liberally smudged with dust.
Back at the library door he held up the ancient volume for them to see, his eyes bright with that inner fervor which drove all scholars. “Here we are. But, it might be best, yes, to retire to the kitchen. As you can see, the library is a bit, hmm, cramped.” He waved a vague hand at the room in general, which indeed only had enough space for a single person amid all the clutter.
As they filed out, Lily noticed Sir Kipling had not entered, but set up post by the door, back straight and eyes bright as he surveyed the goings-on both inside and outside the room. She gave him an odd look as she passed. He flicked his ears at her and meowed softly in distaste. “There is entirely too much dust in that room. I thought it more prudent to guard the door.”
Lily held back, letting the other two pass, then bent down to scratch her cat’s ears. “I thought cats liked to roll around in the dirt?” she murmured softly.
Sir Kipling didn’t reply; instead, he leaned into her hand, relishing the ear scratches. When she stood, he jumped up and put his front paws on her leg, begging to be picked up. Lily rolled her eyes but obliged. It would be easier to carry on a conversation this way in any case.
As she headed after the other two, Sir Kipling elaborated. “We enjoy dirt baths well enough when we need a good scratch, or when it’s hot. But dust is an entirely different matter, not to mention cobwebs. Nasty, sticky things they are.”
She nodded gravely, humoring him. She knew that mere dust and cobwebs wouldn’t stop him if he were curious. It was probably just his excuse to keep an eye on the floating hands, which he was obviously dying to chase.
Speaking of floating hands…she entered the kitchen just in time to see a group of them dive-bombing Allen, all armed to the teeth with brushes and dust cloths. They must have taken offense to him entering their clean kitchen covered in dust. He cursed, flailing his arms and batting away the offending appendages until they retreated, rising to hover about his head in a cloud of quivering indignation, still clutching their cleaning implements.
Madam Barrington, mouth quirked in amusement, reached out to gently take the book from Allen’s hands. “Might I suggest you retire to freshen up before we get down to business? And, perhaps, some clothes might be in order.”
“Ah, yes. An excellent suggestion, Madam,” Allen muttered, blushing and clutching his tartan robe tightly about him as if he suddenly remembered that was all he had on. He beat a quick retreat, followed closely by half of the hands. The other half put away their cleaning implements and got busy preparing breakfast.
Lily watched
in fascination. There was no reason why you couldn’t enchant objects with the same command spells and intelligence as you might build into a humanoid construct, but it was still unnerving to see the disembodied hands at work.
Busy staring at the pair of hands frying an egg, she was startled by a sharp clapping sound. Sir Kipling clawed his way out of her arms and jumped to the floor, glaring behind him before slinking out into the hand-free hallway. Lily saw that the hand-clap had come from a pair of hand constructs which had pulled back a chair for her to sit in at the kitchen table. They motioned insistently, and she obeyed, not wanting to find out what they would do should she refuse. She and Madam Barrington sat watching as the hands brewed tea, fried eggs, and buttered toast. It was all laid before them in an orderly fashion, and they tucked in without a word. Lily was surprised to taste malty undertones in her tea—she hadn’t pegged Allen as a Scottish Breakfast sort of person. Perhaps it was in rebellion to his mother, whom Lily had heard declare during her recent sojourn at the LeFay manor: “Only foreigners break their fast with anything but English Breakfast.”
About halfway through the meal, Allen reappeared wearing a very rumpled white shirt and brown corduroy pants held up by slender suspenders. His house slippers had been replaced by rather scuffed-looking leather loafers that nonetheless gave him the air of an English gentleman. He ruined the image by plopping down in the chair proffered by his enchanted hands and gulping down his fried egg whole as if it were a fish and he were a heron. Lily’s horror deepened when he withdrew a small flask from his pocket and added a healthy dose of golden liquid to his tea—whisky, no doubt. Picking up the cup to drink, he noticed both women staring at him, scandalized. He flushed.
Love, Lies, and Hocus Pocus Allies Page 9