The Case of the Spellbound Child

by Mercedes Lackey

  “Money do seem to be a powerful curse sometimes,” Suki observed meditatively. “I does like havin’ it, but it do seem to bring its own troubulations.”

  “Tribulations, dear,” Mary corrected automatically. “Other than that, you are quite right.”

  “Well, what I would like to know is, has this cousin got the obvious ulterior motive?” Nan asked bluntly. “I mean, he can protest all he likes that the girl approached him, but there’s a fortune at stake here, and a presumably naive girl in her teens who could just as easily be put away again once she’s been safely married. He wouldn’t even have to put her in an institution! Just manipulate her to keep her a quiet invalid at home, and he could go about having as many opera singers and music-hall dancers as he cared to support!”

  By now John knew the girls far too well to object to this, or protest that a gentleman would do no such thing. He knew such a protest was gammon, and he knew they knew such a protest was gammon. All he could do was shrug. “Alderscroft seems to believe him,” he said. “And the Lion isn’t easily gulled. And young people, girls or boys, are apt to get pashes on inappropriate objects.”

  “All right then, we’ll go into this with an open mind—assuming nothing,” Sarah declared. “With the one object to determine if the girl is being interfered with by anyone or anything. And if we find out the poor creature truly isn’t in her right mind . . . perhaps we can determine an exterior cause.”

  “And if we can’t—we report just that to Alderscroft,” Mary added. “People do go mad all on their own, poor things, and sadly, science and medicine have no answers for it.”

  “I can go flittin’ about lookin’ for ’aunts if Brendan keeps ’is eye on me,” Suki offered.

  “That would be extraordinarily useful, Suki, since in spirit form you can go places in the asylum I cannot. The basement or attic or other dark places, for instance.”

  “Closets,” Suki said wisely. “An’ yew’d get inter trouble if yew went about pokin’ into closets for no good reason.” She stirred a little. “Mebbe I should go up on th’ box with Brendan?”

  John glanced out the window of the coach; Nan did the same. They were in a very quiet, nearly suburban neighborhood, with relatively new houses—they wouldn’t impede traffic here if they paused long enough for Suki to scramble up. John evidently felt the same. He knocked on the roof of the coach and Brendan stopped, and looked down through the trap door.

  “Suki’s ready to come up,” Nan said, before Watson could speak, and rather than waste more time, simply stood up while the coach was stopped and boosted the slender child up through the trap. Suki scrambled up into her “proper” place like a little monkey, and they were off again.

  “Sherlock made contact last night,” Sarah said, once the horses had settled into their slow trot. “Unfortunately, Mary, he doesn’t think it’s safe to come back yet.”

  Mary Watson sighed. “Which means it’s not safe for me to either. Oh well.” She shrugged. “It can’t be helped. I just wish my voice was deeper. It’s impossible to convincingly impersonate a young man when you are a piping soprano.”

  Peter laughed. “I’ll talk for both of us, you just nod or frown at the right times. We can carry it off for one afternoon, anyway.”

  As the others chatted, Nan reflected on the setting they were going to—a private “hospital” or “invalid home.” It wasn’t the first one of these they’d gone to, investigating a situation there, and it probably would not be the last. It was all too common for wealthy people to use such a place to tuck “inconvenient” relatives away, out of the public eye. Physicians often turned a blind eye when enough money exchanged hands, but just as often, the physicians actually agreed with “reasons” why some people—especially women—should essentially be incarcerated away where they could be easily forgotten. Rebellious girls who wanted more than to be a father’s business deal, followed by becoming a husband’s ornament and walking womb for the production of an heir, for instance. . . .

  She couldn’t help but reflect on how lucky she and Sarah were. They had highly interesting, incredibly adventurous lives, and were valued for their intelligence and other gifts. And that was luck on top of luck on top of luck. I could have been one of those girls in that brothel. Or married to that Italian lad with a half a dozen nippers. Or . . . well, scraping my way from meal and bed to meal and bed, and never knowing where the next one was coming from.

  She shook herself loose from both thoughts. Better to keep an open mind, and be aware of all possibilities. That is the original plan, she reminded herself. Don’t go in with preconceived notions.

  And there was nothing worse for an investigation than preconceived notions.

  As the coach pulled into the driveway for this place, she became aware of just how correct that thought had been—because the building could not possibly have been older than fifty years. So much for the notion of ghosts, she thought—although, to be sure, it was possible for the place to be haunted, just not by centuries of accumulated spirits. It appeared that it was not a converted manor, but a purpose-built establishment. But it was not surprising she had never heard of it until now. Most of these places did not advertise and kept themselves very quiet. It was in their interest to keep their business somewhat under the rose, as it were. After all, when you were coddling shattered nerves—and to be fair, that was often the primary business in such an institution—you didn’t want fuss and bother upsetting your patients. And when you were confining the “inconvenient,” well, you certainly didn’t want to draw attention to them.

  This place styled itself a “Convalescent Retreat,” so the directors intended to perpetuate the appearance that the inmates would eventually get well and go home, even if that was quite impossible.

  John Watson had made arrangements for the visit in advance, and they were not kept waiting when they arrived. The entire party was brought straight to the director’s spacious office, where John and the director began a coded conversation in which John implied, but did not say, that the patient in question was not expected to make a recovery.

  But that was where the conversation deviated from what Nan had expected, because the director evidenced concern, and began close questioning as to possible “alternative treatments” with a view to restoring the imaginary patient’s mind and sensibility. She sensed John’s astonishment, because he had assumed, given what they thought they knew, that the object would have been to keep the patient placid and confined here, not actually attempt to cure him.

  John swiftly, and skillfully, switched the slant of his inquiries, and it quickly became apparent that this establishment was not what they had assumed it was.

  Nan could tell that John badly wanted to regroup and come at this with the new information, but that was going to take some very fancy verbal footwork. So for the next half hour, she watched in growing admiration as John—and Peter, following John’s lead—managed to back them out of the predicament they’d almost entangled themselves into. The original plan, that Nan and Sarah should tour the place with one of the establishment’s nursing sisters, was clearly now out of the question.

  When John finally managed to extricate them all, they went down to the coach to find Suki very much awake and bouncing impatiently on the driver’s box. “Brendan, just take us somewhere quiet, please,” John asked the coachman, as that worthy raised his whip and his eyebrow simultaneously. “We did not expect what we encountered.”

  “Well, milor’ Alderscroft ordered a luncheon packed into the boot, Doctor,” Brendan replied with complete calm. “I suspec’ the best answer would be a picnic.”

  “Make it so, Brendan,” Watson replied. “Perhaps lemonade and cold chicken will help us decide what we should do next.”

  4

  BRENDAN managed to find a nice little spot just off the road, on top of a hill and under a tree, to spread out the rugs and the food. He declined to eat with them, sa
ying, “It’s not me place, Doctor,” but did not object to having a plate made up that he could eat at his leisure. Resourceful as always, he had brought nose-bags of grain for the horses. He trudged off with the leather bucket from the boot at the back of the coach and came back with water for the horses as well, and they left him to tend the beasts as he saw fit while they ate and worked out what their next move should be.

  “There ain’t a haunt in that place,” Suki declared around a chicken leg. “I was all over it, and not a haunt a-tall.”

  “I don’t see how we can go back,” Mary Watson observed, peeling a hard-boiled egg. “But I am also reluctant to just go back to Alderscroft and say ‘nothing needs be done.’ There is something suspicious about all of this, but I cannot put my finger on what, precisely.”

  “I completely agree on both counts,” Peter replied. “And this is where I have a proposal.” He looked to Nan, Sarah, and Suki. “Is there any reason why we cannot spirit-travel during the daylight hours? I know that sunlight erodes true ghosts, but would it trouble us?”

  Nan blinked at him, as Suki clapped her hands, regardless of the chicken leg she still held. “According to Beatrice, the living aren’t impeded by daylight,” Sarah replied with authority. “She says our link to the living world makes us impervious to the sun. In fact, she has a great many anecdotes about those who have seen far-distant friends and relations by day, often when they are ill, in peril, or have been rendered unconscious or sleeping.”

  “Well then.” Peter smiled. “Here’s what I propose. We can either have Mary send her little Air Elementals to find the right patient for us while we enjoy our luncheon, or we can spirit-travel there, split up, and search the place for her ourselves. Once we find her, we lead Nan to her, and Nan can read her mind to see what the devil is going on with her. Now what do you think of that idea?”

  “I think it’s a capital one, Peter,” John enthused.

  “Hmm.” Nan was not entirely certain about this plan. “There are a lot of things you’re blithely assuming I can do that I’ve never tried before. Reading minds as a spirit, for a start. Reading the mind of someone who is mad is another; I’m not at all sure what will happen if I try.”

  “We don’t know that she’s mad,” Peter pointed out. “All we know is that the cousin said she appeared to be mad.”

  “True.” Nan frowned. Like Mary, she felt as if there was much more going on than there appeared to be. “I suppose we really need to try,” she said at last. “I can’t in good conscience just walk away from this. I have the strongest feeling that someone is being ill-done-by, and I feel as if I need to find out exactly who it is and remedy the situation.”

  “Since we have no way of actually identifying the girl we are looking for to the Air Elementals, we should probably spirit-travel and search the facility ourselves.” Sarah shrugged and smiled. “I very much doubt we’ll attract any attention if some of us, overcome with sleepiness after an excellent picnic, fall asleep in the shade.”

  “In that case, I am very glad that I came providentially equipped with a book,” Mary replied. John Watson looked a bit crestfallen, until Sarah offered him the Walter Scott she’d been carrying.

  “I have Alexis de Tocqueville if Scott palls,” Nan added as he accepted it.

  With regret, she gestured to Mary to pack up the delicious-looking cakes and strawberries. It was a bad idea to try spirit-traveling on too full of a stomach.

  John went to tell Brendan that they would be here for a while; Brendan responded by moving the entire carriage into the shade of more trees nearby. Then they all settled down, Mary and John with their books, the rest for their “nap.”

  “The director’s office?” Nan suggested, as a place for them all to meet.

  “We’ve all been there but Suki. . . .” Sarah glanced at their ward.

  Suki sniffed with disdain. “I can scarper there quick as quick,” she said.

  “All right then, it’s agreed.” Nan and Sarah put their backs against the tree trunk, with Neville and Grey on their shoulders; Suki lay down with her head in Nan’s lap, and Peter sprawled out with his hat over his eyes. But a sharp eye would note that all of them were in physical contact. That was because, for efficiency and efficacy, Sarah, as an Elemental Master of Spirit, would be in control of their exits into the spirit plane.

  Once she had learned that Sarah was a Spirit Master, Beatrice Leek had been unsurprised, but had added some unexpected information. “Oh, well then,” she’d said casually. “You can go anywhere you like.”

  It had taken a moment for the meaning of that to sink in, and it had been Sarah who had gaped at the self-styled witch, and asked incredulously, “Do you mean . . . anywhere in the world? But that would take for—” And then she had stopped as Beatrice gave her a look that suggested Sarah was missing something important, and amended, “—you mean, instantly?”

  “Oh aye,” Beatrice had replied. “I mean exactly that. As long as you’ve been there yourself, or know someone there to use as your beacon, you could go to the moon if you chose.”

  Heretofore they had assumed that to get to any place via spirit-walking, they would actually have to walk there, in spirit. But here was Beatrice telling them that since Sarah was a Master, they could simply will themselves there. It had been a revelation.

  They’d tried it out at once, of course, opting to travel to Criccieth in Wales, lying down in their flat with great anticipation, and on awaking in the spirit plane, finding themselves immediately at the little guest cottage they’d hired when searching for a new Water Master for Alderscroft.

  It was just as well there was no one currently hiring the snug little cottage, or it could have gotten a reputation for being haunted.

  Nan envied Suki her ability to compose herself and drop off into the requisite trance almost immediately. For her part, she wished they really were just a friendly party out having a picnic in the countryside. It would have been lovely to actually be able to take the nap she was going to feign. Brendan had picked a great spot: enough of a breeze to keep the heat from being oppressive, but enough gentle summer warmth to encourage drowsing. A lark sang in the distance, bees hummed somewhere nearby, and the scent of hot meadow grass was as good as perfume.

  She closed her eyes, and chided herself for allowing her mind to wander. She needed to get her thoughts back on the task she was supposed to be doing. Dropping into the proper mental state required being able to relax and concentrate at the same time, and without Sarah to give her the proper nudge, sometimes she had a spot of difficulty—

  She felt herself falling into the trance, relaxed a little more, and sharpened her focus on every remembered detail of the director’s office—

  And then—there she was. There was no transition as there was when she would step “out of her body” into the corresponding space in the spirit plane. Instead, one moment she was in the soft darkness behind her closed eyelids, and the next, standing in the brilliantly sunlit office. She glanced around and noted wryly that Sarah and Peter were already there, Peter absent-mindedly standing in the middle of one of the visitor’s chairs. Grey was on Sarah’s shoulder, and the comforting weight of Neville was on Nan’s. “You’re late,” Sarah teased. “Suki already let us know she is here and—”

  Suki dashed right through the closed office door to slide to a halt next to Nan. “See!” she crowed. “Tol’ yew I’d be here!”

  Oblivious to all the activity around him, the director continued working at his desk. When Nan concentrated, she heard the scratching of his pen on the paper, and the distant sound of bird calls through the open window. Being in the spirit plane was no longer a novelty, but entering it by daylight was. As usual, the living world around her was not unlike a faded watercolor, but since sunlight flooded everything, it was as if the faded colors had been painted onto glass. It was, she thought, rather lovely.

  “Well, I hate to
throw cold water on our plans,” Peter said, “but I’ve only just realized that we don’t have any way of identifying the girl we’re looking for . . . except that she’s allegedly mad.”

  “Actually, we do,” Nan corrected, admiring the way beams of light slanted across the books behind Sarah. “She’s under eighteen, and from what we know, probably several years younger than eighteen. Most of the patients here are fully adults. She is presumably sound in body, if not in mind. Most of the patients here are suffering from health breakdowns or extreme old age, and many will be bedridden. There can’t be too many girls here who fit both criteria.”

  “Sherlock is rubbing off on you,” Peter observed. “All right then, how shall we divide things up?”

  “By wing,” Sarah decided. “Nan, can you ascertain whether your telepathic abilities still work in the spirit plane before we go searching room to room?”

  Certainly, she thought at them.

  Sarah nodded. “I heard that,” Peter echoed. “Now what about reading the minds around us?”

  She bent her attention to the director, who was slowly and deliberately writing in what looked as if it might be a casebook. It took a little more concentration to skim his surface thoughts than it did when she was fully in the material world; but in a minute or two, she had learned it wasn’t a casebook after all, it was his betting record! With amusement, she noted that he was a very modest gambler, betting entirely on horse races, and risking not much more than a common day-laborer would have. Many bettors prided themselves on a “system”—but being a man of science, he concentrated on learning as much about the health of the horses in the races he followed as he could, and placing his bets accordingly. The pure pleasure he experienced in recording his modest winnings made her smile.