I slumped back into the chair and sighed. “Yes, Grandfather.” Mort and Petey echoed me. Jimmy remained silent.
“Is something wrong with studying?” Grandfather asked. “I could have you clean out the furnace if you prefer?”
“No!” we all said and looked down at our tomes.
“Actually, Mortimer, Paeteri, why don’t you go fetch lunch. I’d like to talk to Finn and James alone for a bit.”
“Yes, Grandfather,” Mort said, and shot me a glance full of resentment, then stood and moved to the door. “Come on, Petey. They’re going to share secret Talker stuff.”
* * *
“There,” Vee thought. “That was the final piece of the puzzle. I have mapped the holes, now I just need to find my way through.”
“Can you tell who made them?” I asked.
“No. It was skillfully done, though. It is a bit like the walls around the changeling’s memories, though weaker, and it was done separately, just days earlier, I think. I found—there. Got it. Now let’s see what was hidden.”
* * *
I stood with my father looking down at Mother’s body, as family and friends who had gathered for the viewing shifted and coughed and whispered at our backs. Father squeezed my shoulder. “I know. I know it hurts, Finn. You think I want to let some stranger dissipate her? You think—” His voice broke. He continued after a second, “You think I don’t want to talk to her again, just one more time, even if it’s through you? But that is exactly why the law is not stupid. Don’t forget about your great-grandmother—” His voice broke again, and he squeezed my shoulder so hard it hurt.
“I only want to say good-bye,” I said.
“There,” Vee’s voice whispered.
Grandfather stepped up to my right, and Father shifted over to my other side.
“Someday,” Grandfather said, and looked at me with eyes rimmed red. “When you’re ready, and if you truly need it, you will be able to speak to your mother again. I made sure of it.”
I frowned, and looked up at him. “But her spirit will be warded.” Necromancer spirits were always warded, to protect the secrets of their family’s craft and to protect the secrets of every spirit they’d ever Talked to.
“I’ll let you in on a little secret,” Grandfather said, leaning in closer and whispering softly. “There are ways to Talk to a spirit that’s been warded, if someone of your close family blood did the warding. Ways I will teach you someday.”
Father shook his head. “We must let her spirit rest, Finn. She earned it.”
Grandfather shot Father a scowl.
I knew what secret Grandfather spoke of. The Anubis spirits.
* * *
A flash, as though my mind jumped to hyperspace, and then—
* * *
“Finn!” Petey called ahead of me in the crawlspace that ran around the attic.
“Pete, shhhh!” I whispered. “Someone might hear you below.” I nearly sneezed from the dust.
“I’m stuck!” Petey said.
I rolled my eyes as I rounded the corner and saw Pete ahead. He was wedged between wooden beams in the narrow, triangular space where the slope of the roof met the unfinished floor. “That’s it, Petey. No more third helpings of Boo Berry from now on.”
“That’s not fair! The hole is a triangle, and I’m … Pete shaped. I just don’t—hey, there’s something here.”
“What?” I asked as I reached him.
“A book. I … I’ve got it. Pull me out.”
I grabbed his feet, backed up a bit on my knees and elbows, and pulled.
“Ow!” Pete said. “My belly!”
“Exactly,” I said.
Pete slid free, and sat up, dislodging some insulation. He had a leather-bound journal in his hand.
“What is it?” I asked.
He opened it up, flipped through the pages. “I don’t know. Here.” He handed it to me, panting, and began examining his stomach, plucking at splinters.
I took the journal and flipped through it. It was filled with tiny, neat writing, and hand-drawn images.
“That looks like Kimba,” Pete said, glancing at the pages.
The picture did look a bit like Kimba. But as I read the writing beneath it, I learned it was actually an Anubis. Not the Anubis of legend, but one of many Anubis spirits the legend was probably based upon, ancient Fey spirits who crossed into our world long ago and remain disembodied, surviving by feeding off the magic and life energy of the deceased.
According to the writing, a ward against Talking was really a binding of sorts on an Anubis spirit, not on the actual spirit of the deceased, forcing the Anubis to block all attempts of the deceased’s spirit from returning to our world even if summoned.
Still, while there was no way to summon a warded spirit, the journal said this didn’t prevent a necromancer from visiting a warded spirit on the other side of death’s veil, if a bargain could be reached with the Anubis warding that spirit. But, it warned, such a bargain was likely to carry a heavy price for the necromancer.
I flipped more through the journal and realized what it was. “Pete, this is Mom’s diary. I don’t think she’d want us looking at it. Put it back, quick, right where you found it.”
* * *
Another flash and jump—
* * *
I rushed to Felicity’s body, spread out on my bedroom floor.
“Father!” I took Felicity’s hand. Her fingernails were always dirty from working in the garden. “It’ll be okay,” I said, tears welling in my eyes. “Hang on.”
My door opened. Father looked down at me and Felicity, and blinked. Something red speckled the edge of Father’s sleeve. Not faded red, not dark brown, but red as the blood on Felicity’s robe.
“Finn, what did you do?” Father asked. He sounded confused.
* * *
“I want to wake!”
* * *
I rushed up into warm light, to the smell of old books, and the velvety feel of the chair’s fabric. I blinked and looked around the room, half expecting to see my grandfather still there. But he wasn’t. He was dead. I was no longer a boy.
And my father had attacked Felicity.
12
Where Is My Mind?
I sprang to my feet, and rushed toward the door. Zeke pushed off the wall like a drunk and put a hand against my chest.
“Woah there, Speedy Gonzales. What did you remember?” He sounded almost too exhausted to speak, but his hand remained solid as a wall.
Petey stepped up beside me. “Don’t push my brother around.”
Zeke’s eyebrows rose. “Or what, Paunch? You’ll give me fleas?”
I put a hand on Pete’s shoulder. “It’s okay.” I glanced back at Vee. Did she see my memories, or only the shape of them? Had she been able to read my thoughts even when I wasn’t talking to her? She just sat rubbing her eyes and pinching the bridge of her nose.
“Don’t look at my sister,” Zeke said. “It’s a simple question. What did you remember?”
“I’m not sure yet. I need to check on something, process it a bit.”
Zeke’s eyes narrowed for a second. “Fine. Just don’t leave the house without me.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I said, and moved past him. I opened the door. Heather jumped, raising one hand as if to knock.
“Oh! Hello,” she said. “I was just coming to let you know lunch is ready.”
“Thanks. Is Father in the dining room?”
“No. Mattie took a dish to him in his room.”
“Okay. I need to talk to him before eating.” I slid past her.
“Sure,” she said. “Should I have Petey show these nice folks their rooms if they’re staying?”
I turned back. “Actually, if you could take Vee? She’s not comfortable around, uh, waerwolves.”
“It’s okay,” Vee said. “Pete seems … safe.”
Zeke’s gaze snapped to Petey, and back to Vee, and he frowned. “Why don’t someone just tell us
where the rooms are, and I’ll take my sister there.”
Heather sighed. “I’ll show you both up, it’s no trouble at all. You said Pete and Sammy’s old rooms?”
I nodded, and Heather led Zeke and Vee back up the hall.
Pete watched Vee leave. I patted him on the arm. “I can tell you like her, bro, but I don’t think it would work out.”
Now Pete looked as though I’d canceled Christmas.
“Why not?”
“Well, her brother wouldn’t let it work, for one. And she’s—” I was going to say a waer, but that would only appeal to Pete. He thought himself immune to the danger of infection, and he couldn’t care less that she had a Fey spirit infecting her. “I think she may be a little crazy, Pete. I’ll find you a girlfriend who’s right for you. Trust me.”
“Okay.” Pete didn’t look or sound convinced at all. A lost puppy peering in through an orphanage window during a rainstorm couldn’t have been sadder, and my own heart lurched in response.
“Hey,” I said. “Tell you what. If you want to help out Vee, maybe you should call Sammy and have her come over? I’m sure Vee could use someone to talk to besides her brother. A woman.” It didn’t seem like she and Heather were meshing. And Sammy’s experience helping women adjust to new lives might be especially helpful.
A look of purpose replaced Pete’s sad expression. “That’s a good idea. I’ll call Sammy.”
He scuffled off toward the kitchen. I started down the hall on the opposite side of the stairs, back toward the master bedroom, but had a better idea. I diverted to the basement and grabbed an amulet first, then resumed course for my father’s room.
The master bedroom was the only bedroom on the main floor. Bookshelves lined the walls, still mostly filled with the romance novels and literary classics my mother had loved. In one corner sat the small love seat where, as a child, I’d sometimes curled up in Mother’s arms while she lay there and read a book in the evenings. It appeared smaller than I remembered, the colors faded.
Father sat at his small desk by the window looking out on the garden. I remembered the desk covered in pieces of polished driftwood and shells and bits of brass and copper, the materials from which he created the little art pieces he sold in the souvenir shops on Water Street. Or used to sell, I suppose. Now the desk held only a half-eaten bowl of pasta, and a small tree in a ceramic planter. Father inspected the tree branch by branch, a pair of pruners in his right hand, and he appeared oblivious to my arrival.
Mattie sat at Mother’s old desk, eating pasta and typing away on what I realized was a connected Apple computer and monitor that together were no thicker than a magazine. I stared at it for a second, reliving the same sense of lost time and opportunity that seeing her mobile phone had given me. Then Mattie looked up and smiled. “Uncle Finn! How’s it going?”
“I’ve had better days,” I said, watching Father from the corner of my eye. He still showed no obvious reaction to my arrival.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Mattie said. “Hey, I downloaded a Commodore emulator on my laptop. Wanna see?”
Even though I only understood half of what she’d just said, I understood Commodore and could tell she was trying to connect with me.
“I can’t right now, but definitely later, I promise,” I said.
“Sure, okay. No problem.”
She sounded her normal bubbly self, yet I got the feeling she heard that promise a lot.
“Really, Mattie, it sounds fun. Tell you what. I have some stuff to do, but when I’m done, I’ll find you and we can compare computers. I’ll show you how awesome Wizball is, and you can show me all the cool stuff I’ve missed. But first, I need a few minutes alone with Father.”
“Sure. I need to vacuum anyway.” She folded her Apple computer closed and left.
I shut the door behind her, then moved to stand beside Father, on his left, away from the pruning shears.
“Father?”
“Hello, Finn, yellow Finn, hope you know how to swim.” He didn’t look at me as he spoke.
“Father, what happened with Felicity? Why was I framed?”
Might as well get right to the point. I already knew from my recovered memories that Father was involved somehow in Felicity’s assault. And I felt certain he’d been possessed when it happened, that something had made him do it. That explained his madness, and why he would have done something so terrible to begin with. And that explained the how of it as well, since he couldn’t have performed necromancy, dark or otherwise, on his own. But I needed to be sure.
Father looked up at me, and nodded sideways at the tree. “Branches and brains,” he said. “Make you do funny things.” He returned to studying the branches.
“Father, concentrate! Try to make sense. This is important. What possessed you? Who keeps trying to frame me? Why did Felicity blame me? Did she do it on purpose, or did somebody make her do it? Please, help me understand.”
Father prodded at a branch with the pruner, and waved me away with the other hand. “The blame for frame falls mostly in the rain. Go dig dirt, it’s what monkeys doo doo.”
I didn’t immediately dismiss his words as gibberish, hoping that maybe a real answer hid among them, that enough of my father remained to try to reach me through the madness. Father had a touch of prophecy, and that gift was always made stronger by madness for some reason, which led to the unfortunate fact that the more important a prophet’s words, the less likely they were to be heeded. “Are you saying—is there a clue of some kind buried in the yard outside? Or someplace else, in the dirt?”
Father laughed. “Monkey did it in the parlor with the banana lickity-split. Dance little monkey!” He danced the shears across the desktop and hummed tunelessly.
I paced away from him. Tears burned my eyes. There were no clues in his words, just gibberish after all. The truth behind everything that had happened to me was within reach, and yet still unreachable.
But I still couldn’t believe that my father was beyond help, beyond helping me. I’d seen him stare down trolls who demanded all the magic from their deceased, seen him spend hours patiently piecing together a delicate artifact, felt his strength and quiet wisdom throughout my life before exile.
I paced back to him, and knelt at his side. I squeezed his arm. “Father, please. I need your help. I need you. I know you can do this, you can fight this madness and speak to me clearly. What happened with Felicity?”
Father frowned, and the whole left side of his face twitched. He shook his head, as though arguing with someone, and pounded his fist on the table. “No! I … I have to make the snakes dance right. Go ask your mother. She knows everything about every ring around she knowsy.” He shuddered, and closed his eyes for a second, then went back to inspecting the branches.
I sat a minute and watched him, watched his bleary eyes scanning the branches, his left cheek still twitching every second or so in a barely perceptible tic. Finally I stood and rubbed his back with one hand. “I love you, Father. And I forgive you. I know you didn’t want to hurt Felicity, or me. I promise you, I’m going to make this all right somehow.”
A tear fell from Father’s nose onto the nearest tree branch, but otherwise there was no sign he understood me.
I crossed the room to a painting that hung between two bookcases. Created hundreds of years before my birth, the painting showed a desk of wood that looked black except for the deep red-brown highlights, its surface covered by a book, ink, quill, and several objects of silver and bronze and bone, artifacts of the necromantic arts. Painted above the desk hung a round mirror of polished bronze framed in what looked like pale wood, but I knew it to be shaped bone.
I touched the painting and felt a chill seep from it into my hand. I called up a portion of the magic at my core, and shaped it to my intent. “Facere realis,” I said. The magic drained from me, through my hand to the painting, and the glamour lifted. I stared into a real bronze mirror now, which reflected my face back at me. “I am of the family blood and have
a right to that which you protect,” I said. My face in the mirror wavered, and then said back, “Proceed then, child of Gramaraye.”
I reached into the painting, now become a portal, and grabbed the book. If I’d not been of Gramaraye blood, the portal would have closed, neatly cutting off my arm and adding my hand to the objects in the painting. But I was able to pull the book free without incident.
I knew right away this wasn’t the family ledger I remembered. The leather binding was new, not blackened from age, the pages white and crisp, not yellow and filled with the records of all those for whom my family had performed necromantic rites over the past few centuries. And the entries in this book started soon after my exile. I reached back in, searched the desk drawers for the old ledger, patting around the edges of the space out of sight just to be sure. No luck.
“Damn it!”
I turned to ask Father where the old ledger was but realized that would be pointless. He wouldn’t answer. And I could guess anyway—destroyed, to hide exactly what I wanted to know.
I did find a copy of Grandfather’s will, and glanced at it before putting it and the new ledger back. Grandfather had set up rules for inheriting the family business—first, that the person be of Mother’s lineage, thus bypassing Father even though he’d taken the Gramaraye name. And that it go to a Talker, and if no Talker was of age and able to run the business, then to the oldest Gramaraye that had a child to carry on the family line.
Which conjured up a terrible thought—did Mort have a child just to secure his right to run the business?
I looked up, in the direction of Mort’s room.
Father wasn’t really the killer, he was the weapon. He was as much a victim as I was. And how perfect an opportunity for Mort, to get rid of Father and me with the same single act of betrayal and murder and have the business all to himself, to be in charge the way he always wanted.
Yet I’d seen Mort in all his inept glory and thought I’d made some progress in understanding him. I still saw him more as the boy I grew up with than whatever man he’d become. I just couldn’t believe that Mort, my big brother, would have willingly participated in harming Felicity and Father, even if he nurtured some kind of obsessive grudge against me.
Finn Fancy Necromancy Page 14