The Master of Heathcrest Hall

by Galen Beckett

  Ivy assured her the little cat would be taken care of—that Mrs. Seenly would not abandon her, and that it was better they had not brought Miss Mew with them, for there was no milk to have here. Rose agreed with this point. And though she missed the cat, her attentions were soon fixed upon the porcelain doll instead, and she kept it close always.

  While Rose had been brave, Ivy could not say the same for herself—for there was something she should do, something she knew she must, but could not bring herself to. From time to time, when Rose was occupied with her sewing, Ivy would take out the small, cloudy gem that Mr. Rafferdy had given her just before their parting. He had not had an opportunity to tell her exactly what it was, yet she could not say that she did not have an inkling. For why else was she so reluctant to do as Mr. Rafferdy had instructed?

  I have cast an enchantment on it that should allow you to see an echo of the things that it revealed to me, he had told her. When you are ready, tap it three times and gaze into it.

  What thing could the gem have witnessed that day that she had not already seen herself? There was only one possibility, and she did not need to watch a reflection of that event to know that it had occurred; she felt it in her heart, which was as darkened and hollow as the husk of the manor’s south wing. She would never see Mr. Quent again in this life. She would never feel the prickling of his beard against her cheek or the strength of his arms enclosing her. She was lost and alone upon a moor, powerless to stop the cold rains that lashed at her; and no matter how many times she called for him, he would not come for her again.

  All the same, each time she gazed into the dim jewel, Ivy knew she should do as Mr. Rafferdy had said. Surely he had given it to her for some purpose other than to horrify her. There was something it could reveal to her, something she needed to witness for herself. Yet each time, Ivy would put the gem back into the Wyrdwood box without tapping it as he had directed.

  It was the morning of their fifth lumenal at Heathcrest when there came a knock at the front of the house. The sound of it was so unexpected that Ivy hardly knew what she was hearing. For up until then she had seen no sign of any sort of human presence outside the windows of the manor: no horses in the distance, or threads of smoke rising from a croft.

  Then it came again: a steady pounding upon the door. Rose had hugged the doll tightly, her eyes wide. Ivy had hesitated. Then she took up a poker from the hearth.

  “Stay here,” she said to Rose, then went to the front hall.

  It occurred to her that this was absurd, that a band of robbers would have no fear of a small woman in a gray dress, armed with a poker or not. But then the knocking came again, and there was nothing to do but answer it, lest they let themselves in. Raising the poker, she flung open the door.

  Who was more astonished, she or the dark-haired man on the other side, it was difficult to say. Ivy knew her mouth was formed into a circle much like his own.

  “Lady Quent!” he said, even as she exclaimed, “Mr. Samonds!”

  For a long moment they stared at each other, as if to make certain their eyes had not deceived them. But there could be no mistake. His face was perhaps a bit more tanned and weatherworn than before, but remained kind and open. At last, as if having made his own confirmation of her identity, he glanced down at the poker in her hands.

  “You look very intent upon using that, your ladyship,” said the farrier of Cairnbridge village.

  Hastily, she lowered the poker. “I could not know who it was at the door. I feared the worst. But to discover it is you, Mr. Samonds, I …” She was at a loss to say anything more, and instead reached out and took his hand, and gripped it tightly. It was roughened from his work, though when he squeezed her hand in return it was with the gentlest pressure.

  At last she recovered enough to invite him in, and he readily agreed, for the mist was beginning to bead upon his brown coat. It was only as he stepped over the threshold that Ivy noticed the pistol in his hand. Ivy was not the only one who had been prepared for an unfriendly welcome when the door was opened. Mr. Samonds put the pistol in his belt, covering it with his coat, and followed after Ivy.

  She brought him into the little parlor, and introduced him to Rose as a fond acquaintance from her prior time at Heathcrest. Mr. Samonds’s hands might have been rough, but his voice and manner were both soft, and Rose’s fear was at once dismissed—though she remained shy, as she ever was around strangers, and cradled the doll on her lap while Ivy bade Mr. Samonds to sit by the fire. Ivy had no tea to offer him (for Rose had yet to discover the box of tea), but she had found a half-full bottle of whiskey in her explorations, and had brought it to the parlor thinking it might prove useful.

  It did now as she offered some of the whiskey to Mr. Samonds, and he accepted it gladly.

  “The lumenal has just begun, and it might be deemed early for spirits,” he said after taking a sip of the whiskey. “But who can really tell what is early and late these days? The lumenals and umbrals are all a muddle.”

  “They are, though it seems to be more often the latter than the former here in the country,” Ivy said.

  “So it does. But how is it you happen to be in the country at all, Lady Quent? Given all that has occurred, I am astonished to find you here. And where is your husband?”

  Ivy suddenly found it hard to draw a breath. She was mindful of Rose upon the sofa. “I’m afraid my husband is … not with us.”

  His look was startled, and he hastily set down the whiskey glass. Rose presumed Mr. Quent remained in prison in the city; she did not yet know the truth. But Ivy thought Mr. Samonds must have an inkling of it now.

  “How is it that you are here yourself?” Ivy said hastily. “Back in the city, we heard of the troubles in the West Country. And since Rose and I have been here, we have not seen any sign of another soul out the windows.”

  “I am not surprised by that,” Mr. Samonds said grimly. “There were a number of skirmishes in the county the better part of a month ago. But as I guess you know, Huntley Morden’s men won out, and Valhaine’s soldiers were forced to retreat to the east. By then, most of the people in the county had fled to escape the fighting. There’s not a person left in Cairnbridge at the moment, though some yet remain in Low Sorrell. None of the young men, of course, for they’ve all joined up with Morden’s army. But some of the elderly, or those who could not bear a journey, stayed there.”

  These words alarmed Ivy. While she knew the rebels had taken the West Country, she had not really considered what it meant until that moment. “So we are behind the line of the war,” she murmured.

  “Or ahead of it, depending on your point of view,” he said, raising an eyebrow.

  “I did not come here with the intention of taking up sides in a war, Mr. Samonds,” she said. “Only to find a safe place for my sister and myself. But what of your aunt? Is she one of those who remained in Low Sorrell?”

  He nodded. “She refused to go when the fighting broke out.”

  Ivy thought of Miss Samonds—of her crooked fingers and bent limbs, which had been affected by a childhood infirmity of the joints. “Is she so unwell as to not be able to travel?”

  “No, she is well—stronger than many, despite what she has suffered in the past. She said she did not want to leave her cows, for fear they would be stolen. But in truth it was her intent to look after some of the other folk in the village who were too old or ill to leave.”

  Ivy could not help smiling. “She is a very able woman.”

  “So she is. All the same, I was concerned for her. So as soon as I was approved for a leave, I left my regiment and came directly here.”

  Ivy was astonished anew. Then she regarded his brown coat, and thought of the pistol he had tucked in his belt, and she realized she should not have been. Why else would a man in his late twenties, without a wife and used to working with horses, remain in this part of the country?

  “You have enlisted in Morden’s army,” she said.

  “As has nearly every abl
e-bodied young man in the West Country, or at least those that didn’t run for the east at the first sign of war.” He met her gaze. “I hope you are not too dismayed at this news, Lady Quent. I think you know that by nature I am not a violent man. But in the course of my trade, I’ve learned that to repair a broken horseshoe, you must put it to the fire before you can forge it anew. I think Altania is broken right now. And to be whole again, I believe it must be reforged with a rightful king at its head, rather than a self-proclaimed guardian.” He looked up at her. “Forgive me if I offend, your ladyship.”

  Ivy gripped the arms of her chair. Then she leaned forward, taking up the glass he had set down, and drank the rest of the whiskey herself. Never before had she imbibed such liquor, save a splash or two mixed with tea. But at that moment, she welcomed the hot fire that descended within her.

  “I have no allegiance to Lord Valhaine,” she said in a flat tone. And while Mr. Samonds’s expression was full of questions, she expounded no further upon the topic.

  After that, they spoke of the situation in the county. Mr. Samonds explained how, in Low Sorrell, a boy who had been out on the moors, trying to gather up scattered sheep, spoke of seeing a light at dusk two days past, up on the ridge where Heathcrest Hall stood. Hearing this, Mr. Samonds had feared some enemy soldiers might have been hiding out there.

  Though Valhaine’s forces had been driven eastward, there were some deserters from the royal army who had fled the fighting, and who had remained behind in the county. They were desperate and dangerous men and, being enemies of both sides now, they had turned to banditry to sustain themselves. Thinking such men might be using the abandoned manor as a refuge, Mr. Samonds had come to investigate.

  “But you found us instead,” Rose said, looking up from the porcelain doll.

  “For which I am exceedingly glad,” Mr. Samonds replied.

  Ivy considered the signs of disturbance they had found in the pantry. “None of Valhaine’s soldiers are here now,” she said. “But I think such men may indeed have been in the house at some point.”

  “That does not surprise me,” he said. “But I wonder why they should have left. This manor would have offered a fine hiding place for them.”

  “Perhaps the fire drove them off,” she said, and offered her theory that it was lightning that had caused the fire in the south wing.

  “You may be right,” Mr. Samonds replied. “If so, it was a lucky stroke, and luckier still that the fire did not take the whole house.”

  “Perhaps it knew we were coming,” Rose said, smoothing the doll’s dress, “and wouldn’t let itself be burned.”

  Ivy was used to Rose saying peculiar things, but if Mr. Samonds was disconcerted by this, he did not show it. Instead, crinkles appeared by his eyes as he smiled. “Perhaps it did at that. This is an old house, and a wise one, I would say.”

  Rose nodded solemnly. “Yes, it is.”

  Ivy asked Mr. Samonds if he would like more whiskey, but he regretfully declined. His leave was brief, and he had only time to say good-bye to his aunt before he had to ride back to his regiment, which was readying to march east. He rose from his chair, and they both went with him to the front door.

  “Good-bye, Miss Lockwell,” he said with a bow to Rose. Then he clasped Ivy’s hand in parting. As he did, he leaned close, speaking so only she could hear. “Be vigilant, Lady Quent. If some of Valhaine’s soldiers do remain in the county, they have no allegiance and nothing to lose, and so I fear are not above any action.”

  Ivy did not know what to say that would not upset Rose, and so only nodded. He put on his hat and went out into the mist. Then Ivy closed the door, and the two sisters were alone in the old manor once more.

  BY IVY’S BEST CALCULATIONS, Mr. Samonds’s visit had been more than a half month ago. Now, in the little parlor, Ivy and Rose finished their cups of tea, brewed from the box Rose had just discovered. The hot drink did much to bolster Ivy’s spirits, and she was tempted to brew another pot. Yet it was best to conserve the tea, for there was not a great amount of it.

  And she still did not know how long they would have to remain here at Heathcrest.

  With that thought in mind, Ivy retrieved the Wyrdwood box from the shelf in the parlor. She took out the black-covered journal, then began turning through the pages, hoping to find one that bore words she had not seen before.

  Listen to your father, the man in the mask had said to her. He will tell you what to do.

  Only so far, he had not. Ivy had checked the journal with great frequency since arriving at Heathcrest Hall, but not a single word had appeared on its pages. But some had to manifest themselves soon. After all, that was the real enchantment of the journal—that an entry would appear only when the heavens were arranged in the particular manner prescribed by her father when he wrote the words.

  If my calculations are correct, even as you read this, the Grand Conjunction fast approaches, he had written in his previous entry. And, Look for another note from me when the alignment begins.

  But it was already beginning, wasn’t it? She had watched at night as the glowing sparks of the planets all began to converge upon one quadrant of the sky—the very same occupied by the red, unblinking eye of Cerephus.

  Yet as she turned through the journal now, all of the pages were blank. If only there was a way to talk to her father, to ask him what she was supposed to do. But his spirit still resided in the house on Durrow Street. And as for his physical form, there was no telling where Mr. Bennick had taken him. Perhaps he had delivered her father to Mr. Gambrel—perhaps the two magicians had found some way to discover Mr. Lockwell’s piece of the keystone. In which case they would have no more need of him …

  No, she could not consider that possibility, not now. Besides, while she might not be able to speak with her father, there was someone else who had spoken to him.

  “Rose,” she said, shutting the journal.

  Rose looked up from her sewing. She was cutting pieces from one of the dresses they had found in the wardrobe upstairs. The garment was of a size that it could not have been worn by a girl of more than five or six. Rose was using it to fashion a new dress for the porcelain doll—one made of silk, and of a blue so deep it was almost black.

  “What is it, Ivy?”

  “Just before we left the city, you said that you spoke to Father, and that he said we had to come to Heathcrest.”

  Rose nodded. “Yes, that’s what he said. And now we’re here.”

  “Yes, we are. But was there anything else that he said to you that day—anything at all?”

  “I think so,” Rose said slowly. “I mean, yes, he did say some other things. Only I don’t always understand what he’s telling me. Sometimes he uses words that I don’t know.”

  Ivy sat up straight in the chair. “What did he say to you?”

  “I’m not sure. Everything was all in a hurry. Mr. Rafferdy and Mr. Garritt were there, and the soldiers were coming.”

  “You must try to remember, Rose. It might be very important. Our father said we had to go to Heathcrest Hall. But did he say anything more? Did he say why?”

  Rose shut her eyes, and a line appeared between her fine eyebrows. “He said something about the calculations, that they were off.”

  “The calculations?”

  Still Rose did not open her eyes. “He said one of the gears in the globe was the wrong size, but that Mr. Larken was able to fix it and then adjust the clock. Only then it was too late. The others were coming.”

  “Too late?” Ivy said, a shiver creeping up her neck. “Too late for what?”

  Rose shook her head. “It was hard to understand him. He was speaking so quickly. I think he was talking about a book—that it was too late to fix something in the book, and that words wouldn’t appear when they were supposed to anymore. But that doesn’t make any sense to me. How can words appear in a book?”

  Ivy gripped the journal tightly and fear welled up in her. Rose could not understand her father’s stateme
nts, but Ivy thought that she did. Her father had used the celestial globe to calculate the future positions of the planets, so that he could cause entries to appear in the journal at a prescribed time—entries that would tell Ivy what to do. Only some flaw had been discovered in the workings of the globe. Mr. Larken had been able to correct it, as well as the old rosewood clock, but there had been no time to rework the journal. For by then, some of the magicians of his order were coming to seize the Eye of Ran-Yahgren.

  Now Ivy knew why the last entry she had discovered had appeared so briefly, and why it had faded before it even became fully visible—the heavens had not moved as her father had predicted, and had only briefly approached the required alignment. That hadn’t been the case with the prior entry; that writing hadn’t been gray and dim, and hadn’t faded so quickly. Which meant that her father’s calculations were growing more discordant as time passed.

  Look for another note from me when the alignment begins, her father had written. But what if, due to the errors in the celestial globe, the heavens never aligned themselves as her father had assumed? What if the next entry in the journal never appeared at all? If it didn’t, everything would be for naught; she would lack the final clues she needed to solve the elaborate puzzle her father had designed for her all those years ago.

  “Don’t worry, Ivy.”

  Rose’s eyes were open now, gazing at her, and Ivy could only suppose the horror on her face had been apparent.

  “I remember something else Father said,” Rose went on. “I didn’t know what it meant, but you’re very clever at such things, so maybe you do. He said, ‘Wait for the third occlusion, then open the book.’ Do you know what that means?”

  Yes, Ivy did—or at least she thought so. Originally, she supposed, her father had intended for an entry to appear as the Grand Conjunction began. Instead, due to the error in his calculations, it would instead appear at the third occlusion—the moment when three planets fell in line behind Cerephus. But how would Ivy know when that moment came? What if the sky was cloudy, or the planets were too dim and distant to observe?