Charles Bewitched (Leland Sisters)

by Doyle, Marissa

  “Thank you.” Charles approached cautiously and took it from him. “I...er, I’m sorry if I scared you yesterday. I just wanted you to tell—oh, this is my sister’s husband, Lord Seton, and his father Lord Northgalis, and her maid, Miss Allardyce. This is the boy who saw Persy yesterday—I say, you never told me your name.”

  The boy eyed him suspiciously, then said, “Nando’s what I go by. An’ I weren’t scared. I jist didn't want to talk to nobody then.”

  “We would be very grateful, Nando, if you could tell us now where you saw Lady Seton,” Lochinvar said.

  “And I would be very grateful if we could have some breakfast,” Charles said suddenly. Something about Nando’s face told him that no food has passed the boy’s lips since the sandwiches yesterday. Maybe food would again allay his suspicions so he could tell them more about the fairies who’d taken Persy.

  Lorrie nodded briskly. “An excellent suggestion. I’ll go see if we can’t have something sent up. I’ll just be a few minutes.”

  There was an uncomfortable silence after she left the room. Lochinvar cleared his throat, and Nando jumped.

  “Well,” said Charles. Someone had to do something, so he plopped down to sit cross-legged on the hearthrug. After a minute, Nando did too. Charles examined him and saw bits of leaves and pine needles stuck in his hair and wondered if he’d spent the night in the woods, then remembered what Lochinvar had told them last night. “We thought your wagons had left yesterday,” he said, not quite asking a question but hoping for an answer anyway.

  The boy’s eyes welled up. He rubbed at them fiercely. “Aye, they did,” he said after a moment.

  “But you didn’t go with them.”

  “They—they was gone afore I got there.”

  “They left you behind? Your family—your mother and father?”

  Nando sat in silence. “Don’t have mother nor father,” he finally said. “They’re dead five, six year. My beebee—my mother’s sister—I lived with her and her husband, but they didn’t like my father and don’t like me. They musta left in a hurry yesterday ‘cos they left the coney my kak had caught, hanging inna tree—” He looked guiltily at Lord Northgalis, who somehow didn’t seem to have heard his last sentence.

  “So you spent the night in the woods all by yourself? That was brave,” Lochinvar said gently.

  Nando’s shoulders straightened a little. “I wasn’t scared much. All the gadze in the woods frighted off anything bad.” He looked at Charles. “I don’t know if I can find my kumpania again, or if I want to—I’m tired of my kak beating me all the time. But I wanted to give that back to you before I go, to prove I’m no thief.”

  Charles’s throat suddenly felt tight. Here was a—a child, really—whose family had abandoned him with only the scanty clothes on his back, but whose concern was to return a handkerchief that he probably could have sold or traded for the price of a loaf of bread. “No, you’re a brick, is what you are.”

  Nando looked down at the hearthrug for a minute, then up at Charles. A shy smile, free from suspicion or bitterness, lurked at the corners of his mouth.

  “Of course he is,” Lorrie said, backing into the room with a large tray. She set it on a table and beckoned to the boys. “Very well, you two. There’s cold ham, and boiled eggs, and bread and butter, and a pitcher of good milk. Mrs. Harris will be insulted if there’s anything left, by the way.”

  Lochinvar and his father declined to join them, so Charles did his best to keep Nando company in consuming Mrs. Harris’s bounty. It only seemed to be the polite thing to do, while the adults watched them with barely concealed impatience. Honestly, hadn’t they noticed the poor thing was practically starving?

  Nando was obviously aware of their impatience. After his fifth slice of ham and a long pull of milk, he reluctantly set down his knife, rose, and faced them squarely. “You’re wantin’ me to tell you about your bori who got taken by the Biti Foki,” he said, addressing Lord Northgalis.

  The older man sighed. “I’m not convinced it was the, er—the Biti Foki who took her, but you obviously saw someone with her.”

  “With all respect, my lord, you’re forgetting the arrowhead,” Lorrie said.

  Charles bit back an impatient exclamation. “Shouldn’t you let Nando tell you what he saw before you decide anything?”

  There was another uncomfortable pause. “Very well, young man,” Lord Northgalis finally said. “What did you see?”

  Nando told them what he’d told Charles. Lochinvar frowned in concentration as he spoke. “Where were you again? And in what direction were they going?”

  “About…” Nando went to a window and looked out. “Eeee, all that glass,” he muttered, touching it gently, and squinted out across the lawn. “About a half-mile that way. I was in a clump of holly bushes, so the Biti Foki couldn’t see me. They were going northwest.”

  “Toward the barrows up near Mab’s Hill,” Lochinvar said softly, looking at his father.

  Lord Northgalis hesitated, then sighed again. “You truly believe that Persephone was kidnapped by fairies?”

  Lochinvar sighed too. “Father,” he said gently, and made a penknife sitting in a tray on the table rise a few inches into the air. Nando’s jaw dropped. “I know you don’t care for it, but if I can do that—and Persy is capable of far greater magic—then why not fairies? If what Charles and Lorrie say is correct, then it’s hardly surprising, even, that they took her. If I’d only known—” He looked away. The knife fell to the desk with a clatter.

  Lord Northgalis stared at the fallen knife. “Just like your mother,” he said, wonderingly. “I didn’t know you still remembered how…and Persephone too, you say.”

  “Yes,” Charles and Lorrie both answered.

  Lord Northgalis glanced at them sharply but didn’t comment. “Then what shall we do? Go and dig up the barrows?”

  “I don’t think that would be wise,” Lorrie said. “The barrows are places where the Fair Folk pass between this world and their own. If we disturb them, we might never be able to get Lady Seton back.”

  Lochinvar drew in a harsh breath. “What do you think we should do, then?”

  “We should set a watch on them. If they’re there, they might come out again—if not tonight, then tomorrow or some other night. We’ll just have to be patient.”

  Lochinvar straightened. “Very well. If I get there shortly before dusk, I should be able to find a good spot to watch from before I—”

  “Wait,” Charles interrupted him. Was Lochinvar going to wade in among them with a sword or something, demanding Persy back like a knight rescuing a damsel in distress? Love did make people horripilatiously stupid, didn’t it? “Don’t you think it would make more sense for me to go?”

  “Charles, I appreciate the thought. But Persy is my wife.”

  “Which is precisely why you shouldn’t go,” Lorrie said, to Charles’s surprise. “If you’ll permit me, milord—you’re a large adult human who wants his wife returned to him. They’ll be able to sense you coming from a mile away. Charles has a much better chance of getting close to them…and I would wait until full dark to go anywhere near them, well after they’ve come out and relaxed their watchfulness.”

  Lochinvar scowled and was about to speak, but Lord Northgalis forestalled him. “They’re right, my son. I know you would like nothing better than to storm the castle, so to speak—I would too. But I get the impression that it is the last thing we should do.” He looked at Charles soberly. “Do you think you can do this? It isn’t without some danger, I’m beginning to perceive.”

  “Yes, sir,” Charles said promptly.

  “And I go too,” Nando said. Everyone turned to him, surprised, and he shrugged. “I want to see what happens. The Biti Foki won’t care about me if they don’t care about him.” He jerked his head at Charles, who grinned at him.

  “Done,” he said, and held his hand out to Nando. “Let’s go spy on the Biti Foki, shall we?”

  Not long after dusk bega
n to deepen into night, the two boys slipped out of one of the side doors at Galiswood and melted into the woods. They moved as silently as possible to avoid the searchers still out looking for Persy. Lord Northgalis had insisted that the search for her continue, “just in case the fairies changed their minds,” as he put it, but mostly because it would be thought strange and even suspicious by the servants and nearby villagers who had turned out to help search this morning if they hadn’t.

  “I hope we don’t run into any of them up by Mab’s Hill,” Charles murmured to Nando.

  “We won’t,” Nando whispered back. “They don’t go near there at night if they can help it. They know what they might see if they do.”

  “Hush—I think I hear someone.” Charles dropped into a crouch and pulled Nando down next to him—a much better-dressed Nando, thanks to the note Lorrie had written that morning to Mrs. Groening over at Mage’s Tutterow to send over some of Charles’s outgrown clothes. Nando now had a proper coat, waistcoat, trousers, and linen to replace the ragged shirt and trousers he’d been wearing. He’d spent a good hour peacocking back and forth in front of the mirror in Charles’s room, once he’d recovered from the indignity of a bath and haircut at Parker’s hands. Both had revealed a good-looking youth, though one whose eyes still held an alert wariness.

  A pair of men from the village passed them some yards away, waving lanterns half-heartedly about as they peered into the darkening woods. Within a few minutes they were far enough away for the boys to continue on.

  “Mister Charles?” Nando said after a few minutes.

  “Uh-huh?”

  “Lord Seton—he has magic. And so does his bori—your sister.”

  “Yes. And my other sister as well, who lives in Ireland. They’re twins.”

  “Ah?” Charles could just barely see his nod in the gloom. “So—do you?”

  Charles hesitated. It went against all he’d ever learned from Ally when she was teaching Persy and Pen; one simply did not tell people about being a witch or wizard. But it was probably better to tell the boy than startling him if a spot of magic were needed later tonight. “Um…yes.”

  “Eeee,” Nando said with a sigh. “That’s good. If the Biti Foki try to put an amria on us, you’ll stop them.”

  It was on the tip of Charles’s tongue to point out that having magic hadn’t helped Persy one bit, but Nando’s confidence in him was flattering. He was a good sort, this Nando, for an uneducated gypsy child. “Yes, I’ll stop them. You don’t have to worry.”

  They heard their destination well before they saw it. Drifting through the woods on a faint evening breeze was the sound of flutes, underlain with shimmers of harp and a tapping, nervous drumming. The music grew louder as they crept closer to the foot of the wooded hill, accompanied now by voices and an occasional trill of laughter. The fairies were truly there! Maybe he and Nando would be able to spirit Persy away from them, and that would be that. What a lark to have had over his summer hols, outsmarting a band of fairies! It would almost make up for the grinding he had to do—

  “The barrow’s on the crest of the hill, on the other side from us,” Nando whispered. “I been up there, but only in day. The hill’s not real high, and flat on top with a big clearing.”

  Charles gazed up at it. A faint flickering glow—torchlight, perhaps?—could be seen from the summit. “Lorrie was right to have us wait. If we’re careful, we shouldn’t be heard over the music. We’ll go up, get an idea of how many there are, and see if we can’t spot Persy.”

  They crept up the hill, trying to move as soundlessly as possible from tree to tree. The music and laughter grew louder as they ascended, till just below the hill’s crown it was as loud as any of the parties Charles had attended with Mama and Papa this past Christmas for his first forays into Society. He exchanged one last nod with Nando, then crawled to a tree at the edge of the clearing. After a few deep breaths, he rose to his knees, then to his feet, and peered around its trunk.

  Light dazzled him, making him blink and squint. Golden-red light from torches stuck in the ground at intervals around the broad clearing mingled with dimmer light from the waning half-moon, which had been hidden by the trees while he and Nando had padded through the woods. After a moment his eyes adjusted, only to be dazzled in a different way.

  At least a hundred figures were gathered on the hilltop. Their attire varied wildly—from several who looked as though they’d stepped from a Botticelli painting to one girl who appeared to be clad entirely in feathers, to others dressed in leaves, or skins, or fluttering classical-like draperies, or what looked like the latest Bond Street fashions.

  Perhaps two-thirds of them were dancing, arranged in two concentric circles around a small group of musicians. The two circles somehow wove in and out of each other in an elaborate pattern as the musicians played a sprightly tune that made Charles want to tap his toes despite its odd, eerie pitch. Others stood in small clusters or strolled in pairs around the dancers; directly across from Charles, a group sat in chairs at the base of the mound amid a blaze of torches, like a lord and his entourage presiding over his court. He tried to examine them, but the circling dancers made it impossible. Did one of them look like Persy?

  Just then, the musicians shifted into a different tune. Without a pause, the dancers re-formed into two long lines and began what looked almost like a country dance; some of them dropped out, while others took their places. Aha! Now he’d have a chance to see if it truly was Persy down there. If he could move enough to see between the lines of dancers—

  “Eeee,” Nando said in his ear. Evidently he’d decided it was his turn for a look. “Look at them! Queerer than the stories Nana Jacaranda used to tell. Does that one have a tail?” He pointed.

  “Ssshh!” Charles pushed his hand down but stared, just as wide-eyed as Nando. The dancer in question indeed possessed a tail, long and ending in a tuft like a lion’s, swishing in time to the music under her swirling silk skirt.

  Then he started to notice other oddities: dancers with bat ears, or the scaly skin of a lizard, or hands that were anything but five-fingered. One gentleman appeared entirely unremarkable, except for the fact that his skin, beard, and hair were a handsome shade of indigo. His partner danced on delicate deer’s hooves.

  But not all of them were fantastical; there, making her way gracefully down to the end of the line of dancers, was the girl dressed in a gown made of feathers. She had blonde hair and porcelain skin and delicate features that seemed somehow familiar.

  And she was looking directly at him.

  Chapter Five

  Blast! Charles dropped into a crouch again, yanking Nando down with him, but it was too late. Within seconds she’d picked her way through the undergrowth and stood before him. The torchlight to her back left her face in shadow, but he could almost feel the questioning smile on her face.

  “Were you watching us, boy?” she asked. Her voice was soft but very clear.

  A fairy. He was being spoken to by a fairy. He scrambled to his feet, feeling foolish, which was a good thing as it left him no room to feel fear. “Er, yes.” No use lying—it was pretty plain what he’d been doing.

  “Wouldn’t it be more fun to dance with us instead?” She held out a slim hand.

  Next to him he heard Nando give a faint warning hiss. He kept his hands at his sides. “I’ve heard accepting an invitation like that can be dangerous.”

  She laughed, and it was like the chiming of small silver bells. “You’ve been reading too many stories. You humans think too much of yourselves—why should we want to keep you dancing with us for years and years? We have our own affairs to tend to, thank you very much.”

  It was on the tip of his tongue to ask why, if they had their own affairs to manage without involving humans, there seemed to be reason to suspect that they were quite interested in keeping his sister on a permanent basis, but he bit the question back. This could be an excellent opportunity to get some solid information—and see if Persy were actually
here. “What about your partner? Weren’t you already dancing with someone?”

  “Yes. What of it?” She sounded puzzled.

  It seemed that human ballroom etiquette did not apply among the Fair Folk. “Very well, then,” he said, and took her hand. It was soft and surprisingly warm in his. Why had he somehow expected it to be cold?

  She pulled him from his place behind the tree—Nando thankfully stayed hidden—and they joined the end of one of the lines of dancers. He mentally thanked Mama for having made him begin learning to dance: by carefully watching the other dancers’ movements he was able to catch the pattern of the steps without too much difficulty, and could pay attention to his partner herself.

  “You’re staring,” she said to him, after a few minutes.

  “Oh. Um, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude.” He felt himself blush. But it was impossible not to stare at her; beside the remarkable feathery dress, she was…well, not that he saw many girls or paid them much attention when he did, but she seemed like an uncommonly pretty one. Her features were delicately drawn, and her hair under a sort of coronet of blue feathers (were there birds in England with blue feathers, or had they come from a more exotic place?) was a shining gold, almost like the light that suffused the clearing. There was something about her that reminded him of Princess Victoria—the Queen now, of course—whom he’d had rather a crush on back when Persy had saved her. Was it the way she carried herself, with a sense of assurance that had nothing to do with conceit and everything to do with knowing who and what she was?

  “Rude?” she said, wrinkling her nose. “What is rude about looking at me? I have been staring at you, too.”

  He swallowed. “You have?”

  “Why, yes. I’ve never been so close to a human before, apart from my mother, of course. Certainly never to a male human. You’re rather nice to look at. And you don’t smell at all bad, the way humans are supposed to.” The steps of the dance drew them together, and she buried her face against his chest and inhaled. “In fact, I like how you smell,” she said, when they stepped apart again.