The Family Shame

by Christopher Nuttall

  “Not today,” I muttered.

  I washed my mouth out thoroughly, then returned to bed and turned off the lantern. This time, my sleep was far from dreamless. I thought I saw monsters lurking around the bed, wearing the faces of everyone I’d ever tormented; I thought I saw my family staring at me in dismay, shaking their heads as if they couldn’t believe how stupid I’d been. And Callam … I saw his accusing stare on a dead man’s body, looking down at me. I snapped awake, drenched in sweat, then fell back into blackness before I could catch myself. It felt like hours - or days - before I saw the sunlight streaming in through the window and realised that I was truly awake. Surprisingly, there was another tray of sandwiches - and a large jug of coffee - waiting by the door.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  I reached out with my senses, probing the spells around me, but I couldn’t tell if I was being watched or not. The tracking spell was still all too clear, hovering around me like a particularly annoying bee. I didn’t think it was actually doing anything more than reporting my location, but I made a mental note to find a way to get rid of it anyway. I still had to go back to town, somehow. I had to find Callam. How long had it been? He might have been trapped as a rat for a week or … or what? Even if he hadn’t been injured when she’d kicked him into the gorse, he might have been accidentally killed by one of the townspeople - rats were regarded as vermin in Shallot - or deliberately put in a cage by the local bullies. I simply didn’t know.

  Anything could have happened, I thought. Anything at all.

  My heart twisted. Callam might hate me now. He wouldn’t have been hurt if he hadn’t been with me. Morag would blame him, of course. It was easier to blame the commoner than the well-connected noble girl. I felt a stab in the gut as I realised I’d probably benefited from that a lot when I’d been younger. Tutors had let me get away with all kinds of things simply because I had a powerful family. Now … even now, I still had a powerful family. Callam might hate me …

  I reached for the tray, then stopped as a thought struck me. I’d never tested the door. I reached out, gingerly, and touched the doorknob. It twisted under my fingers, becoming a set of snapping teeth that reached out to bite me. I yanked my hand back, unsure if it was an illusion or not. It had felt real, but that was meaningless. I knew a dozen charms that wouldn’t do actual harm, yet would leave someone convinced that their fingers had been bitten.

  And I couldn’t go out of the room anyway, I thought. The tracking charm will see to that.

  I carried the tray back to the table, ate my breakfast and then opened one of the more conventional spellbooks. If I was lucky, there would be something to remove a tracking charm … or, perhaps, something that could be adapted to serve the same purpose. I didn’t find any, save for a handful of cancelation charms that didn’t seem powerful enough to strip the tracking spell from my body. Uncle Ira had done his work well. I made a mental note to check the books in the library, particularly the older books. I might just find something a more modern magician would ignore.

  You might be wasting your time, a voice whispered at the back of my head. Uncle Ira has probably read those books too.

  I ignored the voice as best as I could. I had to get back to the town. I had to find Callam. And yet, I couldn’t think of any way to leave. I might be able to blow a hole in the wall, although the wards were so unpredictable that I had no idea how they’d react, but the tracking charm would allow Uncle Ira and Morag to catch me before I reached the gates. And then … I had no idea, but if Morag had been willing to curse me to teach me a lesson, I doubted she’d be any nicer the second time around.

  And they’re not going to go out of their way to make me happy, I thought. Perhaps I should have tried harder to befriend Morag. But what did the two of us have in common? She was an adult from a lesser branch of the family … and my mere existence was a slap in the face, as far as she was concerned. I rubbed my jaw, ruefully. They’re not going to send down to the town just to see if Callam is alright.

  I shook my head, bitterly, as I opened another book. I didn’t know what to do. Uncle Ira was up to something, but what? And Morag … Morag hated me. I wanted to run, but where could I go? The tracking charm would allow them to follow me anywhere. I was stuck until I could find a way to get rid of it.

  The door shook once, then opened. Morag stood there, her hands resting on her hips.

  “Well,” she said. Her blue eyes met mine, challengingly. I looked down as quickly as possible. Eye contact now would be a very bad thing. “I trust you’ve learnt your lesson?”

  “Yes, Senior,” I said, as contritely as possible. I stood, then dropped the deepest curtsey I could. “I … I’ve learnt my lesson.”

  Morag snorted. “Whatever makes you think there’s only one lesson to learn?”

  She turned away. “Come,” she said, picking up the basket of dirty clothes. “You have some hard work ahead of you.”

  “Yes, Senior,” I said.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Morag wasn’t joking.

  I’ve never really had to wash my clothes before. At home, I’d used charms or the maids had done it; at school, the staff had taken away the dirty clothes and returned them, a day later, sparkling clean. But here … Morag seemed to take an unholy delight in watching me lathering my clothes, covering them with a foul-smelling substance she swore blind was soap and washing them thoroughly before hanging them out on the clothesline to dry. My hands were red and sore by the end of the day, even though I was feeling as though I’d actually achieved something. And yet, the thought of going through the same process time and time again was horrific. I couldn’t help feeling sorry for the scullery maids.

  We’re not paying them enough, I thought, remembering just how many muddy clothes I’d handed over to be washed when I’d been a child. I hadn’t thought much of the poor girls, back then. They’d been below stairs, too low to deserve my attention. Now … I made a mental note to ask Father to reward them when I got back home. They deserve a raise.

  Morag didn’t seem to think that I deserved a rest, let alone a raise. She marched me into a set of bedrooms, once the washing was on the line, and put me to work cleaning them. I stripped the beds of old linen - thankfully, I knew how to do that from school - and put that in the pile to be washed, then replaced it with clean linen from a nearby basket. It seemed obvious that we were going to have guests, sooner rather than later, but Morag refused to be drawn on the question. Instead, she told me how to dust - and showed me how to do it - and then ordered me to scrub the windows, brush the floors and clean the bathrooms. The only upside was it kept me from thinking about Callam.

  “We’ll be doing more of this tomorrow,” Morag said, after dinner. Uncle Ira was nowhere to be seen. We ate in the kitchens, alone. I was too tired to talk much. “And perhaps for the rest of the week.”

  I barely had the strength to wash my hands, let alone take a bath, but Morag ordered me to wash thoroughly before I went to bed. My hands were still stinging, so I rubbed salve on them before and after the bath, then went straight to bed. I was too tired to dream, thankfully, but I didn’t have a good night’s sleep. I was woken by Morag banging on the door.

  “Get up,” she ordered.

  I looked at the clock. It was nearly ten o’clock, but … it wasn’t as if she’d ordered me to get up early. I sighed, changed into a rough dress that looked as though it had belonged to a real maid, splashed water on my face and followed her down to the kitchens. A plate of toast and a steaming mug of coffee was already waiting for me. I eyed Morag darkly as she strode around the cookers, checking a handful of spells. She could have told me she’d wanted me to get up early.

  “The Master wants to see you, once you’ve eaten breakfast,” Morag told me. She sounded annoyed. I wondered just how much work she’d been planning to get me to do. She couldn’t have found me that helpful, but perhaps she’d been enjoying bossing me around. I feared for her maids if she ever opened an establishment of her
own. “You can see him in the study.”

  I wasn’t sure if I should be relieved or worried. I’d read one of his wretched books and that had been enough to convince me I didn’t want to read any more. Did he think we could just pick up where we’d left off, with him helping me to develop my skills? Or … or did he intend to administer extra punishment himself? Or … my blood ran cold as I realised he might have realised I’d lied about how I’d left the grounds. That discussion was not going to be pleasant.

  Morag scowled at me when I tried to delay my departure, so I swallowed the remainder of my coffee in one gulp and started off down the corridor. It loomed large around me, as if it were very big and me very tiny. I understood now, I thought, why so many of my cousins had been nervous when they were called to see the Patriarch. To them, he was the ultimate master of their fate; to me, he was just father. I found myself walking slower and slower, so slowly I was almost walking backwards … I sighed and picked up the pace. There was no hope for it. Whatever it was, better to get it over with as quickly as possible.

  Uncle Ira was sitting at a table in the study, reading a book. I blinked when I realised it was one of the newer tomes, the latest edition of Second-Year Potions. Uncle Ira had made a handful of notes on a pad, none of which I could read. He looked up, gave me a smile that seemed surprisingly warm, and motioned for me to take a chair facing him. I sat and waited, resting my hands in my lap. He’d placed a potions decanter in the middle of the table, wrapped in a protective charm. Whatever was inside the decanter, I thought, had to be powerful. I hadn’t seen such charms outside my father’s potions lab. And, despite them, I could sense the thrumming inside. The glass, next to the decanter, was practically quivering.

  “I trust you have learnt your lesson,” Uncle Ira said. His smile widened until it was almost shark-like. I found it more than a little disconcerting. “And I trust your reading was educational?”

  “It was disgusting,” I said, bluntly. He’d probably had a charm monitoring which books I’d read. The family library had something similar, although I wouldn’t have been able to get my hands on a dangerous book anyway. “How can any of those charms be used for good?”

  “Imagination,” Uncle Ira said. “One may use a charm to inflict pain, my dear, but that same charm can also be used to test a person’s nervous system. It merely needs to be carefully rewritten to avoid causing permanent harm.”

  I shuddered. I’d heard stories about men who’d been captured and tortured during the House Wars. They’d been rescued, sometimes, but they’d never been the same. Their bodies had been so badly damaged that they’d sometimes chosen death rather than life in pain. I didn’t want to think about my family doing the torturing, before the various wars had come to an end, but I had to admit it was possible. We weren’t always the good guys.

  “And blinding someone?” I asked. “Permanently, even?”

  Uncle Ira’s smile didn’t waver. “That charm can also be altered to repair a person’s eyes,” he said. “Or internal damage elsewhere, perhaps. Just because someone can use a hammer to cave in a person’s skull is no excuse to ban hammers.”

  I shook my head. “It doesn’t seem right.”

  “A great many things don’t seem right,” Uncle Ira said. He sounded as though he was suddenly bored of the conversation and eager to move along. “What did you eat for breakfast?”

  “What?”

  “What did you eat for breakfast?” Uncle Ira’s voice was cold. “And what did you drink?”

  “Toast, jam and coffee,” I said, reluctantly. I couldn’t imagine why he needed to know what I’d eaten. Maybe he’d given Morag orders to keep me on bread and water … except I couldn’t imagine her defying him. “I think I probably had a sip or two of water too.”

  Uncle Ira either missed or chose to ignore the sarcasm. “That sounds suitable,” he said, more to himself than to me. “You should be ready.”

  “Ready for what?” I asked. “Uncle …”

  Uncle Ira picked up the decanter, brushed the charms aside with a muttered spell and poured a small amount of the contents into the glass. I stared, awed. Outside the decanter, the potion was more powerful than ever before. It was a greenish-gold colour, practically shimmering with magic … there was something about it that drew the eye. I was awed and fearful at the same time. I’d never seen a potion that felt quite so striking.

  He passed me the glass. “Drink.”

  I put the glass to my lips, then hesitated. Father had told me, more than once, that I was not to drink anything unless I knew what it did. There were plenty of ways to use potions to control - or humiliate - someone and the family’s enemies knew most of them. Drinking the wrong thing could have the most unpleasant repercussions. Father had taken me to the Hospice. I’d seen some of the possible consequences …

  “Uncle,” I said. “What is this?”

  “Better you don’t know,” Uncle Ira said. “Drink.”

  I put the glass down on the table. “I’m not going to drink it until I know what it is …”

  Uncle Ira lifted his hand and pointed a spellcaster at me. No … my blood ran cold as I realised it was no ordinary spellcaster. It was a compeller. I’d seen one once, in the family museum, but that Device of Power had been neutralised long ago. This one was glowing with magic. I opened my mouth to protest, but it was too late. The compeller started to glow. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. My body jerked, as if someone had suddenly attached strings to my limbs and turned me into a marionette. I was suddenly no longer in control.

  “Pick up the glass,” Uncle Ira ordered. “And drink.”

  I struggled. I swear I struggled, screaming inside as I tried to resist. But I was no longer in charge of my own body. My hand advanced, jerkily, and picked up the glass. I screamed orders to my fingers, commanding them to drop the glass on the floor, but they refused to listen. I tried to reach for my magic, to force my legs to shove me away from the table, even to bite my own lip … nothing worked. The tiny compulsions I’d learnt to resist were nothing, compared to the compeller. I was forced to put the glass to my lips and drink.

  Cold liquid flowed down my throat. It tasted … I wasn’t sure how it tasted. Potioneers made their brews foul deliberately, just to keep people from wanting to drink them, but this potion didn’t seem to have a taste. And yet, there was something different, right at the edge of my awareness. A flavour so subtle, perhaps, that I could barely discern it. Pure water had more taste.

  Uncle Ira lowered the compeller. The control vanished. I let out a squawk of outrage and threw the glass at him, somehow unsurprised to see it deflected and slammed into the wall by a personal ward. I felt my anger build - how dare he? - and mustered the nastiest spell I could, throwing it right into his smug face. There was a brilliant flash of light, bright enough to force me to look away, but when I looked back he was unharmed. His wards had absorbed the spell without taking any damage at all.

  “There’s nothing wrong with your raw power,” Uncle Ira said. He smiled, as if he’d just said something very funny. “But your focus leaves a lot to be desired.”

  I glared at him, torn between outrage and fear. No one had ever used a compeller on me - or any of the children, as far as I knew. We’d been little brats, the terrors of the hall, but no one had ever forced us to behave. I’d never heard of compellers being used on anyone, save convicted criminals. Even then, it was disconcerting. Uncle Ira had crossed a line.

  “You’ll learn,” Uncle Ira added. He was studying me as if I were a particularly interesting specimen for dissection. “I will teach you.”

  “You …” I stumbled to my feet and looked around, knocking the chair over backwards in my haste to get away. “What was that potion?”

  “Something rather special,” Uncle Ira said. He didn’t seem concerned by my anger. But then, he didn’t need to be concerned. We’d just established that the most dangerous spell in my arsenal was useless against him. It made me wonder if I’d really been as safe
as I’d thought when I’d left the hall. “I think you and I will find the results quite interesting.”

  “You … you …” I glared at him. Sweat was beading on my forehead. “What does it do?”

  “Wait and see,” Uncle Ira said. He pointed at the chair. “Why don’t you sit down, like a good little girl, and wait to see what happens?”

  I turned and fled, banging the door open and running down the corridor. Uncle Ira snorted in annoyance, behind me. I got nearly halfway to the stairs when I felt an invisible force wrap around my ankles, sending me sprawling to the ground. The impact knocked the breath out of me, just for a second. Uncle Ira didn’t give me time to recover. The force started dragging me back, even though I grabbed on to a protruding statue and held on for dear life. I rolled over as best as I could, then threw a spell at the door. It slammed shut. I threw a locking charm after it as the invisible force vanished - Uncle Ira had lost eye contact - then picked myself up and ran for the outside world. I half-expected the door to be locked, but it opened at my touch. There was no sign of pursuit as I ran across the grass and into the trees, jumping over a stream in my desperate bid to escape …

  The tracking charm, I thought, as I started to walk towards the treehouse. I could feel the wretched spell, lingering around my magic like an unwanted smell. Escape was futile. He can find me wherever he wants.

  I crossed the humpy terrain, stepped over the river and stopped underneath the treehouse. I’d hoped, even if I hadn’t dared put it into words, that Callam would be there, but there was no sign of him. There was no sign that he’d been there for a week, ever since we’d been caught in town. Callam might be dead …

  … And my uncle had forced me to drink something that could be dangerous.

  I sat down on a tree stump, swallowing hard to keep from crying. Uncle Ira had forced me to drink the potion and that meant … what? Was he using me as a test subject? I remembered the medical exam he’d given me, weeks ago. He shouldn’t have needed to bother unless … unless he intended to feed me an experimental potion and see what happened. He’d have to know everything from my size and weight to any allergies I might have … come to think of it, he’d also need to have a rough idea of how much magic I had. A really advanced potion needed to be tailored specifically to the drinker. Uncle Ira hadn’t used some of my blood to make it …