The Rookery

by Deborah Hewitt

  ‘Technically it’s Victorian classroom furniture,’ said Alice, her feet sinking into the thick grass as she trudged across the lawn.

  ‘Where are you taking me?’ asked Tom.

  They both looked up at him sandwiched between them. Each had linked an arm through his – not easy with someone as tall as a lamp post – and were steering him to a secluded part of the vast campus.

  ‘On a secret adventure,’ said Bea shiftily as they trekked beyond Cavendish and the Whiston Building, in which he worked.

  He sighed and allowed them to guide him onwards. The part of the gardens they were heading towards had manicured lawns that eased into wilder, longer grasses, and a small hedge maze populated with oddly shaped bushes at every dead end. The janitor, Eugene, had wrested total control of its design from the university gardener some years previously. Eugene had a passion for topiary, despite being a member of House Pellervoinen and hopelessly mismatched for such a hobby. His enthusiasm was that of the grimly determined, and no matter how many times he’d tried to shape the hedges into grand sphinxes and magnificent lions, they always resembled deformed ducks. A professor of animal anatomy in the Sydenham Building had once tried to burn them to the ground, and had the next day returned to his office to find someone had bricked up the door. No one had ever complained again.

  They urged Tom into the maze. He was tall enough to see over the top of the hedges. A few swift turns and they were soon at the centre, stretched out on the grass while Bea rummaged in her bag. It was a quiet evening, and the sun was setting behind the Whiston Building, painting warm streaks across the sky.

  ‘Red sky at night,’ said Alice.

  ‘Shepherd’s delight,’ Tom finished in a monotone voice.

  Bea thrust a bottle at each of them and sighed with satisfaction as she uncapped her own and put it to her lips. It was cloudberry wine sweetened with honey. The amber liquid in the glass caught the last rays of the sun and reminded Alice of the binding draught. She glanced at Bea, who appeared to have had the same thought, and they cleared their throats to urge Tom to drink.

  ‘To Holly,’ said Alice, raising her bottle.

  Tom stared morosely at his feet, so Alice grabbed his sleeve and pulled his arm up into the toast.

  ‘To Holly,’ she repeated, her voice cracking, ‘who was strong and brave and always did exactly what she wanted.’

  ‘And to the hundreds of other souls who’ve taken that test over the years and met the same fate,’ added Bea, ‘because sometimes life is cruel and there’s nothing at all we can do about it.’

  Alice took a sip of her wine, her mouth twisting at the rush of sweet and bitter flavours on her tongue. She’d never been much of a wine drinker.

  They drank in silence for several minutes, before Alice got to her feet and approached the circular mound at the centre of the maze. She crouched down and slid her fingers into the grass, digging into the soil. Then she pressed a single red berry into the earth and took a deep breath.

  When she was done, Alice glanced up to find Bea and Tom looming over her. Bea’s arm was around Tom’s shoulders and she was squeezing him hard. Tom offered Alice his hand and pulled her upright. Together, they stood for several minutes, peering down at the memorial Alice had wrought in the grass: a perfect, neat little holly bush, blooming with vivid red berries and spiky leaves.

  ‘To Holly,’ said Tom, his voice hoarse, raising his bottle.

  ‘To Holly,’ they agreed, clinking their wine and drinking deeply. Alice’s eyes darted to meet Bea’s, who smiled in honour of a job well done. Alice looked away, taking another swig of wine to disguise her own pensiveness.

  Drowsy with drink and barefoot, they lay on their backs and watched the sky darken.

  ‘Ursa Major,’ said Alice, pointing at the clouds. ‘It’ll be somewhere over there later.’

  ‘When the clouds aren’t in the way,’ said Bea, squinting upwards.

  ‘What’s Ursa Major mean?’ mumbled Tom. ‘Sounds like a piano key.’

  She craned her neck to see him. He was stretched out on the grass, his eyes heavy-lidded. He’d finished off his own wine and then hers and Bea’s. At least one of them was feeling better.

  ‘It means . . . “the great bear”,’ she said. ‘My dad used to draw the constellations for me when I was little.’ Her dad. Her real dad. The one who’d given her a love of sketching and Swindon Town Football Club. Tuoni was nothing more than a bogeyman she intended on shoving in a closet.

  Bea snorted. ‘And there’s . . . the great mallard,’ said the librarian, pointing at one of Eugene’s mangled topiary ducks.

  Alice rolled onto her front and pushed up to her knees. ‘We should head back,’ she said, fumbling in the grass for her empty wine bottle. Sasha was due soon – they were meeting in the quad – and Alice planned to introduce her to Bea and Tom. She glanced at Tom, whose eyes were closed and face was plastered with a languid, drunken smile. Okay, maybe not Tom, just Bea.

  Between them, they hauled Tom to his feet, reeling backwards when he tipped too far forward on his toes.

  ‘Everything’s spinning,’ he muttered.

  Alice swung his arm over her shoulder and they began to totter back towards the quad. They’d made it out of the maze when Bea said, ‘Hang on, I’ll meet you in the courtyard in five minutes.’ With a wink, she slipped away and cantered back towards the maze.

  Alice was forced to plough on alone, because every time she stopped, Tom stumbled about like a deer on ice. She glanced up at him. His nightjar was relaxed on his shoulder, its head bobbing with every footstep.

  ‘Alice,’ Tom whispered at about a thousand decibels, ‘I think Holly’s in a better place now.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said tightly. ‘Me too.’

  ‘The maze,’ he said, the arm around her shoulder squeezing in thanks. ‘It was a good idea . . . and the wine.’ He raised a pointing finger and gesticulated, only able to focus one eye. ‘A very good—’

  Tom’s foot knocked his own ankle and he lurched sideways. She tumbled with him and they hit the grass in a shabby heap, gasping in surprise.

  ‘We fell over,’ he whispered with a loopy grin.

  Exasperated, she peered over at him, splayed out on the grass next to her, one leg slung over hers. ‘Well spotted.’

  She sat up, picked grass and flowers out of her messy hair and tossed them at him. They landed on his face, and he spat a daisy out of his mouth with a mumbled protest.

  ‘Hello, Alice.’

  She shot round, and everything – Tom, Bea, the gardens, the buildings around the quad – faded away. Her stomach clenched, and when she rose she found that her heartbeat thrummed against her ribs like a trapped butterfly, and every thought in her head vanished.

  Crowley.

  He was standing in the shadow of the Arlington Building, his dark hair overlong, reaching past his ears and falling into his eyes. He drank her in, his gaze searing her skin as it travelled over her mussed-up hair, her rumpled shirt and bare feet.

  Despite the warm night, he wore the long, sweeping coat he always wore – so dark green it was almost black – a white buttoned-up shirt underneath it, black trousers and scuffed boots. There was a hint of stubble on his jaw and her fingers tingled at the thought of running her hand over it.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she found herself saying. Sasha was supposed to have come, not Crowley.

  ‘I wanted to congratulate you,’ he murmured. ‘I heard about your recent success, and I wanted . . .’

  He trailed away, and they stared at each other in silence. A whole year lay between them. A year in which they hadn’t spoken, in which she’d nursed her wounds and tried – and failed – to forgive his lies. A year in which she’d reconnected with everyone in Coram House except him.

  ‘I wanted to see your face,’ he admitted in a low voice, his glittering eyes roaming over her as though he might only have this one chance to imprint her in his memory.

  He straightened, his hands withdr
awing from his pockets and his gaze dropping to Tom, collapsed on the grass. Crowley grew very still before offering her the briefest of smiles. ‘I’m . . . glad for you,’ he said with a slow nod of understanding. His lips curved into a more forced expression. ‘I won’t intrude’ – he took a step backwards – ‘but I just wanted you to know that . . . I truly wish . . . only the best things for you.’ His mouth tightened again, and he gave her a nod before turning away, the coat flying out behind him.

  Alice was slow to react, still dazed to find him in front of her after all this time. It took a moment before the meaning of his words sank in. He thought she was with Tom.

  ‘Crowley, wait!’ she shouted. She raced forward but skidded to a stop, watching him stride off around the side of Arlington. She couldn’t seem to make her feet move any further, couldn’t seem to bring herself to dash after him to explain that he’d misunderstood. Her throat was clogged with emotion – but her feet just wouldn’t move.

  She watched his coat rippling out in the breeze and stood speechless as he disappeared between the fir trees.

  ‘Eugene’s going to be furious,’ shrieked Bea as she hurtled into the quad and almost fell on top of Tom.

  Alice turned towards her, barely comprehending.

  ‘I’ve vanished all of his hedge ducks and grown a fox that looks like it’s eaten them,’ she panted with a beaming grin. ‘I’ll grow them back again tomorrow night,’ she said, waving a hand while she caught her breath, ‘but that’ll serve him right for waterlogging all my books.’

  Alice said nothing. A small voice in her head was screaming at her to run after Crowley. But a louder one had pinned her to the spot.

  ‘What?’ she said.

  Bea frowned. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’ She glanced down at Tom. ‘Help me get this drunkard to his feet before he falls asleep on the lawn.’

  Alice nodded and took a step towards them. She felt like her ears were full of water. Crowley had been here. Crowley had come to see her, to congratulate her, and she was letting him go. She swallowed and tried to shake it off. She had let him go. That was the point.

  ‘One arm each,’ said Bea, her handbag clinking with empty wine bottles. Alice trudged closer and reached down to help.

  ‘On the count of three,’ said Bea. ‘One . . . two . . .’

  The lawn juddered beneath them. The soil and grass vibrated between Alice’s bare toes – gently at first, and then rising with force into a shuddering rumble from deep below the ground. Every flower began to quiver and the berries on the mulberry tree were shaken off, the fruit bouncing across the quad. Alice staggered backwards, fighting to keep her balance as something rose under her heels. It was the grass. Fresh grass was growing, sprouting rapidly from the soil until it was waist high. And then, just as quickly as it started, everything stopped – the tremors, the growth, everything – and the lawn was still again.

  ‘What was that?’ Alice breathed.

  ‘I think that was . . . a small earthquake,’ said Bea.

  ‘And . . . are they common in the Rookery?’ asked Alice, staring in confusion at the reverse crop circles enclosing them.

  Bea shook her head, staring at the wild grass with a frown. ‘No,’ she said. ‘They’re not.’

  On Monday morning Reid’s hair was a disaster of epic proportions. She slammed open the lab door, her heels whip-cracking on the wooden floor as she stormed over to her desk and thumped her paperwork and a mug of coffee down on it. Mayday. Mayday. Category-five hurricane incoming. Alice resisted the urge to laugh – even the sound of her exhalations had been known to send Reid into a fury. It wasn’t Alice’s fault her nose occasionally whistled with sinusitis.

  Ignoring the anger that was radiating from her boss, Alice made another note on her page. Now that she’d passed the first stage of the testing process, Bea had set her some research on one of House Mielikki’s main responsibilities: the upkeep and monitoring of the Summer Tree – something Bea was particularly keen to do, in light of the grass’s growth spurt and the mini quake. Alice was only allowed to observe Bea’s work, but still felt like some invisible barrier had been crossed, like she had one foot in the door of House Mielikki. Throwing herself into the opportunity had become a useful distraction from poring over her short encounter with Crowley – and the letter folded in her pocket.

  Her fingers twitched with the impulse to pull it out and read it for the fifth time, but she resisted. It had been delivered earlier that morning, with a Mayo postmark. When she’d left Ireland, they’d agreed that Alice wouldn’t write home. Rookery mail was transported to London and sent around the mainland from there, and Alice couldn’t risk Sir John Boleyn’s Beaks somehow intercepting it and tracing her parents’ newest address. It had been a difficult decision, but a necessary one. She could only contact them if she travelled into London to use a telephone. The only silver lining had been that they could still write to her using a mainland post box specifically for Rookery mail.

  Her pen poked a hole through her page and she blinked in surprise. Too distracted. And she really couldn’t afford distractions. Maybe if she just scratched the itch again . . . With a sigh, she tugged the letter from her pocket and smoothed it open. Her mum’s looping handwriting sprang out at her.

  . . . turned up out of nowhere, just like last time . . . with his long hair and that coat of his . . . Your dad nearly punched him in the face! . . . insisted on showing us how it works . . . the downstairs toilet door and if we step through it, it takes us right to your dad’s favourite pub in Westport . . . exit plan, just to be on the safe side . . . have warned your dad he’s not allowed to use it just because he wants a pint of Guinness . . . He offered to hide the house, if you can believe it . . . don’t know what kind of magic . . . but the postman would never find us if the house was invisible! . . . Told us not to tell you he’d been, but . . .

  Crowley had visited her parents on Sunday – the day after she’d seen him – to fit them with new safety measures. He was exceptionally talented with the doorways, but how he’d managed to provide an escape hatch without them having to use the void between the two locations, she didn’t know. Alice glanced down at the last lines, about hiding the house, and frowned. She’d never heard that was possible; her mum must be exaggerating. Flutters shivered in her stomach, and she squashed them down. He’d assumed she was with Tom, and yet he’d still taken it upon himself to make sure her parents were safe. She exhaled slowly.

  ‘Would you stop that infernal whistling?’ snapped Reid. ‘This isn’t the fucking seven dwarves’ workshop.’

  Alice’s eyes narrowed. ‘It’s my sinusitis,’ she said testily, folding the letter and shoving it back in her pocket.

  ‘Well you’re fired,’ Reid shot back, downing her coffee and storming to the window to throw it open.

  Alice stared at the professor in bemused shock. Reid’s hurricanes usually involved broken glass and smashed pottery, not provocative statements. But she would not allow the woman’s temper to deflate her. For the third morning running, Alice had woken up feeling well: no sickness, no fever. It was the binding draught – she was sure of it – healing her of Tuoni’s influence.

  ‘You can’t fire me for breathing,’ said Alice. ‘That’s not even legal.’

  Reid had pulled out a short cigarette holder. She wafted it around while she prepared to light the match. ‘Sweetie, no one cares about legalities,’ she said in a patronizing tone. ‘They’re threatening to fire me too.’

  Alice frowned. Maybe Reid was serious.

  ‘Who’s they?’ she asked.

  Reid shrugged. She leaned out of the window, one elbow resting on the sill, the cigarette holder held loosely between two fingers. She took a drag of her cigarette and blew the smoke over her shoulder, back into the room.

  ‘The Magellan Estate,’ said Reid, still staring out of the open window. Alice squinted at her, trying to work out if she was bluffing. ‘They’re not happy with the direction of my work. Too narrow, ap
parently, and not enough visible progress.’ She paused, then added bitterly, ‘What the hell would they know? If it’s to stand up to peer review, it has to be narrow to be properly rigorous! Those fools at the Sorbonne will have a field day if my funding’s pulled again.’

  Reid spun round and Alice was struck by how vulnerable she looked. She seemed to have shrunk over the weekend. She’d lost all control of her hair, and the over-large shoulder pads in her suit jacket made her look tiny.

  The professor shrugged and stubbed out her cigarette on the stone. ‘Just my life’s work ripped from my fingertips, that’s all.’ She slammed the window shut and sighed, then made a grab for her mug but instead poked it off the table. It smashed onto the floor, the cracked porcelain landing with a clink. With another irritated sigh, she scooped her hand through the air and the pieces came back together, perfectly re-forming the mug. It was lucky for Reid, given her frequent outbursts, that she was a member of House Pellervoinen – otherwise the amount of money wasted on shattered plates, mugs and windows would have bankrupted her.

  ‘Get me a black coffee,’ said Reid, thumping the healed mug onto Alice’s desk. ‘Use the arabica beans again.’

  ‘I don’t work for you any more,’ said Alice with a sigh. ‘You just fired me.’

  ‘Fine. You’re un-fired. No sugar.’

  Alice closed her notebook, fighting the temptation to spite Reid and walk out. She didn’t owe the professor any kindnesses, but she supposed she’d grown used to her wild moods. Alice couldn’t help but feel a sliver of sympathy for her; it must be exhausting being Reid all the time. ‘Tell me how I can help you with the research,’ Alice offered with only a slightly grudging tone. ‘If we can salvage your project then maybe neither of us will lose our jobs.’

  Reid narrowed her eyes. She hesitated on the verge of speech, before shaking her head.

  ‘I’ve spent months photocopying and filing,’ Alice pressed. ‘I’m perfectly capable of taking on part of your research and making notes on what I find – if you’d just let me help you.’