by R. A Humphry
Something was happening. Strange pulses of what Henry could only describe as wrongness ebbed through him at odd times, often followed by what felt like a distant drumming. The news in the papers started carrying strange little stories that were curious to the wider world but chilling to the practised eye. Ritual killings done in a certain way; Mass suicides; City wide distribution of the same magical symbol via scrawled graffiti; Wildfires out of season; Lightening storms across London and tornadoes ripping through Birmingham - something exciting and profound was happening and tonight was when he would learn what it was.
“Not busy at all, Heather. Where shall I meet you?”
“Great,” she said squeezing his arm, “come to The King Arthur at about seven. There are a couple of people I want to introduce you to.”
#
If there was some part of Henry’s mind that dared to ask what it was he thought he was doing casting a dangerous enchantment on half of his house, risking discovery from a much more powerful magician, ignoring the summons of his former arcane order to learn about what might be cataclysmic magical events, all so that he might sneak out with a pretty girl, it was brutally crushed by his total infatuation with Heather.
Forget the swirling tempests of her hidden power and her shining diamond of a spirit; had he ever met a prettier girl? He doubted it very much that he had even seen any in the magazines and in the films he pretended not to read and watch.
Besides, he had quit the Order and so he owed them nothing. And, if you thought about it, if there was some sort of magical emergency, a high level arcanist like Killynghall would be far too busy dealing with it to notice some trifling enchantment. Far too busy.
As he arrived at The King Arthur he realised that his idea of dressing for a night in a public house was not in line with everyone else. He should have asked Alex, but then again, that was a bad idea - he didn’t want his friendship with Heather broadcast at full blast over the Darkwells grapevine. He shuffled into the pub in his tailored suite and silk tie and tried to ignore both the stares and his urge to cast Weishaupt’s Obscure so he could melt into the shadows.
Heather rescued him, dancing up from a table where she sat with an older boy and another girl, who had the unmistakable air of a quarrelling couple. Henry stared; Heather had let her hair down and it cascaded across her bare shoulders in a breathtaking manner. It was the first time he had seen her wearing make-up and he found that her casual pub clothes made her more beautiful and womanly than he had dared to imagine.
“Let me guess. Vodka martini, shaken not stirred?”
“I’m sorry?” Henry said, startled.
“I suppose this is what your family wears to dinner?” Heather asked with her head cocked to one side in amusement.
“God no. No tails? No bow-tie? We’d be sent back to our rooms.”
Heather threw her head back in an amused laugh. “Come, Henry, let me introduce you to my friends. Oh, before I do though, be nice to Sean. He will say that he hates you but he’s not that bad. For a communist.”
“I see.”
Heather led him through the bustling crowd to their table and made some quick introductions. Kim was a pretty girl a little older than Heather. She was wearing a much more adventurous outfit showing ample cleavage and much heavier make-up. Henry shook a ring heavy hand. Sean was everything Henry’s step-father imagined in his worst nightmares. They shook hands politely but Sean’s opinion was obvious from the outset.
A waitress arrived as Henry settled into his chair and asked what he would like to drink. “Oh, Pimms please.”
“You what?” the girl asked with a frown.
“He’ll have the guest ale, Kayla,” Heather said with a sad little shake of her head.
An awkward moment of silence passed before Sean spoke. “So,” he said after setting his pint back on the table, his voice dripping with acid, “this is your new posh boyfriend is it?”
Henry waved a lazy hand before Heather could splutter and Kim could scold. “Oh no, it’s not like that,” he replied as Sean took a sip of his lager. “She is more like my Eliza.” Sean choked on his beer and coughed in laughter.
“As in Eliza Doolittle?” he replied, his eyes going straight to Heather, who was sitting with a very stiff, straight back. Kim looked confused.
“Exactly right. I’m named for Henry Higgins you know. Anyway, Heather has a secret passion for ‘My Fair Lady’ and decided that she might like to be taught the mysterious ways of the Darkwells aristocracy.” Sean snorted and a flush crept over Heather’s face. “So I’ve been training her.”
“It’s not working,” Sean observed.
“No, you can only do so much with the raw material. I envy Higgins his easy task. Look! Look. There, can you see it? She is about to burst into one of the tunes. ‘Just you wait, Henry Grenville just you wait!’”
“What are they on about?” Kim asked, confused, as Henry and Sean started sniggering.
“They are being pigs,” Heather responded. “And they shall therefore suffer. Kayla!” she shouted, catching the waitress’ attention. “Bring out the Absinthe.”
#
Henry discovered that in addition to being beautiful and clever and magically powerful Heather also possessed an ability to drink that would make an Irish sailor weep. He wriggled and grimaced and squealed like a child as he drunk the shot of Absinthe to much merriment of the group. Sean did little better. One of Kim’s eyes twitched and she was much more animated and talkative. Pints followed the shots which were followed by more pints. Henry found Sean to be, contrary to all expectation, engaging company. He was bitter and angry but not without valid reasons. He struck Henry as someone with plenty to offer and with nowhere to offer it. His frustrated potential was feeding in on itself and it made Henry sad and empathetic.
The pub started to empty out and the bell was rung for closing time. Henry was drunk. Heather, despite her prim appearance, was also drunk. Sean was asleep and Kim was rambling on about a girl she knew who tried to take a piglet in her hand luggage to Ibiza. Sean woke up and decided that the only thing he needed in the world was a kebab and he dragged the still talking Kim out of the pub after him with a very mumbled goodbye. Heather looked at him with glazed eyes.
“Should I walk you home?” Henry offered, trying not to burp.
“Don’t fall in the canal,” Heather replied seriously with a waving index finger.
They stumbled out of the King Arthur and leaned on each other down the narrow lanes to the tow path. Henry savoured the feel of her hand in his and the scent of her perfume and her very closeness. The Black Swan appeared with warm light glowing from her port-hole windows. Heather stopped and turned to face Henry, her face a dream in the soft moonlight.
“Why so sad, Miss Evynstone?” Henry asked.
“It’s just this place, this stupid life,” she replied with strong emotion, choking on a tear and wiping her face. “It is all so pathetically predictable, isn’t it? How our lives will unfold? I’m sick of it. Sick of seeing where mine will lead. I so hate being a victim.”
For some strange reason Henry saw Sean’s stupid tattoo in his mind’s eye. Vino Veritas. “I’m a magician,” Henry said stupidly. “Tell me what you desire and it is yours.”
“Take me away from here,” Heather whispered as she put her head against his shoulder. “Take me far away.”
“As you wish,” Henry replied, pulling away. He took a step forward and tried to clear his mind. Not a good idea, not a good idea, not a good idea. He ignored the weak mumbling in his head and started the chant for Zoroaster’s transporter. Harder without a doorway. Much harder. But if he could… He waved his cane in a circle and stepped back, “Ah, ha!”
“Henry, you’re drunk,” Heather said as she staggered forward. “You are not a magi… Jesus Christ what is that!” she exclaimed, pointing at the growing circle of light in-front of Henry.
“Your carriage awaits,” he replied, grabbing her hand and pushing her through.
#
Being three sheets to the wind, he botched the spell. Through sheer blind luck, he only missed by a few dozen feet and they re-appeared a hand’s-breadth above Conniston lake, into which they landed with a splash. It was freezing.
“Henry!” Heather screamed as she panicked in the icy water, “we fell in the canal!”
“No, we are in the lake.” He responded as he cast the spell to summon Watkins. “I’m sorry; I think I might be drunk.”
“Lake? What lake?”
“Conniston,” Henry replied pulling Heather up and out of the freezing water. They shivered in silence for a couple of minutes until they saw the bouncing headlights of an approaching car. “Oh good, Watkins is here. Come on, let’s get warm.”
Wakins arrived in the Range Rover with blankets and whisked them back to the house. Heather was silent for a long while. A large matronly woman met them at the door and spirited Heather away into one of the guest rooms, tutting under her breath.
Henry made his dripping way up to his room followed by an amused looking Watkins. “Don’t judge me Watkins, I was poisoned.”
“As you say, Sir.”
“Took your time getting to the lake.”
“Your summons said you were at Windermere Sir. I decided to check our shore first.”
“Ah.”
#
Once changed into dry clothes they met again in the library. The unscheduled swim and the shock of dislocation had sobered Heather up. “Henry,” she asked with an obvious effort to remain calm. He handed her a mug of warm mulled wine, “What is going on?”
Henry winced then ran his hair through his hands. “I… this is a terrible mistake. I shouldn’t have done this, I’m very sorry.”
“Done what Henry? How is it that I am now in the Lake District? How can that be possible?”
“Yes, well. Funny thing,” he started, hobbling away from her stare.
“Out with it Grenville,” she commanded.
“Alright, but it sounds stupid. Worse than stupid. Crazy. So don’t say that I’ve not warned you.”
“Henry. Half an hour ago I was in the West Country. Now I appear to be in your stately home in the Lake District. Crazy has well and truly taken over.”
“Good point well made,” he responded. “Alright. So… you know magic, right? Like what your mother does?”
“Pretends to do,” Heather corrected.
“In actual fact she does have some talent, though she doesn’t know it. Anyway. The point is that it is all true. In a sense. It does exist, we have just outgrown it. The monotheistic religions got close in wiping it out and what they missed apathy and television seem to be mopping up. My family were part of an old Order that used to… well, it’s not important. Suffice to say that after the Empire magic has been in steep decline in this country.” He stopped talking as he noticed Heather staring at him with her huge green eyes.
“Henry,” she asked, “did you slip something in my drink?”
“No.”
“How much Absinthe did I order?”
“Not enough to start imagining this.”
“So it is real, then? It is really real?”
“Yes.”
“Show me,” she demanded.
He was ready for this. He didn’t do anything complicated but just conjured a floating ball of light that hung in front of Heather’s face. She reached out to touch it wonderingly, disbelievingly. “My god Henry. This changes everything.”
“I know.”
“And this house? It’s yours?”
“It’s the family house, yes.”
“Will you show it to me?”
#
He took her around every room in the house, delighted to show it off to someone who was interested. He told her about his mother and how she had been a famous witch before she went mad and how she had taught him in the old Grenville ways. He showed her the Grimoire collection and demonstrated several more simple spells, to her wide-eyed delight.
“I’ve never asked you,” Heather said as she flicked through Yeats’ Secrets and Confessions, “what happened to your leg?”
Henry sighed and in reflex ran his hand down the twisted limb. “It’s tied up with my mother’s madness,” he began. “The Grenvilles are an old family in the magic community. My father was killed by a leopard when visiting our estates in Africa. We always suspected that another magician got to him. Our ‘community’ is like that. We have lots of power crazed types who feel that their gift entitles them to domination. We have worse, too. There are older threats, older dangers that were sealed up and controlled by great sacrifice and endeavour back when magic was not a genre of fiction.
“We have forgotten too much now. Sometimes one of these… ‘things’ breaks free. This is what happened to me and my mother. We were not cautious… I… was not cautious. I tried… I tried to do something but I made a horrible error. Too late my mother realised that I had opened a portal that I had no control over. The dead started to pour out. One started to eat me, tearing into the life essence of my leg. Hundreds flooded the room. I thought I was dead. I wished I was. My mother saved me. She burst into the chamber and dispelled the horde. She was like a beacon of power, gleaming like a star. The shades fled from her back down into the rift. She destroyed the rest and sealed the portal. Even after all this time I have no idea how she managed it. It was so complex, that spell. I can see it now. It should not have been possible. But she did. To save me, stupid me, she closed it and so lost her mind and, eventually, her life.”
“Oh Henry,” Heather said, taking his hands in hers. “I’m so sorry.”
“So am I.”
Chapter Thirteen: Teacher
Henry brought her back to The Black Swan before dawn. She made him promise to bring her back to the estate the following weekend, which he did. It was an official Darkwells exeat weekend and Watkins arrived in the Phantom. He picked a bemused Heather up on the bypass.
“Are we going to drive all the way there?” she asked as she ran her hands over the smooth leather. “Not that I would mind too much.”
“Dear me no, that would take hours! While I have to get poor Watkins to drive down for appearances, we have a short-cut to get back.” Watkins turned the Phantom down a deserted country lane. He accelerated and headed towards what looked like a nondescript hedge - only to appear on the other side with Conniston stretching out beside them. “Keep your eye on the obituaries pages in the Telegraph,” Henry observed. “One day Watkins will get that wrong.”
Tea was served in the conservatory and Henry was careful with his words as he spoke to Heather, who was helping herself to carrot cake. “Now that you know, there are things that are very important. First, you need to understand yourself. You will not believe me but you must trust me in this. You have a vast, untapped talent for the art.” Henry held up a hand as Heather glanced up at him with startled eyes. “Sounds corny but in this case it is true. It is important because without some basic control and with the knowledge that… magic… does in actual fact work, you will get yourself into trouble. You might not mean to do it but at some point in the future you will try to cast something. With most people this won’t be a problem as they don’t have the power or the skill. You, however, will have the power but no skill. This can have… bad results.” He tapped his crippled leg. “As I’ve already told you.”
“Are you going to teach me magic tricks?” Heather asked with a grin.
“I think you’ll find me a terrible teacher. I’ll give you the basic grounding so you can do as I do. You are smart; you’ll figure it out better without me getting in the way.”
“You’re serious,” she replied putting down her plate. “You think I can do magic.”
Henry grinned at her then stood and placed one of the crystal glasses in the middle of the table, rolling up his sleeves.
“It is simple, when you know how. Listen to the words I say, watch my hands and imagine a flower unfolding just inside the glass,” he instructed he
r as he made a strange gesture and uttered a nonsensical word. A purple and yellow bird appeared in the glass and fluttered out of one of the open windows and Heather applauded. “Now your turn.”
Heather frowned at him but decided to play along. She copied his hand motions and uttered the word trying to keep the image in her mind. Nothing happened.
“Try again,” Henry urged. “Just relax.” Heather sighed and glanced at him with suspicion. She was always wary of being made fun of, but she tried again. No bird appeared in the glass. Instead, it exploded along with all the other glasses and plates in the room. Heather screamed and Henry flooded the room with dispelling charms with frantic gestures.
“Henry! Why did you do that?”
“Me?” Henry asked incredulously, “Why the hell would I destroy half the family crystal? Matron will be furious!” Henry rushed to pull the bell cord as Heather stared back at him with a slack jaw. “So, as I was saying, you might need some work on your control.”
#
Henry’s scatterbrained training regime started straight away. Heather was a diligent, serious student and never needed to be told anything twice. She asked sharp questions and ran with ideas to come to her own conclusions. Henry was a terrible teacher. He realised that he was impatient, oblique and unable to judge what level she was comfortable with. It was only Heather’s good humour and grown up disregard for his moods that stopped them from falling out.
Henry started talking about subjects he had long taken for granted. Things like magical history and the blindness of the general population came up, as did the relationship between magic and science and religion. Heather forced him to think about these vast topics afresh. It satisfied him deeply, he realised, seeing another person so animated and illuminated as he shared his knowledge. It felt right, sharing what his unique upbringing had allowed him with one who could so surpass him, who so needed to know.
“Magic has been with humanity from the moment Prometheus stole fire from Olympus. It is a misunderstood allegory. We take the idea of fire to mean civilisation, knowledge and learning. It is all these things, yes, but it is also mystery wonder and the very essence of magical power. So. When he stole fire Prometheus brought us both, do you follow?”