Lessons After Dark

by Isabel Cooper

  The shape of the circle came first, a wide sweep with the wand. She didn’t get it as exact as she could have done indoors, another reason to be nervous, as if she needed more, but she thought it would serve. She was using the first part of a minor warding spell, the sort she’d used to protect herself from pickpockets in London, and those spells were generally rather gradual and undramatic.

  She took a deep breath and drew another circle inside the first. Now a shiver ran down her spine. Power, or just nerves?

  Olivia knelt inside the double circle. The plea came first, power for protection against those who would work by deceit and stealth. She reached out with the wand, drawing the first few symbols…

  A rush of power streamed up her arm, as if she’d plunged to the shoulder into a warm bath. Olivia caught her breath, paused for a second, and then slowly kept writing.

  As happened at such times, the world around her shifted. She could see the things of the earth: the trees, the ground, Gareth and Charlotte, the hedgehog, but she could see the power inside them too, and the true nature that lay under their physical forms. Usually, in the past, that sight had been only a faint translucence, a dim, many-colored fire inside everything.

  Now the fire overwhelmed the forms. The trees were rays of steady light, green and brown mingling. Charlotte was a brighter apple green that shifted and flickered, the hedgehog in her lap aswirl with dark green and white and gold. And Gareth was a shimmering bronze. Olivia couldn’t even make out features, just vaguely shaped bits of light.

  She realized, then, the world she saw was only one of many.

  There were layers here, like an onion, or maybe like sheets of paper in a book. Olivia couldn’t see them, exactly, but she knew they were there. She’d spoken of worlds that followed different rules. Now she felt she could almost reach out a hand and touch one. The temptation was enormous.

  And God, perhaps very literally, knew what would follow.

  She drew her mind back from that edge. As she focused, something else caught her attention, a pale radiance, not immediately around her but nearby, off a little way down a narrower path. She wasn’t surprised it had taken her so long to notice it either. The light was almost part of the landscape. Olivia had never seen that sort of light so still before or so strongly tied to such a comparatively large area, but she knew the phenomenon very well.

  There was a ghost here.

  Power was still rushing into her, filling her with a warmth and energy not unlike strong drink. The metaphor held on more than one level, Olivia managed to think, and changed the symbol she was drawing, adding a line through it to close off the channel she’d opened. She gestured around her with the wand, to Gareth and Charlotte and herself, and saw lit versions of the symbols she’d drawn rise up and wrap around them.

  The power went from her with that action, flowing into the symbols. Olivia released a breath she hadn’t known she was holding, broke the circle with a few more gestures of the wand, and stepped back.

  “I think,” she said and heard the breathlessness in her voice, “I’ve found the first part of our answer.”

  ***

  Watching Olivia cast the spell had been both slightly boring and rather nerve-wracking at the same time. On the one hand, wards were invisible, and Gareth had no idea what any of the symbols Olivia traced actually meant. As far as he could tell, she might have been simply drawing in the dirt. On the other, he knew Olivia could cast spells, he knew the forest did strange things where magic was concerned, and he thought there was a not-very-faint possibility everything could go horribly wrong.

  He’d come along for that reason, of course. Except, it occurred to him as he watched Olivia work, that while he could almost certainly handle the aftermath of an emergency, he would have no idea what to do during one. Miss Woodwell might. He hoped so. He tried to forget the girl had all of three months’ training.

  When Olivia froze and her eyes widened, Gareth felt a jolt of…something. Probably simply fear, he told himself later, rather different from previous occasions, but then so were his circumstances. He waited, hearing Miss Woodwell’s quick breathing beside him, and watched Olivia’s face.

  She did go on. The spell, whatever it was, went through, and Olivia broke her circle, stepped back, and spoke. Only then did the half-electric feeling along Gareth’s nerves subside.

  “What answer?” He didn’t recognize his voice at first.

  Olivia bent and carefully brushed away the symbols she’d drawn. Her face was a little whiter than Gareth would have liked, and she kept it turned toward the ground as she spoke. “First of all, I don’t think anyone will try stealing from any of us for a year or two. So there’s that.” She laughed. Her voice was a little too high and none too steady.

  Gareth took a step forward, reaching a reassuring hand toward her shoulder…and stopped. Best not to distract her just now.

  “Someone’s spirit lives here, for one thing.” Olivia went on after a moment, concentrating on the most mundane of the not-very-mundane discoveries she’d made. “I’ll try and talk to him or her and find out more. We need to know more. The world’s…thinner here. I don’t know why. I don’t know that there’s a mortal man or woman who could explain it entirely, but it’s easier to go beyond the physical here. Easier to access power. Easier to access other things as well…and for them to reach us.”

  Miss Woodwell whistled, long and low. It sounded like a bird call.

  As responses went, it was neither ladylike nor mystical, and therefore steadied all of them. Olivia laughed again, but she sounded more normal this time. “Quite so,” she said. “Exactly so. I’m only glad I picked the spell I did.”

  “Because it doesn’t do very much?” Miss Woodwell asked.

  “That,” said Olivia, getting to her feet, “and because the only things I called on were the elements. Nothing with real personality. You actually have to try to drag up elementals.”

  Gareth stared at her for a moment. “As opposed to demons, I suppose?”

  “Neither Mr. Grenville nor I would summon demons,” Olivia said crisply, “or nothing that really fits the name. There are dark things out there, but there’s no danger of any spell we use calling on them. Some do invoke spirits, though, and that would have been trouble enough. As I said. Some would have been worse.”

  “Worse?” Gareth asked.

  “Archangels,” said Olivia, “and gods.”

  “Angels wouldn’t be a problem, would they?” Miss Woodwell asked. “Good sorts, from everything I’ve heard—”

  “Good doesn’t mean harmless,” said Olivia, “not at that scale. You can invoke something that powerful, but you don’t ever want to catch its attention. Not unless…Well, if that’s your best option, you’re in a great deal of trouble anyway.”

  She looked off, down a small trail Gareth just then noticed. “And now,” Olivia said, “if you’ll follow me, I’ll see if I can find the second part of the answer.”

  Chapter 24

  “Blood sacrifice?” Charlotte asked. “You could have asked. We’d have brought a chicken.”

  She was mostly joking, or sounded like she was. The path Olivia had found was rocky and overgrown, choked with fallen branches and the thorny briars of some very persistent plant or other. Winter clothing served decently well as armor, but Olivia had acquired a scratch or two across her face after they’d been walking for a few minutes, and she didn’t think the others had fared any better. At least the hedgehog had armor, of a sort.

  She wished she could have sent them back. The ground was too uneven particularly for Gareth, though there was no way to phrase that tactfully, and she wasn’t certain what she was going to find at the end of the path or how successful she was going to be at speaking with it.

  That said, if anything did go badly, Olivia knew she would need someone around. As much as she hated to admit it, having Gareth there was some comfort aside from his healing abilities. He was a teacher, he was an adult, and they’d worked together in so
me respects before, even if she tried to avoid remembering that most of the time.

  Olivia took a breath, pushed aside a few more briars, and led Gareth and Charlotte out into what had once been a clearing. The trees had crowded in now, and the undergrowth had taken over, so there was barely room for the three of them to stand.

  “I’m sorry about this,” she said as she took as even a stance as possible over what had once been a grave.

  “Oh, you should be,” said Charlotte cheerfully. “Next time you see a ghost, be sure you set fire to the place before you try and speak to it. I’ll help if you like.”

  “I’ll try to avoid that being necessary,” said Olivia. “If you’d be so kind, please do remember anything I say. I’m never sure whether or not I will.”

  She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and began.

  In London, Olivia had almost always used candles when she called up the dead, but she’d known toward the end she didn’t really need them. Most of the time, all it took was opening her mind in the right way, like focusing on a picture until she saw the hidden image. The bells and candles she’d started with had been there only to show her the way.

  In theory. In practice, she was standing in the middle of the forest, trying to contact a spirit that had probably been dormant for years and which might not be very pleased at the intrusion.

  Olivia tried not to think about that.

  Instead, she pictured the border between the mortal world and the world of the dead, and saw it becoming thinner in a small ring around her, fading like smoke into air. It vanished alarmingly fast compared to what Olivia was used to, and she was glad there weren’t more ghosts out here. “O spirit,” she said, fumbling in her memory for the words to use when she didn’t know a name, “thou hast here a mortal vessel, which shall be pleased to serve thee in speech and in knowledge. Come and speak, if thou art willing.”

  Olivia felt a presence in the back of her mind. It moved slowly, almost groggily forward…

  Then she slid backward, a passenger in her own body, and the other slipped down in front of her. Most spirits she talked to had been urgent in that procedure, eager or sad or enraged. This one was…respectful. Courtly, almost. Olivia got the distinct sense of a bow.

  “A fair day to you, good sir and lady,” said her mouth.

  It spoke English, but a very old version. Olivia could see Gareth’s brow wrinkling. Only the spirit’s presence in her mind let her understand what it said.

  “Good day,” said Charlotte, and the echoes about her voice told Olivia she was using her gift to translate. She paused, then shrugged and went on. “I’m Miss Charlotte Woodwell. He’s Dr. St. John.”

  “I am Brother Jonathan, late, very late, an’ my wits deceive me not, of Englefield Abbey. What do you here, you and your enchantress companion?”

  “It’s probably best to tell him the truth,” said Gareth when Charlotte gave him a questioning look.

  Olivia sensed the spirit’s amusement. Gentle amusement. He’d been a kind man in life, she sensed content with his books and his gardens at the abbey. “Lying is a sin,” she heard her voice say and was glad of her detachment from her body. She might have blushed, otherwise. She certainly couldn’t have met Gareth’s eyes. “So I will commend your wisdom and your virtue both, sir. And still I would have answers. Why have you come?”

  “It’s the forest,” Charlotte said. “Strange place, you know.”

  “What else would keep me here so long since my appointed hour? And yet I am not enough and will not be.”

  “Enough?” Gareth asked after a moment to figure out what the spirit had said.

  Brother Jonathan sighed using Olivia’s lungs. She never quite got used to that feeling. “Enough to prevent. Enough to balance. Enough to keep the water behind the dam should people keep taking away rocks.”

  “Nobody means to,” said Charlotte.

  “And good intentions pave the road to hell,” Brother Jonathan shot back just as quickly. “For the most part, I can repair such damage as has been done, but this place is…fragile. ’Tis easy to break, as my vessel has seen. With only one guardian, and I so far from living, I cannot make it stronger.”

  “Should we leave, then?” Gareth asked. “That is, there’s a school here—”

  “I know,” said the spirit. One of the annoying parts of being a medium, Olivia had found, is the spirits tended to get a lot more of her memories than she got of theirs. “And ’twas an abbey in my day. No great harm came of it, and some good. In times of great need this place may be useful, and ’tis better to have those here who have some idea what they do”

  Using Olivia’s memories, Brother Jonathan was adapting his accent. This time, it didn’t take Gareth very long to figure out what he’d said, and he looked quite relieved when he had figured it out. “Thank you,” he said.

  “You’d want a living guardian?” Charlotte asked.

  “More than one would be best. This forest…’Twill never be ordinary, but mortal minds and mortal strength can help it become a refuge or a threat.”

  Charlotte nodded. “What would they have to do?”

  “Heal. Balance. Shape. Stay and watch lest the tides turn again, lest something slip through the borders.”

  “Stay at Englefield? All the time?” Charlotte, who had been lifting her chin and doing her best inspiring-statue impression—though the hedgehog on her arm would have been an incongruous detail—suddenly took a step backward, almost running into a stump in the process. “Forever?”

  Gareth reached out and put a steadying hand on her arm.

  “Not forever. Mine is a strange case. Had anyone taken up the role, I would have gone to my rest long since. And not in the house at all times. ’Twould be best if they did not venture very far, though.”

  “Oh,” said Charlotte and gulped.

  “It need not be you, child,” the spirit said. Olivia felt his amusement as well as his growing weariness. He would not stay much longer. “And it need not be just now. Let it be soon, though.” The spirit looked out of Olivia’s eyes at Gareth and Charlotte, and his grim sincerity was clear to all of them. “There are deep waters here. I cannot keep the tide back, or the sharks, do you bleed. And they will come. My strength, such as it is, will not last.”

  “We’ll be careful,” said Gareth, his voice hard. “I give you my word.”

  “Then God go with all of you,” said Brother Jonathan, “as I cannot.”

  He had enough strength to give Olivia something like a bow. Then he was gone, dormant again, and the three of them were alone in the forest.

  Gareth was the first one to speak. “We’d better get back,” he said and looked to the west. “The sun’s going down.”

  Chapter 25

  It was shortly after teatime, and the cloudy sky beyond the drawing-room drapes was already quite dark. The younger students were practicing self-defense, the older ones were studying or talking on their own, and Olivia had shut herself in with the piano. She thought she deserved as much.

  They’d come back from the forest in almost complete silence. She and Gareth certainly hadn’t spoken much, and Charlotte had mostly been talking to the hedgehog. Olivia had gotten through her classes somehow, though she’d felt shaken and numb the whole time.

  On the one hand, it was good to know there was no immediate danger. On the other, the forest was much stranger than she thought, and the need for a guardian—she’d have to speak to Mr. Grenville about that as soon as he came back.

  What was “much longer” to a ghost? A year? A month? A day?

  For the moment, there was nothing she could do, so she sat and played Gibsone, “Sigh of the Night Winds.” Someone, possibly Miss Grenville, had left the music, but it was much faded. Between that and the rusty state of Olivia’s skills, she was concentrating rather thoroughly after the first few bars.

  She didn’t even hear the door, let alone footsteps.

  “You play well.” Gareth’s voice dropped, sudden and close at han
d, into a pause in the music. Olivia’s hands froze on the keys, and she snapped her gaze upward to find him almost at her shoulder, coatless and with his shirtsleeves rolled up, looking at her with an unreadable expression that turned to apology as she watched. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “Only startled,” she said, “I assure you.” Her heart was racing, but Olivia couldn’t pretend that was all surprise. Not when she also felt considerably warmer than she had a moment before. “And thank you. I’m rather out of practice, actually.”

  “As am I, then, as a listener.” Gareth tilted his head slightly to look at her, eyes glinting green in the lamplight. “You must have been very good once.”

  “I flatter myself I was. Not a genius, simply an accomplished young lady, but…I found it restful when I was young. And then Charlotte persuaded me, and I found I still do.” She smiled despite herself. “It’s rather amazing how some things come back.”

  “Some of them,” said Gareth. “Some are…more difficult. At best.”

  “Yes,” said Olivia. Her voice was a little sharper than she intended, so she tempered it with another smile. Although, if he’d come in just to be Byronic, a little sharpness was warranted. “That’s why what does return is so remarkable.”

  His lips twitched, acknowledging the point. “And why one occasionally makes the effort to seek out lost things, I suppose. Sea change or not.”

  “I would say so.” He smelled pleasantly masculine. She shouldn’t have noticed, but she did. She went on quickly. “Particularly things that gave us pleasure.”

  That had definitely been the wrong phrase to use. The words had not been magical, not in the sense Olivia usually understood, but they might as well have been Enochian for their effect. In a second the room shrunk down to the two of them. Gareth’s eyes, fixed on Olivia’s, darkened, and then his gaze dropped, first to her mouth, then lower.

  “Pleasure,” he said, and his voice was rough. He started to reach out to her then took a quick breath. “That isn’t what brought me here.”