Much later, Gordon, Julia and I sat in the drawing room, close to the fire, enjoying a brandy. Gordon took forever over his brandy, as always. He was not accustomed to such things. He wanted to make it last as long as possible, without looking impolite about it. Julia, by contrast, finished hers quickly and asked Rutherford for another. He lifted an eyebrow, but I allowed it. Julia, full of dinner and wine, was talkative, perhaps more even than usual. She was telling Gordon about her childhood in the draughty, crumbling Braethorn House, where she could escape from nannies and governesses and even her mother for hours at a time, exploring secret passages and huge, long-abandoned rooms where the furniture was draped with dusty sheets and you could still hear, when the weather was right, the ancient house settling into its foundations, even after so many centuries. She told Gordon about her encounters with ghosts (“Most of them terribly sad people,”) and fey wraiths of no discernible character (“Creatures of pure feeling, one might say,”) and, once, an outlaw thief hiding in an abandoned wine cellar (“He stayed three weeks, and I brought him food, but I had to be so careful, Mother and Father suspected something was not right and their kitchen staff were reporting that food was going missing … ”)
“Did you get caught?” Gordon asked, intrigued.
She smiled. “Yes, of course. I was only a silly girl. I was no match for a house full of suspicious relatives and servants.”
“What happened?”
“As it happened, they packed me off to a boarding school for nine years.”
“That seems harsh.”
“The outlaw I was helping had, apparently, also murdered a family of four. He hadn’t told me that part.”
“Careless of him,” I said.
Boarding school, for Julia, was a miserable experience. She hated the regimentation, the constant press of other students, the lack of privacy, the punishing study routines, the pecking order. Indeed, she ran away three times, but was always caught. And one time she almost set fire to her dormitory, but a nervous confederate confided to the staff before it could happen. The one thing Julia had liked about Ashling School for Girls was that it, like the old family estate, was teeming with ghosts. She got on well with them, since the great majority of the ghosts were deceased schoolgirls who had come to bad ends, some by their own hand. Julia understood how this might happen in such a hideous place.
The old clock on the mantel was chiming midnight. Gordon looked up. “Is it that late?”
I nodded, politely swallowing a yawn. Julia said, “Oh dear, I’ve been prattling along for hours! Ruth, dear, you should have told me to put a sock in it long ago.”
“I did try,” I said, smiling. There was no shutting her up, once she was rolling.
“Mr Duncombe,” she said, “exactly when shall we conduct this hypnosis business? Right now would seem an opportune moment. There’s nothing like midnight, if you ask me, for venturing into the hidden realms of things, wouldn’t you agree?” She smiled at him, her eyes alive in the firelight.
“Gordon?” I looked at him, wondering how he felt. He would be thinking about his dogs.
He swirled the remains of his brandy. “I suppose it couldn’t hurt, could it? Shouldn’t take long.”
Julia beamed, excited. “Right, then! What do I need to do? Am I all right sitting just here, or should I move to a more conducive chair?”
He told her she was just fine where she was. He fished out his sterling silver pocketwatch, given to him by his own family when he reached his majority, more than thirty years ago. The case was elegantly engraved; it would fetch a sizeable sum at auction, should he ever be foolish or desperate enough to sell it. “All I need you to do, Miss Templesmith, is to relax, take deep, slow breaths, and keep your eyes on my watch here.” He sat on a stool before her, and dangled the watch from its fob chain; it turned this way and that, glittering like liquid gold with reflected firelight. “I want you to relax as much as you can, from the tips of your toes, all the way up to the top of your head. If you feel a need to settle back in the chair, please feel free. I just want you to relax, relax, perhaps think about some of those favourite places from your childhood, and keep watching the light on the watch here … ”
I had to force myself to look away; I was feeling rather sleepy myself. Soon she had drifted away into a state somewhere between awareness and sleep, and she curled up in the large chair, looking like nothing so much as a little girl. She wore a small smile. The firelight flicked across her face.
“Now what?” I whispered, trying not to sound too impressed.
“First, we give her a subconscious trigger so that we can bring her back to consciousness immediately if anything worrying occurs. Then another trigger that can be used, in the future, should we need to induce this state again.”
“Why would we want to do it again?”
“It’s what Freud does, though there I suppose he’s thinking about recurring weekly visits.”
We decided to omit the latter trigger. Soon Julia was ready.
Gordon took her back to her home, more than three months earlier, to before she began experiencing the disturbing dreams. At the time Julia had been living at the country home of her cousin Jeremy, an earl, and his wife, Countess Mary. It was a modest holding, four hundred acres, in a picturesque valley not far from Leeds. “What do you do each day, Miss Templesmith?”
She spoke in a quiet, sleepy sort of voice, and described wonderful meals, extensive reading of newspapers and novels, visits into Leeds for afternoon tea with local friends, visits to the library each day for fresh books, evening walks through the hills with Jeremy and his dogs. It sounded like a wonderful, uncomplicated sort of life — except for the manner in which Julia was handed around between all the relatives. She did not like her own home these days, but could not bring herself to sell it and move; this was the family estate: it had to remain in the Templesmith family, even though she was the last of the direct line. If Antony and I had had any children, they would one day have inherited the old pile. As it was, though, it was far too large for one woman and a pair of servants, to say nothing of the running costs.
“All right,” Gordon said, “let’s go to the first night you experienced the dream.”
Julia looked anxious, shifting in the chair.
Gordon said, “It will be all right. Nothing can hurt you.”
She settled. He proceeded.
Julia went on to describe the first dream, which, perhaps disappointingly, consisted of no particular distinct imagery, but instead a growing sense of cold unease that built, slowly, into panic — and then something indefinable that made Julia blurt out my name, gasping, as if afraid for her own life.
“Bring her out, Gordon!”
Julia was greatly distressed, crying now, “Oh my God, Ruth! No, not Ruth!” She went on and on. I gathered this was how it had been, that first night. Gordon interrupted, and brought her away from the source of that fear, brought her back to a safe, quiet place. She calmed. I dabbed at her tears with my handkerchief.
“Now what?” I said.
“We need to find out where this is coming from. It seems unlikely that, in the middle of an otherwise serene sort of life, she should suddenly get upset over something to do with her niece, whom she hasn’t seen in years. Makes no sense. Unless,” he said, looking at the fire, “she’s sensitive to things involving your life because … ”
“I would not say we are close, but we always got on well, after a fashion.” Which, of course, was true, right up until that day at Antony’s funeral.
Gordon went back to Julia, and asked her if she could go back to the point where she first felt that anxiety. She nodded, and said, fidgeting already, “All right. I can feel it. It’s cold. I’m so cold.”
“Where is the cold coming from, Miss Templesmith? Is it like a wind or a breeze?”
She looked confused for a moment, then “looked” to her left. “Yes … yes, I can feel it coming from … ”
I was feeling cold, too, listening
to this, and wondering where Gordon was going.
“Julia, I want to see if you can move into the wind. Can you do that? Can you see where the cold wind is coming from?”
She was shivering, but looked determined. It was easy to imagine the child Julia looking like this on finding a secret passage in the old house, and intent on finding out where it went, regardless of the possible danger of exploring in a darkness lit only by candle or lamplight. “I can feel it growing stronger. It’s … so cold … ” I could see her chin trembling a little. She rubbed at her arms. I fetched a blanket, and Gordon used suggestion to help her feel more protected from the wind.
“Tell me what you see now, Julia?”
“I’m … I’m in a sort of tunnel, or a passageway. It’s very dark. The floor creaks. Things are fluttering around my face. Moths, I think, perhaps. There’s a bad smell. I’m not sure. I can just barely see.”
“How is the wind?”
“Stronger. Much stronger. It’s … ” She frowned. “It’s hard to press ahead.”
“You have the strength to get there, Julia. You have the strength.”
“I’m not sure I want to get there. I’m scared. It’s … not just cold. There’s something else. Something bad.”
“Gordon? Is this wise?”
He glanced at me. “I’m not sure how many chances we’ll have to do this.”
“Be careful!”
He nodded. “Julia?”
“Yes?” It was a little girl’s voice.
“Can you go on?”
“I want to.”
“Let me know if you want to stop. Just raise a finger or use the trigger word, all right?” The trigger word was, prosaically enough, “exit”.
“All right.”
“What can you see now?”
“There’s a light.”
“What sort of light?”
“C-candles, I think. There’s a room.”
“Is the wind coming from this room?”
She nodded slowly, and looked very frightened. Her eyes still closed, she looked around. Whispering, she said, “It looks like a cellar. Smells dusty, and there’s old bottles and casks in racks, and some steps.”
“Is anybody there with you?”
She shook her head. “No. There’s just … there’s … a circle thing … on the floor … ”
“A circle on the floor?” I did not like the sound of this. “Is it painted or drawn in chalk?”
“It looks like paint,” she whispered in the tiniest voice, “but it doesn’t smell like paint.” She wrinkled her nose. “It’s dreadfully bad … ”
“Is this a room you have seen before?”
Julia shook her head again. “I’ve seen rooms like it. It smells.”
“Can you move into the room?”
Feeling tense myself, I said to Julia, “It’s all right, Julia. You’re safe.”
But she was shaking her head again. “It’s not safe! It’s cold here, it’s cold! I’m freezing to death, it’s, it’s … like a blizzard, I want to go!”
“Gordon, bring her out!”
He wanted her to stay under a little bit longer, to learn more, but Julia’s desperation was all too palpable. “All right. Julia?”
Julia suddenly gasped in fright: “Someone’s coming! Footsteps!”
“Julia — exit!”
6
She slumped down into the chair, asleep, as Gordon had intended. I tucked the blanket tighter around her.
Gordon looked a little embarrassed. “That was not good. I’m sorry, Ruth.”
I said, “What was all that?”
He frowned, deep in thought. “Difficult to say, for certain. The passageway, however, was almost certainly more metaphor than physical. I know that much.”
“How do you mean?”
“You’re asking me about metaphors?”
I shot him a Look. “No. I meant — ”
“Ah,” he said, understanding. “It’s a bridge, of sorts, linking Julia to something in your own realm. In a manner of speaking. Er … ”
“What about the cellar? Was that metaphorical, too?”
“Almost certainly not. Something’s going on in a cellar somewhere around here. Something involving you.”
“Why me?”
“How should I know? Maybe someone resents your success, or your, er, eccentric manner.”
I went to respond, but Julia was stirring. She rubbed at her eyes, still looking like a little girl. “What happened?”
“Do you remember anything?” Gordon asked, worried.
She frowned. “I remember feeling very cold.” She looked at the blanket, then at me. “Did you …?”
“You seemed to need it,” I said.
“I do hope I didn’t do anything silly … ”
I put my hand on her shoulder. “You did very well. We learned a great deal.”
Surprised, she looked from me to Gordon and back. “Really? Such as? Did you find out — ?”
Gordon yawned, but said through the yawn, “I’m afraid I must be getting back to my dogs, if that’s all right. Ruth will explain everything for you.” He stood up and stretched — and looked like a man who didn’t want to deliver bad news to someone who might not take it well.
Julia stared up at him. “You can’t simply leave me hanging like that, Mr Duncombe! I deserve to know!”
Which she did, I thought. “I think you should tell her, Gordon.”
He looked pained. “Could you please arrange a lift home for me?”
“You really ought to learn to drive, Gordon. It’s not all that terribly hard.”
“I can’t afford a car!”
Julia was up out of the chair and attempting to get Gordon’s attention; she looked nonplussed. “Mr Duncombe! If you’ll pardon my interjection — could you please tell me what you found out?” Gordon could not escape Aunt Julia once she had that look on her face.
Fortunately, he looked at her, and realised this for himself. He slumped, shoulders seeming almost to disappear. He had wanted to spare her. “Please accept my apology, Miss Templesmith. It’s simply … ” He was wondering how to phrase such grim news. “It’s just that we found a cellar. Most likely it’s somewhere in the immediate vicinity, here in Pelican River, but possibly a little further afield.”
“Mr Duncombe!”
He looked to me for assistance, but I was letting him handle it. He said, “The cellar contained a summoning and constraining circle. It appeared, from your description, that it was painted in blood. The room was accumulating a foul energy. It was building up, something like a battery, or capacitor.”
Julia’s eyes had never been wider. She went to say various things, but at length could say nothing. She looked at me. “What have I done?” she whispered.
“You’ve done nothing wrong, Julia. It’s quite all right. You were a great help to me. We can start an investigation now. Get to the bottom of things. You’ve been indispensable.”
Gordon agreed, and tried to soothe her unwinding feelings.
“I’ll fetch Rutherford,” I said.
By the time I returned, Julia had settled back into her chair. “I knew there was something about this place. I knew it!”
“Julia?”
She looked up. “You must leave this town, Ruth. You must leave, as soon as humanly possible!”
“It’s no good running from things, Julia. This is my home. If there’s something going on we have to stop it before it gets out of hand.”
“But you’ve got a perfectly good home back in England. Everything you could ever want, it’s all right there. Why did you ever want to leave?”
I did not know how I could answer that, not in only a few words.
Rutherford appeared at the drawing room doorway, fully attired, looking rested, flexing his hands in the black leather gloves, looking every inch like he’d simply been resting in his quarters, just waiting for me to call on him. He was eerie that way. “Mr Duncombe? When would it be convenient for you to dep
art?”
Gordon, as ever when asked questions by my servants, looked stricken and a little confused. At last he managed to indicate that he would be ready in just a few minutes. There was something he wanted to do first. He said to me, “Ruth, there’s a simple protection charm that I can employ here. It’s nothing big or complicated, but it will keep anything malicious distracted from looking for you. To them it would appear that you’ve disappeared, after a fashion, only to pop up in all sorts of odd places except where you really are.”
Gordon had never offered to use any of his wizardry on me or even in my interest. It gave me a strange feeling, that we were entering a new realm. Our relationship was changing. I felt strangely disturbed at the prospect. Julia, looking on, trying not to yawn, still seemed distressed. She looked at Gordon, too, when he wasn’t looking her way, as if trying to figure out what kind of a man he was: part inventor, part magician, part friend.
I agreed to his suggestion, and he quickly set about his mystical business. He said little, and did less; he moved around me, touching lightly certain points on my body — the base of my spine, the point where my skull met the top of my spine, my belly, the part of my chest where my heart lay, beating much faster than usual. It was all very quick, too fast to notice anything other than a faint tingling warm feeling that might simply have been a rush in my blood circulation. He soon finished the procedure, and said a final statement in a language I did not recognise, though it sounded rather like Latin. He said to me, “The deal is done.”
“The deal?”
He explained. “All magic consists of a deal, or a bargain, with the Powers that provide the alteration to the universe. In return for their service, the magician must offer something. It’s a negotiation, essentially.”
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