The Poisoned Crown

by Amanda Hemingway

  Wave on the tide,

  Death from the deep sea

  Swims up the Glyde.”

  And suddenly Hazel found herself wondering whose hand she had seen among the flotsam—whether it was her great-grandmother or some more recent victim, someone yet to be discovered …

  A boat moved up the river, surely too large a boat for such a narrow waterway. It was all white, with white sails and a white-painted mast and a white prow without name or identification, and it looked faintly insubstantial, almost a ghost-ship. A woman stood in the bow wrapped in a long white cloak pulled tight around her body, with a drooping hood covering both hair and face. The picture shifted until Hazel thought she should be able to glimpse a profile—the tip of a nose, the jut of a chin—but under the hood there was only darkness. The boat drifted on, fading into mist, and then there was just a swan, wings half furled, floating on the water. Hazel had always hated swans, ever since one attacked her as a child; she thought they had mean little eyes.

  She said: “That was her, wasn’t it?”

  Bartlemy said: “Perhaps. But remember: to come, she must be called. Nenufar is a spirit; there are laws she cannot evade. Have you called her?”

  “Of course not!”

  The vision dimmed, dissolving into smoke, and at a signal from Bartlemy she unblocked the flue. Gradually the air cleared, and she saw that the fire crystals had burned away; the room was ordinary again. An old room with heavy wooden beams, diamond-paned windows, lamplight soft as candle glow on the shabby Persian rugs and worn furniture. And in the middle Bartlemy, fat and placid and silver-haired, with eyes as blue as the sky. There were more cookies but Hazel didn’t take one, not yet, though his dog sat looking hopefully at her—a huge shaggy dog of questionable ancestry, known as Hoover, whose age was as indeterminate as his master’s. Suddenly it seemed to Hazel that the world was complex and baffling beyond her understanding, and magic and reality were no longer separate but part of the same puzzle, tiny fragments of a jigsaw so vast and intricate that its billion billion pieces could never be fit together, not though she had a hundred lifetimes. Her thought was too small, and infinity was too big, and she felt crushed into littleness by its immensity, its multiplicity, by the endless changing patterns of Chaos. Bartlemy asked her, “What troubles you?” and she tried to explain, groping for the words to express her diminishment, her confusion, her fear.

  Bartlemy smiled faintly. “We all feel that way sometimes,” he said, “if we have the gift of perception. Embrace your doubts: if there is such a thing as wisdom, they are part of it. I’ve had my doubts for more than a thousand years. Actually, I’ve always believed that the answer to everything must really be very simple.” And he added, unconsciously echoing Annie on Irish history: “The problem is finding out the question.”

  “SO RIVERSIDE House is sold at last,” Annie said to Lily Bagot in the deli. No one had lived in Riverside House since the tragedy, though rumors of new owners had circulated from time to time, only to fade as another sale fell through. “Do you know when they’re moving in?”

  “They’re already there,” Lily said. “Came down last week. Some family from London.” All the newcomers in the village were from London these days, big-city types in search of a rural paradise, bringing with them their big-city lifestyle and their big-city needs—and their big-city income. “I daresay they’ll be coming into the bookshop soon.”

  Annie managed a secondhand-book shop, owned by Bartlemy; she and Nathan lived in the adjacent house.

  “I hope so,” she said. She couldn’t help being a little curious. She had been so closely involved in the events at Riverside, now two years past. She wondered what kind of people would buy a house with such a well-publicized history of disaster.

  A few days later she found out.

  A woman came in to browse among the books, a woman with a frizz of dark hair and a thin body that grew wide around the hips, dressed in antique shoulder pads, hand-printed scarves, carved jewelry from the remoter parts of Asia. She studied the shelves for a while, enthused over an early edition of Mrs. Henry Wood, then seemed to make up her mind and pounced.

  “You’re Annie Ward, aren’t you? I know: I asked around. I’m Ursula Rayburn. We’ve just moved in to the oasthouse down by the river. Of course, I expect you’ve heard, haven’t you?—gossip travels so fast in a village. Such an intimate little community—I can’t wait to get to know everyone. Although Islington is really just a village enclosed in a city … Anyway, I’ve been dying to meet you. I hope you don’t mind me introducing myself like this.”

  “Not at all—”

  “You see, I did my homework. I know you’re the one who found the body …”

  Slightly at a loss, Annie said: “Yes.”

  “Was it awful? I gather she was there for months, slowly decaying, while her husband lived on in the house with his mistress, who was pretending to be her. I suppose he’s in an asylum now … and they never caught the mistress, did they? I expect it was all her idea. Mind you, I don’t really see the necessity—I mean, everyone gets divorced these days, it’s as normal as eating your dinner. I’ve had two and Donny’s had one and the kids are totally well adjusted. They say more parents mean more presents at Christmas and birthdays! Are you divorced?”

  “Widowed,” Annie said.

  “Oh dear. And then to have to go through all that… you poor child. You must have been in therapy for months. Bereavement and then post-traumatic stress …”

  “My husband died fifteen years ago,” Annie said. She and Daniel hadn’t been married, but she’d taken his name anyway. “And I don’t have post-traumatic stress.”

  “But… you did find the corpse, didn’t you? You found Rianna Sardou?”

  “Oh, that.” Annie was unable to resist lapsing into nonchalance. “Of course, it was rather unpleasant, but—”

  “Unpleasant? I heard she was lying in the bed, little more than a skeleton, with her hair all spread out—it goes on growing, doesn’t it?—and—”

  “In a village,” Annie said serenely, “you learn to take these things in your stride. Part of the great cycle of life and death, you know. I expect it’s much the same in Islington.”

  “Well…” Disconcerted by Annie’s composure, Ursula’s gush of words ran down. “Not—not exactly …”

  Annie took pity on her. “Would you like some coffee?”

  While the contents of the cafetière were brewing, Ursula Rayburn filled in the details of her extended family. Her two exes, plus new wife/girlfriend/offspring, all on very good terms—“We wanted a big place where everyone could come and stay”—and Donny’s ex and mother, “frightfully bitter, even after four years—they bossed him around all the time, and now they’re like two cats without a kitten.” There were five resident children, all Ursula’s by previous partners: Jude, Liberty, Michael, Romany, and Gawain.

  “Michael?” Annie queried before she could stop herself.

  “His father insisted,” Ursula explained, more in sorrow than in anger. “His first name is Xavier—I always called him that when he was little—but now he’s a teenager he’s gone so peculiar, he won’t answer to anything but Michael. Or Micky, which is almost worse. And the psycho’s name was Michael, wasn’t it? I told him—I said it’s ill omened— but he refuses to go back to Xavier, no matter what I say.”

  “I shouldn’t worry,” Annie said. “Lots of people are called Michael, and they don’t go around committing murders.”

  “Of course not. But in this house, with the atmosphere …”

  “Frankly,” Annie said, “I never thought it had any. It’s an old building, but the renovations made it so bland inside, all shiny new paint and unused furniture. Rianna was dead, her husband was so busy pretending to be normal his personality never made any impact, and the—the mistress was hardly ever there. I’m sure, with so many of you, you’ll find it easy to change the feel of the place.”

  “Oh, but you can’t wipe out the past,” Ursula said
. “I don’t believe in the kind of ghosts that come with clanking chains, naturally, but there are vibrations. I won’t use the tower room till it’s been purified— I’ve got crystals hanging there now—and Melisande wouldn’t even go through the door. She’s my cat, pedigree Burmese, so sensitive. I know it’s a cliché but animals do feel things, don’t they? They’re so much more telepathic than people.”

  Annie said something noncommittal and dispensed the coffee.

  “They never found out her name, did they?” Ursula went on. “The mistress, I mean.”

  Nenufar, Annie thought. Nenufar the water spirit, the primitive goddess from the dark of the sea …

  “No,” she said.

  “Strange, that. Nowadays they seem to have files on everyone— d’you know the police keep your personal details even if you were just caught smoking dope twenty years ago? It’s an abuse of human rights. I’m a member of the campaign for civil liberties, of course … But it’s curious they couldn’t even find a name for her. Names are so significant, don’t you think? We’re not going to stay with Riverside House. It’s really a bit ordinary. I thought Rivendell, but that’s been done to death lately. Perhaps Hesperides … there are apple trees in the garden.”

  “Dundrownin’?” Annie hazarded. She wondered if she had overstepped the mark, but after a tiny pause Ursula burst out laughing.

  “Still, Rianna didn’t drown, did she?” she resumed. “It was some old woman who drowned.”

  Annie couldn’t recall if they’d been able to prove how Rianna died, but she knew.

  “You have to be careful of the river,” she said. “It’s not deep, but there are treacherous currents.”

  “Oh, I know,” Ursula said. “I hoped the children would be able to play there—I had this mental picture before we came: rustic bliss, swimming in the river, maybe a boat. There’s a mooring place, but everybody says boating’s a bit chancy unless you’ve got experience.”

  “Why did you buy the house?” Annie said. “If you don’t mind my asking. Since you know its history …”

  “It was cheap,” Ursula said candidly, “and it doesn’t need work. Just repainting—like you said, it’s white all through, very boring. We’ve been looking to move out of London for a while. And I thought the murders would give it character …”

  Annie opened her mouth and shut it again, saying nothing.

  “Actually, there is a bit of a problem,” Ursula continued. “Do you know a good plumber? The inspector didn’t pick up on it—he said everything was fine—but we keep getting leaks from somewhere. There was a puddle—really a puddle—in the living room only the other day. I don’t know where it came from. No, of course it wasn’t the cat—it was water, not pee. I said to Donny, if the inspector missed something major, we’ll sue. Anyway, I need a plumber to come and check the pipes.”

  “Yellow pages?” Annie suggested.

  “Isn’t there—you know—a little man in the village? One of the natives who’s brilliant and inexpensive and does all the jobs ’round here?”

  “There’s Kevin Bellews,” Annie said. “He’s brilliant but he charges the earth. He only works for city expats—none of the locals can afford him anymore. Besides, he’s always on the golf course near Crowford.”

  “The country isn’t what it used to be,” Ursula mourned. “What happened to—to rural innocence and all those nice dumb yokels in stories?”

  “They got smart,” Annie said.

  It was only after Ursula had gone that she found herself growing uneasy. There was never anything wrong with the plumbing at Riverside House before, she thought. Leaks … leaks meant water.

  Water …?

  “JUDE’S at university,” Hazel volunteered. “He’s at least twenty. The next two are at the tertiary college up the road from Crowford Comp; Micky’s seventeen, Liberty’s sixteen. George fancies her, but she wouldn’t look at him: she’s far too grown-up. The point is, they’re none of them our age, so nobody can expect us to be friends with them.”

  “Ageist,” Nathan said. “What about the younger ones?”

  “They’re just kids.” Hazel was dismissive. “They’re still at primary school. They’ve got a different last name—Macaire—it sounds Scottish but I think their dad must be black. They’ve both got dark skin and fuzzy hair.” Mixed-race children were still an innovation in Eade, though the villagers had finally gotten used to Nathan, with his Asiatic coloring and exotic features.

  “Come to think of it, Mum said the little girl was adorable,” Nathan commented, tolerant of maternal sentiment. “Anyway, you don’t have to be so hostile.” Hazel, he knew, was using the old-fashioned village mentality to shield her own space and the people she didn’t want to share. “We should try to be friendly, at least to the two at tertiary. I can handle the age gap. They’re our neighbors, after all.”

  “I suppose you fancy Liberty, too?” Hazel said.

  “I haven’t seen her. Is she pretty?”

  Hazel shrugged. “Ask George.” George Fawn had formed part of a threesome with them when they were younger, though they saw less of him now. “She’s thin—long legs—tight jeans. She has this don’t-care attitude, like she’s way above anyone else. Probably ’cos they come from London. London people always think they’re so cool.”

  “Maybe you’ll live in London one day,” Nathan remarked.

  “You might; I won’t. I’m not clever enough.”

  “You don’t have to be clever—”

  “You know what I mean!” Hazel flashed. “To live in London you need a good job, and to get a good job you need to pass exams, and everyone knows I’m going to eff up my GCSEs. So don’t talk to me about living in London, okay?”

  “I thought Uncle Barty was helping you with schoolwork and … stuff?”

  “Sometimes,” Hazel said. “When I can be bothered.”

  “Bother!” Nathan gave her a dig with his foot, almost a kick. Best friend’s privilege. He didn’t say Do you want to be stupid? because he knew that in a way she did: being stupid was her protest in the face of the world, her little rebellion against education and convention, her insurance against any expectations he or others might have of her. I’ll do nothing, I’ll go nowhere, I’ll be no one. I’m stupid. That’s that. He wanted to tell her it was childish but he knew it wouldn’t do any good. “What about the witching?” he asked. “Have you done any of that?”

  She hunched a shoulder, tugging her hair over her face in a gesture she had still to outgrow. “You know I don’t like it.”

  “You tried it yourself last year,” he pointed out, brutally. “You made a complete mess of it, too. Ellen Carver nearly got killed and so did I. Uncle Barty said—”

  “All right, all right, I’m learning it.” She pushed her hair back again, and some of the sullenness left her face. “He taught me how to make the spellfire the other night.”

  “Wow … What did you see?”

  “Smoke,” Hazel said.

  “Just smoke?”

  “Pictures,” Hazel conceded. “Smoke-pictures. The past, the future— it’s all mixed up and you can’t tell which is which, and Uncle Barty says there are so many possible futures, you don’t know if any of it’s true, so what’s the point of looking? Magic is all shadows and lies: you can’t trust it. Anyway, I saw scenes from your life, not mine—the Grail, and some kind of sacrifice, and people from another world.”

  “Our lives run together,” Nathan said. “But… you’re not supposed to see other worlds in the smoke. The magic can’t look beyond the Gate. Uncle Barty’s always told me that. Are you sure—”

  “I’m not sure of anything,” Hazel said irritably, “except that I’m hungry.” They were in her bedroom, and her private store of chips had run out. “D’you think your mum would have anything to eat?”

  They went around to Annie’s, and although Nathan pressed her, Hazel wouldn’t be any more specific about what she’d seen.

  Annie supplied them with granola bars—“I d
on’t like those,” Hazel muttered, “they’re healthy”—and the information that the Rayburns were having a Christmas party the following month, holding open house for anyone from the village.

  “They’re not the Rayburns,” Hazel said, nitpicking. “I told Nathan, the two little ones are Macaires, and the husband’s something else. Coleman, I think.”

  “Donny Collier,” Annie said. “Boyfriend or husband. Let’s keep it simple—just call them the Rayburns. Go with the majority. Anyway, it looks like they’re planning a pretty lavish do. At least half the village disapproves of them, but I bet they’ll go.”

  Hazel was surprised into a laugh.

  “Stay for dinner,” Annie went on. “It’s cauliflower cheese.”

  “That’s healthy, too,” Hazel quibbled.

  “Are you sure there’s enough?” Nathan said. “I’m not going short— that’s my favorite.”

  “I’ll stay,” said Hazel.

  Annie allowed herself a secret smile.

  ONCE IN a while Bartlemy had visitors not from the village, strangers whom few saw come or go and fewer still remembered. The man who hurried through the November dusk that year was one such, a tall, stooping figure as thin as a scarecrow, in a voluminous coat and hood that had seen better days, probably two or three centuries ago. Under the hood he had wispy hair and a wispy beard and a face crisscrossed with so many lines there was barely room for them all, but his eyes, amid all their wrinkles, were very bright and green as spring. A dog accompanied him, a wild-looking dog like a great she-wolf, who trotted at his heel and stopped when he stopped, without collar or lead or word of command. She never barked or panted, following him as silently as his own shadow. The man came striding along the lane through the woods on that chill winter’s evening, too late to have come off a local bus, too far from the train, and the dead leaves stirred behind him, as if something woke and watched, and there was a patter of pursuing feet on the empty road.

  Neither man nor dog looked back, though the hackles rose on the beast’s nape and her ears lay flat against her skull. When Bartlemy opened the door, the visitor said: “They are out there. I fear I am not welcome.”