Sarah nodded. Nan spoke for them both. “We’ll do it, sir.”
Lord Alderscroft beamed. “Splendid! Now what do you think your first steps should be? Remember, I am trying your paces, as it were. So I want to hear what your thoughts are.”
“Before we actually go anywhere, we need to establish personas, as it were,” Sarah said. “We’ll need to have an excuse to be where we are going, to be together, and to be unchaperoned.”
Nan snorted a little at that. “All I have to do is dress a bit more severely, and I could look as old as thirty,” she pointed out. “So I can easily be the chaperone myself.”
Alderscroft nodded. “Good, good. Go on.”
“Have you a good idea of where in Wales this is?” Sarah asked.
“Somewhere around about a little seaside town called Criccieth,” Alderscroft told them.
“In that case, I think I will be recovering from something unspecified, and sent to someplace cheap, on the sea, for my health, and Nan can be my older sister. We can be the daughters of a clergyman. That’s genteel enough to mix with the gentry if we need to, but egalitarian enough to mix with everyone else.” Sarah had gotten a little pink in her cheeks, showing her excitement. Nan just let her go—she was the one with the better imagination. “And if anyone asks that might be inclined to ask questions elsewhere, I can tell the truth, that my—our—parents are serving at a mission in Africa. Our family has your patronage, so you are kindly taking care of my illness.”
Alderscroft rubbed his hands together with satisfaction. “Excellent. I’ll—ah no. I was going to say that I would take care of the details, but I have a better idea. I’ll have you work directly with my secretary. You can learn how to do this sort of thing yourself that way.”
Now it was Nan’s turn to feel excited. They’d done a certain amount of planning for their travel out to Africa and back, but the bulk of it had been handled by the Thomas Cook agency. Mostly things had gone well, but there had been that problem in Egypt… if she and Sarah knew how to deal with bookings and the like themselves, they wouldn’t find themselves in difficulties again.
Besides, she liked having the reins firmly in her own hands.
“Right then! We’re all agreed.” Alderscroft looked extremely satisfied. “You two put together the Sherlockian guises and work out what you will need for them. When you have your lists, come out here again, and you, and I and Whitely will go over them, then I’ll leave you with Whitely to make the actual arrangements. He’ll give you a list of Elemental mages that are nearest, and he’ll make you out letters of introduction to the local gentry in case you’ll need those as well.”
“That sounds excellent, my lord,” Nan agreed. “Better to have those in hand and not need them than need them and have to wait for them.” She paused. “I’ve just got one question, my lord. Why us and not some lesser Elemental magicians?”
“Because neither of you seem to have any gift for magic yourselves,” he said frankly. “That makes you—well, not immune, but certainly resistant to its effects. I feel much safer sending someone like you than I would a lesser mage. Furthermore, if the person we are trying to find is of a competitive nature, both by virtue of your sex and the fact that you are not mages yourselves, you will not be seen as a challenge.”
Nan and Sarah both nodded. “Smart bird!” Grey said approvingly.
“Ah! And that is the third reason, thank you for reminding me, Grey. You have protectors.” He nodded at the birds. “I very much doubt that this magician, no matter how powerful he is, will have seen anything like them—nor will he be inclined to test them, if he is reasonably sane and cautious.”
Neville shook his head and body vigorously, and snapped his beak, as a reminder that he was not just “armed” with occult weapons, he was armed with a very physical one.
“That makes me even more pleased to hear, if that were possible,” Nan said with satisfaction.
“Well then, my dear lady-Sherlocks! The game’s afoot!” If Nan had had any lingering doubts as to whether this was some sort of make-work urged on the Wizard of London by Memsa’b, his enthusiasm and obvious relief told her the opposite. She and Sarah were going to provide the Elemental Master with a much-needed service. “Now, since the hour has stretched well into the afternoon, would you care to join me for tea?” His eyes gleamed. “And perhaps a rubber or two of bridge with Whitely?”
Nan chuckled. “Still smarting from your defeat last week, my lord?”
“Bah! Unlucky hands is all!” he proclaimed. “I am sure that Sarah and I can best you and Whitely and give you the trouncing you so richly deserve.”
“In that case, my lord, I shall take that as a challenge,” Nan proclaimed, and Lord Alderscroft chortled in triumph and rang for tea.
Whitely and Nan defeated Sarah and Lord Alderscroft, but only by a hair this time. Alderscroft sent them back to the school in the soft twilight expressing himself very well satisfied with the results of the day. Memsa’b, too, expressed her satisfaction, so there was nothing more for the two of them to do than to work out the who, what, and why of the characters they planned to play.
Nan began to realize that this was a little like acting in a play—except, of course, that they would never be off-stage—which she had enjoyed very much while she had been a student. She had been excited about this whole project from the beginning, but this realization just added another whole layer to her pleasure.
Her first taste of acting had come during her very first year as a real student at the school, when a kind gentleman had offered Memsa’b the use of his country manor for the school for a summer holiday. Memsa’b had conceived of the notion of having the whole school involved in acting A Midsummer Night’s Dream as a way of keeping some of them out of mischief—and as a way of making their lessons into something less than onerous. Nan and Sarah were Helena and Hermia, natural roles for both of them. Nan had originally hoped to be Hippolyta, the Amazon Queen, more for the sake of the armor than anything else, but after she came to read through the text, she realized that Hippolyta’s role was rather flat and uninteresting next to that of Helena. Even if she was going to have to act as if she was all in a pash over a boy!
All the roles had been settled but that of Puck, which was proving difficult to cast, given their limited number of potential players and the limited abilities of all of them. Memsa’b, Nan and Sarah had gone out to a half-deserted part of the garden to rehearse their parts, and Memsa’b had used a pause in their rehearsals (in which she was playing Puck) to lament that very fact. That was when it happened.
“Ah, dear lady, and tender maidens,” said a bright voice from the doorway, making them all turn. “Perhaps I can solve this problem for you.”
There was a boy there, perhaps a little older and a trifle taller than Nan. He had a merry face, sun-browned, with reddish brown hair and green eyes, and wore very curious clothing.
At first glance, it looked perfectly ordinary, if the local farmers hereabouts were inclined to wear a close-fitting brown tunic and knee-breeches rather than sensible undyed linen smocks and buff trousers, but at second glance there was something subtly wrong about the cut and fit of the garments. First, they looked like something out of a painting, something antique, and secondly, they looked as if they were made of leather. Now, the blacksmith wore leather trousers and the village cobbler, but no one else did around here.
And there was something else about this boy, a brightness, a spirit of vitality, that was not ordinary at all.
And that was the moment when Neville made a surprised croak, and jumped down off the marble seat where he had been pecking with great interest at a hole in the stone, to be joined on the floor by Grey. Both of them stalked over to the boy’s feet, looked up at him—
—and bowed.
There was no other name for what they did, and Nan’s mouth fell agape.
But this was not the only shock she got, for Memsa’b had risen from her seat, and sunk again into a curtsey. Not a hea
d-bowed curtsey though; this was one where she kept her eyes firmly on the newcomer.
“‘Hail to thee, blithe spirit!’” she said as she rose.
The boy’s eyes sparkled with mischief and delight.
“Correct author, but wrong play and character, for never could I be compared to Ariel,” he replied and swiftly stooped down to offer Neville and Grey each a hand. Each accepted the perch as Nan stared, her mouth still open. “How now, Bane of Rooks!” he said to Neville. “I think you should return to your partner, before bees see her open mouth and think to build a hive therein!”
With another bow, and a croak, Neville lofted from the boy’s outstretched hand and landed on Nan’s shoulder. Nan took the hint and shut her mouth.
Wordlessly he handed Grey back to Sarah, who took her bird with round eyes, as if she saw even more than Nan did to surprise her. “So ho, fair dame, did you think to plan to play my play on Midsummer’s Day and not have me notice?” he said to Memsa’b, fists planted on his hips.
“I had not thought to have the honor of your attention, good sirrah,” Memsa’b replied, her eyes very bright and eager. “Indeed, I had not known that such as you would deign to notice such as we.”
He laughed. “Well spoke, well spoke! And properly too! Well then, shall I solve your conundrum with my humble self and let your restless Tommy play the ass?”
Nan blinked hard, as a furtive glimmer of light that could not have actually been there circled the boy, and then her brain shook itself like a waking dog, everything that wasn’t quite “right” shifted itself into a configuration she could hardly believe, and she burst out with, “You’re him! You’re Puck!”
Oh she would never, ever forget that moment. It was the moment when something truly magical entered her life. The occult was one thing; by that point she had encountered ghosts, mediums, psychical manifestations, a distinct mental bond with Neville… but these were all things that had, if not an entirely rational explanation, surely they were something that was not magical. But Puck—Elves, the Fair Folk—they were. Magic was real. And it came in the form of an altogether enchanting playmate.
Puck had agreed to play himself for their production, and he had shown up, just as he promised, on the night.
She remembered what Memsa’b had said about him, when he had left them after that first encounter.
“Ah, now… I hesitate to pin down someone like him to any sort of limited description,” Memsa’b temporized. “And the Puck of Shakespeare’s play is far more limited than the reality. Let’s just say he is—old. One of the oldest Old Ones in England. As a living creature, he probably saw the first of the flint-workers here, and I suspect that he will see the last of us mortals out as well, unless he chooses to follow some of the other Old Ones wherever they have gone, sealing the doors of their barrows behind them. If he does, it will be a sad day for England, for a great deal of the magic of this island will go with him. He is linked to us in ways that some of those who were once worshipped as gods are not.”
“Will we see ’im again afore the day?” she asked.
“Now that I cannot tell you.” Memsa’b pursed her lips. “If you do, be polite, respectful, but don’t fear him. He is the very spirit of mischief, but there is no harm in him and a great deal of good. You might learn a good deal from him, and I never heard it said that any of his sort would stand by and let a child come to harm. His knowledge is broad and deep and he has never been averse to sharing it with mortals.”
“But would he steal us away?” Sarah asked, suddenly growing pale. “Don’t they take children, and leave behind changelings?”
Here Nan was baffled; she had no idea what Sarah was talking about. But Memsa’b did.
“I don’t—think he’d be likely to,” she replied after a long moment of thought. “Firstly, I don’t think he would have revealed himself to us if he was going to do that. Secondly, what I know of such things is that his sort never take children who are cared for and wanted, only the ones abused and neglected.” She held out a hand and Sarah went straight to her to be hugged reassuringly. “No one can say that about any of you, I do hope!”
No indeed. No one could. No one could have loved Nan better than Memsa’b.
As if her thinking about Puck had communicated itself to Sarah, her friend looked up at her from across the table where they were both making lists and notes. “Do you think we should try and call him?” she asked, without needing to specify what him she was talking about. “I expect he’d come here if we did; it’s lovely land and the back grounds are half wild.”
Nan shook her head. “I have… a feeling about that,” she said, after a moment. “It was all very well to call on him whenever we wanted to see him when we were children; children are allowed to be playful and a little thoughtless. But we’re adults now. I think that we should only try and call him if we run into difficulties in this task that we just can’t work out answers to ourselves. I think he—rightly!—expects a great deal more of an adult than of a child. Self-sufficiency, for one thing.”
Sarah nodded agreement, but sighed. “Well, perhaps he’ll come to us without us trying to call him. I’d like to see him again. Sometimes… sometimes I find myself thinking that everything about him was just a dream.”
Nan couldn’t help sharing those sentiments. She remembered the night of the play, for instance.
At the moment when they were all milling about backstage, waiting for Memsa’b to announce the play, Nan felt a tug on her tunic and turned to find herself staring into those strange, merry green eyes again. This time the boy was wearing a fantastic garment that was a match for those Titania and Oberon were wearing: a rough sleeveless tunic of green stuff and goat-skin trousers, with a trail of vine-leaves wound carelessly through his tousled red hair.
“How now, pretty maiden, did you doubt me?” he said, slyly. “Nay, answer me not, I can scarce blame you. All’s well! Now, mind your cue!”
With a little shove, he sent her in the direction of her entrance-mark, and as she stepped out into the mellow light of lanterns and candles, she forgot everything except her lines and how she wanted to say them.
Now, Nan was not exactly an expert when it came to plays. The most she had ever seen was a few snatches of this or that—a Punch and Judy show, a bit of something as she snuck into a music-hall, and the one Shakespeare play Memsa’b had taken them all to in London.
But the moment they all got onstage, it was clear there was real magic involved. All of them seemed, and sounded, older and a great deal more practiced. Not so much so that it would have been alarming but—certainly as if they were all well into their teens, rather than being children still. Everything looked convincing, even the papier-mâché donkey’s head. Lines were spoken clearly, with conviction, and the right inflection. Nan and Sarah even made people laugh in all the right places.
And as for Puck—well, he quite stole the show. From the moment he set foot on stage it was clear that the play was, in the end, about him.
Yet no one seemed to be in the least put out that he took the play over. Not even Tommy. And perhaps that was the most magical thing of all.
There had been no sign of him after that—until the hour that the two of them ventured to investigate a bridge just off the property that had given them bad feelings, and discovered that what haunted it was very dangerous indeed. They had, in fact, come under attack, and it had been Puck who rescued them.
It had been a hungry, evil spirit that had ensnared another, the ghost of a little girl, and was sucking the life out of her. Nan and Sarah had immediately come to the ghost-girl’s defense, and had been attacked in their turn. They had been very young, of course, and not strong, and certainly not as practiced as they became even a few months later, and the horrid thing had come very close to taking them too.
But then their savior had appeared.
“Not so fast, my unfriend, my shadow-wraith!” cried a fierce young voice that brought with it sun and a rush of flower-scented sum
mer wind—and blessedly, the release of whatever it was that had hold of Nan’s throat.
She dropped to her knees, gasping for breath at the same time that she looked to her right. There, standing between her and Sarah, was Robin Goodfellow. He wore the same outlandish costume he’d worn for the play, only on him, it didn’t look so outlandish. He had one hand on Sarah’s shoulder, and Nan could actually see the strength flowing from him to her as she fed the ghost-girl with that light, which now was bright as strong sunlight.
The ghost-girl thrashed wildly, and broke free of the shadow-woman’s hold, and that was when Robin made a casting motion of his own and threw something at the shadow-form. It looked like a spider-web, mostly insubstantial and sparkling with dew-drops, but it expanded as it flew toward the shadow-woman, and when it struck her, it enveloped her altogether. She crumpled as it hit, as if it had been spun out of lead, not spider-silk, and collapsed into a pool of shadow beneath its sparkling strands.
The ghost-girl stood where she was, trembling, staring at them.
“She’s stuck,” Sarah said, her voice shaky, but sounding otherwise normal.
Grey waddled over to the ghost-girl, looked up at her, and shook herself all over. Neville returned to Nan’s shoulder, feathers bristling, as he stared at the shadow-woman trapped in Puck’s net.
“She doesn’t know where to go, or how to get there, or even why she should go,” Sarah continued, pity now creeping into her voice.
“Oh so?” Puck took a step or two toward the ghost-girl, peering at her as if he could read something on her terrified young face. “Welladay, and this is one who can see further into a millstone than most… no wonder she don’t know where to go. Hell can’t take her and Heaven won’t have her, but there’s a place for you, my mortal child.”
His voice had turned pitying and welcoming all at the same time, and so kindly that even Nan felt herself melting a little inside just to hear it. He held out his hand to the ghost-girl. “Come away, human child, or what’s left of you. Come! Take a step to me, just one, to show you trust your dreams and want to find them—”
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