by A. W. Exley
"We have read the diaries left by Millicent, first Duchess of Leithfield. However, there is woefully little about her supposed activities. Certainly not the information we need to advance in this war. We are hoping you may have uncovered something of use."
Reverend Mason took his cup of tea, with a precariously balanced biscuit on the saucer, and sat at his desk. The tall window illuminated him from behind as he opened a large old volume that was propped up on a pile of smaller books. "Let me start by explaining that Somerset has always had a historian, stretching back over a thousand years. Throughout the decades, a man of learning has laboured in the dark, recording the secret history of this area. He gathered the details no one wanted to say out loud, let alone write down."
That was exactly the history we were looking for, the one Millicent didn't want recorded. I itched to know if she was a witch, but I couldn't just blurt that out. I danced as close to the question as I dared. "Like the history of witchcraft?"
"Like the history of witchcraft." He smiled in a way that reminded me of Father. The paternal affection of someone who would answer a curious child's questions in their own time, drawing out the anticipation. The reverend turned pages as though he sought some passage in particular. Then he looked up and met my gaze. "Especially the history of this area under the reign of Elizabeth the First."
Seth set down his cup and saucer and leaned his forearms on his knees. His gaze went to the reverend. "Does your scribe record whether the first duchess was suspected of being a witch?"
I sighed with relief. Internal pressure lowered and I was no longer in danger of bursting from curiosity.
The reverend tapped a page in his book and his lips moved as he reminded himself of the words scrawled under his fingertip. "Yes. I am sorry, but your ancestor has a dark history. She was a petty and vengeful woman, disliked by the locals, and she delighted in inflicting pain and suffering on her unfortunate servants."
I held in a snort. The more I learned about Millicent, the more I saw parallels to Elizabeth.
The reverend paused to drink from his tea before continuing. "Millicent was one of three witches who formed a powerful coven in the sixteenth century. Her sisters in sorcery were Sarah Wynn and Anne Oakley. All three were minor nobles from local families, until Millicent was elevated to duchess by marriage in 1575. The scribe makes mention of a love potion being used to elicit the proposal."
"Did Millicent really kill her husband?" I glanced to Seth. Nobles had the most scandalous secrets in their lives. His mother running off with her lover on the Titanic was hardly newsworthy when he had a genuine witch in his bloodline.
The reverend's lips twitched. It was unusual to see him smile after sorrow had dwelt so long on his face. Like hearing Father's voice again after so many months of silence, I rejoiced to see Mr Mason succeed with his internal battle and return to some semblance of normality. "We could skip ahead a few years if you wish. The intervening years involved failed crops, beaten servants, and rumours of hexes and curses. Then in 1589, three noble husbands all suffered unexpected deaths within days of each other. That was what finally led to the accusation of witchcraft, after years of whispers."
"They all killed their husbands?" Having used a love potion to secure her duke, did Millicent then tire of him? Poor man—used and discarded like a soiled handkerchief. There was the inherent problem in loveless matches, some women harboured murderous intentions to do away with their inconvenient spouses. Father had loved step-mother, but she obviously felt nothing for him if she could kneel on a pillow over his face. I glanced at Seth. Would we likewise end our days devising how to each rid ourselves of the other?
Mr Mason leaned back in his chair and tented his long fingers. "Three unusual deaths of local nobles attracted attention, especially when one was duke and close to the sovereign. They were all struck down with a most curious affliction—none of them could sleep. Drove them mad and they died in agony, bashing their own heads against the walls in an effort to relieve the pressure."
"Couldn't sleep?" Seth repeated and a frown pulled at his brow. "The Turned are suspended in a strange wakeful or undead state. What if the women weren't trying to murder their husbands, but were attempting something else, like creating the first Turned?"
"A spell that went wrong? Anything is possible."
I'd rather leave that line of enquiry with the reverend to pursue. I had enough problems dealing with the vermin crawling across the countryside without worrying about three-hundred-year-old spells gone awry. Unless one was the result of the other? I imagined Millicent and her sisters as the witches from Macbeth. Cackling around a large pot, stirring a noxious brew, and tossing in frog's legs as they planned world domination.
"What happened to the women?" I asked.
Mr Mason tapped the old book. "The three were accused of witchcraft and a trial held. All three were found guilty. Sarah and Anne were burned at the stake. Millicent, because of her position as duchess and close relationship to Elizabeth the First, was given a poisoned draft to drink."
"The privilege of position," Seth murmured.
"What if Millicent used her power to somehow diminish the effect of the poison, and instead put herself into a state beyond death's reach, like the Turned?" I said. Crowley had said she was suspended between life and death, if there was such a place.
Seth seized on my words. We really did work well together. "You think whatever sorcery Millicent wrought was the genesis for the current plague we face? But why has she slumbered for over three hundred years, and how is it this plague did not curse the land earlier?"
That was the bit that worried me. We still needed to pull the last strands of this web together. "In the fairy tale, Sleeping Beauty slept for over a hundred years, waiting for her prince to find her. What if Millicent needs Crowley to rouse her before she can finish her plan?"
Seth arched an eyebrow and leaned back in the sofa. "Then we had better find her, before Crowley and his minions succeed."
13
Ella
Weaving together the web
* * *
Lieutenant Bain excused himself to help Charlotte with the washing up. He stacked the laden trays and left the library humming “It's a long way to Tipperary,” and I briefly wondered if he was thinking of the sweetest girl he knew. As the library door snicked shut, my mind returned to the issue of witches. I digested the new information and then grasped a tenuous strand of spun silk. The web began to make a pattern I could discern, and this particular fibre could hold the missing patch in a larger question.
I turned to Reverend Mason, the idea still spinning in my head. "Are you able to trace genealogies?"
His eyes lit up and he rubbed his hands together. "Of course. Nothing the clergy likes better than to keep records of births, marriages and deaths. Or hatched, matched, and dispatched, as we say. What did you have in mind?"
"Sarah Wynn and Anne Oakley, can you trace their maternal lines to the current generation?" A persistent niggle in my mind refused to go away. How did Elizabeth know about Millicent? I no longer believed in coincidences, and Mr Mason's talk of the region always having a historian triggered a childhood memory. I would curl up in my mother's lap as she told me stories of her mother and grandmother before her. What if Elizabeth learned of Millicent in the same way, as oral family history passed down mother to daughter?
A shiver ran down my spine. If that were the case, then events had been set in motion years ago, long before the Great War ended and the Grim War began. Step-mother's plan might have involved more than nabbing a duke for Louise. What if she arranged events to unite the bloodlines of two witches, or bring back Millicent herself? Which then left the question of the third witch and her descendants.
The reverend ran a hand over a clean-shaven chin. "It will take me a few days to comb through the records, but I shall make it a priority."
Small things delighted me, like seeing him take a care in his appearance again. He was a learned man and we needed his counsel. His knowledg
e was no longer locked away in a traumatised mind.
"Thank you. We still have the mystery of the missing Millicent. Why would her coffin contain a sack of stones?" Each day I stood a little steadier on my feet in my role of civilian adviser to the War Office. I learned from Seth's example and began to delegate the raft of tasks before me. There came a point where you had to trust the people around you.
I looked to Seth, hoping he could supply the missing answers about the duchess. It was his family; perhaps this skeleton was literally stuffed in a closet in the stately home.
He stretched an arm out along the sofa behind me, and his fingers drummed on the jacquard upholstery. I wanted to curl into his warmth as he spoke, but that wouldn't be appropriate in the reverend's study. Instead I leaned back so Seth brushed my skin as he tapped a rhythm with long fingers while he thought.
"Her resting place looked undisturbed, nor did the lid of the casket appear to have been opened before us. Although time might have eroded the signs if it happened decades ago." Seth's movement stilled. "I suspect that Millicent never rested in there, that someone swapped her body for the sack of rocks at the time the lid was placed on the coffin."
"One of her loyal followers may have taken her body to conceal elsewhere. Particularly if they thought she would revive." Mr Mason closed the large book before him and pushed his chair away from the desk. He rose to stand at the window, looking out onto a tangled and wild garden. You could lose yourself in the brambles beyond his window.
"She's still in the house," I whispered. It was the only thing that made sense. It explained the eerie atmosphere in the original wing, the stories the servants told, and the lack of spiders. Everything kept circling back to Serenity House, or did the old home lie at the centre of this plot?
Seth raised his eyebrows. "Anything is possible I suppose, but I rather think someone might have noticed her over the last three hundred years."
"Ah, but have you peered behind every stone and every timber?" Mr Mason asked, turning from his inspection of the neglected garden. "Old houses always have a plethora of hiding holes, often right before your eyes or under your feet."
"Quite." Seth's gaze turned to me. "I think it's time we opened all the shutters in the old wing and gave it a good air out."
There went my afternoon plans. Instead of putting my feet up in the library, I would be entering Millicent's lair while the painted eyes of her and her pet raven followed my every move.
There was still one teeny thing worrying at me like a dog with an old bone. "Reverend, what happens if Millicent is woken up? How do we defeat her?" Elizabeth had walked our earth and been Turned by another queen's blood. Removing her head and burning her remains had returned my step-mother to whatever lay beyond death. But Millicent had slumbered for centuries, assuming we could even find her corporeal form.
Mr Mason tapped the side of his nose. "I am pursuing a line of enquiry to answer just that question. We must battle witchcraft with a similar force, and I happen to know a few powerful servants who fight for good."
He showed us to the door as Charlotte and Lieutenant Bain emerged from the kitchen. I folded Charlotte in a brief hug and promised to visit her more often. Outside, the lieutenant slid into the front of the motor next to Frank.
"Do you think the church has spiritual warriors who have battled demons throughout the centuries?" I pondered the reverend's words about knowing servants who fought on the side of good.
Seth glanced at me as he held the door open. "Undoubtedly. The Knights Templar spring to mind; they were warriors for God."
I couldn't decide if the answer reassured me or not. Just a couple of years ago, I lived in a world that was easier to understand. We fought a flesh and blood enemy who had families they loved at home, just like us, worrying about their welfare. Then the world turned upside down. Creatures from dark fairy tales manifested themselves as real, and we sought the guidance of a priest to aid our battle.
Back at Serenity House, Warrens greeted us at the front door. Seth slapped him on the shoulder. "Prepare for an expedition, Warrens. We're opening up the original wing and searching for any sign of Millicent."
"I shall gather lanterns, your grace." He nodded and retreated down the hallway.
As we assembled by the hidden door in the dark panelling, I cast my eye over our strange group. We were a mix of curious footmen and intrepid soldiers. All clutched at least two lanterns and carried some form of weapon. I wasn't convinced a pistol would be any good against Millicent, assuming we found where she slumbered. Briefly, I wished I had asked the reverend for some holy water to throw on her.
Warrens appeared with a crowbar and handed it over to Seth. "For prising up floorboards, your grace."
Frank stood at Seth's side. Alice watched from the back of the group. Her amber gaze rested on Frank with a slight worried pull to her brow. It appeared that after their escapade in London, those two were making amends.
"Coming along?" I asked her.
She snorted and shook her head. "Being trapped in the catacombs with all those Turned cured me of exploring, thanks very much. Take care you don't wander off on your own."
"Everybody ready?" Seth glanced around and then activated the lever that revealed the hidden door. A puff of stale air escaped like a woman sighing as the old wing exhaled.
Warrens moved a hall table with a marble top and used it to prop the door open.
We filed through the door and across to the ornate staircase. Frank walked to what appeared to be a solid wall and hauled open a shutter. A tall, narrow window was revealed next to the base of the stairs. A brilliant shaft of sunlight spilled over the floor and caressed the griffin balustrade.
"Where shall we start?" I asked Seth, my hand on the eagle head of the carved animal. I already knew, but needed to say something to break the eerie silence. Even the scuffle of boots seemed reduced to no more than the scurry of mice feet.
Seth placed one foot on the bottom stair and glanced to the floor above. "The most obvious place, Millicent's chambers. We can move out from there."
As we ascended the stairs I cast my lantern over the wall, searching for more shuttered windows. But I found none. "It's so dark."
"There are only a few windows in the original house. Glass was expensive in Tudor times. The solarium has the biggest windows. Noble wives spent much of their time ensconced in there," Seth said from my side.
I tried to imagine Millicent sitting in the solarium, surrounded by her women as they did needlework or played music. Did they fill the day by discussing plots to do away with their husbands, or had her women never known the truth about her? "What a dreary life. Most of these rooms are so dark, shut away from the sun."
Our footsteps seem to echo on the bare boards of the stairs. "Thankfully the main part of the house was constructed in Georgian times. Architects had discovered large windows and natural light by then."
We reached the landing and a footman pulled back a narrow shutter that mirrored the one below. Another shaft of light lit the way, like an arrow pointing in the direction we should take.
We dropped lanterns at regular intervals, illuminating the dark floorboards where no natural light could reach. We passed dour ancestors and the occasional one with a smile painted in their eyes. Then we reached the portrait that stood alone. Shunned by the others.
Millicent deMage.
Was there a glint in her painted eyes, a challenge perhaps or a dismissive laugh at our feeble attempts to push her back? Even her raven peered down its beak at us.
"It's this one," Seth said, walking to a door whose knob I had once rattled.
I expected him to pull an ancient key from his trouser pocket. I didn't expect him to wedge the crowbar in the door jamb and push until the wood cracked. Splinters fell to the floor.
"No key?" I asked. It was out of character for Seth to go straight to brute force.
He pushed the door open and reached around and a metallic rattle came from the lock. He held up a large bras
s key to the light. "Locked from the inside. This door stymied Frank and me on our youthful explorations."
I didn't want to think about the door too much. My overactive imagination conjured a loyal retainer locking themselves in with the prone form of Millicent. Curiosity warred with horror at the thought of finding her slumbering on the bed.
"After you." Frank gave a formal bow as he gestured with his arm for me to follow Seth.
"It's not so gallant when I know you're using me as arrow fodder," I whispered to him as I walked through after Seth.
My lantern made ghosts of sheet-covered furniture. Arms extended to shout boo as we passed. I ignored them as I walked to the opposite wall. Setting down the lantern, my fingers found the edge of the shutter. Seth found the companion one and we both pulled them back at the same time.
An eerie twilight crept into the room, the bright sun outside muted by the layers of dust on the outside of the thick glass. A large bed dominated the room with twisted wooden posts that were wedged against the ceiling. Heavy, tapestried drapes enclosed the bed. A vine worked in gold climbed all over the blood red fabric. I pulled the sword free of its scabbard as Seth grabbed the edge of curtain. He flung it back and we all stared at the enormous bed.
"She's not here." My voice dripped with my disappointment.
Seth glanced at me, humour twinkling in his grey eyes. "I did say I thought someone would have noticed her over the last three hundred years if she was still slumbering in her bed. This wing was used up until last century."
The footmen threw back the dustsheets, revealing all the furniture. One shape with a rounded top called to me. I grasped the sheet and flicked it away to reveal a glass dome, but it was what sat within the glass prison that made me take a step back. A raven. Black feathers gleamed in the low light. Its feet curled around a short branch trapped with it. Its head was tilted slightly to one side and it peered at me, an unspoken question in its eyes.
"Is it hers?" I asked Seth, my gaze fixed on the taxidermied bird.