Digital Magic (The Chronicles of Art Book 2)

by Philippa Ballantine

  Ella moved forward and self-consciously tucked her escaping hair behind her ear. “Sorry I’m late, but...”

  Tania always had the effect of making Ella feel like a half made bed. Today was no different. “What was it this time?”

  “I forgot to set the alarm because I was up all night working on a rewrite of my book. I got behind a little because Bakari came over….”

  If Ella thought that mentioning the village librarian would cut her some slack with the Baroness, she was wrong. Tania’s eyes narrowed.

  The whole village knew about them, but it had been nearly a year since the icy ruler of the ‘Big House’ had gone slumming with the local bad boy, and people had found other things to gossip over. Still, Tania didn’t help things by being so touchy about the subject—well, in Ella’s opinion at least.

  “No need to say any more, Ella. Knowing him, I’m just glad you turned up at all.”

  “Come on, I wouldn’t let you down. That travel writer is on the first tour today.”

  Tania sighed and cast another critical eye over Ella, perhaps hoping that the writer didn’t get down to the kitchen where the ‘genuine Victorian maid’ would be busy helping to prepare dinner. The turn of the nineteenth century hadn’t been the best time for the manor, but market research had shown that it was the current tourist trend.

  “Well, you’d better get to your place then.” Her voice betrayed frustration.

  Ella wasn’t going to let Tania affect her that much. She knew the Baroness would have preferred droid similcas, but such things were expensive, so Tania had to rely on the local talent. Assured of that much, Ella left Tania in the Long Gallery and went down to her post.

  Some might have baulked at being buried in the kitchen all day, but she loved it. She and three others ran it, and when the tourists weren’t around there was the usual amount of giggling and terrible jokes flying. And the work, though difficult, was fun.

  They’d make soups with the tammis. Janey, the broad shouldered daughter of a local farmer, would hold the cloth while Ella would push the thick broth through with a wooden spoon. It made your arms ache, but Maureen the cook wasn’t nearly as strict as her real Victorian counterpart would have been, and they got through it with jokes and gossip.

  They’d smarten up when the tourists came through. A tiny alarm would ring as the masses came down the steps towards the kitchen and immediately they’d assume their proper personas.

  Visitors emerged into a kitchen full of warm smells and happy servants; perhaps not authentic but charming. Ella and Janey would offer them some baked treats from the morning and show them the delights of the kitchen, the coal range, and the gadgets. Maureen would preside over it all, contributing only her authentic presence and perhaps a gruff explanation of the recipes of the time. Maureen was a part-timer like Ella but less inclined to enjoy the contact with people.

  The day passed swiftly. At the end of it, all three were tired from the combination of manual labor and forced smiles. Ella, knowing the others had families to get to, shooed them out the door and set about the cleaning. Procrastination was a fine art to a writer and she had no one waiting for her. The meditative action of cleaning was just mindless enough for her to enjoy.

  As she tidied away the graters, the mincers, and other antiquated symbols of Victorian labor, Ella wondered just what she could do about Tania. She’d thought lately that she might have been tossed an offer of friendship from the strange Baroness. Perhaps she felt a connection because they were outcasts in the village; Ella because she was new and Tania just because of who she was. Though Ella missed her close friends in London, she couldn’t decide if she liked the Baroness or not. Sometimes she could be sunny and fun, yet at other times she could look right through a person with a stare that could freeze you cold.

  Ella might have been a stranger, but it hadn’t taken her long to get the story about the Baroness.

  Losing her parents as a teenager had not made anything easy for Tania Falchion. Still, plenty of people had been forced to deal with tragedy. It was weak blood, the villagers reckoned, that had let her snap. Ella had not yet moved to Penherem when the Adjusters had delivered what was left of Tania Furlion back to her ancestral home. Apparently it had not been a pleasant sight. It had taken years for Tania to reassemble her façade of normality. They were all worried that it was crumbling again. Any more ‘adjustment’ and there would not be anything left of the family that had lived in the Hall for six hundred years.

  Tania was the last Furlion and if some whispered that it’d be a good thing to be rid of them, there were those more pragmatic ones that spoke louder about the need to have a link with the past if the village was to survive.

  Being an outsider sometimes had its benefits. Ella heard all the gossip, both sides of it, but it also meant she felt obligated to do something about it. The question remained though, how could she help Tania hold onto her carefully scraped together sanity?

  As she untied her starched white apron the spinebridge flickered, sending spasms of pain up her back. Experience had taught her not to give voice to the pain when others were around but the day was over so Ella allowed herself a private groan, more of annoyance than anything else. Her odd sliding walk was more pronounced when the pain came, she knew that very well. All the staff were heading to the Green Man for a drink, but she had managed to wriggle out of it. One thing she didn’t need now was another distraction from writing. That deadline was only looming larger.

  It was only when Ella turned around to take her coat off the hook by the door that she realized she was not alone. Dressed in light-sucking black, with his dark and faintly curled hair sticking damply to the window as he leaned against the far sill. For a moment, Ella was so shocked she didn’t speak.

  The stranger’s hand rested lightly on the soft wood, moving a little, feeling the smoothness that only real time could give.

  “They used to rub sand into it everyday.” Ella commented, somehow still embedded in her tourist mode.

  When he raised his eyes, they seemed to flash purple for an instant in the fading light. Ella blinked twice in confusion. How odd. It must have been a trick of the light—they were earth brown.

  His voice was soft and low in the deep silence. “I take it you don’t, anymore?”

  Contemplating the disaster that would make of her hands, Ella grinned, “Not likely—the night bots do it with some spanking new compound.”

  Somehow her answer had not pleased him. With a repressed sigh he levered himself from the bench. “That’s the problem with the world today—not enough people really care.” He sounded older than he looked. Ella swallowed the giggle that rose to her throat. He could be one of the Treated and be in fact three times his apparent physical age. Usually, however, they went to great lengths to pretend adolescence.

  The stranger made for the door and as he moved she caught a whiff of a warm musky scent that made her think of cozy fires and contentment. He said nothing about who he was or what he was doing wandering the Hall. Just as he opened the door he paused and raised an admonishing finger. “Now, young lady, aren’t you supposed to be heading home?” His lips pursed together in something that might have been the beginning of a kiss, then he slipped beyond the door and was gone.

  Ella breathed again, feeling her heart yammer suddenly in her chest. She couldn’t quite resist running to the door. Yanking it open with its customary squeal of protest, she found the long stone hallway completely empty. How strange. She hadn’t heard him arrive. She hadn’t heard him leave, and the door hadn’t even made a noise.

  For a second Ella’s brain folded itself into knots trying to think of an explanation. Was this perhaps a touch of the Furlion madness that some said haunted the Hall?

  “Don’t be an idiot.” Being a writer sometimes meant setting aside reality, that was true, but she wasn’t about to follow Tania down the path to madness. Some men made a living out of being mysterious, and the types that liked to tramp around old castles and h
ouses were probably stranger than most. With a snort, she shut the complaining door. How could she forget that husband and wife couple last year who had insisted she personally show them the dungeon, “and perhaps the rack too?”…

  But as she turned back to get her coat, Ella couldn’t help thinking about those eyes and that scent he bought with him. It had been a long time since a man had interested her, and longer still since she’d been so quickly attracted.

  Then she remembered that time and recalled with a shudder the consequences—consequences she still had to live with. No, on the whole it was probably better not to follow after him. For once she was going to be sensible, no matter what.

  4

  Patterns

  Ronan was smiling as he walked through the Hall. Something had lightened his mood in that kitchen. The tousled haired creature with eyes of softest brown had felt a touch of his magic, he could be sure of that. What a delightful smile she had, and within he sensed something deeper. Perhaps she was a distant kin, for once his people had loved this world and had left many sleeping magics still in it.

  He’d detected the slight pause in her step, almost infinitesimal. Though he might have once seen such imperfection as odd, now he loved it. It was humanity’s blemishes that made them special. He’d learned that over many generations.

  Ah, it was a real pity he had work to do. It would have been sweeter to make that pain pass from her, and perhaps to dance in the clouds. Ronan shook himself like a cat who’d taken an unexpected bath. Idiot. He didn’t have the power to raise himself, let alone another to the clouds. It had been a very long time since he’d been that strong and he’d been quite a different person then.

  Somewhere in all these hallways and rooms was the mistress of the Hall, and in her mind lay the secret of the Mask. Bakari might be content to rely on the information the Line brought him, but Ronan was not. He was curious about how the Mask had ended up here and who its keeper was.

  The Hall was mercifully drained of tourists, for much as he loved the rattle and chatter of people, his senses were not what they once had been. He needed silence to hear magic.

  He sensed her long before he saw her. Tania Furlion was in the Long Gallery. Ronan padded as silently as his cat form around the corner to examine the Lady of the Manor. She was standing looking out the window, beyond which could be seen the intricate knot garden. Her thoughts were laid bare, like golden carp just beneath a pond’s surface. Ronan let his mind dip into the shallows.

  In her mind the manor was alive with voices whispering from the dim corners and the scent of lavender wafting up from the floor. But these were no happy memories of the past; these were spirits to send anyone howling into insanity. They whispered of lost loves, departed chances, and the pain of undeath. They called from the corners and hissed from the rafters and Tania was surrounded by them.

  Ronan shivered. To dwell in such constant fear was a terrible thing to contemplate. He could only respect someone who had this pain to bear and yet let not an ounce of it show from outside. She was the second intriguing creature he had met today.

  “I’m not in danger of being locked in, am I?” he asked just behind her shoulder.

  He could sense the pause, that moment when she judged if his voice was living or dead. Then she spun about, surprised at the results.

  The woman really was an ice princess, just as Bakari had described; white blonde hair pulled back severely from a sharply exquisite face and blue eyes that impaled all they looked on. In her mind Ronan sensed the murmuring cease.

  He dipped his head a little, imitating a shadow of a bow, but his fixed look never left her.

  Tania sized him up, wondering at the sudden silence. “No danger of that,” she replied smoothly and with a coolly professional smile. “We always make sure the Hall is clear before setting any alarms.”

  “Good to know.” Ronan inched closer to look out at the garden. Something there had captured her interest. “I haven’t quite finished taking in its…” He paused to add a little dramatic effect, “delights.”

  Most women would have blushed, but the Baroness’ eyes merely narrowed. “We have more than our fair share, in Penherem.”

  “I’d say so.”

  Ronan could sense those floating thoughts; she’d already summed him up. Another slick man with bucket loads of charm and probably even more money. She guessed wrongly but intelligently that he had taken the Infinity virus. And Ronan did admit that he sometimes had the slick smooth features of one of those wealthy fools.

  His eyes flickered to the ruined fingertips she was trying her best to hide. Her nervousness radiated from every pore, though he could be sure she was not the type to usually allow it out. Something about him was upsetting her balance and that in itself was intriguing. Most humans instinctively liked him immediately.

  She smiled more forcefully. “You still have time to see the Great Hall, I could show you the way…”

  “I’ve already seen it.” He stretched, and then smiled slowly. “I hear you had some trouble there last night.”

  Her composure was obviously somewhat regained; she didn’t even flinch. “It was just a false alarm—these old houses still have the occasional rat, you know. They are prone to setting things off.”

  “Oh really,” he cocked his head, listening, “I don’t hear any. I would have thought they had all been cleared out by humanity’s relentless urge to tidy everything up.”

  A rapid flush of red was stealing up her cheeks, colouring the ice princess an unbecoming shade; perhaps she was in danger of melting. Her forehead twitched and her fingers locked behind her, but she said nothing.

  He’d gone too far, pushing this one beyond her comfort zones. Unlike the delightful creature in the kitchen, she was not taking it well.

  He tried to smooth it over. “I’m Ronan Rymour by the way. You’ll probably be seeing a lot more of me about. Penherem is rather intriguing. There’s a certain… something about the place.”

  Outside there was the hiss of the QuickStep tour departing. Having poured down the steps, they clattered and gabbed all the way to their transport. Ronan found it delightful, but to Tania’s ears they grated.

  “Well,” Tania brushed invisible dust from her jacket sleeves, “As long as you stay in one of the inns, by all means enjoy the atmosphere. By the way, can I see your pass for the Manor while we're here?”

  But when she looked up, Ronan made sure he was gone. Humans relied on moments to cement things into their minds, and he’d discovered an age ago that leaving them without warning was the most effective way of perking their interest.

  He slipped away far more swiftly and silently than any human could manage, disappearing down the corridor. The last whisper he got from her mind was of those voices of the dead.

  This town was full of surprises. Ronan had come expecting blandness and an easy job, but so far it had been neither. He’d confess to having become rather jaded with this world that had once held so many delights to him, and yet here was salvation being handed to him on a plate; a mis-stepped creature with the eyes of the Earth Mother herself and a white princess who could hear the voices of the past. This place deserved further investigation.

  Ronan wended his way down the back steps, only occasionally stopping to disengage alarms on doors. Outside of the gallery, the security was rather pathetic.

  He went out from the Hall into the beautifully manicured gardens. He should have really not enjoyed gardening, it was after all a confinement of the natural world, but the part of him that loved humanity loved what they did with the Mother’s gifts. So he was excited by the expanse of green that leapt up to meet him.

  Strictly clipped green hedges and dancing water features delighted the eye and ear. Ronan dodged the mop-haired gardener by ducking behind topiary and mixed border.

  Letting his feet find their own way was the best method to find the magic in any place, he’d learnt. So he was content to merely wander for a while, basking in the lipid early spring sun.
This wandering led him to that which Tania had been looking at from the Long Gallery.

  Shielded behind towering yew hedges, the knot garden was like a step back in time. Ronan paused at its outer edges, admiring the optical illusion of movement in the hedge. Something curiously heavy lifted from him, and as he lowered herself into the cool marble chair overlooking the swirls and turns of the knots, Ronan could feel something unclench in his chest.

  He let his eye wander along the rises and falls of the plant forms. He could taste its ancient nature. It was speaking to him as all nature spoke to his kind. The garden had always been here in some shape or form; the rise and fall of the plants echoed the deeper rise and fall of power within the earth.

  The box hedges circled and ran before his eyes, dancing up and down, embracing in mind tricking ways before separating like water. As his mind traced those paths, the plants blurred until only the pattern remained and it was this that stilled everything.

  Ronan could know understand why Tania had been gazing at it so long. Anyone who truly looked at this would lose themselves, and in her case lose the voices that plagued her. This small magic pool of sanity was the only part of life that mattered. It kept the mad reality away from her.

  It seemed so sad that this was all she had. And even though he loved the human realm, its bitter-sweetness always broke him. Every one of their stories was a tragedy sooner or later. And in the face of that sorrow he did what he always did—he ran. As if responding to his mood soft rain began to fall, misting his dark hair with moisture.

  Ronan loped across the manicured lawn in ground consuming strides, leaving that hurt behind with the odd movement of the knot. He’d wanted to tap into the power of this strange little village and the Hall was the centre of it. Now that his senses were fully attuned, Penherem reeked with that which he had lost.