The Etsey Series 1: The Seventh Veil

by Heidi Cullinan

  “How can you tell?” Emily asked.

  “Because I felt it every time I brushed my hand against Jonathan’s skin for years. Now that I know what it is I felt, it isn’t something I will soon forget.” He glanced around at the dusty shelves. “We need a sack of some sort. I don’t wish to touch it for very long.”

  Emily sat up and leaned back, keeping the lantern over the cellar opening as she glanced around the room. “Madeline’s basket?”

  “That will do, if you can provide a cloth as well.”

  She set the lantern down and went to fetch both for him, then passed them down. He used the cloth to extract the cup, wrapped it inside and placed it in the basket, then passed it up to Emily. The cloth shifted as she took it, and she found herself staring down at the cup as Timothy made his way out of the cellar.

  It wasn’t large, and it was very ugly. It was made entirely of wood, but though the surface was worn and faded, there was not so much as a crack upon it. It was not carved of a single kind of wood, but was rather several different types merged together somehow, held together with what she didn’t know, but it was apparently very strong.

  “There are carvings on it,” she said, surprised. “Little symbols etched all along the sides and all around. They were never there before.”

  Timothy took the basket from her and carefully replaced the cloth. He extended his arm to her. “Come. We will take this back to the abbey and hide it, and then we will look for Jonathan and your sister.”

  They locked the workshop tight again and set off across the ridge. It was a bright and sunny day, rare enough in northern Etsey, but it seemed almost scandalous for it to be so crisp and warm when it had been so rough the night before. Timothy nodded, impressed, at the great tree, but Emily’s eyes were all for the lake. The mist was thin but focused in the center. She watched the black water ripple in a breeze that was not there, and she shuddered and turned away.

  Timothy tensed when they entered the woods.

  “The dark sprites can only come out at night,” Emily assured him. “I’ll make you a charm at the abbey. You shouldn’t have gone this long without one.”

  Timothy nodded. “Thank you.” Then he glanced at her. “How are you faring?”

  She smoothed her hand over her hair, but she didn’t blush. “Fine. Just feel a bit strange.”

  “I apologize again. It’s not meant to be something unfinished. I would offer to assist you, but—”

  “That’s quite all right,” she said quickly. Then she added, a little shyly, “You’re a very handsome man, but…well, it would be awkward, and you are… I did think you only cared for men? That way?”

  He smiled, looking almost boyish. “The final performance would be somewhat more of a challenge, yes, though may I point out that is not necessary for your personal release. For you, Miss Emily, I would be creative in my endeavors. Though I might suggest…” He spoke very delicately. “It is the release which matters, not by whom it is administered. In point of fact, a partner is not required.”

  Emily held up a hand to stay him. “Please—no more.” She pressed the hand to her cheek. “Goddess bless, but are all Catalians this graphic?”

  “We are not shy about sex, no. Though as a courtesan, I suppose I am more cavalier about it than most.”

  She wanted to ask him more about that, of what it was like to be a courtesan, about Catal, about this marriage ceremony that apparently began with a kiss that could turn her insides into pudding. She liked Timothy. Not that way, despite what that kiss might have her thinking now, but she did enjoy his company. He was a good man, better than most she had met. And he hadn’t blinked at all over her parentage. He’d liked the idea that Hamilton Elliott had accepted her. She tightened her hand lightly on his arm as they came through the last of the abbey garden and headed for the front door. She would make him a very special charm. She would make him a quick one now, before they departed, but she would make him a second one later, the best she had ever made.

  But when they came through the door into the foyer, she stopped short. Thirteen ghosts stood in a line before them, from the entrance to the hall and over to the archway to the ruined wing, blocking the way to both and to the stairs.

  Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong.

  “Wait,” she whispered, tightening her grip on Timothy’s arm. She turned to him, ready to try and explain the ghosts, but then she saw the expression on his face. “You can see them?”

  He nodded, not taking his eyes away from them. “I think—I think we should listen to them.”

  “They don’t speak,” Emily said. But even as she said this, the tall, elegant one from the center came forward, bowed to Timothy, then opened its mouth and sang.

  Emily felt very much as she had when Timothy had kissed her, except this time the feeling went far beyond her physical body and seemed to reach into her very soul. Her eyes were open, and a part of her was aware that this was not song, but speech, but the greater part of her self was flying, soaring on the melodic tune the ghost was spinning through the air, painting pictures of worlds more beautiful and wonderful than anything she had before imagined. And when Timothy spoke back to the ghost, his voice a lower harmonic to the ghost’s higher, chimelike air, Emily thought for a moment she might shatter from wonder and ecstasy.

  When Timothy turned and spoke to her in Etsian, it was so jarring that she blinked.

  “She is asking me if you are my locum.” He was frowning. “I don’t know what this means, but she won’t tell me anything more until I answer.”

  Emily shook her head, still dizzy. “I don’t know, either. I’ve never heard the word.”

  Timothy turned back to the ghost and sang again.

  This time the ghost turned directly to Emily. When it opened its mouth, Emily felt the images hit her like a blast, and she had to close her eyes against them, but this only brought them into sharper focus. She saw rich, lush gardens and clear crystal streams, great trees with leaves that came down in curtains and others that were groaning with thick, ripe fruit. She saw the sun shining down like a star, then gasped as she saw the star land and transform into a beautiful woman. Her gown was the earth, leaves and flowers coiling up around her as she walked across the verdant world. She opened her arms and laughed, and from her arms sprang forth children, one after another after another, bright and shining and beautiful as she, their laughter composing a symphony more sweet and aching than anything Emily had ever known. The ghost shifted the song, one more word that whispered like a breath against the sky, and Emily saw the star woman lift her head and smile.

  The woman had Emily’s face.

  “Yes,” Emily whispered, almost crying. She opened her eyes, breathless, aching with loss as the image faded. “Yes,” she said again.

  “Emily, I don’t know what you just agreed to, but I think it was binding,” Timothy warned.

  Emily stared into the beautiful face of the ghost. She could see it was female now, and she felt a kinship with it. “I know,” she said. She didn’t know, actually, but she knew she felt wonderful when she thought of agreeing, and that was enough. She smiled. “It’s fine.”

  “Then we will go.” Emily could understand the ghost now; her speech was still melodious, but now it sounded like Etsian in her head. “We will lead you through the Other Side, away from the intruder, to the place where they will return.”

  The ghost bowed again to Timothy, but this time to Emily as well. There was a great crash from above the stairs, and they both looked up. Emily saw Smith as he passed quickly through the hall to another room, and she backed up against Timothy, worried he would come out again and see them. But before he could, the thirteen ghosts rose and swelled, then closed around the pair of them. Emily knew without being told that Smith would not be able to see them now.

  Timothy held up the basket before the tall one. “This is the Perry and Whitby demon,” he said. “It needs to be hidden. Will you do this?”

  The ghost shook
her head. “We may not touch the daemons or the talismans. But you are welcome to find a place for it on the Other Side yourself.”

  “Will that be safe?” he asked.

  “So long as it is bound within the talisman, yes.” The ghost gestured to the ruined arch. “We must move quickly. They are nearly come.”

  “What is the Other Side?” Emily whispered to Timothy.

  He smiled, looking more peaceful than Emily had ever seen him. “The first thing about magic that I have liked.” He took her hand in his. “Come.”

  Emily clung tightly as they moved silently with the ghosts to a boarded-up wall, then gasped in wonder as they passed through it and into the world she had just seen in the song. The tall ghost looked back at her and smiled. For a moment it had her face again, but it did not frighten her. Emily only smiled back and let the wonder of the Other Side enter her heart and carry her where it would.

  * * *

  Charles was accustomed to waking in strange beds, but this one decidedly took the cake.

  He was lying on a stone slab. For a few terrible moments, he thought he was back in Boone and in Smith’s dungeon, but when he pushed to his elbows and looked around, he saw that he was in fact in a grassy sort of field, a soft breeze whispering against his cheeks and bright sun beating down on his face. He shielded his eyes and looked around, then went still. No, he wasn’t in a field. He was inside a circle made of stones. He was on the moor. He was in the Stone Circle. And the whispers weren’t wind against his cheeks. Someone was speaking to him.

  “Who is this new witch who comes to the Circle?”

  Charles looked around for a severe bald woman swathed in black. He didn’t see one. Shifting on the stone slab, he caught a glance at his lower body, and he cried out in shock. Goddess bless, he was covered in blood and bruises. He looked like he’d gone straight through barbed wire and then rolled down the hill in it. But he felt fine. He felt very good, in fact. He didn’t even feel as if he needed any drugs, not even to take the edge off. That was more unsettling than the lack of pain.

  He became aware of three misty gray shapes forming in front of him, and he backed up on the slab, then cried out as he realized there were three more to his left and to his right. A frightened glance over his shoulder confirmed that, yes, there was a trio there as well.

  “Madeline,” he whispered, a quiet call to her. He had been trying to reach her, that he remembered. Had she brought him here? Was she off getting something? Hurry back, Maddie.

  “The other was refused. Only one witch may be present inside the Sacred Circle.” The three shapes before him drifted closer. “Who are you, new witch? We do not know you. You do not come from the Source.”

  The three to his right shifted uneasily. “Is this an alchemist?”

  “No!” Charles said quickly. “No alchemist. Just me. I… My name is Charles Perry.”

  The three to his left came very close, and one brushed his arm. He yelped, more from fear than pain. Where it touched him, his skin tingled, but nothing else happened. The mist figure drew back and shimmered as the ones opposite it had, but this shimmer seemed different. Almost as if it were surprised and a bit impressed.

  “We must yield. This is not a witch. He is not of the Source. He is Lord.”

  “What? Lord? No. I don’t have a title, I—”

  “We must confirm,” a mist voice said from behind him. “We must confirm this before we can yield. We must all confirm.”

  “Hold on, just—hold on!” Charles climbed to his feet and stood on the stone slab, holding his hands out to stay the shapes. They were starting to rise and swell and close in on him. “Hold on, just wait—wait—”

  “We must confirm,” they said in eerie unison, and as one they enclosed him. But before Charles could even gasp, they had withdrawn again.

  “It is confirmed. There is a new Source. We honor and serve the Lord.”

  The mist shapes shimmered again, sparkling and sparking this time. Charles watched, openmouthed, as they pulsed and puffed and turned a pristine, cloudlike white. Then they settled back into their places, taking on vaguely human shapes. As one, they went down on their knees.

  “We are the elements of earth, wind, water, and fire, and we are your servants and your guides, Lord.”

  Charles blinked. Sweet Goddess, what in the world is this? He turned around in a circle, just staring, then turned back around the other way, then turned again. “I—I don’t understand.” He rubbed his arms, then hissed as he remembered his cuts. They didn’t hurt unless he touched them, but if he did, they hurt.

  A guide before him lifted its misty head. “We will heal the injuries to your body’s skin, Lord.” Then it rose and passed through Charles before he could object. Immediately every cut, bruise, sore, and even a few old scars vanished completely. And not a trace of Smith’s vile henna was left, either.

  This is getting really weird, Charles thought. Handy, that last part, but weird. “Madeline,” he said. “Where—please, I really don’t know what to do with all this. Where is Madeline? Madeline Elliott?”

  “She is lost,” a guide said from his left. “She is taken with her consort by the beast that lives in our element.”

  Consort? Lost. Charles turned to the guide that had spoken. “Beast? Element? Where is she? Who has taken her?”

  The guides on his left rippled, then merged, then transformed into a very small version of the moor lake floating in the middle of the air. The dark mist congealed in the center, swirling ominously. “She is here. The beast of the water has taken her into the sea of stars. She is alive, but she is under his enchantment. Does our Lord wish to remove her and her consort?”

  “Yes—please!” Charles felt sick when he looked at the lake. Oh, Maddie, please be alive.

  The guides shifted, reorganizing again. They looked a little to Charles like they were conferring about something. Then they turned back to Charles. “Only one witch may be in the Circle. Even in the presence of our Lord. We may remove the bodies, but we cannot bring the spirits. Our Lord must name a new place where he will remove the enchantment with the aid of His own servants.”

  Remove the enchantment? New place? His servants? Goddess, help! Charles ran a hand through his hair. “Ah—I don’t… You need me to name somewhere? Safe? I don’t—” An image came to him, hard and fast and strong. “The abbey,” he said, then felt the rightness of it. “Can you…can you take them to the abbey?”

  The guides seemed excited by this. “Our Lord takes the witch and her consort to his own Circle. This is wise and proper and as it should be. But once the Lord and his charges are safely there, we will not remain and insult the honor of the Old Ones.” They started to shimmer again. “We are honored to aid and assist our Lord.”

  They looked like they were leaving. “Hold on,” Charles said, holding up his hand again.

  Then the whole world pinched and turned and swirled sideways, and further speech was impossible.

  He knew this was the Void, that black place he had gone to in his dream where he had seen the White Charles, but this time it was on fire. Fire, ice, wind: they all whipped around him like fireworks inside a closet. He would have screamed, but he couldn’t speak or breathe. He did have his hands, though, and he dug them into the ground, which he belatedly realized had no business being in the Void.

  “He grounds to the earth,” he heard the guides whisper. “In truth, he is a good Lord. We are honored to escort him.”

  Charles saw the lake approaching: they were coming at it like a shooting star from above, aiming directly at that murky center. The guides shot him through and into the water effortlessly, but after that Charles had a difficult time remembering what, exactly, happened. He remembered floating. He remembered pale bubbles with faces inside floating beneath the water, glowing like stars, and they made him ache. He remembered reaching for one of the bubbles, catching it like a soft, squishy ball in his hand, and he remembered lifting up. He remembered a monster’s angry cry, and he re
membered shivering with the certainty that he had heard it before.

  He remembered, briefly, a sword.

  Charles and the guides broke out of the water again and back into the firework-studded Void, but as they flew, the soft ball inside his hand began to grow. He watched it expand larger and larger until it was as large as he was. Madeline and Jonathan were inside. Their eyes were closed, and they were very, very still.

  He saw the abbey coming up fast. It appeared like the lake, a strange island in the darkness, and the guides aimed Charles and his burden for the tower, for the turret room at the peak. He braced, certain they would crash, but when they landed, it was with a soft thud and a gentle sort of expansion. He felt the guides lift away, and then he was there in the tower room, his body and mind and everything, breathing once more. The still and silent, nonbreathing forms of Madeline and Jonathan lay at his feet.

  A part of the wall shimmered, and Timothy and Emily stepped out of it.

  “Ques ta pa’sa donima?” Timothy looked from Jonathan to Madeline, then back to Charles. Emily did too, and her face drained of color as she stepped closer to Timothy. “What…? How?”

  Charles had the strangest urge to laugh. Maniacally. “I have no idea,” he said, then slumped down to the floor.

  Charles didn’t pass out, but he did wonder for a minute if he was going to vomit. He looked at Jonathan and Madeline, though, and felt himself center again. He reached out to Madeline and touched her hand. It was cold but not stiff. Just still.

  Timothy bent down on the other side. He felt Jonathan’s hand, then his wrist, then touched his mouth before looking up at Charles in alarm.

  Charles held up a hand. “I don’t think they’re dead. Don’t ask me how, but—” His head was starting to hurt, and he reached up and rubbed his temples. “The guide things, they said something about reversing the enchantment, that these were the bodies, but the spirits were left, but I don’t—”

  “Timothy,” Emily whispered, cutting Charles off. “Timothy, look at them.”