Elfland

by Freda Warrington

  When she woke again, it was eight o’clock and daylight was glowing behind the curtains. Sam was leaning on one elbow, looking sweetly at her. His face was almost luminous against the light, eyebrows dark against the paleness, the blond tips of his hair sticking up in a delightful mess.

  “Morning, beautiful,” he said languidly. “Didn’t dream it, did I?”

  Rosie knew what he meant. “No, honey. I love you.”

  She stroked his cheek and he pushed into her palm, like a cat. “Will your parents go crazy that I’m here?”

  “Of course not,” she sighed. “They like you. We’ll explain, and they’ll be fine. Stay. Just stay with us for a while.”

  He dropped his head. His forehead touched the curve of her shoulder. “Oh, that’s tempting. I love it here. Stonegate’s cold and hard so I grew up cold and hard to cope with it. But I’m not, inside.”

  “I know that, Sam.”

  “I’ve been a rotten boyfriend. I’ll try to behave like a civilized being in future. I can do it.”

  “No more rough sex in alleys?” She pouted.

  “Well . . .” He leaned in to kiss the cushion of her lower lip. “I don’t think we’ll get too comfortable, do you?”

  “No,” she said thoughtfully. “You being such a mischief-maker.”

  His mouth curved. “And you, a colossal fetishist.”

  “Oh, you’ve seen nothing yet.”

  “Is that right?” He grinned, his hand shaping her waist and hip. She moaned as he took the hand from her, reaching out to take an object from the bedside table. “Hey, what’s this?”

  It was the rose quartz egg. “Oh, I found it in my pocket when we came back from the Spiral,” she said. “A gift from Estel? I don’t know. It opens, look . . .” She found the invisible crack that ran around the egg, twisted off the top half to show him a tablet of whitish, translucent stone within.

  “In exchange for your crystal heart?” Sam took out the white stone and it turned to amethyst at his touch. Spirals and other symbols caught the light in flashes of blue and green. “Albinite,” he said. “More a primitive cut than the sparkly stuff my father produces. Still worth a bit, though.”

  The color vanished from the gem as he put it back. Rosie replaced the top hemisphere, making the egg a seamless whole again. “Worth fighting and killing for?”

  “I always guessed Lawrence had killed Barada.” Sam lay back with his arms around her. “And you know the ghost-corpse-illusion thing that attacked us in Naamon? It was him. That’s how I recognized him in the photo.”

  “God, it was so real,” she whispered.

  “Sapphire made him out a victim, neglecting to mention that Barada was bringing groups of armed men against my father on a regular basis. It was nasty. I think one day Lawrence had had enough. He didn’t want to harm Barada; I reckon he enjoyed the conflict, the mind games. But he reached the end of his tether.”

  “Is it why he’s so reclusive? Guilt?”

  “Or because he couldn’t move on. Dad convinced himself that when Barada died, he went into the Spiral and joined forces with the shadowy demon, Brawth. I think he knew, rationally, that it wasn’t the case and Barada was simply dead—but the paranoid part of him insisted otherwise.”

  “Brawth—the shadow of Qesoth,” said Rosie. “First beings? Creation myth? God, that’s scary.”

  “He deduced, wrongly or not, that Brawth had sent Barada in the first place. So now he finds Sapphire’s another offshoot, infiltrating his home, seducing his son—bound to feed the paranoia, isn’t it? He lost the plot years ago, love. Wish I knew what to do. I should go back and check that he’s okay.”

  “Phone him.”

  “If he answers. No, I need to have a proper talk to him about Ginny and everything.” He stroked her cheek. “Rosie, I’d better not stay again tonight. One night might be excusable, but two looks as if I think I’ve moved in.”

  “I know.” She sighed. “Will you stay at Stonegate?”

  “No, can’t face it anymore. I’ve fixed to stay with college mates in Ashvale. Just for a while.”

  “And I’ve got a house standing empty, but I can’t go back. It never felt like my home. Now it only makes me think of him.” Alastair.

  “Maybe you and I could . . . no, too soon.”

  She turned towards him, her hands resting on his chest. “This feels so strange—standing at the crossroads—I feel I know you inside out but I can’t rush anything—not until I’ve put some distance between myself and the awful marriage. I’d drown, Sam.”

  “I know, sweetie,” he said gently. “D’you think I want to ruin this when we’ve come so far? We’ll take it slowly.”

  “I’ll stay at Oakholme, at least until Lucas has recovered.”

  “That’s the Holy Grail, isn’t it?” said Sam. “Bringing Lucas home. Then I’ll know you’re a happy Fox.”

  The taxi pulled away, leaving Lucas alone on the sweep of the drive, gazing up at the walls of Stonegate Manor. He couldn’t stop shivering. He’d grown used to hospital heat and now the raw cold pierced him, and the house looked as welcoming as a cliff face. It was eight o’clock in the morning and no doubt his family was still warm in bed, not dreaming that he was anywhere but safe on the ward.

  He lifted the heavy iron knocker and tapped, hearing the sound boom inside the hall. No one came. Melting snow dripped off the porch roof onto him. The sky was raggedly grey, and just down the hill was his cozy home . . . but he couldn’t go back. Even Rosie, even Auberon couldn’t help him.

  He hugged himself, trying to find warmth in his thin black trench coat. Despair had driven him from the hospital. He’d been too restless to stay, couldn’t stop thinking about the Lychgate and what might happen if it stayed open. He knocked again, the iron freezing his fingers, then stepped back to look up at the fortress windows.

  Just as he gave up hope, the door opened. Lawrence stood there, his face chalk against the soot of his hair and his eyes winter-grey under dark brows. There was no hint of warmth in his expression, or even recognition. Lucas quailed. “What do you want?”

  “Lawrence—Father—you have to help me.”

  “Jon isn’t here. Everyone has gone.” His fingers tightened on the edge of the door. “When were you discharged from hospital? I want no one here.”

  Lucas stared at him, confused. He was too cold, too desperate to care what this meant. “But it’s you I need to see. Please.”

  “Why?” The word was a dark whisper from the Abyss.

  “Because I opened the Lychgate . . . I think the powers of the Gatekeeper have passed to me and I don’t know what to do. There’s absolutely no one I can turn to, except you.”

  Lawrence was motionless but for the changing expression of his eyes. Ravenous light flamed in them. A bone-white hand came out and seized his shoulder. “Show me.”

  Snow patched the ground and Lucas’s boots were waterlogged. Breathless from the march uphill, he delivered his stumbling explanation as Lawrence hurried him through the half-wild garden and naked woodlands to Freya’s Crown.

  The pleated rock stood bleak against the sky. It looked impervious, but when he shifted into the Dusklands he saw the split in the rock face. Cold wind abraded his throat. Lawrence stopped short, roughly catching Luc’s arm to halt him.

  “I see it now. Why didn’t I see or sense it before? Are my perceptions so utterly ruined?” His face was grim, set solid with anger and dread. His mood alarmed Luc more than the open Lychgate. “How did I miss it? How?”

  “I don’t know.” Lucas felt six years old, on the brink of tears. “I told you, it was by accident. I imagined it in a vision, and . . .”

  “No one saw fit to tell me. Not even Sam.”

  “They’re all frightened of you.”

  “And they are all blind fools!” The eyes were glinting razors. “Frightened of me, when all I’ve ever done is protect them? Are you sure nothing came through?”

  It was the tenth time he’d asked. Lucas shoo
k his head. In hospital he’d felt fine, but outside he realized how weak, unfit and bruised he actually was. “Only the cold.”

  “Close it.”

  “I don’t know how.”

  “It’s the simplest thing—” Lawrence huffed in exasperation. He gripped Luc’s shoulders and aimed him at the rocks. “Stay in the Dusklands as you approach. You’ll find a spiral engraved on the right . . . there, at shoulder height . . .”

  Lucas went to the mass of rock, noticing how it glimmered against the indigo Dusklands. As his hand found the symbol, silver light spilled under his palm. Suddenly it became obvious; simply turn it counterclockwise, feeling bright energy sing through his hand and his whole body. There was a sigh, a shiver of light inside him. The crack in the rock was gone. Only a faint quartz shimmer marked the seam.

  He stepped backwards into the surface world, dizzy. His palm burned.

  “You see, it’s easy,” said Lawrence. A visible shudder of relief went through him and he nearly smiled. “I should have guessed it would pass to you. I knew you were born for a reason. Come back to the house. You’re cold. Surely the doctors have let you out too soon?”

  “No,” Lucas murmured. “Aetherials heal fast. I’m fine.”

  “Well.” Lawrence slipped an arm around his shoulders and guided him down the hill, suddenly talkative. “The lych-light passes down the House of Sibeyla in a traditional line of responsibility, but not strictly from parent to child. It came to me from my grandmother Liliana and now, obviously, since I’ve been unwilling to use it, it has passed to you.”

  “Why me?” Lucas spoke faintly, stunned. “Why not Sam or Jon?”

  Lawrence exhaled. “Too flawed by an insufficient upbringing, I fear. Too corrupted by the surface world. It takes a soul that is close to the Spiral.”

  “But I don’t want it,” Luc said anxiously. Alone with Lawrence, the woodlands seemed unutterably eerie. “It’s your power, not mine. I didn’t steal it, sir, I swear.”

  “I know you didn’t.” The arm tightened around him. “The lych-light is taken or bestowed by the Spiral Court. And they’ve transferred it, apparently, because even they don’t understand the threat. You think I barred the Gates to be difficult?”

  “No. I never did.”

  “Then will you trust me?”

  “Yes, I . . . I need you to teach me. I’m in the dark and scared to death. I don’t want to go home. They’ll wrap me in cotton wool and talk about the ‘future,’ but it’s meaningless and I can’t face it. All I can think about is the Gates. Can I stay with you . . . Father? For a few days?”

  Lawrence was smiling, his teeth white in the winter gloom. “Yes, you must stay with me.” Stonegate rose above them as they came down the last sweep of the estate. Shadowy dysir came out to welcome them. “It will be just you and me, Lucas, my one true son.”

  22

  Persephone’s Chamber

  “What do you mean, he’s discharged himself?”

  Auberon paced around the kitchen, phone in one hand, the other dancing on the air to hush Jessica’s insistent questions. “Yes, obviously he’s got the right to do that, but . . . he wouldn’t, without telling us . . . Obviously against your advice . . . Well, where’s he gone? No, of course he’s not here, or I wouldn’t be asking, would I?”

  Rosie and her mother exchanged glances. By the time Auberon ended the call, they knew the essence; Lucas had signed himself out of hospital early that morning and apparently taken a taxi.

  “Why didn’t they let us know?” Jessica exclaimed.

  Auberon stood shaking his head. “They assumed he was coming home. So now they phone to suggest we take him back in, and it’s the first we’ve heard of it!”

  “Didn’t they try to stop him?”

  “Of course, but he wasn’t a prisoner. He signed a disclaimer that he left against medical advice, and that was that.”

  Rosie remembered how moody Lucas had been the previous day. Sam’s presence and graceful apology this morning had earned no more from Auberon than a caustic remark, “I see the period of reflection lasted as long as the snow did.” After that, her parents had been fine with him. Then, about an hour ago, he’d headed to Stonegate to see his father. When the doorbell sounded, she rushed to answer it, hoping it would be Lucas safe on the step with a damned convincing explanation.

  Instead, Sam was there, holding a bouquet of crimson roses. In his black leather jacket he looked luminously sexy. “You’re back,” she said. “Are these for me?”

  “No, they’re for Matt,” he said dryly. “Of course they’re for you, Foxy Rose.”

  She took the roses from him, put her face among them and inhaled their delicate, dewy fragrance. “They’re gorgeous. Thank you. Wow, they smell amazing.” She kept her face there for a few seconds to hide the fact that this simple gesture had made her cry. Sam looked pleased and a touch embarrassed.

  “Hoped you’d like them,” he said softly. “Dark red and passionate, like you. By the way, what on earth is Lucas doing at Stonegate?”

  Her head jerked up. “He’s where?”

  “I couldn’t get in. Lawrence had bolted the doors from the inside, which is odd, considering he’s usually pretty careless about security. So I’m on the front drive, shouting at him to let me in, and the next I know, an upstairs window opens and my bag comes hurtling out and lands on the drive beside me. Dad repeats that he won’t see or speak to anyone. I start arguing but the window slams shut. And then—in the next window along, I see another face behind the glass. It’s Lucas.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive. I called to him, but he only moved away from the window and vanished. Is he supposed to be out of hospital?”

  Rosie and Sam stood with Jessica and Auberon, looking up at the walls of Stonegate. They’d tried phoning, but there had been no answer.

  “D’you want me to break in?” Sam offered.

  “No, no.” Jessica shook her head. “That seems drastic.”

  “Well, we’re not going until we’ve seen him,” said Auberon, hands thrust in his overcoat pockets. They had rung the bell, pounded on the door, shouted Luc’s name; nothing.

  “Let me try,” said Rosie. She slipped around the broad walls of the house into the back garden. The sloping lawn with its islands of rock and rhododendrons reminded her of the time she, Matthew and Luc had broken in. It had been like entering a castle of ice. The snow clung, here on the heights.

  Rosie tapped gently and insistently at the kitchen door. Something moved inside. “Lucas?” she called. “Are you in there? It’s me. Come on, speak to me.”

  To her surprise, the door opened a sliver and Lucas stood, looking gaunt and sheepish, in the gap. From the corner of her eye she saw Sam and her parents at the corner of the house. She waved them to keep their distance. “What?” he said.

  Kid gloves, she thought. “Just making sure you’re okay.”

  “I’m absolutely fine.” His dark hair hung in his eyes. “Don’t let Mum and Dad start on me. If you do, I’ll shut the door.”

  “Don’t,” she said quickly. “They’ll stay put, honestly. No lecture about leaving hospital, either. I just want to know why you’re here.”

  “Come on, Rosie.” He folded his arms. The sleeves of his overlarge white shirt were rolled up and his long pale forearms bristled with goose bumps. “You understand about the Gates. No one can help me except Lawrence.”

  “Dad doesn’t think you’re safe with him.”

  “That’s rubbish. He’s my father.”

  “Did Lawrence invite you here?”

  “No,” Lucas sighed. “He wouldn’t even let me in at first. I need to be with him for a while, that’s all.”

  “He’s not making you stay, then?”

  “No, of course not! Look—I can walk out now if I want, but I don’t.”

  Rosie longed to put her arms around him, as a prelude to dragging him physically out of the house. She restrained herself. “You look frozen and underfed. Th
is is not the best way to convalesce. Why don’t you come home and get warm? You can see Lawrence anytime.”

  His face set. He wouldn’t meet her eyes. “Rosie, you may think I’m still thirteen, but I’m an adult. If I want to stay here, I will. Please. All I’m asking is to be left alone to make sense of things.”

  “For how long?”

  “As long as it takes!”

  She drew back. One more exchange and the conversation would deteriorate into begging and door-slamming. “Promise me that if you don’t feel well, you’ll make Lawrence call the doctor and call us, too.”

  “I promise. I’m all right.”

  “I’d better bring you some clothes. Anything else you’d like? Guitar?”

  He looked startled. “Would you mind?” He lowered his voice. “If I come myself, Mum will be at me to stay and I can’t face it.”

  “You know, if you want to be treated like an adult, you’ll have to face difficulties like that eventually,” she said aridly.

  “Yeah.” He lowered his head, hair flopping forwards. “Give me a few days, Ro. I’m fine, really. I’ll come home when I’m ready. Just keep Mum and Dad away from me, okay? I’m sorry.” He raised one hand in a vague wave as he closed the door. She heard bolts slide into place. Stepping away, she went to her family.

  “I take it you heard all that?” They nodded. Jessica was pale. “He’s right, we can’t force him to leave. Let’s go home.”

  What is love, anyway? Rosie read in Faith’s diary. I know Rosie doesn’t love Alastair. He loves her, I think, but it’s not what she wanted. Yet she drifts along as if it’s all she can expect, making the best of it. I love Matthew but he doesn’t love me. It’s all I ever dreamed of except for that one little fact, he doesn’t love me, and it’s like walking through every day with your feet hobbled and one hand tied behind your back. It hurts so much you can’t move properly but you still have to pretend. Now Heather—she is love.

  I wonder if my parents loved each other? No, their souls were dead. They were part-Aetherial and didn’t know it. They would go into the Dusklands, even Dumannios, and change into scaly demons and fight each other, without even being aware! How is that possible? Could they have become fully Aetherial if they hadn’t lost themselves in the human world and killed their own souls with drink and bitterness? When I think about them I want to cry and cry. I don’t want Matthew and me to be like that but I see it happening.