Magic Below Stairs

by Caroline Stevermer

  “You came here to hunt?” Lord Schofield asked.

  “No. I followed Frederick,” Billy Bly replied. “I like him.”

  Touched by this, Frederick tried to reassure him. “There’s no need to worry. Lord Schofield knows enough magic to protect himself, and the creature poses no danger to anyone else.”

  Billy Bly glared at Lord Schofield and made a rude noise. “I did not come to the countryside in search of sport. But when rats are in the grain, one must hunt.”

  “You hunt nothing but the dregs of a broken spell,” said Lord Schofield. “Let it go. When you make it your prey, you lend it strength.”

  “Let it go? How can I?” Billy Bly indicated the mustard seeds scattered in the corners of the workroom. “As well ask me not to count these seeds. What I begin, I must finish. This creature, whatever you choose to call it, has free run of your dwelling. That cannot be.”

  “Enough.” Lord Schofield took off his coat and rolled up his sleeves. “I will not rest until I have freed you from this quest of yours. I’ll cleanse us of this residue tonight.”

  “Before you call it back, free me.” Billy Bly made the spell holding him shake. Frederick felt it as a prickle moving through him just beneath the skin. “Release me. Please.”

  With a wave of his hand, Lord Schofield let the summoning spell go. Thrown off balance as it melted away, Frederick rocked back on his heels and then sat down hard on the floor. There was a sharp scent of mustard and he knew he had crushed some of the seeds as he landed. His keener senses were gone, vanished with the spell that had brought them.

  “I thank you, sir.” Billy Bly remained crouching in the chalk circle, watching Lord Schofield mistrustfully.

  “You are, within limits, welcome.” Lord Schofield rubbed his hands. “Now. Let’s rid ourselves of this nonsense once and for all.”

  Frederick helped by fetching equipment as Lord Schofield prepared to cast a second spell. He could see similarities to the first. Lord Schofield drew a much larger chalk ring on the floor. Because he was watching for it, Frederick saw Lord Schofield’s quick gestures up and down and to each point of the compass. The rest of the spell was done too quickly for Frederick to follow. Lord Schofield muttered his incantation. Frederick strained his ears but could not make sense of a single word of it.

  Stillness filled the room. Heat gathered as Lord Schofield muttered. The smell of mustard faded. The stink of mold replaced it. The room grew cold. Then every candle flame shuddered and nearly went out. From the corner of his eye, Frederick thought he saw the shadows move. One moment the chalk circle was empty and the next it held a coiled serpent, the sleek black thing Billy Bly had struggled with before.

  Frederick felt the back of his neck turn cold. Billy Bly stayed in his place but he bristled at the sight of the thing.

  Lord Schofield roared another word Frederick did not understand. The black thing dwindled into itself. It shrank. The chill and stink in the air faded as the black thing grew smaller and smaller. Warmer and warmer the room became, and the scent of mold gave way once more to the friendlier smell of mustard. The candle flames grew tall again. Frederick felt the back of his neck return to normal.

  When there was nothing left in the ring but a handful of ashes, Lord Schofield said no word that Frederick heard, made no sound, nor moved so much as a fingertip. Yet the spell shifted. For an instant, Frederick felt the magic shift as surely if he himself were holding the spell. The ashes vanished. Nothing remained in the spell’s chalk circle, not so much as a fleck of soot.

  Frederick frowned. Hadn’t Billy Bly said bits of it came off easily? Strange that Lord Schofield’s spell hadn’t made more of a mess.

  Lord Schofield sighed and straightened. He looked old and tired as he called for soap and a basin of water and washed his hands. As he took the towel from Frederick, he murmured, “I haven’t felt such hate in years. I hope I never encounter it again.”

  To Billy Bly, Lord Schofield said, “I thank you for your kind vigilance.”

  Billy Bly bowed to him. “Thank you for cleansing this place. May we all, at last, find rest.” With that, he was gone, leaving behind only the sound of leaves rustling louder than the patter of rain on the windows.

  Before the rustling sound had quite faded, a soft tap came at the door. Scowling at the interruption, Lord Schofield answered it to find Lady Schofield there. “My dear Kate, what are you doing here at this hour? Why aren’t you in bed?”

  Lady Schofield, wrapped in a lacy woolen shawl over a thick dressing gown, looked even more enormous than usual. Her wedding ring gleamed in the lamplight as she held up her left hand to halt his words. “My dear Thomas, I came to see what on earth you have been doing to give yourself such a headache. I was in bed. It’s your own fault I’ve come to pester you.” Behind Lady Schofield, her maid Reardon stood by with another shawl. Behind Reardon, Frederick just glimpsed Bess.

  “As you can plainly see, there is no need to fuss.” Lord Schofield did not permit Lady Schofield or the maids to cross the threshold. “Now, back to bed with you.”

  “It’s as I said, my lady,” Reardon murmured. “A tempest in a teapot. As usual.”

  “Oh, Thomas.” Lady Schofield brushed past her husband to enter the workroom. She stood close to Frederick as she inspected the chalk marks on the floor, close enough Frederick caught the scent of cedar and lavender from the wraps bundled around her. “I never truly worry until you tell me there is no need to fuss. You’ve done a spell, haven’t you? A substantial one? You look quite done up.”

  “No such thing,” said Lord Schofield. “I never get headaches.”

  Bess was watching Frederick instead of Lord and Lady Schofield. She waggled her eyebrows at him in inquiry. Frederick was glad the snake thing had been banished and that Billy Bly had taken his leave before they were disturbed. Much easier to explain everything that way. He made a “tell you later” face at Bess. She gave him a “mind you do or there will be trouble” look back.

  “No, of course you don’t. Silly of me.” Lady Schofield turned from her inspection of the workroom to stand before her husband. “I love this house. It would take a great deal to frighten me away.” Lady Schofield looked down at herself. “I’m not easy to move just now. But you would tell me if there were some reason I should leave, wouldn’t you? I could stay in the village. Some of the neighbors have invited me to stay with them, should I wish it. That’s how far the rumors have run, Thomas. Even the neighbors worry about us living here with the curse.”

  Lord Schofield put his hands on his wife’s shoulders. “Sir Hilary Bedrick is dead. His spell can’t hurt anyone anymore. I’ve banished the last of it, Kate. Put up with the neighbors if you wish. I’ll take you anywhere you please. But there’s no need. Skeynes is safe. I’ve made it safe.”

  “Yes.” Lady Schofield put her hands over his. “At what cost I can guess. Very well. I’ll go back to bed, Thomas. Work as late as you must. But when you’ve finished, come tell me good night.”

  “Good morning, more likely,” said Lord Schofield wryly. “Perhaps it wasn’t a large spell, but it went very deep.”

  Lady Schofield took her leave, Reardon and Bess in her wake. Lord Schofield locked the door and leaned against it. “Women. Sometimes they scare me to death.”

  “What now?” Frederick asked.

  “What do you think? Casting the spell is but half the work done.” Lord Schofield took up a broom. “Now comes the other half, cleaning up every trace of the magic.”

  Frederick sighed and reached for his dustpan. “Housework, that’s what magic amounts to. Lucky I’m good at it.”

  14

  IN WHICH FREDERICK IS ORDERED TO HUNT RATS

  That night, Frederick could not sleep. Lord Schofield’s words rattled around in his head like peas and beans. Over and over he thumped his straw mattress into a different shape, each shape lumpier than the last, until Frederick heard a rooster crowing. He buried his face in his hands. The sun would be up before he was
asleep. “I give up.”

  “You don’t,” said Billy Bly from the far corner of the dressing room. “That’s one reason I liked you from the first.”

  “You!” Frederick lit a candle. “Where have you been?”

  “Harvest season, isn’t it?” Billy Bly looked smug. “Hunting always makes me hungry. So I’ve been harvesting.”

  “Harvesting what?”

  Billy Bly’s sharp yellow teeth glinted when he smiled. “Don’t worry. A hen’s egg here, a water beetle there. Nothing anyone hereabouts would grudge me. I came to see why you called me.”

  “But I didn’t.” Frederick rubbed his eyes. He felt slow and a bit stupid. Maybe he had been closer to sleep than he’d thought.

  “Why did you call me last night? His nibs interrupted you and cast the spell himself. But I’m not deaf. I heard you calling me.”

  “Oh, that.” With Billy Bly lounging before him, Frederick felt silly about ever having thought the brownie was nothing but a dream. He didn’t want to show what a baby he’d been about missing Billy Bly, so he chose his words with care. “I wanted to know more about the curse. I suppose it doesn’t matter now, since Lord Schofield banished the thing.”

  At the mere mention of the curse, Billy Bly shivered.

  “Tell me,” Frederick went on, “why did you answer? Many times I’ve wished just to know you were around the place. What I wanted made no difference. Why answer my call now?”

  “For the sake of time past and time to come,” Billy Bly replied.

  That sounded to Frederick like something Lord Schofield would say. “What does that mean?”

  “Time past, because I’ve always liked you. Time to come, because the day draws nigh I can’t answer you at all. I won’t hear you, and you won’t hear me.” Billy Bly looked grim. “Nothing mortal lasts.”

  “Wait.” Frederick thought it over carefully. Mortal meant something that could die. “Are you telling me that you’re dying?”

  “No.” Billy Bly held up his hand to cut off Frederick’s next question before he asked it. “Now don’t ask me if you’re dying, for so far as I know, you aren’t. No faster than any mortal creature, I promise you.”

  “Do you know the future?” Frederick demanded.

  “I have no way to see your end or mine. But sometimes I can see beginnings.” Billy Bly must have read Frederick’s confusion in his expression. Patiently, he started over. “I came to say good-bye. Our parting is near. The new child calls me.”

  “The child Lady Schofield is carrying?” Frederick scowled. “How can that be? That child isn’t even born yet.”

  “There are more spells on this house than the one Sir Hilary Bedrick cast. Magic runs in the Schofield family. Many a wizard has lived here before this one. They cast spells of protection. One of those spells has me in its power. If the owner’s first child is born in this house, any brownie living here must serve that child and no other from the moment of its birth.”

  “You are already under the spell? Servant to a baby? Before the child is even born?” The unfairness of it nearly took Frederick’s breath away.

  Billy Bly looked sad. “Aye, lad. More friend than servant, as I hope I have been to you. But the matter is settled.”

  Frederick could hardly speak, he was so angry. “Can’t we break the spell?”

  “A friendly thought, but no. This spell is too strong.” Billy Bly looked more closely at Frederick. “Here, lad. Don’t look so brokenhearted. I’m not bound to the child forever. Some of us serve until we are freed by gratitude. Some of us serve until we are given clothes. For me, I never serve more than one at a time, and I never serve more than seven years. Seven years and not one moment longer.”

  Frederick thought the lump in his throat might choke him. With all his heart, he wished he were dreaming. But he wasn’t dreaming. Billy Bly had only come to say good-bye. “Will I ever see you again?”

  “Never.” Billy Bly’s voice was full of regret. “Time runs swiftly, especially for a mortal like you. It would have been finished soon enough between us without this child’s arrival.”

  “If I hadn’t come here, you wouldn’t have to do it.” Frederick forced the words out. “This is all my fault.”

  “Never say that. Never even think it.” Billy Bly tapped his chest. “It was my own doing to flit along with you so blithely. I didn’t notice the spells laid upon this place until it was too late.”

  “I wish I’d never come here. I wish I’d never heard of Lord Schofield.” Frederick broke off, gulping back the feelings that threatened to overtake him.

  “Next you will say you wish you’d never left that orphanage, and we both know you don’t mean that. I don’t blame you. Not for anything.” More gently, Billy Bly added, “If it is any comfort, know I chose you freely. No spells required. I chose well when I chose you. No regrets, young Frederick. If I could, I would choose you again.”

  Between one heartbeat and the next, Billy Bly vanished. The dressing room was as empty as the feeling in Frederick’s stomach. For a moment, Frederick simply stared into the emptiness. Then he put out the candle. Eyes shut tight against the sight of the empty room, he curled back up in his blanket and lay silent as the last of the darkness yielded slowly to dawn.

  Frederick did not let himself make a single sound. He certainly did not cry. What good would crying do? What good was anything?

  When Frederick next opened his eyes, it was to the gloom of late afternoon. Even though it was scarcely tea time, the late October day was already yielding to dusk. Frederick washed his face and tidied himself. It was odd that neither Lord Schofield nor Piers had needed him all day. He wondered if he really had been sacked. Were they just waiting for him to wake up to throw him out of the house? That didn’t seem too likely.

  When Frederick came cautiously out of the dressing room and down the back stairs, the whole house seemed oddly silent. Silent, that is, until he stepped into the kitchen, where every servant in the household seemed to have gathered, all of them shouting.

  Frederick stepped up to the nearest cluster of servants, all housemaids. “What’s happened?”

  Pink with excitement, Rose turned to him, tumbling her words out so he scarcely understood her. “It’s her ladyship! Her labor pains began two hours ago. Nearly a week earlier than I’d wagered, too. That’s me sixpence poorer. His lordship has sent Foster and the curricle to London. He’s to fetch the man-midwife. Just in case he doesn’t come in time, Mrs. Kimball has sent one of the grooms to the village to fetch our midwife.”

  Frederick puzzled through the flurry of words too slowly to suit Rose. With a flash of impatience, she snapped, “The child is on the way. Lady Schofield’s labor has begun.”

  “Oh, is that all?” Frederick didn’t try to hide his resentment of the child as he looked from Rose to the chaos going on around them in the kitchen. “I thought perhaps a war had broken out.”

  “So it has, in a way.” Mrs. Dutton loomed over them both. “It’s a battle her ladyship is in now. You are no use underfoot here, Frederick, so off with you. Rose, if you can’t think of anything better to do than gossip, find some work and do it. Or I’ll find work for you.”

  Gratefully, Frederick escaped back upstairs to the dressing room. He still felt strange. Not just sad over his loss of Billy Bly. It was something more than that. Restlessness filled him. He tried to take Mrs. Dutton’s advice and find some work to do. There were always boots to polish.

  But try as he would, Frederick could not settle to polishing boots. His restlessness would not leave him. At last, although he knew he should keep on with his rags and polish, he cleaned his hands and ventured out again. He went up the back stairs instead of down. This time, he knew he was headed somewhere he had no business to go, the nursery.

  With everyone else busy downstairs, the top floor of Skeynes was eerily silent. He heard the wind outside rattling at the windows, as if it was trying the latches over and over. As he moved down the corridor toward the nursery, ev
ery floorboard had a different creaky note underfoot to betray his steps.

  The nursery door was open. Frederick stood on the threshold, just looking, for a long time.

  Every windowpane shone, and the fresh white paint on the walls seemed to gleam. Braided rugs softened the polished wooden floorboards. Every stick of furniture was dusted. Every scrap of fabric was clean and pressed. A small fire smoldered into embers in the fireplace; all the warmth there was to keep the autumn chill at bay.

  Frederick crossed the threshold and walked boldly around the room, touching this and that. He straightened up a rag doll slumped crookedly on a shelf. He set the rocking horse to rocking with a touch of his hand. He studied his reflection in the looking glass hung above the mantelpiece. He stood there, quite empty-handed. The child wasn’t born yet, and already this whole room belonged to it. Not even Frederick’s clothing truly belonged to him.

  When the moment came, the child would be Billy Bly’s master, blessed just to have parents. One day, if the child was a boy, the whole house and all its lands would belong to him. Every servant in the place would be his to command. And not just in this place. How many houses would the child inherit? How many servants would he have to do his bidding?

  This child would be rich by any measure the world used. Why did the child have to have Billy Bly too? Billy Bly was all Frederick had ever had.

  The embers on the hearth were dying. The room grew chill. Half out of habit, half to stop himself thinking, Frederick made up the fire afresh. When the flames were leaping merrily again, Frederick rested in the warmth, cross-legged on the hearth rug. He knew he should leave. He had no business in the nursery, no excuse to offer for his presence.

  The colors of the fire held Frederick spellbound. More than the flames, he loved the shift and play of the burning embers. Inside every glowing coal, he could see the black heart of the fire. Blackness only made the colors lovelier. There would be no brightness without the dark, he thought.

  With pure force of will, Frederick made himself rise above his feelings. So what if the child would never know his own luck? Weren’t there plenty of children left back in the orphanage who would say the same of Frederick?