The Magicians and Mrs. Quent

by Galen Beckett

  I was struck dumb. No breath would enter my lungs. Her face hung in the darkness before me, and for the first time since my coming to Heathcrest Hall, there were feelings upon it I recognized: anger, and love, and despair. Something glinted on her cheek.

  She seemed to see me staring. Her lip curled up. “Now,” she said, pushing past me. “I hear them no longer. We must go.”

  She moved back to the end of the passage. By the time I reached her she had already pushed it open. I saw a wedge of silver light, and though it could only be dim I squinted as if it were a brilliant glare.

  “Come, you fool!” she said, seizing my arm and dragging me forward as the opening grew wider.

  “Why?” I said as I stumbled after her. After all she had said, I could not understand. “Why are you helping me?”

  “I keep this house, and all that is in it, for him, that is why.” She pulled me through the door.

  I blinked and saw we were in the front hall. We had emerged from behind another panel, this one beneath the stairs. Not ten steps away was the arch that led to the front entry to the house. We both looked around, but the hall was empty save for ourselves and its usual mounted denizens.

  “To the door,” the housekeeper said.

  I hurried toward the arch, but when I reached it I realized the housekeeper was not behind me. Turning, I saw her start up the stairs.

  Dread seized me. “Mrs. Darendal, what are you doing?”

  “It is none of your concern,” she said with a glare over her shoulder. She ascended several more steps.

  “You cannot go upstairs. They are up there!”

  “So is my son. I will not leave him to them.” She continued climbing.

  “But he is like them!”

  The look she sent me across the hall was filled with such loathing, such contempt, that I could only stagger back against it. The housekeeper vanished up the stairs.

  For a mad moment I thought of dashing after her. No—she did not want me. Whatever she had done to help me, it had not been for my sake. I turned and ran to the front door. It was still open.

  I ran through. Mist coiled around my ankles, pooled on the stones, slithered down the steps. I hesitated, thinking of Lanna and Jance. Were they still in the house? I could not know, but if I had any hope of aiding them, it was to escape this place, to ride to the village, to seek help. I started down the steps.

  A dark form moved in the mist before me, and I halted. There was a sound like a blade being drawn over a whetting stone. The shape stalked up the steps.

  “No,” I said, or tried to. The mist filled my mouth; I could not speak.

  The shadow prowled closer.

  I fled back up the front steps, but as I reached the top a growling sounded on the air, so low it was a thing felt as much as heard. A dark form loped through the open door. I turned; the other shadow was halfway up the steps.

  There is a point where dread becomes so great the mind can no longer endure it and so gives it up completely. In my fear, a kind of madness came upon me. My heart did not slow, but I no longer felt any desire to run. Terror had made a crystal of my mind: sharp-faceted and clear. They were not here to murder me but for another purpose.

  Let them, I thought with a sudden elation. Let them try to make use of me for their own ends! I spread my arms wide and held my chin high.

  “Come, then, take me,” I spoke into the fog. “Take me to the Wyrdwood—if you dare it.”

  There was a snarl, and the shadow leaped up.

  Lightning flashed, a clap of thunder rent the air. There was a pitiful whine. The thing crumpled in a heap on the steps below me and did not move again. There was a clattering sound. More shapes moved up the steps. Only these were tall and upright.

  “By God, hold your fire! There is a woman there!”

  At the same moment another snarl sounded behind me, and again light and sound tore the mist asunder.

  “Damn you, I said hold your fire!”

  The mist swirled and parted. A man stood before me, a rifle in his hands. He wore the blue regimental coat of a captain.

  “Madam, are you well?” His eyes were wide. “Tell me, are you hurt?”

  I tried to answer him, but my ears rang from the rifle shots, and the sound had struck me dumb.

  Other soldiers appeared from the gloom behind the captain. “Where is the inquirer? Get him now!”

  “I am here,” spoke a deep, familiar voice.

  So filled with relief was I at the sound that my legs could no longer support me. I would have dashed my head against the steps if the captain had not caught me. Then another pair of hands took me, holding me aloft with easy strength, though they had but eight fingers between them.

  “You are well, aren’t you?” His brown eyes were intent upon me. “Tell me you are well.”

  I reached up and laid a hand against his bearded cheek. “Mr. Quent.”

  “It looks as if we got two more of the dogs, sir,” one of the men said.

  Dogs. Yes, that was what they had seemed like: great, shaggy dogs. I turned my head. The mist had lifted a bit, and in the failing light I saw two figures sprawled on the front steps of the house, dark pools forming beneath them. Their jackets and breeches were shabby, their hair long and tangled, their faces pale.

  Men. They were men.

  “Search the house!” the captain called out. “Find any more of the rebels that might be left inside.”

  Gently, Mr. Quent turned me away.

  “Do not look at them,” he said. “You are safe now. It is over.”

  I rested my cheek against his chest. Yet I had seen enough to know that neither of the dead men was Westen. Nor did I believe they would find him inside the house. I remembered the last words he spoke to me.

  No matter what you do, the land will rise….

  A shiver passed through me. Though I admired Mr. Quent more than any man in the world, all the same I knew he was wrong. It was not over.

  Night descended. As it did, a gale sprang up, tearing apart the fog, and I thought I could almost hear it: the sound of wind through bent branches and the whispering of leaves.

  No, it had only just begun.

  THEY HAVE TOLD me the mail coach will arrive at the inn soon, and its stop here will be brief. I have time for only a few more lines, Father. Then, in mere hours, I will see you and my sisters! Perhaps then my heart will remember how to be glad, for at present it has forgotten that ability. When I close my eyes, I cannot picture him. I have already forgotten what he looks like!

  But such thoughts are natural for a new wife, who goes into a silly panic when she cannot envision the face of her husband when he is away—and through such anxiety further assures she will not be able to do so.

  There is no cause for worry. He will join us in the city soon, and I am certain you will admire him as much as I do—or rather, that you would. But of course that must be the case, for you and he were friends once, and now I understand why. That there is a man who is kinder, more judicious, or possessed of a greater sense of duty cannot be.

  Yet it is that very obligation to duty that separates us. The day following the awful events I last described to you, an agent of that lord whom he serves arrived at Heathcrest. Their meeting was not long, but even as the man rode away, Mr. Quent called for Jance and told him to begin making preparations for a journey.

  “But you have only just returned!” I told him after Jance was gone, clinging to him like some brainless thing. “You cannot go away so soon.”

  “You know I must,” he said, gravely but gently, and he told me what he could of what the messenger had told him: that there was a report from the far west of Torland, that it spoke of not just a single Rising but of several, and that each had been more alarming in effect than the last. However, the area was remote and sparsely populated. The reports might be in error, but he must go investigate.

  His calmness, his even temper, shamed me; I composed myself. However, while I could accept this parting, there was o
ne thing I could not bear. “I cannot remain here at Heathcrest,” I told him.

  “No!” He took my hand and held it tight. “No, you cannot. I have told Jance to book you passage on the mail. It leaves tomorrow. You will return to the city and stay with your family.”

  Excitement filled me, but dread as well. How I wanted to see you, Father, and Lily and Rose. And I could not stay in the house, not after what had taken place there. But Invarel was even farther away from Torland than Heathcrest.

  “If Mr. Wyble will allow it,” I said at last.

  “I will write to him and assure him that as soon as I return to the city I will remove you, as well as your father and sisters, from his house.”

  I nodded. Mr. Wyble would be satisfied by such a letter, for it would assure our ejection from the house on Whitward Street a full half month sooner than might otherwise have been achieved under the law.

  “What of Heathcrest?” I said. “Who will care for it, now that…”

  I could not continue, and he was silent. There were things that were still too terrible to speak of, though I had overheard enough the day before to know what had happened. Upon entering the house, the soldiers had found and shot a third rebel. It was not Westen. They discovered Lanna in the basement. She had had the presence of mind to lock herself in. Now she had returned to Low Sorrel to be with her family. Her mother had already written to Mr. Quent to say she was not coming back.

  While I had feared for Jance, he had been able to slip away in the fog to the village and there had met Mr. Quent the moment he arrived. That a band of soldiers had accompanied Mr. Quent on his return was a stroke of fortune; they had intended to continue on their way to Invarel. Instead, all of them had ridden to the house and had arrived in time to aid me.

  However, they were too late for another.

  I was not allowed to see her. That it had been a gruesome scene I knew from the look on Mr. Quent’s face when he told me they had found Mrs. Darendal in his study on the second floor. I heard one of the soldiers say it looked like the work of animals.

  “That’s what they are—animals,” another answered him. “Bloody rebels. They should all be—” But I did not hear what he thought, for the two ceased their talk when they saw me.

  “The house will be closed,” Mr. Quent said in answer to my question. “There is no use keeping it open when there is no one to dwell here.”

  So the shadows and silence would at last be left to rule here. “What of others who might have been in league with…with the men who came here?”

  “A watch has been set around all stands of Wyrdwood in the county. The rebels will not be able to pass. Should anyone try to enter or leave, they will be apprehended.”

  “Anyone?” I thought of the figure in white, who had seemed to float among the trees.

  His voice was low—not angry or hard, but stern as when I first met him. “It is my duty as an inquirer to seek out any person who might have knowledge of a past or future Rising. No one can remain in the wood forever. When she comes, we will take her.”

  I nodded. Yet I wondered—would Halley Samonds truly need to leave the Wyrdwood? Or could she remain there, drawing sustenance from the land as the ancient trees did? It was a foolish idea; no matter what else she was, she was a woman. All the same, I did not think they would ever find her, unless it was her bones sinking into the mold among a tangle of roots.

  I ceased my questions. That he had questions for me I could see in his eyes, but preparations for his trip consumed him.

  I made my own preparations and went up to my room in the attic to gather these papers and a few other things. I thought fondly of the hours I had lain in the wrought-iron bed, listening to the wind murmur over the eaves. The bent-willow chair Mr. Samonds had made years ago had been reduced to a pile of broken sticks. I did not touch them.

  When Mr. Quent had finished his work, we had some few hours left, and we spent them together, forgetting what had happened and what was to come and finding solace in each other’s company. All too soon dawn approached, and we rose in the gray light to ready ourselves for our respective journeys. When we were done, we still had an hour before the soldiers were to come for him and before Jance would drive me to the village.

  “Would you walk with me outside?” he asked, and I took his arm.

  The sun had still not risen, but the fog was lifting, and we walked along the top of the ridge under a coral sky. We spoke of small things as we walked, remarking on the song sung by some bird or a flower that caught our eyes. At last we halted by the fallen elf circle.

  “Are you well?” he said, his voice low.

  I tried to make sense of this question. “How can I be well when we are to travel in opposite directions?”

  “It will not be for long. Not more than a half month, I hope.”

  “I would have counted a minute not long, even an hour. But half of a month! You subscribe to an entirely different definition of not long than I do.”

  I smiled at him, to let him know I was teasing. He smiled as well, but I could not stop trembling.

  “Are you cold?” he asked. “You shake so!”

  The morning was balmy, and as the eastern horizon turned crimson, I saw the twisted shapes that crowned the rise to the east. No, it was not from cold that I trembled.

  I could not bring myself to look at him. “There is something I must tell you. I do not want to, but I must.”

  Though I was not looking at him, I could hear the frown in his voice. “Your dread is misplaced. You must know you can tell me anything.”

  “What if it is something so terrible that, once heard, it must harden your heart to me forever?”

  “There can be no such thing.”

  Would it were so! My gaze was drawn again to the east, and after a moment I became aware that I was speaking. The words that fell from my lips seemed hardly my own. I listened to them with an astonishment that could only have matched his.

  I spoke of finding the painting in the cellar and what Lanna had said to me there. I spoke also of my encounter with Westen Darendal in my room in the attic and how I had escaped him. Then I spoke once again of the night the children went to the Wyrdwood and how I was certain that the branches that caged them had lifted not because of any wind that blew but because—and only because—I had wished them to do so.

  My words ceased. He said nothing in reply. A minute passed, then two. Still he made no answer. At last I could bear the silence no longer. I turned, willing myself to look up at his face and behold the disappointment, the disdain, the anger that must reside there.

  The dawn light revealed none of these things. Rather, he wore a look of such sorrow, such regret, and—impossible though it seemed—such tenderness that I could only gasp.

  “No,” I said, lifting a hand to my throat. “How can you look at me so?”

  He took my hand, turned it over, and showered kisses upon my wrist.

  “But you despise me now,” I said, shaking my head. “You must! Do you not know what I am?” I am like her! I wanted to say. Like Halley Samonds in the wood! Only my throat tightened around the words.

  “I do know,” he said, his gaze on me. “I have always known.”

  I staggered back from him a step. My wonder gave way to dread. “What do you mean you have always known?”

  His heavy shoulders, always rounded, slumped even further. “Now I must say something to you, and when I am done it will be you who will turn from me.”

  I could not look at him. Instead, I watched the brightening horizon as he spoke in low words behind me. It took but the littlest time, no more than the time it took for the sky to go from saffron to crimson at the start of a middling lumenal, for him to alter forever my perception of myself and my history upon the face of this world.

  It was not only because of her habit of walking around the Wyrdwood that Merriel Addysen had been labeled a witch. She had had a child but no husband: a girl with wheaten hair and eyes as green as her own.

 
; “I was the child,” I said, looking at the silhouettes of the trees. “I was the child in the painting.”

  “You were,” he said behind me.

  I looked at him. “Mrs. Quent painted it. She was there, wasn’t she? She and Lanna—they found me.”

  To my surprise, he shook his head. “No, Gennivel was not there that day. We were not married yet. It was Lanna who came upon the scene first, on her way home with the family cow, I can only suppose. I had gone to the wood as soon as the tree on the green began to burn, knowing the others would go there before long. I heard Lanna’s cries as I drew near, though by the time I reached the Wyrdwood she had fallen silent. She has never spoken to anyone since.”

  I thought of the painting, of the details captured by the skilled brush strokes. “No, you’re wrong. Lanna did speak to someone. She spoke to Mrs. Quent. She must have done so at some point after you took her into service at Heathcrest. How else could Mrs. Quent have known exactly how to paint it—every leaf, every stone?”

  His expression was startled for a moment, but slowly he nodded. “I had always thought she simply heard stories in the village. Such tales fascinated her; she was ever eager to hear any accounts of the Rising. Only too late did I understand why! But I wonder…No, I believe you must be right.”

  “So it was you who found me,” I said.

  Again he nodded. “It was not hard to take you from the scene unnoticed. So fixed were the others on their intention to burn the wood that they never saw you. And had they…”

  “Had they noticed me, they would have granted me the same fate they did her.” I spoke the words coolly. He did not deny them.

  “I took you, and brought you back to Heathcrest, and gave you to Mrs. Darendal. However, we both knew you could not stay there, not after what had happened. That you were an innocent child, only three years old, would have meant nothing to some, so great was their rage and their fear. I knew I must find someone else to take you. That is when I thought of—”

  “Of my father,” I finished for him. “Of your friend, I mean, for he is not my father after all.” A coldness wreathed my heart. I felt as I had that day I found my mother lying on the dining-room floor, a sensation that something vital had been excised from me, leaving a hollow inside. Yet she had not been my mother—I had not even had that much to lose!