The Family Shame

by Christopher G. Nuttall

  And father never invited me, I remembered, bitterly. Girls did not go hunting …

  Something moved, at the corner of my eye. I turned my head and looked down the corridor, half-expecting to see Morag. But there was nothing, save for a faint sense that not all was quite right. I tensed, feeling an icy shiver running down my spine. The wards, a constant presence in the background, seemed dimmed. It was suddenly very hard to move. I had to fight to get my legs to work properly.

  There’s nothing there, I told myself. There really isn’t anything there.

  I shivered again, remembering Uncle Ira’s warning about ghosts. Were there really ghosts in the hall? It didn’t seem likely. And yet … I couldn’t help feeling that something was wrong, terribly wrong. I wanted to walk back to the stairs and flee down to Morag. She would be rude and sarcastic and generally unpleasant, but at least she wasn’t a ghost. If there were ghosts. Something flickered, once again, at the corner of my eye. It was at the bottom of the corridor …

  I forced myself to run down the corridor, pushing myself right to the far end. There was a large room in the end, its windows boarded shut. I slowed as I reached the door and peered inside, expecting to see … I wasn’t sure what I was expecting to see. The floor was covered in glass - a faint breeze of bitterly cold air drifted in from the windows - but the remainder of the room was completely empty. Perhaps the gusts of air had done … something … to catch my eye. Or … I looked at the wardrobe doors, nervously. Was something hidden inside them? I braced myself and inched forward, carefully reaching out to open the first door. It creaked loudly when I opened it, loudly enough to make me jump, but there was nothing inside. A musty smell greeted me as I checked the next wardrobe, then the next. There were hints of mould at the back of the small cupboards, but otherwise they were empty.

  You’re imagining things, I told myself, firmly. Your mind is playing tricks on you.

  It should have been convincing. I was in a new place, a very old house with all sorts of little weaknesses … I found myself eyeing the fireplace, wondering if someone could climb up into the chimney. The vents would be huge, I thought. A whole set of secret passages, allowing someone to move around as long as the fires weren’t lit. I peered into the darkness, wondering if I dared try to climb up. Anything could be up there …

  … And then I felt something behind me. I froze, too scared to move. There was something in the room with me. I knew it, even though I couldn’t hear or see anything. It was right behind me … I braced myself, shaping a spell Father had taught me, a spell he’d told me never to use unless I felt my life or my virtue was in serious danger. He’d made it clear that there would be consequences if I used it in error. I spun around, hand raised to cast the spell …

  … And saw nothing.

  The sensation vanished, as if it had never existed. I stepped forward, then ran through the door, half-convinced that I was going to be chased by a small army of ghosts. And yet, the further I ran, the harder it was to believe that anything had happened. There hadn’t been anything there. I’d imagined everything. And yet … I wasn’t sure what had happened. It felt like a dream or a nightmare, one that lingered even after you woke up. I stopped long enough to pick up the pile of clothes and drop them on the stairwell, then I hurried down the stairs. It wasn’t quite time for lunch, but perhaps Morag would like a hand. I’d welcome her company, even if she didn’t welcome mine.

  She looked up from the stove as I entered the kitchen, one hand stirring something in a pot that smelt faintly of tomatoes. “What do you want?”

  “I saw … something … on the third floor,” I said, ignoring her tone. I described what had happened as best as I could. “Are there really ghosts here?”

  “I rather doubt it,” Morag said. She sounded as though she was trying to be reassuring, but didn’t know how. “The wards are quite old, Isabella, and they’re poorly maintained. They occasionally produce odd effects, particularly to the unwary. You might just have walked into an aversion ward that was starting to spark out of control. I’ll mention it to the Master.”

  “It felt so real,” I said. I’d never heard of a ward that did that. An aversion ward would push anyone unlucky enough to step into its field to run, pressing at their minds until they were so terrified they couldn’t think straight … which was what I’d done, I supposed. I certainly hadn’t considered trying to block the ward from affecting me. “I thought I was keyed into the wards.”

  “There are sections that might not recognise you - or any of us - as family,” Morag said, stiffly. “If so, they might try to drive you away.”

  “Oh,” I muttered. I’d heard stories about what happened to people who managed to trip a house’s interior wards. None of them ended well. “How reassuring.”

  “Quite,” Morag agreed. “Now, seeing it will probably rain for the rest of the week, you can give me a hand drying the clothes. And we’ll be finished just in time for lunch.”

  I glanced at the clock, then nodded. “Yes, Senior.”

  Chapter Seven

  The one major problem with living at Kirkhaven Hall, I discovered as the week slowly progressed, was that I was alone. Neither Morag nor Ira seemed to feel any inclination to spend time with me … and even if they had, there was a colossal age gap between us. There was no one my age to talk to, not even an upperclassman who might lord his greater age over me without being completely inaccessible. I would have welcomed anyone, even Cat, if it had meant having someone on my level. But I was alone.

  Morag had been right. It had indeed rained all week. Water had splashed down so heavily, it was a wonder the roof hadn’t sprung a leak or two. I’d looked outside a few times, but the downpour was so heavy that I was sure I would be soaked to the skin within seconds if I walked into the gardens. I’d made what use I could of my free time, when I wasn’t cleaning my workrooms or exploring the building, but by the time Friday rolled around I was starting to feel trapped. There simply wasn’t much to do, save for reading old books - half were outdated, while the other half were well above my comprehension - and working my way through the first set of exercises. I was almost glad of it when Uncle Ira joined me in the potions lab after lunch. At least I’d be doing something.

  “You’ve definitely improved the room,” Uncle Ira said, as he took a seat in the corner and watched me through his blue eyes. “I trust you read the recipe notes?”

  I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. There were a dozen different potions recipes included in the first set of exercises, ranging from the strikingly simple to the hideously complicated. I thought I could handle them, but I didn’t really want to mess up in front of Uncle Ira. He wasn’t a teacher. He wasn’t paid to help me overcome my weaknesses and master the art.

  “Very good,” Uncle Ira said. He reached into his pocket and produced a parchment scroll. “I want you to brew this potion.”

  “But …”

  “This potion,” Uncle Ira repeated. His voice was polite, but it was a very powerful kind of politeness. He knew he was in charge. He didn’t need to prove it by blustering. “Brew it, if you please.”

  I scanned the recipe quickly, trying to figure out what the potion did. It had some aspects in common with sleeping potions, but it also seemed to share ingredients with healing and energy potions. I wasn’t sure the different sections would go together, no matter how carefully I infused the magic. It was definitely a year or two ahead of where I’d been at Jude’s. I wanted to object, but I knew it would get me nowhere. Instead, I started to gather the ingredients.

  “We’re going to need more dried ants,” I said, as I put the sole jar on the table. If there was one advantage to having a private workroom, it was having plenty of space to sort and measure the ingredients. I didn’t have to worry about cramming everything on a table a size too small for me. “Can you order them?”

  “I have placed the order,” Uncle Ira said, placidly. He folded his arms over his chest. “Carry on, please.”

  I nod
ded as I put the cauldron on to boil - making sure the heating element was carefully focused to direct any excess magic away from the brew - and started to chop the ingredients, one by one. I had no idea how forgiving the potion would be, if I skipped a step or two, so I forced myself to do everything perfectly. Thankfully, Magistra Loanda had drilled precision into me and the rest of the class. Bad habits, picked up when we were Firsties, would haunt us for the rest of our lives.

  “The recipe normally calls for the ants to be mashed,” Uncle Ira said, suddenly. “Why do you chop them up instead?”

  Because that’s what the recipe says, I thought. He hadn’t suggested that I should improve the recipe as I went along. The potion requires chopped ants …

  “It allows a slower release of magic,” I said, after a moment. Father had insisted that I learn the reasoning behind each instruction too. “Mashed ants would only ruin a slow-brewing potion.”

  “Very good,” Uncle Ira said.

  I nodded, then turned my attention to the boiling water. Three of the ingredients had to be added and infused together, the reminder added at five-minute intervals … I gritted my teeth as I mixed the chopped ants with the frogspawn and powdered mice, then poured them into the boiling water and hastily infused the first surge of magic. The mixture bubbled violently, just long enough for me to want to jump to one side and dive under the table before it started to settle down. I started to stir, carefully counting the strokes. It had to be stirred at least twenty times before the next ingredients were added.

  “You’re stirring very slowly,” Uncle Ira said. “Is there a reason for that?”

  “It allows the magic to settle into the brew,” I said, feeling sweat prickling on my forehead. I had no hope of impressing him, I thought, but perhaps I could convince him I understood enough to be worth teaching. “If I stirred too hard, the magic might be warped out of shape and the potion might explode.”

  “I see,” Uncle Ira said.

  I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not, but there was no time to worry about it. The potion was starting to bubble again. I could feel the magic swirling through the brew, calling me. I counted down the last few seconds, then added the next ingredient, upping the tempo of my stirs. This time, I needed the surge of magic to knock the spellform into shape.

  Uncle Ira didn’t say anything until I’d added the last few ingredients and triggered the cascade reaction. “You added only a handful of powder base,” he said. “Should you not add more?”

  “The recipe calls for only a handful,” I grated. I’d probably get in trouble for tone, if nothing else, but I was feeling stressed. “And now the spellform is taking shape …”

  The brew flared a brilliant white, just for a second, then settled down into a murky purple liquid. I watched it for a long moment before turning off the heating element, half-expecting something to go wrong at the last second. But nothing happened. The potion merely started to cool rapidly. Uncle Ira didn’t seem inclined to tell me off after all.

  “You’re not questioning the recipe,” he said, instead. “Can you not look for a better way to brew it?”

  I bit down on the response that came to mind. “You gave me the recipe,” I said. It was hard to keep my voice even. “I thought you would want me to follow the recipe.”

  Uncle Ira’s lips twitched. “True enough,” he said. “But how would you improve the recipe?”

  “I don’t even know what it does,” I protested. I had to fight not to show my annoyance on my face. Mother would snap at me for being cheeky and Father would send me to my room or assign some pointless and thoroughly unpleasant task for being rude. “How am I supposed to improve on the brew if I don’t know what it does?”

  His face darkened, just for a second. I cringed, unsure what to expect. His voice, when he spoke, was so flat I knew he was annoyed. “Why don’t you go through the ingredients again, while the potion cools, and work out what it does?”

  I took the recipe and sat down, forcing myself to work my way through the list of ingredients, one by one. Some of them seemed to cancel out the others … no, they balanced the others, allowing them to work in tandem. The potion seemed to encourage sleep, without actually forcing the drinker to sleep; the potion seemed to encourage healing, yet didn’t seem focused on doing anything in particular. It didn’t appear to direct the healing in any way.

  “I don’t know,” I said, slowly. “It only seems to encourage the body to heal.”

  “Very good.” Uncle Ira sounded pleased. “And what use does it have?”

  I hesitated, forcing my tired brain to think. If I was on the right track … understanding clicked. It was a rejuvenation potion. I’d heard of them, years ago, but I’d thought they’d been superseded by regeneration potions and charms. I certainly hadn’t seen a recipe in any of the books in my father’s study, the ones I hadn’t been supposed to read. If I’d given the matter any thought, I would have assumed that they were considered outdated and rarely brewed any longer.

  “It helps the body to heal,” I said. “Doesn’t it?”

  “In essence,” Uncle Ira said. He reached out and tapped the parchment. “For next Friday, I want you to write an essay explaining how each of the ingredients helps the potion to work and how they interact to produce the final result.”

  I hid my dismay behind a flat expression. “Yes, Uncle.”

  Uncle Ira shot me a look that told me I wasn’t as good at hiding my emotions as I might have hoped. “I’m sure you will find it very interesting,” he said. “Almost as interesting as the assignments from a distant tutor.”

  “Yes, Uncle,” I said, quietly.

  Uncle Ira stood. “Bottle up the potion and label it carefully - the brew is called Ira’s Tipple, by the way - and then put it on the table,” he ordered. “And then come meet me in the next workroom.”

  I watched him go, unwillingly impressed. Ira’s Tipple? Had Uncle Ira invented the potion? I didn’t think he was old enough to have brewed rejuvenation potions in Jude’s - if he’d gone to Jude’s - but he might have come across references to older potion recipes in Kirkhaven’s library. And, with more modern knowledge, he might have been able to invent his own or improve an older recipe to the point where he could claim it as his own. I didn’t think it had any real use, but I might be wrong. It was something I’d have to ask him.

  He was waiting for me in the next room when I finished, absently reading his way through a dust-covered tome that probably hadn’t been touched in a hundred years. I sat down and rested my hands in my lap, oddly amused that he hadn’t noticed that I was wearing a pair of boy’s trousers. Morag had sniffed disapprovingly, when she’d seen them, but she hadn’t forced me to change. Perhaps she thought she had no room to complain. She wore her hair in a manner befitting a married woman.

  “Uncle,” I said, slowly. “Why are we brewing rejuvenation potions when we could be brewing regeneration potions?”

  Uncle Ira gave me a sharp look, then nodded slowly. “You are aware, no doubt, that you have never been sick? Ever?”

  I frowned. It was true. Neither I nor Akin had ever caught anything nasty. I couldn’t recall any of the family ever getting ill. Injured? Oh yes, we’d been injured. But ill?

  “Yes, Uncle.”

  “The magic that flows through your blood has a vested interest in keeping you alive,” Uncle Ira told me. “You may break your arm, if you are unlucky, but it is extremely rare for a powerful magician to catch a disease. The pestilences that sweep through the countryside from time to time never touch you because your magic keeps you healthy. Indeed, should you break an arm, your magic will try to fix it. The problems that most magicians encounter when they do break bones happen because the damage is too great for the magic to gently push things back to the way they should be.”

  He paused. When I nodded, he went on.

  “The basic difference between rejuvenation potions and regeneration potions, and spells, is that the former tries to encourage the body to heal
itself while the latter pretty much does the work for it. The latter are quicker, if you want to be up and running within a day of your accident, but the former tend to do a more comprehensive job. It would be” - he paused, searching for a good example - “akin to me making you figure out the answer for yourself, instead of simply giving it to you. You’d understand the underlying principles a great deal better if you worked it out for yourself.

  “That’s partly why potions teachers are so fussy, even when there’s no reason to be quite so nitpicky. You have to understand what you’re doing in order to progress to a mastery - or even be able to apply your skills to other potions. Simply following a recipe is not enough, Isabella. You have to understand what you’re doing and why.”

  I supposed that made a certain kind of sense. “Yes, Uncle.”

  Uncle Ira sat back in his chair. “And now … I want you to cast a lighting charm.”

  I frowned - it was one of the first spells I’d learnt - but I cast it anyway. Uncle Ira studied my work for a moment, then told me to cast another charm. And another, and another, and … I think I must have cast over fifty different spells, some more successfully than others, by the time he finally called a halt and passed me a bottle of apple juice. I sipped gratefully, feeling suddenly very tired. He’d made me cast more spells in an hour than I’d used to cast in a day.

  “You have a good grasp of the basics,” Ira said, as I drank. “Your more advanced spells are lacking, I think. You’ll have to work on those.”