“You are a very lucky little girl,” Morag snapped, as we staggered up the stairs. “Don’t you ever forget it.”
I didn’t feel very lucky, although I knew she had a point. Uncle Ira could have broken out the truth spells and forced me to talk, which would have ended with me betraying Callam and his entire family. Uncle Ira might understand, on some level, that I needed companionship from someone my own age, but he’d never let Callam roam the grounds freely. Magicians guarded their privacy, all too aware that their rivals would stop at nothing to spy on them. The best Callam could hope for, if Uncle Ira realised just how often he’d been visiting, would be being formally banned from the grounds. I doubted Uncle Ira would be that merciful.
Morag pushed me down the corridor and into my room. It looked as if I’d never left: my nightgown lay on the floor, where I’d left it; a small basket of dirty clothes was placed against one wall; a handful of books sat on the table, waiting for me to read them. I wondered, morbidly, what Morag had in mind. She could do anything to me.
“If I’d done that, at your age …” Morag stopped herself, sharply. “You are a very lucky girl!”
“So you keep saying,” I said, as I turned around. “I don’t feel lucky …”
Morag slapped me, again. I stumbled back and fell onto the bed. My cheek felt as if it were on fire. For a horrible moment, I thought she was going to slap me again and again until my jaw fell off. I tried to muster a defensive spell, even though I knew resistance would be futile. Morag’s glower was more than enough to send my half-completed spell splintering out of existence.
“You are young and foolish and have a peanut for a brain,” Morag hissed. “Your family didn’t do you any favours by keeping you so … sheltered. How long do you think it would have been before you did something else stupid?
I tried to think of an answer, but nothing came to mind. Morag was right about one thing. I had been foolish. I’d made a string of mistakes, starting with bullying Cat and ending with an alliance with Stregheria Aguirre. I didn’t know, even now, if Stregheria had intended to keep her side of the bargain. The prospect of suceeding her as sole ruler of Shallot, mistress of magicians, had been very tempting. It had been so tempting that it had blinded me to the dangers.
And I wouldn’t have done any of it if I’d had a fair shot at power myself, I thought, feeling a twinge of the old bitterness. It isn’t as if the other Great Houses haven’t had Matriarchs over the years.
“Your friend would have led you into bad ways,” Morag hissed. “Or do you think you could enjoy a friendship without complications?”
“Yes,” I managed, somehow. My mouth hurt badly. I could taste blood. It was all I could do to talk. “We’re both outcasts …”
“And you’re from very different worlds,” Morag said. “You’re not meeting in Jude’s, little girl. You’re in the open, where the slightest mistake can destroy a reputation beyond repair.”
“I don’t care,” I said. “Is my reputation ever going to be rehabilitated?”
“Probably not,” Morag said. “But we can live in hope …”
“You could leave,” I said. “If you can get down to the village, why can’t you go further away?”
“Because I am a Rubén,” Morag said. “And I will not throw that away.”
I felt a stab of pity, mingled with contempt. Morag wasn’t held prisoner by wards or compulsions spells or even iron bars. She was kept firmly in place by the prospect, one day, of being rehabilitated, of being allowed to put her past behind her and return home. Perhaps Uncle Ira was the same, although he’d been in exile long enough to suspect that the family would never allow him to return home. Morag could have left at any moment, if she was prepared to put the family behind her. It wasn’t as if she would have any trouble crossing the border and finding work somewhere in Galashiels.
She could have found her husband, I thought. It occurred to me to wonder if the tale she’d snapped at me was actually true. She could have left and searched for him at any moment.
“Get up,” Morag ordered.
I had to force myself to stand. My head felt woozy, as if I hadn’t slept enough. Morag might have slapped me hard enough to jar something loose in my head. Panic flickered through my mind as she took my arm and pushed me into a corner. I didn’t dare look around as I heard banging and crashing behind me. Morag was searching the room, opening my trunks and inspecting them one by one. I gritted my teeth, trying to calm my anger. Searching someone’s private room was a gross offense, as far as High Society was concerned. My mother would hesitate unless she had a very good reason to think she needed to search my chambers.
“I’m leaving your books on the table,” Morag said, after she went in and out of the bathroom. I had no idea what she thought I’d concealed in there, or where she thought I’d hide it, but … it wasn’t as if I’d tried to conceal anything. “You are not to leave the room.”
“I understand, Senior,” I said, trying to sound contrite. Uncle Ira had grounded me … it wouldn’t be so bad, except I still had no idea what had happened to Callam. He could be dead or injured or … a hundred horrible possibilities ran through my mind, each one worse than the last. “I …”
“Be quiet,” Morag ordered. I heard her stamping across the room, opening the wardrobes and peering inside. “You’ll be helping me wash clothes later.”
It sounded like a threat. I believed it was a threat. The clothes I’d found had proved resistant to cleaning charms, to the point where casting the spells actually caused the clothes to fall apart. Perhaps they were too old or, more likely, the charms that had been designed to help keep them clean had worn off in the long run. We’d have to wash them the old-fashioned way. I had a feeling it was not going to be fun.
“Yes, Senior,” I said.
“I told you to be quiet,” Morag said, sharply. “Now, for your additional punishment …”
I heard her casting a spell and braced myself. My limbs … changed, growing harder and harder … they were suddenly utterly immobile. I glanced down, just in time to see my hands turn to stone, an instant before I could no longer move a muscle. My neck had frozen … no, my neck had turned to stone. Morag had turned me into a statue!
No, I realised as a wave of strange sensations ran through me. She used a petrifaction curse.
I felt a wave of pure panic. Simply turning someone into a statue wasn’t pleasant, but a petrifaction curse was worse. Far worse. My limbs felt … weird, as if they’d gone to sleep; my brain felt oddly disconnected from my body, as if it wasn’t quite mine any more. I tried to muster a countercharm, but nothing came to mind. The sensation wasn’t entirely unpleasant, at least not at first, but a few hours of being petrified would change that. I’d heard horror stories about people who’d been cursed so badly that they’d never been the same again.
Morag’s footsteps echoed across the room. I heard her opening the door, then pausing on the threshold. I couldn’t see her. I couldn’t see anything outside my field of vision. I silently thanked my ancestors, if any of them were looking after me, that I hadn’t blinked when my eyes had turned to stone. Being trapped in darkness would be worse than merely being petrified. All of a sudden, being slapped repeatedly didn’t seem so bad.
“You can spend the next few days meditating on the value of obedience,” Morag said. Her voice sounded odd in my frozen ears. I wasn’t sure how I was hearing at all. I’d asked Father how a transformed person could still see and hear and he’d told me that there were some things that were better not looked at too closely. “And on the dangers of allowing your reputation to be compromised.”
The door closed. I was alone.
Chapter Twenty-Four
I don’t know how long I stood there.
It was impossible, of course, to look at the clock. I could hear it ticking, of course, but I’d made sure that it wouldn’t chime every hour on the hour. I’d wanted to make sure I could actually sleep at night, yet now I wished I hadn’t been so quic
k to cancel the charm. I would at least have known how much time was passing, if I’d been able to keep count of the chimes …
… And time was passing so slowly.
I tried to think, to keep my mind occupied with complex equations or potions recipes or something - anything - that would keep me from dwelling on my predicament. But nothing I did was enough to keep my mind from returning to worrying about Callam. He could be dead, he could be injured … he could be bleeding to death, right now, in the middle of the gorse bushes with no one having the slightest idea of where to look for him. I cursed Morag savagely, promising myself that I’d make her pay if Callam died. He hadn’t done anything to me, certainly nothing like the whispered stories I’d heard from older cousins. Maybe Morag was right to be concerned, after what had happened to her, but … she was wrong. And I would do whatever it took to make her pay if he died.
The room seemed to get darker. Night was falling, I thought. Morag had closed the shutters … hadn’t she? I wasn’t sure. My mind felt as if it was slowly coming apart at the seams. I wanted to sleep, but I wasn’t sure I dared sleep. I wasn’t even sure I could sleep. The curse seemed to hold my body in suspension, even as my mind grew tired. What would happen if I fell asleep? Would I never wake up? Or would I be convinced I was nothing more than stone? Morag’s curse didn’t have any of the usual safeguards built into the spell, I thought numbly. It was quite likely that I’d be suffering the after-effects for days or weeks or even months to come. Morag and Uncle Ira weren’t going to take me to a mind-healer. They’d be more likely to leave me to work through the after-effects on my own.
And what, I asked myself, is Uncle Ira doing?
I tried, hard, to come up with an answer. Researching dark magic was one possibility, but why would he encourage me to study forbidden texts? Was he looking for a research assistant? He’d certainly been working to encourage me to develop my magic skills, even though he hadn’t spent as much time with me as I would have expected. Or did he expect me to continue his work? Or … what was he doing? I wondered, morbidly, if he intended to return to Shallot in triumph one day. Or if he’d eventually kill himself in a failed experiment that had been intended to prove that dark magic could be made safe.
It was growing harder to think clearly. My thoughts were splintering. The room was getting lighter … wasn’t it? Was it daytime already? Or was the lantern merely glowing a little brighter? Or …
The spell broke. I tumbled to the floor, screaming in pain. My body felt as if someone had beaten me to a pulp, my muscles spasming helplessly as they realised they were no longer locked in place. I forced myself to move, waving my arms and kicking my legs to get the blood flowing again. I had pins and needles everywhere, jabbing into my skin. It took everything I had just to stop screaming and force myself to stand. I wanted, I needed, a hot bath. I had a feeling I wasn’t going to get one.
Move, you idiot, I told myself. Get that blood flowing.
My legs were so shaky that I half-expected to fall at any moment, but - somehow - I managed to stagger over to the window and peer outside. It was early morning, I thought, yet dark clouds were already moving towards the hall. I could see mist in the distance, slowly being banished by the sun’s rays. There was no sign of anyone on the grounds, let alone Callam. But then, he’d always been careful to stay out of direct sight of the hall. Anyone who saw him could hex him.
If he’s alive, I thought. It was hard to muster any emotion - my body was too tired - but the thought nagged at my mind. He might be dead.
I stumbled around for a long moment, then clambered slowly into bed. The duvet hadn’t been changed and the mattress felt uncomfortable, but I was too tired to care. Morag would probably tell me off for sleeping in my clothes, yet … I didn’t care about that either. I closed my eyes, knowing that sleep would come quickly. Thankfully, I didn’t dream.
When I awoke, it was dark outside and there was a small tray of sandwiches and a jug of water by the door. I stared at it blearily for a long moment, my tired mind unable to comprehend how it had gotten there. It took me longer than it should have done to realise that Morag had brought them, opening the door, entering the room and placing the tray there while I was asleep. It was a gross breach of etiquette, but so was using a curse on a young girl. Morag would never get a job with a record like that.
I sat upright and started to cast a spell to bring the tray to me, then thought better of it. My thoughts were a mess and my magic felt drained, as if I’d been casting hundreds of spells in quick succession. Morag wouldn’t bring me another tray if I managed to tip the contents of the first tray onto the floor. I forced myself to climb out of bed, crawl on my hands and knees to the door and start to eat. I dreaded to think what Mother would say if she saw me eating like a dog, but I was past caring. The sandwiches were bland, almost to the point of being nothing more than bread and butter, yet - to me - they tasted wonderful. My stomach felt as if I hadn’t eaten in days.
It might have been days, I thought, as I sat back on my haunches. I wasn’t sure what Morag had put in the sandwiches - it tasted vaguely like fish - but it had restored my energy. How long was it?
I eyed the clock, then the window. It was steadily growing darker outside, which meant … I’d been petrified for a day, then slept for another twelve hours or so? Or had it been two days? Or three days? Morag was certainly powerful enough to make the spell last for longer, if she wished. I didn’t think Uncle Ira would stop her. He’d told her she could punish me in whatever way she saw fit. I rubbed my arm, cursing her under my breath. I could still see her handprints on my bare skin. Standing, I made my way over to the desk … and stopped, dead. The dark magic books had been placed there, waiting for me. I could feel their essence polluting the air. It was a miracle I hadn’t sensed them hours ago.
She put them there, I thought, stunned. Does she expect me to read them?
I opened the drawer and dug through the small collection of salves for something I could put on my bruised arms, trying to ignore the books as much as possible. They were calling to me … but they hadn’t been calling to me until I’d realised they were there. I had to be imagining the pull. I had to be convincing myself that I wanted to read the books. Or … I could think of a few charms that would influence someone who didn’t know they were there, but none of them would actually wait for the victim to notice before going to work. They tended to get less effective if the victim was already on her guard …
… And yet, I wanted to read the books.
I told myself not to be silly as I rubbed salve on my arms, then walked into the bathroom and blinked in surprise. The bathtub was full. I checked the water automatically. It was cold, of course, but clean. I shook my head, unsure what to make of it. Morag must have filled the tub while I’d been asleep, just so I could have a bath. I was so drained that I was almost pathetically grateful, even after everything she’d done. And yet, I had to struggle to muster the magic to heat the water while I undressed. She’d left me feeling terrible.
The hot water made me feel better, but - when I dressed in a nightgown and returned to the bedroom - the books were still waiting for me. I hesitated, remembering a hundred warnings that I’d been given almost as soon as I started to study magic, then reached for the first book. Uncle Ira was studying dark magic, I told myself, and I might need to resist … I needed to know what he knew. I was rationalising it, and I knew I was rationalising it, but I saw no choice.
Not good, I thought, as I touched the book. The cover didn’t feel quite so vile, now I was going to read it. I had the feeling that that was deliberate. Not good at all.
I pulled the duvet over my knees, rested the book on the cover and opened it. There was no table of contents, nothing to suggest what I’d find inside. The book opened with a particularly nasty variant on the blinding hex and went downhill from there. There were instructions for building a doll that used - and abused - the Laws of Similarity and Contagion, potions to make someone an adoring slave, cur
ses that would blight someone’s life for years to come … I shuddered as I skim-read the details, remembering an elderly uncle who’d had a disease no magic could touch. Had he been cursed? I read the section more carefully, feeling sick. The writer seemed to take an unholy delight in casting such curses and spoke of them in glowing terms, but he hadn’t bothered to suggest how they could be undone. Some of the darker spells seemed impossible, as if they defied the laws of magic as I understood them; some seemed practical, but they required a particularly depraved mind to even think about casting. All of a sudden, it was easy to understand why so many warlocks went insane.
They wouldn’t just have bad intentions, I thought, as I forced myself to read the details of a particularly gruesome rite. The author seemed very keen to tell his readers just how many atrocities he’d had to commit, just to gather the ingredients. They’d have to glory in their intentions. They have to …
My stomach heaved as the realisation struck me. I thrust the book aside and rolled over, throwing up into the chamberpot. I’d plotted to do something truly awful to Hound and Hart, I’d planned to smash them like bugs, to grind them like insects below my heel … was I any better, at heart, than the long-dead writer? Or was I just another monster? Cat had done nothing to me, save for existing, and I’d been horrible to her too. I deserved … I wasn’t sure what I deserved.
I stood, somehow, and placed the book on the table. It felt less malignant all of a sudden, as if it had done its dirty work. Or as if it had already got its hooks into me. The other book still felt unpleasant … I had the uneasy sense that it was waiting for me to give in to temptation and open it.
The Family Shame Page 22