Lilian's Spell Book

by Toby Litt

  ‘Well, we’re very glad you didn’t come to any harm,’ I said. ‘And I’ve got some good news for you. I’ve changed my mind about Lilian’s grave. I would like to open it up.’

  ‘Oh, thank you,’ said Mr. Gatward. ‘Thank you. Though I swear, I was never going to mention it ever again.’

  He seemed anxious.

  ‘I’m afraid I have a terrible confession for you. I don’t know how to say this.’

  ‘I think I already know,’ I said.

  ‘When I finally got back home and opened up my hidey-hole…’ Mr. Gatward looked at his hands that were clenched together.

  ‘It was gone, wasn’t it?’ I said.

  ‘I swear,’ said Mr. Gatward, ‘Matthew and Gracie don’t have it. They’d never be able to keep quiet.’

  ‘I know they don’t,’ I said. ‘I have it – but it’s a little different now. Come on.’

  Peter called Jack in from the garden where he’d been playing. I carried Mary and we all trooped out the front door.

  I paced out the distance – twenty steps – to the biggest tree, and lifted the rock and began to dig. I dug deeper than I remembered burying the golden book.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I said.

  Because the book wasn’t there.

  Chapter 63.

  ‘Excuse me,’ said a familiar voice. It was Robert Mew. ‘If I could just speak to you in private for a moment.’

  He meant me, so I went with him a little way further into the wood – just far enough that the others couldn’t see or hear.

  ‘I thought it best to keep it safe,’ he said, and held Lilian’s book out to me. I didn’t take it yet, though.

  I looked into his brown eyes.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘How did you know where it was?’

  Robert’s whole stance had changed. He stood up very straight, looking noble. ‘Father Trovato and his kind aren’t the only ones who have watched over this house. We have watched, too, but for different reasons. We have watched from the woods.’

  ‘Who is we?’ I asked.

  ‘That I can’t tell you,’ he said. ‘Friends. Protectors.’

  ‘I still don’t understand how you found the book.’

  ‘When I heard about your accident, I decided to keep a twenty-four hour watch on the house. I knew people would try to get in, if it was empty. I saw you return. I saw Matthew and Gracie breaking in through the back window. I don’t know how many times I’ve caught them trespassing before.’

  ‘Why didn’t you do anything?’ I said. ‘I could’ve done with a bit of help.’

  ‘You had all the help you needed,’ said Robert with a smile. ‘If I had interfered, it wouldn’t have happened the way it did – the way it had to happen. We knew you would outwit all of them, church and state, scholars and servants, politicians and sorcerers. Powers spiritual and temporal, powers emotional and intellectual, powers obedient and disobedient – you defeated them, every one. You were pure in heart. We had faith in you. When I saw the house burning down, I knew it had been accomplished, after all these years. I watched with great joy, thinking of those who had gone before me.’

  ‘You saw it?’ I asked.

  ‘We all saw it,’ said Robert, and the trees around him seemed to murmur their agreement.

  I had to ask him the question. ‘Why me?’

  ‘Because you hadn’t known of it. Because you didn’t desire it. And because you could reject it.’

  ‘But I’m just nobody.’

  He smiled and said, ‘The right person doesn’t always know that’s who they are. Perhaps, in some cases, that’s exactly why they are the right person.’

  And now he placed Lilian’s book in my hands. ‘Let’s go and return this to its rightful owner, shall we?’

  Chapter 64.

  Everyone was amazed to see the book and how it had been transformed. Jack wanted to hold it, and I let him.

  ‘It’s so heavy,’ he said.

  ‘It’s pure gold,’ said Robert.

  Mr. Gatward when he held it was hardly less boyish in his delight than Jack. He pointed out the ribbon with its added knot. ‘Four now,’ he said. ‘That must be significant.’

  ‘It is,’ I said. ‘I’ll tell you one day.’

  Peter held the book for less time than the others. ‘What can I say?’ he said, looking at me. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t believe you. I do now. I believe.’

  Even Mary wanted to get her free, non-sling hand on the bright shining thing. It was too heavy for her to hold, but I sat down with her at the foot of the tall tree and she had it in her lap until she got tired of it and became fascinated with my left thumb – this took about a minute.

  Meanwhile, I asked Jack to go and fetch the key to the chapel, and not to forget a couple of torches.

  When he brought all this back, we all walked though the trees until we came to the door into the earth.

  Peter undid the lock and we made our way down the steps and then gathered around the grille.

  ‘Are you sure you want Mary down there?’ Peter asked.

  ‘Are there dead people?’ Jack asked.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Very dead. But they’re nothing to be afraid of. And, yes, I do want Mary down there.’

  I passed Mary to Peter and he went carefully down. The rest of us followed, one by one – descending the ladder, crawling the short length of tunnel, passing through the round door and coming out into the low crypt. William and the others were there, exactly as they had been. Still awaiting the resurrection.

  ‘Wow,’ said Jack, more fascinated than scared. ‘Real skeletons.’ Death was something he was going to have to learn about. I’d made quite certain of that.

  We gathered around Lilian’s grave. ‘I don’t know whether we’ll be able to manage,’ said Mr. Gatward. ‘It looks very heavy.’

  ‘I think you’ll be surprised,’ said Robert. ‘It’s just a lid.’

  I reread the words of the Latin inscription – ‘And the life of the world to come’.

  ‘How do you know?’ Mr. Gatward said. ‘You haven’t lifted it off before, have you?’

  ‘No,’ said Robert. ‘Of course not. But I have reliable information about how it was made.’ He wouldn’t say anything more than that.

  We placed the torches on the dusty floor, where they could shine some light across what we were about to do.

  Peter gave Mary back to me. She seemed quite unconcerned about where she was.

  Together, Peter, Robert, Mr. Gatward and Jack, one on each corner, slid their fingers around the edges of the long, flat coffin shape. Together, they lifted the lid (just as Robert had said) off what looked like a patch of dull black sand.

  ‘Nothing there,’ said Mr. Gatward.

  But something was glinting in the torchlight – just one tiny sparkle of gold. And the black sand looked very familiar to me.

  ‘It’s for you to do this,’ said Robert to me.

  I bent down, Mary held to my chest, put the book down on the floor and brushed away at the golden speck.

  It grew and grew as the black sand was swept aside – swept aside so easily – and in a moment it was recognizable as a fingernail and then, with a little more brushing, a long slender finger.

  ‘Help me,’ I said.

  The others knelt down, and together, with our bare hands, we dug away and dug away until there she lay – Lilian, exactly as in the portrait in the house, exactly as when she was a snow-statue, exactly as she had stood before me in the fire. The detail of the gold was exquisite. Every tiny thread of her lace was there in filigree.

  I looked back up the tunnel, to where the molten gold had flowed down out of the house, flowed into the cast that had been awaiting it all that time.

  ‘So beautiful,’ said Robert. ‘I hadn’t expected her to be quite so beautiful.’

  ‘How much is it worth?’ Jack asked.

  ‘It’s priceless,’ said Mr. Gatward. ‘Utterly priceless.’ Then he apologised and started
to cry one final time.

  ‘It doesn’t matter what it’s worth,’ said Peter. ‘We’re never going to sell it. We’re never even going to tell anyone it’s here.’

  ‘No,’ I said, and glanced at Mr. Gatward, who nodded his agreement. This part of the glory wasn’t going to be made public. He had plenty enough of the stuff as it was.

  Lilian lay there, exactly as in the picture, all but for one thing. I passed Mary over to Peter, then picked up the golden book from the floor, brushed the dust off.

  Very carefully, I slid it until it was held securely in Lilian’s hands. Back where it belonged.

  ‘Bravo,’ said Mr. Gatward.

  ‘It is done,’ said Robert Mew.

  ‘Goodbye,’ I said.

  Then I stood up and took Mary again. I felt Peter put his arm around me and gently pull Jack so he was snug against us. I ran my fingers through Jack’s hair, like I love to, and he let me do it. He was looking down at the golden lady shining in her dark grave. Mary was looking at her, too.

  I wondered if Mary would ever dream of this, this vision, when she grew up.

  The End

  Afterword

  Hello,

  thank you so much for reading Lilian's Spell Book. I know reading time is hard to find, and to read a whole novel is - these twittering days - an act of generosity. So, thank you.

  The main thing I'd like to do in this Afterword is ask your opinion: What did you think about the story? What do you think could be better about the story?

  I'll tell you why - I'm a writer who has been lucky enough to have published a few books. But Lilian's Spell Book has (to put it bluntly) not gone down well with publishers.

  Yes, I'm talking rejection emails.

  Almost without exception, they've said that they like the first half, but that the second half isn't scary enough.

  They also weren't sure about all the breastfeeding and mothering stuff that goes on.

  So, what they wanted - I think - was a more straightforwardly terrifying ghost story, with a more straightforwardly likeable heroine.

  But that wasn't ever what I was trying to write. Lilian's Spell Book is supposed to be about wonder and about comfort rather than about shocks and worse shocks. Lilian's Spell Book is supposed to be about about the everyday meeting the miraculous and finding they have quite a lot in common.

  I was happy with the book when I finished it. (It's the only book of mine that's made me start crying, when I finished the last sentence.)

  And so first of all I tried it out on Wattpad, where it went down pretty well. And now I've put it up here on Kindle, rather than stuck it in the bottom drawer, to see how it is received. To see if there are readers - such as you - who like it, as it is. To see if you agree with what the publishers said, when they said no.

  Which means that what I'd like to ask you is, do you agree? Did you want more scares? Did you find the second half of the book disappointing? Did the build-up to the end feel underwhelming? Did Jeane, Peter, Jack, or any of the characters annoy you?

  In essence: What would you have me change about Lilian's Spell Book, if I was going to rewrite it?

  Be honest.

  I'll take every comment seriously.

  Best wishes,

  Toby Litt

  London

  July 2017

  t.litt@bbk.ac.uk

  Other books by Toby Litt –

  Adventures in Capitalism

  Beatniks

  Corpsing

  deadkidsongs

  Exhibitionism

  Finding Myself

  Ghost Story

  HOSPITAL

  I play the drums in a band called okay

  Journey into Space

  King Death

  Life-Like (Seagull Books)

  Notes for a Young Gentleman (Seagull Books)

  Mutants: Selected Essays (Seagull Books)

  Wrestliana (Galley Beggar Press)

  https://tobylitt.wordpress.com/books