by Kim Wilkins
She shook her head. “I’m Amelia’s maidservant. Is she expecting you?”
“No.”
“She doesn’t see anybody new.”
“We aren’t new, though. At least, our mother was one of her clients. Can you ask her if she’ll see us?”
“What are your names?”
“Deborah and Mary Milton, daughters of Mary Milton late of Petty France,” Deborah said. “It was many years ago, but she may remember.”
“Wait here.”
The maidservant closed the door, leaving Mary and Deborah standing between the two slender trees in the autumn chill. Mary tried a smile. “I wonder what she looks like.”
“I thought the crone was her.”
“As did I. Just like a picture of a witch.”
The door opened again and a blonde woman appeared on the threshold. This was no crone. Although she was, perhaps, as old as Father, her dark eyes were sharp, her face pretty, her hair glowing brightly. Even her teeth were still whole. She wore a black dress, deeply plunging in the front, and black ribbons in her hair. Deborah assumed she was in mourning, possibly recently widowed.
“Good day,” Mary said, “are you Amelia Lewis?”
“Yes, I am. You are the daughters of Mary Milton?”
“Yes. I’m named for my mother,” Mary offered.
Amelia fixed her eye on Deborah. “And you are named for the Hebrew prophetess.”
“I know not.”
“Ask your father, he will tell you as much. Come in to the warm.” She ushered the girls in and led them to a dark withdrawing room where a tiny fire crackled in the corner. The furnishings were rich: velvet chairs, embroidered tapestry hangings, wool rugs, silver candlesticks. The lushness inside contrasted dramatically with the poor appearance of the outside of the building. Scattered about the place, as though they were beautiful accessories to the room, were seven cats. And yet the house didn’t smell of cats, it smelled of rosewater and lime.
“Please sit down. Would you like biscuits? Gisela has been cooking all morning.”
Deborah settled among velvet cushions. She saw Mary’s fingertips brush the soft material longingly. “No, thank you, Mrs Lewis. This is a fine home,” Deborah said.
“Call me Amelia. I am not and have never been married.”
“Never been married?” Mary blurted, “but you’re so … beautiful.”
“My beauty was not the problem. The lack of it in others was.”
“I thought these were your widow’s weeds,” Deborah said, indicating the black dress.
“Oh, these are certainly the clothes of bereavement,” Amelia said with a frown. “I am mourning my lost youth.”
Deborah didn’t know if she should laugh. But Amelia didn’t appear to be jesting.
“Ma’am … Amelia, do you do so well from your trade that you can afford such a magnificent house and a maidservant?” Mary asked.
Deborah glared at her sister for being so forward, even though she wanted to know the answer herself. She had never seen such rich objects, and the very idea of an independent woman living this way was astounding to her.
“No. I had a large inheritance from my grandfather, and Gisela works for me out of love. I cured her of the plague, ten years ago.” Amelia sat opposite them in a grand, stuffed chair and took a cat in her lap.
“You can perform physic?” Deborah asked, her curiosity piqued.
“Hush, Deborah, we are not here to be nosy,” Mary said with a mischievous smirk.
Amelia leaned forward. “Time enough later for questions. How may I serve you, girls?”
“Do you remember our mother came to you, ere Deborah was born?” Mary said.
“I have never forgotten anything, ever,” Amelia said. There was no indication that she spoke anything other than seriously. “She asked for a guardian for you and your other sister … Anne. Why is Anne not with you? Has she died?”
Mary and Deborah exchanged glances. “No, Anne is well,” Deborah said.
Amelia drew her eyebrows together. “She doesn’t know you’re here. She doesn’t want you to be here.”
“Did you guess that or do you … know?” Deborah asked. She had heard that some wise women could read thoughts.
“I guessed, Deborah Milton,” Amelia said, a pale hand stroking the cat lovingly. “You look at each other furtively, you feel guilty.”
“Anne is afraid,” Mary said. “She thinks that the guardian angel killed our little brother.”
“Angels are not so base,” Amelia replied.
Deborah felt a wash of relief, and realised that under deep layers of her thoughts, Anne’s fear had affected her. “Yes, of course,” she said.
“She only recently told us about our angel,” Mary said. “And now we are under threat.”
“And you want to call upon him. I see.”
“Is he still ours?” Deborah ventured. “Or do they only look after children?”
“No, he is yours for life, until the last one of you dies.”
“Can we have the summoning, then?” Mary asked.
Amelia pressed her graceful hands together. “Let me consider it for a few moments.”
“But Mother paid for it, did she not?” Mary said. “You have to give it to us if we ask.”
Amelia turned a gaze on Mary that was akin to how she might consider a carpet bug. “My dear, I don’t have to do anything. I’m Amelia Lewis.”
“I apologise for my sister,” Deborah said. “She’s very excitable.”
“The problem is this,” Amelia continued, as though she hadn’t heard. “The angel is supposed to serve all three of you, but your sister Anne does not want him called. So what I shall do is give you a summoning in which all three of you must partake. It will then be your role to convince Anne to join you.”
“Convince Anne! But she’ll never agree to it,” Mary moaned.
“If she never agrees to it, then you’ll never see your angel,” Amelia said. “But ’Tis important that the three of you work together. Do not treat the bonds of sisterhood lightly.” She rose, dropping the cat gently on a nearby cushion. They were the most docile cats Deborah had ever seen, not like the mad creatures at Grandmamma’s house, always running terrified from whomever approached. “Now wait here, I will go to my study and write the new summoning.”
“But …” Mary started, then decided better of it.
Amelia left the room in a swoosh of black silk. Mary leaned forward, shaking her head. “This is pointless. A summoning which Anne must be a part of? We will never be able to use it.”
“We will try our best,” Deborah said. “I must see this angel with my own eyes. I must ask him how I may best help mankind.”
“First worry how we convince Anne to help us.”
“So far only you have tried to convince her,” Deborah said. “She may listen to me.”
“Yes, perhaps. She expects my attempts to manipulate her, but she does not expect them from you.”
Amelia returned with a piece of paper in her left hand. She blew gently on the ink and once more sat across from them. One of her cats put his nose in the air and she leaned down to receive its kiss. The paper drew Deborah’s curious eyes.
“Is that the —?”
“The summoning? Yes.” She blew on it once more then handed it to Mary. “You must speak the incantation together. That is the only thing I have specified. You may change the wording if you like, but be very careful.”
Mary scanned it quickly then passed it to Deborah, who read the instructions with awe.
“I have left out the name of the angel. That is for Anne to tell you. You say his name instead of ‘angel’. As long as you have his name, he must obey you.”
“Do you have any advice on how we might convince Anne to join us?” Mary asked.
Amelia smiled. “Words, Mary Milton. There is no more powerful force in the universe. Choose your words carefully, and the world will be in your hands; choose them poorly and …” She spread her hands and shrugged. “Still,
’Tis growing late and you must go.”
Within moments, the girls found themselves once more out on the cold street. The sun was sinking and birds were wheeling high above, finding their way home before dark.
Deborah clutched Mary’s hand. “We could command an angel.”
“Anne is all that stands in our way. If it were only we two …”
“Mary, don’t imagine dear Anne out of our lives,” Deborah said. “We’ll convince her, we’ll find a way.”
Anne said no a hundred times before the end of that week, and a hundred more the next. She reached such a frenzied state of stuttering and blinking that Deborah eventually told Mary they had to stop and leave her be a while.
“But how can we?” Mary groaned. “This is all, this is everything to me.”
“We are making Anne so anxious I fear for her health. No, we must stop and think and find another way to solve this problem.”
But Deborah could think of no solution, and began to accept that her learning must come from books as it always had. Anne’s awful fear that the angel would harm or kill someone was an impassable monolith. Despite Mary’s occasional pleading, Deborah refused to allow the subject to resurface.
One evening close to Christmas, while Mary was in the street looking for Max, Anne slipped into the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed.
“What is the matter, Anne?” Deborah asked. She stood in front of the curved glass which they all shared, combing knots out of her hair. In the reflection, she could see Anne’s downcast eyes, the twisting of her hands. Fresh candles burned in the candlestands by the bed.
“You have not mentioned the angel for some t-time now.”
“Your anxiety was too much for us,” Deborah said. “We have all but given up hope.”
“Why do you want t-to summon the angel? Knowing what he d-did to Johnny?”
Deborah put the comb away and turned to Anne. “I don’t believe he killed Johnny, Anne. Amelia herself said that angels do not kill.”
“And you believe her?”
“Angels, Annie, angels.” Deborah perched on the edge of the bed next to her sister. “Like the angels you adore in your hymn book.”
“He did not resemble those angels. He was not … serene.”
“Not serene?”
“Not like the angels in pictures.”
“Are you saying he was not an angel?”
Anne’s lip twitched a moment. “I suppose he was. Just not as I have d-dreamed of angels.” She fell silent. Deborah could hear Mary calling to Max downstairs on the street. Eventually, Anne turned her face upwards. “You must hate me.”
“I don’t hate you.”
“M-m-m—”
“Mary doesn’t hate you either.”
Anne nodded. “You must t-try to understand me, Deborah. What if M-Mary wished Betty dead? And the angel took her at her word? What if she wished an illness upon Father? Or me? I have lived with such a g-guilt for so long — that my actions k-killed a loved one. Do you not wish to avoid such a burden?”
Deborah stared at Anne, listening to her protestations clearly for the first time. “Your sole concern is that the angel will injure or kill someone?”
“Yes, of course. For what other concern can there b-be?”
Deborah thought of the summoning, of Amelia’s words. You may change the wording if you like. Was it possible that Anne’s fears could be allayed so easily?
“What is wrong, Deborah?” Anne said, and Deborah realised she hadn’t spoken for nearly a full minute.
“Anne,” she said slowly, “we can make the angel’s summoning dependent on a promise that he will injure nobody.”
“What do you mean?”
Deborah leaped up and searched in Mary’s top drawer for the summoning. She clutched it in her left hand as she sat down again, noticed her heart speeding. “The only condition Amelia has specified is that we speak the incantation together. But we can change the wording. Look you.” She pointed to the last line and Anne peered at it, reading slowly. “We can say in here, only if he injures nobody.”
Anne frowned. “I d-don’t know.”
“Anne, please! We have to try this.”
“How do we know he’ll do as we say?”
“He is at our command. He must obey us.”
Anne stared at the summoning, her brows drawn tight together.
“Oh, please, Annie, please. This way we’ll stay together. Betty’s plans for us will be foiled and nobody will be hurt.” Deborah could hear footsteps approaching. Mary chastised Max as she brought him up the stairs. Mary’s arrival would surely shatter the intimacy she had cultivated with Anne. Deborah willed Mary away. Her own breathing seemed very loud and she told herself she mustn’t grow too excited.
Suddenly, Anne dropped to the floor, pulled open her drawer.
“Anne, what is it?”
“Naughty Max, naughty boy.” Mary was directly outside.
Anne thrust a prayer book in Deborah’s hands and backed away. The door flew open.
“He was all the way down in the park!” Mary said. Her hair was damp and her dress was muddy. “I was mightily worried.”
“I must help Liza with supper,” Anne said, slipping out the door and closing it behind her. Deborah glanced from the door to the prayer book to Mary.
“What’s the matter, Deborah?” Mary asked, dropping Max and untying her cap.
“I don’t …” She opened the prayer book, flicked through the ageing pages. A folded piece of paper slid out. She smoothed it, read the lines written upon it; lines her dead mother had composed. Then she caught her breath.
“Deborah? Answer me. What is wrong?”
Deborah looked up at her sister in the dim light of evening. “Lazodeus.”
“What?”
Deborah turned the piece of paper around to show Mary. “Our angel finally has a name. It is Lazodeus.”
By Christmas Eve they had learned their parts. The house smelled of the fresh evergreen branches which Betty and Liza were pinning up over all the doorways. Betty was in such high spirits that she didn’t even blink when Max went barking through the house, overstimulated by the trees inside and the hot biscuits Mary had been feeding him as Christmas treats all day.
Mary chased him through the kitchen, laughing. He yapped, wagged his tail in a frenzy. Just as she was about to pick him up, he took off again in the other direction. Towards Father’s study.
“Max, no!” she called as she saw his little white tail disappear around the corner. She raced after him, burst into the room to find Father holding out a hand to Max, having his fingers soundly licked.
“I’m sorry, Father,” Mary said.
“I thought you were supposed to keep control of the dog in the house. You will upset Betty.” Despite his words, he didn’t seem genuinely angry. Mary found her father a mystery most of the time.
“I’m sorry,” she said again, scooping Max up into her arms and scurrying out. Perhaps she could wish the angel to make Father more generous, more loving. To all of them, not just to Deborah who was clearly his favourite. Now that Anne had insisted on a clause that the angel injure nobody, it would be safe to make all kinds of wishes.
Max yapped, not as sobered by the exchange with Father as she had been.
“Come, Max. Calm yourself.”
He licked her face and she felt the familiar, happy wash of feeling. Dear little Max. “After supper, Max,” she whispered, close to his fur. “After supper, I shall wish our angel to protect you always.”
Over supper, she glanced between her sisters, hoping they were clever enough not to give away on their faces what a momentous act they were to perform tonight. Anne stuttered and stammered her way through the meal with her head bowed and her hands shaking, but Mary doubted anybody would notice a difference from her usual anxious jittering. Deborah was cool. Any excitement Mary showed could be attributed to Christmas. As Liza cleared their things away, Mary shot back in her chair.
“Oh, I’m so
tired. I’m going straight to bed.”
“Me too,” Deborah said.
Father turned his unseeing eyes on them, a slight frown drawn down between his brows. But if he suspected something, he said nothing. “Goodnight, then,” he said. “We shall go to church in the morning, so don’t sleep too late.”
Goodnights were exchanged. Mary raced up the stairs. She and Deborah were the first to the bedroom, Anne limped in a few moments later.
“I wish you weren’t so excited,” Anne said, “for I am t-terrified and certain we are doing the wrong thing.”
“Anne, you agreed to go through with this,” Mary said. How dare she cast her pall of malcontent over the proceedings?
“Only because b-both my sisters begged me,” Anne replied, glancing from one to the other.
“And because we promised to make it safe,” Deborah said, taking one of Anne’s hands in her own. Mary wondered that Deborah could be so patient when Anne was such a moaner. “Don’t forget that, sister.”
“I haven’t time for this,” Mary interjected. “You agreed, and now we are proceeding, and I shan’t spend another breath on the preliminaries.” She scooped Max up and shut him in Deborah’s closet so he wouldn’t be frightened, then kicked over the mat to reveal the triangle they had whitewashed on the floor earlier in the day.
“Take your places, sisters,” she said. “Soon we shall command angels.”
4
Between Worlds and Worlds
Deborah slid the dresser in front of the door, made certain it couldn’t be opened, then took her place at one of the peaks of the triangle. Anne reluctantly limped into position.
Mary extinguished the last candle and found her way to her place. “We must wait a few moments for our eyes to adjust to the dark,” she said. “I want to be sure I stand in the correct position.”
A minute passed, the only sound in the room their breathing. Far away in the distance, a bell tolled the hour. Revellers in the street below burst from a house and went on their way, their voices trailing away on a winter breeze.
“Our lives will change forever,” Anne said, and something about the weight of her words in the dark sent a chill through Deborah’s bones.
“Don’t talk such nonsense, everything will be fine,” Mary said. She glanced at Deborah, who could see trepidation in her eyes. They both sensed the truth in Anne’s statement.