by L. K. Rigel
But I want Lilith. “If you’ll wait for me to put on my shoes, I’ll drive you down.”
“You know I like the walk.”
“You know I’ll always offer.” He bent down and kissed her cheek, and she was out the door. He watched until she disappeared around the peonies at the bend in the drive then went upstairs to finish dressing. He had a busy day ahead, as usual, and a few extra things to put in order before tonight. He couldn’t oblige his aunt. He was already past danger where Lilith Evergreen was concerned.
He opened his sock drawer and paused when the blackthorn box caught his eye. It had belonged to his mother. Mostly he forgot it was there, but sometimes it called to him. It called to him now. He traced the dandelions carved into the wood then slid the top open and took out the necklace made of black cord woven with beads of jet and glass. At its center was a chunk of Dumnos steel. Bright cut, it rivaled the best marcasite jewelry.
Cade remembered two things about his mother. First, she was beautiful. He’d never forgotten her face. The photo at the Tragic Fall helped, of course, but he remembered her differently than in the picture. Sadder.
The second thing was the only real memory he had of her, from just before she went away. At some point over the years, he’d realized it must have been the last time he saw her. She was in her bedroom looking out the window at Glimmer Cottage. The box was open on her dressing table, and she was holding the necklace to her cheek. She had jumped when she saw him watching her.
“Cade.” She’d squatted down and shown him the necklace. “This is mama’s special necklace. It’s a tether, and someday it will be yours. But you must make a solemn vow never to wear it even then when it comes to you.”
He had been only five, but he’d never think of wearing it. Necklaces were for girls. “I promise,” he’d said.
“No, Cade. Not a promise. You must vow. If you break the vow, all the fairies and wyrders left in the world won’t help you, and neither will the Earl of Dumnos.”
And she’d begun to cry.
“I vow, mama.” He remembered her eyes bright with tears, her kiss soft on his forehead.
“I believe you, my darling boy.”
The last words she ever spoke to him. Maybe that’s why he always felt her presence when he touched the black cords, like now. He had kept his vow. But when he touched it, he believed she saw him from heaven and loved him still. No matter what anyone said, he knew his mother had been about as good as an angel. If there was an afterlife, she was in the right place.
Enough! He put the necklace away, shook off the nostalgia, and went down to the garage. The carriage was gone to shuttle the Tragic Fall’s guests to today’s sight-seeing destination, but the DB5 was more practical for today’s errands anyway. And much more fun to drive.
He finished by afternoon tea time and stopped by the Tragic Fall, but no one was there. Driving back up the hill to the End, he happened to glance at Igdrasil. His heart nearly stopped. A lone person stood beside the tree looking out on the bay. Lilith’s ghost. Cade drove past the turn to Bausiney’s End and on to Igdrasil, expecting at any second the ghost would disappear.
As he got closer, he saw it was a woman. When she turned around, he recognized her pink hat and gloves. He pulled off the road and walked over to the tree.
“Ms. Evergreen, hello.”
In this light, her eyes were bluer than before. “You can call me Lilith if it’s not against some aristocratic rule.”
“Not at all. Lilith it is. And I’m Cade. I thought you were the ghost.”
“I had hoped to see her, but no such luck. It’s all right. I mainly wanted to get away from the tour group and see things for myself today.”
“I’m intruding.”
“No, please stay. I’m glad you’re here. It’s a wonderful place to watch the ocean. I should have brought a picnic basket with me. I’m sorry I can’t offer you anything.”
“Now there you’re in luck. Wait for it.” He went back to the car and rummaged through the stuff he’d bought earlier. Sadly not much suited an impromptu picnic. He returned to Lilith less than triumphant. “A can of Hobnobs is about it.” He took off the lid and tilted the can to her. “My father adores them.”
“I appreciate his unwilling sacrifice.”
“He won’t miss them. I bought two cans.”
They ate biscuits and watched the clouds form shapes over the ocean far out past the bay. It was pleasant sitting, not talking. Easy.
“Will it rain, do you think?” she said after a while.
He hoped not. It would spoil their evening. “Weather service says not.”
“The weather here is nutso,” she said. “Everything is a little off in Tintagos, if you don’t mind my saying.”
“But in a good way.”
“Yes, absolutely. I like it here. I haven’t slept so soundly in—well, in years.”
“You have to be a little nutso to live in Dumnos. In Tintagos especially. Of course we don’t believe in fairies and wyrders. In the next sentence we blame them in all sincerity for our lack of mobile service. In Lincolnshire, people swear aliens are watching us. When I was a kid, the wyrding woman was my alien. I was often sure she was watching me.”
“That’s awful, Cade.”
Cade. It happened again. His heart leapt, as when he’d first seen her at the Halt. His every molecule shifted, reoriented to point in her direction. He could listen to her say his name all the live-long day. “It wasn’t fun. I kept hoping the fairies would send her packing like they did all the other wyrders.”
“So I take it fairies and wyrders don’t get along.”
“It all goes back to Dumnos iron,” Cade said. “Fairies notoriously hate iron. But Dumnos iron is a special species. One day, the fairy king decided he had to know how the wyrders had changed it.”
Lilith lay back and crooked her arm behind her head for support, looking up at him expectantly. It would be so natural to lean over and kiss her. Cade forced himself not to think about kisses and other things. He continued with the story told in his family for generations.
“So the fairy king sent his most charming minion to seduce the human king’s chief wyrding woman and bring her to fae. Which the minion did after some persistence. But she escaped, for she was the cleverest wyrder in all of Dumnos. When she escaped, the wyrding woman was carrying the minion fairy’s child. The fae king was furious over the double loss, and when the wyrding woman died, he sent the minion after the child. The wyrding woman had taught her daughter how to break the binding spell, and she also escaped. The enraged fae king banned the minion from visiting Dumnos ever again.”
“This is a terrible thing for fairies, to be banned from Dumnos?”
Cade feigned hurt feelings. “A terrible thing for any living creature, my sweet.” He was venturing far out on a dangerous pier. What was it Moo had warned him of? “Dumnos is the one land in the human realm where the fae aren’t harmed by iron. Everywhere else, they get headaches and excruciating pain in their joints.”
“Fairy arthritis. Very sad.”
“Quite sad. They retaliate by giving humans headaches in return, worse than migraines or so I hear. The fae king wanted to learn the spell to render iron painless. They say he still searches even now, a thousand years later, for the half-fae child.”
“Surely the child is dead by now.”
“One would think. But the fae live thousands of years at the least. Some say they are immortal. A human who was half fae might live a thousand years.”
“That’s a marvelous story.” Lilith clapped her gloved hands and the corners of her eyes crinkled.
He wanted to kiss her. Not like the other day coming down from the Halt. Then he’d wanted to drag her out of the carriage and go right at it on the side of the road. This was a far gentler inclination.
“I want to tell you something,” she said. “But I’m afraid you’ll think I’m nutso.”
“I can’t promise I won’t.” There would be kisses toni
ght. He vowed it. “But I do promise I’ll still like you.”
“Fair enough.” She glanced warily at Igdrasil then out to sea. “I was watching the clouds and listening to the waves break on the rocks below. It sounds pathetic, but it’s one of the most soothing experiences of my life. I don’t know if it lulled me into some kind of altered state, but all at once, and beyond any doubt whatsoever—” She inhaled deeply and let out her breath. “I became aware of a consciousness within this tree.”
“Yes, Igdrasil is a world tree—”
“No.” She put her hand on his mouth. “A human consciousness. Unable to speak, but aware of its condition. Horrible.”
He considered Igdrasil’s trunk and its branches above them. “Strange things often happen in Dumnos.” He believed that she believed it. “Your ghost? Is it there now?”
“I can’t tell. I lost it when you arrived. I don’t think it was the ghost.”
“My lord!” Someone called from the road, and he groaned inside.
“Lord Tintagos!”
“Lilith, halloo!”
With a sinking feeling, Cade turned toward the unmistakable voices. The Bausiney carriage was stopped behind the DB5, and the French girls had disembarked.
“How fortunate we saw you!” Bella called out. Cade was sure he detected a laugh from Trenam sitting up on the perch with Moser. Both men had blank faces and pointedly faced forward as the carriage moved on.
Lilith was silent, but Cade felt her discomfort. The intensity of her anger surprised him. Excited him too.
“You poor things,” Cammy said. “All alone—oh…” She stumbled a few feet from Cade and Lilith, and her hands flew to her temples. Her face blanched sickly white. “I don’t feel so good.”
“What is it, Cammy?” Bella said. “What’s happened?”
“Come sit down,” Cade said. “You look like you’re going to be—”
Cammy lurched toward them then swerved toward Igdrasil and vomited on the trunk. Cade felt certain the tree—Igdrasil, not some unfortunate trapped inside—recoiled in disgust.
“I had a sudden migraine.” The color slowly returned to Cammy’s face. She took Cade’s arm, and he eased her to the ground.
Lilith still sat on the ground, as pale as Cammy had been. She’d removed her hat, and even her hair seemed to have lost color. It was lighter, more blond than brown. Her eyes were deeper blue with a hint of glowing green.
Cade blinked and looked again. Behind Lilith for a brief blip—half a second—he was sure he’d seen the faint outline of gossamer wings.
9
Starry, Starry Night
It was easy to charm the tourist ladies and air-kiss their cheeks. Lilith Evergreen was different from any of them. Different from anyone he’d ever met. She’d wanted to go back to the Tragic Fall with the French girls, though Cade would have gladly spent the rest of the afternoon with her. But she’d been worried about Cammy, so he’d left her there until the appointed hour.
He opened the door and handed her out of the DB5. “My father wants to meet you. I hope you don’t mind.” Her hand was small and delicate in his, skin to skin, without gloves.
“I’d like that.”
“Let’s see if he can tear himself away from Little Britain.”
Love at first sight? A ridiculous notion, but the moment Cade saw her at the Halt something had happened to him. When she emerged from the train framed by mist and steam, her eyes closed as if she wanted nothing in the world but to feel the breeze on her face, he’d felt struck by lightning. He had to know her.
And then she seemed to fancy him. In the ride down to the Tragic Fall, yesterday at the ruins, and this afternoon at Igdrasil—before Cammy threw up all over everything. Literally. Several times, he’d been sure Lilith wanted him to kiss her. Better yet, to sweep her up in his arms and carry her off to his cave.
Though he might be reading his own desires into the cave thing.
He led her through the gallery past the portraits of the ancestors and the display case for Bausiney’s Abundance—forlornly empty—into the earl’s study.
Study? The earl’s cave, more like. Remote corner of the house, a roaring fire, plenty of brandy and a flat screen tuned to BBC One. Moo coming in every morning to give him a shave and a bowl of mush. If Lord Dumnos had ghosts, he lived with them well enough.
Ensconced in his study like an ancient cartoon tortoise in its shell, the earl blasted a horselaugh from his La-Z-Boy recliner. The laugh morphed into a gag then flowered into a revolting hack of phlegm.
“Brilliant.” Cade glanced at Lilith. “It’s been the day for bodily functions.”
Dad started in the minute they crossed the threshold. “This one is too pretty for the likes of you, Cade.”
“You’re in fine form. Ms. Evergreen will believe I have all sorts of women up here.”
“Now that you do have one, take off your macks and have a cocktail.”
“We’re on our way up.” Cade kissed the top of the old poof’s head. “Just stopped by to say hello.”
“Good night, sir,” Lilith said. “It was nice to meet you.” She was a good sport about everything. And now dinner on the roof when it was bound to be freezing up there.
It was his favorite place in the old pile—his favorite place in the world. Arranging for caterers and musicians might have been a bit much. He hoped there were musicians, at all events. This morning the cellist had assured him they were all up for the gig; but when Cade had left to fetch Lilith forty minutes ago, none had yet arrived.
The back stairs were on the closed-down side of the house where it was very cold even inside. “I’ll go first,” he said. “Catch any random spider webs that weren’t cleared away.” Great. Point out that the place was going to ruin.
Halfway up the stairs, the tuning of instruments and vocalizing warm-up exercises carried down to them, and a lute and baritone began jamming on a pretty melody. Cade was about to take Lilith’s hand when she grabbed his forearm.
“Do you hear that?”
“You don’t like madrigal music? It’s a group of teachers from the local secondary school. It isn’t Albert Hall, but they’re practically celebrities here.”
“No—I mean, it’s not that. I do like it, very much. I just wondered if you heard it.”
“You’re not hallucinating.” Great gods. He hoped she didn’t think he was insinuating that the human consciousness within Igdrasil was imaginary. Even if that’s what he believed.
She relaxed her grip and he caught her hand as it dropped, as naturally as if they were long-time friends—or lovers. At the top landing he took a deep breath and said, “If you’d indulge me just a minute.” He scooped her up off her feet. She wrapped her arms around him, her head on his chest.
Could she tell how his heart pounded? He’d only meant to lift her over a few broken treads. The way she made him feel, he could hold her in his arms forever. Move, you git. It was but a few paces to the roof.
“Cade, it’s like fairyland!”
He set her on her feet, relieved. “That was the desired response.”
The caterer had strung tiny white lights in two fake potted trees near the table. More than that, the night sky was cooperating, cloudless and amazing. Cygnus was on fire, the stars a dazzling canopy over the tiny village and the dark woods beyond. The moon was a full blue-white disc.
It was too late for tourists, but lights shone at Glimmer Cottage. He couldn’t shake the feeling that old Elyse was aware of his dinner date—and had taken an interest. He accepted glasses of champagne from the steward and handed one to Lilith. “It’s interesting you should use the word fairyland. The house actually has two names.”
“Bella told us one of them: Bausiney’s End.”
“Ah, Bella. They do like to be involved. I think of them as the French sisters from He Knew He Was Right.”
“You too?” Lilith’s laugh was delightful—that she laughed at his jokes was delightful. She said, “Bella fancies herself an ex
pert on all things Tintagos. She’s desperate to become the next wyrding woman. She has swallowed the Handover story whole.”
“It won’t do for sibling relations if one of them is chosen.” Apparently Lilith had not swallowed the Handover story whole. Good. And even better if she would stay away from Glimmer Cottage tomorrow, just in case.
“Not a problem,” she said. “Cammy would rather be your woman than the wyrding woman, I do believe.”
“Good heavens.” Not in a thousand years. “I’m afraid we wouldn’t suit.”
“How sad.”
“Cammy wants a stylish husband, you see, and I’m far from it. This place isn’t called Bausiney’s End for nothing. It’s in as poor a condition as the rest of Dumnos County. With our atmospheric conditions—”
“The famous atmospheric conditions.”
“Exactly. We’re denied the advantages of the modern age. We don’t draw many businesses when mobiles and wireless are impossible.”
“I thought I’d go crazy being offline,” Lilith said, “but I love it. I feel like I belong to myself, if that makes any sense.”
“Detached from the hive mind.”
“That’s it.”
Her smile was lovely. Everything about her was lovely. At the table, he pulled out a chair for her. Instead of across from her, he sat near her at a corner.
“Speaking of houses with names, I know there some in the United States,” she said, “but I can only think of Fallingwater. The White House, I suppose.”
“You have Mount Vernon,” Cade said. “And Monticello.”
Their knees kept touching.
“And Hill House.” She smiled as if she were joking.
“I don’t know that one.”
“It isn’t real,” she said. “From the Shirley Jackson novel. The movie terrified me when I was little. The original, not the remake. It’s about ghosts who take over a house and possess the people who stay there.”
“Pesky ghosts,” he said. “Always wanting to live the lives they were denied.”
The waiter brought the starter and refilled their glasses.