Unnatural Issue

by Mercedes Lackey

  The night-vision that came with the ring made it possible to get things without fumbling or lighting a candle. After working in the kitchen for so many years, she knew exactly where everything was. Within a few minutes, she had half a loaf of bread, some sausage and cheese, a couple of meat pasties, a knife, an old cup with a chipped rim, a box of matches, and a little tin pot. Those went into her bundle as well. Then she slipped the latch and went outside.

  Then the horror really took hold of her, and she ran.

  Somewhere deep inside, she knew the wisdom of following the actual road. Even though it was the obvious way to go, she also would not leave any trace of her passing on the hard-packed dirt, and thanks to the ring she could see where she was going in the moonlight as if it were broadest day. And on the road, her skirt wouldn’t hamper her. So she ran, ran until she reached the little village, then paused for a moment on the edge of it, bent over with her hands on her knees, panting.

  It was late; there wasn’t a single light showing. She couldn’t stop here though—no, everyone here knew her, and no one would believe such a wild story if she dared to tell them. They’d just return her to her father—

  So after she paused to tie her bundle on her back instead of carrying it, she ran through the village, past the well in the middle of the square, past the church she attended every Sunday, past the Nonconformist Chapel, and out again. Not even a dog barked at her. Now she was as far from home as she had ever gone, and she continued to run, heading eastward on blind instinct.

  The road stretched out ahead of her, bordered on either side by a hedge as high as her head. It felt like a nightmare, actually, the sort where something unseen was behind and ahead was a road that never ended. She ran until she couldn’t run anymore, slowed to a walk (but didn’t stop) until she caught her breath, and ran again.

  A break in the hedges opened out onto the moor, and she took it. The moor was open, and the grass was easier on her bare feet than the road. She paused only long enough to tie her skirt up above her knees, then started running again.

  It seemed she had been running forever; she had an ache in her side and was panting like a racehorse. And even then she kept moving. Once, she disturbed a flock of sheep, which were alarmed by scenting a human they couldn’t see and bumbled away from her in the darkness, making little baas of distress. Once, she ran into a small family of wild moor ponies, which outright bolted when they smelled her.

  Finally, just as the first gray light of dawn lightened the sky, she stumbled down into a grove of trees at the bottom of a hill; that was when she heard the sound of running water, and suddenly aware of how parched she was, she followed it until she discovered a tiny trickle of a stream.

  That was exactly what she needed. Shelter, water, a place to hide. And this place should be far enough from the Manor that no one would expect a mere female to have gotten this far. Especially not since she had been running most of the way.

  She filled her cup and drank until she couldn’t hold any more, then found a good spot under some low-growing bushes to get some rest. She padded it out with grass and bracken and spread her other skirt over it. She tied her food up in the bush just over her head to keep the insects out of it, made a pillow of the rest of her clothing, and finally laid herself down, curled into a tight little ball.

  Still, there was one thing that she could not leave to chance. The ring might or might not last much longer—but she needed more concealment than simple invisibility would provide now.

  She cast a spell of protection and distraction over herself, extending it into the Unseen as well as the Seen world. Granted, this would also hide her from her Elemental allies, even Robin, but—

  Well, Robin could easily withstand her father, but the lesser Elementals? Many of them could not. And when he knew she was gone, it would be natural to send them hunting. She had to keep herself hidden from them as well, at least until she could get past his reach. The clothing she had left behind had not gotten enough of her energy imprinted on it to do him any good, so he would have to rely on the Elementals to find her now that she was off Manor lands. The farther she was from the Manor, the harder it would be for him to control and direct them—so what she could muster now would probably be enough to shield her. And tomorrow, well, she would be farther away still.

  When she was sure that her concealing magic was as strong and sound as she could make it, then she let herself go and fell into the sleep of utter exhaustion that had been waiting for her, just as a distant rooster heralded the first rays of the sun on the horizon.

  9

  SUSANNE had always had a knack for waking completely aware and alert, and that knack did not fail her now. It certainly helped that she usually slept very lightly. She went from sleeping to waking in less than a minute, with perfect recollection of where she was, how she had gotten here, and everything that had transpired last night, all before she actually opened her eyes.

  When she did, she moved very slowly, observing as much as she could from her hiding place under the bush first, and listening as hard as she could.

  It seemed quiet enough. There were birds and perhaps a small animal or two nearby; she could hear soft chirps and twitters and the faint noises of something moving through the dead leaves. So, unless her father had learned how to stop frightening the wildlife with his magic, he hadn’t found her yet.

  She dared to let out her breath in a sigh and uncurl herself enough to get a better look around.

  She was alone in this little stand of trees and bushes; if there were any animals about, they couldn’t be much bigger than mice.

  She untied her food and crawled out from beneath the bushes, taking her things with her. Her mouth tasted . . . nasty. There were twigs in her hair. And her skirt and shirtwaist were very much the worse for all that running last night.

  But she spotted a patch of wild mint and picked some leaves to scrub her teeth with; more leaves went into the little pot along with water from the stream. Mint would help settle the nausea she still felt every time she thought about the things her father had been saying. It was probably safe to stay here long enough to make some mint tea and eat something—and, not incidentally, burn that image-bundle.

  Less than an hour later, she emerged from the grove as tidy as she could make herself and looked around.

  There was nothing to be seen but the rolling moors and the sky, dotted with white clouds not unlike flocks of sheep. The moors stretched on all sides, patchy greens and browns and swaths of purple where the heather was in bloom, and cut across by distant lines and patches of deeper green that marked where there were trees. She had put out her fire and scattered the ashes to the winds; now it was time to move on. She had run eastward last night, so eastward it would be from now on. The most important thing she could do right now was to put distance between herself and her father.

  There were farms and even villages out there, and some might be not too distant, but like the Manor and her home village they could be hidden in a fold of land, and she’d not see them until she was right atop them.

  She set out resolutely—though now she wore her shoes and stockings instead of carrying them. She’d been incredibly lucky last night not to have cut her feet on a flint. She wouldn’t press that luck any further. Her winter coat was now part of the bundle on her back as well.

  About the time she had finished scattering the ashes of her fire—and her image-bundle—she had felt the horsehair ring on her finger start to unravel. In moments, it had gone to dust. She tried not to regret losing it too much; it had gotten her this far, and that was more than she’d had any right to expect. For that matter, there was no telling if it had disintegrated because it had been protecting her from her father’s magic while she slept.

  She wished she dared call Robin, but that would probably expose her to her father. Other Elementals would certainly “hear” that call, and at this point she had no doubt that some would be under her father’s coercion to report any trace of her.

>   So, the best thing she could do would be to hold that “I am not here” spell tightly about herself and hope for the best.

  Last night the road had been her best route away; now, however, it was to be avoided. It was midmorning by the sun, and at this point everyone in the Manor would know she had run away, even if they had no idea why. With all the best intentions in the world, her friends would collude with her father to find her and bring her back. They would all assume, because she was just a female, that she would stick to the road—or at least, that was what she expected of them. Since anyone coming from the Manor or the village would be looking for her, her spell wouldn’t work on them.

  So for at least today and possibly tomorrow, travel would be the hard way, cutting across country.

  This was going to be difficult.

  It was all very well for the papers and magazines to talk blithely about hiking on the moors for pleasure—pleasure walkers had maps and haversacks full of provisions and tools, and they expected to spend each night warmly tucked up in a bed in an inn or even a hotel. And they had proper boots for such walks. She had a little food, no money, and a pair of worn old shoes meant for wearing indoors, and she dared not stop at inns or even farmhouses.

  “’Tis what ’tis,” she said aloud, and resolutely headed east.

  By midafternoon, she was tired, hot, and had been forced to make long detours to avoid the road three times. Unfortunately, those detours had taken her miles out of her way—if she could be said to have a “way”—and, more importantly, had taken her away from watercourses she could only stare longingly at. Then, just as she was beginning to think she would have to dare the road, she had struck upon another tiny stream and had finally stopped to have a rest and some food.

  Once sitting down, she took an inventory of that food, and she grimaced. She’d been fair starving when she stopped, but it was clear that her provisions were meager indeed. Two more days, three at the most. She didn’t have the skill to snare rabbits or even catch fish. If she didn’t want to starve, at the end of that time she would have to hope that she was far enough away from her father that no one would be hunting her, and she could safely try to find someone who would hire her. Another thing to worry about.

  Worry about it when you get that far. What is important now is distance, she reminded herself. And with a faint groan, she got to her feet and resumed her walk.

  Roads took the easy route; roads had bridges, and roads were relatively smooth and even. She had to trudge through grass and weeds that were knee-high, stumbling over unseen stones, and while heather was very lovely at a distance, it was scratchy and dense and hard to force your way through. Down and up slopes whose grasses and heather hid more rocks for you to turn your ankles on, and roots to trip you, this was hard work made all the harder by sun beating down on you and clouds of midges to plague you.

  When her path intersected another watercourse near sunset, she gratefully took shelter in the trees that lined it. This time she had a chance to pick a good spot for her bed and to make a kind of crude mattress of springy gorse with a cushion of grasses over the top of that; then she made another batch of unsweetened mint tea. And despite being quite used to hard work, she found that she was quite unused to walking all day over rough ground; as she settled down on her bed to eat, the aches began. And not a willow tree in sight, either.

  At least she was fairly certain she’d be undisturbed. The only predators to fear out here were the human ones, and she hadn’t seen a single soul all day. In fact, she hadn’t even seen a flock of sheep all day. And if her legs and back ached, at least she was entirely without that feeling of constantly being watched!

  There was, as everyone was fond of saying, a lot of moor . . . and she was one very small creature upon it, moreover, a creature that was trying very hard not to be seen. An Air Master would have had a much better chance of finding her; sylphs moved quickly, and she could never have completely hidden her presence as she crossed the open expanses. But Earth Elementals did not move quickly, and . . . well, she just might have gotten beyond his reach, today.

  If he still had not found her by the end of tomorrow, then she would be certain that, at last, she was safe.

  By sunset the next day, she was certain enough she had gotten beyond pursuit to dare the roads and weary enough that she needed to. Once again she had spent an unrestful night, compounded by her aching back and legs. Storms had been blowing up all day, and although she had managed to avoid most of them, she sensed her luck was running out. She was completely exhausted from outrunning the rain; she knew she didn’t dare get caught by the storms, because she didn’t dare get sick, and she’d actually had to run nearly as much to avoid storm clouds blowing up behind her as she had to get away the night of her escape.

  And then, just as the sun began to crawl below the horizon, barely a blot of red behind thick cloud cover that spread out as far as she could see, covering a good third of the sky, her luck came back in again. Because there was a wall ahead of her, and a wall meant buildings and people. Moreover, there were gates in that wall, and they weren’t locked, as she proved by pushing open the first one she came to.

  But there was more to it than that; the moment she crossed the boundary, she sensed—

  Magic. Her sort of magic. It was a little like stepping out into a warm meadow with the earth comforting under her feet and the scent of wildflowers in the air. Someone here was an Earth mage, and that someone was using his—or her—magic for the good of the land, just as she did. It felt clean, wholesome; for a moment she clung to the wall as her entire self responded to that magic as if she had been parched and been offered cool, sweet water.

  Whoever this was—no one like this would ever turn her over to her father. Nor could her father hide his darkness from them. No matter what happened, even if she was not welcomed here, she would not be betrayed.

  She used the dregs of her fading energy to enforce the magic of not-being-seen as she finally approached the largest building she had ever seen in her life—and all the associated outbuildings. This had to be someone important’s great country estate . . .

  And maybe, if she could manage to get herself cleaned up in the morning, she could get herself hired here.

  Oh . . . please. It was a prayer of sorts. If only—she could be happy here, whatever menial capacity she was in! This was so unlike the blight that had hung over the Manor, and whatever ugly, tainted stuff her father was meddling in, that it felt like a glimpse of paradise. Please . . . please let me stay.

  But a warning rumble of thunder told her that if she didn’t want to look like a half-drowned vagabond or, worse, come down with pneumonia, she was going to have to get under a roof. Now.

  She chose the building that looked the least occupied and stole toward it, eyes darting everywhere, on the watch for anyone who might catch her. Since there was a magician—or more than one—there was that much more danger that her ever-eroding spell would run up against someone who could see through it. She didn’t want to present herself as the ragged fugitive who had been sleeping rough on the moor for the past three days—and looked it. She wanted to present herself as a neat and tidy, clean and capable potential worker.

  Her luck held. The threat of a storm must have driven everyone inside, and she slipped into the building without encountering a soul. In the last of the light, she saw that this was not a stable, as she had thought, but a carriage house. There were still two carriages here, but most of it was empty except for three motorcars at the far end.

  The carriages, and the motorcars, tempted her almost past bearing. There would be padded seats inside them, the closest thing to a bed she had seen in three days. But inside a motorcar, she would be trapped if someone came in. Better to find a dark corner, perhaps one of the stalls.

  But then she saw something even better. A pile of lap rugs heaped up on a storage chest, right next to some packing crates full of straw. In the last of the light, she made herself a bed using both; then, as the
storm broke and thunder shook the walls, she ate the last of her food and wrapped the warm rugs around herself with every intention of concentrating on making herself as close to invisible as she could.

  But a full stomach and a truly soft and warm place to lie in—and the comforting aura of nurturing Earth magic about her—all conspired to ambush her. She had not even begun her spell-spinning when her eyes closed of their own accord, and she fell deeply, dreamlessly asleep.

  Only to awaken abruptly and with a start, to find the building full of sunlight and four sets of eyes staring down at her—two equine, with indifference, and two human, with bemusement.

  One of the grooms-turned-mechanic had come to fetch Charles and Peter just as they were about to go out for a canter by way of a change from Peter’s impersonation of an artist.

  “Eh, Marster Charles, tha’s got a sleeper in auto barn,” he said, without any sort of preamble. “’Tis a wench.”

  “Young wench or old? Cleanly or slattern?” Charles asked, immediately turning his horse’s head toward the part of the carriage house where the autos were kept.

  “Cleanly, an’ middlin’,” the groom said immediately. Charles nodded.

  “Come along, old chap,” he said to Peter. “We’ll have a look at her.”

  So they found themselves looking down on a young woman bundled into lap rugs meant for winter journeys. She looked worn and a little disheveled, but as the groom had suggested, clean. Her clothing suggested she had seen better days, or at least more prosperous ones. The fabric was very good, suggesting that she’d remade some hand-me-down from someone well off. She had a good face in repose: dark, nearly black hair, aristocratic nose, good cheekbones, and a firm chin. He wondered what color her eyes were—then got an immediate answer when they flew open.

  Blue.

  “Don’t be alarmed,” Charles said immediately. “We’ve no intention of driving you off. This is Branwell Hall. I’m Charles Kerridge. And I assume you are looking for work?”