In the house she found him following her from room to room, never speaking and always appearing to be looking the other way at some painting or ornament. In the gardens Beauty would be splashing in a fountain, only to feel a presence suddenly near and turn to see him whittling a stick or catching a frog. Where Eli was concerned, she would have preferred to be ignored.
“Mayhap yur could play with Master Eli?”
It was a clammy summer’s afternoon and Beauty was sitting astride Comrade, her thin, silver legs squeezing his ebony sides. For three seasons, Owaine had diligently been teaching her to ride and today Eli had disturbed their solitary lesson, wandering onto their practice lawn to swipe the air with his saber.
“I am not allowed to play with him.”
“Seems he don’t care.”
“I care. I wish he would leave me be.”
They both looked at the boy who was surprisingly fine despite his parentage. Even at thirty-five seasons he had strong, square shoulders and a broad chest. He was as tall as his father, without Pa Hamish’s awkwardness, and his brown eyes held the same intensity as Ma Dane’s, but they were larger and softer.
“He bother yur often?”
“If he is not at lessons or with friends then he is somehow near me.”
“Beauty, he wants to be yur friend.”
Owaine had finally adopted her name, but she knew that from his lips it was not an intended insult.
“I do not think so,” she said, and they did not mention it again.
When Ma Dane caught her son near her ward it was always Beauty’s fault.
“How many times have I told you?” she would hiss, dragging Beauty from the room and pushing her down the corridor.
Beauty would find another quiet lounge in the mansion and settle down, but a few hours later Eli would be near again.
“What do you want?” she had cried once.
But Eli carried on counting the tassels on the curtain and did not reply.
In fact, he did not speak directly to her until one warm winter’s night when she awoke to the sound of a scream.
Her room was at the end of the guest quarters, far from the family apartments and the servants’ rooms, but still she had heard the scream. It seemed to vibrate through the darkness, jostling her body so that splashes of color burst across her vision. She slid from the bed and stumbled to the door, her head foggy and her skin sticky with sweat. Staggering into the corridor, she blinked in the harsh light of the oil lamps that were kept burning all night.
Another scream sounded, this one ending in a low groan of pain.
She ran along the corridors, following the sound and knocking into walls as she passed, her vision still lilting before her eyes. To her surprise, there was no one else about.
She came to Ma Dane’s suite, which she had not ventured into since her younger years, when she would escape the nursery and prowl the corridors. Surprising herself, she lurched into the lounge without stopping, running farther into the bedchamber. There she saw Ma Dane’s inflated mahogany bed and Eli lying upon it in a hot sweat with sheets twisted wildly about his limbs.
“There is a war!” he cried. “There is a war!”
Ma Dane ran in from an adjoining room, a jug of water in her hands. Out of her huge jeweled gowns she looked vulnerable and tired. She almost fell when she caught sight of Beauty.
“What are you—”
“I heard screams.”
Eli sat up in bed, his eyes the filmy blankness of a dreamer.
“I cannot do it! I will not fight!” he gasped.
Ma Dane ran to his side and splattered his head with the water.
“Get away from here!” she hissed over her shoulder at Beauty.
Eli’s body bowed and quaked. Suddenly, he cried out loudly and snapped to life, looking about the room with terrified eyes. He saw Beauty and whispered, “You cannot say no.”
“What do you mean?” she whispered.
“You cannot say no, for there is no choice,” he replied. “You will come with me.”
“I said get away from here!” Ma Dane spat.
Beauty scurried from the room, but lurked in the shadows by the door.
“Mother, was that Beauty?” Eli whimpered.
“She is gone now, my sweet.”
“I saw her again. I saw death and fire and—”
“Do as I have always taught you.”
Beauty peeked around the doorframe to see Eli squeeze his eyes shut, clench his jaw, and clutch at the bed sheets.
“It hurts!”
“You must do it, Eli. I had to.”
The next morning, as she sat beneath a zouba tree in the gardens, Beauty saw four small figures marching toward her. Eli was leading the group, and behind him trailed Pernet Shap-se-George and her twin brothers, Nez and Gilly. As Beauty scrambled to her feet, she wondered what they were doing so far from the house. Eli usually played on the veranda by the back windows where Ma Dane could watch him.
“There she is!” he cried.
Nez and Gilly ran over to her, then stopped short.
“We’ve seen it before! Why have you brought us all this way?”
“I wanted to see it again,” snapped Pernet. “I heard Mother say that it spoke last time she came and I never heard it speak before.”
Pernet straightened out her frilled skirts, patting their fine beading and woven ribbons. Beauty looked down at her own plain brown smock.
“She does not always speak,” warned Eli, sidling closer to Beauty than he had ever dared to venture before. “Most of the time she just talks to the smelly horseman.”
“Make it speak now,” said Pernet, tossing her dark hair.
“I command you to speak.”
Beauty clenched her teeth.
“This is boring! Can we play a game?”
“I want her to speak!” snapped Pernet.
Eli glanced at his divided audience.
“We can play a game with Beauty.”
“A speaking game?”
“Exactly.”
“Magic Cleansing!” squealed Nez and Gilly. “We have to play Magic Cleansing.”
Beauty picked up her picture book and turned to leave.
“What’s that?” said Pernet, snatching it from her hands. “This is for babies! It’s a nursery book. There are no words!” She flipped to an illustration of a troll.
“You have to play with us,” said Eli. “I command it.”
“I will not.”
“She spoke!”
“Sounds just like a normal person,” retorted Nez. “Let’s play Magic Cleansing. She’s boring.”
“Give me back my book.”
“Actually it’s my book,” said Eli with a satisfied smile. “And I’ll give it back to you if you play with us.”
“No!”
“Then no book.”
“Hurry up, I want to play now,” insisted Gilly. “I’ll be Pa Coo-se-Nutoes and Eli can be that other State Leader. The rest of you are Magic Bloods and Magic Beings.”
He grabbed a nearby branch and waved it in the air.
“No,” said Eli. “We have to be State Leaders from The Neighbor. There is no Magical Cleansing here.”
“There’s gonna be, my father says so.”
“Be any kind of State Leader,” sighed Pernet. “It does not matter.” She looked down at the book in her hands. “I will be one of them,” she said, pointing at a sprite.
“Get back, scum!” screamed Gilly, running at her with the stick. “And you!” he cried, turning on Beauty.
“I am not playing. Give me back my book.”
“You are an evil being! A wicked under-realm monster!”
Beauty yanked the branch from his hands and swung it around, smacking him hard across the head. Gilly stood dazed for a moment before breaking into a loud cry.
The other children gasped.
“It hurts!” he sobbed, fat tears dribbling down his face, and he ran yelling back to the mansion.
Pernet and Nez glanced at each other before running after him, Pernet dropping the nursery book on the ground as she fled.
“We had better go too,” said Eli.
Beauty stormed past him, refusing to speak. As the two of them approached the mansion, they could see a fussing party of people waiting. Gilly was bawling into Ma Shap-se-George’s skirts, Pernet and Nez were denying all responsibility, and Ma Dane was standing with her hands planted on her hips, her face a purple contortion of rage.
“You!” she roared.
Beauty gulped, trying to ignore her buckling knees.
“It was me, Mother. I did it.”
Ma Dane looked at her son in astonishment.
“I just wanted to play a game. I did not mean to hurt anyone.”
The children exchanged fervent glances.
“I am sorry,” Eli added.
Ma Dane’s gaze slid to Beauty and she stared at her long and hard for a moment.
“Go to your room,” she muttered before turning back to her son. “As for you, Master, I believe that I should take away your saber . . .”
As Beauty walked toward the house, she could feel a pair of eyes watching her, but she would not turn and look back at him.
After that, she stayed away from Eli more than ever.
CHAPTER NINE
The Threat in Sago
When Eli reached his fortieth season, Ma Dane announced that Rose Herm would hold a ball.
“You may invite all your friends, my sweet,” she said over dinner one evening.
As the maids cleared away the soup bowls and brought in the second course of fruit bread, Ma Dane described the plush, ritzy affair she was planning.
“Are you sure that this is wise?” asked Pa Hamish, in an unusual bout of clear thinking. “Talk has been different in the club of late. People are shaken by the Magical Cleansing in The Neighbor and—”
“What does that have to do with my son’s fortieth season?”
Pa Hamish looked back at his plate.
“You will want the Shap-se-Georges there, of course,” Ma Dane continued. “For I know how you like that girl Pernet.”
“I think her rather stupid.”
“Hush, Eli! You do not!”
“The dark haired girl with the silly father?” grunted Pa Hamish
“Pa Shap-se-George is running for a State Leadership next season, and I have heard that he is favored.”
Pa Hamish pulled a face.
“Mother, I should like to invite Beauty.”
Ma Dane dropped her knife and the maid carrying out the dishes stumbled.
“What . . . what ever made you think that she would not be there?”
“She has never been to a ball with us before.”
Ma Dane took a large swig of wine. “This is different. We will be holding it at Rose Herm so she will be present whether she likes it or not.”
Beauty staunchly avoided Eli’s gaze.
“But—”
“Eat up your bread, Eli. A boy in his fortieth season must be big and strong.”
Later that evening, Beauty was sitting in bed humming Hillands songs and plaiting her white hair when there was a rap at the door.
“Come in,” she called, wondering if her dress-maid had forgotten something.
Ma Dane entered with a sweep of her bejeweled dressing gown and glanced about the room. It was the barest that she could find without casting the child to the servants quarters.
“I have come to speak to you about the ball.”
Seeing the child in her white nightshirt, Ma Dane could not help but think that she was gaining ethereal beauty as she aged. Her hair shimmered in the lamplight and her violet eyes were warmed to a deep indigo.
“I wish you to be on your best behavior.”
Beauty stared at her.
“The ball is a moon-cycle from now, and you will have a dress made specially for the occasion.”
Ma Dane stepped forward suddenly and brushed a strand of hair back from Beauty’s face. The child shuddered and Ma Dane snatched her hand away, wondering what had come over her.
“I want no trouble.”
Ma Dane turned as if to leave, but stopped abruptly and licked her thin lips.
“Beauty . . . do you dream?”
Beauty’s chest fluttered.
“Sometimes.”
“Have you ever dreamt something that came true?”
She shook her head and Ma Dane looked as though she wished that she had never asked.
“Very well.”
Beauty had a dress made for the ball, as Ma Dane promised, and she thought it very fine until the other girls entered with gowns of velvet, silk, and gauze hung with fat rubies and diamonds that they could scarcely carry on their dainty, slippered feet. In comparison, Beauty’s white cotton dress and purple sash did not appear quite so dazzling.
Unlike these girls from prominent families, Beauty was not introduced at the top of the staircase to descend to the ballroom floor with a flurry of applause. Instead, as the guests began to arrive at the mansion in carriages, her dress-maid guided her to a side door and left her to enter alone.
No one flinched as she appeared. By now, she was well known in Sago high society and of little interest. The curious pet that evening was a tame moorey, captured from the edges of the Wild Lands by a famous explorer who touted it about the ballroom all evening on a chain.
Beauty wandered across the mosaic floor, weaving between gaggles of rich women in yards of embroidered, beaded, silken, shimmering skirts. The men were in the libraries, waiting until the dancing began, and while they were away, the women took the opportunity to assess each other’s outfits.
“Have you seen Ma Dane’s gown?” Beauty heard someone whisper as she paused beside a fountain.
“I do not need to see it! That pink taffeta is as stiff as a board. I would not be surprised if they could hear her rustling in the shantytowns.”
They laughed.
“Yes, it is a good deal grander and uglier than her last.”
“And that amulet again. Pa House of Rose may have been a House, but he was a gambler and a lout all the same. Does she think we do not remember?”
Beauty glanced over her shoulder to see Ma House of Glass, her own amulet nestled proudly on her bosom. She had met her in the drawing room a few times, and it was clear that neither she nor Ma Dane liked each other.
“The desperate must cling to something. After helping Pa Coo-se-Nutoes to Leadership, she has fallen out of his favor.”
“Yes, perhaps she wishes to remind him of her heritage.”
Another lady joined them and they began discussing the latest fashion for high, boned collars instead, so Beauty moved on.
After a dozen more stricken girls had trodden the staircase to be limply greeted by Eli below, Ma Dane called the men in and the orchestra started up. Dancing began at the far end of the ballroom and food was brought out on heaped platters. Servants came to open the long windows that ran the length of the ballroom and were already steamed with the heat of the crowds. The warm night’s air did little to alleviate anyone.
As Beauty ambled about the room, drinking in the sights of her first ball, she noticed Eli standing alone. His forehead glistened with sweat and he looked uncomfortable in his grand, frilled clothes. Pernet Shap-se-George was lingering by his side in a pretty gown, but he took little notice of her. His eyes met Beauty’s. He stepped forward, as if to make his way toward her, but a throng of people swept past on their way to the food tables and Beauty slipped away. She did not wish to be near him.
As the evening wore on, the air inside the ballroom grew hotter. Ladies fervently fanned themselves and couples dribbled onto the moonlit veranda, tugging at their heavy clothes. For the first time, Beauty was glad that her dress was so light.
The dancing stopped and the orchestra played a soft melody to accompany the loud chatter that had broken out. Groups stood in wide circles, tumblers trembling in their hands as they gossiped and discus
sed politics.
“Well, we should stop trading with them!” a shout echoed about the ballroom and caught the attention of most of the guests.
Beauty peered around bodies to the largest of the groups in the middle of the ballroom, where Ma Dane was nodding her head vigorously.
“And what gives you the right to make such statements?” said Pa Coo-se-Nutoes, exchanging glances with a fat State Leader next to him.
“The Neighbor has been building its Magical defense for seasons,” replied Ma Dane. “Do the rebels not think that they will rise up? This Magic Cleansing is only infuriating the Magic Bloods and Magic Beings. They will triumph in the end, and then where will we be? We cannot afford to take the rebels’ side!”
Pa Coo-se-Nutoes smoothed his dark moustache. “What makes you so sure that the rebels will not win? They have taken the capital and its surrounding cities. They are driving out the Magical beasts.”
“This is just like the Red Wars! The Magics won then, and they will win now. We cannot afford to get involved again.”
There was an audible intake of breath among the onlookers.
“If I remember correctly, you wished us to side with the rebels,” said Pa Coo-se-Nutoes in a low voice. “It seems you have changed your mind rather quickly!”
“It was right then, but now—”
“I think you are nothing more than a Magic sympathizer!”
The women around Beauty gasped.
“How dare you!”
“Just look at the Magic thing you house.” Pa Coo-se-Nutoes pointed across the ballroom and Beauty felt all eyes turn to her. In the sea of faces, she saw Peony and Bow, their expressions hard.
“My ward? She is not Magic! She is—”
“I have always been suspicious.” Pa Coo-se-Nutoes leaned toward Ma Dane’s red, damp face. “I remember the circus,” he whispered.
Ma Dane visibly trembled.
“I think that I should like to dance with my husband,” said Ma Usa Coo-se-Nutoes, appearing from the crowd. She had not forgotten how Pa Coo-se-Nutoes had forged a place in State and it did not do to make enemies of one of the largest, richest families in Sago. Not yet.
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