by E. E. Holmes
As I started trying to imagine what Fairhaven might look like, the sedative hit my bloodstream with a dizzying rush, and my thoughts slipped and slid out of my control and into a highly colored dream in which I was flapping around the campus of St. Matt’s with a giant pair of feathery wings I’d just sprouted. I landed in a tree to watch the haute couture fashion show that Milo was coordinating on the quad. Every model that strutted down the runway appeared to be a ghost with gruesome injuries. When I pointed this out to Milo, he just rolled his eyes and said, “Get with it, Jess, it’s dead chic. You are so bourgeois.”
I resurfaced groggily to the sounds of seatbelts snapping and overhead compartments popping open. The plane itself was wonderfully, blessedly stationary.
“Jess? We’re here. How are you feeling?” Karen nudged me.
I shook my head, a bit woozy, but too relieved to care. “I’m good. Remind me the next time I have to do this that I only fly unconscious.”
Karen laughed. “Will do.”
A businessman who’d been flirting shamelessly with Karen in Logan airport dislodged our bags for us, and we shuffled off the plane into Heathrow. As we made our way through customs, I realized I hadn’t been able to feel my way past my crippling aviophobia to even appreciate what it might be like to be here. I glanced over at Hannah, who was wheeling her carry-on bag and looking anxious.
“Nervous?” I asked her.
“Yeah,” she said, her voice a hoarse whisper.
“Afraid they’ll make you declare Milo?”
She laughed, a fluttery sound. “No, I think he’ll sneak into the country okay. There was no reason for him to have to wait in this line. He’s checking out the airport shops until we get through.”
We inched closer to the crumple-faced man at the customs check-in booth. “I guess I’m just…nervous about what will happen when we get there,” Hannah said.
I snorted. “Which part?”
“Well, all of it, really.”
“I think they’re the ones who should be nervous, letting us go for so long without the truth. I, for one, expect full apologies, with groveling,” I said, with more bravado than I felt. Hannah’s smile was a little too understanding, but at least she was smiling again. I considered it a little victory as I finally reached the front of the queue.
The grey-haired man signaled to me with a little wave of his hand. I shuffled forward and handed him my packet of paperwork. “Good morning, Miss, and welcome to the United Kingdom. I trust you had a pleasant flight?”
Hah! “Yes, thank you.”
He flipped through my documents carefully. “Well, that all seems to be in order.” He stamped a few things and handed the papers back to me. “And what is your reason for visiting the United Kingdom?”
For one insane moment, I wanted to grab this mild-mannered man by the lapels of his jacket and scream, “You’ve got to help me! I’ve been kidnapped by an ancient ghost cult! I WANT MY LIFE BACK!” Instead I smiled blandly and parroted the party-line, “I’m attending University here at Fairhaven Hall.”
“Very good, very good,” the man replied with a smile. “You may proceed through. A pleasant day to you, Miss.”
“You too,” I said, and stepped aside to wait for Hannah and Karen.
We stopped at an airport café for coffee, which I started to gulp down immediately despite the fact that it was scalding my throat. Between the nerves, the time change, and the horse-tranquilizer-strength sleeping pill, I had never needed caffeine more. An airport security guard offered, quite cheerfully, to find us a luggage cart. He then proceeded to load all of our baggage from the carousel, and wheel it out to the cab stand, whistling as he did so. Milo lounged atop the pile of suitcases like Cleopatra. The only thing lacking was an entourage of half-naked men feeding him grapes and fanning him with giant palm fronds. I couldn’t help but be struck by how friendly and polite everyone was. I don’t think a single airport employee had so much as cracked a smile at us during our two hours at Logan airport, unless you counted the snide smirk from the woman at the security checkpoint when I’d lost my balance trying to remove my shoes.
The cabstand was crowded with vehicles. They looked nothing like the taxis back home, and reminded me of antique cars with their slightly bulbous shape. I started toward the first available cab, but Karen held up a hand. “We don’t need one of those,” she told me. “Our cars are here.”
“Our cars?” I repeated in surprise.
Karen nodded and pointed to two sleek black Bentleys pulling up to the curb. With almost military precision, two drivers in dark suits and chauffeur caps emerged, walked quickly around their vehicles, and popped open their trunks. Then they stood straight-backed and wordless beside the open doors. Karen, who was obviously expecting this secret service-style treatment, slid into the backseat of the first car. She poked her head back out when we hesitated. “Come on, girls. You can ride with me. The second car is for the bags.”
Hannah and I exchanged a nervous look and then followed Karen. The chauffeur didn’t so much as glance at us, and I was reminded forcibly of the unflappable Buckingham Palace guards, the ones who were famous for their ability to hold stock-still and ignore the obnoxious tourists such as myself snapping photos and trying fruitlessly to make them react to our antics. It took great effort not to wave my hand in front of the man’s face as I passed him and ducked into the posh leather interior of the car, which was by far the nicest one I’d ever been in. It was cool and dark behind the heavily-tinted windows.
“So, did you order these cars, or does Fairhaven Hall have its own army of chauffeurs?” I asked, watching as the silent man slid into what looked like the passenger seat up front, but which was, of course, the driver’s seat.
Karen laughed. “Don’t let them hear you call them chauffeurs. They’re Caomhnóir.”
“Come again?” I said.
“Caomhnóir. They’re the guardians and protectors of the Durupinen,” Karen said.
“Who are they, though?” Hannah asked. “How do they know about us? I thought only women were a part of the Durupinen.”
“It is true that only the women are part of the actual Gateways, but over the centuries we’ve learned that we need protection if we are going to keep our world a secret. The Caomhnóir are men descended from the same clan families, who have latent abilities to sense spirits as well. They are trained to watch over us, just as we are trained to watch over our Gateways.”
“And are they all this strong and silent?” Milo asked, trying to sneak another peek through the divider at the man now pulling the car out onto the street.
Hannah repeated his question for Karen, who laughed appreciatively.
“For the most part, yes, actually. Interaction between the Durupinen and the Caomhnóir is very…limited.”
“Why?” Hannah asked, frowning.
“Oh, that’s a long political discussion,” Karen said with an airy wave of her hand. “I’ll let your teachers bore you with that in class. For now, let’s just say that you shouldn’t feel offended if they aren’t very friendly to you; they’re like that with all of us.”
“At least they make nice eye candy,” Milo said.
Hannah laughed and repeated the joke to Karen.
“Milo is quite the comedian. I look forward to meeting him for myself shortly,” she said.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
Karen smiled broadly. “I was talking with a few of my Council friends yesterday. It seems that, though the Binding was broken when your mother died, it still needs to be formally removed. Once that happens, it is almost definite that I will be able to see spirits again.” It could not have been more obvious that she was thrilled about this.
“That’s great!” I said, since that was the expected response. Privately, I thought her enthusiasm for seeing ghosts was certifiably insane. I’d have traded with her in a heartbeat and skipped on my merry way back home.
“Couldn’t you just have removed it yourself?” Hannah
asked.
“Not by myself,” Karen said. “You need four Durupinen to complete the ceremony. It is very complicated. I’ll go see the Council when we get there, to take care of some loose ends, and they’ll do it then.”
“That’s wonderful, Karen,” Hannah said before turning and pressing her nose to the glass. Milo rested his chin on her shoulder to share the view. I tried to do the same, but had to lean back against my seat and close my eyes after only a few minutes because it was so disorienting to barrel down the left side of road. Our driver seemed to have little regard for silly restrictions like traffic lights and pedestrian crossings, and I spent much more time fearing for our lives than trying to sight-see through the darkened windows. Shit, and I thought New York cab drivers had a collective death wish.
After what felt like one long near-death experience, the twisting and turning gave way to a smooth, straight ride, and I risked opening my eyes. The last of the suburban houses were falling away and fading into the distance behind us as we continued to wend our way out into the open country.
I’d seen some beautiful places in my drives across America with my mother, our hair whipping out the Green Monster’s open windows; the red geometric rock formations of Arizona, the golden wheat fields of the Midwest. But the English countryside had a beauty unlike anything I’d ever witnessed before. The fields rolled gently past us, undulating waves of truest green, speckled with sheep and crisscrossed with fences and tumble-down stone walls. Here and there, a quaint farmhouse or cottage perched like a sparrow upon a hilltop. It was as though I had stepped back into a simpler time, and suddenly even the car I was driving in felt like an anachronism —an intrusion. Even though I had never been here before, I was struck, not by a sense of otherness, but of familiarity. There was a tiny but insistent part of myself that was singing with joy because it knew that I belonged here. I tried to hush the song, to ignore it, mostly because it scared me, but it continued to sing, a whisper of a tune, in the recesses of my mind. Hannah turned from the window and her eyes, saucer-wide, were aglow with that same knowledge, and I knew she felt it, too.
The ride could have been a few minutes or a few days, but I was too entranced by the scenery to know for sure, or indeed care. But long before I expected to hear it, Karen’s voice broke into my thoughts.
“Fairhaven Hall is just over the crest of that hill. You should be able to see it coming up on the left-hand side in a moment.” I craned my neck and gasped. The gasp was echoed by both Hannah and Milo. Karen heaved a sigh of contentment.
Fairhaven Hall was nestled between two embracing curves of a valley, a stately and ancient castle. Four tall, turreted towers seemed to anchor it to the ground, a weathered stone collection of windows and balconies, bastions and crenellated ramparts. It was bordered on the east by a vast forest, on the west by a rushing, diamond-bright river, and to the north by the most expansive set of gardens and orchards I had ever seen.
“Holy shit,” I whispered. “We go to Hogwarts.”
2
WELCOME AND UNWELCOME
KAREN WAS PRACTICALLY BOUNCING IN HER SEAT, as though she were five years old and we’d just arrived at Disney World, instead of in view of a decidedly different castle.
“Isn’t it wonderful?”
Nobody answered her. I was so awestruck that I had no room left for any of the other emotions that had been wreaking havoc on my psyche for the past few weeks; they simply shriveled up and vanished. My one and only coherent thought was a silent curse that my sketchbook was packed away in my suitcase, because no place I’d ever been had begged more desperately to be drawn. My fingers twitched with it.
We gawked, open-mouthed, as Fairhaven Hall loomed nearer. Massive wrought-iron front gates, their bars twisted and curled into delicate, vine-like tendrils, opened smoothly as the car approached them. At first, I thought they had done so of their own volition, and opened my mouth to ask about it, but then I spotted the heavy chains, concealed in stone niches, that were pulling the gates apart and vanishing, link by link, into small openings in the thatched gatehouses on either side of the cobblestone drive.
The moment we reached the gates, a strange feeling swept over me, as though I had stepped through a heat haze or a blast of atmospheric disturbance. Hannah closed her eyes and swallowed hard, as though the sensation had made her feel nauseous. Milo flickered momentarily out of view and then back again, his expression wary.
“Um…what was that we just passed though?” I asked. My head was swimming slightly.
“Sorry, I should have warned you about that. We’re just crossing the wards. There are protective charms all around the grounds, sort of like barriers. They are designed to protect the Durupinen as well as the spirits they harbor here. Is Milo still here?”
“Yes,” Hannah answered for Milo, since Karen couldn’t hear him.
“Well, I mean obviously I assumed he would be. The wards are only meant to keep out hostile spirits, and we know he’s not hostile —”
“Speak for yourself,” I said. Milo batted his eyelashes and blew me a kiss. “Oh, you know what I mean,” Karen said. “It’s good to know that the wards won’t affect him negatively or keep him out. He would have been stopped right at the boundary to the grounds.”
“Are hordes of hostile spirits something we’re going to need to worry about?” I asked.
“No, not exactly,” Karen said. “Spirits are drawn to this place in huge numbers, just as they are drawn to you both. They can feel the pull you exert on them, the connection you have to the Gateways. Obviously that would be exponentially stronger with so many Gateways gathered together in a single place. The wards keep us safe from any ghost with less than good intentions.”
“I could have used one of these ward-thingies back at St. Matt’s,” I said.
Hannah nodded fervently. “Will we be taught how to do that? Create wards?”
Karen smiled a little sadly at her, and I knew what she was thinking at once. Hannah’s life had been defined by unexplained Visitations that left her terrified, marginalized, and eventually institutionalized. She probably would have done anything to be left alone. As happened so often when I looked at my twin, a terrible anger rose in me at the thought of what her life had been. I wished I had been there to protect her, or at the very least, stand by her through that nightmare of a childhood.
Karen answered her, “Yes, although it is very difficult, and it will probably take a few years before you can cast one powerful enough to be effective. The wards around Fairhaven Hall have been in place for centuries and are nearly impenetrable. Ah, here we go,” she added, as the gates finally opened wide enough for our car to pass through.
The car bumped along the cobblestone drive, wound through impeccably manicured lawns and flowerbeds, and finally came to rest at the front doors. They were constructed of prehistoric wooden planks studded with nails and held together with ancient metal crossbars. In the middle of the left door, which was closed, an intricately carved door knocker stared at us, a woman’s face with wild hair, whose mouth was open in a silent, terrified scream. The right door stood open, as though the castle had been expecting us.
If this had been an old horror movie, a hunchbacked butler with a genetically anomalous face would have hobbled out to greet us, and everyone watching would have shouted to the heroine, “Don’t go in! Don’t do it! What the hell is wrong with you?”
But this wasn’t a horror movie. This was my life, and like every other epically stupid heroine in every scary movie I’d ever seen, I didn’t turn around and leave, but squared my shoulders and walked right in the front door toward certain doom. Or, at least, that’s how it felt as I crossed the threshold, my heart curled up and cowering in the region of my throat.
Hannah, Milo, and I stopped dead just inside the vast echoing entrance hall. A great marble staircase stood before us, flanked with curving stone bannisters. Tapestries and paintings that looked like they should have hung, heavily guarded, in the National Gallery, adorned th
e walls. The second floor comprised a balcony which ran the perimeter of the chamber. Behind its heavy wooden railings, I could see a number of arched doorways interspersed with stained glass windows. The stone ceiling was latticed with cathedral-like wooden beams and right above our heads hung a magnificent chandelier worthy of Andrew Lloyd Webber.
Any single feature of this room could have captivated us, but it was not the architecture that stopped the breath in my lungs. The entire place pulsed and buzzed with a palpable energy, as though the very stones themselves were alive; the irony of which was not lost on me, considering that what made it feel this way was the constant and powerful presence of death. Even as my eyes made the initial scan of the room, I spotted several ghosts; one walking up the staircase, another peering curiously over the gallery railings, a third crouched defensively in the shadows of a sculpture. I was definitely getting better at distinguishing between the living and the dead, though whether that was a good thing or not, I still hadn’t decided.
“Wow,” Milo murmured. “There are a lot of us here.” He turned to Hannah, looking excited. “Mind if I leave you ladies to it and have a strut around the place —y’know, meet the rest of the floaters?”
“No, of course not,” Hannah said, barely able to tear her eyes from her new surroundings. “Have fun.”
Milo winked and dissolved on the spot.
“Ah, the Clan Sassanaigh has arrived at last!” a voice echoed down to us. I almost looked behind us to see who she was talking about, when I realized that she was referring to our ancient family name. That was going to take some getting used to.
The voice belonged to a slender woman with long, curling hair and prominent cheekbones who was descending the stairs toward us, her arms open in a gesture of welcome. Karen’s face broke into a smile of true pleasure when she saw her.
“Celeste!” She walked forward to meet the woman at the base of the stairs, and the two embraced with mutual cries of delight.