They had walked down to the back paddock, their breath forming foggy puffs before them. Within, Warlock rolled on the cold ground, unable to regain his feet. His pain-filled whinnies had cut through the cold morning like the blare of a trumpet. His eyes had been wide with fear. It had hurt Rachel to see such the noble beast so reduced. She was used to him towering above her, a wall of sleek black and shining white, his nostrils flared, his ears pricked, his fluffy snow-white mane and feet-feathering floating about him like clouds. His forelocks and tail were black, but they, too, seemed airy as cloud-stuff. He had been a gorgeous animal, swift as the wind. And when he galloped across the moors, only Thunderfrost himself—Warlock’s great, great, great grandsire—was more glorious.
At the gate to the paddock, Grandfather had paused and placed his hand on Rachel’s shoulder. He had gazed down at her seriously.
“Your mother will fuss, my child. She will say you are too young, and I should not have brought you. But I say, one is never too young to learn the nature of duty. And there is no greater duty than duty toward those who love us.”
Rachel had gazed up at him, her eyes dark and steady.
Grandfather had squatted down until they stared eye to eye. “Remember this, Lady Rachel Griffin. If the time should ever come when some charge under your care must die, you do it yourself. With your own hand. You owe them that.”
He had risen and walked into the paddock, leaving Rachel at the gate with several of the stable hands. As she had watched, he had paralyzed the pain-crazed horse with a stream of blue sparks from the amethyst on one of his four rings of mastery. Then he had stridden to the barn and came back with a sword and a belt, the buckle of which was made of ivory and shaped like an elephant. He had strapped on the old worn belt, which Rachel knew was enchanted and would give him the strength of many men. Kneeling beside the old horse, he had laid his hand upon the sleek, sweat-soaked coat and leaned over, whispering something into Warlock’s ear.
Then, he had risen to his feet.
With a single overhead blow, her grandfather had sliced through the steed’s neck, cleaving the head from the shoulders. Blood had spouted out like a fountain. Then, a stable hand had covered Rachel’s eyes, and she saw no more.
As they had walked back to the house, his hand again resting on Rachel’s shoulder, Grandfather had said gruffly, “Never kill anything you love with magic, child. That is the beginning of the path that ends in the black arts. Never take a single step down that path.”
Back in the dining hall at school, Rachel turned around and rested her hands on the top of her chair. She leaned forward and spoke very precisely.
“Very well. If we are going to tell Valerie, let us do it correctly. I will tell her—everything. But not here. We have to find some place more private. And let us pray to whatever deities might listen that Nastasia is right, and I am wrong.”
• • •
In the end, they decided on the soundproof studios in the back of the theater in Dare Hall. Beauregard came with them, but Valerie left her dog romping about on the commons. Rachel had not even known such chambers existed. The group of them tromped across campus and along the leaf-strewn gravel path to the dorm, passing where Yolanda Debussy, Agravaine Stormhenge, and some other college students were attaching the sheet to the lavender ribbon-bestrewn horse skull that was to be Dare’s Mari Lwyd for the Mummers Parade.
Rachel found this a bit strange. She was used to mummers at Yule, but apparently things were done differently in America.
They crossed the black and white marble of the foyer and entered the cavernous, dark theater, blindly fumbling their way to the back, where, with the help of a flicker of dragon fire, Valerie found a light switch. Then, they made their way into one of the sound-proof rooms and shut the door. The studio was bright white and empty except for a few music stands and two chairs. Zoë immediately sprawled across both chairs, sitting on one and resting her feet on the second. Rachel and Nastasia remained standing. The rest sat down on the floor.
“I will tell you everything,” Rachel said severely. “But no repeating any of it, to anyone.”
She closed her eyes briefly, pressing her fingers against her temples. Then she opened her eyes again. With a finality like the falling of her grandfather’s sword, Rachel recalled and recited the events of their meetings at the Roanoke Tree with the Lios Alfar queen, Illondria, daughter of Idunn, the caretaker of the World Tree.
• • •
Dinner consisted of roast pork, collard greens, buttered Hubbard squash, Indian pudding, and pumpkin pie. The Mummers Parade followed. This event did not involve elaborate costumes—those were saved for the Masquerade Ball, which was apparently held later in the year. Students did dress in quaint, inside-out outfits, however, messing up their hair and painting their faces. Rachel’s friends did her hair up in three pigtails and painted her face rusty brown and white, like a fox. Joy wore ribbons tied to six different small braids. Her sister Mercy came by and painted her face with green and gold glitter. Zoë turned her hair orange and black, and even Nastasia joined in, wearing a traditional Magical Australian fairy costume.
Led by Mari Lwyd from each of the seven Arts—with college students, hidden under the white sheet that represented the white horses’ bodies, carrying the festive skulls—the procession wound from dorm to dorm. Students banged on gongs or blew ox horns, with barking dogs and the thunder from the tor occasionally adding to the cacophony. The parade ended at the Memorial Gardens where a warding student from De Vere lit the bonfire—officially starting the ceremony to honor the dead of Roanoke.
The ceremony itself was performed by Nighthawk, the school’s Master Warder. As the sky darkened, the fire grew taller. Soon, it was a towering pillar of dancing, crackling flames. Sparks, like fireflies, escaped into the darkness, rising toward the night sky. Rachel stared up at the tiny points of fire until they became lost in the stars above.
After the ceremony, friendship roasters were set-up around the bonfire, and chestnuts were handed out. Two by two, friends moved into the roaring heat and placed their nuts into the roasters. If the nuts emerged nicely warmed, the friendship was destined for good things. If the nuts split or dried out, then there was to be rough times ahead.
Rachel and Sigfried placed their chestnuts in the roaster together. They waited, trying to find the right distance away from the blaze to stand—though no matter where she picked, it seemed to Rachel that the heat from the fire felt blisteringly hot against her face and hands and yet the back of her neck was cold. To her and Siggy’s delight, their nuts came back piping hot and smelling of chestnutty goodness. When the shells cooled down, they ate their nuts happily, sharing bits with Lucky. The taste was divine.
Joy put her first nut in with the princess and whined in dismay when her nut cracked. She grumbled that the fire had grown too hot, and the roasters should be moved back. The others ignored her. Nastasia caught Rachel’s hand, and the two of them ran, laughing, to get more chestnuts. They placed two more together in a roaster.
A large log caught and flared. The bonfire grew suddenly hotter. With a deafening bang, Rachel and Nastasia’s chestnuts exploded, shooting little bits of shell and nut-meat all over the nearby students.
“Oh!” the princess cried.
She looked so dismayed that Rachel felt as if one of the shards of shell had lodged in her heart. She reached over and squeezed her friend’s hand.
“It doesn’t mean anything—chestnut roasting,” Rachel whispered in her friend’s ear. “It’s not a real divination. It’s just a game.”
“If you say so.” Nastasia’s face looked very pale in the firelight. She squeezed Rachel’s hand in return and then lifted her chin courageously. “You are right, Miss Griffin. We mustn’t let such minor things interfere with our festive joy.” With renewed cheer, Nastasia tried again with Zoë.
As the other two girls carried their nuts toward the bonfire, Rachel moved away, into the leaping shadows of the night. The explodi
ng chestnut had upset her much more than she let on. The pain of the imaginary shard still stuck in her heart. That, combined with her willing participation in telling Valerie about the Elf, left her feeling frightened and sad.
Away from the bonfire, all was silver and shadows. The moonlight was very bright, as the moon had been full three days before. The cold blew through her garments. Its bite was all the more shocking because the heat near the great blaze had been so great. Rachel leaned against a shrine to the flower goddess Pomona, as she waited for her eyes to adjust. All around students laughed and shrieked. Girls giggled and peered at their nuts. Boys threw shell bits at each other or chucked leaves and sheets of loose-leaf paper into the fire.
On the far side of the blaze, Rachel could see the silhouettes of tall figures that might have been Von Dread and William Locke. She wondered if Gaius was nearby. Closer, she saw a pretty Middle Eastern student chucking chestnuts at her girlfriends. Nearby, Rachel’s roommate Kitten searched through a bag of nuts with her best friend, sophomore Almathea Kern.
To their right, some of the older students were preparing tiny walnut barges topped with little conical candles, which could be launched on the lily pond, or—for the more adventurous— on Roanoke Creek, for another divinatory game. Another group of students cut into a ginger ring cake, a tall girl exclaiming with delight when she discovered the first prize of the evening, a ring, in her slice. Two burly boys shouldered past them, carrying a big barrel of water in which apples bobbed. Behind came a third boy carrying a long stick. An apple hung by a rope from one side. The other end had a candle stuck to it.
Over by the shrine to Hephaestus, older girls poured melted lead through the opening in an old-fashioned door key and into a bucket of water. As soon as it hit the liquid, sizzling, they squatted to stare at the shapes that the hardened lead had formed. Rachel recognized Oonagh MacDannan, Xandra Black and Freka Starkadder among their number. Students studying molybdomancy stood by to help interpret the divinatory outcomes.
Thunder rolled across the campus again. To the north, she could see the orangey brightness of the second bonfire atop Stony Tor. Rachel turned away, sighing. In the shadows, Kitten’s tiny familiar sat a bit of a distance behind its mistress, licking its paw with regal dignity. The Comfort Lion turned its head and met Rachel’s gaze. The firelight glinted off its golden eyes. Rachel might have been imagining it, but she had the distinct impression that the little familiar did not approve of divinatory games.
Nonetheless, the little Lion glanced to the left, where Rachel’s other roommate, Astrid, stood alone in the dark, her ubiquitous scarf trailing behind her. Her head was lowered, forlorn. A lone chestnut rested on her palm. Impulsively, Rachel ran forward and took a nut from the bag. Then she approached Astrid.
“Would you like to roast a nut?” she asked simply.
The shy girl nodded gratefully. Together, Rachel and Astrid made their way to a roaster, a little ways around the fire from where their other two roommates were, and set their chestnuts side by side. They stood quietly, Astrid staring shyly at the ground. She kept wiping her cheek and then having to do something with the grease paint that had now smeared onto her fingers. When the timer popped on the roaster, the two girls cautiously examined their nuts.
Rachel gave a soft cry of delight. Both nuts were perfectly roasted, moist and warm, with the shell peeled back from the tawny meat in just the right way. When they cooled, the two girls happily peeled the perfect chestnuts and popped them in their mouths, smiling at each other.
Maverick Badger’s gruff voice rose above the festivities, announcing that those who had lost loved ones were invited to make their way to the Hudson to launch paper lanterns. Students queued up to go. The same longing that had assailed Rachel during the afternoon seized her again. Looking around at her friends, happily playing games, she made a sudden decision.
Taking her leave of Astrid, Rachel ran back to Dare Hall and fetched Vroomie.
Chapter Twenty-Three:
Crashing the Dead Men’s Ball
“I’ve decided to crash the Dead Men’s Ball,” Rachel murmured, stepping up beside Sigfried, her steeplechaser swinging in her hand. “Do you want to come with?”
“Crash something, you bet!” Siggy grinned as he and Lucky leapt and danced around the bonfire. “I’m all about crashing. What are we crashing into? Is it flammable?”
“The Dead Men’s Ball. Where all the spirits of the restless dead gather.”
“What…you mean ghosts?” The fearless boy actually looked unnerved. “Oh no! Not me. Ghosts scare me!”
“Oh. Right,” Rachel recalled their previous conversation on the topic, the first time they had flown by Bannerman’s mansion. She did not want to go with someone who was going to be uncomfortable. That would take the joy out of it. “All right. I’ll ask someone else.”
She looked around, wondering which of her friends might want to come along. Zoë, maybe? She seemed fearless. As she searched for the other girl, her gaze fell on two tall silhouettes and a shorter one on the far side of the bonfire. She took her leave of Sigfried and headed that way.
“Psst, Gaius,” she whispered, tapping him on the shoulder. His hair looked normal, but he did have two streaks of blue war paint across his cheeks. With his garments inside out, the motley squares patching the holes in his robe were even more obvious. “I’m going to sneak off campus and crash the Dead Men’s Ball. Would you like to come?”
Gaius jumped, startled by her sudden appearance. For one crazy second, she feared he would try to stop her, or worse, report her to the proctors.
“Let’s go check it out, shall we?” He bowed and offered her his arm.
Together, they followed the procession of students heading to the shore of the Hudson.
• • •
Down by the water, students wishing to launch mourning lights lined up in front of a table maintained by the Roanoke Seers Club. Those who had lost loved ones took candles and put them into boat-shaped paper lanterns. Farther down, by the docks, girls knelt to chant and wail, while young men stood by, silent as ghosts. Some of the lanterns were already afloat on the dark waters of the Hudson, glowing a cherry-gold as they sailed under the shadow of Storm King Mountain.
Rachel thought of stopping to launch candles for her grandparents, or maybe for Myrddin, but the line was long. If she waited, the crowd might dwindle, and they might lose their opportunity to slip away unseen.
Rachel and Gaius moved toward the lights flickering in the ruined castle that had once been Grand Inquisitor Bannerman’s arsenal. It was traditional throughout the Western world to set plates at dinner on All Hallow’s Eve for departed loved ones. On this night, those wronged often returned to wreak vengeance, while grateful shades came back to give blessings to their kin and loved ones. The dead could not come onto campus, but no one wished to dishonor them. So, the Cooking Club had brought tables to the ruined castle. There, places had been set on fancy china, with a little corn doll at each place, for Roanokean students, alumni, and staff who had died recently or whose shades might still be wandering. Rachel felt sorry for the shade that found itself sitting before her lopsided doll. The table for the recently dead had only a few place settings, but a number of tables had been prepared for those killed during the Terrible Years.
With a sudden rush of gratitude toward the Raven, Rachel silently gave thanks that they had not needed to set a place for Enoch Smithwyck.
Rachel and her boyfriend wandered over, as if to investigate the offerings, and then kept going, out the other side of the ruins, into the darkness of the outcropping of rocks beyond. They stopped in the black shadow of the ruined castle. Thunder shook the tor again. The rumble was more muted down here at the far end of the island.
Rachel lifted her broom. “Shall we?”
“Indeed.” Gaius sounded amused, though she could not quite see his face. “Though we are going to miss some of the games back at the dining hall after the ceremony. And Fairy Gifts.”
“Your choice is bad when you entrust
Your happiness where moth and rust,
In time, turns all your wealth to dust.
“After which, Mother Hubbard poured dust all over me and hung a dust-pan from my neck.”
“I’ve never gotten a Fairy Gift, but Topher received Honor last year, and he got a bellows blown in his ear on the theory that honor is nothing but air,” chuckled Gaius.
“Who plays Mother Hubbard and gives out the gifts?” asked Rachel.
“It was the dean last year. The year before, it was Dr. Fallon from the Art Department. Though I have heard that Mr. Tuck did it one year, dressed up as an ugly woman. Wish I’d seen that. Mr. Tuck is a riot.”
“I love him in language class. He makes everything so clear.”
Gaius nodded. Then he tapped his inside out pocket. “Thanks for the calling card. It’s nice to know that we can reach each other in case of emergencies.”
“You’re welcome!” beamed Rachel, but she thought, Thanks, Sigfried, and I haven’t paid him yet.
They climbed onto the steeplechaser and floated up the coastline. The night wind blowing down the river was cold. The two of them huddled close together. Rachel could feel her boyfriend’s warmth through her clothing. The light of the near-full moon reflected like a silvery road before them, leading up the river. To the northeast, she could see the flickers of the second bonfire, the one set atop Stony Tor.
They flew out of the cove by the dock and northward. It would have been quicker to fly north from the commons; however, that would have required flying over the row of trees that marked the wards of the school. Crossing the wards caused magic to fail. Rachel did not dare fly across them, lest her bristleless fail, too, and they tumble from the sky.
Rachel and the Many-Splendored Dreamland (The Books of Unexpected Enlightenment Book 3) Page 30