The Thief on the Winged Horse

by Kate Mascarenhas

  She hopped off the paternoster into the Sorcerers’ room. Candles had been lit, and by the soft light Persephone saw that all the guests were kneeling in a circle, with a blank space awaiting her at the heart of the ring. Everyone had hassocks to protect their knees, but there wasn’t one in her allocated place at the centre, so she remained standing on the glass.

  Ten endless minutes followed as they awaited Briar’s arrival. The ceremony couldn’t start without him. At last Persephone heard her parents’ footfall behind her, and Briar joined her in the circle’s heart. Alastair approached them, bearing a canvas bag. To Persephone, Alastair said: “This bag contains many wooden discs, passed down by Lucy Kendrick. Every disc is different. When a disc is spun upon a string or a stick, its markings combine, in the viewer’s eye, to form a single, unique symbol. We call this a symbol a hex, and it has deep magical significance. Each hex represents a specific emotion. To lay an enchantment upon a doll, you must trace the hex upon her with your tongue. Do you understand?”

  “I do,” Persephone said.

  “Every boy descended from Lucy Kendrick, or from her sisters, is entitled to a single hex. On his thirteenth birthday, he selects the hex, sight unseen, from the bag. In privacy, he will lick the hex upon a doll, to learn what emotion it evokes. Do you understand?”

  “I do.”

  “Every man descended from Lucy Kendrick, or from her sisters, is entitled to a further hex for each daughter he sires. If he so chooses, he may share this with the daughter. Do you understand?”

  “I do,” Persephone said again, with consternation, because when she was six, Alastair had said there was one rule for everyone on the eyot. That must be a lie. Now she realised any man might keep the shape of his hex secret, even from his family; but the shape of a woman’s hex could never truly be her own.

  Alastair opened the bag, and held it out to Briar. As soon as Briar had withdrawn a disc Alastair pulled the drawstring tight again. Persephone had the fastest glimpse of the marking on the wood, its curves and angles. Before the disc could be seen by anyone else, Briar concealed it in the pocket of his jacket.

  “The ceremony is complete,” Alastair said.

  People rose from their hassocks. Most of them headed for a trestle table that had been laden with wine. Briar patted Persephone’s back, and said: “Good lass. You’re a grown-up now.” He glanced over his shoulder at the paternoster. “I’ve a thing or two to do. Won’t be long.”

  He ambled to the lift.

  Rieko, still an eyot newcomer and Alastair’s bride of just a few months, drew close to Persephone with congratulations. Persephone gave awkward thanks.

  “I wore a dress,” Rieko said, forlornly picking at her white lace shift. “I always forget you need to have trousers on this floor.”

  Persephone glanced down into the darkness below the glass. “There’s nobody on the other levels to see.”

  “I hope your hex is one of the happy emotions. It’s such a waste,” Rieko said hesitantly, “that you won’t use it… in the shop, I mean.”

  “I might. One day I’ll make dolls in the workshop. The Sorcerers can teach me how they’re made. I’ll be their apprentice.”

  “Really?” Rieko tilted her head. “I must have misunderstood.”

  The conversation might have continued in that line, but they were joined by Mother, who apologised for her tardiness. The irony of her arriving late because she was scolding Daddy for lateness did not escape Persephone.

  “Where’s Briar gone?” Rieko asked innocently.

  “He’s getting pissed,” Persephone said coolly.

  Rieko reddened, and Mother told Persephone off for swearing. She didn’t offer an alternative explanation for Briar’s whereabouts. No one but Rieko would have asked the question, because the answer was so obvious. Persephone knew that blush was one of embarrassment and she didn’t share in it. Her father’s lapses were often disgusting, and always frightening; but they were a fact of life to Persephone, like the eyot flooding when the rivers overflowed. She didn’t see any point in pretending they didn’t exist.

  The women crossed to the refreshment table. Persephone trailed after them. She was dimly aware of Mother and Rieko discussing when Persephone’s grandfather would arrive. Eventually, Persephone raised a question that she had previously pondered, and was yet to see a satisfactory answer to.

  “Did you both get hexes when you got married? I mean, you weren’t here for your thirteenth birthdays.”

  Mother and Rieko exchanged glances.

  “In a way,” her mother said. “All brides from outside the eyot are given the same hex by the Sorcerers. You lick it onto a type of doll called a Frozen Charlotte – she’s made from a single piece of china – and tie her to the sash of your bridal gown.”

  Rieko added: “The enchantment is Selflessness.”

  Persephone’s mother said something short and hushed to Rieko in Japanese, which Persephone didn’t speak. Rieko nodded, chagrinned. Persephone was glad that she wouldn’t have to wait till she got married to have an enchantment. As soon as Briar verified the meaning of her hex, he would grant it to her. Perhaps that evening, if he wasn’t too drunk. More likely, she’d be told tomorrow morning.

  When the food was finally eaten, and the last guests had gone home, Persephone and her mother left with a sense of grim inevitability: they had a few short hours before pub closing. Father wasn’t in the house when they let themselves in. They readied for bed, and Mother sidled in next to Persephone as she often did if it were likely Briar would cause a disturbance on arrival.

  Mother rapidly fell into slumber, exhausted by the festivities. Persephone couldn’t settle as quickly. She thought of nothing but her hex. Would it make a happy enchantment, as Rieko had wished for her? Or an unpleasant one? Persephone hoped it was a complex feeling, with a contrast of adjective and noun. But even if it wasn’t, it would be her enchantment to experience whenever she chose.

  She heard her father in the street below, calling into the darkness and whooping as he habitually did at this hour. His attempt to gain admittance and then ascend the stairs was protracted. Finally her parents’ bedroom door clicked – followed by the wheeze of the bed as he fell upon it – and Persephone assumed further drama was averted for the night. He would sink into unconsciousness, and arise tomorrow afternoon, when he could tell her the meaning of the hex.

  Soon after she must have fallen asleep herself; because she awoke, unsure of the hour, and saw his silhouette looming at the foot of the bed. Her feet were damp. He was spilling something; the water hitting the bedspread was muffled, but audible.

  Mother snapped on the lamp.

  “Get out!” she said.

  Persephone winced against the light. A dark yellow stain formed a map upon the bedspread. Her father pulled up his trousers – she closed her eyes, but not before she saw his expression of bewilderment, even anger, that this room should not be the one he expected. His bearings had failed him, leading him here instead of the bathroom, and this must in some way be her and her mother’s fault.

  “You disgust me.” Mother’s voice was guttural.

  “Oh, no one’s as saintly as you,” rallied Daddy.

  “Get out!” Mother screamed.

  He returned to the master bedroom. Persephone could hear him muttering to himself, through the wall.

  She got out of bed, to allow her mother to strip the covers. Instead of finding another quilt as Persephone expected, Mother turned her attention to the clothes drawers. Perplexingly, she removed garment after garment, placing them in piles on the floor.

  “What’s going on?” Persephone checked.

  “We’re leaving. As soon as the sun’s up, if I can get everything together. I’ve had enough.”

  “But Uncle Conrad doesn’t have any other free houses.”

  “Don’t be silly, Persephone. We’re not moving into an eyot house. I’m taking you to your grandparents.”

  “Will we be coming back?”


  “Not if I can help it.”

  Her grandparents, hundreds of miles away. Persephone thought of her hex, in her father’s pocket.

  “No,” she said.

  “What do you mean, no?”

  “No, I’m not leaving.”

  “You can’t want to live like this?”

  She didn’t know how to reply. All her life she had wished her father away, but he had her hex, and if she were removed from the eyot she couldn’t persuade the Sorcerers to teach her.

  “Conrad will stop you taking me, if I ask him,” she gambled. “He’ll pay someone. A lawyer. He hates people leaving the eyot.”

  Her mother paled.

  “Why would you do that?” she cried.

  “I can’t go,” Persephone repeated, immovable.

  She watched her mother place her head in her hands and sob.

  On the following morning, Mother bundled the soiled sheets into the washing machine, picked up her suitcase, and left her keys by the phone. Persephone looked on and knew it would fall to her to tell Briar her mother had gone, because he was still in bed.

  “What should I tell him?” she asked.

  “Up to you, my love,” her mother said. “If you’re determined to stay here you’ll have to work that out on your own.”

  Then she left. Persephone didn’t look out the window. She heard the rattle of the wheels on her mother’s suitcase, followed by the clang of the garden gate. After that, silence.

  Persephone focused on the immediate task, which was readying herself for school. She got dressed, ate a boiled egg, and walked to class. Mrs Cadle was there alone; she set Persephone to placing the jotters on her classmates’ desks, ready for their arrival. Seven pupils attended the eyot school, including Persephone, and they were all taught in a single class despite their different ages. She had just laid out the seventh book when she realised there was one left over, bearing Hedwig’s name.

  “Mrs Cadle?” Persephone only called her that in the schoolroom. The rest of the time she was Brigid.

  “Mm?” Mrs Cadle said, accepting the leftover book. “I put that in there accidentally. I should really pass it on to the Mayhews.”

  Persephone sat at her desk and folded her hands. Mrs Cadle continued to look thoughtfully at the jotter.

  “Hedwig’s doing very well, at Iffley Academy, I hear,” she said.

  “Yes, miss.” Persephone was eighteen months older than Hedwig, placing them closer in age than the other pupils, though they weren’t friends, exactly.

  “Have you ever thought that you might like to go there?” Mrs Cadle pressed.

  Had she? Other schools, proper schools as Persephone thought of them, were a source of curiosity. But they sounded ghastly, between the throngs of people moving all over great big buildings and having different teachers all the while. And why, in any case, was Mrs Cadle asking?

  “Don’t you like teaching me?” Persephone asked.

  Mrs Cadle laughed. “What a question. You’re an excellent learner. Which is the point – you might be wasted here. You could do more GCSEs there.”

  “I’ll do GCSEs here.”

  “Yes, English and Maths and Art. But you could do other subjects there.”

  “I don’t need to. I want to work for Kendricks, as a Sorcerer.”

  “Hardly anyone gets to be a Sorcerer. I’m not saying you shouldn’t try. But you can do that even if you go to Iffley Academy. And at least there you’d have other options if sorcery doesn’t work out. And Persephone – you would meet people who aren’t your relatives.”

  She meant boys, Persephone guessed; Hedwig certainly seemed to see that as an advantage. Did Persephone want a boyfriend? Or a girlfriend? The prospect of either simultaneously drew and terrified her.

  “I don’t want to meet people who aren’t my relatives,” she said firmly. “Anyway. What if Daddy turned up at the school drunk? It doesn’t matter if he does that here.”

  Mrs Cadle looked at her sadly, and Persephone wondered what she had to be sad about.

  A sharp rap on the window pane made them both jump. It was Persephone’s father, instantaneously present as if to prove her point. Although he wouldn’t be drunk now. He’d have slept most of it off.

  She glanced at Mrs Cadle, for permission to leave.

  “You can go,” Mrs Cadle said. “Lessons haven’t even started yet. But I’ll tell him otherwise, if you prefer.”

  “No,” Persephone said, because she wanted her hex, even if her mother had burdened her with breaking bad news to Daddy. Dread swam in her stomach, but she walked out of the schoolhouse and round to the window where her father was standing.

  He wore yesterday’s dress shirt, but one tail had worked loose from his waistband.

  “Where’s your mother?” he said. “Her things aren’t in the wardrobe. The suitcase is gone.”

  “I don’t know where she is,” Persephone hedged. She wasn’t lying. There was no way to know how far her mother had got.

  “Come off it. You didn’t see her before she left? You’re not lying to me, Seph, are you?”

  She shook her head. “I did see her. She was putting washing on. I don’t know where she is now.”

  Another thing that wasn’t a lie.

  And her father decided to believe her: he didn’t fly into a rage, at least. He was squinting, as he did when he was hungover.

  “I’ll ring your grandma,” he said. “See if she knows anything.”

  “Daddy,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “You haven’t told me what my hex is.”

  At this he appeared stricken. “That’s right, that’s right.”

  “Have you laid an enchantment with it yet?”

  “No rush, is there? Always thought thirteen was too young for one of those.”

  Too young. How could it be too young? He’d received his at the same age, hadn’t he, so what was he talking about.

  “How about I look after it for you – until you’re properly grown up. When you’re able to manage it, I’ll hand it over.”

  “Daddy, I want it now. I’m old enough now.”

  “Are you arguing with me?”

  She shrank. “No. I need to get back inside.”

  “Yes. That’s more like it. I’ll see you tonight.”

  By the time she reached her desk again her face was composed.

  “Is everything all right?” Mrs Cadle asked.

  “He confiscated my hex.” That was the right word. Confiscated. He’d taken, as a penalty, what was otherwise rightfully hers.

  “Why would he do that?”

  “It’s because my mother left,” Persephone replied. “He thinks I won’t go with her, if he’s got my hex.”

  “God, Persephone.”

  The exclamation told Persephone she, too, should feel distressed. Instead she felt anaesthetised. There was no feeling, nothing, behind her words. Nothing she could access.

  “He’s clever,” Persephone concluded.

  “That’s not what I’d call it.”

  “He is. Because he’s right; I won’t ever leave the eyot without my hex.” She opened her jotter, where the letters seemed to wriggle into shapes she no longer recognised.

  16

  On Friday morning, Hedwig lay in bed with Stanley Walcott, in Conrad’s otherwise empty house. She rolled over to face him, and ran a finger down his chest. The skin was clammy and dragged.

  “Your boss is barking,” he said.

  “Be nice,” Hedwig coaxed.

  “It’s true, though. He was on at us about leaving something out for the fairies. Said it would bring the doll back.”

  “Not the fairies. The Thief on the Winged Horse.” Just a few weeks before, Conrad would have asked her to leave the offering. The fact he hadn’t, showed that his trust in her had eroded. She wondered whether Conrad had made an offer to the Thief himself, and his despair at the doll’s continued absence had prompted his escape from England.

  “You don’t believe in that n
onsense, do you?” Stanley teased. “Naidu says she’s keeping an open mind. But you can tell me – you’re just pretending to believe, aren’t you?”

  “It’s abominable of you to encourage me in disloyalty. Conrad is very good to me and I am not going to join you in mocking him. Anyway – our sorcery must come from somewhere. Why not the Thief?”

  Stanley rolled his eyes. “Sorcery! There’s no sorcery in those dolls. It’s all the power of suggestion.”

  Hedwig did not, in fact, care whether Stanley believed in sorcery. The only important measure was the income derived, and enough rich people had faith in the dolls’ powers to hand over cold cash. Hedwig recollected the worn path of this argument from their adolescence and had no interest in revisiting it now. She changed the subject.

  “Where will you search next, now the residents are in the clear?”

  “They’re not in the clear as far as I’m concerned.”

  “You still think the motive was personal?”

  “It was personal all right. It was very personal for someone.”

  “Who?” Hedwig got out of bed, and walked to the en suite. Stanley didn’t reply – presumably from professional reluctance – so she prompted as she turned on the taps: “Darling? Do tell who’s the theft personal for?”

  “Think about it.” Stanley raised his voice over the sound of water. “Who knows this house? Who was born here? Who was pissed off with your boss? You honestly believe Briar Kendrick wouldn’t have inside knowledge on how to get inside that cage?”

  “Yes – but – didn’t you search his house?”

  “Yes, and there was nothing to find, because he’d already destroyed the doll. I guarantee you that. We know he’s broken other dolls in fits of temper.”