She stopped when the light faded, and she heard music in the lane. The eyot choir sang outside in the evenings before Sigillaria. Persephone opened the front door to hear them. The words were clear now, and were words every Kendrick knew.
Come sit by the fire!
Have half my hearth
And half my table.
Instead of a heart
There’s a sigil at my breast
To fill you full of joy.
Cousin Alastair carried a tray of mulled wine to refresh the small audience who had come out to hear. He caught Persephone’s eye, and shortly afterwards made his way to her step.
“I hear congratulations are in order,” he said.
“They are?”
“You’re to be a Sorcerer.”
“I’m going to get the title, yes. I’ve been practising sorcery for some time though.”
“I’m aware.”
Persephone saw, in his offhandedness, that she would never receive acknowledgement from Alastair of her merit. To get this far had been an act of will for her, and she would have to keep being strong-willed to maintain her place at Kendricks. She was under no delusion that Conrad appreciated her any more than Alastair did; she suspected that her promotion was an attempt to neutralise her role in workshop dissent. Years of combat stretched before her, and the prospect exhausted her.
“You must have a way with Conrad,” said Alastair, “if you can smooth talk him into being promoted rather than fired.”
“I didn’t talk him into anything.”
“Have you ever thought of using those powers of persuasion for something less selfish?”
“Alastair, what are you on about?”
“Briar. I’m talking about Briar. The case hangs on Conrad’s identification of the doll.”
Persephone crossed her arms. “You don’t think my father took her?”
“Obviously he did. Don’t be dense, Sephy. But he’s an old man. Should he spend the last years of his life in jail, for taking something he has a claim to? His claim may be stronger than Conrad’s. This should all have been handled without the police. And it still could be – if Conrad said he’d been overconfident with the identification. Why haven’t you pointed this out to him?”
“Why haven’t you?”
“I’m no good at manipulation.” Alastair was a bitter man, for one so successful in his field.
Persephone took one of the mugs of wine – to warm her hands; not to drink. “Do you know the story of Pinocchio? There’s a cricket on his shoulder, who’s supposed to tell him right from wrong when he can’t be bothered to work it out himself. You want me to be Conrad’s cricket.”
“And you’re too proud for that, are you?”
“No, not if I thought it would work. You’re mistaking me for someone who has any power over Conrad. The cricket gets squashed.”
Sara, Alastair’s little girl, was calling for him now the choir were between songs. Alastair turned his back on Persephone, with a parting shot: “It might be convenient for you, your dad not living on the eyot any more. That doesn’t make it right.”
“Fuck off,” Persephone muttered. He was already out of earshot. She sat on the doorstep, the stone chilling her thighs through her dress. Alastair was obnoxious, but he’d raised new possibilities. It hadn’t occurred to her that the case against Briar would fail if Conrad changed his statement. The case would then likely go cold, because the police would be searching for another doll that didn’t exist, and there would be no need to implicate Larkin at all. The relief she felt at this solution told her that whatever anger she harboured against Larkin for stealing, for lying, for laying the blame on Briar, was dwarfed by her need of him. He was despicable, and she loved him.
But she had spoken honestly to Alastair. She didn’t believe Conrad would pay her any attention. Who would he listen to then? Hedwig? She might be willing; Persephone remembered the greetings card she sent Briar. And yet, for all Hedwig’s influence, the feud between Conrad and Briar was old and ran deep; Persephone didn’t believe Hedwig was a match for that.
The singing resumed, a more macabre song this time. Daisy Gilman took the verse in solo.
Young lad your father asks you,
“When will you be tamed?”
Young lad your father asks you,
“When will you be claimed?
Don’t wander in the snowfall
Don’t skate upon the stream
Don’t daydream in the snowfall
Don’t dawdle on the green
For the Thief is sure to rob you
And make you do a trade
Yes the Thief is sure to rob you
And say your debt’s unpaid.”
Persephone smiled. She had thought there was no one more powerful than Conrad on the eyot. But there was – or more importantly, Conrad believed there was. Where she and Hedwig might fail, Conrad would always listen to the Thief.
51
The third day came. It was the twenty-second of December – the eve of Sigillaria; and in the afternoon Hedwig went from door to door with her basket of gingerbread and notes, so that everyone could leave out their share for the Thief that night. It would be the first time Persephone could partake fully in the ritual because she had never before had her hex to do so.
Hedwig rang the bell shortly after two.
“Would you come in for a bit?” Persephone asked.
“I don’t have long.” Hedwig gestured at the basket, which was three quarters full.
“It’s important. I’ll help with deliveries afterwards.”
“All right – that should be all right. As long as they’re given out before dark.”
Persephone showed her through the empty living room, to the kitchen, which was the only place where it was possible for them to sit. Hedwig handed over the biscuit doll and the message due to her.
“I’ll open it later,” Persephone said. “Best just spit this out. Do you think we’re sisters?”
Hedwig laughed. “Sorry; it’s not funny, really. You sounded so serious and I expected something else.”
“It is serious, isn’t it?” Persephone asked.
Hedwig fingered the gingham lining of her basket, her eyes lowered.
“Maybe we are sisters,” Hedwig said. “And maybe not.”
“What does Margot say?”
“She says she doesn’t know who my father is, and I believe her. So many men on the eyot are a possibility. Not a Botham man, obviously, but the others. I’m still none the wiser. It’s as likely to be a stranger in Selkirk – she lived there a while, you know – or a visiting tourist. Sometimes I’m glad I don’t know. There’s a certain freedom in being able to imagine your own father. Why do you think it’s Briar?”
“A hunch. When I was a child I saw something between him and Margot.”
“Hm. Interesting.”
“He said you wrote to him in prison. That didn’t make any sense to me. Unless you had a hunch he was your dad, too.”
“I didn’t write to him. Must have been someone else,” Hedwig said, but Persephone expected her to deny it, when the action could get her into trouble with the courts.
“He thought it was you. He must think there’s a connection between you.”
“Connections are borne of all kinds of things – maybe he’s holding something over the letter writer. Or maybe the letter writer has reason to be grateful to him. Maybe both.”
This contradiction so replicated Persephone’s own ambivalence towards Briar that she wondered if Hedwig was being disingenuous by denying his paternity.
“You really don’t think he’s your dad?”
“What does it matter, anyway?”
“Because if he was, you might help me. I want the police to drop charges against him.”
“I don’t see how that’s possible.”
“There is a way, but I need your help. If I explain, and you still don’t want to get involved, will you promise not to tell Conrad?” Persephone anti
cipated this would be a promise too far for Hedwig, but she couldn’t risk exposure by proceeding.
“I won’t tell a soul,” Hedwig said. “You’d be surprised what I’ve kept from Conrad.”
*
Persephone didn’t bother going to bed that night. She opened a book about eighteenth-century miniature portraits, and attempted, but failed, to read it; she maintained this effort until four in the morning, with the bedroom curtains open, bowed before her reflection in the night sky. Then she turned off the lamp. She stretched, and watched the still, moonlit eyot. This was the time she’d agreed with Hedwig.
Larkin’s zoetrope stood at the end of her bed. She had assembled it to see its intended form one final time. There they were; twelve Paid Mourners, at a standstill in a circle. Persephone gave them a last spin. She looked through the slats to see the dolls merge into a single illusion of a running girl. First the girl sprinted, then the smoothness of her movement steadily declined, until she split back into her multiple selves, and stopped. Persephone reached inside and detached every doll from its station. She swaddled them in a towel apiece, and packed them, upright, in a rucksack.
Her winter coat, with the plush collar, was dark and would provide some camouflage on the way. There was always a chance she would meet someone before her destination. If so, she would have to claim insomnia, turn back and try again another night. The plan’s success depended on her not being seen.
With the rucksack on her back, she left her room and then the house, pulling the front door closed soundlessly. She listened for footfall or voices. But there was only the sway of the trees; a distant ambulance siren; a few notes of robin song, mournful on the breeze.
She walked at speed and as lightly as she could given the load on her back. The straps dug uncomfortably into her flesh. A fox ran from a hedge, causing her to jump. He glanced sideways at her, his chartreuse eyes gleaming palely. But as quickly, he was gone; and she passed through the quince trees. They were leafless, with dried husks of unpicked fruit still on the bough.
She emerged from the orchard to see Conrad’s house. An upstairs light was on. This gave her pause; she tried to remember what she knew of the layout. It might be Hedwig, awake as Persephone was, and watching for her arrival. But if it were Conrad – roaming for the bathroom, say – she couldn’t risk him seeing her from the window. For now she stayed at a distance, on the shaded side of the path. Though the walk had warmed her limbs her nose was icy and her ears throbbed with cold. She longed for this job to be done, and to be at home, in the warm again.
The light in the house went out. Persephone checked the time on her phone. She waited a further ten minutes, to be on the safe side, squinting for any sign of a face at the window. Finally confident she was unobserved, she walked across the track, through the gate, and up the garden path.
She slid the rucksack from her back and rested it on the doorstep. Her shoulders tingled with the loss of weight. One by one she withdrew the dolls and unwrapped them. She arranged them in a semi-circle before the front door. They were on their backs, in the gravel, pointed feet first. Persephone was glad of their enchantment: twelve small doses of Faith kept her believing the plan would work. She squashed the towels back into the bag and gave the dolls a final look. They were identical to each other, and indistinguishable from the real thing – at least in Persephone’s opinion. She hoped Conrad would be of similar mind.
When she reached home again, she ate her half of the gingerbread doll slowly, and opened the envelope containing Conrad’s message. Your grandfather had a gift for prophecy, it said. Kendricks may yet be yours. She yawned, her lack of sleep catching up with her. Cradling her head on the kitchen table she closed her eyes with the intention of a moment’s rest before bed. She fell into a doze. During her half-waking, half-slumbering state, her dreams and her surroundings melded confusingly. She roused enough to watch the Thief, on his Winged Horse, pass through the wall from the garden. The kitchen was barely large enough to contain them all. The Thief dismounted, and picked up his share of the gingerbread. He bit the head first.
“Do you like the taste of my Fear?” Persephone asked.
“It’s delectable. I watched you tonight. You’ve been trespassing on my terrain.”
“And what are you going to do about it?” she said. “I’m not afraid of you.”
“No.” She could hear a smile in his voice. “You’re not frightened by the same things as other people.”
She sank back into sleep again, as he laughed.
52
The sun rose on Sigillaria and Hedwig was awake. She saw the dolls, but didn’t touch them. Neither post, nor personal callers, came to cause disruption; and this made it easier to feign, when at ten she roused her master, that she’d woken him as soon as she’d laid eyes upon the new arrivals.
Conrad, coated in his paisley robe, perused the dolls himself, stooping for a close view, though he did not touch them. In bafflement his lips parted.
“What means this display?” he asked. “You say this is exactly as you found them? And you saw no one approach, or leave?”
“I found the dolls, just the dolls, exactly as they are. Why don’t you pick one up, Conrad? Any of them.”
He eyed her warily. He knelt, with effort, and extended bony fingers to the nearest Mourner. As he touched the wax, he cried: “She bears the right enchantment!”
Hedwig stayed silent, as this knowledge shouldn’t already be in her possession.
Shaking, Conrad patted every doll in turn, then fell back on his heels. “I’ve grasped the truth of it. My brother Briar knew the hex; he told Persephone, and she has used her new sorcery to cast that same enchantment on her copies.”
All the care they’d taken to conceal Persephone’s arrival! Wasted effort; but the larger game was still to be won. Persephone and Hedwig had discussed an alternative course of action if Conrad guessed correctly how the dolls came to be in his garden.
“You are so astute, Conrad,” Hedwig said. “That is the likeliest explanation.”
“But whatever can she mean by it?”
“Perhaps she doesn’t know.”
“Doesn’t… know?”
“You’ve always told me that the Thief on the Winged Horse works through people. Perhaps he did so here; he used Persephone as his channel, to provide you with a gift.”
“These dolls are – very beautiful. I couldn’t tell them from the work of Lucy Kendrick.” Conrad touched the nearest doll again. “I’d like to keep them. What do you believe he wants for them? More gold?”
“He has enough gold.” The words felt new and alien – to have enough gold was strange for her to contemplate, and to believe was possible. “The Thief may want a more precious thing.”
“A feeling.”
“Yes.”
“My hex; my Rivalry.”
“It’s deep and long held. Who might be your greatest rival?”
“My brother. Always.”
“And you’ve bested him on every measure. You own the estate; you run a thriving business and that gives you stature. He has nothing but a failed marriage, an excessive taste for drink, and a prison cell. Perhaps the time to drop your rivalry has come?”
“But how?”
“The case depends on your ID of the doll. Lie, Conrad, for your brother. Tell the police you’re no longer confident of her provenance. The guarding of enchantments isn’t what it was; haven’t twelve convincing replicas been left here? You will know the Paid Mourner in the cage is real; so will us all who live here… but the police, the courts, need not. So let the case go cold. Whoever matters will see order is restored by you – because you showed compassion to your brother.”
“I must think this over.”
“Yes. A man of your sense would never act rashly. I am sure the Thief will wait, for a very little while.”
She helped her master stand again. His breathing laboured, heralding a cough; she rubbed his back. They walked to the stairs.
“P
lease bring those dolls in,” Conrad said, with one hand upon the banister. “They must be safe from the elements. I’ll take a moment alone to lock them in the cage as soon as I am dressed.”
She turned to do as she was told. He hadn’t finished.
“What if your advice is wrong?” he asked. “How can I rely on your knowledge of the Thief?”
She smiled her broadest smile. “You know the answer to that, Conrad. The Thief is my father; who would know his wishes better than I?”
Suspicion faded from Conrad’s face.
“Forgive me. I’d let that slip my mind, amidst the morning’s strangeness.” He placated: “You’re a good girl, Hedwig. When you’ve brought the dolls in, make a start on breakfast.”
She watched him scale the marble staircase. Sephy would be waiting for her call; she’d telephone from the kitchen, with the good news.
53
The Archway campus of Central Saint Martins was unprepossessing: flaking, cream, and mansard-roofed, with numerous grid windows. From the opposite pavement Persephone watched students pass in and out through the doors. Not so very long ago Larkin had been one of them. That, at least, he hadn’t lied about. Since his departure, Persephone’s geography had split into places she recalled being with him, places she knew he had been without her, and the rest of the world. There was also a peculiar, negative group of places she now realised he’d avoided. While working at Kendricks he usually wriggled out of trips through the middle of Oxford with offhand suggestions to take another route or the sudden recollection of somewhere else he had to be. She had noticed his aversion but taken it for a dislike of tourists, which was hardly rare in the town. It didn’t occur to her he was avoiding people he knew. Not until he’d gone.
The Thief on the Winged Horse Page 26