The Queen and the Tower

by Shannon Page

  Oh, I am sorry to hear that.

  Yes. There was a tiny awkward pause. Well, thank you for calling, I told him.

  My pleasure. Let me know if you need anything.

  I will.

  I was resting on the couch when Jeremy came back at dinnertime, as promised. He brought takeout pesto linguine, green salad, and white wine. I’m sure it was delicious and perfectly prepared and all that, but I might as well have been eating cardboard.

  “I don’t think you should sleep here alone tonight,” he said, after we were finished.

  I looked up at him. “What?”

  Jeremy frowned. “We don’t know where the illness came from—a miasma in your house, something in this neighborhood—we are still at a complete loss. I don’t like to see you alone.”

  “I’m fine,” I said, automatically. “The monitor stones…”

  “I would offer to stay again,” he said, ignoring my objection, “but I cannot. I would like to take you back to the coven house. Leonora and your sisters will see to you.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t want to go there. This is my home.” I liked this warlock, he wasn’t pompous like the rest of them, but if he kept on like this…

  “Callie, listen to me. Even if there were no danger, you’re confused, you’re distraught. Grief is a complicated thing. You should not be alone with it.”

  “I’m not alone. I have Elnor,” I scritched her ears, “and Petrana.”

  He looked confused. After a moment, he said, “Your golem?”

  “Well. I have Elnor, anyway.”

  Jeremy sighed. “Please, Callie. A familiar and a constructed creature are not the same as people. Your coven will understand, they will care for you. And I must go.”

  “My coven…” I started, then said, “I don’t know.”

  He gave me a quizzical look. How much did he know about my sort-of estrangement from the coven? He wasn’t stupid. And he’d been at my dinner party.

  I thought about it. Was I being stubborn? I hardly knew how to think.

  Was it dangerous here? I could put up wards, but they didn’t screen out disease, or miasma, in Old Country terms. But, I had to admit, the place didn’t feel all that cozy to me at the moment. The traces of everyone’s spells. The low but intrusive energy of the monitor stones. The air Logan had breathed last.

  He was right, I had to admit: the coven house was full of witches who cared about me, whatever our current differences, and however bossy they could be about it. I let out a breath. “Okay. That will make Leonora happy, anyway.”

  “Good.” He looked relieved. “You can take your companions with you.”

  “Not Petrana,” I said. “I doubt Leonora will let her in the house again.”

  “Oh? What did she do?”

  “Exist.”

  Jeremy raised an eyebrow. “I see.”

  When dinner had been cleaned up, I let him guide my familiar and me along the ley line. He seemed to want to be chivalrous. Old Country manners and all that. Maybe it made him feel better. Like he was doing something. Maybe he wanted the company. He hadn’t said where he had to rush off to. Probably his father.

  Jeremy brought me to the edge of the garden fence, before the first of the house wards, and promised to contact me tomorrow. “Thank you,” I said.

  “It is my pleasure. We’ll talk soon.”

  When he had seen me safely pass the house’s first wall of wards, he smiled and vanished.

  I set Elnor down and we walked through the garden slowly, letting the house and grounds recognize us and welcome us in. Once we got inside, Leonora sort of fussed over me. It was only a few minutes before I found myself in bed, tea and cookies beside me on the nightstand. Sweet, and weird.

  My coven house bed was too small. How had I slept at all here, and for so many decades? Elnor fidgeted all night long, the room was too hot, and I felt the stifling presences of too many witches around me.

  On the plus side, breakfast was ready when I got up, laid out buffet-style on the island and stove for the sisters to take as it suited their schedules. Huge stained glass windows sent dappled light across the kitchen, highlighting the eight-burner Maglin stove—a great cast-iron monstrosity weighing down the western end of the kitchen. It, like the rest of the house, was powered almost entirely by magic, though Leonora insisted on tapping into the city’s gas and water lines, and even using them periodically. “A house this large with no utility bills attracts unwanted attention,” she had said, so we sometimes cooked the human way.

  The room was empty—it was nearly ten-thirty in the morning—and the stove was polished so clean it practically glowed, though the food in covered pans on three of its burners remained hot and fresh. I served myself some toast and scrambled eggs, ignoring the quail hash and red wine gravy—too much, too rich. I conjured myself a cup of pennyroyal tea, found a can of tuna for Elnor, and sat on the window seat, looking out through one of the few clear panes. The view from here was spectacular: a wide swath of downtown and the bay beyond it.

  It was a nice house, I had to admit. It took being away for a while to let me actually see it again. Three stories high plus a half-basement built into the slope, it perched atop a hill on the south end of the Castro on a quarter acre of land. Unthinkable in San Francisco, but there it was. Of course, this San Francisco hadn’t existed when it was built, over a century and a half ago. Leonora had acquired it in the chaos following the 1906 earthquake and fire, and had spent the last hundred or so years making it comfortable, useful, and intensely magical. To humans, it just looked like a fancy house on a big lot with a view. Nothing special. But it bristled with wards and defenses, laid deep into the earth and soaring to the sky.

  I ate half my eggs and a few bites of toast before setting the plate on the windowsill. As I sipped my tea, I heard tentative footsteps entering the kitchen. “Hello, Gracie,” I said, without turning around.

  “I’m sorry about your friend.” My fifteen-year-old student came and sat by me on the window seat, her heart-shaped face filled with concern.

  “Thank you.”

  “Leonora says we should all stay indoors till they figure out what caused it.”

  “That’s probably a good idea,” I said to her. Whether I agreed or not, I wouldn’t undermine Leonora’s authority here.

  Gracie looked a little disappointed, but she nodded. “Do you think it’s contagious?”

  “I have no idea. But the healers and the Elders are working on it, and I’m sure they’ll figure it out very soon.”

  She looked at me, brown eyes serious under dark hair. I could see she wasn’t entirely buying it.

  “I know they’re doing all they can,” I added.

  Niad walked into the room. “Oh, good, I thought I sensed you in here.”

  “Good morning, Niad,” I said.

  “She has not let go, you know.”

  I gave her a blank stare. “What?”

  “Your friend. Her body is not going to the soil.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Niad sighed. “She’s not decaying. It’s as though she left a moment ago.”

  “What?” A bright strand of hope stabbed through me. “Do they think that—” Had she just stepped out of her body—if we found her spirit, could she rejoin it—come back?

  Niad shook her head, clearly following my line of thought. “No. The body itself is quite dead; she has left it. And yet it won’t break down.”

  “Oh.” I set my teacup down, dismayed and confused. There had been that odd spark of color in Logan’s cheeks. “Several of us have tried to contact her spirit.”

  “Leonora has as well. She tried all night, in fact, but never found her. Not even Nementhe could help.” Niad gave me a probing look. “What was she up to, anyway?”

  “Nothing! What do you mean?”

  Niad shrugged. “Drained essence, body not spoiling, spirit missing, all from some mysterious ‘disease’ no one has ever heard of…sounds to me like she may h
ave been involved in some pretty dark stuff.”

  “She was not!”

  “You sure she wasn’t trying to get hold of demons?”

  “No! Are you crazy? She read tarot cards for tourists on Pier 39.”

  “Wasn’t she always poking around the Old Country, looking for her parents?”

  “She’s never been to the Old Country. All she did was divinations, from here.”

  “I see. Well—”

  “Niadine, that is enough,” Leonora interrupted. I hadn’t even noticed her come in. “I shall speak to Calendula alone, if you please.”

  “Come along, Gracie,” Niad said.

  “Shall we go into my study?” My coven mother nodded at the door of the converted sun-porch off the kitchen, her worn face gentle and caring. Calmness exuded from her, bathing me in comfort and warmth. It was at times like this that I remembered why I had joined her house.

  I hadn’t counted on Logan’s body also being in Leonora’s study, but it made sense. Here was where Leonora performed her more private works and divinations. The seat of her power, as it were.

  Still, it was unsettling. The fur on Elnor’s back rose, and she glanced up at me. I petted her as I looked at the body.

  Niad was right. Logan looked like she had departed moments before—or as if she were sleeping. I almost expected to see her take a breath.

  “Please, have a seat,” Leonora said, her voice still gentle. She arranged herself, and her familiar, into her large easy chair. A huge stained-glass window depicting a regally gowned queen shone at Leonora’s back. All the windows on this floor depicted some form of female power and strength; upstairs, smaller windows held images related to magic—the moon, various botanicals, cats.

  I chose the left-most chair and turned it slightly, so that Logan’s body was out of my line of vision. Elnor jumped into my lap and took a moment to settle. Only then did I realize what was missing. “Is Willson here?”

  “Her familiar? No. Isn’t he at your house?”

  I shook my head, blinking away tears as I looked away for a moment. “No,” I managed.

  “Hm. Perhaps he returned to her apartment.” Leonora leaned forward slightly and caught my gaze, scanning my essence. “How did you sleep?”

  “Not well,” I admitted.

  She nodded. “You must take care, especially now, for the next few weeks. Your emotions are fragile, and the moon is waning: do not do any strenuous work or make any major decisions during this period.”

  “I hadn’t planned anything major…”

  She gave me a pointed look. “As Logandina was your particular friend, and the incident was in your house, I would like you to refrain from participating in the search for any cause.”

  “What?” I leaned forward in my chair. “Are you kidding?”

  “I most certainly am not. It would be dangerous for you on several levels. I would also like you to stay away from your laboratory work, until the new moon at the very soonest.”

  “But…what does that have to do with anything?”

  “It is a drain on your resources, and of no actual urgency. And I want you to stay here at the house until further notice.”

  The look on her face was deceptively mild. I wanted to protest, but I was too exhausted and distraught to say more than, “Yes, Mother.”

  Leonora shifted her weight in her chair. “Logandina was a peculiar witch. I confess I have always been surprised at your close friendship.”

  “She was sweet, and gentle, and kind.” I struggled to keep my voice calm.

  “She was weak, obsessed with her parents’ disappearance, and would have been entirely friendless if not for you.”

  I leaned forward again. “What are you saying? That she deserved to be yanked off this plane without warning and thrown—somewhere? Just because she wasn’t like the rest of us?”

  “Of course not.” She scratched at Grieka’s ears. “I do not mean to upset you, Calendula. I am merely observing that, of all of our city’s daughters who have been educated here, she is one of those I understand the least. And that is problematic, in any search for what has taken her.”

  “So why keep me out of the search? Shouldn’t I be involved?”

  “If and when I become assured that you are not also a target, I will consider involving you.” She got to her feet, ushering me up as well. “But until then: I want you to stay safe, here, and get plenty of rest.”

  “A target? What do you mean?”

  “I mean that the incident took place in your house. A place where none of our kind has lived before. Such a change may not have escaped notice.”

  I gaped at her. “Notice by who? Do you think some…intelligence is behind this?”

  “At the moment, when nothing is clear, anything is possible. I wish to take no chances.”

  “My house is safe, I know it is.”

  She looked at me pointedly. “How do you know this?”

  “I work powerful magic there. It feels like home to me, it welcomes me in. And all the investigators found nothing amiss.” Well, nothing much.

  “Even so. I myself am not yet convinced. I wish you to rest and recover from your distress, Calendula.”

  It was pointless to argue with her, and, well, she wasn’t wrong about my state of mind. “Yes, Mother.”

  The study door closed behind me. I walked through the kitchen, then took the back stairs to the second floor, avoiding everyone.

  I hadn’t thought I ever wanted to see that stupid tiny bed again, but now I welcomed it. My pillow could barely contain all my tears.

  — CHAPTER TEN —

  I managed to stay a week or more at the coven house, almost without thinking about it. That’s another thing about grief: it distorts time. I lost countless hours, sometimes a whole day, existing in a sort of shocked daze. I slept a lot—almost as much as humans do. I picked at my food, when I remembered to eat at all. I looked through the æther at my house only once. It appeared unchanged, uninhabited except for Petrana standing idly in the kitchen.

  It had been silly of me to designate a bedroom for her, hadn’t it? She wasn’t a person. She would just stand forever where I’d left her, and think nothing of it. What was she going to do with a bedroom—sleep? Change clothes? Read a book?

  Maybe Niad was right, to mock me for naming her. But…I had created her.

  But…it wasn’t as though she was a daughter. Or even really alive.

  Leonora and my sisters kept me out of whatever they were doing to assist the investigations into Logan’s departure—not that I tried all that hard to participate. I got calls through the æther from my birth mother, from Sebastian Fallon, and from Jeremy Andromedus. All very sweet, and all without any answers.

  I ignored Raymond’s increasingly anxious voicemails, until my cell phone’s battery died.

  It was like waking up from a particularly bad dream, when I came back to myself. Except it hadn’t been a dream…Logan was still gone. But I was here.

  I washed my face, pulled on some clothes, and went downstairs in search of a cup of tea. I thought I’d make it by hand. Use some physical resources, keep up our disguise.

  Leonora was in the kitchen. “Calendula, I was about to call to you,” she said.

  “Yes, Mother?” I rummaged through the cupboard, finding the pennyroyal.

  “Dr. Andromedus has contacted me. The Elders have scoured the city and its environs, and there is no evidence of any infectious agent, nor of any being or creature with evil intent. We still do not know the cause of the departure of Logandina’s spirit. But they have lifted the advisory that we should all stay indoors, behind wards.”

  “Oh.” I filled a kettle with water and put it on the stove, lighting the flame with a flick of my fingers. “So…nothing?”

  She shook her head. “Nothing that anyone has been able to detect. And as no one else has become affected, they feel it is safe to resume our normal activities.”

  “That’s…” I didn’t finish the sentence; I
didn’t know what it was. Unsatisfying. Stupid. Impossible. Confusing. Wrong.

  “I still would prefer that you take care of yourself,” she went on, in a more gentle tone. “Of course.”

  “Of course.” The kettle whistled. I poured hot water over the tea leaves and stirred absently. The leaves collected at the bottom of the cup. “I, um, should maybe go check on my house?” I asked, cringing at my own tentative tone. Would I ever be my old self again? Clearly I wasn’t fully back.

  “You may do so,” she said. “Although the Elders have investigated the house quite thoroughly, I would appreciate your letting me know if you notice anything unusual.”

  “Yes, Mother.” She was right: as it was my house, increasingly bound to my energetic signature, I might well perceive things that were invisible to anyone else.

  I pointed at the cup; the leaves vanished, leaving only brewed tea. Leonora went into her office. I drank my tea. I sort of tasted it.

  When I was done, I rinsed the cup, picked up Elnor, and slipped onto a ley line.

  Instead of going straight to my house, I went to a small café near it, one I’d been to a few times as I was getting to know the neighborhood. It was a human spot, so I had to cast a tiny zone of inattention around Elnor. Fortunately, she was as happy to get out as I was, and didn’t meow and screw it up.

  From this safe distance, I scanned the energetic surroundings of my home, probing as much as I could. But I detected nothing amiss—beyond the fact that it had been full of strangers over the last week. The channelers had been back through, checking their stones, replacing several of them. Had I given them permission to? I must have.

  It did, at least, seem to be safe there now.

  I sighed, sipping an overpriced cup of watery human-strength tea I didn’t even want, thinking about…everything. It made no sense. And my brain was still going in circles. I was never going to figure anything out all alone. I just didn’t know enough.

  Opening a channel to the æther, I sent a message to Jeremy: Leonora told me that the Elders have declared the city safe.

  He responded at once: Well, they have said we need no longer shelter indoors, behind wards. Not exactly the same thing.