Charles Bewitched (3 page)

Lorrie nodded. “That too—in
fact, she won’t even go near a window on those days—but not as often for the
few days. She says—oh, it’s foolishness, but on those days she says that if she
can be strong and ignore the calls long enough, that maybe they’ll change their
mind and let her go.”

A cold finger seemed to
brush the back of his neck. “What do you think she means? Who’s calling her?
Does Lochinvar know she said that?”

“I don’t know.” Lorrie
looked unhappy. “I haven’t told Lord Seton, but maybe I should. And as for whom
she thinks is calling—”

“Lochinvar did say the
gypsies were around Galiswood right now. You don’t think…” Charles trailed into
hopeful silence, but she shook her head.

“It makes no sense. Why
should the gypsies be calling her, or it be so difficult for her to ignore them
if they were? No, there’s something else. Some
one
else. I just fear
that—”

There was a scratching at
the door, and the footman came in bearing a large tea tray. He set it down on
the table between them. Lorrie thanked him and poured Charles a cup of tea, put
in the milk and three spoonfuls of sugar he liked—good on her for
remembering!—and handed it to him. He took a polite sip, then put it down and
dove into the plate of sandwiches on the tray. Oh, deviled ham and
egg-and-anchovy—first rate! No fussy watercress or cucumber for him. Lord
Northgalis’s cook knew what she was doing, all right.

“You said you’re afraid of
something,” he prompted her a few sandwiches later. “What?”

Lorrie had poured herself
some tea but sat staring unseeing into her cup. She stirred and looked up at
him. “I fear that sometime—next month or week, or tomorrow—she won’t be able to
run fast enough and they’ll catch her. And then—”

“
Who
will?”

“Whom do you think? You’ve
seen the barrows near this house. As soon as I came here with your sister, I
knew
they
were around, watching. Haven’t you felt them?”

This time an entire handful
of cold fingers seemed to grasp his neck. “You mean…the Fair Folk?”

“You don’t have to whisper.
It’s not like they’re hiding in the woodwork,” Lorrie said. “You can even say
their name, except that ‘the Fair Folk’ isn’t what they call themselves. You’ve
lived here all your life—haven’t you ever seen them?”

“Then they really do live in
the barrows? No, I haven’t seen them—there aren’t any near Mage’s Tutterow. How
do you know about them?”

She sighed impatiently.
Charles felt somewhat comforted—
that
was more like the Lorrie Allardyce
he knew. “I grew up surrounded by books on magic, remember? Of course I know
about the fairies. I’ve read a great deal about them. They—I—they’re a very
interesting topic of study.”

For some reason, her cheeks
had grown pink, Charles noticed. He thought about asking her why, but there
were more important matters at hand. “So are they ancient Britons, like
Lochinvar said some people think?” he asked.

Lorrie’s eyes darkened. “Oh,
no. They’re not human. Not remotely. I’m surprised they don’t live near your
family’s home—the magic in the stones should draw them, even though there
hadn’t been any Leland witches for a long time till your sisters—”

“And me,” Charles added.
After all, he had magic too.

“And you, though I can’t say
I was impressed by your spell-casting last time you were home on holiday.”

He ignored her. “So what do
they want with Persy?”

She hesitated and looked at
him for a moment, as if deciding what she should say. “I don’t know for sure,
but I might guess,” she finally said.

Oh, honestly. Why wouldn’t
she just
tell
him instead of making him drag it out of her this way?
Were all females this difficult? “What?”

She looked down at her cup
again. “The fairies aren’t entirely of this world,” she said to it. “But they
aren’t entirely
not
part of it, either. You know how they sometimes
steal humans away, don’t you? The reason they do that is—is because adding a
strain of human blood to their race strengthens them—makes it easier for them
to keep their grip on this world. Sometimes they take human children and raise
them as their own…but sometimes they take strong young women for…you know.” She
kept her eyes averted. “The fact that she’s a witch makes her even more
attractive to them. A human with magical abilities? Who would make a better
bride for a fairy?”

He frowned. “But she’s
already married! They can’t do that!”

“Let’s hope they don’t,”
Lorrie said with a shiver.

Charles looked at the
half-eaten sandwich he still held and set it down on his plate, then got up
from his chair and started to pace. It felt good to move. “Have you talked to
Persy about any of this?” he demanded.

Lorrie shook her head and
looked unhappy. “You haven’t seen her—it’s gotten almost impossible to talk to her
the last few days. It’s like she’s not entirely here—like she’s listening to
something no one else can hear. And…well, I’m just her maid, aren’t I? It’s not
like I can just bring things up like this with her.”

“Why not? You were her
friend first.”

“Not really. I may have met
her a few times before I came to your house pretending to be her new maid while
we were looking for my sister, but it’s not as if we’d truly been friends. It
was very kind of her to let me stay on, and being a lady’s maid has been more
interesting than spending my days dusting the books and sweeping the floor in
my father’s shop—at least for a while—but I don’t...oh, never mind that now.”
She made an impatient gesture.

Charles went to the door.
“Well, I think we need to talk to Persy. As soon as she gets in from her
walk.”  It was a good thing he’d arrived, wasn’t it? Someone had to take charge
here.

“Where are you going?”
Lorrie suddenly looked tired, as if she’d been running against a strong wind.

“To go read about a lot of
dead kings till my sister gets back.” He paused, then returned and took the
plate of sandwiches. As his tutor was fond of saying, waste not, want not.

Except that Persy still
hadn’t come home hours later, when it was nearly time to dress for dinner.
Charles had taken
History and Policy of the Norman and Angevin Kings
, as
it was the shortest book in his pile, and the sandwiches down to a sunny spot
on the lawn at the front of the house so that he could keep an eye out for her
as he read. But as the shadows lengthened he did less reading and more
watching, until the crunch of a horse’s hooves on the gravel drive made him
abandon his book altogether to see who was coming.

Or rather, going. It was
Lochinvar, on Lord Chesterfield, on his way from the stables. Charles jumped
up. “Out for a ride?” he called as he hurried toward him.

Lochinvar waved. “Just a
quick one before dinner,” he replied cheerfully. But when Charles reached him,
his expression was anything but cheerful. “I’m going out to look for Persy,” he
said in a low voice. “She’s never been out this late before, and I’m worried
she might have fallen and twisted her ankle. Don’t say anything—I don’t want to
worry the staff unnecessarily.”

Charles thought of Lorrie’s
furrowed brow. “They’re already worried, some of them. Do you want me to come
too? It’ll only take them a minute to saddle someone for me.”

Lochinvar shook his head.
“Thank you, but I don’t think it’s necessary. I’m sure I’ll be back with her
inside a half-hour.” He smiled in a way that Charles guessed was probably
supposed to be reassuring, and set Lord Chesterfield into a trot down the
drive.

Charles watched him for a
few minutes, frowning. If Persy had been walking in the woods, wouldn’t it make
more sense to look for her on foot? If she
had
fallen and hurt herself,
it would easy enough to run back to the house for help. He crammed
Norman
and Angevin Kings
into his pocket and headed for the woods at the edge of
the South Lawn, where the trees grew thickly enough that Lochinvar wouldn’t be
able to ride through them.

Under the trees, dusk had
already started to fall. Charles plunged among them for few dozen yards then
stood still for a moment to let his eyes accustom themselves to the shadowy
woods. The fresh westerly breeze that had kept him comfortable in the afternoon
sun scarcely penetrated here, and only a faint rustling of leaves from above
broke the dim silence. Charles cleared his throat.

“Persy?” he called.

One of the shadows moved. He
drew his breath in sharply...and then the shadow resolved itself into a
dark-haired boy, smaller than he—maybe ten or eleven. Charles sighed noisily.
“I say, you startled me! Have you seen—”

The boy stared back at
Charles for the space of a breath, then turned and ran.

“Hey!” Charles lit after
him. What was wrong with him? Was he afraid of being told off for trespassing?
“It’s all right! You don’t have to run—I only want to speak with you.”

The boy continued to dodge
trees, darting from side to side like a frightened rabbit. Charles kept up,
though it wasn’t always easy to avoid the undergrowth obscured by shadows.
“Please—I need your help!”

The boy slowed slightly, as
if trying to decide what to do…and then, abruptly, fell on his face. Charles
caught up to him a few seconds later and saw the tree root that had tripped the
lad. “Here,” he said kindly, holding out his hand. “Are you all right?”

The boy tried to scramble to
his feet, but it was obvious that he’d had the wind knocked out of him. “I
didn’t do nothin’!” he gasped.

“I didn’t think you had. I
just wanted to ask you a question.”

The boy continued to stare
at him but seemed less inclined to dart back into the trees. His eyes were as
dark as his hair, enormous in his thin face. He looked as though a few extra
dinners would not come amiss, and even in the dimness it was clear that his
clothes were threadbare. “What is it, then?” he said, when he had begun to
catch his breath. A slight belligerence edged his voice.

“I’m looking for my sister.
We’re afraid she might have gotten lost or hurt herself walking in the woods. I
just wondered if you might have seen her.” Charles made himself speak slowly
and gently, and let his hands hang loosely at his sides where the boy could see
them.

It seemed to work; the boy’s
shoulders relaxed a fraction. “A
gadji
?” he said. “Yah, I might have
seen.”

A—a
gadji
? What was
he talking about? Charles blinked, and then understood. “You’re a gypsy, aren’t
you? I saw the smoke from your fires.”

The boy bristled. “We ain’t
gypsies. We’re Romany. An’ what of it? We camped there before—we don’t come
near your big house.”

“I know,” Charles said
soothingly. “It’s all right. No one’s going to chase you away.” Lochinvar’s
father, Lord Northgalis, was notoriously soft-hearted when it came to letting
gypsies camp on his land and gather fallen firewood. They’d always repaid his
kindness by respecting his game birds and poultry yard. “You think you might
have seen my sister? She’s tall, with blue eyes—” He stopped, struck by the
large dark eyes fastened on him, and reached carefully into the coat pocket not
occupied by hideous summer reading material.

“Here,” he said, producing
the last two sandwiches from his tea with Lorrie, wrapped carefully in his
handkerchief for future consumption. “Are you hungry? It’s getting late and it
would be a shame if you missed your supper.”

The boy stared at his
outstretched hand and then at him, as if calculating how quickly he’d have to
move in case this were a trick. Then he lunged forward and snatched the packet
before stepping back a pace or two. Charles waited silently while he unwrapped
the sandwiches, sniffed at them suspiciously then, satisfied that they weren’t
poisonous, stuffed his mouth with them.

“I saw her, all right,” he
said thickly through a mouthful of deviled ham, a few minutes later. “She’s
your sister?”

Charles nodded, glad he’d
had the impulse to give him the sandwiches; the boy seemed much less inclined
to bolt now. “My eldest sister. She’s married to Lord Northgalis’s son.”

“Eeee,” said the boy, after
a large swallow. “She the big lord’s
bori
? That’s bad, that is.”

Charles’s stomach
flip-flopped unpleasantly. “Why? What’s bad about it? Where did you see her?”

He had to wait for any
further information while the boy chewed through another enormous mouthful.
“The
gadji
I saw—I seen her a lot, walking in the woods ever since we
got here. She always alone, looking scared, but she don’t go back to her house
like she should.”

“Yes—go on!”

The boy shrugged and wiped
his mouth on a ragged sleeve. “She’s gone.
They
took her.”

“Who?”

The boy glanced around him,
then sidled closer. “
Biti Foki
. A lot of them—as many as both my hands,
twice.” He held them out, wiggling his fingers. “They wore cloaks the same
color as leaves so it was hard to see them, but I saw their long bows and their
white faces. The tallest one was carrying her—” he mimicked cradling something
tenderly against his chest. “They got her with their little arrows so that she
would sleep and not struggle. They were singing, like they were happy, but I
don’t know the words they talk. I hid so they didn’t see me—I didn’t want them
shooting me with one of their big arrows so that I never wake up no more.” He
nodded solemnly.

Charles felt as if his ears
had gone numb—as if all of him had—as he tried to take in the boy’s words.
Persy had been kidnapped by pale-faced men carrying bows…except that if Lorrie
were right, they hadn’t been men at all. The thought broke his paralysis.

“You’ve got to come with
me,” he said, reaching out to take the boy’s hand. “You’ve got to tell
Lochinvar and Lorrie what you saw. How long ago did you see them? Maybe if we
hurry we can go after them—”

But the boy had stepped back
in alarm from Charles’s outstretched hand, then turned and ran.

“Wait!” Charles shouted
after him. “Where did you see them? Where were they going?”

The boy didn’t reply.
Charles took a half-hearted step or two after him then changed his mind. He had
to find Lochinvar.

But Lochinvar proved difficult
to find. He was still gone when Charles returned to the house; Charles fidgeted
in his room for nearly an hour, waiting for either him or Persy to come home. The
bang of the front door at long last broke the tension: Charles darted from his
room to see who had arrived, but all he saw as he hung over the banister was
Pearson, the butler, ringing a loud hand bell in the front hall. All the
servants came running; only something dire like fire or flood would merit such
a summons. They gathered around the butler’s sturdy form. A few minutes later
the female servants left, whispering in twos and threes, while the male
servants filed behind Pearson into the library. Charles frowned and hurried
down the stairs, sidling into the library after them.

Lochinvar and Lord
Northgalis were there, dividing the servants into pairs and giving them terse
directions then sending them out of the room. Charles tried to get Lochinvar’s
attention but he was too intent on his task to pay him any mind—and before
Charles knew it, had hurried out himself.

“Lochinvar!” he called,
running to the door to catch up with him.

He didn’t so much as pause.
“Not now, Charles,” he said shortly.

“I need to tell you
something—”

But he’d already joined his
valet, Parker, who awaited him at the front door, and they were gone.

“Blast it!” Charles muttered
to himself, then remembered that Lord Northgalis was still there. “I’m sorry,
sir. It—it’s Persy, isn’t it? Lochinvar didn’t find her?”

Lochinvar’s father sat down
heavily in a chair and rumpled his gray hair in distraction. “No, he didn’t.”
His usual expression of absentminded benignity had been replaced with worry and
grief. “We’ve sent the footmen and grooms and gardeners out to look through the
home woods before it gets completely dark. I—I don’t like to think of her out
there, alone in the dark.”

Charles hesitated. Should he
tell Lord Northgalis what the gypsy boy had told him? How much did he know
about Persy and her magic—or about the supernatural creatures living on his own
land? “I’m sure she’s…well, she’s not silly and vaporish like most girls,” he
said bracingly. “Even if she fell and hurt herself or something, she won’t be
scared.”

Perhaps it hadn’t been the
most comforting thing to say after all; Charles saw a tear slide down Lord
Northgalis’s cheek. “I—I could not bear it if something has happened to our
Persephone. Known her since she was a baby…she is so dear to us—to me. I lost
Lochinvar’s mother far too soon…I don’t want my son go through the same horror
I did.”

Charles gulped. Lady
Northgalis had died when Lochinvar was still a young child, and Lord Northgalis
had never even considered remarrying. “I’m sure they’ll find her, sir,” he
said.

Lord Northgalis looked at
him bleakly. “I forget that she’s your sister, too. What will your mother and
father say to me?” He rested his elbow on the arm of his chair and shaded his
eyes with one hand.

“Er…excuse me, sir,” Charles
muttered, and slipped out of the library. It was time to find Lorrie and tell
her what he’d learned.

It was close to eleven
before Lochinvar came back. The menservants continued to search in the summer
night, armed now with torches and lanterns, but his valet had made him come
back to the house for a few minutes’ rest and a bite to eat. Dinner had more or
less been forgotten by everyone; Mrs. Harris, the cook, had given up and set
out a buffet of cold meat and bread and cheese in the kitchen for the searchers
as they came to and from the house.

“What are you doing still
up?” Lochinvar said when he caught sight of Charles standing in the library
doorway. “No, I can’t eat that now, for God’s sake, man,” he added irritably to
Parker, who stood next to him with a covered plate.

“It won’t help her ladyship
if you don’t have enough strength to go out and look for her,” the valet said
sternly.

Lochinvar sighed. “Very
well. Set it down and fetch me a coat not soaked in dew, will you? And change
yours, while you’re about it—it won’t help her ladyship if either of us catches
cold.”

The valet smiled grimly,
helped Lochinvar off with his coat, and left the room. Charles let him through
and came in, Lorrie following close on his heels. Lochinvar, who’d sat down and
was gazing unenthusiastically at the fricasseed chicken on his plate, looked up
and raised his eyebrows at them.

“We know what’s happened to
Persy,” Charles said. No sense trying to ease into it. “Lorrie—er, Miss
Allardyce had sort of guessed that it might happen, and then the gypsy boy told
me—”

“What?” Lochinvar rose,
nearly knocking his chair over. Charles had never seen his usually calm,
composed brother-in-law so tense, so close to explosion. “What about the
gypsies? Allardyce, what is this about?”