Prospero Lost: Prospero's Daughter, Book I (15 page)

Before leaving the gas station, Theo had shot the bear through the braincase, then fired repeatedly into the creature’s chest. He and his driver had tried to lift the carcass into Theo’s truck. They failed the first time, but with my help, we were able to heave the thing into the open back. Upon arriving, Theo had called to two farmhands, who were maneuvering a tractor between the open doors of the barn, and asked them to come help build a bonfire and burn the carcass. Twice, he seemed to think better of this plan and started off toward the farmhouse. Both times, however, he restrained himself.

He left them and strode purposefully to our car, his buff coat whipping in the wind. Mephisto lay stretched across the back seat. During the short ride from the gas station to the house, Mephisto had been writhing and twisting, muttering about starfish and his staff. Now, he lay silent and still. It was as Theo leaned over Mephisto and drew his limp body onto his shoulder that Theo had uttered his pronouncement.

This was not the greeting I had expected. Whoops of joy and a warm embrace were the more usual greeting from my favorite brother. Something was terribly wrong with the Theophrastus Prospero I had known.

Theo began carrying Mephisto toward the house. After only a few paces, his face became pale, and he began staggering. Mab got out of the car and hurried toward him. He was back in his body again, which I had restored with a drop of Water of Life—the damage was not as bad as it first looked—though he still twisted and twitched, striving to get properly situated within it.

“Let me give you a hand.” He approached Theo.

“You’ll stay here,” Theo replied sharply. His words came in breathy spurts. “I’ll have no spirits contaminating my house.” Mab grasped the brim of his hat, which the brisk winds threatened to tug from his head. He raised an eyebrow and examined the staggering and puffing Theo.

“What of Miss Miranda’s dress and the Water of Life she put on Mephisto’s lips in the car? Can they enter your hallowed house?”

Theo glanced back and forth between the house and myself, where I stood near the car, drawing closed the belt of my tattered coat. He was panting now, and his face was flushed entirely red beneath his gray beard.

“Take his feet then,” he gasped. “We’ll take him to the barn.”

The barn contained no bed or couch; however, there was a kitchen in the back. Entering it, Theo and Mab ducked under hanging brass pans and stretched Mephisto out on the long butcher-block table. I went immediately to the sink and began to fill a brass teakettle.

“I’ll need hot water, a cup, and a mortar and pestle,” I said.

“There’s mugs in the first cabinet, but I don’t keep mortars and pestles on my property.” Theo leaned on the table regaining his breath. “Will an ordinary hammer do?”

“It will have to.”

ONCE
the kettle was heating, I examined Mephisto. His face was pale and damp, his breathing shallow. The wrist where the snake had bitten him was swollen and blue. As Theo came back with the hammer, I saw him look at Mephisto. His throat constricted, and he turned away.

I laid the hammer on the counter next to a blue Garfield mug I had taken from the cabinet. From under my coat, I drew forth a heart-shaped locket I wore around my neck on a velvet ribbon. It was fashioned of silver and inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Of all my antique and aged belongings, it was the oldest, having been passed from my grandmother to my mother to me, half a millennium ago. My mother wears it in the portrait of her that hangs in the Great Hall. My father had often described to me how Lady
Portia pressed it into his hand as she died, and how he, in turn, pressed it into my infant hand the first time he held me. Within it, I kept a thin twist of white ivory, a tiny sliver of the horn so eagerly sought by knights of old for its ability to cure poison.

With the hammer, I crushed a tiny chip of ivory no longer than the nail of my pinky finger. Grinding it into powder, I brushed the result into the cup and poured in hot water. The pulverized white ivory swirled in the water, giving the liquid a pearly gleam. Carrying the mug to where Mephisto lay, I carefully dribbled the concoction down his throat, swabbing the last bit onto his swollen wrist with a paper towel from a rack over the sink. From the small, pear-shaped crystal vial I carried in my pocket, I gave him a drop of Water of Life. In addition to mending his current wounds, the Water would also help heal his infected toe and any other lingering damage that neglect or malnutrition had caused. While I did this, Mab sat on a stool on the far side of the table, where he held Mephisto’s other hand, carefully working the porcupine quills out of the flesh.

I leaned against the counter and prayed to my Lady. Curing poisons was one of the prerogatives of the Unicorn, and one of the six Gifts She granted to Her Sibyls. Were I a Sibyl, I could have cured my brother in an instant. I prayed to my Lady for Mephisto’s health and asked, for the hundred millionth time, that She might reveal to me what I needed to know to be granted entrance into the ranks of Her most cherished servants.

As I prayed silently to my Lady for Mephisto’s deliverance, a morning long ago on the windy moors of Scotland rose from my memory. I had been standing atop Grantham Tor watching for my brothers—a runner from the village, a youth paid by Father to bring his mail, brought the news that they had been spotted returning from the war. Which war, I do not recall, but it must have been an English war since we were in Scotland at the time. It might have been King James’s war against Spain, or, perhaps, it was the English Civil War, where we fought with the Cavaliers against the Roundheads and lost—though probably not that war, as, after that defeat, we fled Scotland for the Netherlands in a hurry.

The six of them came riding along the old dirt track: Mephistopheles, Theophrastus, Erasmus, Cornelius, Titus, and Gregor. They rode tired, gaunt mounts, and their once-fine garments were encrusted with mud. However, the horses had new ribbons of green and yellow woven into their manes and tails, probably put there by Theo for my benefit.

I waved and waved from atop the tor. The wind blew my plaid skirts
through the heather. It blew my hair, too, which was still as black as a raven’s wing then, whipping it across my face and out behind my head like streamers on a Maypole. My brothers waved back as they rode by on their way toward the manor, Mephisto and Titus rising in their seats to wave more enthusiastically. Theo, however, broke away from them and galloped his charger up the tor.

Reaching me, he dismounted. He wore a heavy coat that had once been red, scuffed black boots, and a pair of patched breeches. In his hand, he carried a posy of irises and primroses. He must have just picked them, for the blossoms were fresh and sweet. Theo handed them to me, bowing stiffly, and blushed when I kissed his cheek.

Taking my hands in his, he spoke to me in the overly stern manner he assumed when he was serious, which I always found pompous yet endearing.

“I thought of you often while we were separated and was troubled on your behalf. Without a husband, you have only your family to protect you. I want you to be assured that if you should ever have need, you may call upon me. Whatever I am about, I will put it aside to come protect you or avenge your honor. I give you my solemn and eternal vow.”

At the time, I laughed gaily and kissed him again, then leapt upon his horse, allowing him to lead me back through the heather to the manor. But I never forgot his words. When times were darkest, the memory of Theo’s vow always brought me comfort. Yet now, Theo was an old man, weaker than Father, and no longer immortal.

Where was my champion now?

“
HOW
long is this going to take?” Theo drew up an armchair next to the door and sat down heavily. Leaning back, he closed his eyes, breathing laboredly.

“Theo, be patient. Your brother may be dying,” I said.

“I have no brother. I left your family over fifty years ago,” Theophrastus replied.

His words shocked me. I did not know what to say.

Theo may have intended to continue talking, but a coughing fit seized him. His hacking grew stronger until his body shook with wracking spasms. From the pocket of his buff coat, he pulled a medicine bottle, shook out two pills into his hand, and swallowed them, washing them down with water from a mug resting on the counter. Then, he placed both elbows on the
counter and leaned forward, waiting for his coughing to subside. I stepped up next to him and placed my hand on his arm. Drawing out the crystal vial from my pocket, I offered it to him.

Theo’s reaction was quick and violent. He slapped the vial from my hand so that it flew across the kitchen. Quick as the wind, Mab leapt from his stool and snatched the vial from the air. Mab shoved the crystal vial into the pocket of his trench coat and resumed his work on Mephisto’s hand.

I turned on Theo.

“Darn it, Theo! You don’t have to take it, but don’t waste it! Don’t you know how difficult it is to get Water of Life? You can’t take a bus or a plane to the end of the world, you know!”

“I don’t think you want to spill that stuff, Mr. Theophrastus,” Mab drawled sardonically. “Every spirit in a thousand miles would be swarming into your barn, eager to lap it up.”

“I don’t know why you came to Vermont, but I want you to leave, now,” said Theo. “You’ve done enough damage already.”

“Damage?” I asked, taken aback. “What damage?”

“First, you led that wretched Osae the Red practically to my doorstep. Now, you’re contaminating the place with the unnatural. Isn’t that enough?” Theo asked bitterly.

Theophrastus had recognized our shapechanger. The name Osae the Red was familiar, but it floated in the haze of my memory, just out of reach. This was hardly a time for questions, so I filed the information away for later.

Theo growled. “It has taken me decades to cleanse myself of the filth of the supernatural. I have no intention of losing my chance at salvation now, after all I’ve sacrificed.”

“You’re willing to prolong your life with those little pills. How is the Water any different? If you fear Hell, one would think that you would wish to avoid death at all costs,” I replied, annoyed.

What was making Theo so antagonistic? To find out what was wrong with my brother, I would need an opportunity to speak with him at length.

“A man never knows when his day of reckoning will come. Gregor’s death showed us that. I just want to make sure that when I die, my soul is clean of the stink of the dark arts.” Theo paused. “I would like you to leave now.”

“We came here to warn you,” I said wearily. “The Three Shadowed Ones are after our staffs. I’ve given you the warning; now we’ll go away . . . but not
until Mephisto is well enough to move. If you don’t like it, you can leave, or you can shoot us.”

“He won’t be shooting anybody,” Mab growled. “Not while I’m here. Though I must say, for a mortal, his aim was excellent. Nice shot back there with the bear.”

“Thank you,” Theo replied brusquely.

Mab continued. “Now, I hate to break up this touching family reunion, but there’s a chameleon cloak in the car out there. And as stinking of the dark arts goes, it ranks up there with the
Necronomicon
. So, perhaps one of you could bind up the kid’s hand while I go out and put a ward of protection around the accursed thing.”

“A chameleon cloak?” Theo whispered, aghast. “Miranda? Have you lost your wits? You, most of all, should know the depth of the villainy of those garments. Just the presence of such an object acts as consent to allow demons to devour your soul!”

“I am aware of that,” I replied flatly.

Theo gazed at us, torn with the agony of indecision. Then, he stood and extended his hand stiffly. “Bring it. I will buy it from you.”

“What use do you have for it?” Mab’s voice was gruff with confusion.

“I’ll destroy it. Obliterate it from the face of the earth.”

“You don’t understand, we were about to . . .” Mab started to object, but I caught his eye and shook my head. Mab shut up. This was the opportunity for which I had been waiting.

“It’s a very powerful talisman, Theo. There are few objects so accursed upon the face of the earth. A person might not wish to relinquish such an object lightly,” I murmured.

Mab was staring at me from under the brim of his hat as if I had suddenly sprouted horns. Whether he was appalled or amused, I could not tell. For myself, I felt sullied even mouthing such words, but I needed a chance to sit down with my brother, give him Father’s message, and see if I could not change his mind about growing old. If Theo would not grant this graciously, I would have to wrestle it from him.

“I will offer whatever it takes,” Theo replied.

“Very well. I’ll let you destroy the cloak. In return, you let us stay here until Mephisto is well enough to travel, and you have to answer Mab’s questions.”

“Questions? About what?”

“Whatever he decides to ask.”

Theo did not answer immediately. He clenched his teeth, and a muscle in the side of his jaw jerked spasmodically beneath his beard. He looked from me to Mab to Mephisto, who lay stretched out and pale upon the table.

“Very well, you have a deal. But, as soon as he’s able . . .” He jerked his thumb at Mephisto. “You all go.”

“Great,” Mab sprang for the kitchen door. “Let’s destroy the accursed thing!”