by My errand was of a peculiar nature. It related to employing my Merlin magick at Home, in ways that hadn’t occurred to me to do before. Ophelia had only loaned me that power, but she had made no move to take it back, yet. We’d agreed on a week, so I had time.
And I had questions. Lots of them. I’d had questions ever since I had joined the Society, of course; everyone did. But I’d learned a lot since then, and I finally had an idea about the nature of our Home and how it worked.
And that being so, I was curious, so I had to test it. Right? Who could possibly resist temptation like that?
It couldn’t be done just anywhere, though. I made my way, slowly and uncertainly, through the winding corridors of our beloved and enormous House, and after wrong turns aplenty (even superpowered, I still have to be me), I found myself at the door to House’s favourite room.
I knocked.
‘Dear House. I know it is a trifle rude to arrive uninvited and unannounced, but this is important. Would you be so kind as to let me in?’
Silence.
Then, a click. The door had unlocked.
I turned the handle, and went in.
The room stood quiet and empty. I closed the door behind me, and took a seat on one of the upholstered ivory chairs. A fire flared to life in the grate, and a comforting warmth began to permeate the October chill in the air.
I sat in comfortable silence for a while, enjoying the ambience of the parlour. The grandfather clock tick-tocked to itself in the corner, a peaceful sound, and I began to relax.
The portrait of the troll lady in court dress was still there, above the chair Emellana had lately occupied. I studied it more closely than I’d had occasion to do before. She was of Emellana’s age, I judged: fairly elderly, but still spry. Her gown was an extravagant blue velvet creation, seventeenth-century in style, with a wealth of lace and ruffles and jewels. She was a court lady, no doubt about it. But: which court?
I looked around at the rest of the paintings. There were five more: two depicting figures in seventeenth-century dress, one male, black and Yllanfalen, one female, white and human. Another showed a young man with dark brown skin wearing the plain garb of an eighteenth-century tradesman. The final two depicted a little girl in a plain white Edwardian dress, and an elderly, blue-eyed lady in an eighteen-thirties day dress and sun bonnet.
The child’s portrait didn’t fit my theory, but the rest just might. My gaze lingered in particular on the older lady in the sun bonnet.
I closed my eyes. Time to listen; time to feel. I’d connected with the odd, old house at Silvessen in deeper ways than I’d ever connected with anything before; could I do the same at Home?
I sat there enveloped in near silence, breathing deeply, listening to every slight sound that reached my senses. The tick, tick of the clock. The soft crackle of flames in the hearth. I breathed in the dust of hundreds of years with every inhalation; I felt the softness of carpet under my feet and silk under my hands, a cold wind in my eaves, the chatter of birds sheltering from the weather somewhere under my roof. A comfortable babble of voices, the warmth of many bodies gathered under my embrace. The odd cocktail of smells from the kitchens, from the lab, from the surrounding woods and fields.
A knock came softly from somewhere; a door opened in response, and closed again. Not the parlour. Somewhere farther off.
I gathered my strength, and pushed gently against the door that had just closed.
It opened again.
‘Sorry,’ I gasped, surprised, and retreated, slamming the door behind myself again.
There was a pause.
‘Hello?’ I said into the silence.
I felt a palpable surprise exceeding even my own. Then a questing, curious touch on my senses, all my senses: they were exploring me.
‘I come in peace,’ I offered. ‘I’m just— interested. In who you are.’
An answer came, finally. Merlin, uttered a voice in the depths of my mind. It has been a long time.
‘I’m only a new Merlin,’ I explained. ‘Brand new. I’ve been here at the Society for a while, though.’
We know you, Cordelia Vesper.
We. That tallied with my suspicions.
I felt a rising excitement, and had to take a breath. Focus, Ves. Don’t get overexcited and ruin everything. ‘May I know who I am addressing? Are these your portraits?’
The faces we once wore are here commemorated, answered the voice. They are but echoes, now.
‘Memories,’ I supplied.
Yes.
Time for the million-pound question.
‘You recognise me as Merlin. Is that because you are archetypes, too?’
A fresh wave of surprise. Not now, came the answer.
‘Former archetypes. And when you passed on the role, and passed away, you chose to remain here.’
Not all of us chose to remain. Some journeyed on.
I felt thrilled, the delight you get from solving a fiendishly difficult puzzle. For more than a decade, I’d wondered how House came to be so — animated. Everyone had. And now I finally had something like an answer.
The spirits of former archetypes resided here. They were haunting the House, after a fashion; the way the Greyer sisters had haunted their cottage after death, and the way the Yllanfalen women of Silvessen haunted the craggy old house on the edge of the town. Except, not like that. They didn’t linger out of bitterness and rage, and they hadn’t been enslaved. They were here because they had loved the House in life, and they chose to remain with it after death.
I thought of the painting of Cicily Werewode, the way some part of her spirit was bound into it. Probably some part of those arts was employed here, too. The people depicted were dead, and yet they weren’t; they lived on, their consciousness laced through canvas and oils, through brick and stone and tile. Bound to the House, and to each other, but bound in love, not hatred.
‘Greetings,’ I said brightly. ‘It’s an honour to meet you. Which archetype did you embody, if I may ask? Were you all the same archetype, at different times? Or different ones? Is it the same one Milady currently embodies?’
Too many questions. I knew it as I uttered them, but they poured out of me anyway. I was just so interested, and Milady was so maddeningly vague.
I felt a flicker of something like amusement. More than just a flicker. A wave of it, coming from everywhere at once.
So much curiosity, said a voice, and it felt like a different person speaking. An enquiring mind.
I hoped I wasn’t imagining the approval that came with the statement.
‘I have more,’ I offered. ‘Lots more.’
There followed a pause. Were they thinking? Don’t think, I silently pleaded. Just answer!
The next voice, though, was very recognisable to me. It sliced through my thoughts with enough force to give me a blinding headache. Ves. Leave this alone.
Milady.
Curses.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said quickly, and not altogether sincerely. ‘Can’t I ask?’
It is rude to pry, came Milady’s somewhat flabbergasting answer. Kindly remember your manners.
My manners?
I ground my teeth in silent frustration. I could see her point, more than I liked. I was poking and prying, trying to find my way through to secrets about Milady’s identity which she hadn’t chosen to share. I did not have that right.
Even so, it was maddeningly frustrating to have to leave it alone and back away. I was so close to solving the mystery!
I know, Ves, said Milady. It is very disappointing. But I remain unmoved.
I sighed, and relinquished the argument. I withdrew my senses from the dear old House, returning to the Ves I’d left behind: a pint-sized human with fabulous hair, slumped in an ivory silken chair. My limbs had gone dead in my absence; I shook life back into them, and took some care as I stood up.
I made a curtsey, to Milady and also to the various souls inhabiting the House. ‘Thank you for your time,’ I said, scrupulously polite. ‘I’ll show myself out.’
The door didn’t quite slam shut behind me, but it did lock in a manner I’d term decisive.
I wouldn’t be getting back into House’s favourite room any time soon.
***
My last errand for the day was of a less pleasant nature. As if bearing Milady’s disapproval (twice over) wasn’t enough, I was going to have to put up with my mother’s, too.
Oh well. I’d dropped myself in it, and had nobody else to blame.
I trailed back to my room, and picked up my phone.
Taking a deep breath, I dialled my mother’s number.
She picked up after the first ring, taking me by surprise. Normally she ignores my calls. ‘Cordelia. What do you want?’
‘Can’t I be calling just to say hel—’
‘Don’t bother. Get on with it.’
‘Right. Fair cop. I’ve got a problem.’
‘And?’
‘Well, to be accurate I’ve created a problem.’
‘And now you’re making it my problem.’
‘Sort of. A little bit. Are you disposed to help me or not?’
‘Depends what it is.’
So I launched into the Tale of the Dance Battle yet again, though I offered Mother a somewhat curtailed version.
Despite this, the silence when I’d finished was liberally flavoured with incredulity.
‘Yes, I know, I’m a complete screw-up,’ I said, before she could have a chance to say it herself.
‘Did it work?’
‘Well, it did. More or less.’
‘Then it wasn’t a screw-up, was it?’
‘Are you being supportive? Because I’m not sure I can take any more surprises today.’
‘Did we get to the part where you tell me what you want yet?’
‘Right. So Silvessen was probably an Yllanfalen town, and if we’re going to rebuild it sensitively then we need Yllanfalen aid.’
‘That can probably be arranged.’
‘And materials. Lots of those.’
That gave her pause. ‘I can’t just spirit up sufficient building materials to reconstruct an entire town, Ves.’
‘I know, but I’m stuck, so whatever you’ve got I’ll take.’
‘Noted. Oh, call your father.’
‘What? Why?’
‘Because it’s his birthday tomorrow.’
‘Right. I know stuff like that, of course, because I’ve had a long and rewarding relationship with him up until now.’
‘Also, he’s a stonemason.’
‘He’s what?’
‘Did you not hear me, or are you just being difficult?’
A stonemason. Whose birthday was tomorrow. I realised afresh how little I knew about my father. ‘I don’t have his number,’ I said.
‘I’ll send it. Tell him I told him to help you.’
‘Will that work?’
‘It will if he knows what’s good for him.’
She hung up.
A moment later, my phone buzzed with a message. Dad’s number unfurled across my screen.
All of this was rather unexpected. I took my time over saving his number to my contacts, and adding his name. Thomas Goldwell. Tom.
I was procrastinating, probably because I was nervous. He hadn’t seemed super pleased to learn of my existence before, and though I had given him my number the one time I’d met him, he had yet to call me.
That suggested he didn’t want anything to do with me, didn’t it?
Still. I wasn’t calling him to propose a happy family gathering. I was calling him to engage his professional services for Silvessen. Mostly.
The phone rang several times before he answered. ‘Hello?’
I swallowed a flutter of nerves, and pasted on a smile. ‘Hi. Thomas Goldwell? Tom? This is Cordelia Vesper. You might not remember me—’
‘Of course I do,’ he interrupted. ‘Adult women claiming a near relationship with me don’t show up every week.’
‘Right. Well, Dad, I have to tell you happy birthday. For tomorrow. Mum said so.’
‘Thank you.’
That seemed to be it, so I went on. ‘Also, I hear you’re a stonemason.’
‘I don’t practise the trade much any more, but I do have that skillset, yes.’
‘Okay. Then I’ve got a job for you.’
‘Oh?’
‘It’s important. We’re restoring an Yllanfalen town, and we need people with the right skills and insight.’
‘Interesting, but I’m busy.’
‘Also, Mum said you have to help me.’
‘She said what?’
‘I’ll quote: “Tell him I told him to help you, if he knows what’s good for him.” Those exact words.’
He might have sighed, or there might have been a passing gust of wind, I couldn’t be sure.
‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Tell me when and where.’
I was speechless with shock, too much to muster more than a strangled ‘thank you’ in reply.
He hung up on me without saying goodbye, demonstrating that he and my mother had at least one thing in common.
‘Great,’ I said into the phone. ‘See you soon.’
I put my phone away, uncertain as to the state of my feelings.
Mum was helping me out, and she hadn’t even argued that much.
And I would finally get to meet my dad again, even if he didn’t seem too excited about it.
Things among Family Ves were looking up. Vaguely. A little bit.
Sod it. If I didn’t need a husband, I didn’t need a mother or a father either. I’d managed just fine without those things.
Still, a girl can hope. Right?
Right.
And in the meantime, there’s Jay, who’s everything my family isn’t, and presently waiting to whisk me away to a dream dinner that I hadn’t even been able to scare him out of.
I dismissed my mountain of problems from my mind, opened my wardrobe and devoted myself to choosing a dress.
Enough work, Ves. Time to enjoy life a bit.
