Chapter 20
March 6, 1847, London, England
“It bothers me,” Hulda clarified, again sitting at the cluttered table in the back room of Mr. Griffiths’s office. “It was a critical occurrence. Someone was injured, nearly killed! Why did I not foresee it?”
“Even if you had”—Professor Griffiths adjusted his glasses—“you would not have been able to do anything about it. Attempting to change the future is all part of the future.”
“But I could have been prepared,” she countered, stabbing the table with her index finger. “The repair crews could have been ordered, a doctor would be on call!”
He smiled at her. “Such is the bane of an augurist, Miss Larkin. Would have, should have, could have. They will plague your life. Sometimes, the gift of future-seeing is not seeing.”
Hulda sunk back in her chair, then remembered herself and straightened her spine. “I understand the philosophy. I do. But I feel so useless . I’d rather not be an augurist at all than such a pathetic one.”
“ Not pathetic,” he said firmly, and Hulda immediately felt chastened. “Magic is a gift, however small. But that’s why you’re here. Let’s see what we can do with what you have. Make the most of it. Anything else of interest?”
That vision of Merritt and the nude woman rose in her thoughts; she quickly began counting in Latin to banish it. “When I do see things, they’re often quite random,” she offered instead. One problem at a time. She didn’t want to flush—or worse, cry—in front of this esteemed man. “Such as, oh, a plate breaking in three days’ time. Or I once had a vision of myself being flustered from losing a pen. It happened that afternoon.”
Professor Griffiths nodded, and it was a relief to have another person instantly understand the vexation of the thing without further explanation. “Soothsaying is often tied to your own thoughts. When you read a pattern determined by another individual, it is that individual’s future you see more often than not. But, well ...” He rubbed his chin. “Say you are entering a pie into a county fair. It’s heavy on your mind. It’s important to you to win the blue ribbon, so to speak. And so, when you peer into the tea leaves of a neighbor, you might see her experience at the fair, such as, oh, petting the head of a lamb. As opposed to a vision of the chimney in her home collapsing. The chimney is arguably the more life-affecting incident, but your own concerns direct the augury elsewhere.”
Hulda scribbled down notes in a clean ledger she’d purchased specifically for these lessons. “That does seem consequent.” Merritt was always on her mind, as was their wedding. Never a fear of his fidelity, however ... not until now.
He wouldn’t have relations with another woman. He won’t!
“Are you all right?”
Hulda blinked. “Yes. I was just pondering something.”
He nodded. “How far into the future do your visions usually stretch?”
“A few weeks or so. On occasion, months. Never more than a year,” she answered. Thus why she’d never seen Merritt when she was in her twenties and despairing of her spinsterhood. Or seen herself as director of BIKER.
“Let’s try some exercises.” The professor pulled himself closer to the table. “I want you to close your eyes.”
Hulda felt silly doing so, but she wanted to learn, and so she clasped her hands in her lap and obeyed.
“I want you to think of what you’ll do when this exercise is over. Your best guess is fine. And then what you’ll do after that; leave this office, most likely. And then, whatever comes after that, regardless of how inconsequential. We’re going to flow with the entirety of the day. Now we’re approaching lunch. What will be served? What will you eat, and how much?”
Hulda pictured all of it as keenly as she could. By the time she mentally went to bed, she felt as though she could lie her head down right there and fall asleep. But then Professor Griffiths had her think it all through again backward, from bedtime to this exercise. Then forward again, only this time imagining very unlikely things. Hulda imagined her skirt ripping on her way out, then heavy snowfall, an Italian luncheon with children all under the age of three, Owein being moved into the body of a hippopotamus, Merritt shaving his head, her learning to play the harp in a matter of minutes, and then falling asleep on a bench out in the garden.
Then, as before, she imagined it backward, all the way back to the office.
By the time she opened her eyes, the late-morning light seemed too bright. Professor Griffiths watched her with a pleased expression.
“Most certainly my best student. Now, let’s try focusing on a specific incident you know will be in your future.”
The first thing that came to mind was her wedding.
Professor Griffiths set out an array of sticks, some as short as her pinky, others as long as a cubit. They were flat, with one side dark and the other light. He handed them to Hulda, and at his direction, she scattered them across the table.
“Let your vision go out of focus,” he said softly. “Let your thoughts revolve around that future event.”
She thought of Blaugdone Island. Of Merritt. Wondered what he might wear. She had her dress ready; it was a rich blue with lace trim, the kind of frippery she normally didn’t prefer, but it was a wedding after all. She’d yet to show it to anyone or don it. She tried to imagine the flowers, the guests, the pastor. For a moment, she felt a prickle in her mind, almost like a sneeze—as though her augury were about to kick in but refused at the last minute.
She tried again. No luck. But the wedding happens! This means nothing.
Right?
Leaning away from the sticks, Hulda rubbed her temples. “I’m afraid it’s not working.”
“That’s quite all right.” He gathered the sticks and offered them to her. “Let’s try again.”
She accepted the bundle, then paused. “Might I try something?”
He gestured to the table. “All yours.”
Hulda reached into her black bag, pushed aside a little wrapped gift she’d brought from the States, and retrieved her receipt book—the one with all her notes on the goings-on at Cyprus Hall. She opened it to her most cluttered page and set it on the table before her.
“What’s this?” Professor Griffiths inquired.
“Some personal sleuthing,” she said, glad she’d written everyone’s name either too tightly to be easily read or in code. Briar , for instance, was Bush here.
She took her time to look over her notes—if there was anything she’d learned in these lessons, it was not to rush—and tossed the sticks again. Most fell onto the open pages. A few scattered onto the table, and one dropped to the floor. She left it there.
Letting the sticks and notes blur to her eyes, she considered the breakfast room and the bedroom. How her dowsing rods picked up on nothing. The failed exorcism. The family, and Blightree. The stolen marriage contract—
The magic swelled, swallowing the receipt book and the sticks and replacing them with an onslaught of images.
A pen scraping the bottom of an ink vial.
A shod foot as it came down, as though running.
A bead, or perhaps a marble, rolling across the floor.
William Blightree, with tears in his eyes.
They happened in such quick succession she couldn’t garner more details than that. The images rushed her in the space of half a breath, then vanished.
“You saw something.” It wasn’t a question.
Hulda paused, trying to cement the strange vision in her mind before looking up. “Yes, several things.” She repeated all of them, if only to better remember.
Two deep lines appeared between Professor Griffiths’s eyebrows. “Interesting. A cluster vision. Those are rare. Whatever this is”—he pointed to the receipt book—“it must be complex.”
“Very,” Hulda agreed. “If you’ll give me a moment.”
“Of course.”
With her pencil, Hulda jotted down each vision on the following page of the book, recording any other details she could recall. The morning light in the room where she’d found the ink vial. The floor where the little sphere had fallen—there’d been some cream carpeting, but in the distance, hardwood. The shoe had a large gold buckle on it. It was brown ... or perhaps maroon? With a slight heel. And Mr. Blightree. His head was bent, nodding just barely.
The image of him stuck with her the most. Why was he so melancholy, and what did it have to do with her notes, her sleuthing?
“I’ve time for another exercise,” the professor offered.
Hulda closed the book. “Thank you, but ...” She paused, her mind going blank.
“But,” he encouraged her.
She shook her head. “But ... I thought I had something. I can’t for the life of me recall ...” She reached into her bag for her planner.
“Such is the second bane of being an augurist.” Professor Griffiths stood. “I can’t tell you how often I’ve forgotten something on the stove or missed a class because I had a vision.”
She followed suit. “It is nice to know I’m not alone.”
“But of course. I think we have quite a few things in common, Miss Larkin. Should I still expect you tomorrow?”
She nodded. “If you’re available, yes. I’ll be in town.”
Clasping his hands behind his back, he said, “I look forward to it. Allow me to walk you to a cab.”
She did.
For a moment, upon his return, Merritt thought the hired guards were having a foray in the east yard of Cyprus Hall; they were all clustered together, speaking in low tones. Someone even had a hound on a leash. As he neared, however, he recognized Prince Friedrich among them and, even closer, noted about half the men were not contractors, but police.
“Lordy,” he muttered, quickening his pace. The chill had seeped into his boots—he’d spoken to the Druids for about an hour—and his toes smarted with each step. What terrible thing had happened this time?
Owein panted but kept up with him. One of the policemen indicated Merritt, causing Prince Friedrich to turn around.
To Merritt’s bewilderment, the man grinned.
“Glad to see you! I have half a dozen servants searching for you both.” He nodded to Owein. “I’ve good news.”
Merritt stopped, searching the faces around him. Some of the policemen had already headed back for the front drive. “Good news?”
He nodded. “We’ve found a suspect. Well, they’ve found a suspect.” He gestured to the others. “He’s already been loaded up and carried away.”
“We have a few questions for you, Mr. Fernsby,” said the constable.
Who? Owein’s tail wagged.
“Who?” Merritt parroted.
The constable flipped through papers in a binder. “Do you know a man by the name of Benjamin Dosett?”
“I ... can’t say I do.” He glanced to Owein, who merely shook his head. “Is he American?”
“No, British,” the constable replied. They were meeting so often, Merritt really should learn the man’s name. “This is his second arrest.”
“Some of the hired men found him snooping around the west wood,” Prince Friedrich supplied.
That gave Merritt pause. What if he and Owein had decided to walk west, instead of east, that morning?
“He’s not a Druid, is he?” Merritt asked.
Both Prince Friedrich and the constable exchanged a glance. “No,” the constable said after a beat. “He’s a revolutionary. Mr. Fernsby, have you attended any Chartist meetings since arriving here?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Merely asking questions.”
“No,” Merritt clarified, “I mean, what is a Chartist?”
Prince Friedrich answered, “They’re part of a political movement that’s gained popularity in recent years. Reformists, to put it delicately.”
“I think I’d remember that,” he said with a soft chuckle, which wasn’t well received. “But no, I haven’t. This Dosett fellow is one?”
“A radical one, yes.” The constable flipped another page and asked a few more questions, but none of them were able to find any sort of connection between Merritt and this man. Still, the constable walked Merritt personally to the prison wagon that had been brought around and let him look through the bars. The single occupant, a man who appeared to be in his midtwenties, glared at Merritt before staring down at his feet.
“I’m sorry,” Merritt apologized, “I don’t know him.”
After the wagon pulled away, the constable explained, “I believe you, Mr. Fernsby. There have been a handful of attacks made against noble estates in the name of equality ”—he scoffed as he said it—“many by revolutionaries we’ve been able to track to a specific Chartist organization.”
Merritt mulled over that for a second. “So you’re saying it’s not personal.”
“I need to question this man to see if I can find any other accomplices he might have had, but no, I doubt it was personal. Unless you wrote a book that might have stirred discontent among readers such as Dosett?”
Merritt blinked. “You know I’m an author?”
The constable sighed. “From our initial interview, yes.”
“Oh. Right.” That had been after the bedroom crumbled. Lots of personal questions. Merritt really should learn the man’s name. “But ... no. I can’t say my fiction is any more inspirational to revolution than the next book on the shelf.” But that would make for good publicity.
The constable nodded. “I’ll send an officer if any more questions arise. Good day.” He tipped his hat and made his way back to Prince Friedrich.
So we’re okay now? Owein asked.
Letting out a long breath, Merritt planted his hands on his hips. “I suppose so.”