Boy of Chaotic Making (Whimbrel House #3)

Chapter 22

March 7, 1847, London, England

Kegan screeched when Merritt and Owein entered the grove some two miles north of Cyprus Hall, startling a few roosting songbirds overhead. Owein bolted through the foliage, surprisingly agile, to meet up with them. Moments later, that gray hawk swooped down and perched on Kegan’s shoulder. The boy didn’t blink twice at the fact.

“I found fairy treasure,” he announced, puffing out his chest. “Well, there’s no treasure in it, but it’s just the sort of tree a fairy would use to hide some. Want to see?”

Owein glanced up at Merritt.

“Off you go.” He waved a hand. It wasn’t quite as chilly today, though a steady sheet of cloud covered the sky. The Leiningens—minus Lady Briar and the baron—had headed to church, and Hulda had gone into town again, so it was as good a time as any to visit the Irish wizards. The guards had actually walked out with them a ways before heading back. Thus far, everything seemed fine.

Owein barked and ran off. A voice in his head said, They’re waiting ahead.

Merritt startled, glancing at the hawk perched on Kegan’s shoulder. Then into the trees, wondering if there were yet more Druids lurking about the woods. Well, he’d know when he’d know. Trudging ahead with far less grace than Kegan had, he did, indeed, find both Sean and Morgance beneath a thick oak tree, sharing some bread and cheese.

Morgance spotted him. “Are you hungry?”

“Perhaps a little.” He found a sturdy root and sat, then accepted a piece of bread. “Thank you.”

She nodded. “We don’t buy and sell, back home. Everyone works and everyone gives. Everyone eats. No rank, no judgment.”

“No judgment?” Merritt asked. “Whatever do you do for fun?”

Morgance paused.

Sean chuckled. “He’s jesting, of course.” He popped the end of a crust into his mouth. “Morgance is always looking to increase our number. We have strong men and women in our flock, but time dwindles all of us.”

Morgance turned up her nose. “You make me sound like a salesman.”

He tipped his head. “Forgive me.”

After a few bites, Merritt asked, “Have you spied any revolutionaries in these parts recently?”

Morgance tipped her head, confused.

Merritt changed direction. “So, what did you have in mind today? Besides the sales talk and the play session.” He jutted a thumb in the direction Owein had gone.

Morgance frowned at the sales term, but said nothing. “I wanted to teach you, actually.”

Merritt lowered the bread. “Teach me? What?”

She drew her hand down the base of the oak tree’s trunk. “You speak to plants. I want to show you just how great an ability that can be.”

“It will be harder for you,” Sean added, leaning back and folding his arms. “If I may make the assumption. The Druid lines are still relatively strong in their magic; yours will be diluted.”

“And only recently discovered,” Merritt reminded them. “I had many a poor night when the communion first presented itself.”

Morgance and Sean exchanged a knowing glance. Perhaps insomnia was commonplace for communionists.

“The earth,” Morgance went on, “is all connected. Every bit of it. Cities and railroads try to break it up, but beneath everything, there is earth. And where there is earth, there is life.” She grasped Merritt’s hand and placed it palm down on the root he sat upon. “The first communionist could feel her way through root systems clear to the other side of the world. Not only could she speak to flora and fauna, but she could command them, too.”

“She?” Merritt asked. “I don’t recall a woman among Christ’s apostles.”

Morgance clucked her tongue. “The Christian apostles as the incitement of magic is only a speculation, Merritt.”

“Point taken. Then what is the Druid lore?”

“Druid lore is also only speculation,” Sean said, earning a disapproving look from his companion. “Some say there are more than eleven doctrines of magic, but I’ve never seen anything to prove otherwise. Some insist there are but ten—a rounder number and more pleasant—and that augury and psychometry hail from the same progenitor. One belief is that the first communionist was not a man, but a hart.”

Merritt straightened. This had the sound of an excellent story. “Really?”

Sean nodded. “His magic was full, untainted by the blood of others. He could transform into any other living thing on earth, including plants. Including humans.”

“That branches into alteration,” Merritt pointed out.

“In that story,” Morgance cut in, “the hart is the progenitor of both. But he fell in love with a human woman and gave the ability of earth-speech to her, splitting the magic.”

“Intriguing.” And it was. Merritt found himself leaning closer. “And the elements? That’s also Druid magic, is it not?”

Sean nodded. “The first elementist possessed ability with all four. Some say she completed four great tasks from the gods to earn each one, others say her mother gave birth to her at the center of the earth, with all four infused into her skin.”

Merritt cocked an eyebrow. “I find that unlikely.”

“Because the modern world limits your beliefs,” Morgance said. “Were we able to stand with the progenitors, their abilities would astound us. The first soothsayer could not only see the future at will, but change it, even assign different fates to those around her. The first conjurer could create anything; he made ships to sail the oceans and balms to heal the sick. He even created beads for each of the first—beads that would absorb the ailments magic created so the progenitors could cast spells without consequence.”

“That would be incredibly handy,” Merritt said. “I wonder what he had to sacrifice to make them.” The consequence of conjury was the loss of something of equal value.

“What I wouldn’t give to know.” Sean went on, “The first wardist made the seas. Hostilities between men grew so severe he erected a great wall that split the land into a dozen pieces, and into those chasms flowed rivers and rain.”

“The first necromancer,” Morgance said, “received her powers after the grave, and used them to bring herself back. She ferried lost souls back and forth, between the mortal realm and the realm beyond.”

Merritt whistled. “Please tell me you have these stories written down.”

“Of course.” The question seemed to almost offend Morgance. “Our stories are protected, orally and in writing, writ on paper and in stone. There is much to learn among our kin. But first”—she touched his hand, the one still pressed to the oak root beneath him—“I want to show you. Speak to this tree. Cast out anything else. Focus only on it.”

Merritt hesitated, but getting an encouraging nod from Sean, he did. He listened first. The oak was stirring, sensing the onslaught of spring. It moved water inside of it, readying leaves for sunshine. Raaaaiiiinnnn, it whispered. It had rained last night. Driiiiiinnnnnk.

“Close your eyes,” Morgance whispered. “Sense the spirit of the tree, from its highest branches to its deepest roots.” She placed her hand beside Merritt’s and closed her eyes, following her own advice. Merritt followed suit. It took a moment—first, for him to take it seriously, and then for him to expand his thoughts the way she’d instructed. After several minutes, he got a sense of depth, of dark moisture. It was unlike anything he’d experienced before. Almost like ... a voice without sound, but also without words.

“This tree’s roots overlap with the next’s.” Morgance’s whispers sounded far away. “Find where they touch. Where they harmonize.”

Gradually, the sound of Merritt’s breathing, of his heartbeat, melted away. He thought he’d found the place—no, two—Morgance had mentioned. Deep, dark, wet, cold. The pattern repeated over and over in his thoughts.

There was something else, a dogwood, perhaps—something with deep roots but not nearly as tall as the oaks, tangled in the underground web. Its voice blended into the trio. Reeeaaach, it drawled. Reeeaaaach.

Beings moved amidst the tangle. Merritt focused on the rhythm of their movement. Earthworms, again speaking in a manner he was unable to translate into human terms. They slid toward other roots, thick roots. A tree. Not an oak, something else. And beyond that, a fungus, singing a melody so haunting and strange he could barely understand—

His ears rang loud enough to hurt.

Gasping, Merritt ripped his hand from the tree and brought both up to cover his ears, but the ringing came from within. He winced, urging the side effect to die down.

Sean was gone. The sun was a little lower, warmer. Good heavens, how long had he been doing this? It had felt like only minutes ...

With one cold hand he fished out his pocket watch. Gaped. Two hours?

How? he tried to ask, but even the ability to whisper had been stripped from him.

Morgance slowly opened her eyes and smiled. They sat like that for a full minute until her own voice returned. “It will go a little easier, with practice,” she rasped.

Merritt didn’t respond. He literally couldn’t. So he did not point out that no amount of practice could multiply the slivers of communion in his blood, in his spirit. Nor could he explain the strange concoction of emotions swelling through him—the fear of utterly losing his voice, his hearing, the passage of time. The elation of having discovered an ability so novel and different. The uncertainty of what any of it meant or could mean, and if that was really a path he wanted to go down. It seemed like one a man could lose himself on, and Merritt had only just found so much above ground that brought him happiness.

Perhaps it was fortunate that he could not speak. He’d already chosen his path, and he did not think the Druid Morgance would agree with it.

Owein tumbled through the damp grass, then lay on his back, front legs curled, to stare up at the sky. It was just an off-white sheet, but if he stared long enough, there seemed to be subtle twinkles in it, like the entirety of heaven was covered in a thick coating of salt.

Kegan toppled next to him, laughing, and set his head on Owein’s belly. Fallon flew above them, arced around, and flapped hard to land on the grass, where she pecked at Kegan’s leg. Without comment, Kegan sat up and reached into a parcel slung over his shoulders, pulling out a homespun dress. He gathered it in his hands as though he were going to put it on, then set it next to the hawk instead. Fallon jumped into its collar and shimmied her wings into the armholes.

The bird began to grow, darken, and pop. Owein shot up to his legs—he knew that feeling. Alteration. Though he’d never used it to such an extent.

In a matter of seconds, the bird’s head enlarged, wings coalesced and grew, legs thickened and stretched. Then there was a girl there, probably about Cora’s age, a little odd angled, but that was the effect of the changing spell. She had dark skin, though not nearly so dark as Beth’s, and long, wild black hair. Vivid green eyes. Green like the forest around them, green like melting winter and budding spring, though not quite so vibrant as the greens of summer.

After a moment, the angle in her neck popped back to place, and she looked wholly human.

You’re a girl, Owein said.

Kegan laughed. “Well, she’s not a hawk! Not always, just lots of the time. Otherwise she’d a—”

“Easier to travel that way,” she interrupted, breaking into a grin. She spoke with the same Irish accent as Kegan.

You can hear me?

“She can’t,” Kegan answered. “But I can! Fallon’s just a shape-shifter.”

She gave him a withering stare. Just a shape-shifter. Before encountering the Druids, Owein had never met anyone who possessed enough alteration prowess to change their entire body. Those were different spells than he had, maybe even different percentages.

He nodded, yawned.

“Am I so boring to you?” Fallon laughed.

He shook his head. Sorry. I just don’t sleep as well as I should. He usually made up for it with naps during the day, but Lady Helen had kept him a little too busy for much more than a snooze.

“He says he doesn’t sleep well,” Kegan translated.

“Why not?” She raised a black eyebrow.

Owein lowered his head, choosing not to respond.

But Kegan poked him in the ribs. “Why not?” Why not why not why not?

Owein nipped at him, which only made the boy giggle. Because, he said, and hoped to leave it at that. But two sets of eyes stared at him with the patient curiosity of children, and Owein inwardly sighed. Because I have nightmares.

“Because he has nightmares.”

Fallon lay down in the grass on her stomach and propped her face on the heels of her hands, her head only a foot from Owein’s. Her skin pebbled, but she seemed unaware of the March chill. Owein had fur to protect him. The Druids must just be used to the cold.

“What kind of nightmares?” She sounded fascinated.

A soft whine emitted from Owein’s throat.

Kegan petted his back. “He doesn’t have to say.”

“Sure he does,” Fallon challenged. “Nightmares are things that scare us. But if you stop being scared, you stop having nightmares.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.” Kegan spoke for him.

“How does it not make sense?” She reached over and pinched him; Kegan slapped her hand away. “Remember how you were scared of those stupid green spiders?”

“Was not!”

“You’d jump whenever we saw them! Then Sean made you keep one in the corner of your room and make sure it got fed, and then you named it and called it your pet until it died.”

Kegan looked away. “Sorcha was a good spider.”

“See?” Fallon’s eyes shot back to Owein. “So what are you scared of?”

Owein squirmed. I’m not really afraid , I don’t think. I was just ... I’m really old. But for a lot of those years, I was alone in a dark house by myself. And the darkness is still there.

Kegan related, growing a little hoarse as he finished.

“In the house?” Fallon asked. She must have had some skill in reading canine expressions, for she amended, “Ah, just in your dreams. In your head. I get that. I had to stay in the dark for a long time when I was little.”

Owein’s ears perked.

“I mean, I’m not secretly an old man.” She grinned. “But one time some English soldiers were coming by and being bastards and stuff. This is when we were in Scotland.”

“I hate Scotland,” Kegan grumbled.

“No, you don’t,” she countered, and he didn’t argue. Continuing on, she said, “They were being weird about who owns what, and my mum put me in this cabinet in the cellar of an old house of a friend we were visiting. Told me not to leave no matter what. She didn’t want me to try and fly away on my own. I was still really little. So I stayed. For two days. Which maybe doesn’t seem like a long time, but when you’re in a box in a dark cellar without anything to eat, it’s forever.”

Were you okay? Owein asked. Kegan cleared his throat and translated.

“I mean, I’m okay now, aren’t I?” She rubbed her arms as though suddenly aware of the temperature. She shrugged. “Mostly okay. But I get it.” She paused. “I have an idea. I found this place a few days ago, before we found you. Let’s go.”

“Where?” Kegan asked.

“You’ll see!” She jumped to her bare feet. “Faster to fly, but I won’t leave you slowpokes behind. Hurry up, though.” She took off sprinting through the grass.

Owein stood, hesitated. But Kegan followed immediately, so Owein loped behind. They picked their way through the forest for a good half hour—probably farther than Merritt would have wanted him to go—until they reached a cliff. Fallon led the way down to a place where the moss and grass peeled away to stone and earth. Across a gully, there was a small cave.

“Kegan, make us a bridge to there,” Fallon pointed.

“That’s far!” Kegan complained. “I’ll get dizzy.”

“I’ll carry you.”

The boy relented. He held out his hands and furrowed his brow, and Owein barked in excitement as rocks and dirt pulled up and remolded themselves against the cliff edge, making a narrow path to the cave. He’d never seen someone use earth magic before.

Just as it finished, Kegan teetered back onto his rump and held his head in his hands. He seemed to struggle to sit up straight.

Fallon, undaunted, merely put her hands under his arms and picked him up, then bent over and shimmied until Kegan made it onto her back. He had enough wherewithal to put his arms around Fallon’s neck; she looped an arm around each of his legs, carrying him like a knapsack. “Let’s go.”

She led the way. The earthy trail held.

When they approached the cave mouth, Owein’s fur stopped working. That was, now he felt the chill of the late-winter day. He peered inside, but couldn’t see anything past three feet in.

“Let’s go in.”

Owein shook his head.

“Darkness isn’t scary.” Fallon bent her knees and shot up quickly, using the momentum to lift Kegan higher on her back. “Nothing is really scary. We just make it that way in our heads. That’s what my mom said.” She glanced into the cave. “She’s dead now, but she wasn’t scared when she died. She was brave. So I’m always going to be brave. And Owein? Life is a lot easier being brave than being scared.”

Owein considered this while he stared into the shadows.

“If you’re saying something, I can’t hear it.”

He hadn’t said anything. He wasn’t sure what to say.

“Hey.” She waited for him to meet her gaze. “I mean, I’m not always brave. A lot of times I have to pretend. But pretending is kind of like practice. And the more you practice, the easier it gets. Just like those fancy girls and their push-button musical instruments.”

You mean pianofortes? he asked, but she couldn’t hear him, and Kegan, who was coming around, didn’t translate.

“I’ll stay close.” She smiled, and there was something very assuring in her smile. She took the first step, then the second. The fourth took her out of the light, into the shadows where Owein’s eyes couldn’t penetrate.

He scratched at the ground a moment, uneasy. Then, pretending as best he could, he followed his friends into the darkness.