Chapter 7
CHAPTER 7
“ A brother.” Simeon tasted the word. He’d never given much thought to the possibility of siblings. After all, even a mother and father were mythical beings for him, so anything beyond that wasn’t even worth considering.
“Perhaps,” said Lydia.
“What in bloody hell does that mean?” He was normally a fairly patient man, but not today.
“It means that we are not certain he is still alive.”
Simeon couldn’t face gaining and losing a brother in one fell swoop. He just couldn’t. He seriously considered flying away again, but he was tired. Nothing to be gained by crash-landing in the middle of Covent Garden. Instead he gathered up his clothing with as much dignity as he could muster and gave Crow a desperate look. “Love, I need to….” He didn’t know how to finish that sentence.
Crow walked over, moving in close as if protecting him from the world at large. He spoke in a faint whisper. “Do you want to leave? Lie down for a while?”
Those were possibilities. Or he could eat something, or read a book, or throw himself under the wheels of an omnibus just to get rid of the horrible sensations in his head and guts.
Instead, he burst into tears.
He didn’t mean to cry. In fact, if he’d realized the waterworks were going to break open, he would have hidden himself in the house somewhere. He certainly wouldn’t have stood naked on the grass in a Mayfair garden, bawling his eyes out in front of relative strangers and for reasons he couldn’t explain.
Crow wasn’t the most emotionally demonstrative bloke that Simeon had ever known. Maybe his taciturn nature was due to an upbringing in the American Midwest, maybe the result of spending a decade terrified of making connections with other people, or maybe it was simply Crow’s temperament. It wasn’t something that Simeon minded about his lover, although this characteristic sometimes left him guessing what Crow was thinking and feeling.
But Crow never seemed bothered that Simeon was more expressive. And now he simply wrapped Simeon in his long arms and let him sob, apparently unconcerned about what anyone else might think and about getting snot on his shirt.
Simeon clutched him back, hard enough to make Crow groan and ask him to ease up a bit. And Simeon wept so much that he began to suspect that, like Alice, he’d soon be awash in a lake of his own tears. The image it brought to mind was so ridiculous that his crying petered out and turned to chuckles, and soon he was barking and howling like a dog, unsure whether he was laughing or crying or both at once.
He ran out of energy and would have collapsed if Crow weren’t holding him.
Finally he sniffled and sighed and unpeeled himself from Crow’s grip. When he looked around, there was no sign of the Frugises or their clothing. “Where did they go? ”
“Inside.”
“Tired of watching the madman?”
“I think they wanted to give you some privacy.”
Simeon sniffed again and swiped his forearm under his nose. Not a pleasant thing, but he was a mess anyhow. “Well, that was quite a spectacle.”
“Meh. I’ve seen bigger ones.”
Simeon gave Crow’s arm a poke but couldn’t quite suppress a grin. He put his clothes back on and stood there, as weak and depleted as a starving chick. “I could eat,” he finally said.
“You generally can. C’mon. Let’s go inside.”
There was a middle-aged woman in the kitchen, scrubbing potatoes. She didn’t seem surprised by their arrival. “Fancy some tea?” she asked.
“Yes, please. And perhaps some food.”
She nodded and pointed toward the table with her elbow. “Do you mind taking it there? Or would you rather in the dining room?”
“Here’s just fine.”
The chairs were large and sturdy, their wooden seats smoothed by many sitters’ arses. The tabletop was scarred from use, but it was solid as well. Crow sat next to Simeon rather than across from him, as if worried he might have to move fast to rescue Simeon from another bout of hysterics. They didn’t speak. The room was warm, redolent with the ghosts of good meals, and cheery with the sound of the cook bustling about, the clock ticking on the mantel, and the rattle of crockery and cutlery. Simeon had spent very little time in kitchens, during any era, but he found that he liked this one quite a lot. It was comfortable, and it felt as if no harm could possibly befall anyone in this place. Which was odd considering that he’d once fled in terror from this very room.
The cook gave them cups of tea with sugar and milk, along with mutton sandwiches, a bowl of shelled nuts, and a few pieces of glazed fruit. Ravenous, Simeon ate all of his and, when Crow insisted, half of Crow’s as well. He felt better once his belly was full.
“I’m ready to stop being a coward and hear the rest,” he told Crow.
“You’re not a coward.”
Simeon wasn’t convinced. “I’ve spent my whole life wondering, but now I’m afraid of what I’ll find out.”
“Could it be worse than learning your grandparents are demons?”
“Dunno.” Simeon sighed. “If I don’t know the truth, I can make up all sorts of pretty stories in my head, yeah? But I can’t do that anymore once I know. It’s like… when I was very young, some of the other boys in the home told me that a monster lived under my bed. I fancied I could hear it moving around at night. I expect that was the rats. And I decided that as long as I didn’t look, the thing couldn’t hurt me. It didn’t exist unless I saw it. Used to spend my nights scrunched up tight so none of my hands or feet hung over the edge, and I kept my eyes screwed closed.”
Crow gave a soft laugh. “There was a king cobra under my bed. That’s what Aunt Helen told me when I was, like, three or four. She said it would bite me if I got up in the middle of the night. Scared the crap out of me. Actually, no. Scared the piss out of me because I was too terrified to go use the bathroom and I ended up wetting the bed. Gram was not happy with me in the morning.”
“Did she punish you?” Simeon felt angry at a woman who’d died over a decade ago—or who hadn’t been born yet, depending on how you measured time.
“No. Actually, when I told her about the snake, she got mad at Aunt Helen and made her do some extra chores. When I went to bed again for the next several nights, Gram sat with me until I fell asleep. You didn’t have anyone to comfort you.”
“I do now.” Simeon squeezed Crow’s hand. “And I’m ready to look under the bed.”
The Frugises joined them in the parlor soon afterward. They’d gotten dressed, of course, and neither of them mentioned Simeon’s outburst in the garden, for which he was grateful. He sat back in his chair and tried to be calm. “I’d like to hear about my brother now, please.”
Lydia, who was standing by the fireplace, opened her mouth as if to say something, but Edwin stopped her with a raised hand. “Darling, I think perhaps the library might be a more apt place for this discussion.”
She seemed to consider for a moment before nodding. “Yes, I believe you’re right. Follow me.” She led the way up the stairs.
Simeon wondered why a library had to be involved. He remembered the libraries that he and Crow had visited in their quest for Crow’s mother, including the very odd one near Portland. The information they received in those places hadn’t always been crystal clear, but it had led them in the right direction.
The Frugises’ library was located at the end of the hallway behind a set of double doors. It was unusually large for a private collection, he thought, but Edwin had said that he was a lecturer, so having a lot of books made sense. Simeon assumed that an academic would also keep his volumes in some semblance of order, but these were piled haphazardly and stuffed into bookcases. There were papers scattered everywhere, especially on the desk and table, and even an untidy stack of what appeared to be scrolls. Simeon very much wished he could browse through the room, but that wasn’t why he’d been brought here.
Lydia helped her husband clear off the seats of four chairs and arrange them near the large round table. Then everyone sat, and for an endless moment Simeon was certain that he was going to burst into tears again. But Crow made a slithering motion with one hand, which confused the Frugises and made Simeon chuckle, and that was good.
“My brother,” he prompted.
“Your parents lived in the countryside,” said Lydia. “Their names were Ambrose and Hester Frugis. Ambrose was my first cousin. They’re dead now. They died approximately thirteen years after you were hatched.”
“Not literally hatched,” Edwin added quickly. “We don’t come from eggs. It’s a saying.”
But Simeon didn’t really care how he’d come into the world; he was too busy processing the rest of what Lydia had said. “Dead.”
“Yes.”
Well, she’d already informed him of that, and it wasn’t as if he could somehow magically go back and change the past, but it still caused a pang. They must have died at about the time he’d last seen the Frugises. But now that he thought about it, there was comfort there as well. It was death, not indifference, that had kept them from rescuing him.
He glanced at Crow, who looked grave. Crow had never known his parents either—his father dead before he was born and his mother hardly more than a living statue in a field of flowers.
“All right,” Simeon said evenly.
Lydia seemed impressed by his calm. “They lived in the countryside, near Avebury. There are a great many Frugises in that region. ”
Edwin nodded eagerly. “Yes, indeed. My research suggests that our flock was there during the period when the henge was built, and perhaps we even?—”
“Edwin.”
With Lydia’s warning, Edwin shut his mouth. Looking apologetic, he smoothed his mustache.
Although Simeon didn’t especially want a lecture on ancient history right now, he was struck by an utterly clear image. In his mind’s eye, he was flying over a broad circle of standing stones, with two smaller circles inside. There was also a tiny cluster of houses that looked as if they were made of straw. Several dozen rooks whirled and swooped alongside him. He could hear their joyous calls.
“Simeon?” Crow had gently touched Simeon’s hand, bringing him back to awareness.
“Sorry,” said Simeon to everyone. “I’m not myself today.”
If Lydia was annoyed with him, she didn’t show it. That woman was eminently skilled at keeping her face free of expression. “I didn’t know them especially well. I grew up mostly in London, you see. In this house, as a matter of fact. My parents were the previous flock representatives in the city. I mention this in part to explain why Ambrose and Hester didn’t reach out to me when they were in a desperate situation. I daresay they didn’t know me well enough to trust me, and that is a shame. Things would have worked out very differently had they come to me.”
“What was their desperate situation?” demanded Simeon.
“There was a… foretelling.”
It took Simeon a few beats to understand what she meant, and when he did, he scrambled out of his seat and backed away. “No. Absolutely not. Not another bleeding prophecy.”
But Lydia merely shrugged. “One cannot alter a story simply because one does not like it.” She would likely have used the same tone with an unreasonable child .
Crow’s look of horror matched Simeon’s. Although Crow had kept his seat, his jaw was clenched so tightly that it must have hurt, and his eyes were narrowed to angry slits.
Simeon didn’t mind the sort of fortunetelling that Madame Persephone employed back at the carnival, because that generally amounted to hardly more than good advice. But Simeon had once had a vision of all the deaths that loomed in a young farm boy’s future. Sometimes he still had nightmares about that short but traumatic time with a young Crow.
But dammit, he needed to hear about this alleged brother.
Scowling, he retook his chair. “A foretelling?” he asked with poor grace.
“You must understand this part before we go further. You see, time flows, very much like rivers—or air currents.” She started shuffling through papers on the table, and when she didn’t seem to find whatever she was looking for, gave her husband an impatient glare. Edwin began sorting through papers as well, eventually making a small cry of triumph and holding one aloft. He handed it to Simeon, who took it reluctantly and angled so Crow could see.
It was a drawing, well done in fine ink strokes and showing a bird—a rook, presumably—in midair. Small arcs and swirls seemed to indicate the air moving under and over its wings. Simeon didn’t see the point of it and didn’t try to dampen his sarcasm. “Lovely bird.”
Huffing, Edwin unearthed another page, this one made of tracing paper. When he placed it over the bird, Simeon saw that the translucent sheet had tiny numbers on it that corresponded to the air lines. The numbers were years and were sequential, although they weren’t evenly spaced. The year 1882 was directly beneath the bird’s body, with later years ahead of it .
“I made that last year,” explained Edwin. “So it’s a bit out of date, but you get the meaning.”
“I bloody well don’t. The rook is flying through years? That’s what we all do, yeah? We get older.”
“Yes, of course we do. But most creatures travel through time in one direction only, and in an entirely linear fashion. That’s even true of most rooks. But not all.”
Once again, Simeon felt overwhelmed, but he’d rather die than experience another emotional breakdown in front of the Frugises. And he knew he had to stop running away from this tale; he had to hear this. Had to know the answers, even if he wouldn’t like them. He shot Crow a fairly desperate look, hoping some of his feelings would be conveyed.
And Crow, who truly was an angel, nodded. “Mr. Frugis, are you trying to tell us that some rooks can time-travel?”
As if trying to find the right words, Edwin smoothed his moustache fiercely. “Not exactly .”
“Because the carnival we were with, it sort of… bounces around in time. I don’t know how. But we’ve seen for ourselves that it’s possible.”
Well now, there was an excellent point. Like most other mysteries surrounding the carnival, Simeon had shied away from giving this much thought. It happened, and that was that, and it wasn’t his business. Except now it had become his business, apparently.
Lydia made an impatient sound. She was good at that. “Rooks cannot move in time, except in the very ordinary way that all beings can. However, there are some few among us who can draw information from other periods. They can see or hear something that has happened or will happen.”
Crow was frowning. He was good at that . “We’ve been told that the future isn’t predetermined. There are, um probabilities, but nothing is decided until?— ”
“—the thread is cut,” Simeon finished for him. They’d heard that more than once.
“Yes,” agreed Lydia. “Just as a bird in flight may choose from among many wind currents. Rooks who have this skill receive information from the strongest currents. The ones that are most likely.”
Looking down at the papers he held, Simeon saw the logic in this. So why did it make him so uneasy? He set the drawings on the table and crossed his arms. “And this prophecy had something to do with me?”
“It had everything to do with you,” she replied sternly. “It was your parents who saw it. Both of them could fly through time. We strongly discourage such matches from taking place. The progeny are often… defective.”
There was a low growling sound, and it took Simeon a beat or two to realize that it was coming from Crow, whose hands were balled into tight fists, his cheeks flushed with anger. He looked, unsurprisingly, like a person who could stand up to murderous demons—and defeat them.
“Simeon. Is. Not. Defective.”
Edwin held up his hands in a conciliatory manner. “ Often , she said. Not always . It’s like when humans intermarry too closely—some of their children end up with hemophilia or the Habsburg jaw. But not all of their children.”
More with those damned probabilities. Simeon had no head for figures and had learned only the most basic of mathematical skills. Now his shortcomings in this regard were haunting him. He spoke through gritted teeth. “Fine. My parents were clodpated jobbernowls who reproduced notwithstanding. What was the bleeding prophecy?”
Lydia leaned forward and looked at him with eyes as dark as his own. “That their son would bring destruction.”