Chapter Forty
They slipped out from behind the shelves and into the bustle of the kitchens.
So many humans, so many creatures, so much of everything!
If Dian hadn’t been having a much worse time of it, Frida would have put her hands over her ears and wept.
There were cooks yelling at each other, kitchen maids yelling at scullery maids, butlers yelling at footmen.
There were the dogs, all scent and memory and past and future, the deadpan wit of cats, making jokes about the dogs, the poetic rats in the walls, the highly-strung mice underfoot, the flies buzzing, moths circling, beetles scuttling, countless voices speaking of moonlight, arousal, death, hunger, apathy, passion, pain.
Frida nearly got decapitated when a man brandished a meat cleaver too close to her neck.
It was only Dian who saved her ears from ending up in the soup.
It was impossible to concentrate. Everything was so dreamy, and somehow so much sharper.
Whether it was Dian’s magic, the stress, the effects of the fairy pool – she didn’t know, but she could positively feel, with each new furred, clawed, winged voice she encountered, the exhilarating, shocking sense of her brain expanding.
It was like a fantasy, thinking that she could dare to listen to such things, to such languages, such worlds.
She couldn’t, shouldn’t, be allowed to hear these things.
It felt like they were moving at a snail’s pace and she tried to ground herself, but her brain was skittering over the calm stillness of the fairy pool, the feeling of flying through the air with Lucky, the wind in her ears.
She kept seeing out of the corner of her eye the way Dian sparkled like a flame, and the way her own skin seemed to light up in answer.
She kept re-hearing the radio hum of the horses, remembering the violet fire that Dian had sworn burned in her eyes.
It wasn’t until they’d had to drop to the ground and crawl, inch by desperate inch, beneath one of the tables and a disgruntled cat gave her such a hard swipe, he almost took out her right eye, that she began to pull it together.
Finally remembering her rosewood box, she scrunched up her face and – as she crawled – tried to imagine the magic blazing through her, taking it strand by strand, and slipping it inside the box.
Although it screamed at her in protest, and something in her heart faltered at what she was doing, it went, bit by bit.
And miraculously, after that, although she was wrung out and panting, the voices and the panic quietened.
Dian gazed down at her, hidden in the shadow of the long table, their eyes swollen.
As if they knew she’d done something, as if they could feel the difference, but didn’t know what.
They opened their mouth as if to ask, slowly reaching out a finger and wiping a drop of blood from her cheek where the cat had swiped.
In the end, they just mouthed, ‘Are you ok?’
Frida nodded, shuddering. Although she wasn’t sure about the answer.
They continued.
They hugged walls. They crawled under more tables.
They picked their way painfully slowly over the languorous bodies of flea-ridden dogs.
She guessed from Moth’s silence, he was somewhere on Dian’s person, weaving tirelessly, doing his part to keep the magic going.
When they eventually emerged into a relatively empty corridor on what Frida thought was the north side of the kitchens, they both sagged with relief against the white-washed wall, the curved edges of the raindrops refracting off the lights of the candles.
Sweat beaded at Dian’s temples, wisps of ivy-coloured curls sticking to their forehead.
‘Seas, Frida. Is this human life?’
Frida felt shell shocked. ‘No, not usually!’ Then she screwed up her nose, thinking about the morning rush at the LEZ’s Extraordinary Pancake Booth, and she finished ruefully, ‘Well, maybe sometimes.’
Dian looked flummoxed.
Frida might have tried to defend all the wonderous things about being human, but the words stuck in her throat. All that came out was, ‘We should keep going.’
So they picked up their pace, hurrying on as the noise of the people faded.
They passed a sewing room, a few storerooms, a room with nothing but rows and rows of boots in it.
Frida was re-finding her bearings. Apart from the clothing, the conspicuous lack of plastic, and the overpowering stench of cooked meat, soot and something bitter like burnt oil – the National Trust had done a pretty good restoration job.
She’d have to send someone a congratulatory letter when she got home.
If she got home.
Each glance at Dian reminded her why they were here. They looked like a rookie keeper who’d just had their first introduction to the meat freezers. She squeezed their hand.
‘You’re doing amazing,’ she whispered.
Dian shuddered dramatically but managed a ghost of a smile in her direction as they squeezed her hand in answer.
They’d just slipped past another storeroom, and it was getting busier again.
From a nook behind the service stairs, they watched the throng of footmen and butlers wordlessly.
Oak-green livery, powdered wigs and white gloves, polished shoes and sleek gold buttons.
A parade of wines, champagnes, silver platters of steaming food conjured from the kitchens.
It seemed endless and Frida’s mouth watered.
She’d survived on a handful of apples across what amounted to two centuries, and the longing for what was beneath those silver cloches made her feel faint.
Even though she hadn’t eaten meat since she’d seen her first LEZ freezer, if someone offered her a full roast partridge right now, she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to say no.
Although, the idea of the partridge lifting his or her head and speaking to her .
. . suddenly, she thought she would, actually, be able to say no quite easily, thank you.
Moth, from the safety of Dian’s throat, was still watching the footmen. ‘We do not have to go that way, do we? That is many, many humans.’
Dian just turned to Frida, their eyes holding hers. It’s your call, they seemed to say.
Their faith in her blew her away.
She chewed hard on her thumbnail, knowing she couldn’t fuck this up. They had to get upstairs, but . . .
‘I think you’re right, Moth. It’s too busy here.
’ She didn’t know how long Dian could hold their magic for.
She didn’t dare ask, but scaring fifty footmen half to death if they lost their grip on it would not be ideal.
She beckoned for them to follow her back the way they’d come.
It was the right choice, for soon they found a set of darkened stairs, blissfully free of people.
Frida hurried up, the others hot on her heels.
At the top they found a heavy white panelled door.
Frida cast Dian a wordless question, and when Dian nodded, she carefully cracked it open.
The room on the other side was small, and blissfully empty.
She tugged Dian inside with relief. As the door swung shut behind them, it sealed out the raging inferno below, the heat from the ovens, the tornado of voices, the knots of stench and sweat, the bustle of unending activity.
For the moment, there was just quiet.
Apart from a dark side table, presumably for servants to set down heavy trays, the room was bare.
The floor was oiled wood and a gas lamp hummed inside a frosted glass globe mounted on the wall, its light a brighter, steadier thing than the amber of the candles.
They had gas lighting? Frida stared at it.
If they had gas lighting, why did they need dragonfly lamps?
She had to shove away the implications of this before she was able to move.
Quickly, she indicated for Dian to follow her through the next doorway.
She just wanted to find somewhere safe to wait until dinner was over now.
Whatever thrill she might have felt at seeing Forge House in its heyday was a guttering candle in the hollow cave of her chest.
Moving as if in a dream she led them down a long corridor, listening to the faint sound of string instruments wafting towards them.
Dian’s hand was damp in hers. At fourteen, she’d been overawed by the gold beading on the panelled walls, the thick Persian carpets, the monumental oil paintings – things utterly unfamiliar for a girl who’d grown up on a council estate.
Now though, fresh out of the heat and noise of downstairs, and distorted by Dian’s wild magic, she stroked her free hand over the golden panels and felt sick.
She loved Sir Joshua, not because he was twelve times removed from Henry VIII, but for what he’d given the world.
Now, the starkness of the opulence made her ill.
‘I don’t like this at all,’ Moth said, muffled from within the webs.
Dian let out a relieved gasp to finally voice it, ‘Oh, it’s truly awful!’
Frida almost laughed, licking her dry lips.
It was awful. It should have been easier to breath up here, but there was a cloying flowery perfume in the air, an attempt to cover the stench drifting through the floorboards perhaps.
Golden framed pictures blurred into one, a parade of nymphs and centaurs, stiff-necked generals, soft-limbed ladies, children in bonnets, fluffy wide-eyed puppies.
She was almost pleased to see the trail of mud she’d tracked across the carpet, until she realised a servant might be sacked for it, and she set about frantically rubbing the remaining dirt from her boots.
Her eyes snagged on Dian’s bare feet, mottled with all the shades of hawthorn bark, looking even more out of place than she did. What were they doing here?!
Dian’s hand tightened on hers. Across their left cheek, there was a patch of silvery brown, like a birth mark in the shape of a thornapple, and it caught the light, making her falter.
She wondered ridiculously what it would feel like to run her thumb across it.
Then, from the end of the corridor, the sound of music grew louder, the soft lilting notes of a piano.
‘Let’s leave,’ she hissed. ‘Let’s go back.’
There were no windows here, and she felt as if she couldn’t breathe.
But as she and Dian gazed at each other, her words hanging between them, the memory of the terracotta dragon in the gardens loomed before her.
She couldn’t hear the keening from here, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there.
And in the swirling dark of Dian’s eyes, she saw the shape of the horn, the swollen lung, the fire-singed phoenix feather.
The unicorn, the dragonflies who were Dian’s friends, caught in the jars.
Moth’s many eyes gleamed at Dian’s neck.
‘No,’ Frida choked, sagging. They couldn’t leave, of course they couldn’t.
Dian made a low noise in the back of their throat, a sort of half desperate laugh, half curse, and half something else entirely. ‘No,’ they affirmed helplessly.
So they continued, down another corridor, their entwined hands so slippery Frida was scared she’d lose her grip.
Thankfully it was quieter on this side of the house.
There were servants though, here and there, and every time they passed one, walking with their head down to stoke a fire, or check on the lamps, Frida thought she’d have a coronary.
But somehow, Dian kept them safe. Without Dian, Frida wasn’t sure what she would have done.
She could still hear the piano music floating down the corridors and the faint sound of laughter, the tinkle of glassware, but it was distant, rising in and out like a tide.
Finally, they stood outside a large, opulent room, which Frida remembered in her bones, and she felt everything inside her go silent.