Chapter Three #2
Toby sighed again. The castle in darkness was no place for Kit; but then, it was no place for any of them, really, and it would be so much easier not to have to insist. ‘Can you be quiet?’ he said.
Kit danced from foot to foot.
‘I mean it, Kit! Not just normal-quiet, but extra quiet. Otherwise it will all be spoiled.’
Kit nodded, but Toby could feel his excitement. He wavered a moment longer, doubting it all again. ‘Come on, then,’ he said, then waited while his brother struggled into his trousers and shirt, moving with excruciating slowness and exaggerated care.
The muffled bell of St Mary’s in West End struck the half hour.
‘Quiet but faster, Kit,’ Toby whispered.
Once they were on the path, they hardly needed a lamp.
The moon had risen bright white, and it outlined the familiar route with silvery shadows.
The night air was soft on the skin, and Toby smelled the warm stone of the castle before they reached it.
His fatigue and misgivings faded. There was something thrilling about being there in the middle of the night – as though the place were actually liminal, or had some magic about it.
A dry corner of his mind observed that these were hardly the thoughts of a rational man of letters, but they were no less seductive for that.
He heard whispers ahead, quiet female voices from the old chapel, and Kit made an excited little sound when he recognised Theo.
He ran ahead into the soft glow of candlelight.
Toby walked more slowly, and saw Theo, Missy Cartwright and a girl he didn’t recognise, sitting on the rabbit-shorn grass in the circle of light thrown by four tiny wicks in glass dishes.
Theo was dressed in white, her hair hanging down over her shoulders.
She’d arranged a few things in front of her – a silver cup, a curl of paper – and when she looked up at him her face reflected such simple, uncomplicated happiness that Toby couldn’t help but feel its echo.
She was beautiful, he realised. Like something an artist would paint. Perhaps it was the moonlight, and her luminous expression. Or perhaps she’d always looked like that.
‘Hello,’ he said, blood racing, as he stepped into the golden glow.
Theo had brought water from the spring in her silver christening cup.
On a scrap of paper she’d written out her invocation – with a little help from Tennyson.
Abrecan’s coin was in her hand, and the ruins of the castle stood sentinel all around, black against the gauzy sky.
The night was mild, still, and completely perfect.
Despite the tingling all over her, Theo was suddenly completely calm.
It actually didn’t matter if the ritual worked, or what happened next: Toby was there, and looked happy to be. He would see her again, and realise.
‘Do sit,’ she said. ‘Quickly, it’s almost midnight.’
Kit bobbed and fidgeted; undone, as always, by Missy’s prettiness. He dropped abruptly to his knees in front of the girl she’d brought with her, and held out one long, knobbly hand.
‘Who are you?’
The girl tucked her knees in tighter. ‘Joanna Bowen.’
These were the first words Theo had heard her speak. She had mistrustful eyes and a scattering of acne on her cheeks.
‘I told her to come with me if she wanted to meet two handsome young men tonight,’ Missy said, dipping her eyelashes at Kit, who flushed, and fidgeted even more.
Theo wished Missy didn’t have to act that way with men.
And it was all men – she’d even seen her look through her lashes at Uncle Crudge, though he’d gallantly ignored it.
Joanna didn’t take Kit’s hand, and he glanced at Toby for guidance.
Missy elbowed Joanna none too gently. ‘Well, shake his hand then, don’t be rude.’
The girl did as she was told, not meeting Kit’s eye, and Missy flicked her skirt aside.
‘Come and sit here, Kit.’ She patted the turf beside her. ‘You’ll protect me if the ghost of Lord Abrecan does come, won’t you?’
‘Yes. Yes, I will.’
‘It’s not his ghost, it’s really him,’ Theo said. ‘In spirit form.’
‘I’m not sure I understand the difference,’ Toby said.
He sat down near to Theo, and caused the very air to change.
‘A ghost is just a shadow, left by a person who’s died,’ Theo explained. ‘Abrecan didn’t die. He took spirit form. It’s different.’
‘If you say so.’ Toby was teasing, but only gently.
‘Well, it won’t work if we don’t at least try to believe in it,’ she said.
‘Look, Kit,’ Missy said, reaching behind and tapping her fingernails on an earthenware jar. ‘Lugged it all the way up the hill, I did. Pat Meecham’s finest.’
Theo had wanted to object to the cider, but it was hard to argue with Missy.
‘A good drop to wassail the ghosts,’ Missy said. ‘Abrecan’ll be thirsty after such a long kip.’
‘And what did Pat Meecham want for it?’ Joanna asked, a bit cattily.
‘To meet me at the castle to drink it, tomorrow night.’ Missy grinned, deepening the dimple in her chin. ‘He’s in for a lonely time of it, mind.’
‘You are wicked, Missy Cartwright.’ Joanna’s disapproval teetered into admiration.
‘Kit is not to have any of that,’ Toby said sternly.
‘Why not? Why can’t I?’ Kit said, and Missy laughed.
‘He’s not your captain, is he?’
‘He’s not my captain!’ Kit agreed, too loudly.
‘Shh! Kit, shh,’ Theo soothed him, and to her slight surprise he was soothed. ‘It’s time to begin.’
She tried to sound serious and authoritative. She’d rehearsed this in her head so many times that it now seemed to be happening to somebody else, with her merely watching. The candles fluttered in a wisp of breeze. Toby’s shadow reached right up to the sky.
‘We’re sitting in the ancient chapel where Lord Abrecan’s feet once trod.’ She held up the silver coin. ‘This coin carries the touch of his hand from a thousand years ago, when he was flesh and blood like us.’
Next was her christening cup. ‘In this cup is water from the holy well, which rises and sinks endlessly, and into which his mortal remains fell, and were taken utterly. The water became his blood, and his blood became the water.’
A flutter of worry, only now, that there was something a tiny bit blasphemous about that part. She held up the scrap of paper.
‘Here are the words to call him forward. For it is said that his spirit will visit this place at midnight each Midsummer’s Night.
By these things – the coin, the water, and the words – we shall see him.
Or . . . hear him,’ she amended, to widen the net.
‘As the clock strikes, I will say the words, and bring all these things together, and then . . .’
She wasn’t sure how to finish, but St Mary’s first chime came to her rescue.
Theo looked around the little circle, as gratified as she was terrified that they were all paying attention, all waiting. Missy drew her shawl in tighter; Joanna looked anxious. Kit was wide-eyed, and Toby . . . she couldn’t look at Toby.
‘“Nothing will die.”’ Theo owed Tennyson for this first part. ‘“All things will change Through eternity.”’
Next came her own composition. She spoke it slowly, rhythmically, like a poem.
‘Nothing will die, but return, unceasingly. Then let the circle turn, and all the countless years of men. Come back again.’
It had taken her weeks to get right. Not too fey, or too ghoulish. Resonant, she thought – portentous. She reached out and let the scrap of paper catch fire on a candle, momentarily blinded by the flare.
‘Come back again.’
She dropped the coin into the cup, and then the burning paper, which hissed and went dark.
‘Come back again.’
She timed the third repetition with the final toll of the church bell, and afterwards came a moment of perfect stillness, suspended in time.
A pale shape rushed over their heads, silent and quick.
Missy squawked and Kit scrambled to his feet, giggling nervously.
Joanna cowered, hiding her face in her hands; Theo gasped, glancing incredulously at Toby.
Then the owl, which had alighted in one of the trees near the spring, whistled mournfully for its mate.
‘Ha!’ Missy burst out, and Toby laughed softly.
‘Abrecan the owl!’ Kit said, and Missy laughed, which made Kit grow several inches taller. ‘Abrecan the owl!’ he said again.
‘Abrecan the bloody owl!’ Missy said. ‘I thought he was supposed to be a wolf?’
‘Well . . .’ Theo thought fast, and at that moment a dog began to howl, down in the village.
The song was picked up and echoed by another, out on one of the farms. And then another. Their plaintive voices sent shivers over the skin. Theo met Toby’s eye, and they shared a smile.
‘I wonder what’s set them off?’ he said.
Theo felt a flicker of hope – the possibility that he understood.
Understood her. Understood that if there wasn’t to be magic and stories in the world, then the world would be desolate indeed.
And if he wasn’t to be in her world, then she would be desolate too.
That when she’d said come back again, she’d meant him as much as Abrecan.
‘Black magic! That’s what this is!’ Joanna quailed, backing away.
‘It’s an owl and some dogs barking at the moon, you lummox,’ Missy said. ‘Kit’s supposed to be the idiot round here, not you.’
‘You heard her! That was a spell. You never said anything about casting spells!’
‘My brother is not an idiot,’ Toby said.
‘Is he not?’ Missy smirked.
Kit was swooping around them haphazardly, arms wide, hooting like an owl.
‘I want to go home!’ Joanna said.
‘Christ’s sake.’ Missy rolled her eyes and sloshed the cider towards her. ‘A gulp of this’ll sort you out.’
Toby stood as well, and Theo found herself the only one still on the grass. She reached into the cup to fish out the coin, and her fingers came up flecked with ash. The spell, if such it had been, was thoroughly broken.
She got up and took Joanna’s hands.
‘Please don’t be frightened. It was only a game. It was just for fun; you’re perfectly safe.’