Chapter 4
Chapter Four
One Hundred and Ten Years Ago
It is spring, my favourite season; magic has my garden in riotous bloom: roses, lilies, and neat rows of forget-me-nots, all arranged in fastidious order.
Dew beads on every leaf. I am admiring the beds beneath a soft blue sky when a girl bursts into view.
She swerves past the street’s only motor-car, almost scraping its glossy black paint, blood streaming from her arm.
Her pursuers race after her, wands and potion vials raised.
The woman next door, Miss Beattie, hears the commotion and steps outside.
She fascinates me. I have watched her endlessly for over twenty-eight years.
By day she is a seamstress and, in her spare time, a governess who tutors young ladies in etiquette.
By night, however, she guards a darker secret: she hunts vampires.
She appears to be the least likely vampire hunter imaginable—an ordinary human in her mid-fifties, fit and sprightly but undeniably mortal.
Grey flecks pepper her black hair, drawn into a bun so severe it pulls the olive skin at her temples.
Her features are sharp; she is more striking than beautiful.
She stands tall, with impeccable posture—the very picture of elegance and refinement—yet she is utterly lethal.
No one would dare attempt to marry her off, I think with a huff.
The vampire hunter’s grey eyes narrow. A short sword, no longer than a forearm, glints in her hand. Like me, she has no patience for little girls being attacked in broad daylight.
The fleeing child is a blur of panic. Her tangled, filthy blonde hair lashes from side to side as she runs down the empty street.
The hem of her wool dress hangs in tatters, dark with grime, and her shoes flap with every stride.
Her breath saws in and out; I can almost hear it over the distant rumble of a horse-drawn tram.
She dodges one vicious spell. A second mage with red hair hurls another, laughing; the bolt catches her leg. The girl stumbles—almost falls—but recovers with an awkward skip, somehow staying upright.
They are not toying with her; they are hunting her for the kill.
Come on, girl, run, I plead silently.
Our country can be brutal. The strong devour the weak. Yet chasing a child to murder her is not strength; it is cowardice. Miss Beattie recognises that, as do I. She steps forward to intercept.
As the frightened girl staggers past my gate, I extend the ward, pluck her off the pavement, and draw her into the garden. She quivers as I swing the front door wide and, with little choice, she stumbles inside.
I slam the door behind her.
She jumps. “Oh no…” she breathes, pressing a hand to her mouth. She sways, pale beneath the layer of dirt, then bravely scans the hallway, her brown eyes wide and bright with tears.
“’Ello?” Her voice trembles. “I’m sorry to trouble you, but if I can just wait till they’ve gone, I’ll be off the moment I’m able.”
The house magic lets me conjure anything I can clearly envision, form drawn from thin air.
Within these walls, everything is mine to command.
The rooms are empty, since I evicted my last ‘guests,’ so I conjure a Chesterfield sofa from the ether, curtains bloom across the windows, a rug unfurls, and dust vanishes.
A coal fire crackles to life in the grate.
By the time she peeks in, the room is homely.
“’Ello? Anybody ’ome?”
I swing the front parlour door wider.
She shuffles in, still muttering. “I ain’t harmed none o’ those mages, me pa sold me to that red-haired one—bushy hair, great fuzzy eyebrows, freckles by t’ dozen. I’m only sixteen.”
She looks closer to twelve.
I roll her words over in my mind, unable to dismiss them. Her father sold her. Rage rises, swift and sharp, yet it is threaded with something gentler: compassion. The feeling startles me. I have not felt this in so long—care, kindness, that aching urge to protect.
I did not think myself capable of it any more.
“I’m not one for boys. Papa’s neck-deep in debt. When I wouldn’t let that man lay a finger on me, he slapped my face. So I clocked him back. Shamed him, shamed all o’ them ‘cos I slipped away. I’ve been on the run for days. They caught me this mornin’. I never meant to make a fuss.”
She sways, taking in the room, fingers leaving smudges on the polished wood as she steadies herself.
They must have used a tracking spell to catch her.
“As soon as they scarper, I’ll be gone. They shouldn’t trouble you—though they did see you nick me off the street, so… let’s ’ope they don’t bear you no ill will.”
Blood drips steadily from the wound on her arm, pattering onto the rug.
“Just a tick,” she adds, her limbs trembling. Her knees give way beneath her and she collapses onto the cushions. “Mind if I sit? They’ve bruised me, and I feel dreadful. I promise I’ll be gone soon.”
The girl has a trace of magic—a technomancer. Most practitioners sneer, dismissing radio-wave manipulation and experimental developments like television as useless. I have always thought such people were simply born into the wrong age.
I want to heal her, yet I must ask permission. How, when I have no throat? Judging by her appearance, it is hardly unreasonable to presume she is illiterate. So no notes.
I hesitate—
That wretched moustached mage claimed I could speak mind to mind with other magic users, though I never cared to try. But maybe… I reach out with essence, hoping the faint magic in her blood will let the girl hear me.
What is your name?
She jumps, wincing as she knocks her wounded arm against the sofa. She hugs it to her chest. “The blighters must’ve cursed me, voices whisperin’ in me ear. I’m goin’ daft.”
Gosh, it worked. The girl heard me.
I am the house, I murmur. I keep my voice gentle, though I want to whirl the room and shake the walls with excitement. After fifty-two years, I am finally speaking to someone—it is extraordinary.
“House? You’re the house?” She glances about the room, squinting up at the cornices.
Yes.
“Oh! Beggin’ yer pardon—I ‘ad no idea you could do that! I’ve never met a livin’ house before. Not well-off nor book-learned enough for soul-bound things. Not even got a proper quill. Forgive me manners—’ello, Miss House. I’m Harriet.” She bobs her head.
A pleasure, Harriet.
She needs water, needs the bleeding stopped. I wrest moisture from the air; a glass swells full and hovers before her, beads of condensation forming on its sides.
“Blimey, that’s a right fascinatin’ gift,” Harriet marvels. Her voice trembles with awe, eyes fixed on the floating tumbler. “If I could do that every day, I’d drink like a queen!”
Go on, it is safe, I say.
“Oh, thank’ee kindly!” She plucks the glass from mid-air and drinks greedily. When she finishes, I remove it and dispose of the empty vessel.
May I heal your arm?
“My arm?” Her remaining colour drains. “I do ‘ope I ain’t gone and bled on your fine leather settee.” She blinks slowly, lashes drooping. “’Course you may, if it’s no trouble… I can’t pay, but maybe I could work it off…” Her body slumps sideways as she slips into unconsciousness.
Permission granted; that is enough.
I draw on herbs from the walled kitchen garden and on power siphoned from the environment and the nearest ley line.
What once required days of preparation now takes mere seconds.
Recalling a medical journal I read months ago, I first vaporise every trace of dirt and bacteria, then cast the healing spell, watching as the wound knits itself closed and angry flesh smooths.
She is healed.
Yet she is thin, blood-loss pale. She needs rest, so I weave a sleeping spell.
I know I am taking liberties.
Upstairs, in the empty front room, I create a bedroom: soft floral wallpaper, a thick rug, a brass bed, mahogany tables, even old family photographs of my late family—my father, my brothers, my sister—to lend life.
Heavy curtains cloak the windows. A small clock ticks on the bedside table, steady and reassuring.
I can be a home.
With a flick of my will, I lift Harriet from the sofa. As I guide her through the house, I cleanse her skin, wash her hair, dissolve the ruined dress, and clothe her in warm pyjamas. I settle her beneath clean sheets.
She needs sleep, safety, care. For the first time in an age, I feel like refuge, and for the first time in just as long, I feel like myself.
Maybe this small act of kindness will anchor me and begin to draw me back to myself?
But I am not myself. I am something new.
Inside, I tend to the girl; outside, my magic leans against the ward like a cat against a doorframe, waiting.
Two of the mages poke at my wards, and I watch.
When I whisked the girl from the street, Miss Beattie gave me a satisfied nod.
I always thought she watched me differently, but only now do I see how differently: she senses I am unusual.
Of course she does—she is a vampire hunter and painfully observant. Perhaps she does not know exactly what I am; perhaps she suspects merely a hidden mage. I cannot ‘jump the wand’ yet, so I keep checking on her, ensuring she is unharmed.
Six of the mages who were chasing the girl now ring around her.
Before they can act, I extend the ward to cloak the street. We need no prying eyes. I doubt our neighbours would report us; curtains twitch, doors remain bolted. Most prefer to pretend they saw nothing, but caution is better than regret.
The newly formed Ministry of Magic claims to take the murder of magic users seriously. I suspect it will soon become a nest of power-hungry officials guarding their own interests. It is not the sort of attention we need.
Miss Beattie rolls one shoulder, flexes her wrist, and gives her sword a single, loosening swing. I never knew vampire hunters favoured blades like that; I imagined stakes, not steel.
The red-headed mage sneers. “We want the girl. Bring her out, and we’ll let you live.”