Patricia McKillip - The Bell at Sealey Head

Emma was in the library dusting the windowsills, the preferred spot for bluebottles to die, it seemed. There was some kind of bulky, colorful flow across the glass; she looked up, saw horses moving past to stop at the broad fan of stone steps in front of the house. The riders waited. Emma, her cloth motionless, watched them. There had been no stable kept for years. No Andrew or Timothy to help them down, take their horses. And no Fitch, either, she realized, to open the door for them. He must be down in the pantry, polishing the corkscrew or some such. One of the ladies laughed at the persistent silence. Emma recognized her then, and the young man as well: nobody else in Sealey Head had quite the parrot profile of the Sproules.

She scrambled out from behind the leather couch, tossed the dead flies into the fireplace, and hurried to the door.

She tussled it open finally, saw that the young master Sproule had dismounted, and was helping his sister down. The other woman had not waited for him; she slid a bit awkwardly to the ground, flashing a length of pretty mauve stocking to the watching trees.

Emma recognized her flighty golden hair, her spectacles. Miss Gwyneth Blair, the merchant’s daughter, out riding with Raven and Daria Sproule. She started a curtsy, caught sight of the dust cloth still in her hand, and pushed it into her pocket. Daria Sproule gave her bright laugh again, an unexpected sound around the house those days.

“Good morning,” Raven Sproule said affably. “Fine morning it is, too.” He surveyed it a moment, complacently, as if he owned it, and then took a closer look at her face. “Emma, isn’t it? Your mother lives up a tree or something.”

Emma nodded stolidly. “Emma Wood, sir.”

Daria rolled her eyes reproachfully at her brother, then swooped her lashes toward Emma. “Our mother sent a little gift or two for Lady Eglantyne. Trifles, really. A couple of light novels, a scented cushion. Is there any chance we might give them to her ourselves?”

“I’ll—”

“Oh.” She tugged her tall friend forward. “This is Miss Blair.”

“Yes, miss.”

Miss Blair was puzzling something out between her brows as she gazed at Emma. They sprang apart abruptly, as she smiled. “That’s where I’ve seen you. You come to my father’s warehouses sometimes, for odd things. Plants, rare herbs and teas, dried—” She checked herself, her eyes widening, and ended tactfully, “oddments.”

Emma, remembering the monkey paw, swallowed a sudden bubble of laughter. “Things for my mother, miss. Please come in. I’m sorry there’s no one to take the horses.”

“No matter; we’ll just tie them here,” Raven said, fixing their reins to some iron rings embedded in the step railing. “We won’t be long.”

“I can bring you tea in the library. It’s a bit dark in there, but the furniture is covered in the parlor and the drawing room; they’ve gone unused for so long. Then I’ll ask upstairs if Lady Eglantyne is receiving.”

Their faces sobered at that, the reminders of silence and sadness within. Daria gave an inarticulate coo, and Raven a sort of a reassuring bleat. Gwyneth said more clearly, “Thank you,” her spectacles flashing curiously back at the ancient, random assortment of upstairs windows.

Emma got them settled in the library, where Daria began immediately to chatter and Raven sat stunned wordless by all the books. She hurried down to the kitchen, found Fitch sitting in his shirtsleeves, polishing silverware and trading memories with Mrs. Haw.

“There’s Sproules in the library, asking to see Lady Eglantyne,” she told them. “And Miss Blair. Tea for three, please, Mrs. Haw, while I go up to look in on her ladyship.”

“Visitors!” Mrs. Haw exclaimed, astonished. Fitch got up hastily, wrestling himself into his jacket.

“I’ll take the tea,” he told Emma firmly; no reason she should have all the excitement.

She left it to him and went upstairs, where the shadows clung to the walls like tapestries, and the old boards creaked underfoot as though wind were shaking the house. Most of the upper rooms were locked; only Lady Eglantyne slept there, lived there now in her great canopied bed festooned with lace, and her maid Sophie ensconced in the elegant room adjoining hers.

Emma tapped gently on the door with her fingertips. Perhaps Sophie was in the next room, and Lady Eglantyne asleep, for no one answered. She turned the latch soundlessly and peered in.

The princess stood on top of the highest tower in Aislinn House. Trees, sea, sky sloped dizzyingly around her. Emma could feel the wind blowing the morning scents of salt and earth, wrasse and wrack, newly opened flowers. Ysabo was surrounded by crows, a gathering so thick they covered the tower floor, a living, rustling, muttering pool of dark, consuming what looked like last night’s leftovers, the remains of a great feast, crusts and bloody bones, withering greens, the drying seeds and bright torn peels of exotic fruits.

The princess, her bright hair unbound, flying on the wind, turned her head; a dozen crows raised their heads here and there among the crush, cast black glances at the interloper. Emma put a finger to her lips quickly as the speckled amber eyes met hers. The princess nodded, but without her usual answering smile, only a swift, silent acknowledgment of Emma, as more bird heads turned, eyes catching light, dark-bright, little bones cracking in their beaks. Emma started to close the door. Then the wind pounced into the tower and away, sending Ysabo’s hair streaming in its wake, and Emma saw the red blaze on her pale cheek, like a brand, of four thick, blunt fingers.

Emma almost made a sound. But the princess only gazed at her steadily, not moving, while at her feet beaks began to clack. Emma, trembling a little, shut the door.

She stared at the dark, heavy wood a moment, then drew a breath, blinking, and opened it again.

Sophie sat beside Lady Eglantyne’s bed. She was dressed as usual in the loose, flowing pastels Lady Eglantyne liked to see, gowns that were decades out of fashion. Her ivory hair was parted and combed with doll-like precision into an hourglass shape on the back of her head, topped with a little pancake of lace the light blue of her dress.

Beside her, the neatly folded lace-edged sheets and the silken counterpane rose minutely and fell on the breast of the slight figure in the bed. Lady Eglantyne dreamed. The stuff of her dreams, silence, shadows, diffused light, indeterminate shapes behind thin curtains, within mirrors, seemed to crowd the air, fill what could be mistaken for space.

Emma came softly to the bedside; Sophie, who had little enough company besides the sleeper, smiled behind the finger at her lips.

“Good morning, Hesper,” she whispered.

“Good morning, Sophie,” Emma said, resigned to answering to either name she heard. “Has she been awake this morning?”

“Only long enough to drink a little milk and to allow me to change her nightdress. Then she fell back to sleep.”

Emma looked at the thin, distant face, almost lost in the floppy white bed cap.

“She seems peaceful.”

“Doesn’t she? Perhaps she’s getting better. Must I wake her? Is the doctor here?”

“No. Raven and Daria Sproule have come to pay their respects. And Miss Blair.”

“Visitors,” Sophie murmured, awed. They both studied the dreamer, who was far away in some other world, having unimaginable adventures, or maybe just sitting on a rock and tatting.

“Well,” Emma said finally. “We shouldn’t wake her.”

“No. Dr. Grantham will do that soon enough. He makes her talk if he can.”

“Does she?”

“Not if she can help it,” Sophie sighed. “She only wants to be left alone.”

“Do you need anything?”