Herbie Brennan - The Faeman Quest

What happened after that, what happened after she was invited into the all-girl household, what happened after she met Anais (who Henry said was very pretty) Mella hadn’t quite worked out. But it would all revolve around human customs. She would probably be invited to stay. She might even be taken shopping to buy new clothes (she had gold in her purse, something she’d already discovered went a very long way in this exotic Analogue World). Mella liked to think that what would happen must remain in the lap of the Gods. The Old Gods, that was, who were open to adventures. They were bound to ask her about her father, of course, but since she’d read his journal she knew exactly what to tell them. Her story was well-rehearsed: she’d even read up on New Zealand in case they wanted details about where she lived.

The houses were peculiar in that none of them had the spell-driven guardians that were standard in the Faerie Realm. There, you had only to place one hand on an entrance gate for a voice to whisper the name of the house, the name of the owner, who was currently in residence and whether you would be welcome to call. Most of them had a security setting that paralysed undesirable visitors, then tarred and feathered them if they persisted. But there was nothing like that here, not even a basic announcer. Some of the houses had nameplates, all of them had numbers, but there was no way of telling who lived in them unless you already knew. No way of finding out if you’d be welcome either.

So which house had her father lived in? Which house did her grandmother still live in with Anais? A dreadful thought struck her suddenly: suppose her grandmother no longer lived here? Suppose she’d sold the house and moved on somewhere else? In the Faerie Realm a guardian would give her all that information, including instructions on how to get to the former resident’s new abode. But here…

Mella felt like kicking herself. Why on earth hadn’t she thought of this sooner?

She slowed her pace, examining each house more carefully. She was absolutely certain her father had never mentioned a house number in his journal. Why should he? He knew where he lived and the journal was supposed to be private. (As if anybody expected anything to stay private without spell protection: but then her father was allergic to spells.) Had he ever mentioned a name? Mella wasn’t sure. And if he had mentioned one, she surely could not remember. What to do?

Perhaps she should call at any of the houses at random and simply ask where Mrs Atherton lived. It seemed hideously rude to call on a total stranger demanding help, but what other option did she have? All the same, she hesitated. She simply could not imagine herself walking up to any of those doorways when she didn’t know who occupied the house. What would she do if they called the police? She knew about police from her father’s journal, when he’d written about the time her mother visited the Analogue World. She also knew her rank as Princess of the Realm counted for precisely nothing in this world. If the police arrested her and threw her in a dungeon, she could easily stay there for the rest of her life. She moved on slowly, reading numbers, reading nameplates.

Chatleigh. The nameplate prompted her memory at once. It was engraved on a metal plaque, decorated by a faded painting of some flowers. Chatleigh. Somewhere in his journal, her father had mentioned that name. She was sure of it. And why else would he mention the name if it wasn’t the house where he lived?

She looked beyond the garden gate and saw the house matched the description of his home as given in the journal. (So did several other houses, but she pushed that thought aside.) Mella drew in a deep, shuddering breath. She felt a fluttering in her abdomen. This was it. Even without a guardian, her instinct told her someone was at home, told her firmly that someone had to be her grandmother. It could not possibly be any other way. Mella had come so far, risked so much. The Gods would never be so cruel as to disappoint her now.

She pushed the gate, unconsciously steeling herself for the paralysis of the unwelcome, then remembered and relaxed. It wasn’t like that here. This was a whole new world.

Close-up, the house looked bigger; and a whole lot prettier. There were flowers in the garden and the lawn had just been cut. Her grandmother was clearly a tidy woman. She walked to the front door and waited, heart thumping, to be announced, then remembered again, smiled to herself at herself, reached up and pressed the little lighted button she knew to be a bell-push. She heard the chime as she released the pressure.

For a long, long moment, it seemed as if the house might be empty, despite her intuition. But then she heard the sound of someone moving inside. A woman’s shape appeared briefly behind the frosted glass panel to one side of the door. Then there was the metallic rattle of the funny locks they used here and the door swung back.

‘Good morning, Gra-’ Mella began, then stopped. The woman on the doorstep was absolutely not her grandmother.

The woman on the doorstep was too young. She looked about Mella’s father’s age, or maybe a bit younger; and actually there was the look of Henry about her around the eyes. But if she wasn’t her father’s mother – and clearly she wasn’t – who could she be? There was something about her – an arrogant tilt of the head, a flash of annoyance in the eyes – that told Mella she was certainly no servant.

It had to be asked. Mella screwed up her courage. ‘Does Martha Atherton live here?’ She remembered the Analogue custom and amended, ‘Does Mrs Martha Atherton live here?’

‘Are you one of her students?’

As a princess, Mella was not accustomed to being questioned or explaining herself. ‘No,’ she said coldly and stared the other woman in the eye.

The woman glared back, but eventually said (when Mella refused to look away), ‘She’s on holiday.’ She hesitated, then added, ‘I’m house-sitting.’

It was a strange term, but Mella decided to ignore it. She opened her mouth to ask another question, but what she heard come out was, ‘I’m her granddaughter.’

The woman on the doorstep froze, her mouth half open. She stared at Mella, without the hostility this time but with rather more surprise, even shock. She swallowed, looked away, looked back again, then said, ‘She doesn’t have a granddaughter.’ It was a flat statement without challenge. In fact, the hint of a rising inflection almost turned it into a question.

Mella said very seriously, ‘She doesn’t know she has a granddaughter.’ She straightened her shoulders and pushed a curl of hair back from her face. ‘I’m from New Zealand.’

The woman leaned forward, mouth still half open, to examine her face more closely. After a long, long moment she breathed, half to herself, ‘I don’t believe it. You’re Henry’s child.’

Mella smiled for the first time. ‘My name is Culmella,’ she announced proudly. ‘Who are you?’

‘I’m your aunt Aisling,’ the woman said. ‘Your father’s sister.’

In his fourth year as Consort Majesty, Henry had taken it on himself to reform Blue’s espionage service. Now he was beginning to wish he’d never bothered. The zombies seemed like a good idea at the time – they’d no fear of death and couldn’t be killed since they were already dead – but as guards they frankly left a lot to be desired. Bits kept falling off them and the smell was dreadful. Madame Cardui eventually tried to sack the lot of them, but by then they had formed a trade union so that any reform proved impossible. They marched proudly beside him, singing quietly in their splendid red uniforms, through the labyrinth beneath the Purple Palace that led to the new espionage HQ. Henry sighed. At least they saved the expense of tracker coins. And food.