Guy Kay - Ysabel

Edward Marriner sat opposite her. He glanced meaningfully towards the pool where Steve was still swimming. Kimberly looked over. She turned to Ned. “Melanie’s been changed? Into someone else? Is that it?”

Ned nodded. “Both men were there. The one Kate and I saw, and the one you and I met by the tower.”

Aunt Kim closed her eyes. “Damn.”

“I’m sorry,” Ned said, miserably. “I know you told me not to…even Phelan told us.”

She stared at him.

“He’s the one we met first, Kate and me.”

“He has a name now?”

Ned nodded. It was all really hard, sitting here above a swimming pool, holding images in his head of twinned fires and a slaughtered bull, that stone bowl held high, filled with blood. “The other one’s Cadell. Melanie named them, after she—”

Aunt Kim held up a hand again, like a traffic cop. She looked at the pool, and then at Ned’s father. “You still need to back up. But I think everyone has to be here,” she said, gesturing towards Steve. “You can’t keep it from him, if she’s really gone.”

“Is she?” Edward Marriner asked. “Gone? I mean, that’s so…”

Kim nodded. “She’s changed, anyhow. They wouldn’t make this up.”

Ned’s father drew a slow breath, processing that. “Greg, too, then,” he said, finally. “We’ll have to wake him.”

“I’ll do it,” Ned said. He needed an excuse to move.

He went into the house. Veracook smiled at him. He saw that she’d gathered some stalks of flowers and leaves, had laid them above the kitchen sink, sideways on the ledge, not in a vase.

She noticed his glance and flushed a little.

“Don’t tell Vera,” she said, in French, a finger to her lips. “She laughs at me.”

“What are they?”

“Rowan. To protect the house. A special night tonight, very special.”

Ned stared. He didn’t say anything, just went upstairs to get Greg. He felt burdened, heavy with a weight of centuries.

IT WAS STEVE, surprisingly, who insisted they call the police.

He was almost shouting. Greg, perhaps still half asleep, perhaps not, was watchful and quiet after Ned and Kate finished their story. He was eyeing Aunt Kim and Ned’s father, waiting to see what they did.

“They aren’t allowed to kill each other?” Kim said.

Ned shook his head. “That’s what she said. Not while they look for her.”

“She gave them that set time to find her,” said Kate. “Three days.”

“It would be three,” Aunt Kim said. “But she’s doing something differently, I think. Sounds as though they would fight for her, normally.”

“Maybe not,” Kate said, hesitantly. “It seemed as if sometimes she just…chooses one, and then there’s a war. In revenge, maybe?” They all stared at her. She flushed, looked at Kimberly. “But this was different. I think they were both surprised.”

“So what does it mean, if it’s different?” Edward Marriner asked.

“I’m not sure,” Aunt Kim admitted.

“Then what do we do?” Greg asked.

“You know what we do now! This isn’t goddamned Scooby-Doo!” Steve glared around the table. “We make a call, for God’s sake! Melanie’s been kidnapped and we aren’t detectives!”

“She’s been changed, not kidnapped,” Kim said calmly. “Steven, Steve, the gendarmes will have no possible way of dealing with this.”

“And we do?” Steve said, his voice rising. “I mean, way I make this, Ned and his friend saw some whacko cult, pagans or Wiccans or whatever, faking a ritual, and Melanie got grabbed when she walked in and interrupted them.” He looked at Ned. “Admit it. You could have missed what really went down. You said there were fires and smoke.”

“I wish,” Ned said. He felt miserable. “Steve, I do. But too many things have happened. I mean, Aunt Kim and I saw the guy—Cadell—with stag horns, and then he changed into an owl.”

Steve stared at him.

“And Melanie never disappeared,” Ned added, after a moment. “I saw her all the way. I could see really clearly up there. I don’t know why. She just changed, as she walked between the fires.”

“Jesus! I’m supposed to…we’re supposed to believe that?”

“I think we may have to, Steve,” said Edward Marriner, slowly.

“I don’t like it any more than you do, but something inexplicable seems to be going on. I think we let Dr. Ford—Kim—guide us here.”

“Why’s that?” Greg asked, but quietly.

Kim looked at him. “I’ve seen this before,” she said. “Long time ago. Not identical, nothing’s ever quite the same. But I can tell you that Ned and I…our family…have a connection to this sort of thing.”

“What sort of thing?” Greg again, still calmly.

“Call it Celtic, pagan, supernatural. Pick the word that works for you.”

“And if none of them work?” Steve asked, but his voice had softened. Aunt Kim was pretty hard to yell at, Ned thought.

She smiled wryly at Steve. “Not even ‘idiotic mumbo-jumbo’?”

Steve looked at her. His expression changed. “Maybe that one,” he said. “That might do.” He hesitated. “What do you want, then? How do we get her back?”

“Yeah. What do we do?” said Greg. “Tell us, we’ll do it. Right now.”

They were assuming they could do something, Ned thought. He glanced at Kate, saw her looking back at him.

The others hadn’t seen Ysabel, or the two men facing each other among the ruins. Or the bull being led between flames. Ned wasn’t sure about doing anything useful at all. He felt sick, thinking about that.

From inside the house, just then, as the sun was going down at the end of a day, the telephone rang.

Ned looked quickly at his watch. So did his father.

“Oh, bloody hell,” said Edward Marriner, with feeling.

Listening to the ring, Ned corrected his earlier thought. One person could—probably would—find it extremely easy to yell at Aunt Kim, and disbelieve her, too.

He and his father exchanged a glance. Ned, feeling an emotion he couldn’t immediately identify, said, “I’ll get this one.” His father, halfway to his feet, subsided into his chair again. In a way, that was a surprise. In another way, it wasn’t: this wouldn’t be a conversation he’d rush to have.

His heart beating fast again, Ned went in, crossed to the dining room, and picked up the phone.

“Hello?”

“Hi, sweetie, it’s me!”

The connection to Africa was really good again. It was weird somehow; you expected a war zone to have crackly, broken-up phone lines.

Ned took a breath. “Hi, Mom. Listen. You have to listen carefully. We need you here. Fast as you can. Melanie’s disappeared. Some totally weird things are happening. I can’t even explain on the phone. Aunt Kim’s come to help, but we need you. Please, Mom, will you come?”

It poured out in pretty much one breathless rush. In retrospect, he probably could have found a smarter way of telling her, but he was really scared, and wound up, and there wasn’t an easy way to do any of this. And he hadn’t expected to ask for her, not in that way, like a child.

There was a silence on the other end of the line, not surprisingly.

He heard her intake of breath. “Ned, did you just tell me that your aunt is there?”

He said, “Mom, what I said was that I need you. Did you hear that part?” Now that he’d said it, he realized he really wanted her here.

“Edward, where’s your father?” She called him Edward only when it was really serious.

“On the terrace. We’re trying to figure out what to do. Mom, I told you, Melanie’s gone.”

“Do I have this right? Kimberly, my sister, is with you? In France?”

She sounded a bit in shock, actually.