Jan Siegel - The Poisoned Crown - The Sangreal Trilogy Three

Gradually, the mattress stabilised and Nathan subsided into normal sleep. There were no more dream-journeys to other worlds, but he was haunted by images of Princess Nell in her wedding dress, running and running through an endless network of corridors, while he tried in vain to follow. Her laughter woke him in the morning, fading into music as the alarm went off and his radio started to play.

For a place where a murderer had lived, Riverside House seemed to Annie, as ever, curiously lacking in atmosphere. The round towers which had formerly been oast houses were joined by a two-storey building with all mod cons, currently littered with boxes – boxes sealed or opened, half unpacked or collapsed into folds for re-use – and assorted furniture, often in the wrong place. There was a sofa in the kitchen and a double bed in the living room. Daubs of paint on the walls indicated experimentation with future colour schemes. Much of the kitchen had turned lemon yellow, decorated with random stencils of art nouveau vegetables. The Rayburns were bringing their own atmosphere, Annie thought, but there was nothing underneath. Several murders and the residence of a dark enchantress had left little impression.

‘Have a seat,’ said Ursula Rayburn. ‘No – not there! Sorry. That’s Gawain’s school project.’ She picked up a fragile construction that seemed to consist mostly of paper, feathers and glue. ‘Isn’t it wonderful? I think it’s meant to be a phoenix.’

‘I’m sure it’s just like one,’ Annie said obligingly.

‘Those pink fluffy bits look awfully like Liberty’s feather boa. She was wondering where it had got to. Oh well, it’s such a tiny sacrifice for her to make for her brother’s artistic development. All my children are so creative.’ She sighed happily. ‘Except Michael, but he’s a sort of mathematical genius, so that’s all right … I hear Nathan’s frightfully brilliant too?’

‘He does okay,’ Annie said, feeling uncomfortable. She had no desire to boast of Nathan’s genius or creativity. All she wanted was for him to be as normal as possible – and under the circumstances, that was difficult enough.

‘Did you get hold of a plumber?’ she went on, changing the subject.

‘Oh yes,’ Ursula said. ‘Some firm in Crowford – but he said he couldn’t find anything wrong, and I said, there’s got to be. We keep finding water on the floor. So he said, maybe the roof leaks – it has rained a lot lately – but I said, then it would be on the top floor, and it isn’t, it’s downstairs. Anyway, he thinks it could be sort of funnelled down somehow, but I don’t believe it. I haven’t found any damp patches on the walls or ceiling.’

Annie asked, a little hesitantly: ‘Could I see where—?’ She expected Ursula to find her curiosity bizarre, but her hostess clearly thought she was just trying to be helpful.

‘Of course you can.’ She led Annie through into the ground floor room in one of the towers, which had once been a study. ‘This is going to be a sitting room,’ she explained. ‘I love the shape. At the moment, Romany’s sleeping here—’ a vague gesture encompassed a mattress on the floor ‘—and Michael and Gawain are upstairs. Jude and Lib are too old to share so they have their own rooms. The murder room ’s going to be a guest bedroom – but only when I feel it’s been completely purged of bad vibes.’

Annie grinned. ‘So when people come to stay you can tell them: We’ve put you in the haunted room …?’

‘Actually,’ Ursula said, ‘I haven’t really sensed any ghosts. It’s a bit disappointing. At least, not exactly disappointing , but when a house has a history like this – well, you’d expect more than just vibes, wouldn’t you? It isn’t that I want to see an apparition or anything, but I did think … You know, a bloodstain that won’t scrub out, or – or perhaps moaning in the night. Something. ’

‘And all you’ve got is a puddle on the floor,’ Annie said thoughtfully. In the middle of the room was a large damp patch where the carpet still hadn’t dried out.

‘There’s nothing ghostly about that ,’ Ursula retorted. ‘It’s just a bloody nuisance. I suppose we’ll have to get someone to look at the roof next. I tell you, I’m going to sue that surveyor …’

They went back into the kitchen and she poured coffee.

‘We had an awful fright last weekend,’ she went on. ‘The kids wanted a boat so much, so Donny got them an inflatable – it’s on the bank now, down by the jetty – and they were messing around with it, and Romany fell in. I don’t know how it happened – that river is dodgy, isn’t it? She must’ve gone right under, and then she popped up again, and we got her out somehow, and she was fine, but it absolutely terrified me. I mean, she’s eight, she can swim a bit, but she kept saying how the weeds pulled her under. I told them all, they’re to stay away from the river, but of course they won’t.’

Absently, Annie found herself murmuring the familiar lines:

‘ Cloud on the sunset

Wave on the tide …’

‘What’s that?’ Ursula asked.

‘It’s a sort of local folk-rhyme,’ Annie said. ‘About the river.

Cloud on the sunset

Wave on the tide

Fish from the deep sea

Swim up the Glyde.

The river’s tidal, you see.’ She didn’t go on with the poem.

‘Does that mean you can get dolphins and things? Like in the Thames?’ Ursula looked enthusiastic, then dubious. ‘Surely not – this river’s far too small. I expect that’s just fanciful.’

‘Yes,’ Annie said. ‘Fanciful.’ She gazed pensively into her coffee, unsure of her own thoughts – or fears. Unsure what to say, and what to leave out.

Water on the floor – in the room where Romany slept. And it was Romany who fell in the river …

‘I think,’ she said, ‘you should keep an eye on her.’

‘On who?’

‘Romany.’

‘I always do. Though in the main, she’s such a good child. A bit solitary – always inventing her own games, making up imaginary friends, going off on adventures with them. Of course, she includes Gawain sometimes – he’s her baby brother, after all. I expect she’ll grow up to be a great novelist, or playwright, or something.’

As long as she does grow up, Annie thought.

Or was she being paranoid?

She would have to discuss it with Bartlemy when the opportunity offered.

Hazel thought too much of her time at Thornyhill Manor was spent on school work. She didn’t know quite how it had happened, but in the last few months she had begun re-doing her lessons with Bartlemy, and although a tiny part of her was secretly pleased that her grades had gone up, the stubborn, awkward, Hazelish part still told her lessons weren’t exactly her thing, and she would never do really well, so it was all a waste of effort. Besides, school work was boring, and she was supposed to be there to learn about magic. Despite her stated aversion to it, magic wasn’t boring.

‘Could we try the spellfire again?’ she said one day, off-handly. ‘I’m sick of maths. I never get it right.’

Bartlemy’s mild gaze narrowed with a hint of amusement. ‘You’re doing fine with that geometry,’ he pointed out. ‘Maths teaches you to think. If you do magic without thought you’ll end up like your great-grandmother. Do you want that?’

‘N-no. But I’ve done enough thinking for one day …’

‘As it happens,’ Bartlemy said, ‘there is something with which I need your help. But it could be dangerous. I want to be sure you won’t lose your head.’