Mercedes Lackey - The Gates of Sleep

But the sudden fear that had awakened her, the unease that kept her awake, wasn’t going away.

She listened carefully to the sounds of the house. There was nothing from next door, where Elizabeth was. And nothing from the bedrooms down the hall, either. Whatever was disturbing her, it was nothing that any of the others sensed.

Perhaps their shields are a little too good…

After all, shields obscured as well as protected.

Now that was an uncomfortable thought.

And yet, there still was nothing concrete out there, nothing she could put a finger on. She thought about getting a glass of water and summoning an Undine, but—

But if there is something looking for me, that’s the surest way to tell it where I am.

But the unease only grew, and she began to wonder if there was any possibility she could get downstairs into the workroom—which would at least have the primary shields on it—when something else occurred to her.

She didn’t have to summon anything, at least, not of her Element. She had Allies; she had always known about the interest of the Sylphs and other Air Elementals, but Elizabeth had taught her that they had a special connection to her, how to ask them for small favors. And a call to one of them would not betray her presence.

The thought was parent to the deed; she opened the window, and whistled a few bars of “Elf Call” softly out into the night. It didn’t have to be that tune, according to Elizabeth; it could be anything. Whistling was the way that the Finns, who seemed to have Air Mastery in the national blood, had traditionally called their Elemental creatures, so it worked particularly well for one who was only an Ally. It was nothing that an Air Elemental could take offense at. After all, any within hearing distance could always choose to ignore a mere whistle, even one with Power behind it.

There was a movement out of the corner of her eye, a momentary distortion, like a heat shimmer, in the air when she turned to look in that direction.

Then, as she concentrated on the Sight, the heat shimmer became a Sylph.

It did look rather like one of the ethereal creatures in a children’s book—a gossamer-pale dress over a thin wraith of a body, and the transparent insect wings, too small to hold her up in the air, even at a hover; pointed face, silver hair surmounted by a wreath of ivy, eyes far too big for the thin little visage.

She looked, in fact, like one of the child-women ballet dancers often sketched in the newspapers. Except that no ballet dancer ever hovered in midair, and no matter how thin a ballet dancer was, you couldn’t see the tree behind her through her body.

“Little sister,” the Sylph, “I know why you call.”

Marina had often heard the expression, “It made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.” Now she understood it.

“There is danger, little sister,” the Sylph said urgently. “Great danger. She is moving, and her eye turns toward you. It is this that you sense.”

“She? Who is she?” Marina asked, urgently.

“Beware! Be wary !” was all the Sylph would say.

Then she was gone, leaving Marina not at all comforted, and with more questions and next to no answers.

Chapter Six

A LUSTILY crowing rooster woke Marina with a start, and she opened her eyes to brilliant sun shining past the curtains at her window. She sat straight up in bed, blinking.

The last she remembered was lying in bed, trying to decipher what the Sylph had said. It had seemed so urgent at the time, but now, with a rooster bellowing to the dawn, the urgency faded. She threw off the blankets, slipped out of bed, ran to the window and pulled the curtain aside.

The window was closed and latched, and although she did recall closing and latching it when she went to bed, she didn’t remember doing so after summoning the Sylph. She thought she’d left it open; she’d been in such a state of confusion and anxiety that she’d gone straight to her bed from the window.

Had she summoned a Sylph? Or had it all been a particularly vivid dream? Other than the window being shut, and that was problematical, there was nothing to prove her fears of last night had been real or imagined.

Except that last night there were clouds crossing the moon and a steady wind —and today there’s barely a breath of breeze and not a cloud in the sky. Could the weather have changed that drastically in a few hours? She didn’t think so, particularly not here, where winter was basically rain interrupted by clouds.

She opened the window, and closed it again quickly—it was also cold out there! It couldn’t be much above freezing, and she didn’t recall it being that cold last night. Surely it would have been colder last night than it was now!

That seemed to settle it—she must have dreamed the whole thing.

There was an easy way to check on it, though. Despite her misgivings of last night—which now seemed very misplaced—her guardian’s shields surely were not strong enough to keep them from sensing trouble.

She turned away from the window, and hurried over to the fire to build it up again, then quickly chose underthings and a gown and dressed for the day. Perhaps her thick woolen stockings were unfashionable, but at the moment, she would choose warm feet over fashion! Then she made for the kitchen, pausing only long enough in the little bathroom to wash her hands and face in the warm water that Jenny had brought up and left there, clean her teeth, and give her hair a quick brushing. I almost wish snoods were fashionable again, as they were ages ago, she thought, pulling the brush through the thick locks, with impatient tugs. Then I could bundle my hair up into the net and be done with it for the day. Sometimes I think I ought to just cut it all off.

But if she did that, Uncle Sebastian would never forgive her.

Or he’d make me wear horrid, itchy wigs. He already did that now and again, and the things made her skin crawl. Bad enough to be wearing someone else’s hair, but she could never quite rid herself of the thought that insects would find the wigs a very cozy home. It was horrible, sitting there posing, sure that any moment something would creep out of the wig and onto her face!

She ran down the stairs to the kitchen, wanting to be there when everyone else came down. If anyone else had awakened with a fright or even an uneasy stirring in the night, they’d be sure to talk about it. In a household full of magicians, night-frights were no laughing matter.

The problem was, of course, that she didn’t have enough experience to tell a simple nightmare from a real warning. And with all the praises being heaped on her for her current progress with Elizabeth, she was rather loath to appear to be frightened by a silly dream.

And it wasn’t as if there had actually been anything menacing her, either! Just a vague feeling that there was something out there, some sinister hunter, and she was its prey. Now how could she ever explain an hysterical reaction to something as minor as that?

“Good morning, Sarah!” she called as she flew in at the kitchen door, relieved to see that she was the first down. She wouldn’t have missed anything, then.

“Morning to you, miss,” the cook replied, after a surprised glance. “Early, ain’t you?”

“Cocky-locky was crowing right outside my window,” Marina replied, taking the seat nearest the stove, the perquisite of the first down. Even in high summer, that was the favored seat, for whoever sat there got the first of everything from Sarah’s skillets. “I know he’s Aunt’s favorite rooster, but there are limits!”