It was cold in the music room, and Hannah was still damp from the rain. She shivered and glanced at the streaming window. It was dark outside. Donovan’s eyes followed hers. At once he leapt up and started throwing all his things together.
‘I’ve got to go! Dad said he’d give me the belting of my life if I was home late again.’
‘But it’s pouring!’ Hannah followed him out into the hall.
‘So? A little rain won’t melt me. I’ll see you later. We practise on Saturday afternoons. So we’ll see you tomorrow, if not before!’
He rushed out the door into the rain and Hannah heard the sound of his motor putt-putt-putting into life. She was left alone, standing in the cold, dark hall. Hannah looked around her with interest. Behind her was a narrow, twisty staircase leading up into darkness. Otherwise everything was bare. There were lighter patches on the walls as if showing where furniture and paintings had once been. It was in stark contrast to the richly furnished and decorated front hall.
On an impulse, Hannah pulled out the hag-stone and put it to her left eye. At once the hall looked quite different. It was filled with warm light, and there were bright rugs on the floor and paintings on the wall, and a sideboard with gilded candlesticks and Chinese urns. When Hannah dropped her hand, the hallway was once again bare, cold and dark. Experimenting, Hannah lifted the hag-stone to her ear. She heard music, laughter, chatter, yet when she moved the hag-stone away all was quiet.
Next Hannah put the stone ring on her finger. At first, everything seemed the same. Then she noticed something dark and squat on the steps, watching her with huge gleaming eyes.
It was the toad.
Hannah’s heart began to beat faster. The hairs on her arms stood up. For a moment she hesitated, then slowly she moved forward. At once the toad began to hop up the stairs. Hannah followed it. The narrow steps wound tightly upon themselves in a spiral. Hannah could both see and hear the toad, hopping a few steps ahead of her. It gave a moist plopping sound each time it landed.
Something hissed in the darkness behind her. Hannah jumped violently and spun round. A grey shadow streaked past, tripping her up so she fell on her hands and knees. It was Jinx the cat, leaping upon the toad. Hannah scrambled forward, but was too late to stop the cat closing her sharp teeth upon the toad’s neck. To her surprise, Jinx yowled and took off like a flash, leaving streamers of saliva behind her. The toad sat stolidly, eyes gleaming.
Hannah looked at it doubtfully. The toad turned and began to once again hoppity-hop-hop up the steps. Hannah followed.
At the top of the stairs was a low oaken door. Hanging above its lintel was a rough star made of three twigs strapped together. Its door handle was made of iron, forged into a spiral. There was a keyhole below it, thick with cobwebs. With a feeling of inevitability, Hannah put her hand into her right pocket and brought out the old key. It slid into the lock and, with a screeching sound, unlocked the door. Hannah stepped into a small round room. Groping automatically, her hand found the light switch. She flicked it on. A dim light filled the room.
The tower room was a miniature version of her bedroom, with four long, narrow windows, one with a telescope set up at it. Between the windows were bookcases overflowing with dusty books. More books were spread across a wooden table.
Hannah sat down at the table. Before her lay a notebook with a battered red leather cover. She drew it towards her and opened it. Drawn on the first page was the symbol that looked like a heart with three legs. Inside was page after page written in the same quick, vigorous handwriting. At the top of each entry was the date. They were the only thing that made sense in the book. Everything else sounded like the ramblings of a madman. The first entry read: Pestis must be infractus, but the baffled moon is lost in the mists of time.
The last entry read:
Back through the winter gate I must go
to the time of two hornet queens
flying around the one great chair.
Cut free sweetbrier from thorny tower
find the waxing gibbous moon,
its bewildered quarter I left safe
with the rose of the world, my double rose.
It was dated the day after Hannah’s birth. The day Hannah’s father had disappeared.
Outside, the rain swished and swashed through the trees, so it sounded as if the tower was afloat on a stormy sea. Hannah shivered with cold. Or perhaps she shivered with sorrow and fear and a creeping sense of horror. For Hannah had no doubt that this room had been her father’s, and this notebook filled with mad scribbling his too.
She covered her face with her hands. Audacia, she told herself. It was the motto that had been on Lady Wintersloe’s letter—her family’s motto. It meant ‘courage’.
Hannah prided herself on her boldness, but now she felt it failing her in this old, dusty room with her father’s last words so strange and mad on the page before her. She felt as if a gulf of black water had opened below her and her foot could no longer touch the sand.
It was all too strange. The curse, the toad, the hag-stone, the hidden key, the locked tower room with its crazy scribblings, the feeling that she had opened a door that could never be shut again. Hannah pushed her father’s diary away from her violently and ran out of the room, locking the door behind her.
Toad Poison
When Hannah entered the warm, firelit drawing room Lady Wintersloe was bent over Jinx, who was lying on her lap, shivering and meowing piteously. Long strings of saliva dripped from the cat’s mouth.
‘Something’s happened to Jinx,’ Roz said. ‘We think she’s been poisoned.’
‘It’s just like Eglantyne and her dog all over again.’ Lady Wintersloe’s voice quivered. ‘There’s something evil at work here!’
‘Jinx bit a toad,’ Hannah said.
‘Toads are poisonous, aren’t they?’ Roz cried. ‘We’d better take her to the vet.’
‘I called Genie to stop Donovan on his way out,’ Linnet said. ‘He’ll be here in just a minute.’
‘Donovan? What could he do?’ Roz was surprised.
‘He’s very good with animals,’ Lady Wintersloe said.
Just then the door opened and two boys raced in. Donovan was in the lead. Behind him charged Max. He was dressed in camouflage pants, and his gold-rimmed glasses were fogged up from the rain. The enormous boots he wore on his feet made his legs look really skinny.
‘Where’s the poor old thing? Let me have a look at her.’ Donovan lifted the cat gently from Lady Wintersloe’s lap and sat down, laying Jinx on her back so he could feel all over her distended belly with gentle fingers. The cat hissed and struck out with her claws, but Donovan was waiting and caught her attacking paw with his hand.
‘Hannah says she tried to bite a toad.’ Lady Wintersloe twisted her thin hands together in anxiety.
Donovan shot Hannah a quick look. ‘How long ago?’
Hannah shrugged. ‘Not so long ago. Just after you left.’
Donovan looked worried. ‘We need to get Jinx to the vet as soon as we can.’
‘I’ll take you if you like,’ Genie said, standing just inside the door.
‘I’ll just rinse out the poison first. Do you have any water?’ Donovan said.
Lady Wintersloe indicated the jug of water by her elbow. Hannah passed it to Donovan, who thanked her with a quick crooked smile before bending over the distressed cat again. He rinsed out her mouth, wrapped her in a towel and gently lifted her to his shoulder as he hurried towards the door.
‘Don’t you worry, Lady Wintersloe,’ he said. ‘She’s a tough old puss, she’ll be fine.’
‘As a matter of fact, toad poison is pretty toxic,’ Max said. ‘Did you know—’
‘Max! Not now,’ his mother cried. ‘Come on!’
Linnet followed them all out, adroitly catching a vase Max would have knocked over with the end of his long striped, hand-knitted scarf.
The room seemed much quieter once they were all gone. Hannah could hear the clock tick-
tock-ticking.
‘Where were you all that time?’ Roz asked in exasperation. ‘Look at you! You’re still in your damp clothes. Where did you get to?’
‘I was in the music room,’ Hannah said. ‘With Donovan. He’s asked me to be in their band.’
Roz was torn between pleasure that Hannah was making friends, and disapproval over whom she was making friends with.
Lady Wintersloe, however, was delighted. ‘Oh, that’s wonderful! I’m so pleased you’re making friends. You’re all so close in age.’
‘You don’t make friends with people just because you’re the same age,’ Hannah said, thinking of old Mr Wheeler, her music teacher back in Australia who’d been just about the only person she’d liked at all. ‘I hate most girls my age.’
‘Don’t say “hate”, Hannah,’ Roz said.
‘I’m sure you won’t hate any of the midwinter bairns. I call them that because they were all born in midwinter, just like you, Hannah dear. Strange, isn’t it? Is it any wonder I don’t know which is the one?’ Lady Wintersloe leant her head back against her chair and closed her eyes.
‘The one what?’ Hannah asked.
Her great-grandmother opened her eyes. ‘The one of true blood.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It’s part of the curse,’ Lady Wintersloe said wearily. Roz made a small movement, as if to try to stop her speaking, but the old woman went on, in a faint but steady voice, ‘“By fever, fire, storm and sword, your blood shall suffer this bane. No joy or peace for Wintersloe’s lord, till the puzzle ring is whole again. The thorn tree shall not bud, the green throne shall not sing, until the child of true blood, is crowned the rightful king.”’
Her voice broke at the end.
‘Don’t tire yourself out,’ Roz said. ‘There’s no need to distress yourself.’
‘Hannah needs to know,’ Lady Wintersloe said gently. ‘It’s her heritage.’
‘Does that mean the blackthorn on the hill?’ Hannah asked. ‘The one that hasn’t blossomed in so many years?’
‘Yes, though it means the family too.’ Lady Wintersloe’s voice was very weak. ‘Wintersloe Castle is named for the blackthorn, remember, and our family arms bear the symbol of the thorn tree. Eglantyne spoke both curse and prophecy—they are entwined.’
‘Who’s Eglantyne?’ Hannah demanded.
‘She was the eldest daughter of the king of the hollow hill,’ her great-grandmother replied. ‘The king of the fairy realm. Our ancestor Lord Montgomery saw her ride out one May Day and fell in love with her. He wooed her and won her, and took her away from fairyland to be his bride. Except she was betrayed.’
Roz stood up. ‘Please, Belle,’ she said sharply. ‘I don’t see what can be gained by dwelling on this silly old story.’
‘She needs to understand,’ Lady Wintersloe said.
‘You filled Bob’s head with all this nonsense when he was a child too, and he became obsessed with the idea of breaking this stupid so-called curse,’ Roz said angrily. ‘Even after we were married, and when Hannah was just a newborn, he was always worrying about it and thinking about ways he could break it. He would never have gone out that night if he didn’t think he had found a way to break it!’
‘You mean the night he disappeared?’ Hannah cried. ‘He went out to try and break the curse . . . and ended up dead?’
She was remembering the diary with its strange, incoherent messages. Back through the winter gate I must go. . .
‘It was an obsession with him,’ Roz said tightly. ‘And I won’t have you infecting Hannah with the same nonsense! I knew I should never have come back.’
Just then the door opened and Linnet came trotting in, pushing her tea trolley. It had a steaming silver punchbowl and a bottle of whisky instead of the usual gilt-edged teapot. ‘I’ve brought you all a nice hot posset to drink. It’s a nasty cold night and you’ve all had a bit of a shock, seeing Jinx like that.’
‘What’s in it?’ Hannah sniffed the steaming bowl suspiciously.
‘For you, my lamb, sweet apple cider, rosehip syrup, and some heather honey.’ Linnet doled out a cup for Hannah, who sipped it carefully before deciding she liked it, and swallowing more bravely. ‘I made the syrup from our own sweetbrier roses, which grow in the castle.’
‘Sweetbrier?’ Hannah cried. ‘That old rose in the castle, it’s called a sweetbrier?’
‘Yes. Sweet for its fragrance, and brier for its thorns. Though Genie would call it Rosa eglanteria. She always likes to give plants their proper name.’
‘Eglantyne,’ Hannah breathed. She remembered the last verse in her father’s book:
Back through the winter gate I must go
to the time of two hornet queens
flying around the one great chair.
Cut free sweetbrier from thorny tower
find the waxing gibbous moon,
its bewildered quarter I left safe
with the rose of the world, my double rose.
As a final message from her father, it left a lot to answer for, but suddenly some of it seemed to make a kind of sense. Cut free sweetbrier from the thorny tower must be a reference to Eglantyne, and surely the thorny tower meant some kind of prison or cage. Her father had meant to rescue Eglantyne!
But Eglantyne had died in the time of Mary, Queen of Scots, more than four hundred and forty years ago . . .
Hannah’s heart fell in disappointment. Maybe her father had been mad after all.
Linnet went on chatting genially, though her eyes were bright and curious on Hannah’s face. ‘But for Lady Wintersloe and Lady Fairknowe, I’ll add a nice shot of whisky.’ She poured a generous splash of whisky into the teacup, and passed it to Lady Wintersloe. ‘Lady Fairknowe?’
‘Please, call me Roz,’ Hannah’s mother said, her arms folded tight across her chest. ‘Lady Fairknowe just doesn’t sound like me.’
‘Oh, I couldn’t be doing that,’ Linnet said, sounding shocked. ‘It wouldn’t be right.’
Roz shrugged, exasperated, and let Linnet splash some whisky into the cup.
‘Now then, that’s better, hey?’ the old cook said. ‘Shall we get you away to bed early tonight, my lady? You could have a nice cup of soup in bed.’
‘That would be lovely, thank you,’ Lady Wintersloe said.
‘Can I help?’ Hannah suddenly wondered how Linnet was going to manage by herself, but both old women shook their heads.
‘Let me preserve my dignity a while longer,’ Lady Wintersloe said. ‘Besides, Linnet has been looking after me since I was just a baby. She knows what to do better than anyone.’
Hannah nodded. It was only once Linnet had wheeled her great-grandmother from the room that this comment struck her as nonsense. How could Linnet have looked after Lady Wintersloe when she was just a baby? Hannah’s great-grandmother was eighty-eight years old. That meant Linnet would have to be at least a hundred, if not even older. Hannah frowned. Maybe her mother was right. Maybe Lady Wintersloe really was losing her marbles.
Roz and Hannah ate a solitary meal, listening to the rain beat against the windows. As usual, the food was delicious, but neither noticed much what they were eating. Hannah was thinking of Donovan and the music, and the toad and the cat, and the tower room with its cryptic notebook, and the curse. She did not know what her mother was thinking about, but the anxious frown between her brows was deeper than ever.
‘I think we should go home,’ Roz said abruptly, laying down her spoon.
‘Go home? But why? We’ve only just got here!’
‘Your great-grandmother’s not well.’
‘Which is why we should stay and look after her.’
‘I’m worried . . .’ Roz’s voice trailed away.
Hannah got to her feet and said very firmly, ‘Surely you’re not letting the stories of an old sick woman spook you, are you, Mum? Why, it’s just not rational!’ She kissed her mother and went out of the room, saying, ‘Night, Mum! See you in the morning.’
&n
bsp; Suffer This Bane
Hannah did not go up to her room, but went quietly down the hall to the dining hall that had been turned into her great-grandmother’s bedroom, since she could no longer climb the stairs to the upper floors. She knocked quietly.
‘Yes?’ called Lady Wintersloe drowsily.
‘It’s me,’ Hannah said. ‘Can I come in?’
‘Of course, dear.’
Hannah opened the door and went in. Her great-grandmother was lying in a low bed covered with a pale pink satin quilt. She was dressed in an old-fashioned nightgown with a high neck and long sleeves, and her silver hair had been unpinned and plaited into a thin braid. Her face was clean of makeup, and looked very old and haggard. The newspaper lay beside her, open to the crossword.
‘I thought you’d best tell me the whole story,’ Hannah said.
Lady Wintersloe nodded. ‘Come sit near me, Hannah, my dear, so I don’t need to raise my voice. I’m very tired.’
Hannah sat down and took her great-grandmother’s thin hand. ‘So, what happened? Why did the fairy princess curse us?’
‘She was betrayed,’ Lady Wintersloe said. ‘She had a cousin, you see, who was jealous of her. Her name was . . .’ She hesitated, and then drew the newspaper towards her and wrote quickly, in the margin, the name Irata. When Hannah would have read it aloud, she shushed her and said, ‘Careful! Names have power. We do not want to call her attention here. Her spies watch the castle.’
‘Spies?’ Hannah wondered if her great-grandmother was indeed more than half mad. ‘Like who?’
‘There’s a magpie that behaves very oddly,’ her great-grandmother said slowly. ‘In all my long life I’ve never seen it with a mate, and it kills the little songbirds, and attacks strangers. It was fluttering at the window of the drawing room the night Robert told me he planned to save Eglantyne, and then . . . he never came back. And my grandmother always told me magpies could speak to witches.’
Hannah remembered the magpie that had plucked one of her hairs, and felt a cold shiver down her skin.