Riddermarch, Ellen Quellery [books to get back into reading .txt] 📗

was grinning at his friend.

Sighing, Dale nodded. "She is the loveliest woman I have ever seen."

The women with him bristled, especially Miss Once-Flouncy Now-Bitten-up.

"We have a full day before the actual dinner party at Rookhill," said Alder finally. "I intend to go to Witsend Manor either way. I had planned on it to begin with. And now that I know they will not shoo us off, I am high inclined to get my fill of mystery."

"As am I," Ernest said.

Dale merely smiled, thinking on it - especially more time with Jastalettel.

The other gentlemen and ladies who had been in the earlier party wondered if it was safe. Most of the gentlemen in party had gathered at the inn for a pint, whispering over what they had witnessed. The ladies had been conspiring together, fearful, yet none admitting they also wanted to see Witsend Manor for themselves.

A black bird landed in the open window above. Most of the party jumped, staring up at it.

One of the gentlemen grabbed his chest after a few moments and said, "I half expected the bird to be the one delivering the invitations."

The entire room laughed, tensions relaxing. Of course, the bird did nothing more than sit up there and caw.

But then, not a moment after, a man in proper serving attire marched into the room carrying a stack of envelopes tied together with twine and a bow, each one bearing the Riddermarch crest. He bowed to the innkeeper, then loudly inquired, "Is Sir Dale Rawling lodging here?"

Dale lifted his hand, stepping from his crowd. "I am here."

With a regal nod, the man untied the stack and delivered the letter.

"Is Lord Alder Ildenwite present?"

Alder immediately raised his hand and went forward. The others crowded after him, yet kept a safe distance from the courier.

"Ernest Brokwood?"

Ernest grinned, reaching for his invitation, for that is what they were - in proper envelopes and properly addressed.

"Lady Lillian Eastmon?"

Flushed, the lady in pink with perfect curls lifted a slender finger. She looked to her friends.

"Miss Calea Dangroves?"

One by one, each of the guests to the picnic had been named. How the Riddermarches knew their names in such a short time, was a mystery...for a full ten minutes before Ernest finally admitted to giving the eldest Riddermarch brother the list.

"I like him," Ernest confessed while silently rereading his invitation for the third time, which was elegantly printed on mulberry paper with the best iron ink. The calligraphy was exquisite. He suspected they had all been hand-penned by the sisters, as not all of the invitations looked exactly the same. "He's gentlemanly."

"They're cursed," Lady Lillian reminded, though she carefully folded up her invitation and tucked it into her pocket - already mentally planning her outfit for the excursion.

The black bird lifted off the window ledge, launching back into the evening sky. Everyone looked up again, ducking.

"Maybe they are their spies," hissed a gentleman to a lady.

She nodded.

The bird flew away - but not to Witsend as the party guests had supposed. Its home was Rookshill. As it was a rook. And it was going home.

*

Erleon went home also. It had been a long day. And a disaster. And being chided by his little sister during a tedious carriage ride did not help things much. But when he arrived home, the entire place was in an uproar.

On the air was a wailing cry Erleon only heard a few times in his life. And he ran to the room where he knew it came from.

The servants were beside themselves, hands over ears, and pale in terror. Inside, his sisters were struggling with their mother who stood wild in her nightgown, clutching in her hands an unfamiliar silver handled, boar bristle hairbrush that glowed a hot white. They could barely hold her down, as an unearthly yowl of pain came from her throat. They were striving to pry the brush from her hands, without success. She was always stronger than anything when these fits took her.

"Make her let it go!" screamed Cedalot.

The brush itself looked like it was burning their mother's delicate hands. Her choking scream pierced inside the ears of all those near, frightening off every animal in the house.

"Where did she get it?" Erleon shouted, rushing in to help.

"I don't know!" shouted Grennanod. "All was quiet up here until Sal ran for us and said Mom found something! Then she started screaming."

"Not another one!" Erleon hung his arms then grabbed for the brush also.

Touching the silver, his skin scorched upon contact. He jerked his hands back from the sting. Normally silver didn't do that, though cold iron did. All of them were adverse as it was an elf-trait.

"It is cursed metal," he growled.

"You think?" Azuesh snapped.

"I got it!" shouted out Ranoft. He rushed in with a bucket of water, putting it at their feet. "Dunk it!"

All of them shoved their mother's searing hands into the water. It steamed up in smelly green and orange clouds which billowed around them. A fog of murk rolled out. It dissipated among their ankles. The brush clacked to the bottom of the bucket, as their mother let go - or was released.

"Bandages!" Cedalot declared, rushing to the servants who were still beside themselves in panic. Though with the screaming gone, they were still shaken. Yet they nodded and quickly went for them as they attempted to gather up their nerves.

"And where have you been!" Azuesh propped her scorched fists onto her hips, staring at Erleon angrily. "We've been dealing with this while you - "

"Enough!" Ranoft shouted. "Azu! Grudge-holding is a bad trait, and Father would not approve!" He then turned to his brother, speaking softer. "Where have you been? You could have been home hours ago?"

Erleon shrugged, looking the other way. "Oh...exploring is all. It is not every day you get an open invitation to walk all over Rookshill."

Ranoft grinned. Meeting his brother's eyes knowingly, he whispered, "And what have you learned?"

Sighing, Erleon walked over to the bucket. He pulled out the wet and cooled hairbrush, taking it quickly away from their mother who was now sitting in a stupor again, eyes staring blankly at the floor. Everyone was wrapping her hands, treating her burns.

"Nothing that I hadn't already suspected..."

Frowning, Ranoft sighed. "I see..."

The nurses bustled back into the room, urging the children to leave their mother to them again. They were calmer, more prepared to take on the quiet woman rather than the super-strong, hexed creature they had just engaged. Previously, in the years before, their mother had three other fits like this one. And each time she was discovered clutching a foreign object she had found around the house - something she was attracted to, really. Their father had seen the other three objects and had said they were items that once belonged to their mother when she was still Miss Dapperfold - items that should have been back in Hedley Town, hundreds of miles away. How they made their way into the house was a mystery. And why they caused her pain...even more so. The brothers looked at her, and the hairbrush, and wondered again why this was happening.

"I don't think the Elfking is doing this," Erleon finally said.

"No," Ranoft agreed. "I don't believe it is him at all."

Erleon leaned nearer his brother and whispered, "We may have been mistaken entirely, brother. All of us, including Father."

Ranoft met his gaze, wonderingly. "What do you mean?"

Erleon lifted the hairbrush to their noses and breathed in. "Can't you smell it?"

A shudder ran through his brother. They met gazes and nodded.

"Beware..." their mother breathed out.

All of her children froze, staring at her. It was her first word in eight years - since Saliferth was born.

"Beware of what, Mother?" Jastalettel asked.

But their mother's eyes glazed over again, her awareness already gone. She stared into space again.

Grief stabbed them all. Each Riddermarch felt like falling to the floor.

Finally, Azuesh said, "I wish...for once, Mother could tell us what is happening."

"You think she knows?" Erleon said.

His sister turned to him and nodded. "There are times I see it, distantly, in her eyes - that she knows the cause of the curse."

They listened to her carefully, as Azuesh could hear the fainter languages of things - better than most of them.

"Have you tried to ask her?" Ranoft asked, looking to his mother again.

She shrugged. "A number of times, when things are quiet and I can almost hear her. But never clearly."

"Can you venture a guess?" Erleon asked, lifting an eyebrow.

She shot him a look, and said, "The same guess as yours. The trouble all comes from Rookshill."

Chapter Five: Witsend

 

 

 

Trouble may have come from Rookshill, but currently, on the morning after The Picnic, trouble was coming to Witsend Manor in the form of ladies and gentlemen ready to explore the property. Ranoft barely had time to warn the cook. And the servants were still rattled from the night before.

Tables and chairs were quickly being set in the garden pagoda with a sprawling luncheon while Erleon escorted the first arrivals around the enormous manor garden. Each one of the elder brothers and sisters arranged to act as guides for their guests. The early arriving ladies and gentlemen kept a polite distance from Erleon, still nervous over the mind-bending display of tree obedience the day before.

"We keep our garden on the wild side," Erleon admitted. "Though we do have an open lawn which is maintained by sheep over on the other side of the manor, as the previous owner had done. It is where we can play boules and croquet after the luncheon, if you all wish. It is a good place to run without any worry of disturbing the life underneath our feet."

His talk puzzled his listeners who never really contemplated the life underneath their feet before. And they noticed that though the path they were taking was well worn, the flowers and grasses seemed to bow to Erleon as if he were a king. But they explained that away as a force of the wind.

"Over there are our bee hives." Erleon pointed to the neat rows of white boxes along the high fields full of multicolored wildflowers. "And over there is the brook which leads to a pond where we have boats, if you are interested. It is just off the water garden."

Witsend Manor was more than they could have imagined. Erleon spoke casually of coppices, fields, lawns, and gardens as if the arrangement was common to every home. They had heard the Lord Baron owned a hedge maze with fountains and stone statues, as well as his own hothouse, but they could not imagine any of it surpassing what they had already seen at Witsend.

As Erleon led them along, pointing here and there with eloquent narration, they noticed a squirrel timidly run up to him, skirting around all of them as if they were the dangerous creatures, and climb up Erleon's pant leg to his arm then onto his shoulder. The ladies gasped over this, but Erleon hardly gave the animal a look before he extracted something out of his front pocket and handed it to the furry thing. It scampered off before they could see what he had given it.

"That wild thing could have bitten you!" exclaimed one of the men, finally.

Erleon blinked, then