The Moon Casts a Spell: A Novella (The Child of the Erinyes) Read online

  It wasn’t until the Englishman moved away from the wheeled chair that Lilith saw the boy. He appeared to be about the same age as Daniel, and was standing behind the Bath chair, one hand resting on the back of it. His hair was black and untidy, disheveled, no doubt from the wind. He, too, was skinny, his face almost as pale as the sick man’s. He glowered at the locals who were hauling in the luggage.

  She distinctly saw a faint orange-red glow around him. It made her gasp, as she’d never seen anything like that before— except around Daniel.

  He turned his attention from the bustle and studied his surroundings, his expression displaying arrogance and disdain. When his regard landed on the doorway where Lilith and Daniel were concealed, his head tilted and he frowned. He left the man in the chair and crossed toward them swiftly.

  Exchanging one anxious glance, Lilith and Daniel turned and ran back to the kitchens. Lilith pulled Daniel along with her into a side corridor. She opened one of several doors and yanked Daniel into a musty, dark pantry, and down onto the floor, where she crawled under a shelf. At the back was a flimsy wood grill, which she pulled off. They slipped into the passageway just as the boy entered the corridor. He paused at the open door.

  “You’d better come out,” he shouted. They saw his boots, very shiny and clean, but he didn’t come into the pantry, and, as Lilith and Daniel exchanged another glance and Lilith put her hand over her mouth to keep from giggling out loud, he closed the pantry door and went on down the hallway.

  V.

  Lilith pulled Daniel farther into the passageway. They crawled along, looking into various rooms from tiny peepholes. Only two of the larger openings were free of coverings. The first they came to fairly quickly. It was high on the wall in one of the drawing rooms, and offered a dim view, through iron latticework, of the fireplace, a few shining tables with lace runners, and several chairs and loveseats.

  Eventually they came to the other window-like opening that didn’t have something covering it. They crowded against it and peered through the scrolled ironwork into a bedroom. Two men carried in a trunk and set it on the floor. Another brought in several leather bags. The boy they’d hidden from entered then, and impatiently shooed the men out. When they’d gone, he shut the door and removed his coat and cravat, tossing them carelessly onto the bed. He started rolling up his shirtsleeves.

  Lilith, forgetting where she was, released a nervous giggle. Daniel clapped a hand over her mouth, but it was too late. The sound she made was magnified in the tight space, and rebounded outward through the iron grating.

  The boy turned, leveling a stare at the screen. He came forward and ripped the cover off even as Daniel pulled at Lilith. The boy reached into the hole; seizing Lilith’s skirts, he dragged her out roughly. Daniel followed without hesitation. Dropping to the floor, he put himself between the boy and Lilith, and raised his fists.

  The boy went on staring as though he’d never seen a girl in his life. Then, without warning, his face turned sickly green. “Aridela,” he whispered. “Aridela.”

  He fainted, slumping against Daniel then down to the floor.

  Lilith and Daniel stared at each other and at the boy. “They’ll hang us for murder!” Lilith said, her voice shaking.

  The more practical Daniel knelt, pressing his fingers to the boy’s throat. “He’s alive. Help me.”

  With much struggling, they finally managed to hoist him onto his bed. Lilith brought over the washbasin and patted his face with water, all the while muttering, “Please wake up, please.” He was definitely breathing, though. With a hint of derision, Daniel said, “He fainted, that’s all. Let’s away now while we can.”

  “No.” The boy wasn’t well and she wouldn’t leave him. He was no different than any other beast she’d rescued or nursed. She pulled off his boots and tucked a blanket over him.

  He woke slowly, blinking. Some semblance of color returned to his face. He glanced around the room in a puzzled manner, frowning, but as he studied Lilith, his gaze narrowed. He squinted and grabbed her forearms. Daniel pushed between them, again raising a fist, but before he could make any threats, the boy said, “I saw colors coming out of the wall. I felt like I was on fire.”

  Lilith nodded. “I saw colors around you. I can see them right now.”

  The boy finally tore his gaze from Lilith and looked at Daniel. “You, too,” he said, but his voice turned colder and his chin lifted.

  “I’ve never seen color around anyone but Daniel,” Lilith said.

  Daniel, refusing to be drawn in, said, “If you’re recovered, we’ll be off.”

  “Wait,” said the boy. “Who are you?”

  Lilith and Daniel glanced at each other, able as usual to communicate without words. What if he had them punished for being in the wall staring at him? He could get her mother in trouble, too.

  “Fiona and John, from the village. We were hired to help.”

  “You’re lying,” the boy said. “You just called him ‘Daniel.’ If you don’t tell me the truth, I’ll make sure neither of you ever finds work again. You know who my father is— the new factor. He’ll be collecting rents and overseeing everything, disputes, complaints, problems. You don’t want to cross me.”

  “I’m the housekeeper’s daughter. My name is Lilith.” She didn’t look at Daniel. “Don’t blame my mother. She doesn’t know what we’re doing.”

  “Lilith,” the boy repeated, slowly, and his lips turned up in a slight smile. His grip on her forearms remained unrelenting, but his thumbs rubbed back and forth on the inside of her wrists, almost like a caress, and odd, zipping charges, like sparks of fire, leapt into her flesh where his fingers touched. “Wayward Lilith, Adam’s first wife. Of course.”

  “I’m not married,” she said, “and I don’t know anyone named Adam.”

  “She’s only eleven,” Daniel said, scowling.

  The boy’s faint smile lingered. “How is it you speak English?” he asked.

  “My mam’s a schoolteacher,” she said. “Being your housekeeper pays more though.”

  He looked down and saw the birthmark on her wrist, the odd blemish shaped like a bull’s head with horns. She flushed and tried to pull her hand free, but he held on, tracing the perimeter of it.

  “Let go of her,” Daniel said. He pried the boy’s hands off Lilith’s arms. “Let us get back to our chores.”

  “Damn you,” the boy said. “Daniel, is it? I’ll call in my father’s man.”

  “Aye, he’s Daniel,” Lilith said, scared and believing his threat. “He— he’s an orphan. He’ll be working in your stables. He’s good with horses. He’s my friend.”

  Daniel flushed.

  Anger darkened the boy’s eyes, making his countenance as black as the devil’s. “Be off with you then, and don’t let me catch you in my walls again, or you’ll rue it, and so will your mam.”

  VI.

  When they were safely away, Daniel ridiculed the wealthy, nose-in-the-air boy with the clean fingernails, fine accent, and blindingly white cravat.

  “He’s never done a day’s labor,” Daniel said. Lilith could hear under his words how relieved he was that nothing worse had happened.

  Lilith said nothing, but she couldn’t get the boy’s face out of her mind, or how he’d stared at her and said her name, and stroked her wrists so tenderly. He’d sparked her protective instincts when he’d dropped to the floor. What had caused him to faint that way? Was he ill? He’d stared at her, and called her that other name. She couldn’t remember it now.

  Something about his voice made her think of the sea.

  She couldn’t decide how she felt about him at all.

  * * * *

  Faith took Lilith every day to help with the cleaning and cooking at Bishop House. Daniel usually came as well, to muck the stables and brush the fine horses brought by the new steward.

  Aodhàn was the boy’s name. Aodhàn Mackinnon. Kenneth Mackinnon was the sickly man in the wheeled chair. He was Aodhàn’s consumptive fath
er. The lout with the massive shoulders and arms was Kenneth Mackinnon’s valet, Euan Kilgore. Finally, there was the lanky Englishman, Greyson Fullerton, who was a combination of valet, orderly, manservant, and tutor to Aodhàn. A family of men, all of them expert at scowling.

  For a fortnight after the confrontation, Lilith didn’t see Aodhàn except at a distance. Every now and then, she glimpsed that faint reddish haze of color around him, but it faded with the passage of time. She seldom saw colors around Daniel anymore, either, except at night, when she slipped out of the cot to relieve herself or check on one of her rescued beasts. His had always been bluish white, like the sea, on rare, bright, cloudless days. Like his eyes. Back when he’d first come to live with them, he’d told her she was surrounded by a wash of purple, like what seeped through the sky at deepest gloaming, and hints of sparkly gold. Early on they’d figured out that no one else saw these colors. It was another reason they latched themselves together and never bothered with the other village children.

  Now someone else had come along who could see it. Lilith knew this was important. It didn’t matter that Aodhàn was wealthy, educated, a mainlander, as far removed from them as if he were the son of a king.

  Twice she caught Aodhàn speaking with her mother when no one else was about, and once she thought she saw him hand Faith a gold coin. She couldn’t imagine what Faith and the steward’s young son would have in common, or what he could be paying her for. Both times they fell silent when they saw her. Aodhàn went off with a nod, and her mother never shared whatever it was they spoke of together, or that he’d given her anything, much less money.

  Furniture and other belongings arrived from the mainland. Bishop House became an elegant, lively, busy place, hosting friends, relatives, and business acquaintances. But as far as Lilith knew, the actual new owner of their island, a Colonel from Aberdeen or somewhere, by the name of John Gordon of Cluny, never came, not once, to inspect his holdings or meet his tenants.

  In April, the family celebrated Aodhàn’s birthday, but nobody said how old he was.

  Faith sent Lilith to clean the fireplace in the main parlor early one morning in May, telling her to be quick so she’d be done and gone by the time the family went in there.

  She took care with the task, sweeping up every last bit of ash and polishing the brass knobs on the grate, humming as she worked. When she was finished, she rose, picking up her bucket and brushes, and turned to go.

  Aodhàn was standing next to the door, watching her. She was so startled she released a cry and almost dropped the bucket. Then she remembered what her mother had told her to do in such a case. She bobbed a brief curtsy and tried to pass by him, but he took hold of her arm. Even through her sleeve she felt that same sparking excitement, like tiny bursts of lightning, passing from him into her.

  “Don’t go,” he said, pulling her back into the room. He dropped into one of the armchairs in front of the fireplace, and turned his somber gaze to her. His eyes were very green, like sunlight through a leaf.

  “You stare at me so,” Lilith blurted out. “Have I done something— something else— wrong?”

  “No,” Aodhàn said. “Sit there. I want to get to know you.”

  She obediently perched on the edge of the chair he indicated, keeping her hands on her lap because they were dirty.

  His uncompromising stare made her fidget.

  “How old did that boy say you are?” he finally asked.

  “Eleven— how old are you?”

  “Thirteen.”

  She’d thought him closer to Daniel’s age, which was fifteen. Maybe it was his arrogance, his confidence, that made him appear older. She twisted her fingers together and glanced at the door.

  “How did you feel, the first time you saw me?” he asked.

  How did she feel? What a question. But then, as she thought back to that moment she’d seen him in the foyer at Bishop House, it wasn’t so odd.

  “Like I’d been hit by lightning.” Her mother often reprimanded her for being too blunt, too honest, though she herself was exactly that way. Lilith hadn’t spoken to anyone until Daniel came to live with them when she was five, and rarely spoke to anyone except him for several years, but after she did begin to talk, it seemed like she was always chastised for saying the wrong thing.

  The boy smiled. “So did I.”

  His voice and his stare reached out and wrapped her in warmth, like an exquisitely soft blanket.

  She leaped up, dropping her fireplace brush. “I— I should go, sir.”

  He leaned forward and retrieved the brush. He held it out to her, but didn’t release it when she tried to take it.

  “You and I,” he said, so low she was able to tell herself later that she’d misunderstood. “For as long as the pyramids stand in Egypt.”

  She yanked the brush from his hand, picked up her bucket, and walked swiftly from the room, feeling his gaze drill into her back.

  * * * *

  Over the next several months, Aodhàn appeared whenever she was working alone. She often caught him watching when she was with other servants, but he never approached her at those times.

  Daniel eventually noticed, too. He warned Lilith to be careful. He bluntly told her Aodhàn would take her virginity and then have nothing more to do with her. He said that if the opportunity arose, the factor’s son might even attack her.

  When she refused to make any promises, he said something she knew he wasn’t ready to say. His saying it proved how frightened he was.

  “You and I will marry someday,” he said. “It’s always been understood. Your da even said so. I have his blessing. You’re mine, Lilith. Don’t get any daft ideas about the manky bastard in the big house.”

  Lilith exploded. “I don’t want to get married! Ever! I don’t belong to you. Just because we took you in to keep you from starving doesn’t mean you have any right to me!”

  He went pale and she ran off, furious, to the hills, to her wind and the thunder of the sea, the only place she felt right.

  But after a few hours, terrible guilt left her shuddering. Of course she would marry Daniel. Everybody knew it. It had never been said— it didn’t have to be.

  Why did Aodhàn Mackinnon have to come to Barra? Why couldn’t he leave her alone? Why did he have to make her feel so strange, tingly and nervous, hot and cold?

  VII.

  “I want you to go back to Bishop House for me,” Faith said to her daughter one late afternoon in early September. “I took my mending bag with me this morning and I must’ve left it there. Run fetch it for me, lass.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Daniel said, but Faith stopped him. “She doesn’t need your help to get my mending, and Stuart wants those rotted ropes in the thatch fixed.”

  He frowned and started to say something, then didn’t.

  Lilith knew why. Daniel never forgot what he owed Faith and Stuart Kelso; he never allowed himself to argue with them, as a natural born child might. Stuart had been asking him to replace the frayed ropes on the roof for a fortnight. It had to be done soon, else they risked losing their entire roof in the winter gales. Daniel had told her he wanted to wait and do it at the same time as they pulled down the old oat straw and replaced it with new, but Stuart apparently had other ideas. Either that, or Faith simply didn’t want him going back to Bishop House with Lilith.

  Since the fight with Daniel, Lilith had been careful to avoid any interaction with Aodhàn, though in her heart she felt as though she were a fish and he the fisherman, with a hook lodged in her throat. She wanted to learn more about him, what his life had been up until now. She wanted to lie in the hills with her eyes closed and listen to his voice, which possessed something, a timbre that sent shivers over her skin. She wanted to feel his fingers stroke her wrists again.

  Humans were incomprehensible most of the time. She couldn’t even understand herself, much less any others. She much preferred beasts; they were always the same, simple and direct.

  Daniel’s fear stu
ng like a sea anemone’s dart. It was suffocating. It made her feel like she was looking out at the world from inside one of those birdcages she’d seen and hated. Why would someone cage a bird, prevent it from flying free? But the long history between them left her torn. She didn’t want to do anything to hurt him.

  With this in mind, she slipped quietly into the rear entry of Bishop House. Faith had told her she’d left the bag in the sitting room off the kitchen. Lilith went quickly along the corridor and opened the door to the chamber.

  No lamps were lit but a fire burned in the fireplace. The second thing she noticed was Aodhàn, sitting in one of two stuffed chairs. She had a feeling, when he looked up at her, that he’d known she was coming.

  “Excuse me, sir,” she said, and backed out. But he was up in a flash, laying his hand on her arm and drawing her into the room, which was filled with shifting light and shadow from the fire.

  “I’m leaving in two days for Eton,” he said. “Who knows when or if we’ll ever see each other again? I only want to say goodbye.”

  Daniel’s warnings reverberated, but they grew fainter and fainter as Aodhàn leveled his intense gaze on her and gestured for her to sit in the other chair.

  “I have a gift for you.” Reaching into his coat pocket, he brought out a folded square of velvet and placed it in her hand.

  She unwrapped it and drew in a breath. A silver pendant twinkled up at her, shining like liquid from its bed of black velvet. In the center was a luminous blue bead, tucked between two crescent moons. It was an elegant, beautifully carved thing. “I cannot take this,” she whispered. “It is too dear.”