Chapter Twenty-Seven: Immortal Memories
Guardians of the Twilight Lands -- The Sixth Book of Unexpected Enlightenment
Sigfried finally emerged from the kitchens, still covered with flour, to find the Duchess of Devon and her two younger daughters standing in the vast entrance hall dressed in aprons.
“Cooking is wicked awesome!” Siggy declared gleefully. “It’s wizard! It’s like doing alchemy. Only it doesn’t taste like lizard.”
“That’s why we love alchemy,” added Lucky, “’cause it’s edible.”
“Glad you enjoyed it,” Rachel laughed. “Would you like to join us for Spring Cleaning?”
“This is usually done after the Equinox,” the Duchess of Devon said in her bright red apron, “but with guests arriving, it seemed wise to clean a few days early.”
“I thought you said you never clean?” Sigfried said to Rachel.
“We don’t, really.” Rachel smoothed her peacock blue apron. “It’s ceremonial.” She held up a plum-colored crystal atomizer with a peach squeeze bulb. “We search for things that need fixing and mark them by spraying with this. Then the bwca and other domestic fey see to it that the work is done.”
“Walk around and find stuff for other people to clean? Ace!” Sigfried declared. He gave Rachel a significant look. “I’m good at looking for things. What’re we looking for?”
“Old houses need constant attention.” Laurel managed to look as if she was about to do something naughty, even when cleaning. She was utterly fetching in her red and white polka-dotted apron. Siggy was momentarily stunned. “All sorts of things try to tear them down: woodworms, deathwatch beetles, carpet beetles, dry rot, and mold. We need to hunt them down and annihilate them before the house comes crashing down around our ears.” Laurel raised her blue crystal atomizer and, squeezing the sky-blue bulb, spritzed twice, filling the air with a minty fragrance containing a touch of lavender.
Siggy rubbed his hands together. “Come on, Lucky! Let’s hunt for bugs.”
* * *
The four of them, along with the housekeeper, Mrs. Webber, the three maids—the parlor maids, Mary and Polly, and Tennyson’s granddaughter Molly, who acted as a lady’s maid for Rachel and her sisters when there was need—and an assortment of domestic fey set about searching the house high and low. They paraded through a hundred-sixty-two bedrooms, the seven studies, the twenty-six drawing rooms, as well as libraries, attics, kitchens, pantries, craft rooms, nurseries, dining rooms, galleries, staircases, the chapel, the snooker room, the alchemy lab, and the wintergarden.
Rachel found a spot of mold down in the music room in the basement, near her great-grandmother’s alchemy lab—which was now her mother’s alchemy lab. It surprised her as she walked through that and other chambers how many places reminded her of her grandmother, though she did not mind quite as much as she had before seeing Nastasia’s vision. Laurel found beetles in the carpet in the Ruby Drawing Room, near the door to the rose garden, and her mother found where mice had made a nest in the Fairy Queen’s Bedroom. Mrs. Webber and her girls also discovered a few spots.
Sigfried found twenty-seven instances of insects or mold or dry rot. The duchess and Mrs. Webber were astonished, praising his cleverness in thinking to look in so many out-of-the-way places. Rachel, who knew he was using his amulet, was grateful he was able to do so much for the preservation of the house, but she was disappointed, too. This was now the second time they had been through the manor, and there was still no sign of the Heart of Dreams.
“Do you think,” she whispered, falling in beside him, “that I should ask my father?”
“About what?” asked Sigfried.
“The Heart. I bet he would be interested in hearing about the princess’s vision—about his father and mother,” she said. “Maybe my grandfather told him where they put the Heart.”
Sigfried stroked his chin, pondering. “On one hand, telling adults, always unwise. Very unwise, Griffin. On the other hand, we are out of leads. Might be a necessary evil.”
Rachel replied, “Let’s wait a little longer. We can search the stables, the kennels, the boathouse. If, after all that, we still can’t find it, I’ll ask him on my birthday. He’s promised to spend some time with me then. That gives us just a little less than two weeks.”
* * *
Once they finished checking the house, Rachel’s mother disappeared into the alchemy lab with Sigfried to work on turning his Bowie knife into an athame. Rachel walked back upstairs to find three weather-beaten men in loden cloaks and plaid kilts speaking to her father in the entrance hall. She sidled up to Tennyson, who stood nearby, ready to serve, and inquired about them.
“Your father asked Lord Caledon to send members of His Majesty’s Royal Watch to patrol the river Dart until the ceremony can be performed.”
“You mean they’re Watchmen?” Rachel observed the men with interest. The Watch was the local force that guarded Great Britain against dangerous magic and fey. Rachel knew a few Watchmen, but these three were strangers. She shyly approached one of the men.
“Aye?” He spoke with a thick Scottish brogue. “What can I do for ye, wee lassie?”
“Please, if you go out along the river, our guest crashed one of our bristlelesses yesterday, and we left it where we ran into Dart. Do you think you could look out for it?”
“Aye, we could.” He nodded.
She described where they had left it and departed with a grateful wave goodbye. She was pleased later that evening to see that not only had it been returned, but also it had been repaired.
* * *
Tuesday, the nineteenth of March, dawned rainy and gray, but that did not stop twelve hundred people from turning out at the duke’s request. The Spring Equinox event was held on the field at Spitchwich, next to a stretch of the river Dart often used for wild swimming.
A great crowd had gathered under the floating umbrellas. They surrounded a central dais where the duke stood next to a priest of Oceanus, Father of Rivers. The old priest would be performing the sacrifice of the lamb and dribbling its blood across the straw effigy, which, this year, with the addition of golden corn silk hair, had been made to look a bit like Sigfried. The crowd included townsfolk, subjects of the duke—whose Round Table territory, as one of the eight Peers, extended across the entire southern coast of England from Devon to Canterbury—and other aristocrats who had answered her father’s invitation., including several of his fellow dukes as well as a number of earls, viscounts, and barons. Also, quite a few tricorne hats were visible, suggesting that a number of the off-duty Agents had chosen to attend.
Peter stood beside their father, a bit pale-faced but composed. Laurel and Sigfried looked on with eager glee. Rachel and her mother, on the other hand, huddled behind the dais with their backs to the ceremony, covering their ears to block out any squeals from the lamb. The umbrella above them occasionally bobbed out of place, allowing cold drizzle to coat their hair and slide down the back of their necks.
Her mother squeezed her eyes shut. “This is the worst part of being duchess.”
Rachel leaned against her mother sympathetically. She would have pressed her arm, but she was using both hands to cover her ears. It still did not block out all the sound.
“But this is why we need a duke and duchess,” Rachel called back. “For these moments—when we are dealing with the Wood Perilous.”
“Tsk.” Her mother laughed. “A mayor or alderman could do just as well.”
“What?” Rachel was so shocked that she lowered her hands, just in time to hear the last high-pitched bleat of fear, a sound that would haunt her nightmares for weeks. “How can you say such a thing?”
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