I hope to post the chapter of Rogue Magic tomorrow. Today I’m skipping out which is par for the course this week. I truly can’t explain WHY when I take anti-estamines (sp?) it turns off the writing thing, but it does.
So… I’m going to clean and stuff and will post the chapter tomorrow.
Meanwhile, it would be helpful if one of you has been collecting the chapters of Rogue Magic, if you send me a unified copy. I swear I’m missing every other chapter which doesn’t make things easier.
And now, pray for me, I’m headed to litter box territory.
Meh — one of those days when I skip out and all that. Thank you for putting up with these occasional glitches.
According To Hoyt 
Ya know, even god rested on the 7th day (though instapundit doesn’t). Taking an occasional day off isn’t a bad thing.
LikeLike
Note to all aspiring writers: if you find that taking a day off makes you fall off the wagon — if you need to keep your hand in every day to keep writing — this is very bad advice.
Most writers, however, manage to keep writing if they designate a day off, so YMMV
LikeLike
I more meant taking a day off from posting on this blog, not necessarily from writing.
LikeLike
Yeah, but Glenn takes several vacations every year to make up for it. He has people like Sarah sit in for him. 8^)
(Of course, I haven’t had a vacation in seven years, but that’s not because I wouldn’t like them, or I’m working as hard as Sarah. Ole Arthur keeps me close to home and the magic pain relief medication.)
LikeLike
antihistamines (at least according to spell check) … most of them turn my mind to concrete. Zirtec I think is the only thing for hay fever or what that so far has little effect on me. All the other meds, cold or hay fever, make me dangerously stupid, And don’t get me started on Prilosec and its nastiness. My body hates most medicines.
LikeLike
Me, too – plus they knock me out. If I’m on antihistamines, I’m pretty much wiped out for the day.
Rest and get well.
LikeLike
Most turn my writing off. Fexo-fenadine doesn’t. Of course it just barely works well enough on the allergies to be worth remembering to take it.
LikeLike
yeah. the “non-drowsy” stuff seems the worst. I still get sleepy, but I get stupid dreams and feel exceedingly nervous when awake.
LikeLike
I’m using a Portuguese antihistamine not available in the US (though US people order it from France. Who knew?) I’m too tired to look for the paper to tell you what it was. It’s the most effective one, in terms of it will stop one of my sinus episodes COLD, but like all other antihistamines it turns off the “writing thing” — I mean even if I take the stuff and don’t remember, I still can’t write.
LikeLike
judging how dangerously they affect my brain, I’d be happy with writing just turning off. If I get sick enough to take cold meds with it, I will not try to go in to work. expensive mistakes happen. Prilosec did it too, only worse, and I’d lock up and sit mid task for minutes, like someone hit a pause button as I tried to figure out what it was I was supposed to be doing again. I took 5 minutes to stick a single label onto a tote.
LikeLike
Prednisone and chemo did that to me too– cytoxan freezes my neurons
LikeLike
Oh, yeah. I do that — the lock up pause thing. I’m trying to go wihtout anti-histamines today. We’ll see.
LikeLike
They’re also used as juvenal sedatives. Of course they don’t work so well on someone who’s been regularly taking them for their allergies, and has built up an immunity to the induced drowsiness…
LikeLike
Given the bite of the Satires Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis wrote, SPQR would probably enthusiastically endorse sedating Juvenal.
LikeLike
I almost said this. Eh.
LikeLike
I truly didn’t want to tweak Voyager’s typing (G-d knows, mine own is atrocious) but the opportunity to pull SPQR’s tail was more than I could resist.
Besides, whenever does an Odd fellow demur from a demonstration of faux erudition?
LikeLike
I have been glitching a lot lately too– *sigh
LikeLike
I suspect that the antihistimines reduce the inflammation response causing the overproduction by your inspiration gland.
I hope your sinuses are better. A head full of custard is not fun at all.
LikeLike
Might research antihistamines – most are soporifics, diphenhydramine (aka Benadryl) is about the most effective at both – and sold as an over the counter sleep aid as well as antihistamine. There are a many to choose from including many over the counter so some are likely to be better than others for a given user.
There has been some marketing oriented obfuscation. For instance clinical trials on Claritin are by the maker’s report showing such small soporific effects as to be statistically indistinguishable from the placebo in a double blind test. In fact the tests are done on small populations to minimize the statistical significance of small effects. If some of the many small population tests had been one combined test with a population equal to the total of the many small tests then the admittedly small soporific effect would have been very much statistically significant. In other words non-sedating might not apply whatever the box says.
This is one reason antihistamines are often combined with stimulants in the form of decongestants (Sudafed anybody aka Secretarial Speed) – and of course the decongestants can be as habit forming as caffeine if not addicting.
LikeLike
Diphenhydramine. It’s an interesting one. For some people, not a soporific at all. For most elderly people, you’re out like a light with very few side effects. And for me… weeeeeel, I’m apparently reeeeeal sensitive, such that a half dose knocks me out in about a half hour, for more than a day. (Although if I’m desperate enough with a bad bad sinus day, that’s been a real option.)
If you’ve never used it or haven’t used it for a while, I advise caution.
LikeLike
I have this phobia to taking pharmaceuticals unless absolutely necessary, so I very seldom take any. Besides I can’t see any effects from most antihistamines, so what is really the point? (on myself, I see other people take them and have their nose quit running) Benadryl doesn’t affect me at all, UNLESS I have been stung by a bee, I’m allergic to bees (strangely not to the ones here in Idaho but badly to coastal bees, for whatever reason everybody I know of that has came from the coast, Washington, Oregon, or California, that is allergic to bees over there has either no reaction or a very light reaction to the bees here) so I always took Benadryl for a bee sting, combine a coastal bee sting and Benadryl and I feel and act drunker than if I chugged a fifth of whiskey.
LikeLike
Sarah, someone needs to treat you like I do my oldest daughter at times. Someone should put you in your bed with stern orders not to get out of it until you are given a direct order to do so. With threats of having your computer taken away and being forced to eat brussels sprouts and onions if you get up early. You need a break. Take it.
LikeLike
Set her cats to guard her.
On Fri, May 3, 2013 at 10:56 AM, According To Hoyt wrote:
> ** > Jim McCoy commented: “Sarah, someone needs to treat you like I do my > oldest daughter at times. Someone should put you in your bed with stern > orders not to get out of it until you are given a direct order to do so. > With threats of having your computer taken away and being force” >
LikeLike
I like brussel sprouts!
LikeLike
So, you’ll work in bed until you feel you’ve done enough, then get up and get something else done, secure in the knowledge you’ll be rewarded in onions and brussel sprouts, while the cats are all too busy chasing catnip fish to impede you?
LikeLike
Me, too. With a bit of lemon butter … yum.
The Spouse, having realized that they are not supposed to be the size of golf balls and cooked until gray and mushy on the outside, now tolerates them. (The things school cafeterias do to some vegetables ought to be a crime.)
LikeLike
The best way I’ve had brussel sprouts is, start from fresh sprouts, cut them in half, then roasted in the oven with butter.
LikeLike
I usually toss with a little olive oil and some basalmic vinegar, but your way is awesome, too!
LikeLike
If I rightly recall, brussel sprouts halved or quartered, then stir fried in peanut oil that has been generously flavored with szechwan peppercorns and dressed with a generous handful of chopped scallion and a bit of light soy sauce wasn’t bad either.
LikeLike
Both ways sound good, but I like to throw in bacon pieces and diced onion, as well.
LikeLike
I got this recipe from a friend — roast them in oven with olive oil and a drizzle of salt and pepper, low temperature, 40m until it’s all crispy on the outside. Everyone in the family loves them.
LikeLike
Do you halve or quarter them first, or do this whole?
LikeLike
You halve them and put them down cut-side down.
LikeLike
We usually steam them and then add a little butter and balsamic vinegar, or make a vinegar dressing like you use on spinach (heat vinegar to boiling, add a bit of sugar and some bacon, pour over either fresh spinach or steamed sprouts, stir, serve).
LikeLike
“And now, pray for me, I’m headed to litter box territory.”
In my house, I’m allowed to use the porcelain.
(Channeling the wallaby there)
LikeLike
Take. A. Break.
I believe I advised that earlier this week.
And I have the six chapters of Rogue Magic you uploaded, but not unifiedI can either email them back separately, or combine them all as a text file and send it that way, if you’d prefer.
LikeLike
Rogue Magic
Jonathan:
The Honorable Earl
When I was very little, I used to have this nightmare where I was locked away in some inaccessible dungeon with a view.
What I mean is, it was some sort of dungeon, and it was very silent and somewhat dark, and I was chained hand and foot to the wall, but through the other wall in front of me I could see my sisters playing and my nanny crying “Master Jonathan,” but I couldn’t reach them.
Even in the dream, I knew something was wrong, because if I were to suddenly vanish and leave my nanny in charge of only the four girls, she wouldn’t cry. More likely she would give thanks fasting. And no one would blame her.
But then as I grew older, I’d come to understand that Nanny would indeed cry, because I was the only male heir, then, before Edward and Reuel were even born. Had I disappeared, the entail on the family title and lands and on Blythe’s Blessings, our all-too-profitable magical business, would have passed to my cousin Eldred. Which meant that Mother and Honoria, Helen, Harmonie, and Hosanna would have been quite destitute and nurse turned out to graze, or whatever it was you did with old servants. So Nanny would have cried, certainly, despite the various frogs in the knitting basket, grass snakes in her bed, and other less savory tricks with which I enlivened my dreary childhood.
I wondered if it was because of those tricks that I was – in a way – condemned to eternity in something very like the dungeon of my nightmares.
“Blythe!” Mamma said, in exactly the same tone she’d used to say “Jonathan!” until three weeks ago, when I’d arranged for Papa’s death and, inevitably, ascended to his dignities.
I blinked and, to my chagrin, became aware of my location which was the breakfast table, across from Mama, who was – in her day – a remarkable beauty, and who remained – I was assured – a very pretty woman, despite her one or two strands of grey, and her less than fresh complexion. Almost as pretty as the girls, and truth, how much older than them could she be. She’d married and had me at twelve, if you were to believe her. Not that she ever said that, precisely, but she claimed to be thirty nine, which would make her nine on the happy day of her marriage to papa. ‘s truth, I thought she’d probably been fifteen or so, so not that far off.
“Blythe!” Mama’s voice had just that nice blend of impatience, command, and a hint that she was terribly, terribly disappointed in me. From the foot of the table she glared at me, then her gaze went sideways to my right, and I looked. And almost dropped my napkin, because one of the footmen was standing there, holding a silver salve, with three letters on it.
I reached over and took the letters – though I’m fairly sure that was not what I was supposed to do, but I could never remember what I was supposed to do. The footman, a tall, not uncomely young man of maybe nineteen straightened up and I said “Er…” because I could never remember the creatures’ names, though Mama assured me that my sainted father never forgot a single one. The sainted must mean he belonged to some very odd religion because according to the dictates of the Christianity practiced in this isles, Papa must now be burning and sizzling in a circle of hell almost as deep as the one I’d someday be consigned to.
“Jon– Blythe!” Mama said, and a shadow of alarm joined the reproach in her voice. I realize I was staring straight ahead which unfortunately meant I was staring at a region of the footman’s anatomy at which no nicely brought up Earl should stare.
I wasn’t nicely brought up. But I also wasn’t interested. I looked up at the footman’s face, which was a shade of red one shouldn’t be able to turn unless one was halfway through becoming a tomato. His name came to me in a flash. He was Thomas, and he was our housekeeper’s son. “Thank you, Thomas. You may go.”
He bowed slightly, still bright red, and turned and went, which, from the purely aesthetic point of view, provided a not-unpleasant view.
Not that I was interested. I wasn’t. Once, when I was very drunk, I’d gone with some choice spirits to this club on Totenham Court Road, where they had boys whom one of my boon companions assured me could do what no girl could.
I suppose that would be correct, insofar as the parts were different, but for my money, give me a well grown wench of twenty or thereabouts, with a compliant disposition and a rounded figure. It would have cost me less of my money too.
Which doesn’t mean a man is either blind or devoid of imagination.
Before Mama could open her mouth – though I could feel her admonition hanging in the air – I turned to the letters, while saying, “Yes, Mama, I know. Blythe. Indeed, your use of the name begins to be tedious.”
I was aware of twin gasps from my left, where Harmonie and Hosanna – whom we called Hanna, because we’d never understood by what freakish lapse mamma had come to pick such a name – sat, and of a smothered giggle from the right, where Helen buttered her toast. Honoria was as dead as Papa, and in as dishonorable circumstances, though I’d managed to scotch that scandal at least. What call a girl had to get herself with child by a dragon, and one who didn’t like women at that, was quite beyond me. But Honoria had always been like papa and, ultimately, unreliable. Which meant it was a good thing she was gone.
I met Helen’s eye with a mildly reproving look, and she looked back at me, all proper, but I swear her eyes laughed. She was the only one in the family who looked like me, with curly dark hair and dark brown eyes, all the rest of the family looking like they’d run in the wash. She might resemble me in other ways. It bore watching.
I looked down from Helen to the letter I’d opened and realized, with a start, that it was from Seraphim Ainsling, Duke of Darkwater, now the royal Witchfinder and Prince Consort, since he’d married the Princess Royale. Who was having more trouble getting used to his dignities than I to mine.
The proof was right in this letter. It started with “Dear Jon” as though we’d still been boys, together, at Eaton – not that he’d ever called me dear, then. No one did. Until the age of twenty I’d thought my name was Jon, No! – and proceeded just as informally with, “There is a problem for which I’m very afraid I will need your help. Without it, the whole world could be lost. Please come see me as soon as you may after twelve” It was signed Seraphim A. and he’d not even bothered to use his signet ring.
I sighed forlornly. First, one is supposed to conform to his dignities, not to toss them aside and ignore one’s own importance. And second, I must be slipping if Seraphim knew I’d be awake shortly after twelve. I wondered what half of London would say if they knew I was awake at nine. How very unfashionable. I’d be quite disgraced.
I set aside the letter, met the eyes of my elder surviving sister, who, from the smile twitching the corners of her lips, seemed to know far too well what was going on in my mind. For a second I tried to remember how old she was. Seventeen? Eighteen? Old enough, at any rate, and I must find some unwary unfortunate to foist her upon in holy – or at least legal – matrimony.
“Helen!” Mama said, disapproval, asperity and a sort of despairing sigh mingling in her voice.
Well, it was neither Jonathan! nor Blythe at any rate. Just like when Nanny suspected the nursery maid, and not me, of having put salt in her tea, it was a relief.
I opened the next letter, noting the cheap paper and the clumsy handwriting of a man who is not used to plying a pen for a living. After opening the twice recrossed page, I looked down to find the signature of Wolfe Merrit.
I frowned at the handwriting, trying to make it out. Even uncrossed, Wolfe was hard to read. A good practical magician, and he kept Blythe’s Blessings and our various magically powered manufactures going as I couldn’t, but his father had been a farner, and it always seemed he’d be more at home with a plow then a pen.
By dint of glaring at the page, I made out the words corruption and magic, and something about one of our factories in the North being in dire trouble.
Well, that would need to be dealt with, and before Seraphim’s demmed noon appointment. Without the factories, I would lack the money to dower Helen, not to mention the money to dower Harmonie. And though I had the vague idea that Hanna should still be in the schoolroom, I also had a feeling she was out already and likely would need a dowry.
I was lucky enough that neither the king nor any of the persons injured had forced me to make restitution on Father’s ill gotten gains, but I could not now let the modicum of wealth we’d managed to wrest from ruing fall between my fingers. My sisters – and my brothers’ too – must be provided for. Yes, I must see Wolfe, confound him.
Helen let out a breath, with the sound of having held it long, and I looked up at her, as I set the letter aside. What was she looking so peeky for?
But she looked away from me, as I picked up the third letter, and that was all very well. I’d have to find out what was going through her head – hopefully not a dragon! – but that would wait till another time.
The letter in my hand was also cheap paper, but it was addressed in an unmistakably female hand and if I had any experience of it – and I did – a well-bred female hand. It had no name of origination. But the beautifully shaped, not at all vulgar handwriting put paid to the notion that it might be from my latest cher amie, who could barely hold a pen. I must remember to give her her conge. It didn’t do for the Earl of Blythe to keep a flirtation that had done quite well for Jonathan who very much hoped not to inherit the title.
I frowned down at the paper, registering that the letter was very short, that it started withDear Sir, and that the signature was blotched with tears. The last was an unusual enough circumstance, but the text was even more peculiar. “Dear Sir,” it read. “I have understood that you’ve been endeavoring to find me. You must not. Oh, you must not. And you must forgive me the injury I’ve done you. Indeed, when you discover it, you must keep in mind that it was no fault of my own, and all of my circumstances. Please do not think badly of me. Indeed, you must believe me when I say if circumstances were different—”
This was where the blotching started, which extended all the way to the signature.
The strange thing about it was that the letter did not put me off, and I have the greatest dislike of females abuse indeed and who act as watering pots. I mean, once they’ve given in to your advances, what use is crying? And if they haven’t, it’s easily remedied.
But there was to this letter the feeling of a personality, the sense of a woman nearing the breaking point.
And besides, I had been looking for a woman, since that night when I’d ascended to poor Papa’s dignities, after his untimely suicide.
That night, in a not totally unrelated phenomenon, London had swarmed with demons, and while fighting them, I’d met—
Her image rose up before me: red hair, an impudent little face, and the sort of figure I would pay my money for. Only she was not the type who takes money.
She’d told me her name was Ginevra Elfborne, and she’d dressed like a governess. But she’d fought like a warrior for her gaggle of screaming debutants. And she’d disappeared like a lovely dream in the summer heat.
I’m not the type to pine for a bit of skirt, nor indeed for anyone. But I’d not been able to forget Ginevra nor to find her. My polite enquiries had said such a person had never been heard of, by the family she supposedly worked for. My respectable enquiry agents had come back empty handed. And my not so respectable agents had been bewildered and assure me no such woman existed nor had ever existed.
My eyes fell on that line, before the tears blotted her writing: Indeed, you must believe me when I say if circumstances were different—
I was sure the first three letters of the tear-soaked signature were G I N.
There are things you can do to a letter that will tell you where the writer is right then. Particularly a letter infused with tears, as this one was. Nothing a respectable magician will do, of course, but fortunately I was not a respectable magician.
“Blythe!” Mama’s voice said. “Your kidneys!”
Since this referred to my breakfast and not my body, I chose to ignore it. I wasn’t hungry at all. I must get to my office. I had a spell to perform.
And then maybe I’d find the little red-headed imp I couldn’t forget.
Lady’s Gambit
Miss Helen Blythe, Sister of the Earl of Savage:
The moment Jonathan left the table, Mother turned to me. I have no idea what set her off. Perhaps it was my look after my brother’s departing form, which was probably both worried because I know very well what Jon is capable of, and wishful because I’ve long wished I’d been a man. If I were a man, I could have moved beyond the circle of good behavior; beyond the circle of what Mama expected from me. If I’d been a man—
“How we’re going to get you married off, when you insist on these distempered freaks, I don’t know, my dear, but you must strive to control them.”
I didn’t know what Mama considered a distempered freak, or even what she’d said beyond those words. I’d heard those words, only. I knew they were addressed to me, because my sisters are good girls and never have distempered freaks. Heaven knows how they manage it. The first answer that ran through my mind was “Oh, do not worry, mama. I don’t want a man. I want to run away and become a pirate Queen.”
I realized I’d said the words aloud, as Mama’s mouth dropped open and her eyes threatened to pop out of her head. Hanna, always the good sister, yelled out, “Mama, mama, she didn’t mean it, she was only funning.”
Only I wasn’t funning. Or not exactly.
The problem with these daydreams I’d had since childhood, and the answers I thought to Mama but never actually said aloud, was that I suspected eventually I would start saying them aloud. Apparently, for my sins, that day had come, and no wonder, what with my perfect older sister having an affair all along, and being pregnant by someone not her fiancé and then dying a month after the birth.
Yes, I know what you heard: about how Honoria had been secretly engaged to the illegimate son – and now heir – of the Earl of Sidell, who had been unjustly accused of necromancy and therefore was in hiding. How there was a secret marriage and how then – fortuitously – his father’s death allowed them to announce it.
The truth is far more interesting, involving forbidden love and madness and an illegitimate baby who will forever be known as his brother’s son. I also have more than a hint of a suspicion that the brother, my now brother in law, is in fact the lover of the king of fairyland.
All this I gathered from unconsidered bits that Mama let fall when she didn’t know I was listening, and also from my assiduous perusal of Jonathan’s private papers, which might be an action unworthy of a gentlewoman, but is absolutely necessary for me to survive in a world where no one tells me anything.
This is what I hate about society, and why I’ve decided to leave it. They expect me to be a babe unborn and never to experience life as it really is. Real life is far more interesting.
“Helen, say you were funning, tell mama!” Hanna said. She was chaffing Mama’s wrists with vinegar and looked at me with that pleading look she gives, which always makes me feel like to deny her would be to kick a puppy or stomp on a kitten.
“Yes, yes, I was funning,” I said. In my code of honor, which I’d come to more or less on my own, it was a great sin to lie, but killing Mama with a heart attack was probably a worse sin. I wasn’t sure, because I hadn’t had the time to think about it, but it probably was. I also judged she would recover far more quickly without me in the room and besides I had work to do. Betsy must be frantic by now. “If you’ll excuse me, Mama,” I said, and before she could answer, I dropped a courtesy and left the room.
I didn’t start running till I was on the stairs and then I took them two by two in a step Mama would consider most indelicate, not the least because it exposed my ankles. Well and good. Soon there would be no problem with that.
Betsy was waiting in my room, and wringing her hands as she’s wont to do. I like her prodigiously much, but I think there is something about being raised to be a servant that makes you… well, anxious about doing anything not quite approved of. It was a miracle, at all, that she had agreed to my plan of leaving this house, and making a life for ourselves. Truth be told, I think the only reason she’d agreed was that she had been my maid for three years, and I’d read her all the same stories of adventure I read myself. I think she was devoted to me, in a way some younger sisters are to older sisters, and that it were not for me, she’d never consider anything unconventional.
I wondered if it was a breach of moral code to allow her to get involved in this. But it was so much easier for us to enlist in the navy and to pass if there were two of us and one could watch the other’s back.
Still, she looked awfully anxious and was wringing her hands together. She stood there, with two carpetbags, and a whole lot of other stuff, and her eyes were tear smudged and she said, “Oh, Miss, I thought you’d never come and that the mistress had figured what was forward and that I was going to be turned out without a character, and you—”
Her mind failed at the thought of what they might do to me, and she started crying. “Don’t be a ninny,” I told her. “Of course no one found anything. We must go, and as soon as possible.” I sat down at my dressing table, pulled a towel around my shoulders. “Quick. Cut my hair, then I’ll do yours. And you must put something on the floor to catch the hair.”
She obeyed, of course, but halfway through cutting my hair she started crying “Oh, Miss, all your lovely curls.” And it was all I could do not to dismiss her from my plan and this venture all together. Only I didn’t dare. If Betsy stayed behind, they would question her, and the girl had no more gumption than a half-weaned sparrow. So, instead, I said, “Stop calling me miss. What is my name?”
“Hank, Mi– Hank.”
“Hank what?”
“Hank Cutter, Miss.”
I decided to let it go. Like a puppy that you have to train little by little, Betsy would need to be broken of her bad habits.
She wasn’t a very good barber either, but that was good. The rough cut made me look less like one of society’s ornaments. It ended up with my hair mostly at my shoulders, except for the bit where Betsy had tried to cut off my ear, because she was crying so hard she couldn’t see.
Her hair was not much longer than that to begin with, which made sense, because of course, she didn’t have as much time to deal with. It was a whispy blonde and even with it short, it didn’t do much to make her features less round and rosy and feminine.
It was a liability, but I figured some men lived with it too. Fortunately I looked more like brother Jonathan than like my very feminine looking sisters. The shorter hair, roughly tied back, made me look like a boy maybe of seventeen or so, a couple of years younger than I was.
Betsy helped me bind my breasts, and I put on an old suit I’d bought used, because all of Jonathan’s were too fancy for Hank Cutter. Then we got Betsy dressed and I had to wait till she stopped crying, though I suppose very young boys – she’s my age, but looked no more than thirteen in male attire – might cry at leaving home too.
I bundled our cut hair, and stuck it under my mattress, to delay discovery.
Then I took out from my desk drawer the transport spell I’d bought from a vendor so that it wouldn’t have disappeared from our stock and Jonathan wouldn’t know right away. I didn’t think he would care if I disappeared. Certainly not care enough to follow me. Our entire family is selfish, and Jonathan, mostly, cares about Jonathan. But it was no use giving the alarm right away. So I didn’t want to use just my raw power, nor did I want to steal a spell from our stock. It had cost me a shocking price from a street vendor, even though it was stamped with the seal of Blythe’s Blessings.
The thought of the price reminded me to take my remaining money – my quarter allowance, withdrawn and turned into gold coins – and slip the pouch into my sleeve.
Then I turned to Betsy, “Are you ready?” I asked.
“Yes, M– Yes,” she said, and sniffed.
I opened the transport spell and commanded “Take me to Portsmouth.”
A Wolfe At The Door
Jonathan Blythe, Earl of Savage,
The problem, of course, was that I had moved out of Papa’s study. Not that it was a problem, exactly that I’d moved out of his study. What I mean to say was, after all, Papa had blown out his brains while sitting at the desk, and while the servants had done an impressive job of cleaning and I was sure I wasn’t likely to run across forgotten brain matter on the key to the accounts due drawer, yet I didn’t feel comfortable working there.
Truth be told, Papa and I had had no love lost between us. He didn’t understand me and deplored my unsteadiness and I—
I used to think, when I was very young, that my father, unlike the other people around us, wasn’t quite real. Oh, I knew there was elf blood in his line. At least, from the time I was seven or so, I’d heard people mutter about it. Usually, I’d heard people mutter about it while hiding under the drapery of occasional tables in mama’s sitting room during her at homes. I don’t know if mama knew they muttered. But anyway, I knew that Papa had elf blood, and also that this was supposed to make on distant, cold, and – somehow – unreliable.
But papa didn’t strike me as an elf, at least not like any elves I’d read about in the stories in the nursery. Instead, he struck me as… glass. I used to have dreams in which my father was a statue made of glass that had, inexplicably, come to life. Not that I saw Papa very often. In later years I’d wondered at how many children my parents had produced since, even when they were in the same house, they seemed to dislike intensely being in the same room. And yet, from the look of my siblings, and also the fact that she is the most proper of scolds, I was almost sure Mama hadn’t improved the bloodline.
In any case, there was no love lost between Papa and I. When I’d reached the age of reason, or at least the age to leave school and be able to set up my own establishment, he’d paid my bills without protest, and he’d furnished me whatever I needed or wanted, from decent horses to enough money to keep a couple of round heels happy and devoted to me.
But if you added up all the time we’d spent together in our lives, when we didn’t just happen to both be at the same party or dinner, I’d wager – and high too – that it wouldn’t come to more than ten hours, altogether.
Which just goes to show you. There was no love lost, and no reason I should mourn him. And certainly, while I had not held the pistol that blew out his brains, I’d told him that I knew about his malfeasance, and given him reason to blow out his brains.
All the same, I’d found I couldn’t concentrate, attempting to work in the room where he’d breathed his last. Not that I believe in ghosts. Or at least, I don’t believe I would see ghosts. Mostly because I never have, and if I were going to start, it would probably be Freddie, who was like a brother to me and who died on that curricle race. But on the other hand, what a start it would be to have Papa’s sour tones call me from the perusal of estate documents with “Jonathan!”
So I’d moved my study, and I’d moved it to the only room I could think of, which would take all the bureaus and secretaries needed for the task to run the magic business, the manufacturies and the farms: the little receiving hall by the front hall.
And that was the problem. As I came down the main stairs, at a clip, Ginevra’s letter clutched in my head, and trying to decide what spell to use on that writing, to discover my fair unknown, I found our butler arguing with someone.
“Milord will see you at a proper time,” the Butler was saying. His name was Harving and he had been in our service since I was very young. Hearing him talk of Milord always made me expect Papa to show up. “Surely you don’t expect to be admitted without an appointment.”
I stopped, halfway down the marble stairs, hesitating. It was still in time, I thought, to escape back up those stairs. For one, should it become known around town that I am up at shortly after cock’s crow, my reputation will be quite in shreds. People will start referring to me as old somber sides, and probably demanding I live up to my station in life. Worse, they might decide I need to get married and raise up a whole generation of Savages to my title. Which, heaven forfend.
So I froze. The person talking to Harving couldn’t possibly know me. He looked like a rustic, with coarse dark hair which appeared to have been cut by the method of upending a bowl on one’s head and cutting anything that strayed beneath. And he hadn’t shaved that day, if indeed the day before.
But he didn’t dress like a rustic. His suit, though dark brown was of good cut and material and would not have disgraced a respectable merchant.
Still, he could not know me. He did not look in the least like the sort of man to join the groups in which I ran. And I was sure I’d never met him by himself.
I started to turn around, trying to make the movement natural. The man was talking in a low rumble to Harving, and I could feel Harving’s stony rejection of him behind me.
But just as I turned, the man’s voice called out, “Milord! Lord Savage.”
It took me about a second to realize that running like crazy up the stairs was not something an Earl could do. It probably wasn’t something I should even have done as an Earl’s heir. But this didn’t mean I had to like it. I turned around and descended the rest of the stairs, in the most stony manner possible, folding Ginevra’s letter and putting it in my breast pocket.
The rustic was holding his hat and looking up at me as though I were his hope for salvation, and Harving was stonily disapproving, if of me or of the rustic didn’t bear thinking. Being stonily disapproving was his default mode towards me, anyway.
“Yes,” I said, as I reached the bottom step and stood on it, to maintain the advantage of position over the two of them. “And you are? I don’t have the pleasure—”
“No, milor’” the rustic said, and his voice was cultivated, while bearing a trace of the North country. “I’ve been traveling and there would not have been any occasion to have met you, though I have corresponded with you often since– Since the unfortunate demise of your esteemed parent. In fact I only recognized you from your resemblance to your grandfather, which is marked.”
“And you are?” I said, again, coldly. If he’d corresponded with me often and often, he was likely one of our suppliers or managers, but which one? There were a good fifty of the creatures.
“My name is Wolfe Merritt, Milor’”
I made a sound, because of course, Wolfe was our main manager, the man responsible for Blythe blessings. I should in fact have met him, if I’d either given any attention to the business before Papa’s death, or if Merritt hadn’t been on some trip of inspection since papa died.
Which meant this was important business indeed, and Harving should have been standing on position. I dismissed him with, “That will do, Harving,” and feeling Ginevra’s letter like a weight over my heart, I realized it would have to wait. I turned to Merritt, “Come with me,” I said. “Into my study.”
I’d had the study furnished in all new furniture, and it was all light and airy figured walnut. The chairs were comfortable, too, because if someone was important enough to be admitted to my study, he wasn’t an adversary and, unlike Papa, I didn’t view everyone I dealt with as an enemy to be conquered.
“What will you have,” I said, sitting behind my desk and ringing for service.
“Nothin– Nothing milor’.”
“Teetotaler?” I asked.
Something like a shadow went across his face, and his lip tried to lift in a smile. “No, Milor’. But your father didn’t like– That is—”
“Forget my father,” I said. “I’m doing my best to. Now, what will you have?”
“Brandy, Milor’. If it’s not too much trouble.”
“No trouble at all.” I approved of a man not afraid to drink brandy this early in the morning, and I relayed the order to the serving man who appeared. Then I turned back to Wolfe, “You were on a visit of inspection to manufactories that were having some trouble, and I do not know why, nor what you found. So perhaps you’d care to enlighten me?”
Wolfe drew in breath, puffed out his cheeks, then let it out with an explosive “Pah” sound. “Well, milor’ That is the problem. In fact, I don’t know… That is, it started as something so uncertain that we couldn’t be sure, but then… But it didn’t seem right, and your father was busy with… with other matters, and this left me to look into it. I thought it was something to do with the spells we’d used last year not being quite right. Sometimes you get flighty head magicians and—” He shrugged.
“Understood,” I said, though I actually understood very close to nothing. Harving himself came in, gave me a disapproving look, and set two glasses and a decanter of brandy on a tray on my desk. I dismissed him with a nod, and poured brandy for myself and Merritt.
As Harving closed the door behind him, Wolfe grabbed for the glass of brandy I extended him, tossed it back in a single gulp, looked at me with woebegone expression and said, “It’s gone rotten milord.”
“What? What has?” I asked, wondering if there was a reason, after all, that Papa didn’t let Merritt drink.
“The Magic, milor’”
“What magic? The spells we sent to the manufactories, or—”
“All of it,” he said. He sighed. “All of it. All the spells sold by Blythe blessings, but the industrial magic sent to our manufactories too. It’s all gone rotten. Mostly it does what you expect, just oddly or weakly, but then there are times when a spell or powering magic will go… disastrously wrong. There was that child in the factory in Liverpool who– never mind. It doesn’t bear describing. But it can’t go on.”
I tossed my brandy down my throat, thinking of all of papa’s ill gotten gains going up the spout and leaving us destitute after all. “I…” I cleared my throat. “What can have caused it?”
“A strain of rogue magic,” he said. “Come from elsewhere.”
“Elsewhere? You mean, one of our rivals?” Despite everything my house had done to Seraphim Ainsling, I couldn’t see him taking revenge. He was one of nature’s noblemen, was Seraphim. Besides, he’d come out well enough, so why would he?
“No, milor’. I mean another world.”
The Devil’s Child
Wolfe Merrit, Overseer to the Earl Of Savage’s properties and manufactories:
I guess my problem has always been birds with broken wings. When I was little those were real. There were any number of birds with broken wings, and of sad naked things fallen out of nests that I’d brought home, all wrapped in my handkerchief, and which my mother let me nurse by the kitchen fire. Most died, of course, though that got less so as my powers came on.
And what can any man who is a cottager and the son of a farmer want with magical power, much less a magical power that’s bent on healing, who’s to know? I misdoubt me that my dear mother was ever unfaithful to my father, besides the fact that I have my father’s same identical face. So, wherever the magical power comes from it must be from very far in the family. Some Lord’s daughter that fell from grace, or some cottager girl who strayed with a Lord.
That was shame enough, that I had the magic, but you couldn’t hide it, and if we tried to then the village was more likely to say that there was something shameful in it and that it was my mother’s fault or my father’s mother even. And so, I was sent to magic school proper, though that meant going to classes at the local elf-orphans home. But I was treated right, as an out pupil, and my mother paid for it with the money from taking in washing, and when a position came up with the Earl of Savage I was ready to take it.
We’d just never told anyone that it was healing magic, because, as my father said, that’s woman’s power, and what did a man want with a woman’s bend on his magic. Not as bad as foretelling, but bad enough. And there was no point making people talk. My marriage was bad enough. And the child.
The thought of Jimmy, as I sat here, across the desk from the Earl of Savage made the doubt come up in my mind again, but I tried not to think of it. I sipped the brandy to steady myself and said, “Yes, sir. It’s gone rotten. It comes apart and it does things as it was not meant to. And that’s the long and the short of it, milor’. And I think the strain comes from another world.”
Which of course, brought to mind Jimmy again, and Jimmy’s mother too.
It was the bird that falls from the nest thing, all over again, that is what my mother said. And she was right too, even if she said it with her temper flaring up and that tone in her voice, like she disapproved. Which she undoubtedly did.
Because what business a farmer’s son has either bringing home a naked elf lady he found wandering the forest, all out of her mind, or marrying her either, no one knew, not even myself who’d done it.
But we’d kept it from the Savages, and the marriage had lasted so little – she’d disappeared right after Jimmy’s birth – that there was no reason they should know.
Except Jimmy. Fairyland was another world, wasn’t it? And couldn’t they be tainting the savage magic through me?
“What did you use to determine that?” the Earl asked. He’s a well setup man and some would say handsome, though as I thought that I heard my mother say in my head that handsome is as handsome does, and right enough, and what the Earl of Savage looks like is his grandfather, and what his grandfather done wasn’t handsome by any description.
“I used the Vanal variations,” I said. “And I ran the Terobynian formulas. It all points to magic from another world, milor’”
He looked at me, his eyes narrowing in speculation. When I knew his grandfather he was an old man, leastwise when I knew him as an employee. I knew of him since my birth, just about. The women in the village called him old Nick and not just because his name was Nicholas, and cautioned any comely young girl – or boy, the old soot not caring much – to keep away from him.
He had been a handsome man, even then, well set up, with a full head of dark hair, and that unlike his son as would make anyone else doubt the relation, particularly since the village – and other villages around – were full of cottager children with that same handsome physiognomy.
The thing was, the old man wasn’t bad. Not when you considered his son. He was a lush and a lecher, and he didn’t do repairs to the cottages, and he didn’t care for the land and let it go to rack and ruin, and it was said he spent more on a pair of horses than a family would make in ten years, and he didn’t care, but he wasn’t bad.
You could sit – I found – and talk to him, and if you had a real problem, he would help you. He had magic enough, and he did a magic examination of me when he hired me, that he must have known about the healing pull in my magic, and he’d never cared.
Yes, I understood I was lucky enough that when I was hired at eighteen the Good Lord had already blessed me with a face that would make no one weep but my mother and that not for joy, and that I was built like the men of the land, squat and blocky and not lank and graceful as old Nick liked them. But to me, in his dealings with me, he was a fair master and a good one.
His son, on the other hand—
It had started with “I like to have the distinctions of rank preserved” all from that pale, tight lipped mouth, with those eyes that looked at you like you were dirt. And while I’m not some kind of radical, nor meaning to overturn the order of society and magic, there is no reason to behave as though you’d like to trample others under your boot, that there isn’t.
So, now I watched the new Earl. I hadn’t exactly cried big tears for the old Earl, not I, but my grandmother used to say “the devil that comes after me will make you fond of me” and that had been the truth right enough with the last two earls, and I wondered if it would be true again. He hadn’t treated me scaly, and he didn’t seem high on the instep. His verifying questions were what any man might ask, faced with the problem. And he looked like his grandfather, though that might not mean anything. He and his sister, Lady Helen, were the only ones in the family that looked like the old devil. I’d caught a glimpse of her, once, long ago, going around a corner, and I remember thinking as you’d never know such a face as the old boy had could flatter a woman but it did.
The Earl of Savage turned from fiddling with things on his desk. He looked tight controlled, like his father, and high strung, and very much in command, but then he looked at me.
I’ve seen a horse look like that, once. He had broken a leg and lay, in pain till we could give him mercy. Only there wasn’t anyone with a pistol, no one who could shoot him, and we didn’t want to hack at him with a knife, and he lay there so long that his screams ceased, and he was alive, but looked like he’d rather be dead. His eyes had been stony with suffering, and that’s what the earl’s eyes looked like.
First you might think they were proud or closed-off, but when you looked close it was just he had gone through so much pain that at some time he’d quite shut off.
He dropped to his chair, behind his desk, and looked at me with those stone-suffering eyes, and said, “Well, what can we do?”
And I said “Milor’” because the man was only ten years or so younger than me, so I couldn’t call him “son” which was a good thing. It would be a right mess if I had, and besides, an Earl is rather too large a naked bird to be wrapped in my handkerchief and brought home to mother’s fireside.
“If we don’t do anything, the manufacturies will close.” A shadow crossed the suffering eyes. “I don’t suppose we can live off the land.”
I shook my head. Old Nick had done for that and well enough. Too many years of selling off any piece that wasn’t entailed. Too many years of taking it all out and putting nothing in.
“No,” he said. “I didn’t think so. And my sisters must have their portions. My brothers, too, must have something to start in life. I suppose I could sell myself on the marriage mart. A title must be worth something, even with my reputation.”
I didn’t say anything. I’d heard some of his reputation, which was that he was following in old Nick’s footsteps. But his tender concern for his siblings was something I’d never heard from Old Nick. No, and not from Old Nick’s son, either.
He rubbed at his nose, a gesture that made him seem all of three years old. “Well. What can’t be cured, must be endured. We’ll do what we can, and hopefully get enough at least for my siblings’ needs.”
Which is when we heard the running steps outside the door and someone burst in, behind me. By the time I turned around, I’d already seen the Earl’s expression freeze, and when I turned around I realized why – the person who’d come running was a maid. Truth be told, she was probably a twinnie, somewhere between kitchen drudge and cleaning maid and no more than 13 or so. That she’d burst running into the Earl’s office bespoke a lack of firmness on the Earl’s part that made me want to throw the whole thing over and go back to the land and be a farmer, like my father. Only at the price corn was bringing… And besides, my older brother Tom had the land.
But the girl bobbed three curtseys in turn, one after the other, then said in a fainting voice, “It is this letter milord. It was on Lady Helen’s bed when I went to make it. And… and her carpet bag is missing, and I thought– I thought you’d want it right away.”
I wasn’t so stupid that lady Helen, the carpet bad, and the letter didn’t add up to an awful picture. My mouth dropped open as the very pale earl of Savage reached for the letter.
It was a whole family of birds with broken wings
Not Portsmouth
Miss Helen Blythe, Sister of the Earl of Savage:
I didn’t know if this was Portsmouth, but I rather doubted it.
Betsy and I landed with a thud and a blast of light and – understandably – there was a time when I couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t think.
The problem came after the light vanished, and the sound of explosion had vanished from my head, there was still the feel of being unable to breathe.
The reason for this was clear enough, since we were, in fact, immersed in water. The moment I realized this, I held my breath, containing my desire to open my mouth and gulp in what was available. I didn’t think a lungfull of water would help.
Betsy started to open my mouth and I clapped my hand it, holding her with that arm sort of around her. She was struggling and whimpering, and it was much like holding an oversized heel.
Fortunately I knew how to swim, something Mama says no well brought up girl will know, since it is impossible to swim with your petticoat on. She’s not quite right. You can swim with petticoats on. But I’d much rather swim naked, which was how I’d taught myself on the lake on our property, summer nights.
Breeches were not as easy to swim in as naked, though they were far better than petticoats. So, I kicked to the surface with all my might, pulling Betsy along. I knew where the surface was – I thought – because there was a great light that way.
Wherever we were – it couldn’t be Portsmouth, not even off the coast – there were fish of ever color and shape and if my chest hadn’t felt like it would presently burst, I would certainly have admired them.
As was, I was only aware of my head bursting through somewhere into air, and I took big gulps of air, and moved my hand from Betsy’s mouth – and then had to grab her under the arms, because the silly git was trying to lose consciousness and go under.
After I’d breathed in and out several times, I became aware that this was definitely not Portsmouth.
Look, I haven’t travelled much, and I’m not even very aware of where Portsmouth is. Yes, my governess tried to make me learn geography, but like almost everything she taught me, this was done by making me learn lists “the seven best kings of England”, “the ten most tragic queens” and such. All I’d retained about Portsmouth was that it was a nautical location, with shipyards and that I could hire as a cabin boy there, and eventually make my way to captaining my own pirate ship. I had no doubt I could do that, as I’d read plenty of sea stories and biographies, and I knew plenty of people more dull-witted than I had made such a trajectory. So why shouldn’t I?
Mama would say that piracy was a sin, but of course mama would say that. Mama said all manner of pious and not very significant things, and besides look at how papa had preached morality all the time. But I’d heard Jonathan and Seraphim Ainsling speak once, when they didn’t think I could hear, and what papa had done was no better than piracy and might be worse.
So, those were my reasons for choosing Portsmouth. And I was willing to concede that the streets in Portsmouth might be made of wet cobblestone. They probably were. But I’d seen pictures in books, and those same streets were surrounded by tall buildings, and filled with people
The place we’d emerged…
A few steps from where we’d come up, there was a set of wet cobblestoned steps, leading up to… It could be a cobblestoned street, only it wasn’t. More like a cobblestoned plaza. Only when you blinked and looked again, you realized it wasn’t cobblestones, really, but polished grey granite.
But it was what surrounded that … plaza? Room? That made it unbelievable. I was aware of Betsy first gasping and moaning, then making a startled little cry, as she doubtless also paid attention to what happened around us. But I was too busy with my own wonder.
You see, above the plaza, above us, above this entire space, there was something like the gigantic inverted keel of a very old boat. It shone with a diffuse light, which is what made me think I was swimming towards daylight.
Hanging from the keel – cavernous and black, and just barely recognizeable as wood – hung … strings of pearls. Masses of them.
When we were little, nursie would let us make daisy chains, in spring, and sometimes I would festoon the space over my bed in loops and loops of them. This was like that, but more so, with loops and loops and long ropes of pearls. All manner of pearls, from the small and rosy to the huge and white to the ivory tones in between. They all shone, perfectly visible by the deflected light. And I thought if I could get even a yard of those and go back home, I could set up as an independent lady of means, and no one – No one – would be able to make me marry anyone I didn’t want to, nor die in child birth, as Honoria had.
It was because I was looking up that I missed them. I didn’t hear their steps, which is odd, and I wasn’t aware of their approach until one of them said, “Swim towards the steps, and come up. You are under arrest.”
Then I did look in the direction of the voice and my first thought was that the two men standing on the granite plaza, right in the center, were Roman. This is because they were mostly naked, save for a white loincloth, and carried tridents and a net.
After the first shock I realized that I was confusing with the pictures of Roman Gladiators in the naughty book that Papa kept on the very top shelf of the library, which had all sorts of other Roman things.
But they couldn’t be Roman because… things were wrong. For one, I was fairly sure that Romans didn’t have green hair. And they certainly didn’t have little fins along their arms.
“Don’t make me fetch you with magic, land-heel,” the taller of the two barked. “Come up the steps. You are under arrest.”
I had no idea what he meant by fetching me by magic, though from the feel of him, I suspected he could. But since this was not Portsmouth, it behooved me to find out what it was, before I made him use magic on me.
Though I could tell right away I was going to dislike him excessively.
Twisted Magic
Jonathan Blythe, The Earl Of Savage:
The door to my study opened, and one of the upstairs maids came pelting in. The sight was more startling than if she had flown in, or perhaps came in doing a perfect ballet step, because the thing is, no way to hide it, maids don’t pelter. At least maids who have been trained under papa’s aegis and mama’s watching eye don’t.
I half rose from my chair, not quite sure what I meant to do, but ready to either ward off an attack, or catch the girl should she be under the impulse of a magical compulsion. Not that either was likely, but both have happened, if one is to believe history books and newspaper accounts. Not that I ever do, because every time I’ve been present at either of these– But that’s a story for another time.
At that time, what I was faced with was this young woman running straight for me, and she was wearing the uniform of an upstairs maid, all starched black frills and white lace.
Fortunately for me, the chair in which Merritt sat was square in her path. This made her stop, and I could confirm that besides the uniform, her face was familiar too, a peaked little face with straggles of blond hair escaping from the cap. I’d be cursed if I had the slightest idea what her name was, but I had seen her go in and out of rooms with warmed bricks for the beds, and the like.
Two things were of concern, besides her running in. First, she was very pale, and her eyes were red rimmed as though she’d been crying. This meant you couldn’t trust her. You never know what a woman will do when she’s been crying. Why, once, when I tried to give one of my peculiars her conge she started crying and… If my skull weren’t as thick as it is, you wouldn’t be reading this.
The other thing was that she was clutching a piece of paper in her hand. I had the odd idea that mama had sacked her, and she was coming to argue the point with me, but that was of course stupid. After all, why would mama tell her she was fired in writing. For one, Mama don’t like putting pen to paper above half and used to get Honoria to write everything for her.
Before I could sort through all this and speak, the girl was bobbing up and down like a jack in box, in repeated curtseys and murmuring something like “Forgive me your lordship,” which was daft enough, but not as daft as Wolfe Merritt standing up and looking for all the world like he expected to ask her for a dance. I mean, I realize she was a woman of his condition and all, but all the same—
“Stop with the bobbing, woman,” I heard myself say, somewhat shocked at how much my voice sounded curt and disdainful, just like Papa’s used to. “You’re making me seasick. What do you mean by pelting in here without knocking, and don’t tell me you weren’t pelting. I know pelting when I see it, and that was pelting.”
The gone, probably more than the inane words stopped her. After all, she had been trained in papa’s household. She stopped bobbing and stood, turning even paler though I’d have sworn that was impossible, and swallowing convulsively. I thought she wouldn’t be able to speak, and I was reaching for the bell to call the butler to come and remove her or something, when Merritt gave me the slightest shake of the head, that signified I shouldn’t do that, and then crossed over to the tray with the brandy, poured a bare finger into my used glass, and took it to the girl. And damme if he didn’t hold her head and put the glass to her lips, and make her drink the whole thing.
We were going to have a drunk housemaid on our hands, not that it wouldn’t perhaps be an improvement on a housemaid who had decided to imitate a jack in box, but all the same, it seemed like it would cause mama of accusing us of trying to debauch this chit and perhaps fire the girl anyway.
But she swallowed, and either because the taste of brandy was a shock or perhaps because it worked fast, she looked towards Merritt and said, “Thank you, sir, I—”
“That’s better,” I said. “What is your name?”
“Annabelle,” she said. And then, catching the slightest of widening in my eyes, because I was sure no maid in the house could be called Annabelle, she smiled a little. “Your mama told me I am to be addressed as Mary while I work here.”
I nodded. Her speech was above her class, too, and I wondered if mama had ordered her to use a lower class of speech while working for us. Thing is, I know mama. Devil of a woman mama. Quite likely to do that sort of thing, she was.
“Well then Mar– Annabelle,” I said. Might as well establish I was neither Mama nor under Mama’s thumb. “What do you mean by coming running in here, without even knocking?”
She started to bend at the knees, but I quelled her with a look. I had the oddest feeling that the corners of her mouth shook just a little at my look. “Yes, sir,” she said. “No bobbing,” she said, managing to convey the impression that under different circumstances, she would be laughing. “But sir, we found this… we found this… in Miss Blythe’s room.”
The “this” she handed me was a sheet of paper, close written in my sister Helen’s sprawling handwriting.
It started very primly if highly improperly with “Dear Jon,” but it went down from there very fast. Or at least I couldn’t in rational calm consider its contents anything but the sheerest lunacy. I read it through three times before the first words stopped all my ability to relate the rest of the letter.
The very first words were, “I’ve decided to run away and become a Pirate Queen.” I blinked at it, in utter horror, and read through the rest of the letter, seeing nothing but disjointed words, three times solid, then looked up at the maid, Annabel, “Is my sister– That is—”
“Both your sister,” she said. “And her maid, Betsy, are gone from the premises, and there were the remains of a transport spell upon her table.
I closed my eyes to make the room stop swaying, surely a side effect of all the bobbing the maid had done. I took two deep breaths and read the letter again, this time making myself pay attention. “I’ve bought a spell which should take us to Portsmouth, where I expect to seek employment aboard a ship and to advance to the post of captain by either my just deserts or, if absolutely needed, mutiny.” Mutiny was underlined. “You need not worry, since both Betsy and I have taken the precaution of cutting our hair and dressing as boys, so our honor shall never be threatened.” I closed my eyes and breathed deep three times. I should have shared with the impudent chit a thing or two I’d heard from my friends who were at sea. “I know you will be very shocked by my taking this step, but once you think about it, I’m sure you’ll know it’s for the best. I’ve been watching you, my dear, dear Jon. Of all the family, you must know you’ve always been my favorite, well, at least since that time when I was very little and you helped me dress the cat as though she were a baby and then laughed with me when she tore through all the clothes and ran off into the bushes cursing. And then you told me a story about some girl called Kitty, and I knew for sure you were not half as starched up as the rest of them, and you had a sense of humor and a heart, Jonathan.” The fact that I had no memory whatsoever of the moment also meant I had had far more alcohol then I should have, but of course, she wouldn’t know it. “And I’ve been watching you since Papa died, and how all of them – every one, from Mama to the prince consort expect you to do your duty, and how you stopped laughing and funning anymore.” Partly because I had cut drastically back on the consumption of alcohol, but what could a delicately reared young lady know of that? “And I know you’ve been in low spirits.” Well, she could say that. Low to none. “And I know, too, that part of it is having to provide dowries for all of us, and having to find us a proper man to marry and all that. I would like you to be sure that I do not intend to marry any man, proper or otherwise, because I saw what happened with poor Honoria, and it’s all very well for mama to say that the proper way for a woman to live is to have children, but if children make you die, I’d rather not. So I hit upon this capital scheme. I always wanted adventure, as you know, because I told you many times how much I wished to sail the ocean.” I must – MUST – make sure when my sisters poured their unwise confidences upon my ears I was not more than three sheets to the wind. “And so, this will do it. Do not fear for me. You know I’m resourceful and intelligent.” And wholly uninformed about the world. Even with all the snooping she did of my papers and all the listening behind doors. I was aware of both of her abominable habits, and I’d kept her in the dark as much as possible, by making sure my important or shocking papers were kept at my club, and that I never spoke in terms she could plainly understand. Now I wondered if perhaps I’d been unwise. “I promise never to sack any ships that belong to you or the family. And if I sack any very great treasure, I’ll be glad to let you have it for the other girls’ dowries, as I suppose they’ll want to marry and even risk having children.” It finished with, “Your affectionate sister, Helen.”
I looked up at Annabel, “You read this?” I asked
Her face had become grave again. “Yes, milord. You see, she didn’t address it, and as it was upon her mantel…”
“I see. Who else read it? You said you and someone else had found it, at least you said “we” – who is we?”
“Oh, only Jane, the other maid, sir. She was making the bed and she found a quantity of hair, both your sister’s and Betsy’s, by the look of it, shoved under the mattress, and sir, she called me in, because I have some knowledge of magic. I saw this letter on the mantel and I read it.”
I might as well face it I couldn’t scotch the scandal. “Jane read it too?”
Annabel gave me the oddest of looks. “She doesn’t know how to read. Just like she doesn’t know how to do magic.”
“I see,” I said. “And you did magic?”
“Not really, sir, as that would have called too much attention, but I did set my hand on the pile of hair, and try to locate where they might be.”
“Apparently Portsmouth,” I said. “I must go there right away and—”
“No, sir.” Annabel looked at me. “I looked at the remains of the transport spell and I could tell something had gone very wrong with it. The magic had twisted, though how it’s beyond me to explain. Putting my hand on the hair confirmed it. Your sister is not as close as Portsmouth. In fact—” She paused, then sighed, as though resigning herself to the inevitable. “In fact, I’d say she’s not in this world.”
LikeLike
That’s a pretty long comment, Doug. I’ll have to consider my reply at length and get back to you. :)
LikeLike
Sorry for the length – I didn’t have an email address to send it to. But once you’ve snagged it, you’re welcome to delete the posting.
LikeLike
Actually I can’t. That posting is completely messed up… I was cleaning or I’d have said “Someone already sent it. Thank you, though.”
LikeLike
Sarah, unsolicited advice is the best kind, right? What worked for me, knocked my allergies right back almost to nothing, was a strict no-carb diet. Why it works, I have seen lots of half-baked ‘scientific’ theories. But it really does, at least for me.
LikeLike
She’s already on a very low-carb diet.
LikeLike
I’ve been on one for four years. I think this is just my nose not knowing what to make of the on again off again Spring.
LikeLike
What? It’s supposed to be spring?! (lows around (36f here in DFW these past two nights…WHY DO I NEED A HEATER IN TEXAS IN MAY!?!)
LikeLike
Hey, it snowed up here in the Panhandle. I walked out Wednesday evening and thought “ohh, it feels damp.” Followed by, “it’s snowing and blowing dust and fog all at the same time. Oh. Joy.” Lows in the upper to mid 20s on Thurs AM. The local weather dudes are assuring us that it will be safe to plant this weekend, but the mesquite has not yet started leafing out. No tomatoes get planted until the mesquite blooms.
LikeLike
Trying to wrap my head around snow, dust and fog all at once. Have seen snow and fog at the same time, eerie and beautiful. It is hard to imagine dust having a chance once there is enough moisture in the air for fog. My mind is painting an image of icy muddy mist. Ugh.
LikeLike
I first seen it in Nevada. I was down there in April on a very dry year, when they had got almost no snow all winter. Dust everywhere, teens to single digits at night and T-shirt weather by 8:00 am. One night it snowed almost a half inch (and was colder, around 0 F) in the morning the dogs went trotting down the road, and the snow was so dry that with it being cold out it hadn’t dampened the dust underneath. Every time there feet hit the ground they would go right through the powder snow and puff dust up. Their tracks all had a ring of brown dust on the snow around them from the dust settling back down after puffing up from their feet. Then the sun came up and hit the snow, viola, fog rising to go with the snow and dust.
LikeLike
Oh, thank you. I get the image.
Even during the five year drought here in the Carolinas we never were that dry, and we don’t get the same level of dust because the soil is different, with its high clay content. When we suffered through the prolonged dry and hot the land just turned brickish.
LikeLike
Don’t sweat the chapter. We’ll wait. Salivating. :)
Kick back, catch up on reading, or reread another old favorite.
Or if you need to complete a task and feel like you’ve accomplished something, read enough of the things you owe cover quotes on to give an honest cover quote on. Then a sentence or two of writing, and you can cross a task off. Any other little nit picky things you can knock out fast?
LikeLike
I for one second this approach. :-P
Although perhaps only after the cat boxes, otherwise the cats will express their displeasure when you’re ready to write.
LikeLike
Must be something in the air (makes sense, the wind has been blowing from the North Pole via Colorado for the past three days). I had to force myself to do revisions to Ye Nonfic Monster all morning. I gave in and made a huge pot of bean soup. Now back to adding material and sources so I can get the beast to the publisher and start the release-date clock.
Can’t do catbox today. My dumpster vanished due to re-paving and is half a mile away.
LikeLike
UMM! Bean Soup! My wife makes a 5/7-bean soup that I love! Of course, it isn’t only beans. But very flavorful.
LikeLike
Jean netted a 7lb smoked ham at reduced price (half!). One of the things we’re going to have it with is ham and bean soup. Add in a half-dozen lunches, a couple of other meals, and ham and scalloped potatoes, and there’s still some left!
LikeLike
I love a good, meaty ham bone or turkey carcass. There are so many good soup possibilities there. My dad was rather surprised one year to open my freezer and find the remains of two smoked turkeys – I’d gotten one from a friend.
Doug, this soup has about 7-8 beans, celery, onion, garlic, white wine, two orphaned pork chops chopped up, sage, savory, chicken broth, carrots, thyme, and a slug of basil just because basil. I’ll probably add canned tomatoes and some left-over dry pasta tomorrow. (I always end up with a little bit of pasta left over from other things. I swear, it’s a conspiracy.)
LikeLike
Sounds real close, except for the pork and wine. My wife isn’t vegetarian, but she easily could be Orthodox Jew in her dislike of pork products. Me – I still have a 10-lb box of chops in the freezer!
I did a ham a couple of weeks ago when Son#3 was in town (he works NE of DFW) and I made bean & ham soup with the remainder. Heavy on the ham.
LikeLike
So, am I invited to dinner ;)
LikeLike
Sure, there’s plenty left. Come south of Dalhart, turn south, then east a little, then south again. First paved road on the left, but not the one by the house with the pipe-fence that just looks paved. Park next to the white pickup and mind the little step onto the porch if you come up the brick walk.
LikeLike
The road out of Dalhart jogs, so that’s not a duplication in the directions. :) Someone put a creek in the highway department’s way.
LikeLike
We took a different route on the soup, and made a low-carb clam chowder yesterday. It finished simmering to itself just as the power went out in the house, so we had a nice hot meal, and then a nice evening walk together.
LikeLike
One of the best things about soup, you can reheat it on the woodstove when the power is out.
LikeLike
Hey, you can thicken clam chowder with cauliflower. You can also make pretty good counterfeit mashed potatoes.
LikeLike
Cheater’s Chowder
1/2 bag frozen cauliflower
3 slices bacon
1/2 onion
2 cups half and half
1 can minced clams
1/2 tsp cajun seasoning or Old Bay seasoning
Microwave cauliflower as normal for making veggies, erring on the side of overcooked.
Chop bacon into small pieces. Fry in pot while you chop onion into small pieces. Add onion to bacon (there should be enough grease in the bottom of the pan by the time you finish chopping to saute.)
When the onion is translucent, open the can of clams and dump into pot. Scrape bottom to get all the good brown bits off. Add half & half, stir occasionally as the whole thing comes to a simmer, so nothing sticks to the bottom.
When the cauliflower is done, mash it up a little, add to pot. Add seasoning to taste. Mash cauliflower a little in pot, let the whole thing simmer a minute or three to blend together, serve. Takes a whole lot less time than you’d think!
Makes three bowls.
LikeLike
I buy frozen cauliflower, but pretty close. Hey, I made danish pastries (well, what we called danish pastries) for dinner tonight with protein powder and egg. And I’m thinking of posting the recipe over at PJM lifestyle.
LikeLike
If you need a kitchen tester to see if your instructions are clear, ahem, I know where you can find one. *gives you kitten eyes and meeps*
LikeLike
I need someone standing at my elbow writing down the instructions.
BTW, should you get a package that meeps, don’t be afraid. I didn’t send you Havelock. He sent himself, I swear….
Yes, it’s a joke, but I was threatening to send him to SOMEONE because of his habit of sitting in the boys’ bathtub and lamenting.
LikeLike
If you sent him here, we would introduce him to Oleg Volk’s Gremlin, to see if they got along. The sheer mischief of those two cats together would be incredibly amusing. (Never name a cat Gremlin. He WILL grow into the name.)
LikeLike
Heh. Sibling named the cat Loki after the sweet little handful of kitten trashed his apartment one afternoon.
LikeLike
This is why the outside Not-Our-Cat is named Greebo. He is like Greebo. foxes and vehicles of insufficient tonnage to face him cross the street to avoid him.
However we still can’t figure out what possessed us to name a cat Havelock Vetinari Hoyt and I have to say the sheer dimness of that cat wouldn’t lead you to believe it had any effect.
Odd thought — what if he was supposed to be EVEN dumber?
LikeLike
Our last cat was thicker than a proverbial brick. The Daughter, during a recent conversion about cats with a third party, had quipped something about, ‘if our cat did whatever it would be as a zombie.’ I had to ask her, ‘Do you think that becoming a zombie would render that cat smarter?’ She replied, ‘I think so.’
LikeLike
On second thought, perhaps the dumbness is a very clever act to manipulate you and your family?
LikeLike
This has actually occurred to us, considering he gets the majority of pets, solicitude and attention around here and his spectacular dumbness has failed to be in times where it might endanger him.
LikeLike
Oh, yeah, the exception on the thickening with cauliflower thing is chilli – it’s actually best thickened with tofu. The guys love it on cold evenings, though
LikeLike
Somewhere around here I have an awesome french silk pie recipe that actually has a crushed-almond and cinnamon crust, and uses melted chocolate and tofu for the filling. I suspect the dark chocolate still has plenty of carbs, but I can’t stand the taste of splenda, so it’s an indulgence.
Hadn’t tried tofu in chili, but if I tried it, why then, of course I’d have to use up the leftover tofu by making a pie…
LikeLike
ezswetz, from Amazon. I might be misspelling it…
LikeLike
One of the things we tell new Vasculitis patients is to get off the substitute sugars. They are over-the-top bad for anyone with an auto-immune disease.
LikeLike
Is this for auto-immune diseases in general? Wife will hate this, but if so, I’ll let her know.
LikeLike
Sigh. If this is true I’m in deep sh*t because I can’t eat sugar.
LikeLike
http://www.shirleys-wellness-cafe.com/ConsumerAlert/NutraSweet.aspx This is from an alternative health site; however, we are told NOT to eat aspartame especially. If we can’t eat sugar, then we are told to try honey (although it is another sugar). High Fructose Sugar is also bad for us– (and probably bad for anyone who has problems with autoimmunity). They would prefer that we didn’t eat sugar at all– (hard to do in this world) because of being on prednisone.
LikeLike
I can’t take aspartame. Mostly we use ezsweets from amazon. I can’t take any sugar, including honey or fructose (even in very sweet fruits) because the eczema gets worse.
LikeLike
Not all artificial sweeteners are the same imho. ;-) If it works for you then– you use what you have to. I learned with this disease that different people have different reaction to meds and food. You need to find the right food for you. I just sound the warning bell– about certain things.
LikeLike
For Vasculitis disease in particular actually– I don’t know about others, but I suspect that they aren’t good there either.
LikeLike
As I said, eczema is auto-immune. I can’t have sugar because it exacerbates it…
LikeLike
I thicken my stew with cabbage strips. ;-) works and the cabbage just makes the stew taste better.
LikeLike
I need that recipe–
LikeLike
mashed potatoes? Boil a whole cauliflower. Put in food processor. Add butter (usually 1/2 stick, but I also cheat by adding butter flavoring. Add 1/2 cup of cream. Blend. salt and pepper to taste.
LikeLike
Oooh, butter flavor. Genius!
LikeLike
Thanks–
LikeLike
This (the moved dumpster) with the foul weather you are having? Oh misery. Yes, a nice warming pot of soup simmering on the stove sounds just what is needed under the circumstances.
LikeLike
Typical road crews. First they hide the dumpsters, then they stir up huge amounts of dust two days before they are going to do any work, stop work because it is too cold to patch and pave, then put up the signs saying “dumpsters removed, road work tomorrow, no access after 8:00 AM”. One lone dumpster reappeared at 7:00 this AM, which makes me suspect that the neighbor and not the road crew brought it back.
LikeLike
Clark covered a number of points about antihistamines. My preference is chlorpheniramine maleate, an old and inexpensive antihistamine. Drowsiness is rare with this one.
Here’s something else to consider: Many people become drowsy and somewhat dysfunctional due to histamines. If your antihistamine isn’t working well enough, then your symptoms may be due to unchecked histamines.
LikeLike
Might look at e.g. FAA regs on antihistamines and flying – seems to me Chlor-Trimeton use was associated with some hull losses.
“…..there were 338 accidents [1990-2005 U.S. of A.] wherein pilot fatalities (cases) were found to contain the antihistaminics brompheniramine, chlorpheniramine, diphenhydramine, doxylamine, pheniramine, phenyltoloxamine, promethazine, and triprolidine…..The use of antihistamine(s), with/without other drug(s)
and/or ethanol, was determined by the National Transportation Safety Board to be the cause in 13 and a factor in 50 of the
338 accidents…..”
Agreed that symptoms of using and not using antihistamines can be similar – can’t win can’t even break even.
LikeLike
Obviously your writing is an allergic reaction. Maybe to cats. Or males.
LikeLike