My Brother's Keeper, page 25
“I know it,” said Curzon patiently.
“I went in. I stayed through the vespers prayers, and then the priest was hearing penitents’ confessions, in the little Confessional booth. I—” She could feel herself blushing, and she was aware of both Curzon’s and Tabby’s eyes on her. “I took a fancy to change myself into a Catholic! Just to see what it was like. I went into the booth, and knelt there while he dealt with someone on the other side, and when he slid the little door open I had to explain that I was a Protestant, and didn’t know the formula for beginning a confession. He hemmed and hawed, and finally decided that his hearing my confession might facilitate my conversion to, as he put it, ‘the true church.’ ”
“God save us!” exclaimed Tabby.
“It didn’t,” Charlotte assured her. “But after I made my confession, he gave me a penance. That’s a task,” she explained to Tabby, “to clear the collateral consequences of forgiven sins. He told me accepter l’aide—accept help. Not seek—accept, and I’ve waited.” She met Curzon’s eye. “But,” she went on steadily, “I must admit I’m reluctant to accept help from a Catholic who consults pagan goddesses.”
Tabby muttered some additional consideration under her breath.
“This was four years ago?” Curzon gave Charlotte a flinty smile. “I imagine he meant help from tradesmen, servants, physicians.”
“My confession,” said Charlotte, “wasn’t such as to suggest those sorts of help.” She made herself look directly into his eye. “I confessed to having given my brother and sisters permission to . . . do something, at Ponden Kirk, though I suspected that it was very wrong. I was only fourteen!—but they were younger.”
“Did it put you all at lasting risk?”
“I fear that—well, it seems it put them at risk.”
“It’s hardly my place to ask,” said Curzon quietly, “but—these four years later—are you ready to do your penance?”
Charlotte spread her hands. “Yes.”
Anne spoke from the hall doorway: “It’s all our penance.” She gave Charlotte a wide-eyed questioning look, and when Charlotte shrugged and nodded she walked into the kitchen and sat down across from Curzon. Her pale blonde hair had been hastily pulled back, and stray curls of it framed her young face.
“Emily’s in your bed,” she told Charlotte. “Her room’s too cold. She wanted to come downstairs again once she’d dried off and was in warm clothes, but she was still shivering and pale, and I insisted that she had to get into bed. She did, finally, but only after making me promise that Papa shall not be allowed to set foot out of the house until she gives him leave.”
“I’ll bring her some tea,” said Tabby.
“She’s asleep now. She’ll be sore in the morning—she’s got bruises and scratches all over her.”
Anne stretched and said to Curzon, “She told me she trusts you. I confess I don’t see how—I know she wrote to you a month ago, asking you to come, but . . . I was in this kitchen on a dreadful night in September of last year.”
Curzon stared down at his gnarled brown hands on the table for several seconds. “You shame me,” he said at last, “justly. If someone you had less cause to despise were able to help you, I would send him here.”
“My understanding of it,” said Charlotte hastily, “is that it was . . . involuntary.”
“And can’t recur,” said Curzon. He sat back and faced Anne. “What was it you did?”
Anne met his gaze. “Emily and Branwell and I—we cut our fingers and smeared our blood on a stone in the fairy cave at the base of Ponden Kirk.”
Tabby moaned softly, but Charlotte was watching Curzon. His face was as immobile as a copperplate engraving.
Anne went on, “Branwell said a dark boy in a dream had told him that it would bring back our sister Maria, who had died five years earlier. I think Branwell was lying, and knew it would do something else. On that night last September he said that what we had done was sign promissory notes.”
After a pause, Curzon said, harshly, “It’s certain that Emily did this?”
“I was sitting right next to her,” said Anne, “on a rock shelf in that cave. After she did it she tried to stop me. But I went along.”
“And she loves Branwell still.”
“He’s her brother,” put in Tabby.
“Do you,” said Anne hesitantly, “know what we did? We don’t. Branwell once said that we marked ourselves for the attention of ghosts who snatch people’s breath, but also for protection against them.”
“Breath?” said Curzon. “Yes, and ghosts hunger for what rides on breath, vitality. And once you’ve been opened to their attentions, it’s not just the ones who shamble up to you in churchyards and startle you by emptying your lungs in an instant—subtler ones attach to you, and take your breath and vitality by degrees.”
“Consumption,” said Anne.
“Literally,” agreed Curzon.
“Can Branwell and my sisters,” asked Charlotte, “cancel the . . . attention, without at the same time canceling the protection?”
Curzon stood up. “What can be done, I’ll do.”
“At a pagan temple?” said Anne, looking away.
“What can be done,” Curzon repeated. “I would like to speak to Emily—and Branwell, if he’s willing—tomorrow morning.” He took his cloak and hat down from the hook Anne had hung them on when Emily had come in wearing them. “Tonight mix your Protestant prayers with my Catholic ones.”
“Thank you,” said Charlotte as he turned toward the door and pushed it open, “for letting me complete my four-year-old confession.”
He might not have heard her. The door closed behind him and she heard his boots receding around the corner of the house.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Through the front window Emily saw Alcuin Curzon walk up past the churchyard in the morning sunlight, and she was sitting on the green leather couch in the parlor when he knocked at the door.
Her father stood by the parlor window, his long scarf wrapped so many times around his throat that it supported his chin. Anne and Charlotte sat in chairs at the table, but when Tabby led Curzon in, Emily stood up and said, “I want to talk to Mr. Curzon alone for a moment.” She knew that a couple of scratches on her cheek were visible, but she was careful to give no indication of her bruises and stiff joints.
Her father and her sisters looked at one another, then Anne and Charlotte got to their feet and the three of them followed Tabby away down the hall.
“Do sit,” Emily told Curzon.
“After you,” he said, waving at the couch behind her. “You had a strenuous night. You’ll be seeing a doctor?”
Emily pulled out a chair at the table and sat down, willing herself to do it as if effortlessly, and Curzon took a seat across from her. His shoulders and shaggy head were silhouetted by the bright window behind him.
“I’m grateful,” she said, “my whole family is grateful, that you found me last night and brought me home. No, I don’t like doctors. I’m in good health.”
“I suppose you probably are. From what I’ve seen of you, you’re more at home on the moors in bad weather than within four walls.”
“Sit over here,” she said, waving at a chair to her right. “I can’t see your face there.”
He got up and moved to the indicated chair. Now she could see the guarded expression on his rugged dark face, and his one exposed brown eye.
Emily spoke carefully. “When Branwell and Keeper and I visited you at the house you took in the village last year,” she said, “you greeted us with your eyepatch flipped up. I believe it was a courtesy. Will you raise it now?”
He set his big hands flat on the table. “No.”
She had asked him last night if she should fear him. His answer had been Never again. You may rely on it.
She cocked her head. “I’m told you all spoke of penances last night.” Quietly she asked, “Was it a penance?”
His eye closed. “I meant my penance to be exile from the world, for the rest of my life, at the monastery at Rocamadour. I thought that would be adequate. And I lived a quiet ascetic life among the old monks for half a year—but when I received your letter I realized that exile was an evasion of the penance I actually owed.”
“Owed to God,” she said.
“Owed to God, yes. And to you.”
“I’m sorry.” She looked away. “Irrevocably?”
“Yes, child, with a dioscuri.” He touched the eyepatch. “I’m now a traditional member of the Huberti.” He sat back and exhaled. “Last night on our long walk, you told me some of what happened to you out there. Tell me again, thoroughly.”
Emily shook her head at the thought of what he had done. Owed to God, yes. And to you. She made herself meet his eye, and said, “My father and sisters need to hear it all too. We haven’t told him about the dealings you and I have had with . . . an ancient goddess, so please don’t trouble him with that.” She stood up and turned to the door, then hesitated, looked back, and bent to touch his nearest fist. “I am genuinely obliged to you.”
“Not obliged. It was owed.”
“Nevertheless.” She walked down the hall to the kitchen, and when she came back she was accompanied by her sisters and her father and Tabby.
When her family had sat down and Tabby stood in the doorway, Emily began, “Last night Branwell went out, and Anne noticed that he opened the kitchen door with his left hand . . .” She had to pause to explain to Curzon and her horrified father that since September Branwell’s left hand was either lifeless or controlled by Welsh; then went on, “So Keeper and I went in pursuit of him . . .”
When she described the impossible grove of willow trees that had appeared beside the Boggarts Green stone, and the gargantuan oak tree with its arches and balconies, the faces of her father and sisters were blank with concealed disbelief, but Tabby nodded and spoke up.
“The old hill folk have heard of it,” she said. “My great-grandfather said a woman led him there one midsummer night, but she disappeared and when he finally found his way out he was miles from the stone.”
When Emily came to recount the conversation between Branwell’s possessed body and Adam Wright, Anne took her father’s hand and looked uneasily at Curzon.
“What can be done,” Curzon said firmly. “I find I owe a debt to this family.”
“Adam Wright,” said Patrick incredulously, “the sheepherder?”
“Yes,” Emily told him. Still hoping to spare her father the whole truth about his son, she said, “He has tempted Branwell, in the past.”
“In the most dangerously wrong direction,” Anne clarified. Meeting her father’s frown, she added, “It was while you were away in Manchester.”
Patrick pursed his lips but said nothing.
“To drive Welsh out of Branwell,” Emily said, “I cut Branwell’s forehead with both points of a dioscuri knife. And then I stabbed Adam Wright in the hand.”
Emily went on to describe the fissures that had opened in the earth, and the leap the ghost Keeper had been able to make to join her as she fell into one. Her account of the voices of the unquiet dead, and the collapsing tunnel, drew gasps from her sisters and an exclamation from her father—and a nod from Curzon.
“The ghost Keeper led me out, and then,” she said to Charlotte, “I found myself in a scene from Jane Eyre.” She told them about the ignis fatui women inducing her to call up an inviting vision. To Charlotte she added, “I’ve always thought that scene is like something from a fairy tale.”
“A nasty sort of fairy tale they made of it,” said Charlotte.
“So I ran from them, and then Mr. Curzon and Keeper found me, and Mr. Curzon’s horse trampled them, and he put me on his horse and brought me back here.”
“I knew from the start, sir,” said their father in a shaky voice, “that you might be an ally. I could not have imagined how crucial a one.”
Anne was looking at Curzon. Emily could see that she was recalling past conversations, and when Curzon was facing their father she turned to Emily and, with raised eyebrows, touched her cheek below her left eye. Emily gave her a slight nod.
“Ahh!” Anne whispered. She looked back at Curzon with new curiosity and, Emily thought, wondering respect.
“Is Branwell available?” Curzon asked.
“He caught a terrible chill last night,” said Charlotte doubtfully.
“I daresay he can walk downstairs and up again,” said Emily.
“I should be the one to rouse him,” said Patrick, pushing back his chair and getting to his feet. “He won’t be as contrary with me as he would be with one of you.”
When he had left the parlor, Curzon said, “Today I’ll visit the place Miss Emily and I found last year. I hope—” He paused, looking at Anne; but she bit her lip and waved at him to go on. “The Romans learned to defeat, at least partly, the sort of creature that threatens you all. I’m hoping that at the shrine they frequented I’ll be able to learn it too.”
“Pagan magic,” said Charlotte.
“Magic of the land,” Tabby suggested hesitantly.
“It’s what can be done,” said Emily, repeating what Curzon had said moments earlier. She turned to him. “What you mean is that you’ll be seeking a task from her, not just . . . local news. I can ride, if the horse doesn’t gallop.”
“I’ll be walking.”
Of course, thought Emily. A man on horseback on the moors is conspicuous—and if spotted, a man afoot can get out of sight more easily.
“And you,” Curzon added firmly, “are in no state to accompany me.”
“You caught a chill yourself,” Anne said to Emily.
“Remember how sick you got at the school in Brussels,” added Charlotte.
“I was sick there because I was separated from here. I shake off chills.”
Footsteps echoed from the stairs down the hall, and Charlotte said, “We mustn’t discuss any of this in front of Branwell.”
“Good Lord, no,” agreed Emily. “Or Papa either.” She shifted unobtrusively in her chair to stretch an aching leg.
Their father appeared in the doorway, and stepped back with a wave toward the table. Branwell came shuffling into the room, without his spectacles and blinking in the morning brightness shining in through the window. He was wearing a fresh shirt and trousers and slippers, and above the bandage on his forehead his ginger hair was in a rare state of disarray. His eyes were red and he was mopping his nose with a handkerchief.
“Emily hasn’t given me my eyeglasses yet today,” he said thickly. “What’s—” He peered at the figure of Curzon and flinched, then stood up straight. “I think we’ve met before, sir!”
“Yes, lad,” said Curzon tiredly.
“Some small rented house down in the village.” Branwell looked around at the others as his father walked in and resumed his chair, then back at Curzon. “I’m summoned—did you want a portrait done of yourself?” He coughed and dabbed at his nose with the handkerchief. “There are certain colors I don’t customarily keep on hand, which I’d have to purchase.”
“Hush,” said Emily, embarrassed for him. This man is undertaking a perilous task, she thought, to save you . . . for my sake. “We’d like to hear what happened to you last night.”
Branwell squinted at her. “You were nowhere to be found when I got home,” he said. “In any case I don’t care to discuss family affairs in front of a . . . stranger.”
“He knows about Welsh,” Patrick said.
“He doesn’t, you know, actually. None of you do. Last night? I went for a stroll, and was caught in the rain. I got lost, but Keeper found me and got me pointed toward home.” He started to turn toward the doorway. “Was that all? I should be in bed.”
“How did you cut your forehead?” asked Emily.
“Keeper—when he found me he jumped up—his claws—”
“No,” she said gently. “You have no idea how it happened, do you?”
“I want my eyeglasses.”
“Not today, I think.”
Branwell seemed about to protest angrily, then just turned and stalked away down the hall. Emily got to her feet and caught up with him before he reached the stairs. Keeper was right beside her.
She took her brother’s shoulder and turned him around. Quietly she said, “Those aren’t the cuts of a dog’s claws, Branwell—they’re from the two points of a knife I poked you with.” Over his surprised, angry sputtering she added, “If I had not done it, you’d be possessed by Welsh even now, and God only knows where you’d be.” She let go of his shoulder. “You know it’s true.”
He shrugged, looking at the floor. “You had to cut my face?”
“Your hands were moving targets, and I couldn’t be sure of both points striking you if I put them through your clothing.” She gave him a crooked smile. “I missed your throat, at least.”
From the corner of her eye she saw her father step out from the parlor doorway down the hall. She waved him back.
“Where was I?” Branwell asked.
She blew out a breath. “A very odd place. Marshy, with willows—”
“And,” Branwell interrupted, suddenly very excited, “very old little people? And an enormous house made out of a living oak tree? I was there, when he lost his hold on me for just a moment or two. Where is it?”
She was uneasy to hear a tone of eagerness in his question. “It’s not anywhere. But I found you in it, and you were Welsh, so I stuck you with the knife.”
He touched his bandage. “Yes, one of those damnable double-bladed affairs, or the cuts would have healed by this morning. How did you get into that place?”
“Keeper led me in.” The ghost of a dog with that name, at least, she thought.
“But from what mundane place? Where had Welsh taken me, to be able to enter it?”
Emily recalled what Curzon had said about the mundus loci: a spider outside of reality, its widely planted legs straddling this Yorkshire locality. “Why? Do you want to go back there?”
Branwell cocked an eyebrow. “I suppose not, on the whole.”
