by ‘So,’ I said, as Zareen strolled up a few moments later. ‘I’ve lost Jay.’ I had tried three times to call him, but he hadn’t answered.
‘Lost, how?’ she said. ‘Or do I mean, how lost?’
‘I’d say he’s the kind of lost that nightmares are made of, and I lost him because I let him go into Little Miss Makepeace’s creepy farmhouse alone.’
‘And she made off with him?’
‘Correct.’
‘Why did you let him go in alone?’
‘Because he told me to wait.’
‘And you obeyed?’ Zareen was incredulous.
‘For about three seconds, which turned out to be long enough.’
Zareen shrugged, splendidly unconcerned about Jay’s abrupt disappearance. ‘All part of the plan, most likely. Do you want to know what I found?’
‘Is it something exciting?’
‘Extremely.’ Zareen’s plum-painted lips wore a huge, satisfied smile.
But her revelation was forestalled, because we both became aware of a rustling noise emanating from somewhere among the trees where the house had so lately stood. It sounded like an animal rooting about among the bushes — a dog, I might have said, and was proved right moments later when a dog duly appeared. A small specimen, it had jaunty yellowish fur, an enormous nose (presently glued to the ground) and a tiny horn protruding from its forehead.
‘Oh, there are more,’ said Zareen, and went forward to meet the pup. Being a friendly sort, it greeted her with a cheery wave of its tail, though it did not seem disposed to lift its nose from the ground.
Zareen scooped it up, and held its little wriggling body close to her chest. ‘I saw two back that way,’ she said, pointing somewhere behind me with her chin. ‘So, three? Reckon there are more?’
‘Oh, my giddy aunt,’ I groaned. ‘Three more of the blighters?’
‘Wouldn’t be surprised if there are more than three. Miranda’s going to die of joy.’
‘And everyone else is going to run for the hills, taking their valuables with them.’ My thoughts were in a flutter with so much happening at once; I took a couple of steadying breaths, and made myself think. ‘Right. Call Home, and…’ I stopped. Calling Home for back-up wasn’t an option anymore. ‘Call Rob,’ I said instead. As I spoke, I dragged open the flap of my ever-present shoulder bag and hauled out my favourite book. ‘Morning, Mauf,’ I greeted him.
Mauf’s pages riffled in greeting. ‘Good morning, Miss Vesper. How may I be of assistance?’
‘Quick job for you.’ I stroked the rich purple leather of his covers. He liked that, and it always put him in a helpful mood. ‘That bookmark looks great,’ I added, for a little flattery never hurts.
The bookmark in question, a pure silk ribbon dyed majestic gold, fluttered coquettishly. ‘Why thank you, Miss Vesper. If I may say so, you made a fine choice. What an eye for textiles!’
I may have preened a bit, too. Flattery works both ways. ‘You shall have another sometime,’ I promised him. ‘For the moment, can you tell me if you have any information about one Mellicent Makepeace, of the Newmarket Makepeaces?’
Mauf went quiet for a moment. Presumably he was searching through his… memory? Records? It was hard to tell how it worked with him. ‘There was a family of that name in the Newmarket area,’ he confirmed. ‘Is there any particular era of interest to you?’
‘Eighteenth century?’
‘Ooh,’ said Mauf.
‘You’ve found something?’
The book literally wriggled with glee. ‘Millie Makepeace, daughter of Mr. William Makepeace of Broneham Manor.’
‘Excellent.’
‘Family of only moderate wealth, I would guess, though squarely genteel. Miss Makepeace appears to have been a model citizen.’
‘That’s a relief.’
‘Until she was hanged for murder in 1779.’
My relief turned to chagrin. ‘Not again.’
Zareen poked her nose over my shoulder. ‘Who’d she kill?’
‘The cook. There had been an altercation earlier in the day, the subject being a pudding which Miss Makepeace thought improperly prepared.’
Zareen actually giggled. ‘That’s fantastic.’
‘She killed someone over a dessert?’ I spluttered. ‘Zar, this madwoman has hold of Jay. This is anything but fantastic.’
‘Right.’ Zareen sobered. ‘But she likes Jay, Ves. It’s that smile. He’ll have her eating out of the palm of his hand by now.’
I wasted a second or two picturing the smile in question — undeniably attractive — before I pulled myself together. ‘Did you call Rob?’
‘Yes, but I’m guessing you’ll want to call him again now.’
I did indeed. Fortunately he picked up right away. ‘If this is about the pups—’ he began.
‘It’s not.’ I rattled off an account of the latest development.
‘Right,’ said Rob when I’d finished. ‘I’ll see that this reaches Milady. Miranda’s on her way to collect the pups. Have you found out where they’re coming from?’
‘Not as such, but I can only imagine they came from the house that’s just wandered off with Jay.’
‘Then Jay is well-placed to investigate and I’m sure we’ll hear from him soon. There’s no way you can follow the house, I suppose?’
‘Not that I’ve yet discovered, but working on it.’
I like Rob so much. As capable of harming people as he is of healing them, he’s nonetheless the most grounded person I know. Nothing ruffles him.
I stashed my phone and turned back to Mauf. ‘Maufy, why is it that these house-toting Waymasters are always murderers, cut-throats and thieves?’
‘Always would not be correct, but there is a definite pattern emerging,’ Mauf agreed. ‘In 1697, Roderick Vale of Bantam Cross put forward the theory that magical abilities are sometimes amplified in times of crisis. He cited several pertinent examples, of which three were convicted murderers or thieves condemned to death by hanging. They performed extraordinary feats well outside their usual capabilities, though admittedly the goal at the time was to escape hanging and there is no indication that this enhancement of their powers proved permanent. Or would have proved permanent if they had not actually been executed, which two of them duly were. Then in 1741, Harriet Bodkin wrote in On the Unfortunate Matter of Dark Magicke that committing terrible deeds had been seen to have a similar effect on what are nowadays referred to as the darker arts, or perhaps the stranger arts, and—’
‘Mauf,’ I interrupted him. ‘I love you. Let’s finish this conversation a bit later, okay?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
I hoped he was not offended. Mauf could be prickly sometimes. But if I let him really get going, he’d ramble on all day.
I returned him to his sleeping-bag in the satchel. ‘So if Roderick and Miss Bodkin were correct, it’s no coincidence that the likes of the Greyers and Miss Makepeace were chosen for hauling houses around. Maybe no one else had the capacity.’
‘Yes, but.’ Zareen was frowning. ‘Waymastery has never been classified among the stranger arts, has it?’
‘Perhaps terrible deeds don’t only enhance the stranger powers. Maybe it works on the other arts, too.’
‘Why would it?’
‘Good question.’ Very good question. The idea didn’t seem to hold much water; I could think of several vastly powerful witches and sorcerers off the top of my head who’d never so much as squashed a spider. Nonetheless, the Greyers and John Wester and Mellicent Makepeace formed a clear pattern. If it was not that their deeds influenced their arts, what else was it about them?
‘I wonder how long Millie’s been cooped up in that house,’ I mused aloud.
‘Since her death,’ said Zareen promptly. ‘Like Wester. Those kinds of arts are time-sensitive. I mean, you maybe could dig up someone who’s been dead a while, re-bury them in a new site and hope there’s enough of their spirit left to harness for your nefarious purposes, but in most cases there won’t be. Ancestria Magicka knows this. That’s why they were after the Greyer cottage — if you want to make a fresh, new perambulatory building you need live spirits, so to speak. If Millie had been hanged and buried as normal, her spirit would either have passed on or wandered off within a few days.’
‘In that case, I wonder who bound her to the house? She must be buried somewhere in there, no?’
‘Right. Someone purloined her corpse, post-hanging, and sited her in the farmhouse. We’ll ask her sometime.’
I thought. ‘Do you suppose she went back to Newmarket?’
‘To the place of her crime and subsequent execution? Doubtful. I mean, would you?’
It occurred to me that our options were severely diminished without our pet Waymaster. If Jay were here, I’d have suggested we pop down to Newmarket to check. But here we were, hundreds of miles away and with no convenient means of transport.
‘Options,’ I said. ‘We can go to Newmarket the slow way and see if Millie’s there with Jay. We can wait here a while and hope the house comes back. Or we can move on to the next thing.’
‘What’s the next thing?’ If Zareen wasn’t already best friends with that pup, she was working on it. The pup was rubbing its furry little face all over her cheek. I felt a tiny bit jealous.
‘The spire,’ I said. ‘Jay wanted to go back there. He had some plan in mind, which being Jay he did not impart. I think I’ve an idea what he was up to, though.’
‘Gets my vote.’ Zareen spoke around a huge, soppy smile, and kissed the pup’s face.
‘But Jay—’
‘Is a grown man. I know you feel responsible for him, but you aren’t. He can handle himself.’
She was right, but still. I called Rob again. ‘Rob, about Jay. The Mellicent Makepeace house came from the Newmarket area and it might have gone back there. Can we possibly send someone to check?’
‘We?’ said Rob. ‘I thought you three were going it alone now.’
‘Rob.’
He laughed. ‘I’ll go myself. Send me the address.’
I did that, feeling better. Zareen was probably right on all points, but it still didn’t sit right with me to just leave Jay to his fate. If he was at Mellicent’s old village and in some kind of trouble, there was no one better than Rob to help get him out of it.
If he wasn’t at Mellicent’s old village, well… I had no way of finding out where else he might have been taken to.
Focus, Ves.
‘Right,’ I muttered, and fished my tiny syrinx pipes out of my shirt. ‘Soon as someone gets here to pick up these pups, we’re airborne. Where did you say the others were?’
We enjoyed an entertaining time chasing down the rest of the Dappledok pups. There proved to be four, at least that we discovered, and keeping them with us was no easy task. I’d privately hoped that Mellicent might consent to return Jay while we were waiting for Miranda, but I was to be disappointed. When at last Miranda appeared with two of her kennel aides and a quartet of travel-baskets between them, there remained only an empty space where the farmhouse had previously been.
Miranda barely looked at Zareen or me. She had eyes only for the pups, and the feeling was apparently mutual, for they mobbed her at once. I told myself it was because of the treats she kept in her pockets, some of which were duly distributed as she coaxed them into the baskets. Only once all four pups were safely confined and ready to go did she focus on me. ‘No further info on where they’ve come from, I suppose?’
‘Nope.’ We’d explored the area a bit more while we waited, but without turning up anything of use. ‘They were most likely brought here in Mellicent’s farmhouse, like the one we found at the Greyer cottage. But where they came from before that, we’ve no idea.’
‘Jay might, though,’ said Zareen.
‘True.’ I called him again. Still no answer.
‘Well, let me know if you get hold of him,’ said Miranda. She quirked a smile at the both of us and added, ‘How’s the rogue life treating you?’
‘We’re doing great!’ I said enthusiastically. ‘I’ve only called Rob about five times today, and this is the first time since at least this morning we’ve had to call in for help.’
Miranda grinned. ‘You know, nothing would’ve stopped me from coming down here for these little chaps, but I did feel obliged to run it past Milady first. She said to give you anything you needed.’
‘Did she indeed?’
‘So you’re rogue with Milady’s official sanction? That’s different.’
‘You should know, Mir. Life with the Society is never simple.’
She gave me a tiny salute. ‘Got it. Oh, Val sent this for you.’ She drew a little book out of the pocket of her waxed jacket and handed it to me. ‘And…’ She rummaged for a moment, then produced a shabby-looking pamphlet for Zareen.
There was no text of any kind on the cover or the spine of my book, but the pages inside were covered in faded hand-written script. The title page read simply: Mellicent Makepeace, 1778.
‘How the bloody hell did Val get hold of this?’ I squeaked.
‘Never question the Queen of the Library.’ Miranda collected her two baskets, nodded to us, and retreated to her car, her aides trailing behind her. It occurred to me, distantly, that I had never seen either of them before. New recruits? I felt an odd sensation of devastation. Barely two days away from the Society and I was already out of touch.
I shook off the feeling. ‘What’s yours?’ I said, showing Zareen the title page of my book.
She whistled. ‘It’s a treatise on the Stranger Arts and their connection to “dark deeds”, as the author puts it. More or less what Mauf was saying. Late 1600s, anonymous.’ It was bound in what looked, to my reasonably experienced eye, like human skin, which could not but make me shudder a little to behold.
My satchel was vibrating. I opened it and hauled out Mauf, who was (in his bookly fashion) spluttering with indignation. ‘I’ve never met such books!’ he said. ‘Let me have them at once.’
Meekly, we put Mauf back in the satchel and added Val’s donations. Mauf consented to settle down.
‘Just as well,’ I said. ‘It’s hard to read on horseback anyway.’ I lifted my face to the wind and blew a ditty on my silver pipes. The melody rang out, bright and clear.
As ever, Adeline appeared within minutes. I probably never would understand quite how she managed it. She trotted up to me, her silvery-white coat gleaming in the sun, and nuzzled me with her velvety nose.
‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered. ‘I don’t have any chips today.’
She snorted.
‘Later,’ I promised.
She had brought her night-black friend with her, who walked calmly up to Zareen and stood waiting. I wasn’t altogether sure that Zareen knew how to ride a horse, but I was soon reassured: she jumped nimbly onto the unicorn’s back and settled there, her eyes bright. ‘I’ve never flown by unicorn,’ she told me.
I mounted up — Addie is obliging enough to lower herself a bit to help me out, seeing as I am rather short — and took hold of her silver harness. ‘Hold tight,’ I advised, and clucked my tongue to Adeline. ‘To Nautilus Cove, darling!’ I told her.
She broke into a gallop, her powerful wings beating in time with her stride, and we rose smoothly into the air. The fresh, spring wind enveloped me, bringing with it (somehow) the scents of honeysuckle and chocolate, and I swear a sparkling, rosy mist blew lightly past my eyes.
I do love travelling by unicorn.
