The Return of the Witch (43 page)

“Mrs. Timms! Mr. Timms! We have need of you! Quickly, if you please,” he shouted. They must have heard the note of seriousness in his voice, for they came at the run.

Mrs. Timms's hands flew to her face at the sight of us.

“My gracious, what a state! What a sight! And oh, the boy! We had thought you run away and lost to us forever.”

Mr. Timms whipped a handkerchief from his pocket and clamped it to his nose.

“Good Lord, sir, that … that…”

“Stink?” Erasmus said what Mr. Timms could not for love of manners. “Baths, hot water,” he instructed. “The ladies require clean, dry clothing.”

I grabbed hold of Tegan, turning her to me, searching for which burns I would need to treat first. But I could not find a mark upon her. I took her hands in mine and turned them over. The flesh was smooth and cool, without a single blister or welt. I looked at her incredulously, my mouth agape. She smiled back at me, and for a moment we stood wordlessly, lost in the wonder of what she had done, of what she had become.

“Elizabeth?” Erasmus touched my arm as he spoke. “Are you hurt?”

I shook my head and patted his hand. “No. I am quite well. Thank you,” I said. “Thank you for everything.”

Mrs. Timms flapped him away. “Let the poor dears be, Mr. Balmoral,” she said. “Come, sit yourself down, Mrs. Hawksmith.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Timms, but I am unharmed. I shall rest after I have attended to Nipper,” I insisted. “Tegan, go with Mrs. Timms, she will look after you. Take Florencia with you, and do not let her from your sight. The girl is in shock.” Tegan nodded and coaxed the fragile-looking twin from the room. My heart was near to bursting with pride at what Tegan had done. Aloysius had once again taken up his place upon her shoulder.

Mr. Timms set about lighting extra fires and summoning their maid to fetch brandy from the kitchen, while his wife clucked around the girls, whisking them upstairs. I had Erasmus carry Nipper to his room and together we undressed and bathed him. I was relieved to find that his splint had held in place, and that the dressings on his hand were not, in fact, soiled. I spoon-fed him a little beef tea brought from Mrs. Timms's own kitchen and then encouraged him to take some laudanum to relieve his pain. He quickly became drowsy. Erasmus and I sat as we had done before, on either side of his narrow bed. I saw the concern on Erasmus's face.

“He will be quite well,” I assured him. “He needs rest now. To be safe and warm and well-fed. Young bones knit quickly. Time will do the rest.”

“Such a brave little soul,” he observed. “You are a lion of a boy, Nipper.”

“I should be feeding Stardust,” he muttered sleepily. “'e will be missing me.”

Erasmus patted his shoulder. “Do not concern yourself; the pony will be cared for in your absence.”

“Could he 'ave more carrots?” he asked.

“I'm certain that could be arranged. I shall send Mr. Timms.”

“No, not 'im.” Nipper was alarmed at the idea. 'E's too big and loud, 'e'll give him a scare. Could not your wife go?”

Erasmus was puzzled. “Nipper, I have no wife.”

“'Course you do, mister,” he replied, his words slurred by the medication. “She's sitting right 'ere.” And with that, he drifted into sleep.

I looked across at Erasmus. His mouth was open and for a moment he did nothing but stare at me.

I smiled. “It is the laudanum speaking. The boy is confused and talking nonsense,” I told him.

Erasmus reached over and took my hand in his. “On the contrary,” he said earnestly. “I believe he is talking perfect sense.”

*   *   *

It took us all some time to wash the grime of the events of the day from ourselves. Mrs. Timms found a bottle of particularly pungent rosewater and insisted we, all of us, including Erasmus, douse ourselves in it even after bathing and washing our hair. Florencia was in a poor way, affected by grief for her sister, the violent events of the day, and from emerging from the enchantment which Gideon had placed upon her. It quickly became apparent that she had not been his accomplice through free choice, and that when not bewitched she was a somewhat fragile creature. Tegan cajoled her into taking hot milk heavily laced with rum, and the girl was soon sleeping deeply. Night had fallen by the time I had the opportunity to speak to Tegan alone. She was unable to settle in the house, and I believed her agitation was most likely a reaction to having been locked up. Erasmus showed her a door from the attic that led onto the roof. There was a small area where it was possible to sit out and look at the stars and out across the many rooftops of the city. I went to join her with a tray bearing two mugs. I sat beside her on the little bench seat which was set against the chimney stack, and handed her a steaming cup of broth.

“Here,” I said gently, “you need a little feeding up.”

She took it from me and sniffed the fumes. “Parsnip soup!”

“That's right. I made a batch yesterday. Do you remember the first time I gave you some?”

“Yes. You had just moved into Willow Cottage, and I kept turning up like a bad penny and pestering you.”

“You were such a slight, flimsy girl. A stiff breeze could have knocked you off your feet.”

Tegan smiled, sipping the soup. “I remember you warned me to watch out for the leg of toad in it. You were joking, of course, but I hardly knew you then. I was never sure what to expect.”

“You were a child.” I paused, regarding her fondly. “And look at you now.”

She became pensive, staring out across the jagged urban vista before us. I found myself watching her, my heart constricting at the thought of how close I came to losing her forever. Of how near Gideon came to damning her soul. I shuddered. It would take a long time to rid myself of the image of him on that boat, the river rendered silver by the eerie light of the eclipse, Tegan's life hanging by a thread. But he had underestimated her. We all had.

“You are a rare witch, Tegan,” I told her. “I am so very proud of you.”

“He said … Gideon said … that I didn't know what I had become. Sounded ridiculous at the time, but d'you know, he was right? I didn't know what was inside me, what I could do. What I can do. I'm still trying to get my head around it. I should have known after my time with Taklit, in the desert. I did, at the time, when I was with her, then, there, but when I got home…” She shook her head and then went on. “If I could have talked to you about it, if you and me had had a bit more time before Gideon came, so that I could have understood. So that I could have made sense of it.”

“It makes perfect sense. You studied with not one but many witches and shamans and other practitioners of magic. A person is not a store cupboard, where each vessel of knowledge can be lined up in rows as jars on a shelf. That wisdom, those talents and gifts, they acted one upon the other. They melded and blended. And the results are … magnificent.”

Tegan gave a small, self-conscious laugh. “Still came close to losing everything though, didn't I?” She paused and then added, “It will be wonderful to see Willow Cottage again, to be at home, but, you know, I don't think I can settle there just yet.”

“It is understandable that you should feel restless. You are young. For all that you have become, you are still at the beginning of your journey.”

“There are so many places I want to go, things I want to learn.”

“Tegan, you are a student no longer. Others can learn from you.”

She shrugged. “I need time, time to figure out what to do with …
this
” she said, indicating herself in a gesture that spoke of her continuing confusion and uncertainty about her own abilities. About the purpose of all the magic she had acquired. About her destiny. For a moment I saw the fear and pain of the last few weeks written on her face. However transformed she was, she could not but be affected by what Gideon had done to her, and what he had tried to do.

“He is gone, Tegan. Truly gone. Now, drink your soup before it gets cold.”

We sat in companionable silence then, and I was taken back to those days when she had been my pupil. The first thing she had to learn was to be still, be quiet, be receptive. What a very long way she had come since then.

She looked up at me, her face pale and lovely in the moonlight.

“I knew you'd come,” she said. “I knew you would find me.” She placed her hand over mine and I felt the unmistakable tingle of magic flowing from her. “And I knew one day we would finish him. At last I feel … safe.” She smiled and then snuggled up to me, resting her head on my shoulder, the two of us bathed in the beams of the summer moon, London laid out before us, free at last from Gideon's shadow.

I was on my way down the second flight of stairs when Erasmus found me.

“Elizabeth, can you spare a moment? The hour is late, I know, but if you would just step into my workshop…”

Tired as I was, I recognized the seriousness in his tone. In any case, I doubted I would be able to sleep if I did go to my bed, for my mind was still whirling with the events of the day, my senses still strung taut.

The workshop was in its usual state of muddle which, to anyone other than Erasmus, would appear chaotic. He was happy to work in such confusion, seeming to know exactly which pile of papers to search through for something, or which heap of leather hid a particular tool, and so on. He bade me sit on one of the high stools while he himself prowled the room.

“You must be fatigued, I should not keep you from your rest, but … well, now that the notion has properly formulated in my mind I cannot but speak. I
must
speak,” he insisted, absentmindedly snatching up an awl and tapping its wooden handle in his palm as he paced the floor. “The fact is, I am a man accustomed to solitude, that much you will know of me. My work requires me to be absent from home at a moment's notice, to travel to who knows where and who knows when. And it is more than probable that during the execution of my duties I will encounter no small measure of danger.”

He hesitated, looking at me as if to reassure himself that I was following the direction of his ramblings. Which I was not. He dropped the awl onto the workbench and instead took up a scoring knife, with which he proceeded to gouge random patterns into a scrap of leather as he spoke.

“Such a manner of living is not conducive to … companionship.”

“Companionship?”

“If that is the word. Is that the word?”

“It is hard to know.”

“It is a good word, is it not? A good … concept?” Seeing my baffled expression he took to striding about again. “Forgive my clumsiness, I am all thumbs with this subject, and not expressing my wishes clearly in the least, I can see that. And why should my wishes be of any importance, indeed? Is it not only fair that yours be considered? Considered! Now I have made them sound trivial, when of course they are not, they are of the utmost importance in this matter. They being your desires, your opinions, your thoughts, your … feelings. And there, now I add confusion to dissemination, and how can I expect you to clearly discern my intentions?”

“I'm sorry, Erasmus, I really don't understand what it is you are trying to say.”

“And why should you when I can hardly understand it myself? This is, I have to tell you, an unfamiliar condition of mind for me. New territory. Uncharted waters. Unmapped regions.” He stopped pacing and stopped talking and instead stood looking directly at me. He ran his hand through his unruly hair, pushing it from his brow. As if making up his mind about something he suddenly stepped up to me and took my hands in his. His expression was intense, his gaze unwavering, when he said, “I believe Nipper had it better when he called you my wife.”

I was amazed. “Erasmus, are you asking me to marry you?”

“An impertinence, I grant you, but not one I have undertaken lightly. We share a strangeness in our lives that sets us apart from others, Elizabeth. That alone would not be a basis for a marriage, of course, but when added to everything else…”

“Everything else?” I asked, trying but failing to keep the laughter out of my voice.

“You have every right to mock me.”

“I wouldn't dream of it.”

“I am in earnest, I promise you. I have come to regard being in your company as the most desirable of all things. When I am not with you I find myself distracted and maudlin. When I am with you I am even more distracted—heaven knows how a man can exist in such a state and be of any use—but there it is. I would not be without you, Elizabeth. I cannot, in truth, imagine a life for myself now that does not have you at its center.”

“I … Erasmus, I am astonished.”

“But not completely surprised, I think?”

“No,” I said, forced to admit to myself and to him that he was right. I had sensed his growing fondness toward me quite some time earlier. And I had come to like it. More than that, I had come to wish for it. For in my heart, even amidst all the fear and danger, I had held on to a small, bright hope that I had found someone I could dare to care for myself. And at that moment, when at last I felt truly free, I saw that such a thing might truly be possible.

Erasmus spoke gently, his voice tense with emotion. “Elizabeth, when Tegan Steps back to her time, when I deliver her back to Willow Cottage, do not go with her. Stay,” he said. “Stay here with me.” He did not allow me to answer at once, but led me over to the workbench by the window. “I almost forgot, in all the excitement … I have something for you.” He reached beneath the bench and produced a parcel, wrapped in brown paper, tied with a red satin ribbon. “A token of my … admiration,” he said simply.

I tugged at the bow and the knot undid smoothly, the ribbon slipping from the parcel and dropping onto the workbench. I folded back the paper and found inside a book, newly bound, fashioned from soft, supple leather of darkest green, embossed and decorated with intricate swirls and scrolls of gold. “Oh, Erasmus! It is beautiful,” I said, my voice betraying the emotion I was struggling to hold in check. When I read the words that he had so lovingly tooled into the cover pent-up tears of relief and happiness spilled over at last. “Elizabeth Hawksmith's
Book of Shadows
!”