Unnatural Issue (18 page)

Four times, Susanne had put on the horsehair ring. Four times she had left her image in the orchard—an image now strengthened by Robin himself—and slipped into her father’s rooms to watch him.

The first three times, she had caught only part of the trick to getting behind that bookcase. But today she had been close enough to him to watch as he pulled out three books one after the other; they were false ones, nothing more than empty fronts. He had reached over the top and pulled a lever behind those false fronts. She’d heard a
click,
then watched him put his fingers behind a particular place in the side of the bookcase and pull. This time there had been no creaking of wood; he must have oiled or tightened something.

Tonight she had waited until the house was quiet before putting on the ring for the fifth and final time and slipping up the stairs. The best time to get into that room was going to be when her father was asleep. Turnabout, again. If he was going to spy on her sleeping, well, she could prowl his secret room while
he
slept.

But she knew how quiet he could be; she was going to make certain he was asleep before she tried.

To her utter shock and relief, she discovered something else about that ring that Robin hadn’t told her about. The moment she slipped it on, she could
see,
see as well as a cat in the dark! Everything was in tones of dim gray, like twilight without any blue in it. This was going to make things much, much easier.

She opened her own door and closed it behind her. She had left the image working at her desk, under a single lamp, as if she couldn’t sleep. With movements that were beginning to feel like routine, she moved soundlessly down the hall and listened at his door.

Not a sound.

She eased the door open; the study was empty. She entered and hurried across to the bedroom door, which was closed. She listened intently with the help of her spell, and heard slow, deep breathing.

Well, she would have
preferred
snores, but . . . it sounded as if he was asleep. And she was not going to take the chance of waking him to crack the door and find out.

She hurried back across the room; she found the three books and pulled them out in the right order; this time she heard a very faint sound as she pulled out the third one, not quite a
click,
more as if a bolt had been slid back. When she reached in behind them, she felt a lever; she pulled it down, and felt no resistance. Now she heard that
click,
and she put her hands on the place where she had seen her father put his. Beneath the molding, she felt something like a latch. She squeezed, and pulled, and slowly the hidden door swung open.

Suppressing a grin of triumph, she examined the other side; she was going to have to shut this thing, and the last thing she wanted to find out was that she had accidentally locked herself in!

But no, the opening mechanism on the other side was simple enough, a latch and a door handle. She pulled the bookcase closed behind herself, turned, and surveyed the room.

It was full of bookcases and the dusty smell of old paper.

A library?
Why would there be a secret library here?

What could be the need to keep books hidden away like this?

There were a few books piled on a little table right by the door; probably books her father had been reading. She picked one up, and carried it to the window, hoping there was enough light to read it by.

It was handwritten, and touching it gave her an odd, queasy feeling. She peered at it but was completely unable to decipher the peculiar, and very small, writing.

She put it back and picked up another, which made her feel even stranger when she touched it. It, too, was handwritten, but this was a different handwriting, a bit larger, a bit clearer, but still impossible to decipher in the uncertain light. She was going to pick up a third, when she heard the latch at the door starting to move.

Quickly she backed into the shadowed corner next to the window. There weren’t any books here, so it was unlikely her father was going to come in this direction. She was consumed with both fear and excitement—now she just might find out what he was up to, but he
was
a Master, and she just might get caught.

She had no idea what he would do if he
did
catch her, but she doubted it would be pleasant. Punish her in some way, probably—

But the door swung open, leaving her no more time to speculate.

Her father looked as if he had been sleeping in his clothing; he wore a rumpled jacket and trousers, and his hair was unkempt. He ignored the table beside the door, instead moving farther into the room, his steps slow but steady.

He hadn’t seen her; hadn’t noticed her. Marvelous.

Cautiously, moving without so much as a whisper of sound, she followed him.

On the other side of the bookshelves, there was a kind of alcove built into the wall, with a curtain over it. This was where he was standing, lighting candles on either side of it. Then he parted the curtain, and the light from the candles revealed that the curtain had hidden a portrait, a painting.

A painting—of
her?

It certainly looked like her!

She stared, mouth agape with shock. It was a portrait of the head and shoulders, the background dark draperies. The young woman in the painting was wearing a white summer dress and gazing slightly off to one side. Her hair was knotted low on the back of her neck, exactly the way Susanne wore hers. It didn’t look anything like any of the other young women hereabouts . . . and if it
wasn’t
her, then who could it possibly be?

How had he gotten a painting of her?

All she could think, in a somewhat dazed fashion, was that he had gotten it made magically . . .

“It won’t be long now, my lovely,” her father murmured aloud, touching the painted face. “Not long at all. Days, no more. I’m nearly ready; at moon-dark all will be prepared. And once I’m done, I’ll take you to Italy. I have already gotten an agent to rent us a villa; he swears to me that the staff is old and incurious but hard working. It will be just the two of us. We’ll make love until you can’t think of anything but me—”

As Susanne listened in horror, her father continued on in this vein, describing what he had planned, which were
certainly
things no father should even dream of doing to his daughter, not even in the depths of delirium! Her entire insides knotted up as she listened to him, and for what seemed to be an eternity, she was frozen where she stood. Her stomach cramped, she began to tremble, knees shaking. She nearly threw up then and there, listening to him describe what he was going to do.

Finally, as his fingers traced the painted bosom, she managed to shake off some of her shock; her revulsion overcame her paralysis, and she was able to retreat, step by careful step, to the door that was still open.

Once out in the sitting room, it was all she could do to keep herself from tearing open the door to the hallway and bolting. With shaking hands, she eased the door open, slipped out, and eased it closed again. She was hot and cold by turns, and she fought dizziness. She stole a precious moment to steel herself; this was no time to give way to the vapors. It took tremendous willpower, but she managed to slow her hammering pulse, banish the urge to sit down. Then she tiptoed as quickly as she could to her own room. Because she wasn’t going to spend one more minute under this roof! She had to get away, and get away quickly; once he knew she was gone, her father would start a hunt for her, and she would need every yard of distance she could put between them.

Quickly she went through the wardrobe and found her old clothing, frugally stored in the back as she had asked—Agatha had finally seen the wisdom of keeping it, in case she might have to do something that would ruin her pretty new things. Now . . . those pretty things made her skin crawl, and she couldn’t be rid of them fast enough. She stripped herself to the skin and redressed in minutes—the lack of corsets and fancy undergarments made things so much faster. She glanced around the room; other than her old clothing, there was nothing else here she wanted. It was all from
him,
and the idea of having any of it touch her now made her want to vomit.

The ring was still on her hand—she was still invisible. Good!

She paused for a moment. Should she leave her image? It might delay pursuit . . .

No, she dared not leave anything so personal in her father’s hands. She stuck the packet into the middle of the bundle, resolving to burn it at the first opportunity, and instead, made a rough dummy in the bed with pillows and clothing. That would have to do. And she thanked God and his angels that nothing, nothing that she would leave behind had enough of “her” on it to allow him to cast magic from a distance on her.

She bundled her remaining clothing, her old shoes and stockings, and the comb and brush she had been using into her old shawl, then tied the sleeves of her winter coat around her waist, and slipped out into the hall and down the stairs. She could drink stream water, but until she could get far enough away to feel safe from pursuit, she would have to carry what she needed to eat. Which meant, much as she hated to, she would have to steal.

The night-vision that came with the ring made it possible to get things without fumbling or lighting a candle. After working in the kitchen for so many years, she knew exactly where everything was. Within a few minutes, she had half a loaf of bread, some sausage and cheese, a couple of meat pasties, a knife, an old cup with a chipped rim, a box of matches, and a little tin pot. Those went into her bundle as well. Then she slipped the latch and went outside.

Then the horror really took hold of her, and she ran.

Somewhere deep inside, she knew the wisdom of following the actual road. Even though it was the obvious way to go, she also would not leave any trace of her passing on the hard-packed dirt, and thanks to the ring she could see where she was going in the moonlight as if it were broadest day. And on the road, her skirt wouldn’t hamper her. So she ran, ran until she reached the little village, then paused for a moment on the edge of it, bent over with her hands on her knees, panting.

It was late; there wasn’t a single light showing. She couldn’t stop here though—no, everyone here knew her, and no one would believe such a wild story if she dared to tell them. They’d just return her to her father—

So after she paused to tie her bundle on her back instead of carrying it, she ran through the village, past the well in the middle of the square, past the church she attended every Sunday, past the Nonconformist Chapel, and out again. Not even a dog barked at her. Now she was as far from home as she had ever gone, and she continued to run, heading eastward on blind instinct.

The road stretched out ahead of her, bordered on either side by a hedge as high as her head. It felt like a nightmare, actually, the sort where something unseen was behind and ahead was a road that never ended. She ran until she couldn’t run anymore, slowed to a walk (but didn’t stop) until she caught her breath, and ran again.

A break in the hedges opened out onto the moor, and she took it. The moor was open, and the grass was easier on her bare feet than the road. She paused only long enough to tie her skirt up above her knees, then started running again.

It seemed she had been running forever; she had an ache in her side and was panting like a racehorse. And even then she kept moving. Once, she disturbed a flock of sheep, which were alarmed by scenting a human they couldn’t see and bumbled away from her in the darkness, making little
baas
of distress. Once, she ran into a small family of wild moor ponies, which outright bolted when they smelled her.

Finally, just as the first gray light of dawn lightened the sky, she stumbled down into a grove of trees at the bottom of a hill; that was when she heard the sound of running water, and suddenly aware of how parched she was, she followed it until she discovered a tiny trickle of a stream.

That was exactly what she needed. Shelter, water, a place to hide. And this place should be far enough from the Manor that no one would expect a mere female to have gotten this far. Especially not since she had been running most of the way.

She filled her cup and drank until she couldn’t hold any more, then found a good spot under some low-growing bushes to get some rest. She padded it out with grass and bracken and spread her other skirt over it. She tied her food up in the bush just over her head to keep the insects out of it, made a pillow of the rest of her clothing, and finally laid herself down, curled into a tight little ball.

Still, there was one thing that she could not leave to chance. The ring might or might not last much longer—but she needed more concealment than simple invisibility would provide now.