From Fairies and Creatures of the Night, Guard Me Page 9

  Despite its inability to claim its prize and return home, the demon still possessed its innate appetite for devouring innocent souls and frequently tried to get permission to do that too.

  Well, there were not going to be any souls on her watch, Mrs Winifred thought grimly. Sunflower seeds were the thing for birds, and apples, if it behaved.

  The demon had had a name when it was summoned, all fricatives, brimstone and sharp things – quite impossible to pronounce for speakers of good sensible English. At some point, someone had decided to rename it Algernon, a name which it actually quite liked.

  Mrs Winifred thought it was a ridiculous name for a parrot and had made her feelings on the subject abundantly clear.

  She thought she could have handled a haunting – hauntings were traditional, after all, proper and respectable. Queen Victoria wouldn’t have had any reason to be scandalised by ghosts. Ghosts knew how to behave.

  They didn’t fly in the hair of guests, or scream rude things at the vicar, or torment passing schoolchildren come for a tour of historic houses. It had all been so deeply embarrassing to Mrs Winifred’s aunt that she had always been in the worst state of the nerves when entertaining. Mrs Winifred had never been able to have friends to stay over as a child.

  Even centuries down the line, the Grims staff were stubbornly afraid of the damned thing no matter how long they had worked at the Hall. The village children had always thought it amusing to sneak onto the grounds on All Hallows, though they had never let the young Miss Mary Sutton play with them. It didn’t help that Mrs Winifred had never been a particularly sunny child.

  Percy had, of all things, thought Algernon an amusing pet. The demon had helped him cheat at cards, because, after all, it was a demon and while it was limited as to scope, it could never resist a bit of pandemonium. It had also helped him make fake calls on the new telephone as a boy, and play dreadful pranks on any visiting relative who had thought to take young Percy to task for some perceived misdemeanour.

  It had taken such a liking to the telephone that the thing had to be constantly guarded even while Percy had been away at school. If you let the demon have its head, it instantly got into the telephone lines and then neighbours came over to complain about maniacal laughter in the receiver.

  Mrs Winifred did not think the demon amusing in the least. And she certainly wasn’t afraid of it. She had known from the first what a nuisance it was, and the two had often been at crossed swords. Even that was ridiculous and annoying: she didn’t know anyone else whose nemesis was a bird.

  Mrs Winifred had once nastily asked Algernon in her sweetest voice why it was that a demon of such power, and priceless knowledge of the true nature of the universe, was stuck eating peanuts and avoiding the family cat.

  Possibly, that was the conversation that had truly cemented their rivalry. It may have been a cruel thing to say, but she had reasoned with the inflexible logic of childhood that he deserved it for making her life difficult. Also, for being a demon, and therefore quite evil – besides, he had certainly got his revenge.

  You’d think, she had mused grimly to her husband many years later, that living in such a house, where the darkness whispered horrid things at you every night, she’d have grown up afraid of the dark. But Miss Mary Sutton had been a tenacious child, though not a very nice one, and she had seen no reason to fear the absence of light, when all her problems stemmed from the resident demon.

  There would be none of that now, of course. She was going to put her foot down. She could not possibly have any respect for dark powers of the underworld when they spent centuries faffing about old houses, shredding the furniture and moulting feathers all over the place. Mrs Winifred was not above plucking feathers if she had to, and the holy water always put the thing in its place.

  Oh, there would be subtle revenge, of course. The bird had a mind like the infamous Madame Merteuil, the villainess from a book of which Mrs Winifred thoroughly disapproved and which the demon had nastily left in place of the boarding school adventure book she’d borrowed from the library the summer before she’d started sixth form.

  The new mistress of Grimsford Hall took over the grand apartments and the study, and spent a good few hours behind closed doors with the cook, housekeeper and steward explaining how things were to be run. She expected good English cooking, neat grounds, and an end to all the superstitious jumpiness currently exhibited by the staff.

  The jumpiness was, she told them while tapping her teacup and levelling a look, utterly tasteless.

  She and the demon then spent a whole week drawing battle lines around the house. Algernon did his very best to set off Mrs Winifred’s volatile temper by moving things around, nesting in her hats and reducing a scullery maid to tears. He recited Latin outside her door at odd hours of night and chewed through an antique tapestry.

  She’d retaliated by throwing gardening tomes at him while he’d fluttered around the library in a squacking panic, and reading him cookery books until he begged for mercy. When she wasn’t skirmishing with the bird or managing the house, she spent a great deal of time working on her weekly reviews. That week’s offering was particularly vitriolic, and it was only by chance that the unfortunate author, passing through that part of the country to visit a sister, had not picked up a copy of the local paper for fear of missing his train.

  The demon’s bids at vengeance weren’t always particularly creative – Algernon was not an intellectual giant among the denizens of the underworld – but they were always very malicious.

  The whole culminated in an exceptionally inconsiderate prank, in which Algernon had called every business in the neighbourhood and the nearest town, to order every possible service and item, from three grand pianos to a tulle wedding gown and a visit from the undertaker, to be delivered to Mrs Winifred of Grimsford Hall the following Monday at ten o’clock precisely.

  Such was the authority of Mrs Winifred, that the orders were carried out without question, and Monday proved a very trying day for Mrs Winifred’s poor housekeeper, who was obliged to personally answer the door every time it rang. The circular drive was crowded with angry shopkeepers demanding an explanation of such a travesty, and it was only the unassailable gravity of manner possessed by Mrs Winifred that induced them to call it a day and go away, still angry about the prank.

  No one, however, could quite pity the woman who obviously had been the intended target of the practical joke, as they might have done had she been a sweet old lady prone to baking and knitting fluffy scarves. Indeed, Mrs Winifred was more than capable of dealing with such things herself, which she did very promptly.

  “I thought the house could use some life in it,” the demon said lightly, eyes aglow, when she came upstairs to confront it, wearing an air of icy fury.

  “Did you, really?” the lady asked, pleasantly, and proceeded to make the house instantly more lively by subjecting Algernon to hours of every Edith Piaf record she owned until the bird was obliged to call a truce, or at least a renegotiation of terms.

  The strange truce settled over the place uncertainly and expectantly. It was almost pleasant. In fact, Mrs Winifred thought with some astonishment, it was almost as though Algernon had been bored all by himself, and was now enjoying having company. Mrs Winifred’s hostility only served to remind him most poignantly of home.

  The skeleton staff that had run the house the last few years never spoke to him – they had worked for the family a long time, of course, and they accepted the demon as they did the house, the park and the cathedral in town, but they did not have to like it. The new staff appointed by Mrs Winifred kept well away, also.

  Like any demon, Algernon liked to lie, dissemble and bargain. He was willing to promise just about anything if you granted him his freedom to raid and pillage: immortality, gold, the secrets of Atlantis laid at your feet. And it was very difficult to bargain with anybody, when there was nobody to talk to.

  Algernon was also revealed to share Mrs Winifred’s fondness for crosswor
ds, and while that too had inevitably taken the form of a competition, it seemed a more peaceful way to go about it.

  When winter came to Grimsford, unforgivingly, as it did every year, Mrs Winifred left her housekeeper and steward in charge of the estate and returned to her cottage until warmer temperature could make it tolerable to live in the great mausoleum once more.

  She told them that in no uncertain terms that, while any visitors willing to brave the mud for a glimpse of old furniture were very welcome to have their tours, she was going to spend the winter by the fire at her cottage. There, the soup never got cold on its journey between kitchen and dining room.

  Mrs Winifred surprised everyone, not least herself, when she produced a cage and took Algernon with her, threatening him with a swift end as a feather duster if he should even think of getting up to his tricks at the cottage.

  The demon did not actually thank her, because that was not what demons did, but something in the set of his feathers was undeniably relieved.

  The obvious indignity of being a demon stuck haunting a cottage was overshadowed by not having to deal with droughty hallways, and there was a grudging, though steady, supply of crossword books and popcorn – Mrs Winifred’s secret American indulgence.

  Etude

  Asdis, her Grace and Wisdom Dowager Alderqueen, Lady Defender of the Northern Marches, sundry and other titles, had not been driven to become what she was by some great betrayal or disappointment.

  The plain and simple truth was that she had always had an in-born love of chaos, and a taste for power that quite matched her sharp intellect. Like all of her kind, she was quick to react and slow to change. The motto, which was to be found on all of her banners and her ancient coat of arms, read Semper Eadem, ‘always the same’, and she had shared it with several younger mortal queens over the long span of mortal time: but it had never been as fitting for them as it was for her.

  The dowager queen Asdis was not human. And she was not kind. It took exceptional cruelty to get as far as she had and she did not regret a second of it. Could not regret – regret was not in her nature. It was a fickle mortal thing and therefore far beneath her, much like that other peculiar human preoccupation with making amends or seeking some kind of redemption.

  She was the dowager queen now, her husband dead: an impressive feat for one of their kind. It had been good of him to save her the trouble of procuring poison. Now her son held the throne as Erlking, led the Wild Hunt, and did not heed any advice from her, but Asdis’s name still struck dread and wordless obedience into the heart of every denizen of the kingdom.

  The first day of winter shrouded the countryside in white and grey. It was a good day for remembering her own power, for feeling the shiver of delight as it coursed through her veins. The sky was heavy with the promise of more snow, and some icy flakes had already begun to fall. This was her time, for Asdis disliked nothing more than the spring, which always followed so closely on the heels of winter, bringing with it greenery, wild strawberries and the queen’s grimmest memory.

  Because even though the queen had not been led onto her chosen path by some personal disappointment, that did not mean that she had never known such a thing.

  She sat on her horse, a steel-coloured thing with eyes like fire, and stared out over the edge of a high unforgiving cliff, watching the roiling grey sea below. The queen wore a cloak of something dark. It fluttered in the strong wind, a trail of black smoke in her wake. A few of her powdered curls escaped her hood, framing her sharp, flawless face. There was no emotion to be read there: not a trace of what the mortals liked to term ‘humanity’, as if they were the only species ever to dispense mercy or goodwill.

  Asdis came here sometimes, when she wished to be away from the watchful gazes of her courtiers, who fluttered like butterflies and moths, and dripped venom like vipers. The queen had been very selective in picking her attendants, each more deliciously treacherous than the last. They made for excellent sport when the mortals would not do. Unfortunately, entertaining as they were, they could also grow extremely tiresome and she could hardly attainder them all

  Sometimes, when she came here it was to think of him. Not the dead king, for he didn’t warrant much thought. No, she thought of the other one, who warranted far too much thought. It was the only time she permitted herself a moment of such brief madness.

  Asdis had lived a long life: centuries of blood, vendettas, and betrayals, most of these her own doing. She had enjoyed them thoroughly, revelling in the anarchy. But she had been a girl once, though she rarely thought of it. And she had loved once, or at least had come as close to love as it was possible for one of her kind.

  The queen could not picture his face clearly when she closed her eyes. It had all been too long ago and his face only ever came to her when she sat at her harpsichord, playing those old pieces on yellowed paper with bent edges. The black ink was almost faded with age, but that did not matter in the least – Asdis knew the music by heart, as surely as she knew her own name.

  Him music whispered to her on the wind sometimes, in the summer, when it was easy to be young. Sometimes, she heard it in the fall of rain or a roll of thunder.

  He had had dark eyes, and hair like chestnuts. He had been tall. Music had flowed from his hands like water from a fountain in her mother’s courtyard: a spring fountain, flowing with the pulsing heart of blinding sunlight. His music had felt almost as if it were alive.

  It had been her mother who had engaged him in the spring, the finest harpsichordist they could find, to be her music master. He had also been a luthier in his spare time, and his handcrafted violins sang like the music of the stars. This was unsurprising: a daughter of a duke was to have the best instructors, just as she had always had the best of everything. The musician had not been much older than she, nor much wiser.

  Asdis had never really cared for the harpsichord before him – it had been another in a list of maudlin accomplishments she was expected to acquire, because it was only proper that she do so. And she had not thought much of him when she’d first laid eyes on her new music tutor, if she had thought anything of him at all.

  The truth of him had snuck up on her suddenly, when he looked at her and saw her. She had known it, because no one had ever seen her before then: not as he had done. She’d felt utterly stricken, because it wasn’t at all fair. Asdis could see nothing of him – read not a thing in his voice or eyes. But she had tried, oh how she had tried to see. And when that hadn’t worked she’d listened instead.

  “What is this one?” Asdis would ask, when she came to look in his workshop, hung with wooden bellies for future instruments, and intricate rose carvings for his lutes. There were harps taller than she, waiting for their silver strings and strange hammered instruments she had never seen before.

  “That is a dulcimer,” he would say. Sometimes, if he was in a good enough mood, he would rise and touch the strings so that she could hear its voice. She would watch, breathless, the seeming effortlessness with which his handled the lutes and violins – his grip careful and sure.

  “And this?”

  “A kantele. Be careful, it is not yet varnished.”

  “And when it is?”

  “Then it will sing clear as bells on the wind – and there are such songs to go with it, such marvels…”

  As spring wore into summer, he taught her to string the instruments and tell the quality of different woods. He spoke of tuning, bows and the secret mechanics of violin construction. She unlocked the mysteries of lutherie in his eyes, while searching for other riddles to solve.

  In his workroom, the music had seemed more real even than when she played it on her harpsichord. Here it was so fresh and new, sometimes it was the first song an instrument would play – other times, it was only the potential of future music buried deep in pearwood.

  His workshop must have been a very sunny room, she thought, for she had always felt warm there.

  What had followed was a year of significant looks, heavy
silences, and messages hidden in music. She had impatiently awaited every new composition, eyes scanning the notes and rests even as her hands hovered over the ebony keys. They had spoken volumes without breathing a word: confessions, declarations and accusations.

  Suddenly, the music had come to life and it was a language no one but they understood, ringing out in the private music room, and even in her mother’s drawing room when Asdis had been obliged to play some motets for a roomful of painted, languid guests.

  It had all been a very long time ago. So very long. But the music carried through the ages, and when she thought of it, she almost remembered what she had been, in those rosy hours. She could never forget the music – it was there in her mind and her fingers. Muscle-memory, he had called it.

  Asdis could only remember his voice when she played the harpsichord, though usually she did not allow herself to do so. It had been a fine voice when he had cared to use it. Or perhaps it was the music that had been his true voice.

  In a cabinet in her music room at the castle, the queen kept a sheaf of the music he had written her, though she rarely needed to look at the notation – he’d had such peculiar, pointy handwriting, as though the music had been impatient to get out.

  He’d favoured black ink, like his eyes and his shabby coats, though she had always written in red. Asdis had wondered if his letters were the same, jagged and a little difficult to decipher: she had no way of knowing because he had never written her a single one that wasn’t in notation.

  She would have had to burn them, if he had, and she expected he had known as much – but music had a way of growing in the mind when words only faded. Words, Asdis learnt later, when she became the Alderqueen, were dangerous things, like blades and poison.