Wyrde and Widdershins (Paperback)

October 31st

Dearest Booke,

I think I always knew, did not I? From the first moment that I saw you, lying upon the doorstep, patently intended for me. I knew when I took you up in my hands, felt the silk-smooth leather of your perfect covers. I knew when I readied my pen, and marked your pristine pages with the black scrawl of my thoughts.

I knew in my heart that, someday, you would try to kill me.

It is not that I blame you for the impulse; please do not think it. An urge to rend flesh from bone has come upon every one of us at one point or another, even if the benighted majority are too courteous to act upon it. And the fledgling tentacles you have manifested are not without their charm—like as to the soft down on the breast of a newly hatched robin. Quite appealing, in their way.

Still, I cannot agree with your apparent conclusion that my allotted time upon this earth has come to an end. Nor can I muster any enthusiasm for dear Great-Aunt Honoria’s highly anticipated alternative, even if she is by far the most stylish revenant I have ever had the fortune to count among my acquaintance.

Nor can I forgive your sister-booke for its treatment of Theo. Yes, he is the grubbiest of souls, and unquestionably deserves to die, but was that really any excuse?

It pains me beyond expressing to say it, dearest booke, but the friendship we have so much enjoyed since our introduction has palpably come to an end. Friends do not murder one another. Relatives, certainly, but a higher standard of etiquette is expected of more distant relationships.

These are the last words I shall ever write in your crisp, snowy pages, though the thought quite cuts me to the heart. There, I am bleeding upon you, and it is all your own doing. If you will savage my hands as I write, you can hardly object to the consequences—oh, dear. That was extremely rude.

I must pin all my hopes upon the Coven. Naught but a grave and eldritch power can have any hope of countering your despicable machinations, dear booke. I cannot help but think Lord Felix would say, ‘I told you so,’ and with perfect justice.

How lowering a thought.

THREE DAYS EARLIER

A carriage drew up in a certain street in London. Not too fashionable, this address; a cobbled road shadowed on both sides by tall, handsome townhouses. One of them hosted a family of some repute, a very strange family indeed, and it was at this abode that the carriage stopped, and disgorged its passenger.

The carriage was nothing to occasion much remark, and nor was its lady; the former being a little old and a little shabby, and the latter (if it is not too impolite to say so) much the same. Not that Mrs. Thannibour had yet arrived at any very advanced age, but motherhood had taken its toll; there were threads of grey in her dark mane of hair, and laugh lines etched around her eyes.

She was not smiling as she stood at the door, and knocked upon it. She clutched a book to her breast, a weighty tome of some antiquity. The firmness of her grip upon the thing might betoken fondness, perhaps.

The butler answered, an elderly, dignified sort with an air of reassuring efficiency: Goodspeed. ‘Mrs. Thannibour,’ he greeted her. ‘A pleasant surprise. Miss Werth will be delighted.’

‘Yes, I ought rather to have given notice of my coming, hadn’t I?’ Nell agreed. ‘Only it all came about rather suddenly.’

She was ushered inside, of course, and her luggage (a pair of bandboxes and a portmanteau) collected by a footman. She was not to be persuaded to relinquish her hold upon the book, however; knowing the family as he did, Goodspeed could only consider this a bad sign.

* * *

Miss Gussie Werth had heard the carriage’s wheels clattering over the cobbles outside; heard it stop, too, and came down to investigate, for visitors were no daily occurrence at Werth House.

The sight of her elder sister crossing the hall in Goodspeed’s wake brought her hurrying down the carpeted stairs in a burst of delight. ‘Nell!’ she crowed. ‘You sly thing, not a word of warning? Though your usual chamber can be got ready for you in no time, I am sure—’ Feeling, for a moment, unwontedly affectionate, she engulfed her sister in an embrace, through which the unyielding bulk of the tome Nell clutched, still, to her bosom, became too apparent to ignore.

As did Nell’s unusually solemn demeanour. ‘Dear Gussie,’ she said, rigid in her sister’s arms, ‘I’m afraid I come on no very merry errand.’

‘And here I thought it was the season that’s brought you to us,’ Gussie answered lightly, attempting to ignore a curl of unease.

‘Well, and so it has, after a fashion.’ Nell’s grip on her book tightened further still, a sight that turned Gussie’s unease into a flare of alarm. ‘Is anybody else at home?’

Gussie shook her head. ‘My aunt is out visiting, my uncle at some club or other, and Theo’s at his rooms. There is only me.’

Goodspeed, lingering nearby, announced his continued presence with a delicate cough. ‘I shall have Mrs. Thannibour’s rooms made up, Miss Werth. If you intend to consult together, might I suggest Lord Werth’s book-room?’

‘Yes, thank you, Goodspeed,’ Gussie answered, taking Nell’s arm. ‘And do pray send up some cakes and wine. Poor Nell must be famished after her journey.’ A wan complexion and a drawn visage suggested a night spent in ceaseless travel; Nell, patently tired, permitted herself to be shepherded into the book-room, and gently pressed into a chair. But when Gussie attempted to take the book from her, she shook her head.

‘Don’t,’ she said briefly. ‘I will show you, in a moment.’

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