Phoenix and Ashes (23 page)

But
that was the best you could say. For the rest, between rationing and scarcity,
the prices were up, and what you got for your produce was the same as it had
been before the war, just about. Someone was making a profit, but it
wasn’t you.

And
if you didn’t own or lease a farm—well, things were very hard
indeed. Sometimes you couldn’t do your old job, and it was hard to find a
new one. Especially around here.

So
if Reggie could help out a little by buying more than his share of rounds, it
seemed a small thing.

Mater
wouldn’t like it by half if she knew where I was going of a night.
Hanging about with socialists… But what she doesn’t know, she
can’t object to. I’m more welcome here than there. Her father had
gotten so poisonously aggressive in his accusations of malingering of late that
even she had started to protest weakly. Never mind that there were days Reggie
couldn’t leave his room, days when he locked the door and spent half the
day crouched in a corner like a terrified mouse, too afraid to so much as move
.
“
Acting
”
was what Grandfather Sutton would have called
it. Oh, yes, acting. As if he enjoyed spending his time huddled behind the
furniture too afraid to make a sound, and completely unable to say what it was
he was afraid of, only knowing that the bottom was out of the universe and doom
was upon him
.

But
there was a letter in Reggie’s pocket right now that might well prove to
be the old man’s undoing.

The
address on the envelope said it all: Brigadier Eric Mann (Ret.) The Elms,
Dorcester.

The
Brigadier had been a great friend of Reggie’s father—he had more
experience in a single month with actual combat than Grandfather Sutton had in
his entire career. His letter had been phrased with great delicacy, but Reggie
had no difficulty whatsoever in interpreting it. The Brigadier had heard about
Reggie’s injuries, he actually
knew
what life was like on the
front, and he wanted to come visit and offer whatever support he could.

And
although in general the very last thing that Reggie wanted at the moment was a
parade of visitors through Longacre, this was one letter he had answered as
soon as he had read it, in the affirmative. The Brigadier
did
know
what life was like on the front. He had been there. How? Reggie had no idea how
he had managed to get out there—but the little he’d read in the
letter told him that Eric Mann knew what conditions were really like. The
Brigadier would not tolerate any nonsense from Grandfather Sutton. With any
luck, once they butted heads a time or two, Sutton would elect to clear out and
go back to his club in London and leave Reggie in peace. At the very least, he
would keep his mouth shut as long as the Brigadier was there.

Reggie
could hardly wait.

“Time,
gentlemen!” Thomas called, recalling him to his present surroundings.

There
was little more than a half inch of bitter in his glass; he swallowed it down
with appreciation, left a little something under the glass for Matt to find,
stood up, and pulled on his driving coat. That was one good thing about having
an auto over a horse; he didn’t have to worry about leaving a horse
standing tied up for hours.

On
the other hand, the auto won’t get you home by itself if you’re
drunk…

He
made his farewells and went out into the night; he really couldn’t bear
watching the others make their way home. It was just too heartbreaking. If a
man staggered away from his favorite pub of an evening, it should be because
he’d had just a wee bit too much, not because his legs were too painful
to hold him.

Nor
because one leg was gone, and he wasn’t used to walking on the wooden
one.

Instead,
he paid excruciatingly careful attention to getting the auto started; by the
time he’d done, they were all gone. He climbed stiffly into the
driver’s seat, and chugged away.

“Well!
There goes that Reggie Fenyx again,” Sarah said, as the unfamiliar sound
of an automobile engine chugged past the front of her cottage.

Eleanor
looked up from the runes of warding that she had been learning. “How do
you know?”

Sarah
snorted. “And who else is it that would be leaving Thomas Brennan’s
pub after last call in a motorcar?” she asked rhetorically. “Doctor
Sutherland’s choice is the public bar at the Broom Hall Inn when he goes
anywhere, Steven Zachary hasn’t
got
a motor of his own yet, the
vicar doesn’t drink in public, so there you are! Besides, I happen to
know the lads that have all been mustered out have taken the place over since
Matt came home, and I expect he feels more at ease there among them than
anywhere else.”

Eleanor
looked down at the little firepot she was using. “It’s horrible,
isn’t it.” It was a statement, not a question. “It’s
horrible, and they can’t talk to anyone else about it.”

“Well,
they
could
,” Sarah replied, somewhat to Eleanor’s
surprise. “They
could
talk to their wives, their sweethearts,
their mothers. We’re stronger than they think. They keep thinking they
have to protect us from whatever it is that they went through, so there they
are, suffering behind closed mouths, building walls to protect us, they say,
but it’s all so we won’t see they’re weak.” She shook
her head. “As if we don’t. But there it is. Silly, isn’t it?
That they daren’t let us see them as less than strong?”

Eleanor
looked up and lifted an eyebrow. “I think I see why you never married,
Sarah,” she replied, with irony.

Sarah
laughed. “Well, and I reckoned if I wanted something that’d come
and go as he pleased, take me for granted, and ignore me when he chose,
I’d get a cat. And if I wanted something I’d always have to be
picking up after, getting into trouble, but slavishly devoted, I’d get a
dog.”

Eleanor
shook her head and went back to her firepot, which was a little cast-iron pot
on three legs, full of coals over which flames danced bluely. She was learning
to write runes in the fire, which was the first step to making it answer her. A
Salamander was coiled in the bottom of the pot just above the coals; it watched
her with interest, and hissed a warning when she was just starting to go wrong.

Her
moment of inattention made it hiss again, and Sarah paused to look down at it.
“They’re not supposed to do that, you know,” she said, in
surprise. “Warn you, that is. It’s almost like it’s trying to
help you.”

“I
think it is,” Eleanor said, canceling the rune with a wave of her wand,
and holding out her hand to the pot. The salamander uncoiled itself and leapt
out of the pot, circled her wrists like a ferret three or four times, then
leapt back into the pot.

Sarah
shook her head. “They’re not supposed to do that. I’d not
have believed it if I’d been told. There’s summat about you they
like.”

“I
hope so,” she replied.

“Aye,
well, they’re not so changeable as air and water, though be wary you
don’t go angering them,” Sarah warned. “They’re quick
to anger, and they ne’er forget, nor forgive.”

Eleanor
nodded, and bent back to her work. But part of her mind was on Reggie,
wondering if Carolyn and Lauralee had been introduced to him, yet, if
they’d started trying to charm him yet. It made her angry, that thought,
and—yes—jealous. Which made no sense at all. He probably
didn’t even remember her, and if he did, it was as nothing more than a
hoydenish tomboy, a silly little girl with a wild notion of becoming a scholar.
He probably wouldn’t remember her even if someone reminded him of her.

And
as for now, he wouldn’t look at her twice. She certainly was so far
beneath his notice that if they passed on the same side of the street he
wouldn’t even see her, not really.

Stop
thinking about Reggie
! she scolded herself.
Get your mind on your
work. Because if you can’t learn this soon, Alison and her girls will have
him, and then where will you be
?

“Don’t
bother fixing anything for tea, Ellie,” Alison called through the open
kitchen door. “We’re having it at Longacre. In fact—”
Eleanor could not help but hear the gloating sound in her voice
“we’ll be having our tea at Longacre for the foreseeable
future.”

“Yes,
ma’am,” Eleanor said dutifully, but her heard leapt. Tea at
Longacre Park? And for the foreseeable future? That would mean she would be
able to get away for the whole afternoon.

Of
course, Alison would see it as another privation—if she wasn’t
permitted to get out tea-things for her stepmother and the girls, she
wouldn’t be able to make any tea for herself. Which meant that she would
have to wait until suppertime for a meal.

Or
so Alison thought.
Well, that’s what I want her to think
. So
Eleanor contrived to look disappointed and hungry, though she was neither. She
could hardly contain her excitement as Alison and her girls bundled up into the
motor and chugged off in the direction of Longacre Park. And the moment she was
sure they weren’t going to return, she wrote her runes on the hearthstone
and was off like a shot.

The
sky was bright and blue, the wind high, and she only had a few hours—but
she knew where
she
wanted to be. Down at the opposite end of the six
thousand or so acres of Longacre, in the round meadow in a little copse of
trees at the end of what she still thought of as the Aeroplane Field. No one
would see her there, no one ever went there; she was half mad to get out of the
house for some sun and air. And this was the farthest Alison’s spell
would let her go.

She
wrapped up a couple of slices of bread and jam for her own tea, broke her sprig
of rosemary and left half on the hearthstone, flung on a coat and ran out the
door.

She
wasn’t even entirely sure what she was running
from
. Maybe it
was—well—everything. Her own imprisonment. The war news.
Alison’s glee and the girls’ gloating. And fear, fear, so much
fear—now she knew she had a chance to set herself free, and she was
afraid. Afraid she would never learn all she needed to, afraid that she would
never be able to command her Element as skillfully as Alison could and would
lose, and her imprisonment would be even harsher than it was now. Afraid that
ever if she did escape, no one would believe what she had to tell them, and she
would accomplish nothing, or worse than nothing—that she’d be
locked up as mad, or given back over to Alison, or else would have to turn
drudge for someone else in order to put food in her stomach and a roof over her
head. In a way, things were worse than before; before she’d had no hope
and so nothing to lose. Now—now she had hope and all to lose.

So
she ran, hoping to outrun her own fear and uncertainty. Hoping to outrun the
bleak air of depression that hung over the entire town. Hoping to get to one
place where none of this mattered, where she could just
be
for a few
hours, and pretend that there was no war, there was no Alison, that the days of
peace and plenty were still upon them all, and that when she came back to the
house her father would still be alive and waiting to share supper with her.

She
pushed herself so hard, trying to outrun her very thoughts, that she arrived at
the meadow winded and out of breath, and flung herself down in the middle of
the clear space among the trees to lie on her back in the old, dry grass and
look up at the clouds and pant.

And
it was glorious, because she could just empty her mind and not think, not about
anything or anyone, and just stare up into the blue and watch nothing.

She
could, in fact, have lain there forever, with the warm sun shining down on her.
At that moment, cutting free of Alison and just
going
, finding someone
else to work for, didn’t seem so bad an idea—

Except—

If
she did this to me, and to Papa, what would she do to Reggie
?

The
question struck her like a thunderbolt out of the blue sky, but at that moment
she knew that if either Carolyn or Lauralee married Reggie Fenyx, no matter how
strong his Air Magic was, he would remain alive no longer than her father had.

She
sat bolt upright at the thought—

—and
a yelp of strangled fear met her sudden appearance out of the grass.

She
twisted around onto her knees to face the sound, and found herself staring into
the white face of Reggie Fenyx.

He
was sitting on a fallen tree-trunk at the edge of the tiny meadow, quite alone,
and clearly her sudden appearance had frightened the wits out of him. As he
stared at her with wild, wide eyes, all she could think of to do was to hold
out her hand and say, soothingly, “I’m sorry—I beg your pardon—I’m
really very sorry—”

He
trembled as he stared at her, as if he didn’t quite recognize her for
what she was. And then, quite suddenly, she saw sense come into his gaze, and
of course, he
did
recognize her, and passed a hand over his pale face.
“No—no—” he said, finally. “No, it’s quite
all right. It’s just my nerves. I wasn’t expecting
anyone—that is, I thought I was alone; no one ever used to come down to
this part of Longacre but me.”

“Well,”
she said, slowly getting to her feet, brushing down her threadbare skirt with
one hand, and wondering hesitantly if she should leave. “That isn’t
quite true. But most of the people who used to come here are gone.”

“Gone.
That would be—the boys, wouldn’t it?” His hand was still over
his eyes, and still trembling. “Yes. Not boys any longer, though, and
they
would
be gone, wouldn’t they? Even the youngest.”
With an effort, he took his hand away from his eyes and looked at her again.
She was horribly ashamed of how shabby she was, but he didn’t notice, or
at least, if he did, he wasn’t letting on. He squinted at her, and then
managed a tremulous smile. “You’re that little tomboy, Eleanor
Robinson from the village, aren’t you? Only not such a little tomboy
anymore.” The smile faded. “I heard about your father. I’m
dreadfully sorry.”