Shana Abe - The Sweetest Dark

“I guess you’ll have to be a sodding duke now,” I tried—clumsy, tasteless, and he only winced.

“Sorry.” I covered his hand with mine. “That was dumb.”

“No, you’re right. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t been stewing about it. Me and Reggie both. I think it’s safe to say that this isn’t remotely what either of us wanted.”

“I’m sure you’ll do swimmingly.”

“Bugger that,” he said, tired. “And bugger Aubrey, too. I wish I could say that to his face, even if he did go down a hero in a dogfight. Tell him what an ass he is for dying. For leaving me here like this.”

“I know.”

His hand twisted around until it covered mine.

“Isn’t it peculiar, Eleanore,” he said, not making it a question. “I know that you know.” He sighed. “They couldn’t even scrape together enough of his body to return it to us. They had to identify the plane by its numbers. What they could see of the numbers. All the rest of it—all of him—burned up.”

I’d never suffered another’s bereavement before. I’d gone through the steps of my own, of course, but only in private moments, tears in pillows or hidden in the falling rain. This was something very new and different to me: Armand’s unfiltered grief, so bare and so deep.

So naturally my instinct was to deflect it.

“How is your father?”

Armand squeezed his eyes closed. “You saw him. Looks splendid, doesn’t he? The butler can’t uncork the bottles of claret fast enough.”

I glanced over at the wineglasses on the desk but said only, “Maybe what he needs is you nearby. You know, just being around him more. That might help.”

“He can’t even look me in the face. Didn’t you catch that? It’s like if he looks at me, he sees only his dead son, not his live one. It fills him with hate.”

“I’m sure it’s not—”

“He’s getting in guns,” Armand said. “Crates and crates of guns. He’s always been a collector. He and some of his blokes, they even formed a hunting club. But this is something different. This is … more. Today it was machine guns.”

I tipped my head. “What’s that?”

“They’re quite modern.” He scratched at his shoulder through his shirt and straightened some. “They use bullets on a belt that’s fed into a drum. It’s thoroughly—” He noticed my face. “They fire a lot of bullets very, very quickly. Quicker than anything else.”

I looked up and around the bedroom, the mismatched furniture, the weirdly firm light. “Why? What could you hunt with those? What could they have to do with anything?”

“I don’t know,” he replied. “That’s what’s so unnerving.”

I rubbed a hand to my forehead, feeling an ache beginning to build behind my skull. “Armand.”

His eyes went to mine.

I had to say this carefully; I had no wish to add to his despair, but I couldn’t let it go. “Do you think … do you suppose it’s possible that your father might … mean to do you any harm?”

But I’d actually made him smile. A real one, too, even if it came acerbic and thin. “With a pair of Vickers? Not unless he means to mount them in the hallway and spray me with bullets when I’m not paying attention. Seems like rather a spot of work for him. Surely even an unwelcome heir is better than none.”

I returned his smile as I pulled away my hand. “I think we need to teach you how to Turn to smoke, just in case. It’s a handy thing to be able to vanish in a hurry.”

His smile widened, but there was no humor left to it. “Handy.” He fell back against the blankets of the bed, his eyes gone shiny and hard. “If I could vanish into smoke, Eleanore, I’d leave this place and never return. That’s a promise.”

“Just like Rue,” I said softly.

“Yes. Why not? Just like Rue.”

...

“I’m spending until dawn with you,” I said firmly. “Don’t bother to argue.”

“God forbid,” said Jesse, solemn.

I pushed past him into the cottage. He’d been waiting up for me, I could tell. There was a book spread facedown upon the table, a pair of lamps lit beside it.

“I thought you said you were resting tonight.”

“Aye. I was. But then it occurred to me that the bed wasn’t nearly so comfortable without you. So I got up and hoped.”

I crossed my arms over my chest and dug my toes into the soft nap of the rug. The cottage had been built within a protective circle of birches; even during the heat of day, it was never very warm.

“You hoped for me?” I asked, uncertain.

Jesse came close, put his arms around me, and buried his face in my hair. “As always. As ever.”

“And I came,” I whispered, closing my eyes, breathing him. The ache behind my forehead began to unbind.

“And you came,” he agreed.

And he summoned the magic that was all his own, beyond stars and starfire. A magic of mortal lips and hands, of bristly new whiskers scraping my chin, of melting kisses that made the whiskers unimportant.

Our bodies entwined, our hearts. Our lives.

I think that was the night a very quiet, very powerful part of me began to comprehend how it was going to be. I think the part of me that was magic, that had broken away from the practical earth to slip along Jesse’s celestial family of stars, to allow them to bind me in their spell …

That part of me knew.

...

A lethargy had taken the castle and all the girls in it. Very few of the students had known Aubrey, but we all knew of his family and his station, and that was enough to wash the color from the cheeks of entire classes. We were given black satin ribbons to tie to as armbands along our sleeves. All the mirrors had been covered in strips of black crêpe, and a wreath of dried black roses hung on the headmistress’s door like the single baleful eye of a rook. I wondered if we’d gone through the entire county’s worth of dye.

The professors spoke in weighty voices no matter the topic. Lightheartedness was not permitted. Laughter was not permitted. Even our meals had gotten more salty, perhaps from the cooks’ tears falling into the stew.

I had not known the dead son of the duke. But I knew that if it were me—when it became me—I wanted none of this to infect the lives of those I’d be leaving behind.

No salt and endless black. No dragging footsteps of sorrow. I found myself hoping that when I died, the people who loved me would celebrate what I’d had instead of weep for what I would not.

The liveliest people at Iverson weren’t its residents. The duke had decided to store some of Tranquility’s spare fixtures and furnishings here in the empty chambers; apparently he’d finally noticed that half his mansion was rotting unprotected beneath rain and sun. For the past few days a stream of village men had delivered crate after crate on their backs, like picnic ants carrying sugar cubes. A line into the castle. A line out. At least they smiled as they were leaving.

I was making my way to the tower stairs after supper, walking slowly because rushing was sure to earn me a scold. At the end of the main hall, Mrs. Westcliffe stood with one of the younger maids, their arms filled with unlit lamps.

“Here, of course,” she was saying. “And at every window along the wall. Then you may begin upstairs. Take these from me. Yes, take them, Beth, and get Gladys to help if you need. There must be one in each. Make certain there’s enough oil to last the night.”

My slow steps slowed even more. Mrs. Westcliffe turned and spied me.

“Miss Jones. May I assist you with something?”

“No, ma’am. I was just going up to bed.”

“Well. Good night.”

“Good night. That’s … that’s an awful lot of light in the windows, isn’t it, ma’am?”

The maid ducked her head and bobbed awkwardly at us both, then shuffled on. Mrs. Westcliffe watched her go. She was so distracted she didn’t even reprimand me for using the word awful, which she considered uncouth.

“His Grace has requested that a lighted lamp be placed in every window of the castle for the next fortnight. In honor of his son.”

I knew it wasn’t my place to question the mighty, and deeply bereaved, duke. But the words escaped me, anyway.

“Is that wise? Er, that is, in London we papered the windows. To hide the light.”

I had gained her full focus. Her chin lifted. “Miss Jones, as you have undoubtedly noticed, this is not London. We are not anywhere in the vicinity of London. The Duke of Idylling has made a very simple, very heartfelt request, and I will honor it. That is all you need know. Good night.”

She stalked down the hall, ebony skirts flaring.

“Good night,” I called, because I knew that, even with her chin like that, she would still be listening to make sure my manners were intact.

...

The duke’s fortnight began. Every night, as soon as the sun sank past the horizon, Iverson glowed like a Christmas tree, merry lights dancing in each and every window.

Every window but one. I might live in their bubble now, but I hadn’t always. I’d seen firsthand what a bomb could do to flesh and stone.

The nights ticked on. The moon got thinner and thinner.

Letter from Major Bernard C. R. Sumner, War Propaganda Bureau, London Headquarters

To: His Grace the Duke of Idylling

Re: Marquess of Sherborne

March 15, 1915

Reg,

You’ll be pleased to know your concerns regarding the marquess have been noted and all matters I assume sorted to your satisfaction. Paperwork regarding Sherborne’s transfer from the Royal Flying Corps to this office as a liaison officer have been signed and filed. He should be notified of his reassignment any day. Expect to see him around end of April. RFC isn’t fond of releasing trained pilots. Took a bit of harrying to get them to agree! Will send you his itinerary as soon as all is arranged.

On a more personal note, can’t tell you how happy we are to soon welcome a hero into our midst. Langley’s been saying for months we could use a man here at HQ who’s done some real fighting, been to the front, so to speak. The marquess’s record of twelve confirmed air combat victories (and I believe another five unconfirmed behind enemy lines) has everyone’s rapt attention.

Hope all is well. Margie sends her best. We’ll pop by for a spot of hunting before long, I’m sure.

–Bernie

“Reginald?”

Armand poked his head past the doorway of the study, glancing about.

Empty. Lights left burning. Curtains left open to show the night. A crushed cigarette and a china cup in its saucer on the desk.

He walked to the desk, lifted the cup to his nose. Coffee. Coffee. Black, unadulterated, a few good inches of it still sloshing around the bottom, gone cold.

Mandy dropped into his father’s chair behind the desk and thought about that. He hadn’t seen Reginald sober in days. Actually, he hadn’t seen Reginald sober or drunk in days. His Grace had been distinctly absent from manor life, and damned inconvenient it’d been, too, leaving his remaining son to deal with all the endless details of managing an estate he’d never been trained to inherit.

But nothing dislodged Reginald from his mourning. Armand had asked the chatelaine to keep an eye on him as discreetly as she could; he couldn’t forget those Vickers, despite what he’d said to Eleanore. The chatelaine’s reports to him had all been of the same flavor: Reg was locked in his room or locked in his study. He ate very little; he drank a great deal. He shifted from one chamber to the other, back and forth, but tonight he was in neither.

Mandy had already picked the lock on the duke’s bedroom door to be sure.

Something had changed. Something felt not right, and if he was going to be completely honest with himself, that same not right had been hounding him all day.

His fingers drummed a tattoo atop the leather blotter.

He glanced down. There was a crack in the line of the desk’s edge that meant the drawer hadn’t been properly closed.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood up.

That voice that lived within, that sly dragonish-thing, warned, Don’t do it. You won’t like it; you can’t change it. Don’t look.

The bracket clock counted out, seven, eight, nine …

No one would ever know how close Armand came to obeying that foreboding command, to just getting up and walking away and letting the world sort itself out as it would. He was seventeen years old and weary to the bone. If it were up to him, he’d abandon his entire family’s legacy, his mother’s lost magic, his father’s insanity. What good had ever come of any of it?