The Gates of Sleep

aged, I suspect. If he doesn’t tire of her, she’ll tire of him. There’ll be a dance-instructor or a French singing-master hanging about before the New Year, mark my words. And at some point, Stephen will show up at her establishment unexpectedly, and discover that there’s something other than lessons going on.”

Margherita hid a smile. Sebastian had met Stephen several times, and on each occasion she was reminded of a pair of dogs circling one another in mutual animosity, prevented from actually starting a fight by the presence of their masters. Sebastian was the utter opposite of Stephen Hastings, describing him as a “hearty gamesman” and intimating that the only reason he’d actually gotten his Cambridge degree was that his instructors wanted to see the last of him. There might have been some truth in that. He certainly hadn’t taken a First, and seemed to be absurdly proud of the fact.

It wasn’t her business why Elizabeth had married him, when all was said and done. Perhaps, besides a certain amount of affection, it had been because he was so very incurious, so utterly without imagination, that she could carry on her Magical Workings without rousing any interest in him. That arrangement wouldn’t have suited Margherita—but it was infinitely better than having to sneak about in deathly fear of being caught. And if one couldn’t find someone to love—society being what it was, a woman of Elizabeth’s position had little choice except to marry—the best compromise was to find someone it was possible to be friends with.

“I’ll write her,” Margherita said. “Unless you want to use a dove to send her a message?” She cast a glance of inquiry at Thomas. He shook his head.

“It’s not that urgent, not while Marina has other things to occupy her. There’s plenty to do around here until the end of harvest,” he said.

“I’ll find things for her to do,” Margherita and Sebastian said together, then looked at each other and laughed.

“It’s settled, then,” Margherita said for both of them, and felt a certain relief. That would be one more person here to watch over Marina as well. One more pair of eyes—one more set of powers.

Most importantly, someone to help the child master the powers that would protect her better than any of them could.

“And just what is it that you are thinking about that makes you frown so?” asked the Undine. Her pointed chin rested on her hands, her elbows propped on the bank of the brook. The faintly greenish cast to her skin was something that Marina was so used to seeing that she seldom noticed it unless, like now, she stopped to study an Undine’s expression.

The Undines didn’t trouble themselves with individual names; at least, they never gave her their names. Though that might simply have been excessive caution on their part. Names had power, after all.

“Was I frowning?” Marina asked. She rubbed her forehead; on the whole, she really didn’t want to discuss her internal conflicts with an Undine that wouldn’t understand anyway. Undines didn’t have parents, at least, not so far as Marina knew, just sisters. Marina had never seen anything but female Undines. “Just concentrating, I suppose.”

“Well, at least you aren’t shouting your thoughts anymore,” the Undine replied, with a toss of her green-blond hair. “You ought to stop thinking and come have a swim. It won’t be long before it’s too cold—for you, anyway. Enjoy yourself while you still can.”

“You’re right,” she agreed, only too pleased to leave the problem of her parents to sort itself out another day. The Undine laughed liquidly, and plunged under the surface of the brook to become—literally—one with the water. For all intents and purposes, the Undine vanished in a froth of foam and a wave.

Marina followed the brook upstream, above the little falls, to a pond the family waterfowl seldom visited. It stood in the midst of a water meadow, and the verge was dense with protective reeds. An intensely green scent hung over the pond; not the scent of rotting vegetation, nor the stale smell of scum, just the perfume of a healthy watering hole densely packed with growing things. In fact, the water was pure and clear, thanks to a fine population of little fish and frogs. Herons came here to hunt, and the smaller, shy birds of the reed beds, but never any people—if the folk of the neighboring farm knew about this place, they didn’t think it held fish large enough to bother with, and her own family left her alone here. This was Marina’s summertime retreat by common consent, and had been since she was old enough to come up here alone. It wasn’t as if she could get into any trouble in the water, after all—even in the roughest horseplay, the Undines would never permit her to come to harm in her proper element. She had been able to swim, and be safe in the water, since before she could walk.

She slipped out of her dress and petticoat and underthings and left them folded on a rock concealed among the reeds, where they would remain safe and dry without advertising the fact that there was someone swimming here to anyone who might be passing. This time of year there were always strangers, itinerant harvesters, and gypsies passing through the village. The villagers themselves might not come here, but the strangers, looking for a place to camp, might happen upon it by accident. Not the gypsies, though; the Undines managed to warn them off.

There hadn’t been anyone around the pond today, or the Undine wouldn’t have invited her to swim. They might not understand much about a mortal’s life, but they did understand that strange men lurking about could be a danger to Marina.

She took a moment to tie her hair loosely at the nape of her neck, then slipped into the sun-warmed water wearing nothing more than her own skin.

Immediately she was surrounded by Undines wearing nothing more than theirs, and an exuberant game of tag began. She was at a partial disadvantage, not being able to breathe underwater, but she managed to compensate with her longer reach. There was a great deal of splashing and giggling as they chased one another. The warm water caressed Marina’s skin like the brush of warmed silk; as the Undines slid past her, a tingle of energy passed between them, a little like the tingle in the air before lightning strikes. The pond was surprisingly deep for its small size, and as she dove under to elude a pursuer or to chase her own quarry, she reveled in the shock of encountering a cooler layer of water beneath the sun-warmed surface. Other, lesser Elementals gathered to watch, chattering excitedly among the reeds, applauding when someone made a particularly clever move. A family of otters appeared out of nowhere and joined in the fun, and the game changed from one of tag to one of “catch the otter” by common consent.

The otters took to this new game with all the enthusiasm that they brought to any endeavor, and soon the pond was alive with splashing and shrill laughter. Undines chased otters in every direction; slippery otters slid right through Marina’s fingers, though truth to tell, she didn’t try very hard to hold them. It was more fun watching them twist and turn in the water to avoid capture than it was to try and wrestle a squirming body that just might deliver an accidental nasty kick—with claws!—if you weren’t careful.

Only when Marina was completely out of breath did she retreat to her rocks and watch the Undines continue the game on their own. The smallest of the otters evidently ran out of energy at the same time, and joined her. After she combed out her hair with her fingers and coaxed most of the water out of it, she stroked the otter’s smooth, dense fur and scratched its head as it sighed with content and erected its stiff whiskers in an otter-smile. It rolled over on its back, begging for her to scratch its tummy. She chuckled, and obliged.

But the sun was westering; it was past teatime, and neither the Undines nor the otters seemed prepared to give up their game any time soon. They might be perfectly free to play until dark and afterwards, but she did have things to do. Reluctantly, she donned her clothing again—reluctantly, because after the freedom of being in the water, it seemed heavy and confining—pulled her skirts up above her knees, and waded back to dry land.

She stopped in the orchard long enough to retrieve her basket of apples and her book. With the basket swinging from one hand, she took her time strolling back to the farmhouse.

In the late afternoon sunlight, the gray granite glowed with mellow warmth. When winter came, the stone would look cold and forbidding, but now, with all the doors and windows open, flowers in the window boxes, and roses twining up trellises along the sides, it was a welcoming sight.

Tea was over, but as she’d expected, Aunt Margherita had left her scones, watercress sandwiches, and a little pot of clotted cream in the kitchen under a cheesecloth. There was no tea, but there was hot water on the stove, and she quickly made her own late repast. She arranged the apples she’d brought in a pottery bowl on the kitchen table, and retreated to her room to fetch her work. After her swim, she was feeling languid, and her window