The Gates of Sleep

There was an easy way to check on it, though. Despite her misgivings of last night—which now seemed very misplaced—her guardian’s shields surely were not strong enough to keep them from sensing trouble.

She turned away from the window, and hurried over to the fire to build it up again, then quickly chose underthings and a gown and dressed for the day. Perhaps her thick woolen stockings were unfashionable, but at the moment, she would choose warm feet over fashion! Then she made for the kitchen, pausing only long enough in the little bathroom to wash her hands and face in the warm water that Jenny had brought up and left there, clean her teeth, and give her hair a quick brushing. I almost wish snoods were fashionable again, as they were ages ago, she thought, pulling the brush through the thick locks, with impatient tugs. Then I could bundle my hair up into the net and be done with it for the day. Sometimes I think I ought to just cut it all off.

But if she did that, Uncle Sebastian would never forgive her.

Or he’d make me wear horrid, itchy wigs. He already did that now and again, and the things made her skin crawl. Bad enough to be wearing someone else’s hair, but she could never quite rid herself of the thought that insects would find the wigs a very cozy home. It was horrible, sitting there posing, sure that any moment something would creep out of the wig and onto her face!

She ran down the stairs to the kitchen, wanting to be there when everyone else came down. If anyone else had awakened with a fright or even an uneasy stirring in the night, they’d be sure to talk about it. In a household full of magicians, night-frights were no laughing matter.

The problem was, of course, that she didn’t have enough experience to tell a simple nightmare from a real warning. And with all the praises being heaped on her for her current progress with Elizabeth, she was rather loath to appear to be frightened by a silly dream.

And it wasn’t as if there had actually been anything menacing her, either! Just a vague feeling that there was something out there, some sinister hunter, and she was its prey. Now how could she ever explain an hysterical reaction to something as minor as that?

“Good morning, Sarah!” she called as she flew in at the kitchen door, relieved to see that she was the first down. She wouldn’t have missed anything, then.

“Morning to you, miss,” the cook replied, after a surprised glance. “Early, ain’t you?”

“Cocky-locky was crowing right outside my window,” Marina replied, taking the seat nearest the stove, the perquisite of the first down. Even in high summer, that was the favored seat, for whoever sat there got the first of everything from Sarah’s skillets. “I know he’s Aunt’s favorite rooster, but there are limits!”

“I’ll tell Jenny not to let them out until you’ve all come down of a morning,” Sarah replied with a chuckle. “She won’t mind, and it don’t take but a minute to take down the door. She can do ‘t when she’s done with fetchin’ water upstairs.”

She handed Marina a blue-rimmed pottery bowl full of hot oat porridge, which Marina regarded with resignation, then garnished with sugar and cream and dug into so as to get rid of it as soon as possible. Sarah had fed her a bowl of oat porridge every cold morning of her life, standing over her and not serving her anything else until she finished it, and there was no point in arguing with her that she never made the uncles eat oat porridge first. She would only respond that Aunt Margherita ate it, and what was good enough for her lovely aunt was good enough for her. Never mind that Aunt Margherita actually liked oat porridge.

For that matter, so did the uncles. They just never were made to finish a huge bowlful before getting served Sarah’s delectable eggs fried in the bacon fat, her fried kidneys, sliced potatoes, her home-cured bacon, country ham, and home-made sausages. Not to mention her lovely thick toast, cut from yesterday’s loaf, which somehow was always golden, warm enough to melt the butter, and never burned—

—though Marina had long suspected the touch of one of Uncle Sebastian’s Salamanders for that particular boon.

Or scones, left over from tea or made fresh that morning, with jam and butter or clotted cream. Or cake, or pie. That oat porridge left very little internal room for all the good things that bedecked the breakfast table.

No, the uncles got a much smaller bowl, and unless Sarah was running behind, they got it along with the rest of their breakfast. Sarah never scolded them if they left some of it in the bottom of the bowl.

Such were the trials of having the same person serve as cook and nursery-maid, she supposed, trying not to think about the porridge she was eating. It wasn’t so much the flavor, which reminded her strongly of the taste of iron but could be disguised with cream and sugar. It was the texture.

By the time she had only half finished her bowl, she heard a clatter of footsteps on the stair, and the rest of the household came down in a clump, trailed by Jenny carrying the last of the hot water cans. Properly dressed for the day, too—a cold morning didn’t encourage lounging about in one’s dressing gown!

“Well, finally, a sunny morning!” Elizabeth was saying as they came into the kitchen. “Good morning, Sarah.”

“Morning, ma’am. ‘Twon’t last,” Sarah predicted.

“Oh, try not to burst my illusions too quickly, will you?” Elizabeth laughed. “After all, I’ll be leaving in a week or so, can’t I at least hope that I won’t have to depart in a downpour?”

Sarah turned from the stove, spatula in hand. “Oh, ma’am, are you going that soon?” she asked, looking stricken. “But you haven’t heard half the things the village folk have dug up—and—you! haven’t even had a taste of one of my mince pies—and—”

“Sarah, I’m only going away over the holidays! I’ll be back just after Twelfth Night!” Elizabeth exclaimed, though she looked pleased at Sarah’s reaction. “I had no idea that I was anything but an additional burden to your duties.”

“Burden? Oh, ma’am, what’s one more at table? ‘tis been like having another in the family here.” Sarah tenderly forked bacon and sausage onto Elizabeth’s plate, giving her so much that Elizabeth transferred half of it to Marina when Sarah’s back was turned. Marina ate it quickly before Sarah could notice that she hadn’t finished her porridge.

“Well, Sarah’s right about that,” Sebastian said, with a wink for his wife. “Though I must say it’s ruined every one of the arguments we’ve had since she’s been here.”

“Oh? In what way has my presence interfered, pray?” Elizabeth responded, with a toss of her head. “Other than that the sheer weight of my intellect overpowers you light-minded painterly types?”

“Well, when it comes to a division between the sexes, it used to come out a draw, and Margherita and Marina had to compromise,” Sebastian pointed out, sounding for all the world as if it was the two females of the household who were unreasonable when it came to sitting down for negotiations. “Now there’s the three of you, and you run right over the top of us poor befuddled males.”

“If you’d learn to listen to reason, you wouldn’t be befuddled or find yourself in need of making compromises,” Elizabeth retorted. “Seeing as we are the ones who generally propose compromise in the first place, which you gentlemen seem to regard with the same attitude as a bull with a red rag.”

Somehow, within three sentences of that challenge, the conversation managed to come round to a spirited discussion of votes, university degrees, and equal responsibilities for women.

Marina listened, slowly munching her way through her breakfast, and began to see an interesting and quite logical explanation for the dream of last night.

It had to be a dream; none of the others had mentioned any unease at all, and they surely would. Even if they were cautious about speaking of magic in front of Sarah and Jenny, there were ways of saying things without actually saying them that amounted to a second language among the five of them.

No, it must have been a dream, and now Marina had a good idea of where it had come from.

She hadn’t thought about it much, but she had known for the last several days that Elizabeth’s return to her family was coming up shortly. How could she not be anxious about that, even though she knew that Elizabeth was going to come back? Her teacher was going to be gone, and not only was she not going to be getting new lessons in Water Magic, but if anything somehow went seriously wrong in her practicing, there would be no one in the household technically capable of putting it right again. The best they could do would be for Sebastian, the antagonistic Element, to put the whole mess down with sheer, brute force.

That could be very bad over the long run. The Elementals might take offense, and she’d be weeks in placating them.