The Gates of Sleep

Marina was ill-educated, even backward, for her position in life. She had never gone to school, never had a proper nurse, nor a governess, nor tutors. She had never been exposed to the sort of society that her parents moved in. She was certainly ill-equipped to function in the social circles in which Arachne moved. That she didn’t particularly wish to function in that social strata was of no purpose—her inherited wealth and rank as a gentleman’s daughter would require her to do so. Anyone in authority would see Marina’s rebellion as a childish tantrum, the result of having been spoiled by her erstwhile guardians, a reaction to the discipline that she badly needed.

This could be in the manner of a test on Arachne’s part to see if she would behave herself when left on her own.

So instead of turning Brownie back out the gates and away, she guided the horse toward the stable and allowed the groom to help her down. As she expected, Mary Anne was waiting for her right inside the door.

“You need to change for tea, miss,” the maid said, with her usual authoritarian manner, quite as if nothing whatsoever had changed. But something had—Mary Anne no longer had the authority of her mistress to back her. And—perhaps—had not been given any directions.

So we will start with something simple, I think, as a test.

“Did Madam leave any orders about what my meal menus were to be?” she asked, in a calculated effort to catch the maid off guard. She tilted her head to the side and attempted to look cheerful and innocent—not confrontational. She did not want to confront Mary Anne, only confound her.

“Why—no—” Mary Anne stammered, caught precisely as Marina had hoped.

“Ah. Then before I change, I had better take care of that detail for the rest of the day, or the cook will never forgive me.” She smiled slightly, which seemed to put the maid more off balance than before. She detoured to the library, and quickly wrote out a menu for high tea, dinner, and for good measure, breakfast in the morning. And not trusting to Mary Anne, she took the menus to the cook herself, with the maid trailing along behind, for once completely at a loss. Only then did she permit the maid to bear her off to her room to be changed into a suitable gown. But Mary Anne was so rattled, she forgot completely to exchange the riding corset for a more restrictive garment, and the tea gown, designed to be comfortable and loose-fitting, went on over her petticoat and combinations without any corset at all. Marina was almost beside herself with pleasure by the time she sat down— in the empty parlor, of course—to the first truly satisfying meal that she had eaten since she arrived.

And thanks to her books and the other help she had been getting from Peter, despite Mary Anne’s glum supervision, she poured selected, and ate with absolute correctness. Good strong tea to begin with, not the colored water she had been drinking. And real food, with flavor to it. Oh, it was dainty stuff, for a lady, not the hearty teas of Blackbird Cottage—but it was such a difference from what she’d been having with Arachne.

It was probably exactly the same food that downstairs ate for their tea, just sliced and prepared to appear delicate—dainty little minced-ham, deviled shrimp, and cheese sandwiches; miniature sweet scones, clotted cream and jam; and the most amazing collection of wonderful little iced cakes and tartlets.

And those hadn’t been conjured up on the instant. But they certainly hadn’t been making appearances at the teas she had been having.

Arachne’s been eating on the sly, that’s what. She has that miserable excuse for tea with me, then goes off to her own sitting room and has a feast.

Well, Arachne wasn’t here to complain that her cakes were gone, and the cook could make more. Marina sipped her tea and nibbled decorously while she watched birds collecting the crumbs that the cook scattered for them in the snow-covered garden outside the parlor windows, ignoring the silent presence of Mary Anne. Left to herself, of course, it would have been a book by the fire, a plate of cakes, and a pot of tea—but she conducted herself as if she had company. There would be no lapses for Mary Anne to report; there was not a single scornful cough. At length, she rang for Peter to come take the trays away and Mary Anne went off to her own splendidly solitary tea while Marina remained in the library with a final cup of tea, a book, and the fire.

Dinner was delightful, though it required a change into corset and dinner gown. And Mary Anne was so rattled by then that she retired without even undressing her charge. Marina just rang for Sally to help her with the corset, then sent everyone away. So, attired in a warm and comfortable dressing gown and her favorite sheepskin slippers, she should have been ready to settle down beside the fire for a night of reading.

But two things stopped her. The first was that this absence gave her an unanticipated opportunity. She could write letters tonight without the fear that she would be caught at it. She sat down at her desk in her sitting room, and laid out paper, envelopes, and pen and ink—then stopped.

How to get them delivered? There was still that problem; she hadn’t had so much as a single penny of money since she arrived here, and she had the distinct feeling that if she asked for any, Arachne would ask her what she wanted it for, since all her wants and needs were supplied.

She chewed on her lower lip for a moment. There were probably stamps in Arachne’s desk and more in the one in the room used as an office for the estate manager.

But she counts them. I know she does. She’s the sort that would.

The same probably held true for the pin money kept in the desk in the estate office. Probably? No doubt; pin money would provide an even greater temptation to staff than stamps, and Arachne had no real hold of loyalty over most of the servants, as demonstrated by their quiet support of Marina, and there was no trust there. So, she probably counted it out three times a day; no use looking for postage money there.

But—I wonder—does it need to be by a physical letter?

Arachne was not here—and if ever there was a chance to contact Elizabeth by means of magic, this would be it—

For a moment, excitement rose in her—if she could call up an Undine or a Sylph, she could get messages to Elizabeth directly. Perhaps even within the hour!

But, suddenly, she knew, she knew, that was wrong. That if she tried, something horrible would happen. It was just like the night she thought she had dreamed, when the Sylph gave her that warning, when she had been so very frightened. If she used magic here even though Arachne was gone—it would be bad.

No. No.

A chill swept over her at the mere thought of invoking an Elemental here. She suddenly felt unseen eyes on her.

It might not be Arachne—it might be someone else entirely. But now that Marina was out of Blackbird Cottage, she was out from underneath protections that Thomas, Sebastian, and Margherita had spent decades building. It might only be that whoever or whatever was hunting for her now knew where she was and was watching her because she was living openly at Oakhurst, and with only the personal magical protections she herself had in place. Watching her—why? She was beginning to have an idea why Arachne might want to isolate her from all her former friends, but why would some stranger be watching her?

Well, that made no sense. Not that anything necessarily made obvious sense unless you had all the facts. Still, I cannot imagine why some stranger would wish to spy on me, much less wish me harm.

Ah, but thinking of Arachne, there might be another explanation for the feeling of an unseen watcher about. What if Madam is a magician after all? Just—not the kind of magician I know about?

She wondered. Elizabeth had told her to trust her instincts, and right now, those instincts warned her that she was not unobserved. If Arachne was a magician, Arachne would be able to tell if she worked magic. At the moment, the only magic that Marina was practicing was passive, defensive, protective; not only would it not draw attention to her, it was designed, intended, to take attention away from her.

She could have left something here as a sort of watchdog. And if I arouse the watchdog’s interest… she’ll find out what I was up to, and she’ll discipline me for it.

Arachne would only have to forbid the servants to give her access to riding to punish her, and it would be a terrible punishment from her point of view. And as to why Arachne might want to keep her away from all her former friends—that was simple enough—

Marina was not so naive as to think that Reggie was devoting so much of his time to her because she was