“That’s brilliant!” He grinned from ear to ear. “I am going to be ever so grateful if you do.”
That turned the remainder of the conversation to the things he needed most commonly, as she made mental notes. Strangely, he seemed to require perfumes and essences quite a bit — he didn’t say why, though, and she didn’t ask.
They sat up long after the Spirit Elemental grew tired of waiting for them and cleared everything away as they sat there. And when she finally did go up to bed, she suddenly discovered it was so late that she was yawning — and she was so tired she let Sapphire help her out of that pretty gown and take down her hair without a protest.
And that night, at least, there were no nightmares.
10
THE STILLROOM WAS CLEAN, ORGANIZED AND ALL THE dried herbs either disposed of or properly stored and labeled. She had a list of things Sebastian wanted that she was slowly working through. She had her own list of things that were definitely needed, even if there were only three human beings living here, and another list of medications for horses, chickens, pigeons and rabbits. The stable cats were totally wild and absolutely uncatchable; she wasn’t even going to try to dose any of them for anything. Even half-dead they would probably lacerate her.
She had thought it odd at first when she inventoried the living creatures here that there were no dogs. After all, Eric was the Gamekeeper and Sebastian’s stories indicated that he liked to hunt. But then she had realized her mistake; of course there were no dogs. Dogs would not abide a werewolf. It was amazing that the horses would still carry Sebastian in his human state.
Now that she actually had something to do, she was able to keep up a relatively cheerful front. It was hard to look in on her father, easier to see that the servants continued to take assiduous care of him. She still had not dared to try to speak with the Godmother again. After all, the Godmother had several Kingdoms and a lot more pressing business to attend to other than whether or not one unimportant girl was feeling content or depressed. Finding out just what had caused Sebastian’s change in the first place, for instance.
Eric did not appear at all; she was not sure if this meant he was simply avoiding company, or he was somewhere else.
Sebastian’s researches were no further along, but she didn’t really expect them to be, now that she knew the complexity of the problem. Often enough he didn’t appear for dinner or supper; often when he did, he was absently polite, charming even, but it was clear that his mind was elsewhere.
But she had her herbs and her medicines, and she had Granny’s visit to look forward to. Granny had sent a scrawled message by means of Sebastian’s Air Elemental that she would come toward the full moon. That actually made Bella feel a bit better; it meant that Granny was probably working on her own answers to the problem, and was going to bring them in time for the first “moment of truth,” as it were.
She had just finished decanting a rather nice horse liniment into the waiting jars to cool when a tugging at her sleeve alerted her to the presence of one of the Spirit Elementals. When she glanced behind her, the blue ribbon told her that it was Sapphire and the bit of slate thrust at her told her that Sapphire had something urgent to say.
“Erk com,” the Elemental had written. Then the blue ribbon whisked out of the little room just as the sound of boots on stone warned that Eric was indeed coming.
His footstep was very much like his personality. He made no effort to be quiet, and every step was taken as if he was conquering the hallway a pace at a time. She wondered what on earth was bringing him up here in search of her.
He stopped at the doorway and looked around, his face blank with astonishment. “Well,” he said, after a moment. “You have been busy.”
The shock on his face made her laugh. “I’m not the sort to sit idle,” she retorted.
“But how — what — when I saw that the idiot servants were stuffing these rooms full of weeds, I was beginning to worry about a fire starting and I tried to get them to stop, but I couldn’t — ” He was actually stammering a little, so great was his surprise. “And when I tried to get them to clear it out, they ignored me.”
“I did it myself. I wouldn’t trust them with anything like this,” she told him, hands on her hips. “All I can guess is that when Sebastian ordered these creatures to continue to serve the Manor as the human servants had, it somehow told the ones that were supposed to tend to this part of the place that they should keep the stillroom stocked. But since they didn’t have the instructions to make anything, all they could do was to continue to dry and store the raw materials, the herbs and barks and roots and so forth. Some of those are dangerous, and I wouldn’t trust them with disposing of it.”
He scratched his head. “I guess I’m lucky they didn’t. For all I know, they would have put it on the fire in the kitchen and poisoned the food — ”
“Or left it with the fodder in the stable and poisoned the horses, yes,” she agreed. “But once they saw that I knew what I was doing, they left me alone. Now I can trust them to take what I’ve finished and put it in the proper place in the storeroom.”
He ventured into the stillroom and picked up a jar. “Liniment?” he said, reading her label. “Have you been reading my mind?” Then, unexpectedly, he grinned at her. “And don’t say, no, there’s not much there to read. I’ve heard that one before.”
He nodded, and sniffed the jar. “Wintergreen, peppermint, juniper, lavender. Balsam?”
“You have a keen nose.”
“Can you make a batch without the lavender?” he asked.
In answer, she handed him a jar from a previous batch, already labeled and waiting.
“Thanks.” He put the jar in a bag he had slung on his shoulder. “What I really came for was to ask if you were ready for a ride this afternoon. I found you that riding mule, and the sooner you get used to each other, the
