Emma sighed. “No. She doesn’t talk much at all. She mostly dreams. Maybe nobody wants Miranda Beryl here. Nobody wants any changes.”
They ate bread and curds and a spicy beef sausage someone had given Hesper in payment. Then Emma took off her shoes and stockings, tucked up her skirt, and helped her mother clear the garden for cabbages, carrots, spinach, beans, and radishes. Hesper had already weeded the herb garden; scents of rosemary and sage teased Emma’s nose as she worked.
“You should walk into town,” Hesper protested as the sun, going its way, began to shift the patterns of tree shadows around them into the garden. “Breathe the sea air, see some younger faces.”
“Right now I’m doing this,” Emma answered, attacking a prodigious burdock root with satisfaction. “I’m seeing you.”
Later, when they had downed tools, washed off the dirt, and perched themselves on a sunlit log for cups of mint tea and a bowl of wild strawberries, Emma asked her mother, “Why did you leave Aislinn House if you were only going to sit in the tree house thinking about it? There, you could just open a door and see more pieces of the mystery.”
Hesper shook her head. Her thick, springy hair had collected an assortment of petals, twigs, a couple of insects trying to find their way out, sprigs of herbs she had tucked behind her ear for later. One of the insects, a tiny red beetle, flew away at the movement; Emma reached out and brushed the spider off.
“I never saw like you did. I caught glimpses of a great many people doing incomprehensible things. Some of them made me uneasy. The knights fully armed. That great pack of crows flying rings around the tower. Once when I opened the stillroom pantry, I thought they would come streaming through the doorway after me. I couldn’t say for certain that anyone even saw me. Except the crows. Maybe it’s a rare thing in her world that your friend Ysabo sees you as clearly as you see her. I left Aislinn House because I wanted more time of my own to find out about it. And because—” She smiled, tilting her face into the light. “I like being outdoors. I guessed that people would come seeking my remedies no matter where I kept myself. And out here, I can go barefoot.”
Emma stayed for supper, which was great fat dried mushrooms plumped up with water and fried in butter, a salad of dandelion and violet leaves, and the curly tips of ferns, fish from the market her mother had smoked, and ale—another payment. Emma, a bit sore from her exertions and pleasantly relaxed from the ale, heard the bell on her way through the woods. The light faded around her. The trees thinned, opened to reveal the unkempt hedges and overrun gardens of Aislinn House, all but lost in wildness.
She went in the way she had left, through the boot room. She took the back stairs to her room to rebraid her hair and change her shoes before she went down to the kitchen for gossip and to see if anyone noticed she had gone.
Mrs. Blakeley found her in the hallway between the stairs and the kitchen. “Emma!” she exclaimed. “Where have you been? We looked everywhere for you.”
“Why?” Emma asked quickly, searching the housekeeper’s face. Her normal pallor was blotchy with color; her eyes, usually weary and preoccupied, looked wide and a bit stunned. There was no sign of tears; Lady Eglantyne must still be alive. “I took my half-day. I went to see my mother.”
“Oh, if only the gentlemen had come earlier; you could have taken them with you.”
“What gentlemen?”
“You might have told us, Emma. Well. At least they came in time for the letter.”
“What letter?”
“It’s down in the kitchen. Mr. Fitch was reading it to Mrs. Haw. She kept something warm for you. Oh, Emma.” She pressed her fingers against the ancient black fabric over her bosom. “We have so much to do.”
“She’s coming?” Emma breathed, her skin prickling oddly.
“Miss Miranda Beryl, and her maids, household staff, friends, carriages, horses, stablers—I don’t remember who all. Fortunately, we were able to warn Mr. Cauley. Come down, read the letter yourself. You’ll see what we need to think about.”
She hurried Emma downstairs. Fitch was writing a list, while Mrs. Haw, involved in a seemingly endless comment about life that was interspersed with items to be purchased, broke off mid-mutton at the sight of Emma.
“Oh, there you are,” she said tremulously. “We thought you’d run off and left us to ourselves with all this.”
Emma pulled out a chair, sat down. “All what?” she asked Fitch. He pushed the letter across the table, looking more alert than he’d been in years at the prospect of company. Even the tufts of hair above his ears seemed glossier.
“Lady Eglantyne’s heir will be here in two days,” he told her. “We must prepare the house.”
“Two days!” She stared at him incredulously, then ran her eyes quickly over the letter, which was mauve, lightly scented, and in clear, quite elegant handwriting. She stared again at the butler, and whispered in horror, “Oh, Mr. Fitch.”
“Now, don’t panic. Once the lady is here, we’ll have plenty of staff to help us.”
“Help themselves to our jobs, more likely,” Mrs. Haw muttered.
“An undercook, three kitchen maids, two housemaids, stablers—”
“What about the stable roof? It’s all but fallen in. And the bedrooms haven’t been dusted for decades. And where will we put everyone?”
“We can only do what we can, Emma,” Fitch said firmly. “The lady will have to understand that. And since Judd Cauley from the inn was here when the letter came, we were able to show him Miss Beryl’s request that he ready rooms at the inn for friends and staff we might not be able to accommodate.”
“I see,” Emma said. Her voice still shook, but it was regaining strength. She rubbed her face with chilly fingers, trying to grasp an elusive thread of thought. “Judd Cauley.” She found it finally. “Why was Mr. Cauley here at all?”
“He and his friend came to see you,” Mrs. Blakeley answered.
“Me!”
“Well, your mother, actually. But they stopped here to ask you for directions. We couldn’t find you.”
“I was there, helping her with her garden,” Emma said dazedly. She looked at Mrs. Blakeley. “His friend?”
“Mr. Ridley Dow.” To Emma’s astonishment, the housekeeper came within memory of a smile. “Quite a handsome, nicely spoken young man he is, too. From Landringham, and staying at the inn as well.”
“But what did they want with my mother?”
“Who knows? An herb, an ointment, something for the horses—They were quite disappointed that we couldn’t find you. Mr. Dow was all for wandering about in the woods on the chance they might run across the tree house. But then we showed Mr. Cauley the letter, and he said he had to get back and put his own house in order.”
“The harbor inn is much closer to Aislinn House than his inn,” Emma said practically.
“Judd Cauley pointed that out, too,” Fitch said, “to his credit. The staff might be moved there later. But according to her letter, Miss Beryl preferred the inn on the cliff with the magnificent view for her friends. One of them must have known about it, I would guess. Mr. Cauley seemed a bit panicky himself when he left.”
“He at least has a working stable. What has he to panic about?” Mrs. Blakeley demanded.
“His cook,” Mrs. Haw said pithily, rapping a stirring spoon against the stew pot on the stove. “One night of her, and they’ll all be moving to the harbor. Are you hungry, Emma?”
“I ate with my mother, thank you, Mrs. Haw.”
“Nettles and bark, no doubt.”
“Close,” Emma agreed. She was silent, still wondering what a Mr. Ridley Dow from the great city of Landringham, in which presumably one could find everything in the world, would want with a wood witch in Sealey Head who lived in a tree. “They didn’t give any reason at all for wanting to see my mother? If it was urgent, she could go to them.”
Fitch shook his head slightly. “Not urgent, no.” But he seemed slightly puzzled. “Mrs. Blakeley offered to open up the old stillroom for Mr. Dow, let him look for what he needed there. He wasn’t interested. He did ask an odd question. But maybe it only seemed odd because he’s a visitor and we’re used to it.”
“Used to what?” Emma asked.
