Haunt Me Still by Jennifer Lee Carrell & Jennifer Lee Carrell

Author:Jennifer Lee Carrell & Jennifer Lee Carrell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dutton Adult
Published: 2010-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Up in my room, I put Aubrey’s notes in Lady Nairn’s hand. As she read, Eircheard looking over her shoulder, I grabbed some jeans, a black turtleneck, and black Skechers and went into the bathroom to change. I looked longingly at the shower but didn’t dare take the time, settling for scrubbing my face and arms in the sink.

Walking back out, I set out on the desk Lady Nairn’s other evidence: the Xeroxed entry in the household account book, dated 1589, and the letter from Ellen Terry to her mysterious Superman, dated 1911.

Lady Nairn set the Aubrey down. “Where did you get this?”

“Ben found it on Auld Callie.”

She looked up sharply. “It was left there on purpose? for you to find it?”

“I can only assume so. Could it be what Sir Angus found?” I asked.

“Possibly.” Her eyes were shining. “It backs the family legends.”

I nodded. “It also links Shakespeare to Dee. To conjuring—to ceremonial magic—as much as to witchcraft.” Quickly, I told her what I’d worked out the night before on the subject of Macbeth conjuring for the sake of knowledge.

“I’m no expert on Dee,” she said with a frown. “If that’s the direction things are going, we’ll have to consult Joanna Black, down in London.”

I’d heard of Joanna—had been told I ought to meet her for years, actually. She, too, had left academia for practice. But where my study had been renaissance drama, chiefly Shakespeare, hers had been renaissance magic. She had a D.Phil. From Oxford in the history of religion and science. I’d headed into the public world of theater; she’d headed into the reclusive world of magic and the exclusive world of occult collectors. I knew where her shop was, but that was about it; I’d never met her.

“I’ve never met her in person myself,” said Lady Nairn. “But she’s quite lovely on the phone and in e-mail, and that’s all we’d need.”

“Bollocks!” said Eircheard, looking up from the desk. “What matters right now isn’t who made Shakespeare change the sodding play or why. What matters is where it got to, so we know where Kate needs to go. And Dee’s got bog-all to do with that. The last known whereabouts of anything useful have to do with Ellen Terry’s Monsieur Superbe Homme. Who is he, do you suppose?”

Lady Nairn shook her head. “Look,” I said, skimming through Terry’s letter with one finger to point at the last line: As it is, I am hoping that you can glimpse the Forest through the Trees. “And then here,” I said, sliding over to the Aubrey, to Beerbohm’s cartoon of Shakespeare brandishing a leafy branch at Macbeth, with its caption of a loosely scribbled line from Macbeth: Who can impress the Forrest, bid the Tree unfix his earth-bound root?

“It’s got to have something to do with that goddamn tree,” I said.

“Superbe homme,” murmured Eircheard. “Sous pear bum. Under the pear-shaped arse.”

“Focus,” I said shortly. “Both Terry and Beerbohm yammering on about forests and trees can’t be a coincidence. Especially in light of Sir Angus’s last words.

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