Rory, the Sleeper by A. W. Exley

Author:A. W. Exley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ribbonwood Press

13

Ella

Weaving together the web

* * *

Lieutenant Bain excused himself to help Charlotte with the washing up. He stacked the laden trays and left the library humming “It's a long way to Tipperary,” and I briefly wondered if he was thinking of the sweetest girl he knew. As the library door snicked shut, my mind returned to the issue of witches. I digested the new information and then grasped a tenuous strand of spun silk. The web began to make a pattern I could discern, and this particular fibre could hold the missing patch in a larger question.

I turned to Reverend Mason, the idea still spinning in my head. "Are you able to trace genealogies?"

His eyes lit up and he rubbed his hands together. "Of course. Nothing the clergy likes better than to keep records of births, marriages and deaths. Or hatched, matched, and dispatched, as we say. What did you have in mind?"

"Sarah Wynn and Anne Oakley, can you trace their maternal lines to the current generation?" A persistent niggle in my mind refused to go away. How did Elizabeth know about Millicent? I no longer believed in coincidences, and Mr Mason's talk of the region always having a historian triggered a childhood memory. I would curl up in my mother's lap as she told me stories of her mother and grandmother before her. What if Elizabeth learned of Millicent in the same way, as oral family history passed down mother to daughter?

A shiver ran down my spine. If that were the case, then events had been set in motion years ago, long before the Great War ended and the Grim War began. Step-mother's plan might have involved more than nabbing a duke for Louise. What if she arranged events to unite the bloodlines of two witches, or bring back Millicent herself? Which then left the question of the third witch and her descendants.

The reverend ran a hand over a clean-shaven chin. "It will take me a few days to comb through the records, but I shall make it a priority."

Small things delighted me, like seeing him take a care in his appearance again. He was a learned man and we needed his counsel. His knowledge was no longer locked away in a traumatised mind.

"Thank you. We still have the mystery of the missing Millicent. Why would her coffin contain a sack of stones?" Each day I stood a little steadier on my feet in my role of civilian adviser to the War Office. I learned from Seth's example and began to delegate the raft of tasks before me. There came a point where you had to trust the people around you.

I looked to Seth, hoping he could supply the missing answers about the duchess. It was his family; perhaps this skeleton was literally stuffed in a closet in the stately home.

He stretched an arm out along the sofa behind me, and his fingers drummed on the jacquard upholstery. I wanted to curl into his warmth as he spoke, but that wouldn't be appropriate in the reverend's study.

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