The Family Shame by Christopher Nuttall

Author:Christopher Nuttall
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2018-05-14T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-One

“So you had no trouble?” Callam asked, the following morning. “They’re not hosting another dinner party?”

I shrugged. “Apparently not,” I said. Morag had been in a grumpy mood all evening, stamping about like a bear with a horrible toothache, while Uncle Ira had been nowhere to be seen. “She was completely unconcerned about the prospect of me being late for dinner tonight.”

“Good,” Callam said, as we started to walk towards the river. “What did you tell her?”

“Just that I was planning to explore the northern edge of the grounds,” I said. “I thought I spotted some herbs last time we were there, so … well, it’s a good excuse to stay out for a long time.”

Callam grinned. “Are you planning to start your own herbal garden?”

“I might have to,” I said. “I still don’t understand why Uncle Ira never set one up himself.”

“Maybe he thought that growing herbs was women’s work,” Callam said. He jabbed a finger down the valley, towards Kirkhaven Town. “That’s what they think down there.”

“A Potions Master wouldn’t agree,” I said. “My father grows his own herbs.”

I smiled at the thought. Father had certainly supervised the family’s herbal garden, although he hadn’t had time to do all the work himself. Any Potions Master worthy of the title would certainly want to be sure his ingredients were grown, picked and stored properly, particularly the ones that exploded if you looked at them funny. But then, those ingredients were rarely grown anywhere near a house. No one in their right mind would try to raise dragons in Shallot.

Actually, no one in their right mind would try to raise dragons at all, I thought, as we reached the river and put on our wellies. They’re nasty beasts at the best of times.

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” Callam said. “Is there a reason there’s a gap in the wards here?”

I frowned. If Callam could sense the wards … did that mean he wasn’t a Zero? My heart started to sink, before I remembered that I’d certainly been able to hex Cat. Magic affected her, definitely. Callam might not have to be able to use magic to sense the wards and their effects.

“I’m not sure,” I said. Running water affected some kinds of magic, but I didn’t think that wards were amongst them. “The wardstones might have been improperly placed.”

We splashed our way onto the riverbank and took off our wellies. My trousers were damp, again, but it was warm enough that I didn’t feel like changing them. They’d dry before we reached the town. We concealed our wellies under a rock, then started to walk down the path. I couldn’t help feeling my heart lift as the sunlight grew brighter. The rain and fog seemed a very distant memory.

“It’s starting to look nice up here,” I said. “How long will it last?”

Callam laughed. “Just long enough to convince you to drop your guard,” he said. “The first year we were here, autumn was lovely. And then the snow fell so heavily that we almost starved to death.

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