beginnings of a magic headache coming on, and my shoulders started to hurt as well. I have always had weak wings, but they are adequate for simple travel. We landed at the palace only minutes behind my brothers and sisters, but we were already too late. The sleeping spell had begun.
There was a cook asleep with her hand raised to strike the scullery and she, poor little wench, had been struck by sleep instead. It had happened at the moment of her only retaliation against the cook, which she got by kicking the cook’s cat. The cat, unaware of the approaching kick, was snoring with one paw wrapped around a half-dead sleeping mouse.
Along the hall guards slept at their posts: one had been caught in the act of picking his teeth with his knife, one was peeling an orange with his sword, one was scraping his boot with his javelin tip, and one was picking his nose.
The guests, dressed in nightgowns and nightshirts, snored and shivered and twitched but did not wake. And in the midst of them all, lying in state, was Talia, presents piled at her feet. She blew delicate little bubbles between her partially opened lips, and under her closed eyelids I could see the rapid scuttling of dreams.
My brothers and sisters, immune to the spell, hovered above the scene nervously, except for Dusty who darted down to the bed every now and then to steal a kiss from the sleeping Talia. But, as he later admitted, she was so unresponsive, he soon wearied of the game.
“I am not a necrophile, after all,” he said petulantly, which was a funny thing for him to say since right before Talia, he had been in love with the ghost of a suicide who haunted the road at Miller’s Cross.
Mother put her fingers to her mouth and whistled them down.
Father announced, “Time for a family conference.”
We looked in every room in the castle, including the garde-robe, but there were sleepers in every one. So we met on the castle stairs.
“Well, what now?” asked Mother.
“It’s Gorse’s spell,” Dusty said, his mouth still wet from Talia’s bubbly kisses. He hovered, pouting, over the steps.
“Of course it is Gorse’s spell,” said Father, “but that does not mean it is Gorse’s fault. Don’t be angry, Dusty. Just shake out your pockets and sit down.”
Dusty did as he was told as Father’s voice was very firm and not to be argued with. As soon as the grains of pennyroyal had touched the ground, his mood lightened and he even sat next to me and held my hand.
In fact, we all held hands, that being the best way to augment a family conference. It aids the thinking, it generates energy, and it keeps one’s hands warm as well.
Mother looked up. “The knot,” she said. “We must remember the knot in the thread.”
Father nodded. “The Laws of Correspondence and Balance …” he mused.
And then I knew what to do, my reading in Logic having added texture to my spells. “There must be a similar knot about the palace,” I said. I let go of Dusty’s hand and stood, waving my hand widdershins. A great wind began to blow from the North. It picked up the pennyroyal, plucked seeds from the thorn, gathered wild rose pips and acorns and flung them into the air. Faster and faster the whirlwind blew, a great black tunnel of air.
Blow and sow
This fertile ground
Until the knot
Be all unwound,
I sang. One by one everyone joined me, Dusty immediately, then my other brothers and sisters, and at the last Father and finally Mother. We spoke the spell a hundred times for the hundred years and, in the end, only Mother and I had the voice for it. My voice was husky and rasping but Mother’s was low and there was a longing in it compounded of equal parts of wind and sea, for the Shouting Fey came originally from the Cornish coast, great-great-great-grandfather being a sea sprite with a roving sailor’s eye.
And then I dropped out of the spell with the worst headache imaginable and Mother ended it with a shout, the loudest I had ever heard her utter.
There was a cook asleep with her hand raised to strike the scullery and she, poor little wench, had been struck by sleep instead. It had happened at the moment of her only retaliation against the cook, which she got by kicking the cook’s cat. The cat, unaware of the approaching kick, was snoring with one paw wrapped around a half-dead sleeping mouse.
Along the hall guards slept at their posts: one had been caught in the act of picking his teeth with his knife, one was peeling an orange with his sword, one was scraping his boot with his javelin tip, and one was picking his nose.
The guests, dressed in nightgowns and nightshirts, snored and shivered and twitched but did not wake. And in the midst of them all, lying in state, was Talia, presents piled at her feet. She blew delicate little bubbles between her partially opened lips, and under her closed eyelids I could see the rapid scuttling of dreams.
My brothers and sisters, immune to the spell, hovered above the scene nervously, except for Dusty who darted down to the bed every now and then to steal a kiss from the sleeping Talia. But, as he later admitted, she was so unresponsive, he soon wearied of the game.
“I am not a necrophile, after all,” he said petulantly, which was a funny thing for him to say since right before Talia, he had been in love with the ghost of a suicide who haunted the road at Miller’s Cross.
Mother put her fingers to her mouth and whistled them down.
Father announced, “Time for a family conference.”
We looked in every room in the castle, including the garde-robe, but there were sleepers in every one. So we met on the castle stairs.
“Well, what now?” asked Mother.
“It’s Gorse’s spell,” Dusty said, his mouth still wet from Talia’s bubbly kisses. He hovered, pouting, over the steps.
“Of course it is Gorse’s spell,” said Father, “but that does not mean it is Gorse’s fault. Don’t be angry, Dusty. Just shake out your pockets and sit down.”
Dusty did as he was told as Father’s voice was very firm and not to be argued with. As soon as the grains of pennyroyal had touched the ground, his mood lightened and he even sat next to me and held my hand.
In fact, we all held hands, that being the best way to augment a family conference. It aids the thinking, it generates energy, and it keeps one’s hands warm as well.
Mother looked up. “The knot,” she said. “We must remember the knot in the thread.”
Father nodded. “The Laws of Correspondence and Balance …” he mused.
And then I knew what to do, my reading in Logic having added texture to my spells. “There must be a similar knot about the palace,” I said. I let go of Dusty’s hand and stood, waving my hand widdershins. A great wind began to blow from the North. It picked up the pennyroyal, plucked seeds from the thorn, gathered wild rose pips and acorns and flung them into the air. Faster and faster the whirlwind blew, a great black tunnel of air.
Blow and sow
This fertile ground
Until the knot
Be all unwound,
I sang. One by one everyone joined me, Dusty immediately, then my other brothers and sisters, and at the last Father and finally Mother. We spoke the spell a hundred times for the hundred years and, in the end, only Mother and I had the voice for it. My voice was husky and rasping but Mother’s was low and there was a longing in it compounded of equal parts of wind and sea, for the Shouting Fey came originally from the Cornish coast, great-great-great-grandfather being a sea sprite with a roving sailor’s eye.
And then I dropped out of the spell with the worst headache imaginable and Mother ended it with a shout, the loudest I had ever heard her utter.
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