the attic, or an amulet, or the green eye of the little yellow god, or—what about that chest? It must be in there—whatever it is.”
“Too obvious.”
“Well, we ought to look. The key should be around somewhere.”
An arrested expression appeared on Fern’s face. “I don’t know if it’s relevant,” she said slowly, “but Mrs. Wicklow said there was a woman here asking about keys, before Great-Cousin Ned died. She was in the antiques business.”
“She must have known about the chest.”
“How?”
They spent the morning rooting among the jumble in the attic, finding neither talisman nor key but an assortment of items which Will at least considered promising, including an evil-looking curved knife, a devil-mask which was probably African, a hookah happily empty of opium, and an antiquated map of the Indian subcontinent with elephants, tigers, maharajahs, and palaces drawn in where appropriate. Also a great deal of dust and several spiders, the largest and leggiest of which sent Fern into retreat, claiming it was time she checked out the study. Unfortunately, the most interesting feature of Ned Capel’s sanctum was a mahogany writing desk the top of which proved to be locked and, like the chest, key-less. “Damn,” said Fern, who had been brought up to moderate her language. “I bet all the keys are in one place. The question is where.” Her sweatshirt, she noticed, had acquired several dust-smears as a result of her foraging, and she went to her room to change it. She had no intention of returning to the attic that day.
A routine glance out of the window showed her a sky of gunmetal gray and rain blowing in waves across the bleak landscape. Her gaze shifted—then switched back again. Seconds later she was running down the stairs, kicking off her sandals at the bottom with uncharacteristic carelessness. In the hall, she plunged her feet into an old pair of galoshes, snatched Robin’s Barbour from the peg, and crammed on her head a shapeless waterproof hat which had formerly belonged to Ned Capel. Then she ran out of the back door and through the garden to the gate. The latch was stiff from infrequent use and the wood had swollen in the wet: it took a hard thrust of her shoulder to open it. The oversized boots slopped around her feet as she scrambled up the path. The wind swept across the hillside unhindered. And then she was standing in front of him with the water dripping off her hat-brim and her unfastened jacket letting the rain soak through her sweatshirt. He no longer resembled a boulder, though there was something rock-like about his absolute stillness and the patience it implied. He wore a loose, bulky garment with a pointed hood overhanging his face: the material was heavy and laminated with long weathering, its brindled hues at once earth-colored and stone-colored, moss-patched and grass-grimed. Under the hood she saw a countenance as battered as the coat, with sparse flesh on strong bones and wind-worn, sun-leathered skin gathered into wrinkles about the mouth and eyes, some of them for laughter, some for thought, many for grimness and sorrow. But it was the eyes themselves which held her: they were green and gold and brown like a woodland spring and they sparkled brighter than the rain, so bright that they seemed to pierce the walls of her mind and see into her very soul. And after the first shocked recoil her soul opened in response, and her life changed forever. It was as if the personality she had made for herself, matter-of-fact, positive, conscientiously hidebound, began to peel away like a chrysalis and a different Fernanda, wet-winged and shy, poked a tentative antenna into the unfamiliar air. In that moment she realized that she did not know herself, she never had, and all her certainties had been merely the pretense of a child afraid of maturity; but ignorance did not frighten her now, for
he
knew who she was, and what she was, and in that knowing she could be at ease. She said
“Too obvious.”
“Well, we ought to look. The key should be around somewhere.”
An arrested expression appeared on Fern’s face. “I don’t know if it’s relevant,” she said slowly, “but Mrs. Wicklow said there was a woman here asking about keys, before Great-Cousin Ned died. She was in the antiques business.”
“She must have known about the chest.”
“How?”
They spent the morning rooting among the jumble in the attic, finding neither talisman nor key but an assortment of items which Will at least considered promising, including an evil-looking curved knife, a devil-mask which was probably African, a hookah happily empty of opium, and an antiquated map of the Indian subcontinent with elephants, tigers, maharajahs, and palaces drawn in where appropriate. Also a great deal of dust and several spiders, the largest and leggiest of which sent Fern into retreat, claiming it was time she checked out the study. Unfortunately, the most interesting feature of Ned Capel’s sanctum was a mahogany writing desk the top of which proved to be locked and, like the chest, key-less. “Damn,” said Fern, who had been brought up to moderate her language. “I bet all the keys are in one place. The question is where.” Her sweatshirt, she noticed, had acquired several dust-smears as a result of her foraging, and she went to her room to change it. She had no intention of returning to the attic that day.
A routine glance out of the window showed her a sky of gunmetal gray and rain blowing in waves across the bleak landscape. Her gaze shifted—then switched back again. Seconds later she was running down the stairs, kicking off her sandals at the bottom with uncharacteristic carelessness. In the hall, she plunged her feet into an old pair of galoshes, snatched Robin’s Barbour from the peg, and crammed on her head a shapeless waterproof hat which had formerly belonged to Ned Capel. Then she ran out of the back door and through the garden to the gate. The latch was stiff from infrequent use and the wood had swollen in the wet: it took a hard thrust of her shoulder to open it. The oversized boots slopped around her feet as she scrambled up the path. The wind swept across the hillside unhindered. And then she was standing in front of him with the water dripping off her hat-brim and her unfastened jacket letting the rain soak through her sweatshirt. He no longer resembled a boulder, though there was something rock-like about his absolute stillness and the patience it implied. He wore a loose, bulky garment with a pointed hood overhanging his face: the material was heavy and laminated with long weathering, its brindled hues at once earth-colored and stone-colored, moss-patched and grass-grimed. Under the hood she saw a countenance as battered as the coat, with sparse flesh on strong bones and wind-worn, sun-leathered skin gathered into wrinkles about the mouth and eyes, some of them for laughter, some for thought, many for grimness and sorrow. But it was the eyes themselves which held her: they were green and gold and brown like a woodland spring and they sparkled brighter than the rain, so bright that they seemed to pierce the walls of her mind and see into her very soul. And after the first shocked recoil her soul opened in response, and her life changed forever. It was as if the personality she had made for herself, matter-of-fact, positive, conscientiously hidebound, began to peel away like a chrysalis and a different Fernanda, wet-winged and shy, poked a tentative antenna into the unfamiliar air. In that moment she realized that she did not know herself, she never had, and all her certainties had been merely the pretense of a child afraid of maturity; but ignorance did not frighten her now, for
he
knew who she was, and what she was, and in that knowing she could be at ease. She said
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