Eskell Manor

Sunlight flickered on the edge of the lake, dazzling Elvie’s eye. Chess lay beside her on the blanket, her breath coming in soft snores. She guessed it had been a late night at the tavern. Her brother Micah had come home at dawn. He woke her up when he knocked over the coat stand by the front door. The bump of Chess’s belly was strange to look at, not small anymore, but there were still so many months till she was due. It would be a winter baby, but only just. Elvie flicked through the thin pages of the Royal Alchemist Society’s monthly newsletter. It wasn’t hers. Georgie had convinced Lord Warren to get a subscription years ago. She always made the pretense of reading it before she gave it to Elvie. 

“Was it in there?” Georgie sat on the blanket beside her.

Her feet were wet from where she’d been paddling in the river.

“Oh yes, I’m so dreadfully clever I read the whole thing in the three minutes since you gave it to me,” Elvie said.

Georgie stuck out her tongue. “Don’t be concerted.”

Elvie squinted at her, shading her eyes from the sun so she could look at her. “That’s not the word you think it is. You mean conceited.”

Georgie frowned. “That’s not how it’s pronounced. The ’I’ is silent.”

A blush stung Elvie’s cheeks as she reconsidered her tone, glancing down at the newsletter. “I’ve only ever seen it written.”

“Well then.” Georgie tilted her chin. “Who’s the dreadfully clever one now?”

“I don’t know what either of those words means.” Chess muttered, her eyes still squeezed closed. “But I don’t know why it matters? I think you both know what the other is saying. You’re each just trying to prove you’re the cleverest.”

“And with a few cutting sentences, you just proved yourself the cleverest of all of us,” Georgie said, a smile on her lips.

“You’re right,” Elvie agreed. “I am thoroughly ashamed.”

“As you should be,” Chess rolled onto one side, resting an elbow under her head, as she squinted at them. “Now that Georgie’s been for a paddle and you’re done with the boring pamphlet—”

“It’s not boring,” Elvie said, resting a hand over the newsletter, like she could protect it from Chess’s distaste.

“It’s mind numbing.” Georgie flicked her hair back behind her as she lay in the sun. “All those formulas and equations. I can never understand what fascinates you so much.”

“You should be under the parasol,” Elvie warned her. “Lord Warren will be mad at us if you come back looking like Luka.”

“Father can be mad,” Georgie said, rolling her eyes. “I don’t want to be some ghastly pale lady wandering the halls of the manor like a ghost.” She hesitated, glancing at Elvie. “Besides, Mira said I’d look better if I caught the sun.”

Elvie pursed her lips. She might have found a husband that year, but all the Lady Georgina Warren talked about was Thomas Wilmon’s sister.

“So it wasn’t there?” Georgie asked.

Elvie glanced away. It was stupid of her to have done it. But it had been so clear, the mistake in the formula, glaring at her out of the page, nagging at her every week, whilst the columnists professed the genius of Lord Hartfort, calling him the greatest mind of the century. But then no one liked a know-it-all, especially the editors of Royal Alchemist Society’s monthly newsletter.

“It wasn’t.” She hadn’t thought they would, but it still stung.

Georgie gave her a small smile. “I’m sure it will be in the next edition. We sent it late. If not, we could always send it again,” she shrugged. “You could even sign it this time.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Elvie glanced away. “They won’t even look at a letter from Elvie Tepell from Mooretown. They’ll put it straight in the rubbish.”

Georgie reached up, squeezing her elbow, and Elvie smiled back at her.

“Well, since we’ve established that the royal scientific establishment is too dense to appreciate Elvie’s genius,” Chess said, her eyes still closed. “Can we get back to the story? I want to know how Lady Flutterthorn is going to escape the evil Mage Crewley’s tower when her sweetheart is trapped in battle with the ArchDuke Withernast.”

“Don’t we all,” Elvie said, smiling as Chess pushed the book towards her.

It was a hardback, but that didn’t mean it was reputable. Georgie had convinced her father to buy all ten of Thomas Mark’s Lady Flutterhorn serial. They’d been working through them for the last year, volume by volume, and they’d made it up to book six. Lady Flutterhorn’s adventures in the Thracean Dead lands.

“No,” Georgie said. “I lost interest when she parted ways with the barbarian tribeswoman from Kelta.”

“I’m sure they’ll meet again,” Chess said.

Georgie shook her head, sighing as she glanced towards the river. “They never do.”

“Well, be that as it may,” Chess said, pushing the book towards Elvie with the tip of her finger. “Please read another chapter to us. I have to be back to the tavern soon but I want to know what happens. So does Luka.”

“Oh alright,” Elvie said, cracking the binding open to where she’d left the ribbon. “But don’t fall asleep this time.” She squinted, finding her place on the page. “Lady Flutterhorn was in a rather sorry state—”

“Why?” Chess asked. “They were having tea, weren’t they?”

Elvie frowned back at her. “That was pages ago, Chess. You said you weren’t sleeping.”

“I wasn’t. I’ve just forgotten,” she insisted. “Why don’t you read it again?”

She didn’t tell her to read it herself. Chess could total the coins in your hand with a glance, but she’d never learnt her letters. Elvie flicked back a few pages.

“Lady Flutterhorn took a sip of her tea,” Elvie read, finger tracing a line across the page. “She suspected that the Mage Crewley was a particularly poor gentleman, being that he served it with Yak’s milk and no butter biscuits. It would have been more to Sharpspeare’s taste. She missed the shield maiden’s stalwart companionship…”

“Me too,” Georgie sighed.

“Don’t interrupt,” Elvie said, glancing to Chess for support, to find that the other girl’s eyes were already closed. “Chess, really, are you asleep again?”

The late afternoon sun still warmed the cobblestones when Elvie returned from the Warren’s manor, crossing the Mooretown square. She’d already parted from Chess at the tavern as the woman readied to start another exhausting evening. The sign on the front said the Apothecary was closed. Elvie hesitated. It was too early to shut the shop. She slipped inside; the bell jingling as the door closed behind her.

The shop was empty; the candles burnt down till they flickered. Someone had drawn the curtains. Her eyes brushed over the shelves in disarray. Medicines knocked out of their stacking, some precious boxes spilled across the floor. The door behind the counter was open. No light came from the room behind it.

“Micah?” she called. “Are you here?” When no reply came, she called again. “Father?”

She should call for the watchman. It was too quiet in the Apothecary. Elvie felt cold, empty as she approached the door to the back room. There was a distant wave rising inside her, something too big for her to understand. She stilled at the sight of the liquid on the floor. A dark stream that trailed the edge of the skirting board. When she pushed the door wide, she found the source. For a moment Elvie stared. Taking in the room before her. The mess. The word painted across the wall in brightest red. ’Overdue.’ A pair of boots poked out from behind her father’s desk. Her father’s boots, toes pointed to the ceiling and his legs, up to the knee resting where the puddle of dark liquid was the deepest.

Elvie howled.