Page 71 of The Heart and the Hawthorn

Dian shuddered. ‘Yes,’ they squeaked.

‘Can you move?’

‘I can,’ shooting her a look that was beyond brave.

Frida didn’t want to think about the fresh wave of feelings this evoked. About the way it made her core throb, and her breasts feel heavy. Sea and skies, she thought despairingly. She needed Mr Botherington here to give her a stern talking to. Telling herself this was not the time, she braced herself.

‘So, we go on three?’

Dian bared their teeth. ‘We go on three.’

‘One,’ Frida said with a thundering heart.

‘Two,’ Dian whispered.

‘Three!’

Chapter Forty

They slipped out from behind the shelves and into the bustle of the kitchens. So many humans, so many creatures, so much of everything! If Dian hadn’t been having a much worse time of it, Frida would have put her hands over her ears and wept. There were cooks yelling at each other, kitchen maids yelling at scullery maids, butlers yelling at footmen. There were the dogs, all scent and memory and past and future, the deadpan wit of cats, making jokes about the dogs, the poetic rats in the walls, the highly-strung mice underfoot, the flies buzzing, moths circling, beetles scuttling, countless voices speaking of moonlight, arousal, death, hunger, apathy, passion, pain. Frida nearly got decapitated when a man brandished a meat cleaver too close to her neck. It was only Dian who saved her ears from ending up in the soup.

It was impossible to concentrate. Everything was so dreamy, and somehow so much sharper. Whether it was Dian’s magic, the stress, the effects of the fairy pool – she didn’t know, but she could positively feel, with each new furred, clawed, winged voice she encountered, the exhilarating, shocking sense of her brain expanding. It was like a fantasy, thinking that she could dare to listen to such things, to such languages, such worlds. She couldn’t, shouldn’t, be allowed to hear these things.

It felt like they were moving at a snail’s pace and she tried to ground herself, but her brain was skittering over the calm stillness of the fairy pool, the feeling of flying through the air with Lucky, the wind in her ears. She kept seeing out of the corner of her eye the way Dian sparkled like a flame, and the way her own skin seemed to light up in answer. She kept re-hearing the radio hum of the horses, remembering the violet fire that Dian had sworn burned in her eyes.

It wasn’t until they’d had to drop to the ground and crawl, inch by desperate inch, beneath one of the tables and a disgruntled cat gave her such a hard swipe, he almost took out her right eye, that she began to pull it together. Finally remembering her rosewood box, she scrunched up her face and – as she crawled – tried to imagine the magic blazing through her, taking it strand by strand, and slipping it inside the box. Although it screamed at her in protest, and something in her heart faltered at what she was doing, it went, bit by bit. And miraculously, after that, although she was wrung out and panting, the voices and the panic quietened.

Dian gazed down at her, hidden in the shadow of the long table, their eyes swollen. As if they knew she’d done something, as if they could feel the difference, but didn’t know what. They opened their mouth as if to ask, slowly reaching out a finger and wiping a drop of blood from her cheek where the cat had swiped. In the end, they just mouthed, ‘Are you ok?’

Frida nodded, shuddering. Although she wasn’t sure about the answer.

They continued.

They hugged walls. They crawled under more tables. They picked their way painfully slowly over the languorous bodies of flea-ridden dogs. She guessed from Moth’s silence, he was somewhere on Dian’s person, weaving tirelessly, doing his part to keep the magic going. When they eventually emerged into a relatively empty corridor on what Frida thought was the north side of the kitchens, they both sagged with relief against the white-washed wall, the curved edges of the raindrops refracting off the lights of the candles. Sweat beaded at Dian’s temples, wisps of ivy-coloured curls sticking to their forehead.

‘Seas, Frida. Is this human life?’

Frida felt shell shocked. ‘No, not usually!’ Then she screwed up her nose, thinking about the morning rush at the LEZ’s Extraordinary Pancake Booth, and she finished ruefully, ‘Well, maybe sometimes.’

Dian looked flummoxed.

Frida might have tried to defend all the wonderous things about being human, but the words stuck in her throat. All that came out was, ‘We should keep going.’

So they picked up their pace, hurrying on as the noise of the people faded. They passed a sewing room, a few storerooms, a room with nothing but rows and rows of boots in it. Frida was re-finding her bearings. Apart from the clothing, the conspicuous lack of plastic, and the overpowering stench of cooked meat, soot and something bitter like burnt oil – the National Trust had done a pretty good restoration job. She’d have to send someone a congratulatory letter when she got home.

If she got home.

Each glance at Dian reminded her why they were here. They looked like a rookie keeper who’d just had their first introduction to the meat freezers. She squeezed their hand.

‘You’re doing amazing,’ she whispered.

Dian shuddered dramatically but managed a ghost of a smile in her direction as they squeezed her hand in answer. They’d just slipped past another storeroom, and it was getting busier again. From a nook behind the service stairs, they watched the throng of footmen and butlers wordlessly. Oak-green livery, powdered wigs and white gloves, polished shoes and sleek gold buttons. A parade of wines, champagnes, silver platters of steaming food conjured from the kitchens. It seemed endless and Frida’s mouth watered. She’d survived on a handful of apples across what amounted to two centuries, and the longing for what was beneath those silver cloches made her feel faint. Even though she hadn’t eaten meat since she’d seen her first LEZ freezer, if someone offered her a full roast partridge right now, she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to say no. Although, the idea of the partridge lifting his or her head and speaking to her . . . suddenly, she thought she would, actually, be able to say no quite easily, thank you.

Moth, from the safety of Dian’s throat, was still watching the footmen. ‘We do not have to go that way, do we? That is many, many humans.’

Dian just turned to Frida, their eyes holding hers. It’s your call, they seemed to say.

Their faith in her blew her away.