Prospero’s Children. Jan Siegel

noise had aroused her, a thunderclap maybe, spilling over from her dream; but the night outside was still. Then she heard the footsteps in the passage, light steady steps, moving towards the stair. There was no sniffing, nothing to suggest an unwanted visitor. She opened her door and looked out.

      It was Will. She called his name very softly, inherently cautious, but he did not respond: as he turned to descend the staircase she saw that his eyes were closed. Just after their mother’s death he had developed a tendency to sleep-walk, but it had not lasted long and she had believed he was permanently cured. She followed him, knowing he should not be woken, determined to steer him back to his bed as soon as she had the opportunity. At the first bend of the stair she halted. The hall below should have been in darkness, but a single shaft of light cut across it like a path, and Will moved along it as if drawn by a magnetic pull. The light was not the feeble glow of waning electricity: it was a pale cold brilliance, like concentrated moonlight, and it ran from the door of the drawing room to the stair’s foot, where it was abruptly cut off, though Fern could see nothing that might occlude its passage. Within the drawing room there were voices which she could not distinguish. She whispered Will but her vocal chords were numb and anyway, it was too late. He had already disappeared through the open door.

      She descended a few more steps, meticulously silent, circumspect beyond the reach of panic, though the panic was there inside her, tugging at her heart. But something deeper than instinct told her this was the moment, the borderline of danger: whatever was in that room was deadlier far than the night hunter who left no mark or the secrets of Alison’s personal sanctum. When she reached floor level she picked her way around the beam of light, letting not so much as a fingertip or a toe intrude on it. The voices were clearly audible now, two of them, one a woman, presumably Alison, though her usual deliberately modulated accents had acquired contralto depth and an edge of adamant, the other a grey, atonal sort of voice, way down the scale, a voice with a judder in it like stone grinding on stone, gravelly about the vowels, grating on the consonants. And in between, answering questions in the dulled timbre of a hypnotic, there came a third. Will. The urgency that gripped Fern was more powerful than fear, more desperate than curiosity. She crept towards the door, dropping to a crouch as she drew near. The back of an armchair a little way inside the room narrowed the beam, casting a shadow that stretched to the hall, and into that shadow Fern crawled, driven by a compulsion beyond courage, any whisper of movement overlaid by the loudness of the voices and a hissing, snapping noise like the erratic susurration of a damp fire. Very carefully, lowering her chin almost to the floor, she craned round in the lee of the chair until she could see what was happening.

      Halfway down the long room, a fire burned in the unused hearth, a fire without smoke or ash, the crystalline fuel crackling into bluish-white flames and spitting vicious sparks that ate into nearby upholstery. In front of it the carpet had been rolled back and smouldering lines were drawn on the bare boards: a circle within a pentagram, and other symbols that Fern could not make out. She was not certain if the strange cold radiance came from the fire or the sizzling lines. Alison stood outside the pentagram, opposite the hearth, wearing a red wool dress empurpled by the light, so moulded to her thin figure that the shallow mounds of her breasts, her rigid nipples, the nodules of her hip-bones were all clearly delineated. There was a blue glow on her face and her streaming hair had a virescent tinge. Within the circle, his eyes still closed, stood Will. And beside the fire, on a low plinth, was the source of the grey voice. The idol. Fern saw the stone lips moving and a pale gleam between widened eyelids. Her reason told her it was impossible, sight and hearing must have cheated her; but although her brain screamed in protest what she saw did not change. Her shock was so great it took her several seconds to tune in to the interrogation.

      ‘Did you try the door to my room?’ Alison was asking.

      ‘Yes,’ Will said. Behind the chair Fern stiffened; her knees seemed to be glued to the floor.

      ‘Could you open it?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘Why not?’

      ‘It was stuck,’ Will said, ‘and it stung my hand.’

      ‘He knows nothing,’ said the idol. ‘You’re wasting your time.’

      ‘I must be sure.’ Outside the pentagram, Alison paced restlessly to and fro, her dress winnowing against her thighs. ‘Did your sister try it too?’ Will assented. ‘And with the same result? Good. Perhaps you will know better than to pry in the future.’

      ‘He’s asleep,’ said the idol. ‘Don’t indulge yourself.’

      ‘What about the key?’ Alison continued. ‘Have you found it?’

      Will seemed puzzled. ‘Which key?’

      ‘Which key are you looking for?’

      ‘The key to the chest in the attic,’ he answered promptly, ‘and to Great-Cousin Ned’s writing desk.’

      In her hiding-place, Fern blenched to recall how nearly she had told him, how close they trod to disaster. If Alison were to ask the wrong question…

      ‘What do you expect to find there?’

      ‘Treasure,’ Will responded after a pause.

      ‘What treasure?’

      ‘Great-Cousin Ned’s treasure that he brought back from abroad.’ Think of doubloons, besought Fern in the paralysis of her mind. Apes and peacocks. Pieces of eight. Don’t think of Atlantis. ‘Pirates’ treasure.’

      ‘Let the fool go,’ said the idol. ‘He’s a child playing storybook games. Send him to bed.’

      ‘Very well.’ Alison made a gesture of dismissal. ‘Go back to your room; sleep; in the morning, you will remember nothing.’ Will stepped out of the circle, walking towards the hall. Fern stayed where she was. The partial release of tension had left her shuddering, too unsteady to move; she could only trust the looming chair-back would be an adequate shield.

      ‘Now for the girl,’ Alison said.

      ‘No.’

      ‘Why not? She’s sly and much too clever for her own good. Do you think I can’t control her? A teenage brat? I will probe her brain like soft clay, I will pull out the strands of her thought until her consciousness is void, I will—’

      ‘No.’ The interdiction was final. Fern, clenching her will to resist she knew not what, felt disaster brush by her yet again. ‘She’s at a dangerous age. If she has the Gift, now is the time when it might be woken. Summon her to the circle, and the touch of power could rouse a response we do not need. Do you want to have to destroy her?’