Lily Winter was worried about her daughter, Helen. The child had had a mild fever for three days now, and the attentions of the young Grigori physician whom Enniel had sent to the cottage seemed to have done nothing to alleviate Helen’s condition. Tonight, it was worse.
Helen’s body was hot and dry, her breath sour as she tossed and whimpered on her bed. Lily bathed her daughter’s forehead with the fragrant herbal concoction that the physician, Master Malagriel, had left for her. Five minutes earlier, Lily had again called Malagriel, who had assured her that the child was in no danger. Lily wondered how the physician had come to that conclusion. To her, Helen’s condition looked very serious.
Again, Lily couldn’t help wondering whether Helen had been affected by the strange insect she had found on the cliffs on the day of the eclipse. The creature had been dead when Helen found it, and resembled no beetle that Lily had seen before. She had showed it to Malagriel, afraid that the stiff lifeless form had somehow stung Helen. The physician had looked at the insect with interest. ‘It seems to be a scarab — and a very large one at that.’
‘But what was it doing on the cliffs?’ Lily demanded.
Malagriel had shrugged. ‘Well, it could have come from High Crag. Enniel has the place stuffed full of old relics, as you probably know.’ He grinned. ‘Not least, some of his relatives.’
Lily had been in no mood for jokes. ‘Are you sure it couldn’t have hurt Helen?’
‘Yes. Scarabs aren’t poisonous.’
In the early stages of her illness, Helen had insisted on keeping the creature in a jar beside her bed. She liked to turn the glass vessel in her hands, staring at the oil-bright colours of the insect’s carapace. Now, the jar stood ignored on the table, next to the Winnie the Pooh lamp, amid a jumble of Helen’s toy ponies. Lily’s heart contracted within her. The little array of youthful belongings seemed pathetic standing so mundanely above the suffering child. Lily dreaded that Helen would never be able to play with them again.
Thunder growled in the distance; another storm. They had been occurring every evening recently; violent electrical tempests that brought no rain. The air was humid, yet Lily shivered. She stood up and went to the window, looked out. Another jagged spear of light cracked down to spike the earth. It was almost as if something were moving again beneath the Cornish soil, another monstrous serpent brought to life. Lily’s mind was cast back to the terrifying time when she had first come to Cornwall. She felt unnerved, in need of company. Her brother, Owen, was out, but she could call Emma Manden.
Downstairs, Lily discovered that the phones were down again. Another peal of thunder came, followed by what felt like a minor earthquake. Lily cringed. Ornaments on the shelves rattled, pictures tilted, and the overhead lamp fitting swayed. ‘No,’ Lily said aloud. She could sense something creeping towards her home, shrouded in thunder, carried by it.
The lights suddenly went out and Lily jumped, repressing a cry that rose in her throat. She could not stay here. She would have to pick Helen up and carry her from the house. They would have to go to High Crag. Enniel would know what was happening. He would protect them.
Running to the stairs, Lily was horrified to see a spectral shape staring down at her from the first floor, limned in blue-white lightning radiance that came in through the landing windows. Her first instinct was to slam herself backwards against the wall, trying to make herself invisible. Helen was up there, though. Her vulnerable daughter. What could she do? There was no way Lily would abandon her. Then the voice came. ‘Mummy! Mummy!’ The ghostly shape came scampering down the stairs, and Lily realised it wasn’t a ghost at all.
Lily scooped the child up into her arms and realised at once that Helen felt cooler. The fever had broken. Relieved, Lily pressed her face against Helen’s cheek. ‘Helen, what are you doing out of bed? Are you scared?’
‘No, I’m not scared, but I’ve got something to tell you.’
‘What?’ Lily carried Helen towards the kitchen. As she pushed open the door, the lights came on again. Normality restored.
Helen wriggled in her arms. ‘Met-met wants to go home. He wants me to take him.’
‘Who’s Met-met?’
‘My animal. The one I found.’
‘The scarab beetle?’
Helen nodded.
‘Where does he want you to take him, sweetheart?’
‘To Khem. It’s a long way.’
Lily knew that Khem was one of the ancient names of Egypt, but how could Helen have known it? ‘Well, perhaps one day we can go on a holiday there and then we’ll take him home.’
Helen shook her head emphatically. ‘No. Soon.’
Lily deposited Helen on a chair and went to the fridge to fetch milk. ‘We can’t. It’s not a safe place at the moment. People are fighting all the time.’
‘Mummy, we must go. Met-met jumped onto my face and folded the thing that made me sick up into a ball. He threw it away. Then he told me.’
Lily paused, the milk carton poised over Helen’s cup. A mother would normally dismiss such nonsense as make-believe, but Helen was no ordinary child. She was Grigori. ‘Why does Met-met want to go home so badly, Helen?’
‘He wants to show something to me.’
‘What?’
Helen shrugged and took the milk drink from her mother. ‘I don’t know. We mustn’t be scared of the fighting, though. Mummy, will you ask Enniel to sort it out for us?’ Already Helen was wise enough to know where money and favours came from in their home.
Lily sat down at the table and folded her arms upon it, staring at her daughter. In many ways, with her perfect face and shadowed, sometimes commanding, gaze, she resembled a girl of Ancient Egypt.
The phone rang. Lily got up to answer it, but by the time she reached the hallway and lifted the receiver, all she heard was a crackle, a long-distance hissing. ‘Hello, hello?’ No answer. She replaced the receiver thoughtfully, her mind suddenly full of Daniel. Did he need her? Was he thinking of her? Lily stared at the phone before going back into the kitchen. She could not dispel the suspicion that Helen’s announcement was somehow connected with Daniel’s disappearance. The phone call seemed like an eerie omen. Enniel knew that Shem had taken his companions to the Middle East, but there had been no news from them for weeks.
I can’t just go out there, Lily thought. I can’t.
But she knew that in morning, she would go to High Crag and speak to Enniel.