“Blood sacrifice?” Charlotte asked. “You could have asked. We’d have brought a chicken.”
She was mostly joking, or sounded like she was. The path Olivia had found was rocky and overgrown, choked with fallen branches and the thorny briars of some very persistent plant or other. Winter clothing served decently well as armor, but Olivia had acquired a scratch or two across her face after they’d been walking for a few minutes, and she didn’t think the others had fared any better. At least the hedgehog had armor, of a sort.
She wished she could have sent them back. The ground was too uneven particularly for Gareth, though there was no way to phrase that tactfully, and she wasn’t certain what she was going to find at the end of the path or how successful she was going to be at speaking with it.
That said, if anything did go badly, Olivia knew she would need someone around. As much as she hated to admit it, having Gareth there was some comfort aside from his healing abilities. He was a teacher, he was an adult, and they’d worked together in some respects before, even if she tried to avoid remembering that most of the time.
Olivia took a breath, pushed aside a few more briars, and led Gareth and Charlotte out into what had once been a clearing. The trees had crowded in now, and the undergrowth had taken over, so there was barely room for the three of them to stand.
“I’m sorry about this,” she said as she took as even a stance as possible over what had once been a grave.
“Oh, you should be,” said Charlotte cheerfully. “Next time you see a ghost, be sure you set fire to the place before you try and speak to it. I’ll help if you like.”
“I’ll try to avoid that being necessary,” said Olivia. “If you’d be so kind, please do remember anything I say. I’m never sure whether or not I will.”
She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and began.
In London, Olivia had almost always used candles when she called up the dead, but she’d known toward the end she didn’t really need them. Most of the time, all it took was opening her mind in the right way, like focusing on a picture until she saw the hidden image. The bells and candles she’d started with had been there only to show her the way.
In theory. In practice, she was standing in the middle of the forest, trying to contact a spirit that had probably been dormant for years and which might not be very pleased at the intrusion.
Olivia tried not to think about that.
Instead, she pictured the border between the mortal world and the world of the dead, and saw it becoming thinner in a small ring around her, fading like smoke into air. It vanished alarmingly fast compared to what Olivia was used to, and she was glad there weren’t more ghosts out here. “O spirit,” she said, fumbling in her memory for the words to use when she didn’t know a name, “thou hast here a mortal vessel, which shall be pleased to serve thee in speech and in knowledge. Come and speak, if thou art willing.”
Olivia felt a presence in the back of her mind. It moved slowly, almost groggily forward…
Then she slid backward, a passenger in her own body, and the other slipped down in front of her. Most spirits she talked to had been urgent in that procedure, eager or sad or enraged. This one was…respectful. Courtly, almost. Olivia got the distinct sense of a bow.
“A fair day to you, good sir and lady,” said her mouth.
It spoke English, but a very old version. Olivia could see Gareth’s brow wrinkling. Only the spirit’s presence in her mind let her understand what it said.
“Good day,” said Charlotte, and the echoes about her voice told Olivia she was using her gift to translate. She paused, then shrugged and went on. “I’m Miss Charlotte Woodwell. He’s Dr. St. John.”
“I am Brother Jonathan, late, very late, an’ my wits deceive me not, of Englefield Abbey. What do you here, you and your enchantress companion?”
“It’s probably best to tell him the truth,” said Gareth when Charlotte gave him a questioning look.
Olivia sensed the spirit’s amusement. Gentle amusement. He’d been a kind man in life, she sensed content with his books and his gardens at the abbey. “Lying is a sin,” she heard her voice say and was glad of her detachment from her body. She might have blushed, otherwise. She certainly couldn’t have met Gareth’s eyes. “So I will commend your wisdom and your virtue both, sir. And still I would have answers. Why have you come?”
“It’s the forest,” Charlotte said. “Strange place, you know.”
“What else would keep me here so long since my appointed hour? And yet I am not enough and will not be.”
“Enough?” Gareth asked after a moment to figure out what the spirit had said.
Brother Jonathan sighed using Olivia’s lungs. She never quite got used to that feeling. “Enough to prevent. Enough to balance. Enough to keep the water behind the dam should people keep taking away rocks.”
“Nobody means to,” said Charlotte.
“And good intentions pave the road to hell,” Brother Jonathan shot back just as quickly. “For the most part, I can repair such damage as has been done, but this place is…fragile. ’Tis easy to break, as my vessel has seen. With only one guardian, and I so far from living, I cannot make it stronger.”
“Should we leave, then?” Gareth asked. “That is, there’s a school here—”
“I know,” said the spirit. One of the annoying parts of being a medium, Olivia had found, is the spirits tended to get a lot more of her memories than she got of theirs. “And ’twas an abbey in my day. No great harm came of it, and some good. In times of great need this place may be useful, and ’tis better to have those here who have some idea what they do”
Using Olivia’s memories, Brother Jonathan was adapting his accent. This time, it didn’t take Gareth very long to figure out what he’d said, and he looked quite relieved when he had figured it out. “Thank you,” he said.
“You’d want a living guardian?” Charlotte asked.
“More than one would be best. This forest…’Twill never be ordinary, but mortal minds and mortal strength can help it become a refuge or a threat.”
Charlotte nodded. “What would they have to do?”
“Heal. Balance. Shape. Stay and watch lest the tides turn again, lest something slip through the borders.”
“Stay at Englefield? All the time?” Charlotte, who had been lifting her chin and doing her best inspiring-statue impression—though the hedgehog on her arm would have been an incongruous detail—suddenly took a step backward, almost running into a stump in the process. “Forever?”
Gareth reached out and put a steadying hand on her arm.
“Not forever. Mine is a strange case. Had anyone taken up the role, I would have gone to my rest long since. And not in the house at all times. ’Twould be best if they did not venture very far, though.”
“Oh,” said Charlotte and gulped.
“It need not be you, child,” the spirit said. Olivia felt his amusement as well as his growing weariness. He would not stay much longer. “And it need not be just now. Let it be soon, though.” The spirit looked out of Olivia’s eyes at Gareth and Charlotte, and his grim sincerity was clear to all of them. “There are deep waters here. I cannot keep the tide back, or the sharks, do you bleed. And they will come. My strength, such as it is, will not last.”
“We’ll be careful,” said Gareth, his voice hard. “I give you my word.”
“Then God go with all of you,” said Brother Jonathan, “as I cannot.”
He had enough strength to give Olivia something like a bow. Then he was gone, dormant again, and the three of them were alone in the forest.
Gareth was the first one to speak. “We’d better get back,” he said and looked to the west. “The sun’s going down.”