Sorcerers of the Nightwing (Book One - The Ravenscliff Series) (3 page)

“I’m afraid that will be difficult for me to do,” Devon explained. “I’m going to live there.”

The driver grunted. “Well, I feel sorry for you, my boy. I worked for Edward Muir once, on one of his boats. He thought he owned me. Don’t let him do that to you.”

The cab driver pulled
over to the side of the road. Ravenscliff was still some yards in the distance up the hill.

“Why did you stop?” Devon asked.

“This is the end of the line for me.”

Devon laughed. If anything, he wasn’t surprised: he might have expected such behavior, given everything else that night. “What?” he asked. “Are you afraid the werewolves will be set loose upon you if you drive any closer?”

“Might be,” the man said, and he seemed utterly serious.

Devon was angry. He got out of the cab, lugging his heavy suitcase behind him. “Here,” he said, thrusting three dollars through the front window. “Don’t bother looking for a tip because you won’t find one.”

“Don’t matter. Just wish you’d take mine.” The driver made a U-turn and headed back down the road, leaving the boy alone in a
swath of moonlight, light rain misting his face. Below, the monotonous crash of the waves drowned out the sound of the speeding cab as it descended the hill back into the village.

Devon looked up at the house ahead of him. Another light had appeared: in the topmost window of the tower. “There,” he said. “The place is coming to life.”

Yet, trudging forward, he wished he could have believed
that. Instead, he whistled in the dark, warding off evil spirits with his happy tunes, clutching his suitcase in one hand and the medal of the lady and the owl in his pocket in the other.

Devon’s friend Suze had been easily frightened. Back in Coles Junction, they’d all go to the movies—Devon and Suze and Tommy and whoever else might be hanging with them that day. They loved scary movies:
28 Days Later
and
Drag Me to Hell
and even
Shaun of the Dead
. Suze would get all neurotic whenever the music got creepy, and Devon would have to reach across in the darkness and take her hand,
reassuring her. Sometimes, walking home, they cut through an old churchyard corridor. The only light in the corridor came from dim yellow lamps high up on the stone wall every few yards. Bats were known to fly along this route, their high-pitched cries only slightly more horrifying than the sound of their slippery wings beating against the cold stone. Suze would hear the bats and start to run,
her hands covering her hair, begging for Devon to follow. But Devon was simply fascinated by the flying rodents. He caught sight of their eyes: little red embers in the shadows.

Whenever Suze got really frightened, Devon remembered, she’d start humming or singing to herself. “Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way,” she’d sing, even in the direst days of summer. Those little tunes:
as if the bats would be lulled to sleep, the ghosts shamed into submission, the demons driven back to the depths all because of the forced frivolity of one young girl.

Yet now Devon hummed the same little tune himself. For the first time, he admitted to a little fear himself. He could feel the heat building the closer he came to the great house. And he could hear voices behind the wind: not
the Voice that guided him, but the voices of others. The voices of the eyes that had stared out at him from the darkness of his closet since he was six.

Not more than two yards from the front gate, Devon stopped walking and looked up. Through the rusted iron spears of the gate, he could see the house twist its way upward. The clouds were gone, and the moon, emboldened, claimed the sky. There
was enough light now to make out the facade of the house: rain-slicked black stone worn by decades of sea wind. The wood of the house was as ebony as the stone: dark old wood, crusty with the salt of the sea. Ravens or no ravens, Devon found the name of the house appropriate. It was as black as a raven’s wing. Monstrous gargoyles like those on medieval French cathedrals protruded from the higher
reaches of the house: hideous clawed and winged creatures that Devon knew were all too real.

Had the builder of this house known it too?

A sudden wind, chill and damp, fought him as he approached.
You can’t stop me
, Devon thought.
No matter how hard you try, I’ve come here to find out the truth. The truth that’s been kept from me all my life.

He passed under the front gate and started
up the long driveway. It curved toward the main entrance then continued out beyond the house to smaller buildings. Devon walked with a briskness that belied the strength of the wind. His gait was as much to reassure him as the little tunes that still came forth from his lips: “Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way …”

Someone—something—was watching him. He was suddenly convinced of
it.

Be on guard
, came the Voice. He half-expected at any moment to be pounced upon by some creature from the dark bushes that lined the driveway, some crazed animal with long teeth and red eyes.

But when he spotted his watcher, he saw that it was decidedly human. Devon lifted his eyes to the tower. The moonlight revealed a man—or at least, something that had the shape of a man—watching his
arrival from an aperture in the crenelated turret.

Devon stopped in his tracks. He felt the weight of his body leave him, rising from his bones and evaporating like steam. He tried to fix his gaze upon the man above, but whenever Devon’s eyes settled, the man seemed to vanish completely into the shadows. He could only see the man in his peripheral vision, as if whoever stood atop the tower
existed not there but somewhere else.

Yet for the seconds that Devon did actually see the man, all sound ceased: the steady beating of the waves against the rocks below, the hooting of birds from the woods around him, the pulse of his heart in his own ears. It was then that the words of the old woman on the train echoed in his mind, startling the stillness like the cry of a gull:

“You’ll
find no one there but ghosts.”

How long he stood there staring at the tower Devon wasn’t sure, but something roused him from his trance, as if some unseen hypnotist had snapped his fingers. The Voice maybe—but Devon wasn’t sure he actually heard it or what it might have said. Perhaps it was simply the light in the topmost tower
room going out, leaving the upper floors of the house in complete darkness once again. Or maybe it was the rain, starting again, wetting his face with hundreds of damp little tongues.

Gathering his wits, Devon took the final steps to the house. He knocked upon the door using the rusted brass ring that hung there. It reverberated with a deep, cavernous echo, as he suspected it might.

The
front door of Ravenscliff was opened not by a servant—the lone servant Andrea had said the family employed—but by a woman Devon could not have expected. She was tall, titian-haired, and startlingly beautiful, of indeterminate age, her chin raised imperiously, with a sharp, striking profile and very long neck. She wore a simple but elegant black dress. Her hair was gathered in an elaborate French twist
worn at the back of her head, and a single strand of pearls adorned her bare throat. Her eyes were large and set far apart, and they widened without blinking when she saw Devon standing there.

“Mrs. Crandall?” he asked.

“Yes,” the woman replied, not extending her hand or asking him inside. “And you are Devon.”

It was not a question but a statement. She spoke his name with a determined
emphasis, and her eyes never left his face.

“Yes, ma’am. I’m Devon March.”

She smiled, finally. “Please come inside.” She stepped back, allowing him to enter the foyer of the great mansion. “Where’s my daughter?” she asked, looking past him. “Isn’t Cecily with you?”

“No, ma’am. I took a cab here.”

“A cab?” Mrs. Crandall seemed genuinely outraged as she closed the door. “Why, I distinctly
told Cecily this morning to arrange with Simon, our driver, to meet you at the bus station. Weren’t they there?”

“No, ma’am. There was no one. It’s all right, though. I was able to see a little of the village this way, and meet a few people …”

She looked at him hard. Devon had the feeling that meeting the villagers was the last thing Mrs. Crandall had wanted him to do on his first night
in Misery Point.

And who could blame her? The stories he had heard, the legends of the ghosts, the hostility toward the Muir family … And now he was there, in the fabled house, standing where few had ever gained entrance.

Devon looked around him. The high cathedral ceiling of the foyer and the enormous stained glass windows—St. George slaying the dragon—suggested an old church, an image
aided by the presence of dozens of candles burning atop brass and pewter candelabras. To his right the grand curved staircase was carpeted with an old Oriental runner. The floor on which it was laid was marble, a deep violet and gray stone that shone as brightly as if it had been cut and polished only the day before. Dark wood walls were hung with somber portraits of men and women Devon assumed to
be Muir ancestors:
Which one might be Jackson the warlock
, he wondered.
And his tragic wife Emily, who threw herself off Devil’s Rock?

“I apologize for my daughter,” Mrs. Crandall was saying.

“That’s all right.”

“No, it’s not. I don’t know where she is.” She glanced up at the old grandfather’s clock that stood in the foyer. It was a quarter past ten. Mrs. Crandall drew her shoulders up
and walked toward a pair of closed double doors, her black dress molded against her shapely body. Devon felt weird checking out her legs, given how much older she was, but he had to admit they were definitely fine.

“I will speak with Cecily,” Mrs. Crandall told Devon. “Now, put down your bag. I’ll have Simon take it upstairs for you. Whenever he shows up, that is. Come into the parlor and let’s
get acquainted.”

She opened the doors in a manner that further solidified her status as a great lady: with both hands on both doorknobs, sweeping into the room as the doors yielded to her effort. Inside, a fire crackled within the old stone hearth. An elegant sofa was angled in front, watched over by a stern old man in a portrait above the mantel.

Devon could see why people whispered about
Ravenscliff, why Andrea’s parents might have told her that old Jackson Muir was a warlock. Among the books on the shelves that lined the room were several skulls, at least three shrunken heads, and half a dozen crystal balls. A suit of armor stood against the far wall. It sure looked like Dumbledore’s den.

“Wow,” Devon said, looking around. “Cool room.”

To the left, large glass doors draped
in rich purple velvet offered a magnificent view of the coast off Devil’s Rock, the moonlit stormy waters crashing against the rocks far below.

“Yes, I suppose it is,” Mrs. Crandall admitted. “Both my father and grandfather were travelers and quite the collectors. These trinkets come from all over the world.”

“Awesome.” Devon placed his hand on one of the skulls, withdrawing it quickly when
he felt a jolt of something like electricity. He hoped Mrs. Crandall hadn’t noticed.

“Have a seat,” she was telling him.

They sat in front of the fire, Devon on the sofa and Mrs. Crandall in a large cushioned wing chair that the boy instinctively knew was exclusively hers. The warmth of the fire felt good to Devon, whose skin had seemed to absorb the moisture of the night. He shivered. Mrs.
Crandall noticed and raised an eyebrow.

“Are you cold? Shall I get you some tea?”

“No, thank you. I’ll be fine now that I’m finally out of the rain.”

“I apologize again. Cecily will be reprimanded.”

“No, please, not on my account. I wouldn’t want to start off on the wrong foot with her.”

She sighed. “I’ve tried to impose some discipline on Cecily, but it’s difficult. She can be
headstrong. I take it that you will respect the rules of the household, Devon?”

“Well, I’ll do my best.”

She brought the tips of her fingers against each other. The glow of the fire reflected along her face and neck. Again, Devon was struck by her beauty. He concentrated, trying to see if the Voice might tell him anything about her, but it was silent. The heat he felt outside the house had
subsided, too; the only warmth now came from the fire.

“I imagine you must be anxious to resume your schooling,” Mrs. Crandall said.

He shrugged. “Well, leaving school in the middle of the semester was hard. I imagine starting up here will be even more so.”

“I’ve arranged with a tutor at the school to help you if needed. I’ve spoken with the guidance counselors, and everything has been
arranged for you to start on Monday. You needn’t worry.”

He laughed a little. “I don’t worry—not about that anyway. The worst thing is just leaving my old friends behind.”

Her face seemed to reflect some compassion. “I was very sad to hear about your father’s death, Devon,” she said, softer now. “Were you very close?”

“Yes, ma’am. Very close. My mother died when I was a baby, and I don’t
remember her. So my Dad was all the family I had.”

She nodded. “I see. Well, for however long you remain with us, we are glad to welcome you to ours.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” Devon appreciated her words, but there was little emotion behind them. “Mrs. Crandall, may I ask you a question?”

“Certainly.”

“Was this an agreement between you and my dad? That if anything ever happened to him,
you’d take me in?”

She moved her eyes off to the fireplace. “To be frank, Devon, no. I was as surprised as you probably were when I got the call from Mr. McBride telling me about the guardianship.”

“Then you could’ve said no.”

“I could have.” She returned her gaze to him. “But I didn’t.”

“How did you know my dad? You must have been close if he sent me to live with you.”

“It was
a very long time ago. I gather your father never spoke of Ravenscliff.”

Devon shook his head. “Never. Not until right before he died.”

Mrs. Crandall stood and approached the fire, warming her hands over it. “I suppose your father felt I could offer you things he never could. That we could provide well for you here.”

Devon glanced around the room at the antiques, the silver serving set,
the crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling. “Yeah, I suppose he did,” he said.

His own house back in Coles Junction had been small, just four rooms: his and his dad’s bedrooms, a living room and a kitchen. Dad had worked as a landscaper and mechanic, making what he could. He’d smelled of motor oil and cut grass, with grime permanently embedded in the pores and cracks of his hands. He’d
driven an old Buick, owned just one sport jacket, and while he made sure Devon never wanted for anything—food, clothing, toys—they never took the kinds of vacations that Tommy did with his folks: to Disney World or Cape Cod or up to Mount Snow for skiing.

“There are some rules, however, Devon,” Mrs. Crandall was saying, “and as I said, I expect that you follow them.” She drew herself up regally,
like a duchess or something. “This is a big house, with only a few of us living here now, so we’ve closed the East Wing. Under no circumstances should you attempt to go into that part of the house. Is that understood?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Also, my mother is not well. She has not left her room in years. I’d prefer for the time being you not meet her.”

“All right.” Devon felt a little tingle
in his fingertips as Mrs. Crandall set down the rules. The sensation moved up his fingers and into his hands. Just by telling him that there were places and people in the house that he was not supposed to see, she had succeeded in making him suspicious.

And he realized that so far there’d been no mention of a Mr. Crandall, the husband of the woman standing before him. Devon wondered just how
many secrets were held by this family of which he had suddenly found himself a part.

“You have a nephew, too,” he asked. “A little boy?”

Mrs. Crandall looked down at him with some surprise. “My, the townspeople have been busy filling you in, haven’t they? What else did they told you?”

“Well, to be honest, ma’am, several warned me against coming here.”

She smiled, turning around completely
to face him. “I see. They warned you about the ghosts, I’m sure, and the strange, eccentric people who live in this house.”

“Yes,” Devon admitted. “They did.”

“They call me a witch down in the village. But do I look like a witch to you?”

“No, ma’am, you certainly do not.”

“Try not to concern yourself with the petty gossips of Misery Point,” Mrs. Crandall told him. She moved—it was
more like gliding than walking—to the glass doors overlooking the sea. She stood there, framed in the moonlight.

She knows
, the Voice said at last.

Devon had a sudden urge to lift one of the crystal balls from the shelves and gaze into it.
Why not?
the Voice asked.
They belong to you
.

The thought startled him.
Belong to me? Could that be true?

He sat forward in his chair, watching
Mrs. Crandall. What did she know of his past? Why had she brought him here?

“This is a house with many secrets, ” she said, as if responding to Devon’s unspoken questions, though she did not turn around to look back at him. “All old houses have them. Four generations of Muirs have lived in this house. Everyone who has lived here has left behind their secrets.” She paused. “We respect those
secrets. We do not pry into them. Remember that, Devon.”

She turned at last, brightening. “But tell me about yourself. I am eager to learn more about you so that we can be friends.”

“There’s not much to tell beyond what you already know.” Devon had already decided against mentioning anything about his powers or the Voice. Maybe he would at some point, but not yet. There had been too many
warning signs: he was still not sure he could trust Mrs. Crandall.

But he had to ask one question:

“Mrs. Crandall, do you know who my real father was?”

Her face turned ashen. Her elegant eyebrows rose; her exquisite lips parted. Then she recovered, a little, enough to say, “I wasn’t aware that Ted wasn’t your father. What makes you think that’s the case?”

“He told me. Just before he
died. He said I should know the truth.” Devon narrowed his eyes at her. “I can’t believe that his decision to send me here and the truth of my real parents aren’t connected.”

She smiled. Whatever concern had flickered through her eyes was gone. “Well, I can’t imagine what that connection might be.”

“Are you telling me that you know nothing of who I am or where I come from?”

She looked
at him with fierce, hard eyes. “That’s what I’m telling you.” Then she softened and looked away. “I’m sorry that I can’t be of more help.”

Thunder exploded all at once, seemingly directly over the house. The rain began again, torrentially, and the lights were suddenly snuffed out.

“Mother!”

From the foyer, a gust of wind and rain. The front doors flew open, and a pretty teenaged girl with bright red hair wearing a black leather motorcycle jacket and a short pink skirt tumbled inside, a tall boy with a shaved head close behind her.