Spindle (Two Monarchies Sequence Book 1) (16 page)

“Mind? She’ll love it. She’s always complaining about how big and ugly I’ve gotten. She’ll cuddle and cook and bring out ancient sweeties. You won’t be able to get away.”

“Onepiece will love it,” said Poly, laughing.

“In the interests of making sure that Onepiece isn’t the only one in the village enjoying himself,” began Michael, a gleam in his blue eyes that brought out a responsive twinkle in Poly’s: “May I inveigle the promise of a dance from you tomorrow? Just a small one, and I promise it won’t be painful.”

Poly opened her mouth to agree gladly, a warm little burr of contentment in her throat, when it occurred to her in a dashing moment that she didn’t know any of the current dances.

Quiet in her disappointment, she shrugged and said: “I don’t know the right dances. Sorry.”

“Oh, I make up my own anyway,” said Michael easily. He gave her a small, curving, devastating smile and added: “And now that you’ve promised me a dance there’s no getting out of it. Goodbye, Poly; goodbye, Miss Meg. Buy the dress!”

“That boy!” said Margaret when he had gone. Despite the stringency of her tone, she was smiling. “Don’t listen to his nonsense, Poly; he’s a flirt and a constant bother.”

“So I gathered,” murmured Poly, trying not to think about laughing blue eyes and a curving, mischievous smile. Her mouth twisted wryly as she said, more for her own benefit than Margaret’s: “I hope I know better than to be won over by a charming smile and a few compliments.”

But she bought the dress.

Chapter Nine

“What is last bell?”

Luck’s dishevelled head appeared from behind an untidy pile of books. “Poly! You look different. What did you do? No, never mind; where were you yesterday afternoon? The–”

“I know, I know,” sighed Poly, resigned to the inevitable. “The balance was out all day. What is last bell?”

“No– well, yes, actually; but that’s not what– I was imprisoned all afternoon, Poly. In my own house. The hordes just kept coming and coming. And there’s still something sideways in the village! People are beginning to complain. Where were you?”

“Shopping with Margaret,” said Poly, automatically straightening two books that had fallen down on one of her carefully ordered shelves. There hadn’t been sight or sound from the gremlins since she left the cheese out for them yesterday, and she had slept well– and better yet, woken without Luck’s help. It was looking like a beautiful day.

“Apparently my taste is outmoded and my clothing outdated. Have those people been lining up since dawn?”

“Probably,” said Luck, with a slightly wild look. “The line doubles in size every time I look out the window. Last bell? Last bell is the ceasefire order.”

“Last bell is the end of the work day,” Poly mused aloud, making a mental note. That reminded her of another lingering question, and she asked curiously: “Luck, how is it that we could understand each other when we met? Language doesn’t work like that; things must have changed while I was asleep.”

“Oh, that. I put a spell on you.”

Poly blinked rapidly, then said with deceptive calmness: “You put a
spell
on me?”

“It was that or learning to speak Ye Olde Civet again. They stopped speaking that way a few years after I was born, you know. It was easier to put a spell on you.”

Poly briefly remembered Luck’s lips moving just out of synch with his words on the day she met him, and a small part of her was obliquely satisfied at a solved puzzle. A larger part, rising in indignation, caused her to say: “You’re running a spell on me and you didn’t even
ask
?”

Luck stopped looking hunted for long enough to say: “No. It stopped working a few days back when your brain caught up with the dialect. All I had to do was start it: when you stole some of my magic you took over the spell yourself.”

Poly wavered between pointing out firmly that Luck had
thrown
magic at her, and that she had not in fact stolen it, and reiterating just once more that as she didn’t possess magic it was impossible for her to have kept up a spell, outside magic or no.

Instead, she said: “You’ve no right to run spells on me, Luck! My personal space extends to putting spells on me.”

“Huh,” said Luck. “You should have said. Poly, what are you– no, this is my sanctuary! A few more minutes and they might think that I’ve already gone out. Poly!”

But Poly, with reprisals in mind, had already passed through the library wall. The line was stretching out of sight through the window when she peeked out, and when she opened the door an older woman with a worried face gazed up at her in dawning relief.

“Luck can see you now,” she told the woman.

A barely audible sigh slipped through the woman’s lips. “Pebbles and primroses, I thought I wouldn’t get in before last bell! You’re Josie’s niece, aren’t you? Hmm,” she added, without giving Poly a chance to reply; “You don’t much favour her.”

Poly met the shrewd blue gaze and came to two conclusions. “You’re Michael’s Ma,” she said slowly, ushering the woman into the house. “No, I’m not Josie’s niece. You knew that already.”

“I might have guessed,” she said, smiling infectiously. “But then, I’ve known Josie for some time. Come to tea with me one afternoon, dear: you can tell me who you really are. Just between you, me, and the bees. I suppose my lump of a son didn’t mention me by name– no? You can call me Annie.”

Poly shook the hand that was offered, and called out somewhat unnecessarily to Luck: “Your first visitor is here, Luck!”

“I’m not at home,” said Luck’s voice sulkily, but he came out of the library anyway. One of his grubby, once-white cuffs was torn, and there was blood on his wrist from what Poly strongly suspected was a gremlin-bite.

“Luck, what did you do to the gremlins? I just
got them settled!”

“They mounted a pincer movement from the ancient history corner and stole my pocket-watch,” said Luck irritably. “I’m
wounded
, Poly. Possibly infected.”

“Show me,” Poly ordered, and took a leaf out of Luck’s book by seizing his wrist without waiting for permission.

“It’s too late, I’m probably already dying,” Luck said. “Have I met you? What do you need? I don’t do love spells.”

Correctly assuming that these questions were for Annie’s benefit, Poly ignored them and tilted Luck’s wrist to the light. Luck said an absent-minded
ouch
but didn’t otherwise acknowledge the inspection.

“We’ve met,” said Annie. “I wouldn’t bother you, wizard, but it
is
getting quite urgent.”

Poly, discovering with some surprise that Luck was right and the bite really
was
infected, heard the note of deference in Annie’s voice and owned herself even more surprised. She touched the slightly bleeding bite carefully, exciting the tiny specks of magic that were ferociously attacking the surrounding skin, and lent one ear to the conversation.

“You’re the one with the jinxed field,” Luck was saying. “Slightly sideways strawberries or something like that. Standard for something that close to the Forest.”

To Poly, carefully drawing out shards of burrowing magic, it sounded as if he had said it with a capital. Not forest, but The Forest.

“The Forest isn’t the problem,” said Annie. “It’s the jinx itself; it’s gone sideways.”

Luck’s green eyes glazed a little, warning the initiated that he had begun to grow bored with the subject.

“It’s a jinx, it’s meant to go sideways. There’s a standard clause in the bill of sale allowing for a variance of eight degrees within the first ten years of sale.”

“It’s a family plot, and the variance in the last year alone is fifteen degrees,” Annie said rapidly. Perhaps she wasn’t as uninitiated as Poly had assumed. “Premium planting for the strawberries began early this month, but Michael hasn’t been able to so much as turn the soil without the risk of turning himself inside out, or the field tricking him into thinking that he’s a strawberry and ought to plant himself.”

“Huh,” said Luck. “Clever. When did you last have an incident?”

“Two nights ago,” said Annie, stirring in Poly the memory of a captured intruder she had freed from a malicious bit of magic. “He got away, but it was a close thing.”

Poly looked up rather guiltily. “That might have been my fault. Is your field the only one that’s unploughed?”

“For the last fortnight,” Annie nodded, her eyes narrowed. “Fault, child? What fault?”

“I was out for a walk and saw someone caught in a piece of nasty magic, so I disintegrated it. I didn’t really think until it was too late that it could have been a thief.”

Annie laughed out loud; a dry, warm gurgle. “Thief, my eye! That was Michael! He was trying to fertilise and turn the sod, but after a few square feet the jinx had him fast and wouldn’t let him out. He says that a beautiful shadowy damsel with the oddest magic he’s ever seen passed by and released him with a wave of her hand.”

Poly was surprised into a chuckle. That sounded just like the blue-eyed boy she had met yesterday.

Annie’s eyes twinkled at her in amused comprehension as she added: “Of course, I asked him how he knew she was beautiful if she was shadowy, and he said it was too great of an adventure for her
not
to have been beautiful. We’ve been at a loss to know whom to thank.”

“Poly,” said Luck sharply; “Have you been taking off your glove in public? What did I tell you about that?”

“Absolutely nothing,” Poly told him. “And it wasn’t in public, it was in the fields after midnight.”

“Rubbish. I must have. Anyway, you’re not to do it; I don’t care how many boys you’re trying to save.”

Poly counted carefully to ten in her head before she picked up Luck’s wrist again. “We were talking about Annie’s jinx, Luck. Hold still please.”

“Oh,” said Luck vaguely. He was gazing down with blank eyes, whether at her or his wrist, Poly wasn’t certain. “All right. I’ll have a look at it. Goodbye.”

“I’m obliged,” said Annie, with a respectful nod that came just short of being a curtsey. Her eyes, bright and inquisitive, dwelt on them both for a while longer until she caught Poly’s eye, whereupon she mimed drinking tea in what seemed to be a silent encouragement not to forget their engagement for afternoon tea.

Poly gave her a warm smile in return, as much for her own sake as for the chance of meeting Michael again, and tugged the last gnawing thread of magic from Luck’s wrist as Annie closed the front door behind her.

“Well, you’ve done it now,” said Luck gloomily, passing his other hand over the bite. When his fingers fell away the bite was an old scar, fading quickly. “Now they’ll all know I’m here. Batten the hatches, Poly; you’re going to be my assistant.”

By the end of the day Poly almost regretted the loss of temper that caused her to call Annie in. Visitors had flowed in and out of the parlour like a stream, never-ending and inquisitive, and Luck had kept her busy fetching this and that. The visits were made even more nerve-wracking by the fact that a good many of them seemed to be young men who had come upon the flimsiest of pretexts, and who were more pleased to be talking to Poly than Luck. Two of them were bold enough to strike up a proper conversation with her, but the rest of them were content to gaze bashfully at her and blush every time she accidently caught their eyes.

Later in the afternoon Onepiece staggered into the room, gleefully supporting himself on the walls and leaving grubby handprints on the plaster. As much as Luck expected
this
fetched and
that
pinched did Onepiece expect congratulations and encouragement and kisses; and between the two of them Poly found herself very nearly exhausted by the end of the day.

It was only when Margaret, dressed in deep blue muslin that admirably complimented her chestnut style of prettiness, bounced into the room and enquired wasn’t Poly ready
yet?
that Poly remembered the reason for that little curl of excitement in her stomach that refused to be quite banished.

“Oh, good, you’re here,” said Luck, oblivious to dress and conversation alike. “Hold this.”

Since
this
was a greasy carriage-wheel, Margaret’s look of horror and subsequent relief at the tolling of Last Bell were entirely understandable.

Poly, amusedly aware that Luck hadn’t, or wouldn’t hear the bell, said calmly: “Last bell, Luck.”

“Can’t be. It’s only lunch-time.”

“I’m going to a party at–”

“Mistress Pritchard’s.”

“–at Mistress Pritchard’s. If you want me, that’s where I’ll be.”

“But I want you now!” Luck objected. “Margaret, too: it’s a three person job.”

The unfortunate owner of the spelled wheel, aware that he was encroaching upon forbidden time and possibly eager to be at the party himself, said hastily: “I’ll call for it tomorrow,” and made good his escape.

“Yes, but it’s last bell, and Margaret is in her party frock,” said Poly patiently. “Even the nice man who owns the spell has gone.”

Luck looked around blankly and said: “Huh. Where did he go?”

“Home, most likely.”

“Bell,” added Onepiece crossly, earning a warm smile from Poly.

“That’s right, darling. If Josie says you’ve been good, you may come to the party.”

“Good!” Onepiece said forcefully. “
Ver’
good!”

“Rubbish,” said Luck; “I heard the screams from the library.”

-angryhungry gremlins. looking for Poly-

Poly glanced guiltily toward the library. “Oh dear! I forgot to feed them this morning. The poor things!”

“Ah. That must be why one of them took a bite out of my arm, then.”

“Perhaps,” said Poly, refusing to feel guilty for that as well. More than likely, Luck had antagonised them. “I’ll be back later tonight, Luck.”

“Tomorrow, belike,” interposed Margaret humorously.

Luck frowned and said: “In that case, I’ll go with you.”

He refused to be persuaded that Poly had no intention of staying out so late, becoming increasingly mulish when Margaret pointed out that if she danced with even
half
the boys who would be present tonight, Poly couldn’t hope to be home before midnight; and in the end it was easier just to let him accompany them than it was to try and change his mind. When Poly, exasperated, went to the kitchen to appropriate fresh supplies of cheese for the gremlins, Luck tugged his cuffs, creating a snap of magic that turned his bloodied and battered clothes into something just as old but less shabby. She wasn’t entirely sure why the idea of Luck’s vague green eyes watching her dance with Michael made her uncomfortable, but it did. And since she fully intended to dance with Michael the most pleasing option had seemed to be Luck staying at home. Yet here he was, setting a threadbare and entirely ridiculous object over his spiked hair (Margaret called it a
top hat,
whatever that was) and smiling dreamily at her.