[story] january nightingales
author: pei yi
email: dreamsmoke [at] gmail.com
17 January, 1926
Thornton-Cleveleys, England
Dear Clare,
Now look here, I don't know what the Grandlady's been telling you but really, you don't have to carry on so. All my limbs are still attached and I'm quite alive, so it's not like the damage was permanent. Well, except for the Weeping Lovers, but everyone agrees that they were the most hideous piece of work anyway, so they're no big loss.
I certainly didn't ask to be kidnapped by wailing banshees in the dead of winter term. To hear the Grandlady talk, you'd think I'd arranged the whole circus for my amusement. Even if I'd thought of it I wouldn't have planned it while the ground was six inches deep in snow. I'm not completely daft.
If she really wanted someone to lay into, she should be picking on O'Grady. After all, it was his banshee. I only got kidnapped trying to save his skin, out of the goodness of my own heart, so on and so forth. The moral of this whole affair seems to be that good deeds and friendship are not worth half the trouble they get you in, Sister. Next time I'm going back to sleep and letting the forces of fae bewitch anyone they like.
As for the rest of the blame, you can look at Anders. If he hadn't gotten that head cold, he wouldn't have kept half the dorm awake with the way he kept honking in his sleep (of course, he slept like a log through the whole thing), and I wouldn't have found myself rudely awakened by Tennant hauling me right out of bed. And when I swore like blazes and woke up, he nearly sat on me, and let me say, getting sat on by Tennant would have been no joke.
"Listen!" he hissed dramatically. "We're being haunted!"
"What?" One month into the term was a little late for a ghost to start making its presence felt, I would have said, but then I heard it and I'll confess, my hair pretty nearly stood on end.
A voice was singing outside the dorm windows, high and keening and mournful like the winter wind over the moors. It sang in a liquid tongue we couldn't understand, to a song like - well, like a heart breaking. It was the most unearthly thing I'd ever heard - for a moment it felt like the voice reached right into me and twisted, and suddenly I remembered Mother and Father and the day the telegram came, as clearly as if it'd happened yesterday...
Do you know, I think I'd forgotten how much it hurt till then?
But don't tell anyone I said that.
It left me pretty much struck. I don't know how long I sat there gaping like a fish before Tennant started shaking me again.
"Shouldn't we do something?" he whispered.
I wish it'd never got out that I was related to the grand poobah of the Royal British Council of Thaumaturgy. Half the school thinks I'm a wizard, the other half thinks I'm barking mad and the whole lot of them expect me to be the local expert on all things strange and wonderful.
"I haven't a clue," I said, and sat up to eye the windows. "Who's that singing coming from? Did you see them?"
Tennant shook his head.
The fourth form dorms are all on the third floor, right under the attics, and our dorm was right at the end of the west wing, overlooking the gardens. Anyone trying to climb up to or out of our dorm would have had a pretty time of it - sheer brick, not a tree in sight, a discouraging lack of creepers or handy piping. A lower year could hardly be hanging outside the windows warbling for a lark, and I rather doubted Tennant and I could both be imagining the singing.
But if a ghost hadn't seen fit to grace us with its presence yet, I really didn't see why it'd turn up now. I sighed and, keeping my head low, crept over to the nearest window. The boards were ice under my feet but the sooner we found out who was singing and why, the sooner I could get back to sleep
The song kept drifting through the windows, as if whoever it was was floating in a leisurely circle around our dorm and back again. I'd almost reached the window and was just going to peer over the sill when someone tackled me to the floor for the second time in a row. I might as well have joined rugby, the way things are going.
"Argh! Gerroff!" I kicked out and hit someone. He swore in muffled tones and scrambled back before I could get a second kick in. "O'Grady? What on earth d'you think you're doing?" I demanded.
"She mustn't see us!" he hissed.
"You heard it? Wait, you know her? Who is that?"
"I don't know her! She's - hide!"
We dove under the beds just as the song came to the window above us. For a heartbeat, it seemed to linger there, as if the singer could feel us listening, but then it paused and slowly faded away, leaving silence. I glanced at O'Grady under the opposite bed, and even in the weak moonlight I could see that his face was still ashen.
The silence stretched, tense and awkward, until, "Can we come out now?" Tennant asked plaintively from under his bed on the other side of the room.
I stuck my head out. "Well, it seems to have stopped. O'Grady, who was that?"
He sat up and shook his head. "I don't know who, but I know... what. I've heard it before. That was a banshee's song," he said.
I blinked. "All the way out here? I thought they were only found in..." Then I stopped.
O'Grady's mouth grew grim. "Then I suppose she came for me," he said, after a long silence.
Tennant looked puzzled. "She came here just to sing at you?"
"They don't just sing," I said. "It means that a death is coming, doesn't it? Is it someone in your family?"
"I don't know," he said. "I could call in the morning, but it could be anyone. The only time I've heard her was when my grandfather died, and..."
I scratched my ear and bit back a yawn. "Well, there's no use brooding over it now, at any rate. You may as well get some sleep while you can. If there's bad news in the morning, at least then you'll be awake to face it, yeah?"
He gave a brief nod, and we all crawled back to the sleep of the just and weary. Or so it was for me - O'Grady didn't look like he'd had such a good time of it in the morning. Tennant and I came down to breakfast just in time to see a prefect standing over him and deducting twenty points from the house for using the hall phone out of hours. He looked like death, but he gave us a thin smile when we passed, so we knew it couldn't be bad news.
The day passed ordinarily enough. Someone finally hauled Anders down to the infirmary to give the rest of us some peace. I fell asleep in Arithmetic and got a cuffed on the ear. Tennant got called on in English and flubbed, and so far as I could see, O'Grady slept through pretty nearly everything. Some days I wonder they haven't expelled him yet. A first year managed the thrilling feat of setting the greenhouse petunias on fire, but since we weren't there to see it, that hardly counted as entertainment.
Maybe the banshee'd got it wrong, I thought with good cheer - so naturally the world set out to prove me wrong.
This time, Tennant didn't have to haul me out of bed - I woke up with a start at the first trill, eyes wide and staring at the ceiling above. Made a move to sit up, and then thought better of it.
"Please tell me I'm asleep and dreaming," I said.
"You're not," was O'Grady's sour reply.
I groaned. "I don't suppose you know what she wants, do you?"
"If I knew, I wouldn't be lying here listening," he snapped.
But that was all she did - sing. And all we could do was listen. I slid back to sleep, and woke in the pale dawn light just before the bell. It gave me just enough time to scribble a letter to the Grandlady and drop it in the post on the way down to breakfast. Tennant had slept through it this time - he goggled when I bumped into him in the dining hall.
"Is she here to take our souls?" he asked, and seemed quite taken with the thought. "Wait, why don't you and O'Grady report it to the headmaster?"
"And what would old Rivers do, send it a stern notice forbidding singing on the grounds after midnight?" I said with a snort. "Fifty points off the house of Fae, that should do it! I wrote my grandmother. Not much we can do, it's not like I'm a wizard."
Though I don't suppose you'd know any charms or wards against banshees either, has the Grandlady gotten to that bit yet? Maybe she'll give you new lessons next summer, or sooner.
When the snow cut hockey practice off, I skulked off to the library and tried to do some research. They didn't have anything useful, which was about what I expected anyway. I found two books of Irish fairy tales but that was it. The first one was full of hair-raising pictures - it's still making the rounds in the dorm, if someone hasn't lost it by now. The second had a handful of stories about banshees with silver combs and unwary travellers and harps, which didn't sound right. Aren't silver combs supposed to be for mermaids?
O'Grady took one look at the books and looked contemptuous. "The authors are English. You can't think they'll know anything?"
"Well, I don't see your countrymen writing anything useful either," I pointed out, turning back to the first book. He scowled and muttered something about the "English" and "secrets" and "prying into everything". Showing great magnanimity of spirit, I ignored him and he slung his violin case under his shoulder and stalked off to practice.
Then he stopped in the common room door and said, abruptly, "She's fae folk, so she'll be weak to iron."
I gave him a blank look, then jumped out of my chair. "That's it! How could I forget - but we don't have any iron. And it's not like we could cage the school... Is a banshee a spirit? They're weak to salt, we could put salt across all the windows and see if it works... Horseshoes?"
We sent Tennant down to make eyes at the cook, and he came back with enough salt to bless half the school, and a monster of a frying pan to boot. We shook down the entire dorm, and after some grumbling they produced three horseshoes, five pounds of assorted screws and bolts and nails, a hammer and a bag of antique coins that Connor said could be made of anything, so why not iron too?
By now, at least half the dorm had heard the banshee at one time or another, enough to shut the other half of the dorm up while we scattered salt and assorted iron across all the windows, hung the hammer on the door and gave O'Grady pride of honour with the frying pan over his bed. He wasn't pleased but as we all pointed out quite reasonably, as its most likely target he was also the one who needed it most.
I could have sworn it worked too. We got about a week of peace after that, and I was about to write to tell the Grandlady that the crisis was averted and the banshee'd gone back to haunting Irish castles as it rightly should. Well, then she returned with a right vengeance.
We don't get private studies till next year, so most nights the fourth form crams together in the common room and we manage the best we can. I was at one of the desks slogging through a Natural History essay that night when a window at the other end of the room exploded with a crash that rattled our teeth and shook the pictures right off the walls (the Weeping Lovers went right off the mantlepiece and into the fireplace). A howl like a storm wind followed it, and then a shriek that was no breeze at all.
Before you knew it, the room was a mess of shouting and shoving and panic, when I shot up from my desk, I was nearly elbowed in the eye. Through the broken window, I saw a great shape, silver haired and grey-robed, swoop in right on top O'Grady.
"Have you been hiding, boy?" she sang, and her song hurt the ears to hear. "We hear everything, your music calls to us, always."
O'Grady stood frozen, fingers still clenched about his violin and bow. Then from behind him, Tennant shoved his way through the crowd and hurled something right at the banshee. A horseshoe, I saw, and then dove into the crowd towards them.
"Stop shoving!" someone was snapping. "Get out the door and line up along the corridor, don't block the way!"
I knew the horseshoe had done its damage when the banshee shrieked again and another window shattered, and the rain of broken glass brought another wave of noise and pain. I staggered out of the crowd just as O'Grady drew his bow and a high, clear note seemed to empty the air.
"Your business is with me," he said to the banshee.
Tennant had ducked under a table before most of the glass could hit him, but his face was bleeding and he looked shaky. That left me to indulge in stupid heroics like flinging myself at the two of them with no clue what to actually do. She gave a trill of joy that made shivers run down my spine, and her grey robes flapped and blew to wrap themselves around O'Grady. I fell right into them, but she paid me no mind, only lifted all of us up in a cloud of thick, clinging mist and rose through the window. The winter air struck us like a blow to the face, and then the mist rose to choke me, and the world went black.
I don't know how much time passed before I woke, freezing and coughing. Hours, is my guess. The room was too dimly lit to see where I was at first glance, and the floor was rough dirt. After a moment's listening, I thought I was alone and sat up. Slowly. My head felt like a herd of elephants had been dancing on it and the rest of me wasn't much better. After looking around, I guessed I'd been locked in a cellar of some sort. The room was empty but for a couple of hollow barrels against the wall. The only light fell weak and pale through a small window high in the wall.
Careful examination of the door had revealed that it was not only locked but bolted from the outside. Turning my pockets out revealed a kerchief, penknife, three pencil stubs, two toffees and one of Connor's Chinese coins. I tried picking the lock with my penknife and snapped the bottle opener. Then I tried climbing the window and pretty nearly broke my neck. Hours must have passed while I paced the room wondering what'd happened to O'Grady, kicking myself for being stuck here like a fool, and being bored and cold and starving. Books never tell you how boring getting kidnapped is - I think I'd rather have been chased by goblins.
Going by the light, the day had gone past morning and was headed into evening again when I finally heard footsteps. Someone was stomping along in heavy boots, and when the bolt rattled and the key turned in the lock, I'd ducked by the door. Lucky for me, the door was hinged to swing inside, and I'd shoved one of the barrels right behind it so it stuck. Whoever it was at the door swore and shoved at the door again just as the barrel slid back - and sent a heavyset man with red hair sprawling into the room on his face. Remember how mad Thomas used to get when I played that trick on him in the nursery?
I kicked at his head, hard, then shot out of the door and slammed it shut before he could get up again. I slid the bolt home as he threw himself upon it with a roar, but I didn't stop to listen to his opinion on the matter. Sprinting down the dark corridor, I turned a corner and found a flight of wooden steps leading up to an open door. I stopped and drew a hasty breath and listened. Bright light, probably electric, and voices were coming from the door above. Whoever I'd locked in my cellar hadn't been alone and someone would be down to look for him eventually. I crept up the steps as silently as I could.
"-- never told us there'd be kidnapping involved now, did you," a man's reedy voice was complaining. "And what's with this kid? We don't get paid to go 'round murdering schoolboys either, the fuss'll be enormous--"
"I've told you, murder will not be necessary," a rich, deep voice with O'Grady's accent said. "I only need a few more days to finish my business with my nephew, and then we can all clear out and leave the authorities to deal with them. There will be no trouble. All you have to do is see to it that the boys are fed and don't escape."
Then footsteps and a door somewhere slid shut. The reedy voice muttered to itself and fell silent, and when I peered around the door, I saw a large, sparsely furnished kitchen with an oak floor. From the look of it I guessed we were in an old farmhouse of some sort. The reedy-voiced man had settled himself in a wicker chair by the enormous fireplace, and I saw that with luck I might be able to sneak right past him into the rest of the house.
Sliding past on silent feet, I was nearly home and free when the man checked his watch, asked out loud, "What's taking that oaf so long? He only had to see if the boy was still alive," and stood. I ducked behind the kitchen table, but too late.
"Who's there?" he snapped. "If it's you, boy, we're all armed here. If you want your mate to stay in one piece, you'll show yourself--"
I was about to make a run for it anyway when a sharp rap on the back door made the both of us start. The man turned his head to stare suspiciously at the door, then swung around to glare at, if not me, then the kitchen at large. Then the rap came again.
"I beg your pardon," a muffled voice called through the door. "But I'm looking for a Mr Percival Langley?"
Still crouched behind the table, I stared. The man stalked to the door then and threw it open. "I don't know who sent you," he said, "but there ain't no one of that name in here."
The thin, black-coated figure in the door smiled. "No? But I believe he's standing right behind you."
"What the devil d'you--"
Then a pale hand whipped out and caught the man right in the throat - he couldn't even scream as he flew sprawling back into the room. Then the stranger picked him up, struck him hard at the back of his head, and he went limp.
I stood there gaping like a goldfish. The stranger removed his hat, revealing brown hair and an plain face with a rather hawkish nose, and examined me. "You seem to match the description Madam Worth gave me well enough," he said. "You are Percival, aren't you? I was told at the school that two boys were taken."
After snapping my mouth shut, I nodded. "That's my name. The other one was O'Grady, and he's still around here somewhere. My grandmother sent you?"
The young man nodded. "She asked me to investigate the unexplained presence of a banshee in the area, but it appears that matters escalated before I even arrived. Fortunately, your grandmother's tracking charm helped me find you."
"Right. Um. That's ace!" I said, still a little shaken at the quick way he'd dispatched the other fellow. "I-is he dead?" I had to ask, with a jerk of my head towards him.
"He will have quite a headache when he wakes, but he will wake," the man said mildly. "Your grandmother told me to clear this up with as little fuss as possible, and dead bodies tend to leave a lot more fuss than most villains would have you believe."
I breathed a sigh of relief. "How did you do that anyway?" I asked, and the young man chuckled.
"I don't think your grandmother will approve of me teaching it to you, she seems to think you get into enough trouble on your own," he said. "Shall we find your friend and finish this?"
I nodded. "One of them's locked up in the cellar downstairs. There's another one, I don't know where he is right now. I think he's O'Grady's uncle, and he seemed to be planning something for him." I scowled. "Sounded nasty too. Hey, what do I call you?"
"Ah, I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Philippa Leston, you may call me Phil, if you like."
It took a moment before I blinked. "Isn't that a girl's name? Ah, wait, you're--" And then I gaped again.
She laughed. "Apologies for the confusion. Yes, I am a woman. I told your school that I was a private investigator your grandmother had sent, and found it more convenient to dress for the part. They would have asked too many questions if they'd known I was a woman."
I scratched the back of my head. "Well, that wouldn't be the strangest thing to have happened this week," I admitted, and her answering grin looked quite friendly.
"So I have gathered. Come on, then."
I followed her through the green baize door that led out of the kitchen into the rest of the house. After a few steps, we stopped for the faintest strains of music were coming from upstairs. We climbed the stairs and finally found the attics, where there was the sound of a violin playing. It was playing a kind of Irish folksong, lilting and wistful, and a high, sweet voice was singing in accompaniment.
I'm not much of a one for music, and I'd never noticed if O'Grady was any good before, but for a moment, we stood quite transfixed.
"Extraordinary," Philippa murmured to herself, then paused. "So this is the song of the lady of mourning," she said, thoughtful, and climbed the steps to the attic and briskly opened the door.
I came in behind her just in time to see O'Grady's uncle turn and raise a pistol. The gunshot cracked the air like a thunderbolt, and blood sprayed from her shoulder, and for one long, eternal moment, Phil seemed to freeze in place. Then she spun on one foot, swept the other up in a movement so fast it seemed to blur, and kicked the pistol from his grasp. It flew through the air and she caught it with fluid grace, then pointed it back at him.
"Release him," she ordered.
He stared up at her, eyes wide and disbelieving, then threw his head back and laughed. It echoed like a howl through the cold air. "She has him, there's nothing I can do now. The fae folk take what they desire, she is claiming her toll."
Oblivious to our entrance, O'Grady played on, and the banshee sang with him, grey robes tangled around his arms. Her silver hair was rising in an aureole of its own light. I tried to tear the robes from his arm and caught him by the shoulder, shook hard.
"O'Grady! Wake up!" I roared in his ear, but he heard nothing, only stared at the banshee with wide, empty eyes. She looked at me and bared her teeth and her song stuttered, lost its rhythm - but it wasn't enough to snap him out of it. I tried to drag him back and she hissed, "Miiiine."
"I think he'd have something to say about that! No one belongs to you! You fae folk are all a lot of--" I thundered, and she drew her arm back to strike me.
Philippa stepped between us and caught her by the wrist. "And what if another was to offer to pay your price, my lady?" she asked. "A soul for a song, is it not?"
The banshee screamed in her face but Philippa did not flinch. "My soul, in exchange for the boy's," she said again. "Freely offered - if you can take it."
"Foolish child, what is your soul worth against his music?" the banshee asked. "But we will not turn down a gift freely given." Her eyes were pools of shifting quicksilver as she ran her nails down Philippa's cheek and drew blood, then leaned to press her lips against her ear.
What she sang, I couldn't hear. Behind us, O'Grady suddenly grasped, and when I turned, he had dropped his violin and bow to fall boneless to the ground. When I shook him and yelled, he grimaced, then opened his eyes.
"Wha - Langley? What are you doing here? It's not safe, my uncle--"
"You're safe enough now, you bloody idiot," I said. But now Philippa was in the banshee's thrall, which did not strike my mind as a considerable improvement. I pushed myself back to my feet and turned, with no idea what to do beyond throw myself at them - yell a lot? Hope something blew up? But it was too late. As I watched, her eyes slid closed and knees folded, and she hit the ground with a thump.
"So much death in you," the banshee murmured, pleased. "Such sorrow. Tell it to me, and I will drink of it like the finest wine, sing of it laments to break men's hearts. Wake and you shall be mine."
Her eyelids fluttered, and her eyes opened again. Her gaze was clear, and as the banshee stared at her, uncomprehending, she smiled.
"Did my soul please you while you had it, my lady?"
"You cannot be free! This is no trick--"
"My soul would have been yours, once, but as it seems, those who hold it in keeping now will not relinquish it so easily. Like fairy gold, you have had your price, but not kept it."
The banshee's eyes turned gleaming black, and her voice rose in a shriek that made us all flinch. The sound rose, spiralled, consumed us, unrelenting as a typhoon, until it felt like your mind would shatter in its grip.
Then a song like a war march crashed into her song, fierce and furious, and with each beat, the banshee's assault was driven further back. Then with a final, breaking note of rage, she vanished and blessed, blessed silence fell on the room again.
I sat on the floor with a groan, and shook my head hard. The ringing in my ears took a good long time to fade. When I thought I could finally hear something again, I said, "Philippa? How did you do that?"
The scratches on her cheek were still bleeding, but the shoulder I knew she'd been shot in seemed to give her no trouble at all. She stopped rubbing her ears and gave me a wry, almost mocking smile. "A lucky guess at best. The banshee did not think to ask if I was as mortal as I looked before she accepted my offer. My soul is mine to give, but since I am unable to stay dead, she was unable to keep hold of it."
"Unable to stay dead?" I echoed, then stopped. "You're a vampire!" I exclaimed. "Does my grandmother know? How did she find you? Do you drink human blood? What's it taste like? Are you allergic to garlic?"
She gave me a long hard look - and then smiled. "That sounded very much like your father, Percival Langley."
"Just call me Val, everyone else does," I said. "You knew my father?"
"And your mother too. I suppose you could say I had the good fortune to meet them under circumstances... not very different from these," she replied. "I am not allergic to garlic, human blood tastes terrible but is a necessary evil, and your grandmother most certainly knows what I am. I do not think she would have hired me otherwise."
I asked a lot of questions after that, but she didn't answer most of them. In the meantime, we picked ourselves up along with O'Grady (who seemed to have spent the last of his strength in banishing the banshee), collected the villains of the affair and tied them neatly up in the kitchen. Philippa called the police and the school, the first of whom arrived to examine the mess, the second to drag us back scolding all the way. Philippa vanished with the police, and the last I saw of her, she was pulling her hat back on, the banshee's mark clear and crimson on her face.
Everyone asked us a lot of questions and then refused to believe our answers, especially the police, who would never have believed we'd been whisked out of a third floor window by a banshee if twenty other pairs of eyes hadn't backed our story up.
Eventually we put the rest of the story back together, mostly by threatening to sit on O'Grady's head. When his grandfather had died, O'Grady had been left with the family inheritance of a castle and not enough money to keep it. By some complicated clan law we didn't understand, he'd also been left head of the entire clan of O'Grady's. Somewhere along the way, his uncle had come up with the brilliant plan of getting the family banshee to thrall him. With his soul enraptured by fae song, O'Grady would have made just the puppet he'd needed to seize control of the rest of the clan.
But thanks to Ander's cold, my brains and everyone else's horseshoes, nails, screws and bolts - hey, all's well that ends well. Honestly, I don't know what the Grandlady is complaining about, you'd think I'd set half the school on fire just to watch it burn, to hear her go on about it.
So now you know all about it, you can stop worrying and scolding. Other than an enormous headache and a short bout of temporary deafness, I'm perfectly fine. After all the excitement, even the peace and quiet of term is starting to look like a good thing. Though Sanders from the fifth form was asking me the other day if I knew how to fae-proof a study...
Take care of yourself, old thing, and if a banshee comes whistling outside your window... go back to sleep.
Love,
Val
the end
Notes: This story can be considered a prequel to June Mermaids.
email: dreamsmoke [at] gmail.com
17 January, 1926
Thornton-Cleveleys, England
Dear Clare,
Now look here, I don't know what the Grandlady's been telling you but really, you don't have to carry on so. All my limbs are still attached and I'm quite alive, so it's not like the damage was permanent. Well, except for the Weeping Lovers, but everyone agrees that they were the most hideous piece of work anyway, so they're no big loss.
I certainly didn't ask to be kidnapped by wailing banshees in the dead of winter term. To hear the Grandlady talk, you'd think I'd arranged the whole circus for my amusement. Even if I'd thought of it I wouldn't have planned it while the ground was six inches deep in snow. I'm not completely daft.
If she really wanted someone to lay into, she should be picking on O'Grady. After all, it was his banshee. I only got kidnapped trying to save his skin, out of the goodness of my own heart, so on and so forth. The moral of this whole affair seems to be that good deeds and friendship are not worth half the trouble they get you in, Sister. Next time I'm going back to sleep and letting the forces of fae bewitch anyone they like.
As for the rest of the blame, you can look at Anders. If he hadn't gotten that head cold, he wouldn't have kept half the dorm awake with the way he kept honking in his sleep (of course, he slept like a log through the whole thing), and I wouldn't have found myself rudely awakened by Tennant hauling me right out of bed. And when I swore like blazes and woke up, he nearly sat on me, and let me say, getting sat on by Tennant would have been no joke.
"Listen!" he hissed dramatically. "We're being haunted!"
"What?" One month into the term was a little late for a ghost to start making its presence felt, I would have said, but then I heard it and I'll confess, my hair pretty nearly stood on end.
A voice was singing outside the dorm windows, high and keening and mournful like the winter wind over the moors. It sang in a liquid tongue we couldn't understand, to a song like - well, like a heart breaking. It was the most unearthly thing I'd ever heard - for a moment it felt like the voice reached right into me and twisted, and suddenly I remembered Mother and Father and the day the telegram came, as clearly as if it'd happened yesterday...
Do you know, I think I'd forgotten how much it hurt till then?
But don't tell anyone I said that.
It left me pretty much struck. I don't know how long I sat there gaping like a fish before Tennant started shaking me again.
"Shouldn't we do something?" he whispered.
I wish it'd never got out that I was related to the grand poobah of the Royal British Council of Thaumaturgy. Half the school thinks I'm a wizard, the other half thinks I'm barking mad and the whole lot of them expect me to be the local expert on all things strange and wonderful.
"I haven't a clue," I said, and sat up to eye the windows. "Who's that singing coming from? Did you see them?"
Tennant shook his head.
The fourth form dorms are all on the third floor, right under the attics, and our dorm was right at the end of the west wing, overlooking the gardens. Anyone trying to climb up to or out of our dorm would have had a pretty time of it - sheer brick, not a tree in sight, a discouraging lack of creepers or handy piping. A lower year could hardly be hanging outside the windows warbling for a lark, and I rather doubted Tennant and I could both be imagining the singing.
But if a ghost hadn't seen fit to grace us with its presence yet, I really didn't see why it'd turn up now. I sighed and, keeping my head low, crept over to the nearest window. The boards were ice under my feet but the sooner we found out who was singing and why, the sooner I could get back to sleep
The song kept drifting through the windows, as if whoever it was was floating in a leisurely circle around our dorm and back again. I'd almost reached the window and was just going to peer over the sill when someone tackled me to the floor for the second time in a row. I might as well have joined rugby, the way things are going.
"Argh! Gerroff!" I kicked out and hit someone. He swore in muffled tones and scrambled back before I could get a second kick in. "O'Grady? What on earth d'you think you're doing?" I demanded.
"She mustn't see us!" he hissed.
"You heard it? Wait, you know her? Who is that?"
"I don't know her! She's - hide!"
We dove under the beds just as the song came to the window above us. For a heartbeat, it seemed to linger there, as if the singer could feel us listening, but then it paused and slowly faded away, leaving silence. I glanced at O'Grady under the opposite bed, and even in the weak moonlight I could see that his face was still ashen.
The silence stretched, tense and awkward, until, "Can we come out now?" Tennant asked plaintively from under his bed on the other side of the room.
I stuck my head out. "Well, it seems to have stopped. O'Grady, who was that?"
He sat up and shook his head. "I don't know who, but I know... what. I've heard it before. That was a banshee's song," he said.
I blinked. "All the way out here? I thought they were only found in..." Then I stopped.
O'Grady's mouth grew grim. "Then I suppose she came for me," he said, after a long silence.
Tennant looked puzzled. "She came here just to sing at you?"
"They don't just sing," I said. "It means that a death is coming, doesn't it? Is it someone in your family?"
"I don't know," he said. "I could call in the morning, but it could be anyone. The only time I've heard her was when my grandfather died, and..."
I scratched my ear and bit back a yawn. "Well, there's no use brooding over it now, at any rate. You may as well get some sleep while you can. If there's bad news in the morning, at least then you'll be awake to face it, yeah?"
He gave a brief nod, and we all crawled back to the sleep of the just and weary. Or so it was for me - O'Grady didn't look like he'd had such a good time of it in the morning. Tennant and I came down to breakfast just in time to see a prefect standing over him and deducting twenty points from the house for using the hall phone out of hours. He looked like death, but he gave us a thin smile when we passed, so we knew it couldn't be bad news.
The day passed ordinarily enough. Someone finally hauled Anders down to the infirmary to give the rest of us some peace. I fell asleep in Arithmetic and got a cuffed on the ear. Tennant got called on in English and flubbed, and so far as I could see, O'Grady slept through pretty nearly everything. Some days I wonder they haven't expelled him yet. A first year managed the thrilling feat of setting the greenhouse petunias on fire, but since we weren't there to see it, that hardly counted as entertainment.
Maybe the banshee'd got it wrong, I thought with good cheer - so naturally the world set out to prove me wrong.
This time, Tennant didn't have to haul me out of bed - I woke up with a start at the first trill, eyes wide and staring at the ceiling above. Made a move to sit up, and then thought better of it.
"Please tell me I'm asleep and dreaming," I said.
"You're not," was O'Grady's sour reply.
I groaned. "I don't suppose you know what she wants, do you?"
"If I knew, I wouldn't be lying here listening," he snapped.
But that was all she did - sing. And all we could do was listen. I slid back to sleep, and woke in the pale dawn light just before the bell. It gave me just enough time to scribble a letter to the Grandlady and drop it in the post on the way down to breakfast. Tennant had slept through it this time - he goggled when I bumped into him in the dining hall.
"Is she here to take our souls?" he asked, and seemed quite taken with the thought. "Wait, why don't you and O'Grady report it to the headmaster?"
"And what would old Rivers do, send it a stern notice forbidding singing on the grounds after midnight?" I said with a snort. "Fifty points off the house of Fae, that should do it! I wrote my grandmother. Not much we can do, it's not like I'm a wizard."
Though I don't suppose you'd know any charms or wards against banshees either, has the Grandlady gotten to that bit yet? Maybe she'll give you new lessons next summer, or sooner.
When the snow cut hockey practice off, I skulked off to the library and tried to do some research. They didn't have anything useful, which was about what I expected anyway. I found two books of Irish fairy tales but that was it. The first one was full of hair-raising pictures - it's still making the rounds in the dorm, if someone hasn't lost it by now. The second had a handful of stories about banshees with silver combs and unwary travellers and harps, which didn't sound right. Aren't silver combs supposed to be for mermaids?
O'Grady took one look at the books and looked contemptuous. "The authors are English. You can't think they'll know anything?"
"Well, I don't see your countrymen writing anything useful either," I pointed out, turning back to the first book. He scowled and muttered something about the "English" and "secrets" and "prying into everything". Showing great magnanimity of spirit, I ignored him and he slung his violin case under his shoulder and stalked off to practice.
Then he stopped in the common room door and said, abruptly, "She's fae folk, so she'll be weak to iron."
I gave him a blank look, then jumped out of my chair. "That's it! How could I forget - but we don't have any iron. And it's not like we could cage the school... Is a banshee a spirit? They're weak to salt, we could put salt across all the windows and see if it works... Horseshoes?"
We sent Tennant down to make eyes at the cook, and he came back with enough salt to bless half the school, and a monster of a frying pan to boot. We shook down the entire dorm, and after some grumbling they produced three horseshoes, five pounds of assorted screws and bolts and nails, a hammer and a bag of antique coins that Connor said could be made of anything, so why not iron too?
By now, at least half the dorm had heard the banshee at one time or another, enough to shut the other half of the dorm up while we scattered salt and assorted iron across all the windows, hung the hammer on the door and gave O'Grady pride of honour with the frying pan over his bed. He wasn't pleased but as we all pointed out quite reasonably, as its most likely target he was also the one who needed it most.
I could have sworn it worked too. We got about a week of peace after that, and I was about to write to tell the Grandlady that the crisis was averted and the banshee'd gone back to haunting Irish castles as it rightly should. Well, then she returned with a right vengeance.
We don't get private studies till next year, so most nights the fourth form crams together in the common room and we manage the best we can. I was at one of the desks slogging through a Natural History essay that night when a window at the other end of the room exploded with a crash that rattled our teeth and shook the pictures right off the walls (the Weeping Lovers went right off the mantlepiece and into the fireplace). A howl like a storm wind followed it, and then a shriek that was no breeze at all.
Before you knew it, the room was a mess of shouting and shoving and panic, when I shot up from my desk, I was nearly elbowed in the eye. Through the broken window, I saw a great shape, silver haired and grey-robed, swoop in right on top O'Grady.
"Have you been hiding, boy?" she sang, and her song hurt the ears to hear. "We hear everything, your music calls to us, always."
O'Grady stood frozen, fingers still clenched about his violin and bow. Then from behind him, Tennant shoved his way through the crowd and hurled something right at the banshee. A horseshoe, I saw, and then dove into the crowd towards them.
"Stop shoving!" someone was snapping. "Get out the door and line up along the corridor, don't block the way!"
I knew the horseshoe had done its damage when the banshee shrieked again and another window shattered, and the rain of broken glass brought another wave of noise and pain. I staggered out of the crowd just as O'Grady drew his bow and a high, clear note seemed to empty the air.
"Your business is with me," he said to the banshee.
Tennant had ducked under a table before most of the glass could hit him, but his face was bleeding and he looked shaky. That left me to indulge in stupid heroics like flinging myself at the two of them with no clue what to actually do. She gave a trill of joy that made shivers run down my spine, and her grey robes flapped and blew to wrap themselves around O'Grady. I fell right into them, but she paid me no mind, only lifted all of us up in a cloud of thick, clinging mist and rose through the window. The winter air struck us like a blow to the face, and then the mist rose to choke me, and the world went black.
I don't know how much time passed before I woke, freezing and coughing. Hours, is my guess. The room was too dimly lit to see where I was at first glance, and the floor was rough dirt. After a moment's listening, I thought I was alone and sat up. Slowly. My head felt like a herd of elephants had been dancing on it and the rest of me wasn't much better. After looking around, I guessed I'd been locked in a cellar of some sort. The room was empty but for a couple of hollow barrels against the wall. The only light fell weak and pale through a small window high in the wall.
Careful examination of the door had revealed that it was not only locked but bolted from the outside. Turning my pockets out revealed a kerchief, penknife, three pencil stubs, two toffees and one of Connor's Chinese coins. I tried picking the lock with my penknife and snapped the bottle opener. Then I tried climbing the window and pretty nearly broke my neck. Hours must have passed while I paced the room wondering what'd happened to O'Grady, kicking myself for being stuck here like a fool, and being bored and cold and starving. Books never tell you how boring getting kidnapped is - I think I'd rather have been chased by goblins.
Going by the light, the day had gone past morning and was headed into evening again when I finally heard footsteps. Someone was stomping along in heavy boots, and when the bolt rattled and the key turned in the lock, I'd ducked by the door. Lucky for me, the door was hinged to swing inside, and I'd shoved one of the barrels right behind it so it stuck. Whoever it was at the door swore and shoved at the door again just as the barrel slid back - and sent a heavyset man with red hair sprawling into the room on his face. Remember how mad Thomas used to get when I played that trick on him in the nursery?
I kicked at his head, hard, then shot out of the door and slammed it shut before he could get up again. I slid the bolt home as he threw himself upon it with a roar, but I didn't stop to listen to his opinion on the matter. Sprinting down the dark corridor, I turned a corner and found a flight of wooden steps leading up to an open door. I stopped and drew a hasty breath and listened. Bright light, probably electric, and voices were coming from the door above. Whoever I'd locked in my cellar hadn't been alone and someone would be down to look for him eventually. I crept up the steps as silently as I could.
"-- never told us there'd be kidnapping involved now, did you," a man's reedy voice was complaining. "And what's with this kid? We don't get paid to go 'round murdering schoolboys either, the fuss'll be enormous--"
"I've told you, murder will not be necessary," a rich, deep voice with O'Grady's accent said. "I only need a few more days to finish my business with my nephew, and then we can all clear out and leave the authorities to deal with them. There will be no trouble. All you have to do is see to it that the boys are fed and don't escape."
Then footsteps and a door somewhere slid shut. The reedy voice muttered to itself and fell silent, and when I peered around the door, I saw a large, sparsely furnished kitchen with an oak floor. From the look of it I guessed we were in an old farmhouse of some sort. The reedy-voiced man had settled himself in a wicker chair by the enormous fireplace, and I saw that with luck I might be able to sneak right past him into the rest of the house.
Sliding past on silent feet, I was nearly home and free when the man checked his watch, asked out loud, "What's taking that oaf so long? He only had to see if the boy was still alive," and stood. I ducked behind the kitchen table, but too late.
"Who's there?" he snapped. "If it's you, boy, we're all armed here. If you want your mate to stay in one piece, you'll show yourself--"
I was about to make a run for it anyway when a sharp rap on the back door made the both of us start. The man turned his head to stare suspiciously at the door, then swung around to glare at, if not me, then the kitchen at large. Then the rap came again.
"I beg your pardon," a muffled voice called through the door. "But I'm looking for a Mr Percival Langley?"
Still crouched behind the table, I stared. The man stalked to the door then and threw it open. "I don't know who sent you," he said, "but there ain't no one of that name in here."
The thin, black-coated figure in the door smiled. "No? But I believe he's standing right behind you."
"What the devil d'you--"
Then a pale hand whipped out and caught the man right in the throat - he couldn't even scream as he flew sprawling back into the room. Then the stranger picked him up, struck him hard at the back of his head, and he went limp.
I stood there gaping like a goldfish. The stranger removed his hat, revealing brown hair and an plain face with a rather hawkish nose, and examined me. "You seem to match the description Madam Worth gave me well enough," he said. "You are Percival, aren't you? I was told at the school that two boys were taken."
After snapping my mouth shut, I nodded. "That's my name. The other one was O'Grady, and he's still around here somewhere. My grandmother sent you?"
The young man nodded. "She asked me to investigate the unexplained presence of a banshee in the area, but it appears that matters escalated before I even arrived. Fortunately, your grandmother's tracking charm helped me find you."
"Right. Um. That's ace!" I said, still a little shaken at the quick way he'd dispatched the other fellow. "I-is he dead?" I had to ask, with a jerk of my head towards him.
"He will have quite a headache when he wakes, but he will wake," the man said mildly. "Your grandmother told me to clear this up with as little fuss as possible, and dead bodies tend to leave a lot more fuss than most villains would have you believe."
I breathed a sigh of relief. "How did you do that anyway?" I asked, and the young man chuckled.
"I don't think your grandmother will approve of me teaching it to you, she seems to think you get into enough trouble on your own," he said. "Shall we find your friend and finish this?"
I nodded. "One of them's locked up in the cellar downstairs. There's another one, I don't know where he is right now. I think he's O'Grady's uncle, and he seemed to be planning something for him." I scowled. "Sounded nasty too. Hey, what do I call you?"
"Ah, I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Philippa Leston, you may call me Phil, if you like."
It took a moment before I blinked. "Isn't that a girl's name? Ah, wait, you're--" And then I gaped again.
She laughed. "Apologies for the confusion. Yes, I am a woman. I told your school that I was a private investigator your grandmother had sent, and found it more convenient to dress for the part. They would have asked too many questions if they'd known I was a woman."
I scratched the back of my head. "Well, that wouldn't be the strangest thing to have happened this week," I admitted, and her answering grin looked quite friendly.
"So I have gathered. Come on, then."
I followed her through the green baize door that led out of the kitchen into the rest of the house. After a few steps, we stopped for the faintest strains of music were coming from upstairs. We climbed the stairs and finally found the attics, where there was the sound of a violin playing. It was playing a kind of Irish folksong, lilting and wistful, and a high, sweet voice was singing in accompaniment.
I'm not much of a one for music, and I'd never noticed if O'Grady was any good before, but for a moment, we stood quite transfixed.
"Extraordinary," Philippa murmured to herself, then paused. "So this is the song of the lady of mourning," she said, thoughtful, and climbed the steps to the attic and briskly opened the door.
I came in behind her just in time to see O'Grady's uncle turn and raise a pistol. The gunshot cracked the air like a thunderbolt, and blood sprayed from her shoulder, and for one long, eternal moment, Phil seemed to freeze in place. Then she spun on one foot, swept the other up in a movement so fast it seemed to blur, and kicked the pistol from his grasp. It flew through the air and she caught it with fluid grace, then pointed it back at him.
"Release him," she ordered.
He stared up at her, eyes wide and disbelieving, then threw his head back and laughed. It echoed like a howl through the cold air. "She has him, there's nothing I can do now. The fae folk take what they desire, she is claiming her toll."
Oblivious to our entrance, O'Grady played on, and the banshee sang with him, grey robes tangled around his arms. Her silver hair was rising in an aureole of its own light. I tried to tear the robes from his arm and caught him by the shoulder, shook hard.
"O'Grady! Wake up!" I roared in his ear, but he heard nothing, only stared at the banshee with wide, empty eyes. She looked at me and bared her teeth and her song stuttered, lost its rhythm - but it wasn't enough to snap him out of it. I tried to drag him back and she hissed, "Miiiine."
"I think he'd have something to say about that! No one belongs to you! You fae folk are all a lot of--" I thundered, and she drew her arm back to strike me.
Philippa stepped between us and caught her by the wrist. "And what if another was to offer to pay your price, my lady?" she asked. "A soul for a song, is it not?"
The banshee screamed in her face but Philippa did not flinch. "My soul, in exchange for the boy's," she said again. "Freely offered - if you can take it."
"Foolish child, what is your soul worth against his music?" the banshee asked. "But we will not turn down a gift freely given." Her eyes were pools of shifting quicksilver as she ran her nails down Philippa's cheek and drew blood, then leaned to press her lips against her ear.
What she sang, I couldn't hear. Behind us, O'Grady suddenly grasped, and when I turned, he had dropped his violin and bow to fall boneless to the ground. When I shook him and yelled, he grimaced, then opened his eyes.
"Wha - Langley? What are you doing here? It's not safe, my uncle--"
"You're safe enough now, you bloody idiot," I said. But now Philippa was in the banshee's thrall, which did not strike my mind as a considerable improvement. I pushed myself back to my feet and turned, with no idea what to do beyond throw myself at them - yell a lot? Hope something blew up? But it was too late. As I watched, her eyes slid closed and knees folded, and she hit the ground with a thump.
"So much death in you," the banshee murmured, pleased. "Such sorrow. Tell it to me, and I will drink of it like the finest wine, sing of it laments to break men's hearts. Wake and you shall be mine."
Her eyelids fluttered, and her eyes opened again. Her gaze was clear, and as the banshee stared at her, uncomprehending, she smiled.
"Did my soul please you while you had it, my lady?"
"You cannot be free! This is no trick--"
"My soul would have been yours, once, but as it seems, those who hold it in keeping now will not relinquish it so easily. Like fairy gold, you have had your price, but not kept it."
The banshee's eyes turned gleaming black, and her voice rose in a shriek that made us all flinch. The sound rose, spiralled, consumed us, unrelenting as a typhoon, until it felt like your mind would shatter in its grip.
Then a song like a war march crashed into her song, fierce and furious, and with each beat, the banshee's assault was driven further back. Then with a final, breaking note of rage, she vanished and blessed, blessed silence fell on the room again.
I sat on the floor with a groan, and shook my head hard. The ringing in my ears took a good long time to fade. When I thought I could finally hear something again, I said, "Philippa? How did you do that?"
The scratches on her cheek were still bleeding, but the shoulder I knew she'd been shot in seemed to give her no trouble at all. She stopped rubbing her ears and gave me a wry, almost mocking smile. "A lucky guess at best. The banshee did not think to ask if I was as mortal as I looked before she accepted my offer. My soul is mine to give, but since I am unable to stay dead, she was unable to keep hold of it."
"Unable to stay dead?" I echoed, then stopped. "You're a vampire!" I exclaimed. "Does my grandmother know? How did she find you? Do you drink human blood? What's it taste like? Are you allergic to garlic?"
She gave me a long hard look - and then smiled. "That sounded very much like your father, Percival Langley."
"Just call me Val, everyone else does," I said. "You knew my father?"
"And your mother too. I suppose you could say I had the good fortune to meet them under circumstances... not very different from these," she replied. "I am not allergic to garlic, human blood tastes terrible but is a necessary evil, and your grandmother most certainly knows what I am. I do not think she would have hired me otherwise."
I asked a lot of questions after that, but she didn't answer most of them. In the meantime, we picked ourselves up along with O'Grady (who seemed to have spent the last of his strength in banishing the banshee), collected the villains of the affair and tied them neatly up in the kitchen. Philippa called the police and the school, the first of whom arrived to examine the mess, the second to drag us back scolding all the way. Philippa vanished with the police, and the last I saw of her, she was pulling her hat back on, the banshee's mark clear and crimson on her face.
Everyone asked us a lot of questions and then refused to believe our answers, especially the police, who would never have believed we'd been whisked out of a third floor window by a banshee if twenty other pairs of eyes hadn't backed our story up.
Eventually we put the rest of the story back together, mostly by threatening to sit on O'Grady's head. When his grandfather had died, O'Grady had been left with the family inheritance of a castle and not enough money to keep it. By some complicated clan law we didn't understand, he'd also been left head of the entire clan of O'Grady's. Somewhere along the way, his uncle had come up with the brilliant plan of getting the family banshee to thrall him. With his soul enraptured by fae song, O'Grady would have made just the puppet he'd needed to seize control of the rest of the clan.
But thanks to Ander's cold, my brains and everyone else's horseshoes, nails, screws and bolts - hey, all's well that ends well. Honestly, I don't know what the Grandlady is complaining about, you'd think I'd set half the school on fire just to watch it burn, to hear her go on about it.
So now you know all about it, you can stop worrying and scolding. Other than an enormous headache and a short bout of temporary deafness, I'm perfectly fine. After all the excitement, even the peace and quiet of term is starting to look like a good thing. Though Sanders from the fifth form was asking me the other day if I knew how to fae-proof a study...
Take care of yourself, old thing, and if a banshee comes whistling outside your window... go back to sleep.
Love,
Val
the end
Notes: This story can be considered a prequel to June Mermaids.