The one thing that Stepmother didn’t seem to be conspiring to short them on was firewood. Sometimes Elena wondered if that wasn’t because Stepmother never really paid attention to things like fires—for her, they were just there; she never had to tend one herself, they were always alight when she rose and banked when she went to bed, and she never saw the building or feeding of them, nor the sweeping up of ash, nor the daily blacking of grates and firedogs.

  Candles, though. . . .

  The luxury of beeswax candles was no longer allotted to them. They got tallow, two for the schoolroom and two for the sitting room, plus one apiece for the bedrooms. Tallow candles needed to be carefully watched, and the wicks trimmed regularly, or they would gutter and spill hot tallow all over everything. So generally, when Arthur and Ben declared that the school day was over, they took the schoolroom candles into their parlor, and everyone took a turn at minding one. Tallow for candles wasn’t fit to be eaten, but Arthur had the clever idea of saving the stubs, melting them into cracked cups, and installing wicks, so that gave them candles they could use in their rooms without the fear of setting fire to something if they fell asleep.

  The first Sunday of Stepmother’s residence, with only the moves to new bedrooms done, they all went down dressed in their best, unsure if they would be going to church in the village since Nanny and Beecham were not there to accompany them. The other servants usually went to the early service before breakfast before dawn, led by Mrs. Farthingworth. Hobart generally went with them, Nanny, and Beecham. The question was, would Hobart—who generally held himself aloof from the children—order the coach for them all, or just accompany the other servants? But to Elena’s surprise, Father and Stepmother appeared downstairs with the butler Hobart, Stepmother’s sharp-faced maid, and Stephens, Father’s valet. So two coaches were required; they crammed into the old one as usual, Hobart sat up top with the old coachman Grimes, and Father, Stepmother, and their personal servants went in the new coach. The family pew at the church was very crowded, and Elena could practically feel all the villagers behind them burning holes in the backs of their heads with their eyes as they tried to make out whatever they could of the new ladyship.

  Stepmother seemed bored; Father couldn’t look at her without being rude to the vicar, but Elena saw him holding her hand under cover of holding the hymn book for her. She didn’t sing, and neither did Father, but the rest of them made up for that. After the service Vicar Steadman fell all over himself to greet them both obsequiously. Elena was embarrassed for him. He kept going on about how delightful her ladyship’s welcome supper had been, and how pleased he was that they had thought to invite him, and it was just as well that the old coach was at the end of the gravel walk almost as soon as they left the church. The children were able to pile into it and out of sight of Stepmother and Father before any of them lost countenance. Hobart seemed not averse to making a getaway with them.

  As soon as the wheels were turning, Arthur bowed to Ben, his face all screwed up into an unctuous expression. “Oh! Lady Whitstone! How good of you to grace us with your august presence on such an inclement morning!”

  Ben broke into laughter. “Oh, he’s angling for another supper, especially with the new chef in the kitchen, I’ll be bound.”

  “There’s certainly no point in looking to him for anything other than sermons on how grateful we must be to have a new mother,” Felix said in disgust.

  “Well, I’m just glad Whitstone Village is not one of the vacant livings at Father’s disposal,” David put in, from where he was squashed up against Elena. “I don’t think I could bear looking at Stepmother’s face without preaching a sermon about the duties of a mother to her children.”

  “I do wish I could work magic to spy on them just now.” Arthur smirked. “They’re going to be trapped there for at least a quarter hour while the vicar toad-eats, tries to get Stepmother to volunteer for something, and tries to pry money out of Father for church improvements. They won’t be able to leave without looking rude, and you know how Father feels about appearances.”

  They all piled out of the coach as fast as they could so Grimes could get himself and the horses out of the cold, and ran inside. There was still no sign of the new coach, and Elena wished maliciously that Stepmother could be trapped out in front of the church for at least another half hour or more.

  She hurried out of her clothing, and into her more comfortable gown, then dragooned Gus and David into going down to the kitchen with her. Sunday’s elaborate roast meant most of the servants would be too busy to bring anything up to the schoolroom until much later, and she was hungry now.

  Mrs. Banning greeted her with relief, freed Jenny from her duties at the sink, and sent them all back upstairs with the usual laundry baskets of crockery, silverware, and provisions. It was a far cry from what they would have gotten if they’d sat down to table with Father as had been the case before Stepmother’s arrival, but Mrs. Banning managed to slip in a bit more than usual.

  They ate quickly, and Ben and Arthur took down the soiled crockery themselves, before they all retreated to their rooms. Sunday meant they were supposed to be reading the Bible or other “improving” work, not stories, and certainly not together playing games. Elena took the pillows from her bed and made up a comfortable seat on her little hearth, propped up a book of Bible stories she already knew by heart where she could “read” it, and set to work on mending her brothers’ clothing. They were dreadfully hard on stockings in particular, and she had a notion for making a kind of felted sole with toes to protect the most vulnerable parts. By all rights, these things should have been done by the two laundry maids, but there was no sign that this would happen any time before they ran out of stockings and smallclothes.

  She was so used to Nanny barging into her room that she didn’t turn a hair when someone shoved the door open without a knock. She looked up, thinking it was Gus or Ben, and tried not to blanch when she saw it was Stepmother.

  She was just very glad that they had all anticipated that Father or Stepmother was likely to send someone up to make sure they were all spending their Sunday appropriately.

  She just hadn’t thought Stepmother would have come up herself.

  She scrambled to her feet, mending in one hand, and curtsied. “Good afternoon, ma’am,” she said, faintly.

  Stepmother said nothing, but her eyes lit on the mending, then went to the book, which had fallen over, face up. She nodded. “I am pleased to see that you are employing yourself in a useful and improving manner,” the woman said. “Go on as you have begun.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Elena said to the already closed door, and heaved a sigh of relief.

  I don’t think she’ll come back up here today. If we are very lucky, she’ll stay downstairs from now on as long as we’re quiet. She closed the book of Bible stories and took another out from under her mattress, a much more satisfying volume Arthur had found for her in the library about Princess Elizabeth Tudor.

  By the time Gus came to collect her for tea, she’d finished the mending and was able to give them all back their clothing.

  By the next Sunday, they had their own parlor set up, and to everyone’s pleasure, neither Father nor Stepmother was inclined to attend Sunday services. The vicar was not pleased, but at least he didn’t blame the siblings for their absence, and did not keep them standing at the door of the church for any longer than to tell them that “your good parents are missed,” and that he hoped whatever indisposition kept them away would soon be cured.

  Ben and Arthur, however, were met with the unwelcome announcement from Hobart that Father expected them to take luncheon in the dining room.

  With a sigh, they slumped their way deeper into the manor, while David, Emil, and Carl went off to the kitchen.

  The two eldest did not make an appearance back upstairs until after the crockery and soup pot had been cleared away and their younger siblings were curled up under spare blankets or coverlets in their little “parlor,” munching apples and amusing themselves. David was drawing next to the fire, Carl was reading, and Felix was building another, more elaborate boat for sailing on the pond when summer came again. Emil was brooding, staring into the fire and occasionally poking or feeding it. Elena, of course, was knitting. She wanted to get Stepmother’s shawl out of the way quickly so that she could start on more Christmas presents. She wanted to make things for the servants who had been going out of their way to help them. Pretty bonnets for Jenny and Rosie would be the easiest. She thought perhaps a lace fichu each for Mrs. Farthingworth and Mrs. Banning, because neither of them had much of anything with lace on it. But perhaps Mrs. Farthingworth would more appreciate fingerless gloves to keep her hands warm? Gus was in the window seat, though what could be so interesting outside, Elena could not imagine.

  They all looked up as soon as they heard the familiar footsteps of their elder brothers. Arthur was first through the door, followed by Ben.

  “Not even two slices of roast beef and iced cakes was worth that,” Arthur said, looking for an empty chair to fling himself into. “The Spanish Inquisition would have been more pleasant than Father quizzing us about our studies.”

  “In between making calf eyes at Stepmother,” Ben added sourly. “And I don’t like that Frenchified food half as much as Mrs. Banning’s. Too many fancy sauces.”

  “Did he ask about us?” Emil asked.

  “Only what we were teaching you. We gave a good account of you all.” Elena handed Ben a soft woolen blanket she had been keeping warm for him, and he joined Emil and David at the fire.

  “There’s still no sign of the fairies,” Gus announced forlornly from the window. “I wish they would come back. I was hoping we could ask them to spy for us. Or at least keep a lookout and warn us when Stepmother or that cat-faced maid of hers are coming.”

  “What do you want the fairies to spy for?” Ben asked, sticking his feet between David and Emil to get them warm.

  “I want to know what she’s doing when she’s not got Father following her about like he’s on leading-strings,” said Gus, with a dark look. “If she’s magic, and if she’s doing magic, I want to know about it.”

  Ben shook his head. “If she is, she’ll take great care about it. I don’t think any of us would have a chance at catching her at it. Though . . .” He looked thoughtful. “Well, perhaps we can sharpen our own magic. We can see the fairies, so if we start looking for things out of the ordinary, we might be able to see more things that are magic. It can’t hurt to try.”

  Elena got the distinct feeling that he was saying that just to keep Gus pacified. Still, it wasn’t a bad idea. “What would be out of the ordinary, though?” she asked.

  “I . . . don’t know,” Ben admitted. “The fairies have a kind of glow about them, though. Maybe that?”

  “It’s a place to start,” Arthur said, and pulled a stool up closer to the fire. “Stepmother was not very pleasant this evening. I hope you all had a better time of it than we did. She didn’t say a word but looked at us as if we were some species of vermin.”

  “We did hold our own with Father, however.” Ben got an apple, and began methodically peeling it. “He tried to catch us out several times, and never could.” He turned his attention from the apple to his younger brothers. “Just you all be certain of your lessons. I don’t know that he’ll interrogate you about them, but I don’t know that he won’t, either.” He took the long peel, draped it over a stick, and held it in the fire until it was crisp, then ate it. Only then did he eat the rest of his apple. “I don’t understand what’s changed,” he added fretfully. “After Mama left, he might have turned cold, but this was positively antagonistic.”

  “Maybe he thinks he can replace us with children he has with Stepmother,” Elena said in a soft voice.

  “By Jove, you may be right,” Ben said, turning to her in surprise. “That never occurred to me. The estate is entailed, but that doesn’t mean we inherit if he doesn’t want us to. All he has to do is specify any new sons he has.”

  “Is that right?” David asked. “I’m not sure that’s right.”

  “All the more reason to get to university and establish ourselves in professions where we can support ourselves,” Arthur said firmly, ignoring his question. “The law, the clergy, honestly I wouldn’t mind being a tutor like Beecham if it came to that.” He laughed bitterly. “After all, it’s not as if we are used to living in luxury! If it weren’t for the servants, we’d be missing meals, and if it weren’t for Elena and her clever fingers, we’d be in rags.”

  Elena felt her cheeks growing hot, but it was with pleasure.

  “Do you think he’d buy me a set of colors?” Gus asked, out of nowhere.

  “I suppose it depends on how much a commission would cost, and whether Stepmother would be so grateful to see the end of you that she’d encourage him to do so,” David said, when neither Arthur nor Ben had an answer.

  “Well, if he won’t, I’ll just join up.” Gus looked more determined than Elena had ever seen him before. “It can’t be worse than staying here.”

  “Don’t do that,” David admonished. “Emigrate to Canada. Everyone says that a fellow with determination can make a lot of himself there.”

  “Maybe that’s what we all ought to do,” Ben said thoughtfully, and looked at Arthur. “Men of the law are needed everywhere. Between the two of us, we could support everyone while the rest of you figured out how to find employment. Or, yes, join the army; I expect as sons of a gentleman they’d be happy to see you as officers without needing to purchase a commission.”

  “I’m not sure that’s right, either, unless . . . unless you go somewhere that officers are being killed,” said David.

  “And Elena can take care of all of us,” said Emil, copying Ben’s trick with the apple peel. “The only question is how we’d get money for passage.”

  That seemed insurmountable, and they fell into silence. “Well,” Ben finally said. “It’s a year or more before we can go, and then four years or so until we can pass our examinations. That’s a lot of time. Perhaps she won’t have sons, or even any children at all. Perhaps we can find someone to help us, or we can persuade Stepmother that we won’t stand in the way of her ambition if she gets Father to set us all up and let us go.”

  • • •

  The weather finally took a turn for the better the next day, which allowed Elena to take her usual walk in the garden in the afternoon, and the boys to run much farther afield once all their lessons were done for the day. She was very glad to be out of the house; there was the illusion of freedom out here in the fresh air, even if the freedom wasn’t real.

  She enjoyed wandering the winding paths in the shrubbery, which was—at least according to visitors—a very good, mature, and attractive part of the garden. She was short enough that even the smaller bushes tended to overtop her, which gave her the feeling that she was alone in a kind of wilderness. And even though it was the middle of October, this was a mixed shrubbery, so there were still parts of it that were green, and on some of the bushes, there were still berries that birds enjoyed, if people did not.

  And this was where she found a fairy, at long last.

  If she hadn’t been paying attention, she would have missed it. It had gray, cobwebby clothing, gray-brown wings like a sparrow, and gray-brown hair. It perched amid a cluster of brown leaves that had not yet fallen, and watched her with wary, dark eyes.

  She sidled up to the bush it was in, pretended to examine something else, and whispered, “Hello. Are you well?”

  Cautiously the little thing nodded imperceptibly.

  “Are you all afraid of my stepmother? The new lady?” She assumed it would know that by “you all” she meant all of the fairies who used to hang about her and her brothers.

  Again, the cautious nod.

  She sighed. If the fairy wouldn’t speak, getting information from it would take a while. “Is she magic? My stepmother, I mean.”

  This time instead of nodding, the little thing shivered all over, as if terrified.

  It took a good quarter of an hour, and even then, Elena didn’t learn what she wanted to, because the fairy was startled into disappearing by the approach of one of the gardeners. She resumed her own walk, trying to wring every particle of knowledge out of the “yes” and “no” answers she’d gotten.

  The trouble was, she didn’t really know what questions to ask. Arthur would be so much better at this than me. Or Ben. But at least she had found out that Stepmother had some unspecified sort of magic, that her presence was the reason for the fairies’ absence, that the fairies could not (or would not) help in any way. It was clear that the fairies were terrified of their stepmother, though since this one refused to speak, there was no telling why.

  She emerged from the shrubbery not much wiser than she had entered it. The place where this path exited boasted a very pretty, but deep, ornamental pond. In keeping with the general illusion of wilderness here, its boundaries were irregular, and there were artificially rustic benches around it. As she skirted the edge, a bit of paper fluttered out from beneath one of them.

  She followed it before the wind could carry it away and snatched it up.

  It had been torn from something larger. The words, carefully printed on it in block letters, were in Latin. She knew just barely enough to recognize them as being in that language, though not enough to translate them. “Aqua in sanguine tuo,” the first line read. Then there was just the beginning of a second line, “Tantum me . . .” and nothing more.

  It wasn’t her father’s handwriting. It wasn’t Mrs. Banning or Mrs. Farthingworth. Hobart, perhaps? She didn’t think it was Beecham, and it certainly wasn’t one of her brothers.

  She slipped the scrap into a pocket, and a sharp breeze sprang up out of nowhere, cutting right through her pelisse. She shivered and decided to go back to the house. The fire in the old nursery suddenly seemed very desirable.