Unnatural Issue Read online

  She bought only one conventional gift. For their landlady, she got a box of chocolates. She was tempted to put in a note “Save these, there will probably be rationing soon,” but decided not to.

  When she returned, they were nearly done decorating the parlor. She wove her way through them and installed eight identical small packages and one large one under the tree, to the bemusement of the others, who were putting the last little adjustments on the greenery.

  “Presents? But Constance, you really shouldn’t—” protested one, and that was when she decided to simply tell them what the presents were and why she had gotten them.

  She stood beside the tree, twisting her hands nervously, with nine pairs of eyes on her. “I—haven’t said anything before this, but I was caught in the Ardennes when the war started,” she said hesitantly. “I was working with French nursing sisters until I found a way back. That’s why I am here now.” Truth, just not all of it. “I know many of you are going to go to the Front, if not soon, then at some point, and there was one thing more precious to the nursing sisters than gold—because there was generally only one for two to three wards. That was a hypodermic kit. So I got you all your own to take with you.” Tears welled up in her eyes, real tears, astonishing her. But when she thought of how precious her kit had been, it almost undid her. “It is as much a present to all those brave boys you will be serving as it is to you—”

  For the first time since she had returned, she found herself breaking down and crying, crying for the men she had not been able to save, crying for the men who had lain in their beds, suffering, waiting for the medicine a nurse could not give them because the syringe was elsewhere. Crying, because there were not enough dressings and they had to risk infection using old ones, crying, because fresh-faced boys lay for hours in agony because the doctor was up to his elbows in some other poor boy’s insides and could not tend to them. It all cascaded into her, and she could scarcely bear it. She had known all these things at the time, of course, but until now she had not allowed herself to feel them.

  She was not sure why she had now. Maybe because she was here, with young women who daily tended the aftermath of that death machine that was the Front and who understood—but were not yet themselves eaten up by the machine.

  And the young women here in the parlor, who had known her only as “Constance, the aide,” or maybe “Constance, the aide that isn’t a drunk,” must have suddenly seen her as something other than a pair of hands that did the filthiest work. They knew better than to believe the cheery newspaper stories. They listened to their patients’ nightmares, to the stories, however sanitized, that they told. They might not have seen the worst of the worst on the Front as Susanne had, but they were tending the horrific consequences in the ones that lived to make it to the Bethnal Green Hospital. So they had some inkling of what she had seen, lived through.

  They stopped what they were doing and gathered around her, more than one lending her a handkerchief as she soaked through the practical squares of linen, two putting their arms around her, another bringing her tea from the kitchen. It was an amazing feeling. She had never had this—girls her own age, intelligent and clever girls, girls who were her equal that she could befriend and be friends with. Patience or Prudence? If she had broken down like this in front of them, they’d have wrung their hands under their aprons, then fled. If she had told them what she’d seen, they’d have clapped their hands over their ears and run away. And although she was weeping herself sick, until her eyes burned and her cheeks were raw, it felt like—

  Like a great relief. She had let go of something she didn’t even know she was holding on to, in her fear and dread of her father and what he might do. Right now, that was irrelevant, as all the faces of the men who had died in her care passed through her memory, and she mourned each and every one.

  The girls readily, willingly, crowded close about her to offer comfort. No few of the others cried too, and that was somehow as comforting as the arms around her shoulders.

  “It’s not—fair!” she sobbed, “This war is beastly!” And they nodded and hugged her and cried.

  This was not something she could have said to Peter, who would never have understood. Men thought war was somehow noble, glorious.

  Or they did until they found themselves legless, armless, so terrified by what they had been through that they hid under the bed like little children when something startled them.

  Women—women knew better. War might be necessary sometimes, she couldn’t judge that, but it was never, ever glorious. It was a terrible monster, that took men and chewed them up and spit out the dead, the dying, and the maimed. War was a beast that murdered as many innocent people who were just in the way as it did soldiers. And she wept for them, too, for the fresh graves in the villages, for the terrible stories she had heard out of Belgium.

  Finally, when she was cried out, she looked up through swollen eyes to see that every girl in the house was crowded around her in the parlor, each of them holding her little package to her chest as if Susanne had given them the Crown Jewels.

  One of them dropped gracefully to her knees beside Susanne. “I don’t think I’ve even said hello to you, yet,” said the plain little brunette, holding out her hand. Automatically, Susanne took it. “For that, I am very sorry. I’m Mabel, Mabel Duncan. I can’t even begin to thank you enough for this. You see, I’m going to the Front in a week, and—well, they’ve given me a list of things I need, and I got them, of course, but I had no idea about—” She stopped, her face transfixed with guilt and curiosity mingled. “I know it’s dreadful of me to ask, but I think they are not being honest with us. I don’t know what I’ll be facing when I get to the field hospital. I know the injuries will be terrible, but I didn’t know that there was such a shortage of the basic needs!” She looked distressed and rueful, all at the same time. “Can—can you possibly tell me what I should bring besides what’s on the list? Would it be unbearably hard for you to tell me what I can expect? Some of the boys have told me a little, but I am afraid they are trying to spare my feelings. I want to hear the worst of it . . . if you can? If you would?”

  Susanne stared at the girl in astonishment, and then around at the rest of the faces, some sympathetic, some still weeping, all finally looking at her, seeing her as a person for the first time. As she was seeing them as people for the first time. Not just the people she had to work around.

  “It wouldn’t matter if it was unbearably hard,” she said, finally, giving Mabel’s hand a squeeze. “It’s for the Tommys, isn’t it? I’ll tell you all I can. Have you got something to write with?”

  “I do,” their landlady said, and stepped forward with a pencil and some paper braced on a book in her hands. “Please, tell us. Tell us everything. Mabel is going in a week, but there are more girls here who are going next month, and I am sure there will be still more that come through these rooms. If I can help send them out better prepared, it will be a blessing to all of us.”

  Susanne took a deep breath. “Well, Mabel is right. They are not being honest with you. They don’t tell you half of what you’ll really need, and they tell you nothing of how you will be living, especially if you are assigned to a field hospital. This is what it’s like—and this is what you should bring, if you possibly can.”

  She was grateful, terribly grateful, that all these young women were sensible, and had been listening to their patients, because none of what she had to say was a terrible shock—although she was fairly sure that the young soldiers in their hospital beds had not been telling their nurses the worst of it, except by accident. She, however, was honest with them—Yorkshire honesty—and although there was some dismay, there were more nods, and more than the landlady began to make notes. Lists of things they would need for themselves. Lists of things they would need for their patients. Lists of things to beware of, things a little forethought could prevent, things to avoid. What it was like when being bombarded with artillery. What it was like to ride with an ambul
ance. How to find a friendly and reasonably clean French family to rent a room from, since often there were no accommodations for the nurses. How to get a bath. How to get rid of the ever-present lice. How to manage food. She talked until she was hoarse, and finally she got to the end of it.

  Mabel looked at the list she had written down and shook her head in dismay. “This is horrid! There’s—so much here—I’m so used to having all the supplies we need right there in the hospital!”

  “But we can get it all together for you before you leave!” exclaimed another of the lot.

  “Yes, and you can send boxes to her when she is there,” Susanne urged. “Stay in touch! I had someone to ask, but he was at the Front too, so he couldn’t get things as often as I needed, but you, you are all here, where there are bandages and socks, and cotton for packing wounds—and chemists where you can buy things.”

  “I’ll have my mother speak to the vicar at home,” said another, with a nod. “I know that she has at least one sewing circle, maybe more. Making bandages would make far better sense for the Ladies’ Society than sitting about crocheting doilies as they’ve done in the past.”

  “And they could be knitting socks—if the men are so short of dry socks—” said another. “Well! So could we! I can knit.”

  And soon they were full of plans, chattering excitedly to each other as new schemes were hatched. Susanne listened to them, feeling her sense of relief unfolding even further. When she had thought about conditions out there, it had all seemed so hopeless, but now—now it didn’t seem quite so impossible.

  She finished her tea and slipped away. Some of the enthusiasm would without a doubt vanish over the course of the next few weeks or months. And some of these plans would fail, or never get set in motion.

  But some, they would carry out. And every bit of help to the men at the Front would be a little more that would keep them alive.

  And that, in itself, was a kind of magic.

  21

  THERE was just one problem with this plan.

  It depended entirely on waiting for Richard Whitestone to decide what he was going to do.

  This was, of course, the first thing that Michael Kerridge pointed out.

  The five of them—Peter, Susanne, the Kerridges, and Charles’ fiancée—were in Peter’s sitting room in his London flat, having just been served an excellent tea by Garrick. Susanne was being very quiet, but it was not a passive quiet. Peter suspected that if anyone actually made any overt accusations, she would not wait to be defended but would come to her own defense.

  “We’re completely dependent on Richard Whitestone’s whims, Lord Peter,” Michael said, with a bit of frost in his voice. “I don’t see how you letting him know where to find the girl is going to help us any.”

  “It doesn’t hurt us any either,” Peter snapped. “If I might venture to point out that it was only a matter of time before he discovered that Charles lived through the attack and had been sent back to England? At least now we control when he learns that, and at the same time, he will learn that Susanne is again within his reach. He missed Halloween for his plans for Susanne, and he’ll miss Winter Solstice as well. I’ll wait until we have all our Water Elementals alerted and watching for him to cross, and we’ll know when he comes back. He cannot go undetected, not when he is on the water; the selkies can detect corruption a hundred miles away. Once he’s across, it won’t be long before he attacks. He might be able to vanish from the sight of our Elementals once he reaches land, but once he reaches land he will know where Susanne is, because we’ll allow his damned kobolds to find her. And once he knows where Susanne is, Charles becomes much less interesting for him. I very much doubt that he’ll make even a token effort to go after Charles. We’ll want you to guard him, of course, but frankly, the man wants Susanne for his mad scheme. In my opinion, the only reason he pursued Charles was for revenge, thinking Susanne was out of reach, as we had intended her to be.”

  “Tha’d be worse off, if I’d gone to Colonies,” Susanne said, her accent back. “I can be bait in tha’ trap now. And this bait has teeth.” She raised her chin and looked defiantly at both Elizabeth and Michael, who were taken aback by the fierce anger in her eyes.

  “Well . . .” Michael began.

  Rose Mainwright interrupted him. “I think it’s only fair for her to lure the wretch in. You and Elizabeth and Charles defended her once, now she can pay that back.” Rose spoke with cool and calm that gave no sign of animosity, but Peter was momentarily amused, because it was quite clear that Rose knew very well about Susanne’s attachment, and she was having none of it.

  Susanne couldn’t very well retort at this point, since she had already volunteered, but Peter guessed by the flash of her eyes that she was no more impressed by her rival than Rose was impressed with her.

  “All right,” Michael agreed. “But what if he gets the chance to come after both of them?”

  “I already thought of that,” Susanne replied. “Peter made arrangements for me.”

  “Susanne is being transferred to a teaching hospital for nurse training,” Peter explained. “In four days, in fact, after Christmas, on Boxing Day. Once she’s settled there and we’ve done what we can to secure the ground, she will stop concealing herself from Earth powers, and I will make use of some neutral Elementals who will think they are bartering valuable information to Richard Whitestone.” He made a crooked smile. “It’s sometimes as useful to know who cannot be trusted as it is to know who can.”

  “I see.” Although Rose didn’t lose a bit of her cool hostility, Elizabeth and Michael both relaxed, and their attitude shifted subtly. “It seems you’ve thought of everything.”

  “Everything except how to get a full Hunting Party together,” Peter replied, a bit grimly. “The war, and the season both, are conspiring against us. It will be me, Maya and her husband, Garrick, Alderscroft, and possibly one or two others.”

  One or two others, old, frail, and the only reason they would even take part is because the attack will come here, in London, and they needn’t travel far.

  He didn’t mention Robin Goodfellow. There was no telling what kind of help they’d be getting from the Fair Folk, nor how strong it would be. Robin might not have any trouble with Cold Iron or church bells, but that didn’t mean the other Fair Folk could be as cavalier about such things. The most logical place for Richard to attack would be in London and its suburbs; like the battlefield in France, in places here the ground was literally soaked in centuries of blood. The water was polluted, the air poisoned, and the ground dead. Perfect for his purposes. Then add in the many, many graveyards, marked and unmarked, that he could rob for his armies . . . well, their best case would be that he would get impatient and attack before he actually had a large force of revenants and liches. The longer he delayed to build that force, the worse it would be for them.

  And London itself would likely weaken any Fair Folk that ventured within it.

  Michael and Elizabeth nodded, but neither volunteered, nor offered anyone else’s name who might be willing to be part of the Hunting Party.

  Peter cursed his ability to see both sides. He should be angry at them, but he could also understand their point of view. They had taken in a stranger, arranged for her magical education, and become targets of something far more powerful than they could face. They weren’t going to throw that stranger to the wolves, but they also had their own son, and their own people, to protect. In that hierarchy, Susanne came a very distant third. No, it wasn’t Susanne’s fault that her father had decided to take revenge on Charles. But if they had never sheltered her, they would even now be blissfully unaware that the necromancer even existed. And Charles would not have come so close to death.

  “That, however, is not your problem,” he continued smoothly, betraying neither his irritation nor his sympathy. “Your problem is to defend and protect Charles when Richard Whitestone strikes. And I need to think of a way to alert you instantly when he does.”

  “
It’s a pity there aren’t telephones everywhere,” Michael replied, rubbing his temple a little. “Much as I loathe them, they’re damned useful. Once you’re out of the countryside, Earth Elementals are bloody well useless as messengers.”

  “Michael, language,” Elizabeth chided gently.

  “I’ll contrive something,” Peter said, vaguely. He wasn’t sure what . . . maybe he could rig some kind of signal. Make a vial of water burst? Something, anyway. Anything that would get their attention.

  “Well,” said Rose, crisply. “I think we have covered everything. Don’t you, Elizabeth?”

  Charles’ mother nodded. “It’s probably better not to lay out too detailed a plan. Plans never last long anyway, when you are dealing with someone as unpredictable as Richard Whitestone.”

  “Ah, but that’s where tha’rt wrong,” interjected Susanne. “He may be mad, but he’s right predictable. He’ll go through anything to get his hands on me.”

  With that uncomfortable thought hanging in the air, the Kerridge party made some awkward goodbyes, leaving Peter, Garrick, and Susanne alone.

  Peter cleared his throat. “Please say you’ll come here for Christmas Day,” he said plaintively. “Otherwise I’ll be forced to listen to Garrick murder carols alone.”

  Susanne hesitated, then nodded. “There’s Christmas breakfast at the boarding house instead of Christmas dinner. I’ll come after that.”

  She was probably thinking that she wished she could spend the day at Charles’ side, but Rose would certainly make sure that didn’t happen. Peter was very happy with Mistress Rose at the moment. “Capital. Is there anything you would particularly like or loathe for dinner?”

  “Ah . . . I don’t know, really,” she said, startled. “The only Christmases I’ve ever had were ‘downstairs’ sorts, and to be honest, there often wasn’t anyone there but me and the housekeeper for dinner. Everyone who had family went to them after church.”