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Although Nanny Ashtoreth had been in Warlock’s family since he was five, it wasn’t until he was eight or nine years old that he started noticing things.
For example, he noticed that, although Nanny didn’t seem to like Brother Francis all that much, she did seem to enjoy sitting outside and reading in his garden. He noticed, too, that Brother Francis didn’t seem to like Nanny all that much, and yet, he was always bringing her a flower or a pretty leaf while she was reading.
The flowers, Warlock knew, were pressed into bookmarks; the leaves, shared with him with a short, why don’t you go ask the gardener what it is, thinks he knows bloody everything about a garden, after all.
Nanny liked to sing. First it was just lullabies (which, as an adult, made him wonder exactly what his Nanny had been smoking, but as a child he had loved), and sometimes, especially when he was younger, he would notice Nanny singing in the kitchen while making their tea.
The machine of a dream, such a clean machine
With the pistons a pumpin', and the hubcaps all gleam
When I'm holding your wheel
All I hear is your gear
With my hand on your grease gun
Mmm, it's like a disease, son
I'm in love with my car, gotta feel for my automobile
Get a grip on my boy racer roll bar
Such a thrill when your radials squeal
One time, he actually saw Nanny’s car, and when he got a little bit older, he understood precisely why she felt that way about her vintage black Bentley. It was a car worth being in love with. In fact, for a few years after he turned fifteen, he’d considered pestering his parents for a Bentley just like Nanny’s. Lucky for the Dowlings, the Hummer had come along and diverted his attention. But he never quite forgot Nanny or her love of her car.
But the one thing Warlock noticed most, and never ever commented on, was the fact that while Nanny and Brother Francis really didn’t seem to like each other, they spent an awful lot of time together.
If Nanny was singing in the kitchen, you could be sure that Brother Francis was close by, watering the hedges under the window or trimming the grass at the door. If Nanny was outside with Warlock, then Brother Francis was within eye-shot and earshot, oftentimes just taking a break, young Warlock and sitting in a scruffy heap next to Nanny on the garden bench.
Sometimes they would talk while he played, but no matter what he tried to get up to, either Nanny or Brother Francis would catch him. They always seemed to know just when he was going to wander off, or just when he was going to set fire to something. Although there was that one time Nanny bought him a firelighter kit and told him now, if you’re going to play with fire, do it here, so that I can see you. And she’d put him down with the firelighters, a box of matches, a stack of old newspapers and the like, and big steel drum.
He’d burnt everything he could get his hands on that day, and nearly let the fire get out of control near the end. But Brother Francis had saved the day and doused the fire and the drum with water from the garden hose. He had scowled very darkly at Nanny, who had given him the sweetest, most innocent smile Warlock had ever seen. Boy doesn’t need to be playing with fire, Brother Francis had scolded gruffly. He’s going to play with it no matter what, you know what boys are like, Nanny had answered, batting her eyelashes. At least we’ve kept him safe. Brother Francis had scoffed. Yes, but for what purpose?
Nanny had rushed him inside then, telling Warlock, don’t you listen to him, you listen to me. You’re allowed to play with fire, and do whatever you like with it. But you must come to me first, because it is my job to keep you safe. Then she’d kissed him on his forehead and sent him upstairs to wash the soot and smoke off before dinner with his parents.
From his upstairs window, he had seen Brother Francis and Nanny huddled together talking, half-hidden by the rose arbor. He’d gotten a little closer to the window, and squinted his eyes, and it really looked like Nanny and Brother Francis were kissing, just like his parents did. He shook his head, and when he looked again, Nanny and Brother Francis were no longer under the rose arbor. Nanny was on her way back into the house, and Francis was walking towards the garden shed.
But Warlock did notice that Nanny was clutching a red rose from the trellis, and when he saw her later, it was pressed neatly between the pages of Asmodeus Dicere: Malleus Maleficarum . That was not one of Warlock’s favorite books, but Nanny read to him every night from it.
Brother Francis read to him from the Bible, and Warlock was less fond of that than he was of Malleus Maleficarum. But he listened to please Brother Francis, just as he listened to please Nanny.
Nanny and Brother Francis had left around the same time. He’d never really thought of it before, that they’d come to work for the family about the time he was five, and they’d left about the time he was nine. Four years, of Nanny and Brother Francis, and it rather seemed like they had always been there.
He remembered crying when Brother Francis left first. Buck up, young Warlock, Brother Francis had said. Now you remember everything that I told you. Be kind to everything, and to everyone. Be strong, be steadfast. Love everyone, hate no one. You’re on the right path, boy.
A couple of weeks later, Harriet Dowling had accepted Nanny’s resignation with a great deal of shouting, three offers of a raise, and a half a bottle of Mommy’s Medicine, which Warlock thought was actually called rum. He had cried for Nanny, too, maybe more than he’d cried when Brother Francis had left him.
Nanny had cried a bit too; not too much, not enough to disturb her makeup, but enough that her eyes were red when she knelt down to hug him tightly. Remember what I told you, Warlock. Nanny has to go now, but remember what I told you. Everything you want can be yours when the time is right. Your father is very powerful, and he is counting on you. Remember, too, what Brother Francis told you. Be strong, be steadfast. Be kind, if you like, but be firm also. Take what is yours before it is taken from you. And remember that Nanny always loves you, even though I might not be around. But take what I’ve told you, and put it in here. She’d touched his chest then, right over his heart. And where my words are, I’ll always be. And then she’d kissed him again, on the forehead and then on the cheek.
And then she’d lifted her carpet bag, picked up her umbrella, and strode purposefully out the door, never looking back.
He’d peeked into her room, and everything was gone. All her books were gone, her personal effects, even her bird-headed umbrella. The bed was perfectly made, except for a book on the coverlet. It was just an old book, a reading primer they’d long quit using. And inside the primer were flowers. Not all the ones he’d ever seen her with; the book would’ve had to be huge to accommodate them all. But enough of them. Little blossoms, large blooms, stems and leaves, pressed between the pages and fragile with age.
At the back of the book was a handwritten note, addressed to Warlock.
My dear boy, consider this a gift from Nanny and myself. The blooms are beautiful, they are preserved, but they are also flat, lifeless, and brittle. When picked, they die, and can be kept but never truly saved. People are like that. When they are plucked from their lives, they can be kept, but never truly saved. People, like plants, will wither and die if they are taken too soon, before their time. Let them stay rooted, let them fully develop, or all you will be left with is crumbling reminders of what was once a beautiful thing.
--Francis.
P.S. Listen to him.
--Nanny Ashtoreth
The reading primer sat on his bookcase to this day, and he looked at the brittle flowers often. And thought of the strange man and very strange woman who had given them to him.
Once, he thought he’d seen Nanny on the street, many many years later, outside a Soho bookshop. The car was undoubtedly the same, but two men emerged from it. A shorter, slightly chubby blond man in a waistcoat and a tall, skinny redhead dressed all in black.
Not Nanny after all, but she would have certainly appreciated his taste in cars.
“Get on with it, angel,” shouted the redhead, leaning impatiently against the car.
“Just give it a moment,” shouted the blond. “Buck up, Crowley, we’re going to get there soon enough.”
Shaken, Warlock left the curb and crossed in the crosswalk. He hadn’t been told to buck up, Warlock for many years now, and yet, he could have sworn that he heard the echo of Brother Francis in the bookseller’s voice.
Or maybe it was just wishful thinking.
--The End