Chapter Text
I walk along, and as I walk
A song rings out above.
The nightingale it is - she sings
of love and the pain of love.
She sings of love and the pain of love,
the love that laughs and cries;
her joy’s so sad, her sobs so glad
forgotten dreams arise.
- Heinrich Heine
Part I
1911 - 1914
The night before he first left for Casterbrook his Uncle Stanley took him aside, to impart some last advice that he believed would help Thomas at school. That his own experiences at Casterbrook would turn out to be fundamentally different to those of Stanley, who could only be considered a wizard of average abilities if one were feeling particularly charitable, Thomas had had no way of knowing that night.
“And stay away from that Mellenby boy,” Stanley said at last, straightening out the creases that had formed around his knees as he had knelt before Thomas, “if he is anything like his father he is nothing but trouble”
Had Stanley raised any children of his own he would have known that prohibition only inspired adverse action. As it was, his words only made Thomas want to meet David Mellenby more, whoever that was.
*
Casterbrook, it turned out, was everything he had hoped it would be and more.They were a small group, as years at Casterbrook were prone to be, all of them following in the footsteps of a father or, as was the case for Thomas, an uncle. While he had never met any of the boys before his arrival at Casterbrook, when he wrote to Stanley - supplying, as he had been instructed to do beforehand, a complete list of all the other boys in his form - his uncle knew how each of them was connected to the Folly.
No doubt the others were informed in similar fashion, because within only a few days they had formed a social hierarchy amongst themselves that was eerily reminiscent of the positions their relatives occupied within the Folly. James Ballantine Jr, whose father - James Ballentine Sr - occupied a senior position within the Folly, quickly established himself as the leader of their year, always ready to order the others around and to punish them whenever they overstepped his mercurial rulings. Most of his close circle were the sons and nephews of other influential or notable practitioners, who seemed utterly convinced that those accomplishments entitled them to special treatment at Casterbrook. Thomas, who had the poor fortune that Stanley wasn’t much interested in the Folly, apart from it’s convenient location in London and rather extensive wine cellar, and that his grandfather hadn’t done anything of note since losing his bid for Master of the Folly the previous decade – which had been doomed from the start, if his grandmother was to believed – in favour of a man who had turned out to be barely able to produce third-order spells, found himself adrift for the first few weeks.
If he had been given to introspection he might have admitted that he was lonely, friendless as he was, but he’d always had the ability to lock away his troubles in some hidden corner of his mind. His situation quickly changed, however, once they began to learn magic - actual, practical magic and not the excruciatingly boring theory behind all of it that had dominated the first two months or so of lessons.
When their teacher had finished preaching the safety precautions to them at last and finally demonstrated a werelight for the very first time, asking them all to feel for the formula he was using, Thomas did so with ease. It still took him a little over a week until a werelight finally appeared above his outstretched palm, but when it did he felt such a clear, exhilarating thrill go through his body, like he had never felt before, that he let out a joyful cheer that made every person in the room turn towards him. He’d been sitting on his own, at the very back of the room, so everyone had a clear view of the warm globe that only existed because Thomas had willed it to be. None of the others, even those who had bragged upon their arrival that they’d been taught the most fundamental magic at home, had managed a werelight so far, and by the time even Walter Cholmondeley, who went on to accomplish great success in the field of theoretical magic but remained a mere amateur in the application of it for the rest of his life, managed a small, rather unstable werelight about three weeks later, Thomas’s werelight was controlled and evenly lit, and he had figured out how to make it grow and shrink in size without any help from their teacher.
Unsurprisingly this early success made him rather more popular with the other boys, as well as ingratiate him with the Masters. At night he would light up the dorm with his spell while the others tried to replicate it - so early on in their time at school even the laziest of them - Ballentine - was still eager to master his first spell. Thus Thomas suddenly found himself amongst a large group of boys at mealtimes and quickly fell in with the group that had formed around Ballentine, and it was those boys Thomas spent the majority of his remaining first year at Casterbrook. Busy exploring the grounds with Ballentine and Lazy Arse Dance, and sneaking into the kitchens at night with Horace Greenway, stuffing their pockets with sweets and small cakes to carry back to their dorm, Thomas barely noticed his first term pass by in nothing more than the blink of an eye. He returned home for Christmas full of tales about Casterbrook, but no one who wanted to hear them. With his mother too busy most of the time, his father uninterested as always, his siblings mostly older than him and therefore more knowledgeable about school and indeed most things in life, the only one he could talk to was Daisy, his only younger sibling, but at five she was wont to burst into tears every time he mentioned Casterbrook, because she didn’t understand why she couldn’t learn magic as well when she was older. Ultimately Stephen, only eleven months older than Thomas, humoured him a week into their time at home and listened to everything Thomas had to tell, and it was very well that he had done so, because if he hadn’t it was more than likely that it all would have burst out of him sooner rather than later.
By the time summer came Thomas had less news to share, but instead more than just two spells that he could show his siblings. He’d joined the school choir and started playing rugby, of which the former delighted his mother to no end and the latter caused his brothers to finally let him play with them in the garden, even though five players was an awkward number. That problem solved itself, at least for a short time, when their Aunt Anthea arrived with her three sons in tow. The oldest, Andrew, was a year younger than Thomas, and since they were desperate for a sixth player he was deemed old enough by Dick and Jos - the two eldest of the siblings - to participate in their games. Or at least until Andrew set fire to the pagoda and Anthea sent him back home to stay with his father until he could be shipped off to school and would become someone else’s problem for most of the year.
He thus started his second form in high spirits, although that was not meant to last for long. At the end of the last term their theory teacher had been forced to resign – Thomas later found out that it was due to a liaison with one of the older students they’d been carrying on for a few years, not that he was the only Master guilty of that – and the headmaster, who’d previously only taught lower and upper sixth form, began teaching the lower forms as well. The old warhorse - for that was what the students called him amongst themselves - was famously bad at remembering names and had them sit alphabetically so that he could keep them apart more easily. And that was how he first became involuntarily acquaintanced with David Mellenby. His interest in him had quickly waned after meeting him, as, no matter what Stanley might have said, Mellenby was no trouble at all. In fact he was incredibly boring.
Mellenby was a good bit shorter than Thomas, with a round face topped by blonde curls that were cut close to his scalp. His eyes shone with intelligence, and whispered of a friendliness Thomas had yet to experience from Mellenby. From the very first day of school Mellenby had made it clear that he had little interest in most, if any, of the other boys. His father was even more important than Ballentine Sr was, and his older brother was three forms above them at Casterbrook, which under normal circumstances would have put him in the perfect position to become the most popular boy in the form, but that first evening, when they had all been trying their best to make a good impression, Mellenby had taken an armful of books - none of which they’d needed to read for class - and marched off towards his bed without a word to any of them. He’d drawn the curtains and hadn’t emerged until the next morning. So far his attitude hadn’t changed much, and Thomas felt that Mellenby thought himself superior to all of them. He certainly couldn’t remember ever speaking to him outside of class.
In any case his books seemed to be more important to him than genuine human connection. What was important to him, and anyone forced to spend even five minutes in the same classroom as Mellenby could attest to it, was academic validation. The year before Thomas had mostly ignored Mellenby as best as he could, not particularly inclined to pay the standoffish boy always sitting in the front row any mind, but now it was impossible not to notice that he raised his hand at every question, no matter in which class, even in Latin and Ancient Greek - where he seemed to struggle - at least to his standards. It didn’t matter what it was the Masters wanted to know, Mellenby’s hand shot up before Thomas could even process the questions and more often than not his hand came dangerously close to striking Thomas in the face. And while Mellenby’s unrelenting efforts to turn theory class into a contact sport certainly made the lessons more interesting and forced him to actually pay more attention than he would have otherwise done, it was also rather annoying.
But naturally it wasn’t enough that Thomas had to suffer Mellenby’s presence in class, but he was forced to spend even more time with him in the afternoons. The old warhorse preferred the essays they had to write on the formae they were learning to be done in pairs, so on at least one afternoon each week Mellenby dragged him to the library, where all Thomas could do was stare longingly out of the window and watch the other students unwind after their classes, until at least the first draft of their essay was finished and Mellenby was satisfied with their efforts.
On one of those days, perhaps two or three months into the term, a package had just arrived from his Uncle Stanley, who’d recently been in America. Since Thomas had started at Casterbrook Stanley had begun sending Thomas pulp magazine’s for him to read, and he’d taken a particular liking to Adventure, an American publication, which he could only get his hands on when Stanley, or one of his many friends, travelled to the States. Most of the issues Stanley had sent him were tucked away under his pillow in the dorm, but he had hidden the oldest between the pages of one of his school books, eager to finally read the continuation of one of his favourite stories. Mellenby had stayed behind after physics class to ask their teacher a dozen or so questions and Thomas had trudged towards the library on his own, because he finally wanted to get to his magazine, and because he was sure he wouldn’t have understood what Mellenby was asking about even if he had stayed.
“What are you reading?” A voice – Mellenby – asked suddenly and Thomas flinched. He hadn’t noticed Mellenby approach, and was sure he’d be facing a lecture about not getting a head start on their essay in the very near future.
“Adventure,” Thomas said, a tad defensively, and held up the magazine so Mellenby could see the cover.
“I don’t know what that is,” Mellenby said, and Thomas was sure it had been difficult for him to admit.
“It’s an magazine from America. My uncle buys them for me when he is overseas”
He expected some witty retort from Mellenby about the inferior quality of pulp magazines, but instead he asked, “Are they any good?”
“I think so,” Thomas said, “even better than the British magazines”
Mellenby shrugged. “I wouldn’t know, I’ve never read one”
“Why not?” Thomas asked, somewhat shocked. He’d never heard of anyone his age who hadn’t read at least some pulp magazines. Even his sister Vita had, and she was a frightful bore.
“My father won’t let us buy them. He says they aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on”
“And your mother agrees?” Surely she would have come to her children’s aid.
“My mother is dead,” Mellenby said, his voice betraying no emotion on the matter, “she died when I was born”
“Oh,” Thomas said, “If you want you can read some of mine. I’ve got a few upstairs, and I can bring even more from home after Christmas”
Mellenby seemed surprised. “Honestly? You really mean that?”
“Why would I offer if I didn’t”
Mellenby, it turned out, read a lot, and he did so with alarming speed. By the time Thomas was on a train back to Devon for the holidays Mellenby had read all of the magazine’s Thomas had brought with him for the entire term, and as far as Thomas could tell his schoolwork hadn’t suffered the least because of it, although Thomas thought that his presence had become somewhat more bearable. When it came time to pack for his return to Casterbrook Thomas made sure to bring all the magazines he had at home.
*
“You should stop answering all the questions,” Thomas told Mellenby one sunny afternoon, “in class.”
He wasn’t sure why Mellenby had been trailing after him like a lost puppy with his pocket watch in hand, but he suspected it had something to do with the small rain cloud that had been following Thomas around for the past few minutes, a punishment for daydreaming in class. Other masters would have beaten him for the same offence, but the headmaster seemed to prefer a more psychological kind of punishment.
“Why?” Mellenby asked, “because the other chaps think I’m a swot?”
There was nothing to do about that now, hadn’t been since their first night of school. “No,” Thomas said, “because it makes them lazy. If they know you’re going to answer all the questions, why bother learning the answers themselves?”
If the masters were to be believed they were the worst year to go through Casterbrook in more than a generation, and Thomas was inclined to believe them. There weren’t many troubles with the practical use of magic, as it was taught to them, but with the theoretical aspects. Few but Mellenby even bothered opening their books before the lessons, let alone taking notes during them.
“But I know the answers,” Mellenby, typical of him, didn’t seem to understand Thomas’ meaning.
“You know you know the answers, and God knows the Masters know you know. Who else matters?” Thomas said, “If you must show off, why not only answer three out of four questions? The uncertainty will drive the others to pull their socks up”
“And you?” asked Mellenby, “Will you pull your socks up?”
Perhaps he did have a point there.
*
Thomas did not pull his socks up. Not quite yet, at least. No matter how much Mellenby and the Masters might have disapproved, ther were simply more interesting things than the study of theory and science that diverted his attention, rugby and magic chiefly among them, There was nothing quitle like the feeling of utter joy and freedom both caused, and Thomas was loath to give up either in favour of endless hours spend in the dreary library. He knew, just like anyone who’d spend even the smallest amount of time with him could suspect, that he was not going to end up as either a scientist or a teacher – not that there were other options as far as Mellenby was concerned. At thirteen he’d mastered a look of utter disapproval that could – albeit it rarely – move Thomas to study.
That changed when old Dudders – the Master who taught chemistry, a subject no one but Mellenby could find any pleasure in – asked him to stay behind after one of the lessons shortly after Easter during his second term, and told him in no uncertain terms that if his work didn’t greatly improve over the last weeks of term he’d be banned from playing rugby after the hols.
So it was his determination to keep playing, more than anything else, that finally motivated him to start learning. He hunted down Mellenby that very afternoon and asked him – begged him even – to help Thomas understand the sciences, a next to impossible feat. It was just his luck that Mellenby liked a challenge and considered nothing in the world to be impossible.
Once Mellenby had begun a project it was difficult to dissuade him from it again, as Thomas quickly discovered. Over the next few weeks he learned more about chemistry, physics and mathematics than he had ever before, certainly more than he could ever need to know, and while he truly understood nothing of it, Mellenby’s explanations were at least enough to get him through the exams without too many problems, and with better results than he had ever thought possible. He barely slept or ate, and as soon as Casterbrook had disappeared behind him for the summer he had forgotten everything Mellenby had hammered into his skill, but he had saved his spot on the rugby team, and that was all that mattered to Thomas.
When the first letter from Mellenby arrived Thomas was more than a little surprised. Letters from his friends were nothing out of the ordinary, but he had not expected any to be from Mellenby. They’d spend more time together recently, yes, but they’d hardly become friends. Or so Thomas had thought. Mellenby certainly hadn’t behaved as if he had any interest in spending more time with Thomas outside of lessons and the library, but when he invited Thomas to come visit him at his family home in Warwickshire. Thomas began to suspect that he simply hadn’t been brave enough to broach the topic. After all Mellenby didn’t seem to have very many friends. The only one at school he truly seemed to get along with well was Cholmondeley, who was nearly as bookish as Mellenby, even if he’d been struggling with magic since the beginning, a problem which Mellenby decidedly lacked.
Thomas tried to ask his mother if he could go, but discovered that she’d retired to her room with a headache, attempted to get his father’s attention, but he was busy as always, and ended up knocking on his sister’s door, who as the eldest daughter of the family might as well have been a second mother.
“I don’t see why not,” she said, angling her body so Thomas could not see inside her room, “but you’ll have to be back in time for grandfather’s birthday, the entire family is coming”
He promised that he would, and bounded off to reply to Mellenby’s letter. Three days later he was on a train bound north.
*
Thomas had, in abstract, known that Mellenby was richer than he was. In terms of the Folly most were better situated than the Nightingales, though they’d never had reason to struggle financially, despite raising seven children. But Thomas hadn’t realised quite how rich the Mellenbys were, until Mellenby gave him a tour of the grounds upon his arrival.
“Alexander and Constantine belong to Hal and me, but we don’t have much use for them now that we’re off at Casterbrook,” Mellenby told him as he showed Thomas the stable and the three horses grazing nearby, “but I think father’s been riding them instead of Marc Anthony from time to time”
When Thomas had been ten his sister, four years older, had desperately wanted a horse. It had been a topic of discussion at the dinner table for several months, as Victoria had waged her first war against their father in a battle of wills that had frankly frightened Thomas. It wouldn’t be the last, and certainly not the most devastating of their quarrels, but he still clearly remembered how much it would have cost them to keep even one horse, with how much the numbers had been shouted by their father. That the Mellenbys had enough money to keep two that they rarely had use for was startling. But considering the size of the sprawling grounds and house that Thomas had seen briefly in passing, four times as big as the one in which he had been raised at least, that shouldn’t have been surprising in the least.
“Did you bring new magazines?” Mellenby asked as they made their way towards the house at last. His luggage had been taken from him upon his arrival by a page and brought to the house that could only be reached by a steep footpath.
“Yes,” Thomas said, and added, “is your father home?” They would have to be careful if he was, since Thomas didn’t particularly fancy his magazines being taken from him or even destroyed.
“No, he’s in London for the rest of the month. It’s just Hal and us,” Mellenby said cheerfully. From what little Mellenby had told him about his father Thomas had gathered the impression that the two didn’t particularly get on at the best of times, and that the older Mellenby son was the only person capable of diffusing the situation.
Thomas had never officially met Henry Mellenby, but he had spotted him at Casterbrook in passing. The resemblance between the two brothers was strong enough for Thomas to have recognised him without actively looking out for him. Henry, two years older than them, was certainly more popular and better looking than his brother, with a lean face and easy smile, although the brothers shared their blond curls and bright blue eyes. Still Thomas was certain that of the two David was the smarter.
“Your father just left you two alone?” he asked, surprised. “What if something happens?” His parents certainly wouldn’t have, no matter how urgent the matter that compelled them away. Dick and Jos, the two oldest, were both up at Oxford, but if both of their parents had needed to leave Tavistock at the same time they would have convinced one of them, if not both, to come down and look after their younger siblings for the duration of their absence. If that failed there was always his Aunt Fanny, although his father liked to pretend that she didn’t exist.
“I’m not sure father would really much care if something happened to either of us. Or to me at least”
Unable to think of a response Thomas watched Mellenby open the large doors that led inside his home for the next few days.
*
“So, you are Davey’s little friend then,” Henry Mellenby said when he finally emerged from his bedroom around midday. His tie was loose, the top button of his shirt undone, and it looked as if he had slept in it. He certainly appeared as if he had just gotten up, after a night spent drinking well into the early hours of the morning, “Nightingale, right?”
“Yes,” he said, unsure how to react. He had thought Mellenby’s brother would be more like him, bookish and proper. “I am”
“Don’t look at me like that,” he said, and laughed, “I’m not going to eat you. Where is Davey, anyway?”
“He wanted to get something from the library,” he’d left Thomas out on the patio, where they’d spent the last few hours, talking and reading some of the magazines Thomas had brought along.
“Of course he did, why do I even ask. Only my brother would abandon a guest in favour of the library.”
And abandon Thomas Mellenby did more often than not. It seemed that, just like at school, there was something pulling Mellenby to the library when there was nothing physically holding him back. So it was not a surprise that they ended up spending most of their time in there, apart from the few hours every day that Thomas managed to drag him outside.
“You never said that you were landed,” Thomas said one evening, as they shared some scones and tea in the library. At Casterbrook they would have been forced to do so in secret, at the risk of drawing the wrath of the librarian upon them, who had strictly forbidden food and liquids in his hallowed halls.
As if it was nothing out of the ordinary Mellenby shrugged. “My grandfather bought the land around the time my father was born. Our family had an arms factory and he made quite a lot of money with it, he even collaborated with the Folly to make rifles that could also be used as a staff. Or he attempted to at least, I don’t think they were ever successful. That’s how my father earned a spot at Casterbrook even though no one in the family had attended before”
Thomas, who’d never heard about any of this, leaned forward, intruiged. “Your father was a novus homo?”
Mellenby nodded, “Not that he likes to hear it mentioned. If he could he’d pretend that our family has been a part of the Folly since Newton’s time”
The Nightingale’s hadn’t been part of the Folly for that long either, but it was rare nowadays that someone was permitted into the closed shop that was the Society of the Wise. “Is that why you have all of these books on magic here?”
“In part. Father doesn’t like to rely on the Folly for his literature, so whenever he can he buys copies for our library” And his son took advantage of it whenever he could. It was no wonder then, that Mellenby was so obsessed with the workings of magic. While for Thomas and his family magic had become a part of life, with some uncle or brother in every generation being a wizard, it was still new for the Mellenbys, and much more exciting for any child born into the family.
*
Time at Mellenby’s passed quicker than he had thought imaginable, and before he knew it he was on a train back home, and in some ways his stay felt as if it had been a dream, and not reality. He returned to Tavistock, and with it to the madness his family exuded, in high spirits that even Andrew and his proclivity for arson could not put a damper on.
*
“Do you think he has a wife?” Ballentine asked during the first physics lesson of the new term.
They’d secured seats in the last row, at the cost of several sharp elbows to the ribs. It had been worth it, though, because Coombs - the physics master - never left his desk, which meant they could do as they pleased without him noticing a thing.
“He doesn’t wear a ring,” Thomas said quietly. In fact, as far as he had observed, none of their teachers were married. “Why?”
“Imagine having to wake up next to that face every day of your life. I think I would kill myself”
Coombs truly wasn’t a particularly pleasant sight, with a deep frown that never left his face, but his appearance was trumped by an even more unpleasant demeanour.
“But I bet Mellenby would love it,” Ballentine said as Mellenby, sat in the first row next to Cholmondeley, raised his hand in answer to a question Coombs hadn’t even gotten around to asking yet.
“I think Mellenby is blinded by his love for the subject. There could be anyone else standing there and he probably wouldn’t even notice the difference,” Thomas said, although he felt bad talking about Mellenby behind his back. Somehow - Thomas still wasn’t sure when it had happened - they had become friends.
“How can anyone enjoy this?” Ballentine grumbled as Coombs wrote some indecipherable equation on the board, “this is torture”
Thomas shrugged. He couldn’t understand it either, after all.
*
After class they pushed through the stream of students trying to get outside, and wandered off to the small group of trees that had become their usual spot. Ballentine dropped his bag on the grass and flopped down beside it, Thomas following suit just moments later, bedding his head on his book bag. He closed his eyes, and did his best to soak up the remaining sun before it disappeared for the winter. It was still unusually warm, and all of them - except for Mellenby, perpetual resident of the library - were spending as much time outside as possible.
“Did you do the Latin translation for tomorrow?” asked Horace Greenway, who hadn’t been with them just a few moments before.
Thomas cracked open an eye to make sure Greenway was talking to him and not somebody else who had joined them without Thomas noticing and was one of the three students in their class who actually did the translation - highly improbable but one had to hold on to hope in order to remain sane at times.
“Yes,” he said, “it was rather involved and complicated”
He enjoyed Latin and Ancient Greek, but there were some texts that were simply unpleasant to translate. German and French were more enjoyable in that way, and having students in their class who already spoke the language fluently certainly was a great help - even if Mellenby spoke German in a dialect no one could understand and most of the French Champers knew couldn’t be repeated in polite company. Still he preferred Latin and Greek. There was something about the distance in time, the mysticism, that made them rather enticing to him.
“Not Seneca again, surely,” Greenway said.
“Afraid so”
Greenway and Ballentine groaned in unison.
“You can copy my translation,” Thomas, who’d known what Greenway wanted from the beginning, said, “but change the wording a bit, otherwise it’ll be obvious half the class didn’t do it and copied mine instead”
Mellenby had copied it as soon as Thomas had been finished, in exchange for his physics and chemistry work, and Cholmondeley had undoubtedly asked Mellenby. Pascal and Champers had both asked for it earlier than morning, and Sanders was likely going to do so as well, shortly before Lights. That the Latin master - Timmins - hadn’t noticed yet was a miracle.
He had to sit up to pull the translation out of his bag, which was rather a shame considering how the sun had felt on his face, and he leaned back as soon he had handed the pages over to Greenway.
“You’re a saint, Nightingale”
“I know”
“If Timmins notices something we can just say we did it together,” Ballentine said as he moved closer to Greenway, so he could get a better look”
“Ten people doing a translation together is very believable. You could, of course, try to do it on your own,” Thomas suggested, “then you wouldn’t have to lie about it”
“With weather like this? It should be a crime to make us do this the first week back”
Thomas moved his head so he could watch the other students spread out across the lawn while his friends wrote as quickly as they could. Most of the boys were gathered in small groups of three or four, but there were a few larger groups as well. What looked like the Upper Sixth Formers had started an impromptu rugby game, and a few of the younger students had gathered around them to watch.
“Sanders said the Lower Sixth has smuggled in beer for the campfires tomorrow,” Ballentine said, “and apparently we are getting some as well”
“Really?” Thomas asked, interest piqued. He’d tried alcohol for the first time that summer, sneaked out of the kitchen by Pip, while everyone else had been distracted by their grandfather’s birthday celebration. They’d shared it late that night, Pip, Thomas and Stephen, in the bedroom that Thomas had been sharing with Spud since he had been old enough to move out of the nursery, and sometimes with Pip as well, whenever he was forced to surrender his bedroom to Aunt Anthea’s brood when they came to visit.
It had been wine then, not beer, but at the thought of the buzz that had settled over him after the first few sips Thomas didn’t much care what he had to drink to feel it again.
“Don’t tell the swots, though,” Ballentine said, “I wouldn’t put it past them to go to Marriott with it”
Greenway shook his head. “I don’t think so. Mellenby sneaks out of the dorms almost every night, which I am sure he doesn’t want to get to Marriott, and Cholmondeley won’t do something like that on his own. He knows what is going to happen if he does”
Everyone knew what was going to happen, they’d seen it before. Early into their second year Cholmoneley had corrected something Ballentine had said in class and, not five hours later, had found himself in one of the trees farthest away from the buildings, dangling upside down from one of the lower branches.
Thomas had helped him down, once he had found out about it, but to this day he wasn’t sure how long Cholmondeley had been in that tree. The Masters had been livid, of course, but Cholmondeley had refused to say anything about what had happened, so they couldn’t prove that it had been Ballentine. Not that he would have been punished for it.
Everyone knew, though. And everyone had understood that they shouldn’t get into his way, unless they were confident that they could hold their own against him.
“If we asked them they might even join us this time,” Thomas suggested, “no point in ratting us out if they’re benefitting from the contraband as well”
“Invite Mellenby and Cholmondeley to our bonfire? The only thing they talk about is science - and in a frightfully boring way at that”
“They’re not that bad, once you get to know them”
“You have been spending an awful lot of time with Mellenby,” said Greenway, “but I had thought that was under duress”
“It was at first, but he’s gotten easier so get along with, over time. He even let’s me copy his homework at times”
“And why is this the first we hear about that? Last term Dudders made me do his filing because I hadn’t done my exercises”
“Mellenby doesn’t want me to pass on his work. Apparently we are never going to learn if we just copy from him”
“I can live a happy and fulfilled life without understanding physics or chemistry,” said Greenway, “in fact my life would vastly improve if I never had to bother with it again”
“I’ve told him the same,” said Thomas, “he doesn’t believe me. And I am sure he will try to argue with you about it”
*
Beer, Thomas decided, was his new favourite thing in the world. He’d managed to secure a second bottle before the lower sixth formers had run out of their stock to pass around, and he cradled it to his chest as if it was made out of solid gold.
Although it was autumn the night was still warm, and most of the students were out in the woods, for what would be the last campfires of the year. Thomas had settled on a log close to the fire and watched Mellenby and Cholmondeley, both bent over a book listing the most common spirits in England, discussing which one they should try to summon later.
“Are we in the lead up to Ballentine and Mellenby bashing each others heads in where the Masters won’t see?” Donny Shanks asked, sitting next to Thomas, alas sans beer, “or what is happening here, exactly”
“Mellenby is going to try and summon a spirit - not sure which one”
Shanks raised an eyebrow. “Why would Mellenby choose to do that here, in front of all of us”
“He does like to show off, in case you hadn’t noticed”
“But he hasn’t actually summoned a spirit before, has he? The way I see it he is setting himself up for failure”
“Ballentine might have, ahem, suggested the same last night at dinner,” Thomas said and took a sip of his beer, “in front of everyone” Shanks hadn’t been there, instead serving detention once again.
Shanks scoffed. “Why would Ballentine do that? You put him up to that, didn’t you?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about”
“Be honest, Nightingale. I promise I won’t tell anyone”
“Because it was the only way I could think of that would actually get Mellenby and Cholmondeley to come out here tonight”
“Why do you care?”
“Because he is my friend,” Thomas said, “and I don’t want him to miss this because of another one of my friends’ behaviour”
Not far from them the swots were laughing about something.
*
While his planned had brought Mellenby and Cholmondeley to the bonfire, it didn’t bring them any closer to Ballentine and the other’s, despite what Thomas had hoped.
Instead he found himself the eternal mediator between the groups, convincing Ballentine not to lock Mellenby up in the nearest broom closet, while gently suggesting to the latter that it perhaps wasn’t best form to insult someone’s intelligence in front of an entire classroom, including their teacher.
“Why do you care so much?” Greenway asked one night, as they were dividing the spoils of their latest kitchen break in between themselves.
“I just don’t understand why they can’t get along,” he answered, and shoved a biscuit into his mouth.
Greenway shrugged. “That’s just how it works. Everyone can’t get along all of the time”
“But they are both my friends and I don’t want to have to choose between either of them”
He’d soon learn that there were worse choices to be faced with.
*
War began during a vacation in Germany.
They were staying in a tiny town at the foot of a mountain range, stuffing themselves with sausages and potatoes after long days of being ushered up and down the mountains by their father. It had been a few years since they had done something like this, and Daisy, his younger sister, who at eight couldn’t remember the vacation to Switzerland in 1909 had been utterly mesmerised.
When the news of Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s assassination had come none of them had been sure what this was going to mean, but Thomas could still vividly remember the moment they had found out, even years and decades later.
They’d been in the room he was sharing with his two older brothers, he and his siblings, since the girls had been forced to stay in what was little more than a glorified closet.
“Stephen, be careful, you might break something that doesn’t belong to you”
Victoria, at eighteen the oldest Nightingale child that had accompanied their parents on the trip, while the two oldest sons were off doing unspeakable things in London, and Stephen, barely a year older than Thomas himself, had been waging war against each other since stepping onto the train to Dover, and, as always, Stephen truly excelled at provoking their sister.
“Has anyone ever told you, Queenie, that you take the fun out of everything?”
“Don’t call me that”
“It’s your name”
“No it’s not”
“The Austrian heir apparent just died,” Phillip said, sitting on his bed, legs crossed, doing his best to ignore Victoria and Stephen. He’d never been particularly inclined to get mixed up in any fights and arguments, a reprive of the insanity of their siblings Thomas had learned to appreciate over time.
None of them knew much about foreign politics, Thomas and his brothers because they were teenaged boys and therefore asinine fools – Victoria’s words – and Victoria because she believed women’s suffrage to be the most important issue the modern world was facing and therefore refused to waste her precious time on the inanity of monarchial families – again, her words
They bent over the newspaper – all except for Daisy, engrossed in one of her books – to look at the headline and the picture of Archduke Franz Ferdinand below.
“Such a shame,” Stephen said, “he was rather good looking”
“That man just died, Stephen,” Victoria chided
“Doesn’t mean I’m blind, does it?”
“Not just one man,” Thomas, the only one who spoke German well enough to understand the text below, said, “his wife as well”
Over the next few days the situation, as far as they could tell, worsened. They spent most of their free time gathered around the local newspaper, Thomas trying his best to translate the articles, but there were too many words he didn’t know to make much sense of it. Annoyed by how long it took him Victoria went out and bought a dictionary, which helped speed things along considerably. More than once Thomas wished that Mellenby, who’d spoken fluent German by the time they had started at Casterbrook was with them.
Until one day the headline printed across the front page was easy enough to understand. Krieg. War.
“Do you think we’ll have to go home now?” Stephen asked.
“We might just, yes,” Victoria answered.
The train journey to the coast of France took nearly twice as long as the journey to Germany had been, sitting on their suitcases in a crowded corridor, where they’d had a compartment to themselves before. It seemed they weren’t the only ones trying to get home before the situation well and truly escalated, racing towards a future in which everything was uncertain.