Chapter Text
For something that has carried her so far, the letter in Coco’s hand is shockingly thin and flimsy. It should have crumpled under the weight of her burden before she even crossed the ocean. And now here she is, so very far away from home, alone, clutching at it like a singular raft at sea. Part of her wants to try pinching the paper between her hands, tearing it to shreds, as if that would have the power to undo this journey and return her to the home that now stands empty.
The carriage rolls over something sharp and Coco is thrown sideways in her seat, into the edge of her luggage. She steadies herself against the door and blinks out at the countryside passing her by.
Grey-brown hills under a grey-blue sky. She hasn’t seen the sun since disembarking the ship. One of the women who had hosted her in the first inn she stayed at had joked that she should get used to the grey; the sun won’t be back until next summer, apparently. Coco is loath to believe that. There are trees studding these moors, wind-blasted and stunted as they are, so there must be sunlight to be found in this country. Just not today, evidently.
She presses her fingers into the well-worn paper yet again. She can remember the smell of warm grass, of apple blossoms, of clean laundry. Her summers are so far away now…
The carriage jolts again. Coco hears the carriage-driver, a local man of few words who reeks of cigars, swear and curse at the road. She imagines he’s rarely paid to drive anyone up this road. It’s obviously not well-maintained: but why would it be? The only people who ever travel this way needn’t go by carriage, after all. He must think Coco a loony, asking to be carried to the manor. She, a foreign and lone girl, on her way to that place.
Coco sinks into the carriage seat. She supposes she’ll need to get used to this. She’s one of them, now, and she’ll simply have to start acting like it.
A minute later, the carriage rolls to a halt.
“We’re here, Missy!”
Coco straightens up and pops the door open. “Sorry?” she calls to the front. They’re on the road still, but she sees no sign of any manor. “Where?”
“The end of the road,” says the carriage-driver. “Can’t go no further.”
Coco looks around. There’s a rocky footpath leading away from the road, into the moor to her right. It cuts through scrubby grass, mud, and under the branches of ancient gnarled trees, following the line of a hip-height wall built from craggy grey stones.
“Oh,” she says. “I’m going that way, I guess.”
“Right.” The man sniffs. He stays in his seat, obviously satisfied that his job here is done.
Coco silently hauls her luggage from inside the carriage and drops to the ground below the step. The wind instantly cuts through her cotton shawl and nips at her ankles under the hem of her skirt. She hadn’t the time or spare coin to buy a more appropriate dress on her journey.
“Good luck, little witch,” grunts the man, before clicking his tongue and urging his horse to turn and pull briskly away. Coco is alone again in moments.
Hiking her skirts, she picks up her trunk and marches into the grass, following the rugged footpath as it leads her uphill. Wind tugs at her hair, nearly pulling it from the bonnet she had pinned it under that morning. She ducks her head and turns away from the wind. It roars in her ears like an unseen beast and nearly blinds her with tears when she tries to peer ahead of herself.
Never in her own country did she face such weather in what was supposedly late-summer. She can only assume the women and girls here wear woolen stockings all days of the year.
Rocks underfoot threaten to turn her ankles at many points. She stops once or twice to shake little stones from her shoes and swap her trunk from one hand to the other. After walking for what feels like miles she turns and looks back and sees the road as a tiny grey line cutting across the landscape far behind her. But when she looks ahead she only sees more fields.
She rests for a minute and drops her trunk to lean against the stone wall. She stares up at the steel-grey sky and runs her fingers across the rocks behind her: clammy limestone, the dry crust of lichen, the warm and damp cushions of moss. Something solid and unmoving. Similar enough to the country walls of home.
Her peace is interrupted by the soft lowing of a cow from behind. Coco looks over her shoulder to find herself being slowly but steadily approached by a large cow with shaggy orange-brown fur and enormous bar-like horns. She backs away from the wall, though the cow appears to be approaching out of curiosity rather than animosity.
“Ah, good-day,” she says. “I’m only…passing through.”
The cow reaches the wall and considers her through a pair of large, sleepy brown eyes.
“I don’t suppose you know how far it might be to the house of Mister Qifrey, do you?” she asks the cow.
The cow huffs and turns away, apparently bored of the newcomer to his field. Coco sighs and picks her trunk up once more. She curtsies briefly to the departing cow before going on her way again.
The incline steepens for a little while until she reaches a sort of plateau which, she can now see from a better vantage, is the spine of a number of hills which roll across the landscape to both her left and right. The path continues along the top of the hills for what seems like forever, running away into the horizon, save for a smaller path which breaks away and runs down the other side of the hills into a valley. This path is not marked by any signage. Her line of sight is blocked in every direction after a point by copses of trees and the rise and fall of the land, so she still has no sight of any houses of any description.
Coco groans and closes her eyes, exhausted beyond reason. She should have asked the cow for clearer directions.
After a moment of deliberation, she decides on the smaller footpath, reasoning that the house she’s looking for would be hidden in some private spot of land away from prying eyes. That is how witches live, isn’t it? She only hopes it’s not much further to walk. Her feet are starting to ache on this uneven ground.
The path leads her down a slope that occasionally breaks into sheer scree. She stumbles and almost drops her trunk at points, but makes it to the flatter ground at the base of the hill. There, she finds herself walking into a sparse woodland. The air chills immediately and her nose is filled with the smell of moss and old wood. No longer walking on grass, her boots sink into a thin layer of dead leaves and mud underneath.
Even the birds in this country sound different, she quickly learns. She wishes she had the names for them as they sing and call over her head in the branches. It’s late enough in the afternoon for sunlight to run into the woods underneath the canopy of most trees, casting Coco’s surroundings in a soft amber glow. Her relief at finally being free from the cutting winds and the uneven grassy ground briefly overcomes her anxiety. Coco presses on through the trees with renewed vigour, head turning this way and that each time she hears a new birdcall or thinks she sees a small animal hurrying away through the undergrowth.
It’s only when she reaches the banks of a pond that she notices she’s no longer walking on a path at all. She stares at where the toes of her shoes meet the edge of the water. The pond itself is rather large, clear and peaceful as a mirror. She turns around. She can barely see where her bootprints lead backward through the trees.
Coco drops her trunk. She’s definitely come the wrong way. And she is lost.
She despairs, knowing she’ll have to retrace her steps to find the footpath again and return to the top of the hills. The house she’s looking for must be farther along, somewhere, though she can’t guess how much further along the path it would be. Will she even be able to reach it before nightfall?
Coco nearly sobs at the thought of having to walk these moors at twilight, let alone nighttime, alone.
“Oh…what have I done?” She presses her hands to her face, squeezing the bridge of her nose where the burn of oncoming tears is beginning to sting.
Water sloshes nearby. Coco drops her hands, startled out of her despair.
From out of the pond, a slim figure emerges. Dressed in white, drenched from head to foot, a girl with short, dark hair and striking features steps up from the shallows. Water billows and ebbs about her calves where the cotton of her sodden dress clings to her legs. The girl pauses five steps or so from where Coco stands and regards her with hard eyes that shine with the cold depths of cut onyx.
Coco’s heart lurches in her chest. She thinks she must be seeing things, delusional with loneliness and lost in a foreign land. This girl, poised and noble, who has emerged from a pond in the woods, can only be some sort of faerie.
“A pond nymph…” mutters Coco, gaping at the girl in the soaking dress.
The girl’s impassive expression abruptly contorts into bewilderment. “Excuse me?” she says. “What did you just call me?”
Coco flushes, snapping her slack jaw closed. Reality rushes back into place around her; this girl is real, and she is not alone. “Oh, sorry. I was just—um, startled by you, that’s all. Anyway, I’m lost. I was trying to…” She flounders, reaching for the letter she had tucked into the sleeve of her jacket. “I’m looking for the house of a Mister Qifrey, who’s supposed to live nearby. I was invited…”
Coco trails off when she sees recognition and a hint of suspicion cross the girl’s face. “Do you know him?” asks Coco.
The girl nods. She walks the rest of the way out of the pond, trailing damp footprints across the gritty banks. “I do. Did you come from the road, then?”
“Yes. I must have taken a wrong turn.”
The girl looks askance at Coco from over her shoulder as she bends to rummage around a shrubby bush nearby. “Evidently,” she says dryly, then pulls out a small satchel that Coco hadn’t previously noticed. From inside the bag she produces a pair of bronze rings and presses them together; a moment later, air seems to whip up around her, though from where she’s standing Coco doesn’t feel so much as a warm breeze.
In a matter of seconds, all signs of dampness are lifted from the strange girl’s hair and clothing. Her dress, now dry as it would be after an afternoon in the summer’s sun, is revealed to be a creamy white. Her unfashionably-short hair has perked up into a crown of dark curls that hang charmingly over her ears and brow.
The rings are a device crafted by witches. Coco has only seen a small number in use herself before now, though she’s known abstractly that they are more common here than back home.
Coco watches the girl produce a pair of shoes that were also hidden under the shrub. “How far is the house from here?” she asks.
“Not far,” the girl says, shoes on her feet and satchel over her shoulder. She stands and regards Coco again. “How long have you been in this country?” she asks bluntly. “That’s an odd accent you have.”
Coco is no expert of accents, but can sense out the noble vowels in this girl’s voice. Can she in turn hear the humble origins of Coco’s voice from her own accent? “Um, just a few days. I’ve…I’ve never been to England before.”
The girl strides away from the pond; Coco follows with a start. “I cannot imagine why you would ever want to take the enormous trouble to visit this country,” the girl says. When Coco begins to reply, she holds up a hand. “No need for you to say. That matter is between you and Qifrey. Anyway, I hope whatever business you have here is resolved easier than your journey was managed.”
Coco watches the girl as they walk through the woods. She can’t be much older than Coco, though she stands a little taller and walks with the posture of one much more mature.
“My name is Coco,” she says after a moment, offering her hand.
The girl doesn’t even turn her head to Coco, and so electively ignores the hand. “Agott Arklaum,” she replies.
“What were you doing in the pond?”
“Bathing, obviously.”
Coco considers this. She doesn’t want to be rude, but now curiosity eats at her. Are bathtubs really so rare in this country?
Before Coco can ask, Agott adds, “I share a bathtub with two others and I do not like waiting my turn. Besides, out here it is much more peaceful and I cannot be interrupted.” She glances sidelong at Coco. “Usually.”
Coco keeps quiet for the remainder of the walk.
Agott leads her through the trees in a direction new to Coco and they emerge at the edge of a field lined with brick walls. The ground is still uneven, but Agott strides over it with an ease that speaks of practice. As Coco struggles to follow on her unsteady feet, she wonders if Agott must live somewhere nearby, perhaps on a neighbouring estate to Qifrey’s home. Maybe they know each other through a family acquaintance, or a shared landlord. She wants to know, but Agott’s frosty conversation discourages her from broaching the topic.
When they crest the next hill, Coco can finally see what must be the house she is looking for. Though, it is not quite a house.
Instead of the cottage she had been picturing in her mind’s eye, she sees a grand country manor built from grey-white stone with a walled garden adjoined to the west side and a small gatehouse preceding it. Countless windows face out from the front and wings and a number of chimneys bristle across the high slate roofs — two of them currently seeping smoke. Ivy of a deep green crawls across the outer walls and a climbing plant frames the main door with vibrant purple blooms. Behind it, a silvery lake curves away behind a wooded area adjacent to the walled garden.
It’s lush, grand, and unsettlingly still. A house this big should be bustling, thinks Coco. As she and Agott approach, she sees no carriages around the gatehouse and no servants in the grounds.
But perhaps this is normal for a real witch.
They pass the gatehouse and walk through a small courtyard before the main entrance. Agott steps up to the door, turns the knob, and walks right in. Coco follows, stunned and wrongfooted. How did Agott know the door was unlocked? Are she and Qifrey on such close terms that he allows her to walk uninvited into his own home?
The door is closed behind Coco. A narrow stairway leads to the second floor at the far end of a hallway. A door to the left is open and shows some sort of parlour or reading room that faces the courtyard.
“Qifrey?” Agott calls out into the empty entry hall. Her voice ricochets off the painted plaster walls. “You have a visitor.”
Footsteps thump through the rooms to Coco’s right; a moment later, a girl around her own age slides to a halt in a doorway into the hall and gapes at her.
“Oh! Hello!” The girl is round-faced, large-eyed, with voluminous strawberry-brown hair. Her dress, though modest in material, is trimmed with intricate lace and ribbons. “I didn’t know we would have a guest,” she says, approaching Coco and curtsying in the midst of her rapid greeting. “I wonder why Qifrey didn’t warn us. If I knew, then I would have made a cake or something.”
Her voice is airy and bright, though Coco cannot place her accent. She might be from the continent.
“It’s none of our business,” says Agott, brushing past the smiling girl.
“My name is Tetia,” says the stranger to Coco with a bright smile, curtsying again. “I’m a student here.”
Coco curtsies back, awkwardly. “Coco.”
She hadn't known he already had students. Coco glances at Agott, an uncomfortable suspicion growing in her mind.
“Is Qifrey in?” asks Agott.
“Oh, definitely. I’ll fetch him,” Tetia says before turning in a flurry of skirts and vanishing up the stairs.
Quietly, Coco studies Agott again. She’s still not sure what she’s looking for, but after all this time she’d expect a witch to look a certain way. “So, how long have you been a student of Qifrey’s?” she asks tentatively.
“Almost five years now. I was the first student he took on.”
“Oh.” Coco can predict how this will go…
More footsteps from upstairs; Coco hears muffled conversation. Then, from another door on the ground floor, a third girl appears. This girl is willowy with pale hair that falls to her waist. She holds some sort of furry creature — perhaps a rat — in her hands. She doesn’t move any closer and stares at Coco from the other end of the hall.
“That’s Richeh,” explains Agott, unperturbed by the girl’s loitering.
“Hello.” Coco waves. Richeh continues to stare.
The conversation upstairs ends and a chorus of creaking floorboards begins as two pairs of footsteps descend the stairway. Coco watches Tetia lead the way before a tall man in a smoke-grey housecoat.
“Mister Qifrey, I presume?” asks Coco.
The man nods, bowing slightly at the waist with a gentle smile. He cuts a curious figure, pale and almost gaunt in complexion, wearing gold-rimmed pins-nez with a single smoked-lens. His one visible eye is a startling shade of ice-blue that one typically only sees in very young children but his well-groomed hair is an ashy white like that of an old man. Coco would have assumed he might have been ill if she had seen him in public.
Qifrey descends the stairs and clasps Coco’s hands in his own. His skin is dry and very cold. “Miss Coco, I am so very glad to see you. But—” He laughs a little. “I had expected you to first call on me from the village, by way of a letter. Do not tell me you travelled to the threshold of my home alone?”
Coco sputters. “I–Sorry?”
“Had you written to me, I would have brought you here myself.”
She feels quite foolish. Of course, she should have sent ahead to let Qifrey know of her arrival in the area. That’s the sort of thing a proper lady does, right? A real lady, a witch, wouldn’t be caught dead wandering the moor alone and lost.
Agott, standing not far back, scoffs. “I found her by the pond.”
Qifrey looks between her and Coco, dismayed. “Oh, Coco, I am sorry. I should have warned you about how remote this manor is.”
“No, it’s quite alright,” says Coco, patting the back of Qifrey’s hand. “I do like an adventure. And Agott here was so kind to show me the way.”
Qifrey smiles and releases Coco’s hands. “Come, the parlour is just this way. You must be tired. I’ll have some tea made for you. Tetia, please bring the tealeaves. Richeh, the cups.”
All five of them are gathered into the parlour, which turns out to be a much more welcoming room than Coco had been led to expect based on her prior experiences in well-to-do homes. The windows, though small, are left open to allow a crisp breeze to fill the room, and all corners are populated with tall and leafy plants arranged on shelves and stands. Two armchairs and two settees surround a table perfect for games of cards or a tea-set, and a modest fireplace sits dormant against the far wall.
Agott quickly claims one of the armchairs and settles in with a practiced comfort. Tetia pulls Coco toward one of the settees so they sit side-by-side, and Richeh sits herself in the other armchair — the little furry creature in her arms unfolds itself and is revealed to be a foot-long animal much like a ferret with large eyes and no visible ears or mouth. It scurries around her lap and the cushions of the armchair before settling over Richeh’s shoulders like a living shawl. Very strange, thinks Coco, but yet immediately charming.
Qifrey takes his place on the other settee, conscientiously leaving the space next to him empty as if for a sixth and final guest. He pours himself and the young ladies around him a cup of tea each; the richly scented vapour reaches Coco’s nose with distinct notes of cinnamon and vanilla. She breathes in deeply as a cup is offered to her.
“Thank you for taking my invitation seriously,” Qifrey tells her as the other cups are handed out. “It is a great pleasure to host you, after you have travelled so far.”
Coco resists the urge to hide herself behind the cup. “Oh, no, I need to thank you. This is a beautiful home and you have been so generous already.”
“I do not have the opportunity to play host very often,” Qifrey says with a chuckle. “My students keep me very busy, so I sometimes forget what life might be like outside these four walls. Tell me, how was the trip?”
Coco haltingly tells her story: of the ship she boarded on the eastern coast — the place she had previously considered the very edge of her world — and then the long voyage across an endless ocean. She was sick many times and hated the feeling of being rocked about at night when she tried to sleep. Even worse, having to eat so much fish for weeks on end.
Arriving in England, standing on blessed solid earth again, everything had been so different and yet so surprisingly mundane. Her naivety had brought her into trouble once or twice, but also so many people she’d met had been inexplicably generous toward her.
“I can barely believe I’m finally here.”
“So far…” says Richeh. “Halfway around the world.”
“Exactly,” breathes Tetia, eyes gleaming with awe.
Coco preens slightly. “It’s quite a privilege. Even though it was…exhausting.”
Agott hums. “I am curious to know how a correspondence grey between you and Professor Qifrey, given the distance. How do you know her, Professor?”
Fear leaps into Coco’s heart with a sharp pang, but Qifrey speaks before her panic can reach her expression.
“We have mutual acquaintances," he says breezily. “I was put into contact with Coco when her aptitude with magic was noted by the witches across the ocean. She is something of a prodigy, if such a word is not yet considered gauche.”
The flash of sweat Coco had felt over the back of her neck is cooling, but she is by no means settled. Qifrey had lied so easily. She should have expected this.
Agott blinks at Coco. “A commendation by the great witches of America? I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
“And I can’t believe Qifrey didn’t tell us a word!” cries Tetia, clutching Coco’s arm. “Professor, you’re a mean one. We never ever get visitors, and Coco is so exciting! Why in the world would you not think to tell us?”
Qifrey rubs a finger across the rim of his teacup. “Well, I was not keeping her visit a secret from you, my dear. It was Olly I had been hiding her from.”
Coco cocks her head, baffled. But it seems everyone else in the parlour knows who this ‘Olly’ person is, even if she does not.
Agott, leaning forward in her armchair, looks concerned. “But, Professor, why would Olruggio not…?” She stops, then looks at Coco, then back at Qifrey. “Don’t tell me…”
Qifrey flashes Coco an uneasy smile. “Yes, well…that commendation was of particular interest to me, since Coco’s former teacher has been recently forced into retirement by ill health. Given the circumstances, and Coco’s particular learning style, it was agreed that I would be best suited to finish her education. And so, I offered to take her in myself, so that she is not left without tutelage.”
Agott gapes.
Beside Coco, Tetia makes a noise that defies description and hugs her arm even tighter. “Oh, goodness! Coco, why didn’t you say?”
She might have, but Coco had the distinct feeling that if she had Agott would have thought her a mouthy upstart and a liar. Hearing the news from Qifrey, although it is obviously not well-received, seems to at least be taken as the truth.
“A fourth student,” Riche says softly, frowning at Qifrey. “Is that allowed?”
Qifrey shrugs in a manner that doesn’t exactly put Coco’s mind at ease. “It is not unheard of.”
“But—” Agott begins, blinking. “But you already work so hard, Professor! Is this not too much for you to take on?”
“We have room for Coco,” he replies with perfect calmness. “A spare bedroom above the conservatory. I will have a new bathtub brought up from the village so you four will not be sharing one between you any longer, and your weekly chores will be divided up so your workloads will be lightened somewhat. I think with a little patience, everything will run smoothly for us.”
“You haven’t told Olruggio,” says Agott, no less agitated. “He wouldn’t ever let you take on a fourth student, no matter how talented she is, without his approval. When he hears about this he’ll report to the Wises and you know that. You could be in serious trouble. What if she’s taken away from you?”
“She won’t be,” he says quickly. His eye is hard and cold. “Coco will stay here and I will make sure of it. Olly will not be pleased to learn about this but…I can persuade him. Besides,” he sighs. “He has such a kind heart. I am sure he will fold when he meets Coco.”
It is a lot for her to bear, suddenly. Coco sets down her teacup on the parlour table. “I do not want to bring trouble to you—”
“Not trouble,” interrupts Qifrey. “You should meet Olruggio, our Watchful Eye, tomorrow when he returns from his work. He’s not so scary.”
Coco returns Qifrey’s smile with slight hesitation.
“Now, I should allow the four of you to be better acquainted, given that Coco will be your classmate starting very soon. Her studies in magic put her slightly behind you three in terms of advancement, but I do not want that to put a wedge between her and you. Please treat her as a sister and colleague.”
“No problem,” says Tetia. “And I want Coco to tell me all about the magic she learnt in America. It’s so very far away, and I’m sure it’s very exciting.”
“I doubt it,” says Riche with grave disinterest. “American magic is probably just as boring as English magic. But she knows about the food that they eat over there. I want to know about the food.”
Qifrey laughs. “Very good. And Agott, you will be Coco’s guide until she has settled in. Please make her feel comfortable and welcome here.”
A moment or two passes before Agott seems to take in Qifrey’s words. She flinches. “Me?”
“Yes. You have lived here the longest. You are most qualified to show her where to find anything she might need.”
Agott hesitates, obviously unable to argue this point. She scowls, then appears to surrender. “Yes, that is a fair point. She does seem quite proficient at getting herself lost, afterall.” She fidgets, then lifts her gaze to Coco. “Leave this to me.”