They drove past a copse of yew trees, the rain momentarily stopping as they passed beneath the thick canopy of the branches—and as they did, a flurry of black and white swooped without warning from the tree above, and Mr. Treswick swerved and ground a tire on one of the granite boulders marking the edge of the drive.
“Damnation!” He sounded flustered as he righted their course, and drove more slowly up the final few yards to the house, the rain resuming as they left the shelter of the copse.
“What was it?” Hal asked, looking back over her shoulder. “A gull?”
“No, a magpie. The house is plagued with them—absolutely plagued. They can be surprisingly aggressive.” He drove through a vaulted arch and slowed to a halt in a graveled carriage yard to the right of the main frontage. There he turned off the engine and wiped his palms shakily on his trousers. “It’s supposed to be the origin of the name, you know. Piasenn is the Cornish word for magpie. And tre means farm or farmstead. So they say Trepassen is a corruption of Tre Piasenn—Magpie Farm. Whether that’s true or not, I have no idea, but it certainly lives up to the name. Another theory holds that it’s to do with the Cornish word for the past, passyen. Myself, I don’t know. I’m no Cornish scholar, I’m afraid.” He smoothed his hair and unclipped his seat belt, looking, for the first time since Hal had seen him, more than a little rattled. “I . . . I am not very fond of birds—it’s something of a phobia. Much as I would love to overcome it, I have not been able to. And the magpies here . . .” He gave a little involuntary shudder. “Well, as I said, they are really rather numerous, and not at all shy. At least”—he reached for his umbrella and gave a small, rather mirthless smile—“at least in this house one has no danger of sorrow.”
“Sorrow?” Hal said, startled.
“Why, yes, don’t you know the rhyme? One for sorrow, two for joy, and so on? Although joy seems equally unlikely—I’ve never seen anything less than half a dozen magpies congregated here.”
“Yes . . .” Hal said slowly. “Yes, I know the rhyme.” Her hand went to her shoulder, and she touched the skin there, beneath the thin coat, remembering, and then let her hand drop. “At least . . . I know the first four lines. Does it go as far as six?”
“Oh yes,” Mr. Treswick said, and then frowned. “Let me see . . . one for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl, four for a boy. What’s the next bit—five for silver . . . six I think is gold. Yes, that’s right, six for gold.”
Six for gold, Hal thought. She bit her lip. If she was superstitious, she might call that an omen. But she was not.
Years of working the cards had not made her more of a believer—if anything, quite the opposite. There were many readers out there who did believe, she had met them. But Hal knew, for she had seen it up close and personal, that signs and symbols were created by people looking for patterns and answers—in and of themselves, they meant nothing.
Now that Mr. Treswick had pointed them out, she could see the magpies, sheltering in the yew tree copse. Two were on the ground, pecking at the berries. Four up in the branches. And the last, the one that had dive-bombed the car, was sitting on the porch roof in the rain, looking balefully down at them.
“What about seven?” she said lightly. “More gold?”
“No,” Mr. Treswick said with a laugh. “Alas not.” He climbed out of the car and hurried round with the umbrella unfurled. He spoke above the sound of the rain drumming on the fabric. “Seven is the last line of the rhyme. Seven magpies are for a secret never to be told.”
Perhaps it was the rain, or the wind that blew up the valley. But Hal could not help shivering as she took her case out of the car boot and followed Mr. Treswick, under cover of his umbrella, into the porch of Trepassen House.
4th December, 1994
I was sick again this morning, skittering down the steep stairs and down the long passageway to the toilet in my nightgown, kneeling on the cold tiled floor to heave up the last remains of yesterday’s dinner.
Afterwards, I brushed my teeth, huffing on my hands to make sure my breath didn’t have any telltale sourness, but when I opened the door to the corridor, Maud was standing outside, her arms crossed over the ratty old Smiths T-shirt that she wears instead of proper pyjamas.
She said nothing, but there was something in her expression that I didn’t like. It was a look of mingled concern and something else, I’m not sure what. I think it might have been . . . pity? The thought made me angry.
She was leaning against the wall, blocking my way, and she didn’t move as I came out and shut the bathroom door behind me.
“Sorry.” I shook my hair back from my face, trying to look unconcerned. “Were you waiting long?”
“Yes,” she said flatly. “Long enough. Are you all right?”
“Of course,” I said, pushing past her, forcing her to step backwards against the wall. “Why wouldn’t I be?” I called back over my shoulder.
She shrugged, but I know what she meant. I know exactly what she meant. I thought about the expression on her face, the way her flat black eyes followed me as I walked back to my attic. And as I sit here in bed writing this on my knees, watching the magpies swooping low over the snowy garden, I am wondering . . . how far can I trust her?
CHAPTER 11
* * *
Mr. Treswick led the way through a side entrance, into a vaulted vestibule tiled with red terra-cotta squares. Hal followed him in, shaking her head as the hiss of the rain was replaced with the hollow drip of water pattering from her coat, and Mr. Treswick’s umbrella.
“Mrs. Warren!” he called, his voice echoing along the long corridor. “Oh, Mrs. Warren! It’s Mr. Treswick.”
There was a silence, and then Hal heard, as though from a great distance, the click-click, click-click of heels on the tiled floor, each set of steps followed by an unfamiliar chink. She turned her head, and through the glass panes of the door to her left, she saw an old lady dressed all in black half walking, half hobbling along the corridor.
“Is that Mrs. Warren?” she whispered to Mr. Treswick, before she could think better of the question. “But she looks—”
“She must be eighty if she’s a day,” Mr. Treswick said under his breath. “But she wouldn’t hear of retirement while your grandmother was alive.”
“Is that you, Bobby?”
Her accent was broad Cornish, and the voice was cracked as a raven’s. Mr. Treswick winced, and in spite of her nerves, Hal was a little amused to see a flush of red on his gray-stubbled cheek. He removed his overcoat and coughed.
“It’s Robert Treswick, Mrs. Warren,” he called down the corridor, but she shook her head.
“Speak up, boy, I can’t hear you. All you young people are the same. Mumble mumble.”
As she came closer, Hal saw that she was using a cane, and the iron ferrule on the tiles was the chink she had heard. It gave her step an odd, uneven rhythm, click-click . . . chink, click-click . . . chink.
At long last she reached the door and paused to fumble with her cane, before Mr. Treswick sprang to hold the door open, and she hobbled through.
“So.” She ignored Mr. Treswick, and her surprisingly dark, bright eyes settled on Hal. There was an expression in them that Hal couldn’t read—but it wasn’t warmth. Far from it. A kind of . . . speculation, perhaps? There was absolutely no smile in her voice as she said, “You’re the girl. Well, well, well.”
“I—” Hal swallowed. Her throat was dry as dust, and she became suddenly aware of her defensive stance—her folded arms, her hair hanging down to shield her eyes. Think of the client, her mother’s voice in her head. Think of what they want to see when they come to you. She wished she had taken out her large thorn earring, but it was too late for that now. She forced a smile, making her face as open and unthreatening as possible. “Yes, that’s me.”
She held out a hand to shake, but the old lady turned away as if she hadn’t seen it, and she was forced to let it drop.
“They didn’t tell me if you were coming,” Mrs. Warren shot over her shoulder, “but I had a room aired in case. You’ll be wanting to change your clothes.”