“Lady Bee is not here? Is she well?” Riddle intervened. Perhaps he had hoped to change the subject.
As if summoned by his words, there was a light tap on the door and Bee drifted in. There was no other word for how she moved. Her body was languid with grace, and the pupils of her eyes were so dilated that her eyes looked almost black. She stared at me, and when she spoke, her words were thick. “It’s today,” she said. She smiled ethereally. “The butterfly in the garden, Father. The wing is on the ground and the pale man awaits you.”
She fell silent as we all stared at her. I felt heartsick; was she drugged? Sick? This was nothing like any Bee I had ever seen. Riddle looked horrified. He stared at her and then turned accusing eyes on me. Sometimes I forgot how young she appeared to folk who did not know her well. To hear such words from a nine-year-old would have been alarming enough, but most onlookers would have guessed her age at merely six. Shun spoke. “I thought you said you had a daughter? Who is this little boy? Do your servants often speak to you so?”
I scarcely heard her. “Bee, are you well?”
She tipped her head as if finding me by sound rather than sight. Her expression was beatific. “It feels so good to be right. When the circle closes. And it actually happens. You should go quickly. There isn’t much time.” She shook her head slowly. “The messenger has come such a long way to die at the doorstep.”
I found my wits. “I fear my child is ill.” I crossed the room and caught her up in my arms. At my touch, she went rigid. Hastily, I sealed myself. “Riddle, please take care of everything else.” Riddle said something as I left, his voice anxious. I shut the door on his words.
I strode down the corridor, Bee in my arms. I turned to carry her toward the stairs and her bedchamber but she suddenly came alive in my arms and with a twist of her body freed herself of my grip. She landed on her feet, swayed into a near-fall, and then contorted her body the other direction to stay on her feet. For a moment she seemed a girl made of fluid. Then she sprang away from me, calling over her shoulder, “This way, FitzChivalry. This way!” Her voice was ethereal as she ran from me.
I chased her. The child ran and her slender feet seemed barely to skim the floors. She fled toward the west wing of the house, the least-used part, and thankfully one that was not infested with workmen. She turned down a corridor that led to one of Patience’s gardening rooms. I thought I would catch her there, but she was as fleet as the wind as she threaded her way through urns of ferns and fat pots overflowing with vines. “Bee!” I whisper-shouted her name, but she did not pause. I hopped and twisted through the narrow way, slowed by the obstacles, and watched helplessly as she tugged open a door and dashed outside into a section of garden mazed with hedges.
I followed. My pursuit and her flight had been a silent one save for the pattering of her feet and my heavier tread. I did not call out her name or bid her stop or come back to me. I had no desire to call attention to my child’s aberrant behavior and my failure to control her. What was wrong with her? And how could I explain it to Riddle to keep him from thinking me neglectful? I was certain he would report back to Nettle and that it would reinforce her insistence that Bee be surrendered to her. As for Shun, I could not think of a worse introduction to Withywoods, Bee, or me than what she had just witnessed.