Before my feet landed on the marble floor of the entrance, I remember the ticking.
I almost slipped on the floor. It was wet from the frost on the soles of my shoes. The clock’s ability had that small downside. If not used with care, could froze someone until they thawed.
Travelling through “clock”. For lack of a better term. It was something one could never get accustomed. Although it was far more efficient than ancient spells (which failed most of the time). And far safer than using those prototypes. Prototypes a friend of father was developing before I returned. It still had its downsides. Beyond the thawing, that is. For one, my perception of size and shape became erratic after its use. I see things larger or smaller than they usually are. Also, I seem to forget even the most simple spell for the following hours after using it. This, in turn, leaves me unable to defend myself in case of an emergency.
Featherhill House, same as I remembered. With a few exceptions.
The large hall with twin staircases. The veritable maze of rooms. The emptiness.
Wait.
Everything around me had an inch of dust on, and cobwebs on the corners. My footsteps echoed on the rooms I walked around. No one came to meet me, not even after I called for my parents and the staff.
Mind you, by this point I already knew my parents would abandon Featherhill for the Americas. Both of them had important dealings in Boston and New York in the following years. Yet, I knew this would happen years later. Not even the voyage they were planning during the ball should've lasted more than a few months. By my own notes, it should happen around 1875, not 1866.
Still, seeing the house - a once grand and powerful house- in that state, was sobering, to say the least.
Last time I was there, couple days before New Year’s Eve 1859, the place was in pristine condition. Though it seemed a lifetime ago -to me at least- six years was not enough to send the house to this state of disrepair. Back then, the house had no less than thirty people roaming inside it. from staff, to guests, to the family.
Now, the place never felt so empty.
Not a single painting or photograph on sight. The painted paper on the estate rooms and other areas had peeled away. Most furniture missing, the most expensive and antique pieces. Few remained. Someone had covered them in cloths or sheets to protect them from exposure and the passage of time.
I began shouting while walking through the house. Someone had to be there. I felt like a wailing ghost in my own home.
“Mother? Father? Is anyone there?”
I repeated it, like a madness mantra, throughout the house, but stopped when I reached the ballroom. My shoes crushed pieces of glass under their soles. Pieces which came from the broken windows. Unlike other rooms, which were only empty and dusty, this one got ravaged by far more than time and abandon. To cause that much damage, a brawl of god-like proportions have to had taken place there.
Not only broken windows, though that caught my attention at first. Scorch marks on the parquet floor, which had splintered in many areas. Something had also smashed onto the fireplaces, reducing them to crumbs. The horrifying picture was enough for me to leave, and try my luck in other rooms.
The ballroom caught my attention for its destroyed state. Still, my room -my old bedchamber- did the same thing for the opposite reason.
I never saw a room in most pristine condition, not even when I lived ther. Every surface polished almost to a mirror. Fresh linens of the bed, the quilt on the armchair, and on the small cupboard on the corner. My dollhouse -a perfect replica of Featherhill- neat and tidy in the play area. I almost scared myself when I walked in, thinking the mirror next to my dresser was a window.
No one there but me.
I looked at my reflection. The blond curls I tried to cut, but my parents wouldn’t allow. My tired eyes. The dress we got from a museum exhibit, due to me growing out of the clothes on which I went to the future. My expression, the one I caught myself making, can only be described as my father did once. He called it the “Athenida Frown”.
I became aware no one was there. And I began to worry. Father, all-knowing as he claimed to be, promised me he would be there on my return. Both of them should already be at the house. If I waited a couple more minutes, before thinking a potential next step. Then they'll arrive.
A screeching, one I shouldn’t hear in the 19th century. Rubber tires braking on a road. I was around twenty years to early to automobiles, and even further away to vulcanised tires. The screeching, however, was unmistakable. Made me jump in my skin, and run down the stairs. I almost tumbled on my steps and barreled down the way to the main door.
I heard a loud explosion, and the door swung open. The explosion was enough to bend the bronze hinges, and almost ripped it from them. Before I could react, I felt arms around me in a swirl. A swirl of red hair and stiff Victorian clothing. My parents were embracing me in a desperate hug. I call it desperate because a hug is a weird thing in my family. We show affection in many ways. Yet, hugging and physical contact only come to the picture when something has gone wrong.
“My darling, my sweet darling. Have you been waiting long?” Mother’s voice cracked at the question, but still gave a cold look to her husband. “We would’ve been here on time, but your father’s contraption delayed us.”
“Borrowed contraption. And you can’t blame me, that bird came out of nowhere.” Father released me from the embrace, though Mother still held me. He looked around. “My goodness. This place went to hell without us around, didn’t it?”
“Celia told you to not take the cornerstone with you. What did you expect?” Mother hugged me for a couple more minutes, but Father walked upstairs.
We heard him rummaging around upstairs. Crashing of boxes. Soft-spoken curses to something he couldn’t find. When he came back, he had a silver cane with him. That cane was never a crutch for him. More a symbol of status than anything else. He kept it around the house, since it made his “friends” at parliament nervous when he took it to the House of Lords.
“Are you planing to beat this place into submission?” Mother finally let me go, and both of us stretched. “I don’t want to know.”
“We need to clean this place if we are living here again. The staff should return on the train tomorrow morning, and I’m not sleeping in a dirty house.”
“When I met you, you lived in a hut on the woods,” Mother said. “I’ll go back to the balloon, with a bit of luck, our luggage is not flying to Cardiff right now.”
She left, and we heard her fighting against something. Father paid little attention to it. He focused more on the dirt and the few pieces of furniture which remained at the hall. Then, he looked at me, and smiled. Seeing him smile relaxed me. He smiled little the last days I was at the 21st century.
“I imagine your time in the future proved productive.”
“How did you know?” I knew how my father in the future knew things. He lived through them. The other way around, shouldn't be possible.
“I sent myself a letter.”
Father then pulled out a small wrinkled paper from his pocket. He handed it to me, and I saw the letterhead. In the 1800s, he would use the one from Athenida & Co., but that one had the one from the Delta Corporation. The Delta Corp. wouldn’t exist for another hundred and twenty years. So, the only way to have received that letter, was for someone to sent it back in time.
“To Mr. Daedalus Athenida. Lord Foxnorth. Protector of the British Empire. Founding Member of the Imperial Club. Member of the Witches Council. I write to inform you that Alice, our daughter, is safe and in good condition. She arrived at the ruins of Featherhill at 6.35 on the 28th of May of 2005. If the paper and the printed letterhead doesn’t convince you of the truthness of my words, let me explain. Yesterday, Mr. Johnson contacted you to sell your shares of Imperial Ironworks. To help with funds for the Union. Don’t. Without you, it will run dry in a month and help no one. Now, to the important. According to my records, Alice will return at 2.12 in the afternoon of the 1st of April of 1866. Morgan notes that if you are not in Wales for it, she’ll kill you. Both of us know she can and will. Don’t mess with Reconstruction, you are not an American -yet- and they have to do this on their own. Morgan made me write that last part, which you can tell. Best wishes, Daedalus Athenida. OBE. Vice-President of the Witches Council, CEO of Delta Corp.”
After I finished reading, he snatched the letter from my hands. Before I could stop him, he lighted it on fire with a flick of his finger.
“You’ve grown beyond what I imagined you would.” Father looked at the ballroom. “At first, I thought you would return after a few hours, as you did in your previous adventures.”
“But, I didn’t.”
“No, you didn't.” His lips tightened. “I’m not used to be wrong, So you can imagine my surprise when you didn’t return for dinner, and I found the letter in my office.”
We walked into the ballroom. For a moment, I thought Father would faint. We strutted from corner to corner, horrified at the condition of the place.
“I hope you had a pleasant time in the future. And, though I would like to hear about it, I can’t. Could create a paradox of sorts.”
“But you sent yourself a letter.”
He stopped, and frowned. To me, it seemed as if he never considered that before.
“I remembered the letter, and created a stable loop. Yes, that should be it. If not, I’ve become careless in my old age. Well, older age.” He turned to me. “Was it fun?”
“It was, father. Thank you. Have you missed me?”
“Every day.” For a moment, I saw a flash of emotion flash in his eyes, but vanished as soon as it started. “Now, I’m not sleeping in a place in this condition. We need to put order in this place. Can you help?”
“I don’t know how.”
“My dear child. It’s time you learn something important. You are an Athenida. If you don’t know, no one does.” He smiled. “Now, I want you to look at me and try to repeat.”
Father motioned to one of the cracks in the parquet. The splinters soothed and soon that piece seemed new. He looked at me, and began speaking on that tone he used to give lectures in Oxford when he had time.
“Fixer and cleaner spells, are from the household solution family of spells. As with all of them, we don’t use them unless no one is around beyond our family and close cirlce. Are we clear?”
“Yes, father.”
“Good. As with most spells and hexes, they come with caveats.” He stopped and looked at me. “Please, tell me I taught you this in the future.”
“Yes, you did. You told me every one of them came with a price to pay or a danger, even a few with some side effects.”
“Indeed. With fixing spells, everything can go awry if you have no concentration or a clear image in mind. For example.”
He moved his hand and the splinters on the window grew. Soon, instead of a white frame, the broken glass was surrounded by branches which began to grow leaves. Instead of repairing the window, what the spell did was to revive the wood of the frame. I looked at the branches, but my father seemed uninterested at the sight.
“The trick here is to have a clear picture on your mind. Think of the things you’re trying to repair or clean as they should be. Don’t wave and enchant, because you end up with things like those.”
He looked at the branches.
“Now, you give it a try. Fix anything but the floors, in case you fail, we don’t die.”
“Isn’t the floor above ground?”
“Yes, and no. Don’t mind me, I’m rambling. Go ahead.”
So, I did. When I waved my hand, the glass in front of me fixed the huge gap it had in the middle. It didn’t make the glass out of nowhere. That’s beyond my ability. Instead, the spell made the pieces fly from the ground -even from under my feet- back to the frame and got fixed with magic. The flaked paint on the frame shone as new, in pristine white. Soon the window seemed back to normal. At least, as normal as I remembered it.
After that, Father rose from the chair. He seemed pleased with my work, and gave me a cordial pat on the shoulder. He waved his hand and some things fixed around us, and instructed me to do the same. In a few minutes, the ballroom came back to it former -although empty- glory.
Before we moved to fix another room, Mother entered the room. A tower of luggage came floating behind her. From what I could see, most of them had stamps from New York.
“Now, this seems better,” she said, looking around. “All we need to do now is to furnish this properly.”
“You stored the furniture when we left, shouldn’t we wait for the staff to come back?” Father spoke like the man he was. As one who didn’t enjoy manual labour in his old age. Quite contrary of what the old myths say about him, if you ask me.
Mother didn’t like his question. She snapped her fingers and the luggage went upstairs to their rooms. In their place, my dollhouse came from my room and stopped in front of us. The small Featherhill opened by its hinges, revealing a neat little arrange of rooms. Each of them painted by hand, for what Mother told me. Furnished in an exact replica of the pieces at the house back in 1859. Though, when she took one chair from the lot of the tiny ballroom, and placed it in the ground, it seemed familiar.
“I’m not waiting for something we can do ourselves.” She snapped her fingers. “And I was not sending that expensive furniture to storage among the spiders.”
The chair grew back to its normal size. Soon, she did the same with all the pieces, and the ballroom came back to life. Mother looked around, pleased with herself. Still, the walls remained barren.
“Good. Rose will bring the paintings with her on tuesday, and we can wait until then to finish this place.” She turned to the door of the ballroom. “Come along now, I’d like to finish this before sunset.”
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