Chapter 2

Questions Asked and Answered

‘What the devil is going on up there?’

A man’s voice, followed by the rush of feet downstairs, rang as the scream and subsequent clatter of the water bowl echoed through Amberhouse manor. Arabelle looked up at the young lady standing at the door to her room, the spitting image of what Arabelle would’ve pictured an older Maggie to look like. Around her, the morning light danced off all the trinkets, books and toys that she had acquired in her fifteen years of life.

Or was it fifteen? For some reason, Arabelle was not quite sure why yet, everything around her felt different. Older. The most changed one being Maggie, of course.

‘A- Arabelle?’ Maggie’s voice came from the young lady before her’s mouth. She ran to Arabelle’s bedside and knelt there holding her hand, tears starting to gloss her hazelnut eyes. ‘You’re alive. You’re alive. You’re alive.’

‘Of course, why wouldn’t I be?’ Arabelle started sitting up in her bed, hand still clasped firmly by the crying Maggie. ‘Why do you look so different?’ From outside her room, in the garden, an elderly voice called, out of breath, for an Emile, which was followed by the clang of a shovel on gravel and running feet.

Still crying and holding her hand, Maggie looked up and held Arabelle’s shoulder in her other hand. ‘Twenty-five years,’ she said, tears wetting her cheeks, ‘Twenty-five years I’ve waited to see your eyes again.’

Twenty-five years? ‘What are you on about? We flew dragon kites only yesterday.’ Looking around, Arabelle saw her two kites in the corner, a faint layer of dust having gathered on them. ‘There they are, right there.’

‘H- here.’ Maggie let go of Arabelle’s shoulder, wiped the tears from her face, and picked up a notebook, still not letting go of the latter’s hand, as if afraid she might disappear. ‘I kept a journal of every single day since you and your mother wouldn’t wake, exactly on this day twenty-five years ago.’

When Arabelle made to reach for the notebook, Maggie let go of her other hand, holding her breath as Arabelle flipped open to a random page:

Year 24, day 149

Oliva baked an almond and honey cake for my birthday. Unfortunately, no changes in either the mistress or Arabelle’s condition. A small sparrow has started making its nest in the windowsill. I’ll let it stay for a few days, maybe its song will break through their slumber. If not, I’ll just ask Emile to move it to the old yew by the shed.

As Arabelle read, a faint memory of the smell of almond-honey cake and sparrow song wisped through her mind, before fleeing again. Why is this so familiar?

‘What old yew? I only remember an aisle of young trees Mother had had planted by the gardeners.’ Arabelle said, straining her neck to peer out her window at a now full-grown aisle of trees on the path to the gardener’s shed. For a moment she thought she was not in her room at Amberhouse, but a completely different manor she had never visited before.

‘There’s so much I have to tell you,’ Maggie started, but before she could continue, a man came running to her door, gingerly stepping over the puddle of water on the floor. Peering in at Arabelle and Maggie, he breathed a sigh of relief before turning to the hallway again.

‘She’s also awake!’ He shouted euphorically down the hallway. He turned back to Arabelle and came over to her bed. Close up, Arabelle recognised Emile in the man’s eyes, albeit much older now, just as Maggie. ‘Thank heavens you’re both alive.’

‘Is the Lady Laciturne also awake?!’ Maggie asked. ‘Who shouted like that?’

‘Miss Potts. Nearly had a heart attack when she entered the missus’ room to find her sitting up, rubbing her temples. Right after that terrible bell ring, she said.’

‘That’s when Arabelle called my name.’

‘I thought I had dreamt those bells.’ Arabelle said, remembering the last part of her dream before she woke in this different time.

She had dreamt of herself walking up a rocky yet flowercrested hill. All around her on the hill she saw thousands of people of varying ages and races and species walking in the same direction as her. When they reached the top of the hill, Arabelle had found a cracked bell fallen on the ground, moss and rust slowly returning it to the ownership of nature. Looking at the view, she had seen three other hills like hers in a mist-covered valley, but each with their own swarm of people and a whole, floating bell shining on top of each. It was then that the sky cracked and the other three bells tolled with the voices of four men speaking gibberish, after which silence and then Arabelle’s waking.

‘Are you okay?’ Arabelle looked up at Maggie’s panicked eyes before realising that she had subconsciously started rubbing her forehead, where she could feel a persistent, toll-like, throb.

‘Yes, just a little confused by everything.’

‘Don’t worry, Ara. We’re just glad you’re alive. It’s been so long.’

The three of them sat and stood in silence for a brief moment, before Emile spoke up again.

‘You must be hungry?’ he asked. ‘I can ask Liv to warm up the breakfast she made for you and Lady Laciturne, as always.’

Arabelle nodded as her stomach instinctively grumbled at the mention of food. Apparently twenty-five years didn’t take away her insatiable teenage appetite. Emile bowed his head slightly and awkwardly (as if the movement was now a distant memory to him) before exiting her room, picking up the waterless bowl as he left. As he disappeared from view, Arabelle moved her legs to sit upright on the rim of her bed.

‘Here, let me help.’ Maggie moved to steady Arabelle as she let her legs drop off the bed. ‘Do you want to stand?’

‘If I can,’ Arabelle said with a nervous giggle. Although nothing quite made sense or felt real yet, she was sure the shakiness in her legs was real, and she didn’t want to risk it on her own just yet. Taking both Maggie’s hands in hers, she pushed as her friend slowly pulled her into a standing position.

‘There you go,’ Maggie said reassuringly. ‘We’ll take it one step at a time. You probably want to go see your mother?’

Arabelle nodded affirmation as the two of them inched forward from her bed, Arabelle’s bare feet tingling as they stepped in the cool water. Outside her room, everything felt just as similar yet different as her things in her room had been. The previously vibrant emerald green carpets had faded with age, and the faces in the paintings along the wall almost looked older and weary.

As they passed the main stair landing, the cool autumn sunlight filling the whole entrance hall now, Arabelle could hear the frantic clatter of plates and the smell of coffee coming from the direction she faintly recalled the dining room and kitchen were in.

‘Ara?’ The sudden mention of her nickname drew Arabelle’s attention down the hallway in front of her, where one seemingly unchanged person stood. Letting go of Maggie’s arm, she dashed forward with sudden emotion as she fell into her mother’s comforting, eternal embrace.

‘My dear, dear Ara,’ her mother said, her voice bringing old memories and new tears to her. ‘It’s okay. I’m still here. Everything will be fine. I’m here.’

The mother and daughter stood there in each other’s embrace for several minutes, Maggie and miss Potts both quietly watching their two mysterious employers weep and whisper to one another.

‘Mam,’ miss Potts, placing an aged hand on Lady Laciturne’s shoulder, said softly, ‘Let’s get you and your daughter down to the dining room. Liv, I mean Oliva, is sure to have readied your breakfast by now.’

Lady Laciturne reluctantly released her embrace of Arabelle, wiping a last few tears from her cheek as she composed herself. ‘Yes. Yes you are right, Vega. I can think everything over clearer once I have eaten.’

One arm around Arabelle’s shoulders, the two of them, Maggie, and miss Potts made there way down the stairs, turning right through an archway that opened into a formal dining room. Just like the rest of the house, this room felt similar yet different to Arabelle. Walking through, memories of birthday parties of people she did not recognise raced through her mind, twenty-five years of birthdays she missed, but others lived.

The memories drifted away as they entered the breakfast room, where a very old gentleman rose slowly and bowed stiffly to Arabelle’s mother. ‘Mam. I have long waited for the day you would wake again.’ Arabelle remembered the elderly voice who had called Emile in the garden. Must have been him then.

‘Mister Williams!’ her mother gasped, walking forward to take one of the old man’s hands and holding it tenderly. ‘How glad I am to see you are alive and well.’

The old butler chuckled. ‘Alive, yes. But I am not so sure about the well part, mam.’

‘Please, let’s sit down.’ Arabelle’s mother helped him to a chair first, before taking the chair beside him. Arabelle sat between her mother and Maggie, with miss Potts hurrying into the kitchen. She quickly returned, followed by Emile and Oliva carrying a tray each, with food and coffee, setting these down on the table before taking a seat themselves.

As Arabelle and her mother ate, Oliva poured coffee for everyone, as they all sat with only the clatter of forks and knives breaking the shocked silence of the servants and the mother and daughter. Arabelle quickly finished her food, and Emile went to the kitchen to fetch her more.

When he returned and sat down again, Arabelle’s mother carefully put down her cutlery. ‘Thank you, Oliva. I have not felt a hunger like this one in a very long time.’ she said, receiving a quick nod and smile in return. ‘I still can’t quite wrap my head around what happened. Vega told me we were comatose for twenty-five years, but I was so concerned to see my daughter that I didn’t press her further. Now, tell me everything that happened, starting from that horrible bell ringing all those... years ago.’

‘I’ll start, but anyone else can speak up if they remember something better.” miss Potts said, taking a deep breath before starting.

‘Twenty-five years ago almost exactly today, shortly after you said goodnight to lady Arabelle, you had been in your husband’s old office, reading... or was it writing, a letter, when three bell tolls, similar to the ones that were heard again today, shook every inch of the manor. Richard Greaves, rest his soul, had heard you call out, followed promptly by a hard thump, and ran up to see what had happened. He found you... asleep, in the hallway between the office and your daughter’s room, and called for some other staff members to help him.

‘After they had carried you to your bed, some of the staff started reporting to Richard that various artefacts and other apparatus throughout the manor had all just... stopped. Where before these artefacts had been alive and humming with magic, now they were cold and quiet. At first we thought nothing of it, but when both you and lady Arabelle didn’t wake up for several days, we all suspected the two events were linked.

‘Naturally, we couldn’t tell the outside doctors that, but we were all anxious that you both would... would...’

‘Die.’ Emile said.

‘Yes. Many of the staff had already by then started whispering about having to find work somewhere else, and the numbers quickly dwindled as the weeks and months and years passed by without any sign either of you would ever wake up, or that magic might perchance return to the manor.’

‘And?’ Arabelle’s mother asked, her voice inquisitive yet serious, ‘has magic returned to the manor?’