Free Walking the Labyrinth by Lisa Goldstein Page A

Miss Sylvia, and his inquiries led to the great house in our village. I had had a premonition of his visit, and so I was not at all surprised to see his carriage coming up the drive a few weeks later.
    He was not terribly clever, my Harrison, but he knew enough to spend a few hours in polite conversation before asking about a mere lady’s maid. It was getting on towards supper before he was finally led downstairs to the laundry room.
    “What is her name?” he asked.
    “Em,” Miss Sylvia said, and at the same time I said, “Emily Wethers, sir,” and curtsied.
    “Well, Em,” he said. He was terribly earnest; he seemed always to consult some inner moral code before taking any action whatsoever. His hair and beard were wavy and black, almost blue in some lights, and he had deep brown eyes, concerned eyes. He wore a watch chain of heavy gold that draped across his stomach before disappearing into his vest pocket. He seemed anxious not to be thought patronising, and so, of course, I found him the most patronising fellow I had ever met. “How did you know that my wife—that we had hoped for the arrival of a child?”
    “There’s lots I know, my lord,” I said. “I know that you’re an adept of the Eighth Grade of the Order of the Labyrinth, but you want to be Tenth Grade. I know that you and your wife wanted a child for nigh on five years.”
    “How—”
    “It’s the Gift, my lord,” I said. “We all have it in my family.”
    I knew this would intrigue him, and it did. I will not bore you with the details, but before nightfall I had a new master: Lord Harrison had taken me on at twice my previous salary.
    The next day we set off for London. For several weeks, though, nothing seemed to have changed: I continued to work in the laundry, though now I worked for Lord Harrison and his household. I was introduced to Lady Lydia the day I arrived but fortunately she did not recognise me; she paid little attention to servants.
    One day Lord Harrison made his way down to the laundry room, a serving girl in tow. It was the first time I had seen him since coming to work in his household.
    “Em,” he said. “I’d like you to get dressed. This girl here will help you. I’ll be presenting you to the Order of the Labyrinth tonight.”
    I heard the excitement in his voice but did not know its cause. There were things here I did not understand, and I saw that I would have to pay close attention to what was about to happen.
    The serving girl helped me wash and dressed me in a corset and bustle—the first I had ever worn—and bodice and skirt. She led me to the Great Hall and withdrew silently. I saw men and women dressed in finery—fox furs, watered silk, cravats, silver—and I wanted to follow the girl, to return to the familiar safety of the laundry room. What could these handsome, expensive people want with me?
    “Good, we’re all here,” Lord Harrison said. “This is Em Wethers. She has a special talent, what she calls a Gift.”
    I looked around the room. To my surprise I understood that these people were no different from the villagers and servants I had known; I saw the same greed, love, envy, kindness, hatred, generosity. I was no longer frightened.
    “We’ll begin, then,” Harrison said.
    He gestured to a few of the others, among them a heavily rouged woman and a gentleman with a grey beard that forked in two, like a serpent’s tongue. They began to trace a pentagram on the floor around the table. At each of the five points they paused to light a candle and to recite more invocations. Soon the room smelled heavily of wax and of some herb I did not recognise.
    Harrison motioned us to the table. Someone lowered the gaslights while he lit candles set at intervals along the table. The lights rippled like water over our faces as we sat.
    “Let us join hands,” Harrison said, sitting. He closed his eyes, and everyone around the table followed suit. Everyone but me; I was eager to see what would happen