Free The Gates of Sleep by Mercedes Lackey Page A

glance around the
room.
    “Well, really, there wasn’t that much work
needed to be done; that tramping poet was only here last week.” The “tramping
poet” was a rarity, a complete stranger to the household, who’d
arrived on foot, in boots and rucksack, letter of recommendation in hand from
one of their painterly friends. He’d taken it in his head to “do
the Wordsworth”—that is, to walk about the countryside for a while
in search of inspiration, and finding that the Lake District was overrun with
sightseers and hearty fresh-air types, he’d elected to try Devon and
Cornwall instead. He was on the last leg of his journey and had been remarkably
cheerful about being soaked with cold rain. A good guest as well, he’d
made himself useful chopping wood and in various other small ways, had not
overstayed his welcome, and even proved to be very amusing in conversation.
    “You can’t possibly be a successful poet,”
Sebastian had accused him. “You’re altogether too good-natured, and
nothing near morose enough.”
    “Sadly,” he’d admitted (not sadly at
all), “I’m not. I do have a facile touch for rhyme, but I can’t
seem to generate the proper level of anguish. I’ve come to that
conclusion myself, actually. I intend to go back to London and fling myself at
one of those jolly new advertising firms. I’ll pummel ‘em with couplets
until they take me in and pay me.” He’d struck an heroic attitude. “Hark!
the Herald Angels sing, ‘Pierson’s Pills are just the thing!’
If your tummy’s fluttery, hie thee to Bert’s Buttery! Nerves all
gone and limp as wax? Seek the aid of brave Nutrax!”
    Laughing, Margherita and Marina had thrown cushions at him
to make him stop. “Well!” he’d said, when he’d sat back
down and they’d collected the cushions again, “If I’m doomed
to be a jangling little couplet-rhymer, I’d rather be honest and sell
butter with my work than pretend I’m a genius crushed by the failure of
the world to understand me.”
    “I hope he comes back some time,” Marina said,
referring to that previous guest.
    “If he does, he’ll be welcome,”
Margherita said firmly. “But
not
while Elizabeth is here. It
would be very awkward, having a stranger about while she was trying to teach
you Water Magic. Altogether too likely that he’d see something he shouldn’t.”
    Marina nodded. It wasn’t often that someone who wasn’t
naturally a mage actually saw any of the things that mages took for
granted—that was part of the Gift of the Sight, after all, and if you
didn’t have that Gift, well, you couldn’t See what mages Saw. But
sometimes accidents happened, and someone with only a touch of the Sight got a
glimpse of something he shouldn’t. And if magic made some change in the
physical world, well, that could be witnessed as well, whether or not the
witness had the Sight.
    “Now that the room’s been put to rights, come
down with me and we’ll bake some apple pies,” Margherita continued,
linking her arm with Marina’s. “There’s nothing better to put
a fine scent on the house than apple pies.”
    “I couldn’t agree more,” Marina laughed. “And
besides, if you give me something to do, I won’t be fretting my head off.”
    “Teh. You’re getting far too clever for
me.
It’s a good thing Elizabeth is coming; at least there will be someone
here now whose habits you don’t know inside and out.”
    That’s a lovely thought.
One of the worst
things about winter corning on was that she was bound to be mostly confined to
Blackbird Cottage with people she knew all too well—loved, surely, but
still, she could practically predict their every thought and action. But this
winter would be different.
Oh, I hope it’s
very, very
different!
    As usual, it was raining. Uncle Sebastian had intended to
go to the railway station in the pony cart, but Aunt Margherita had stamped her
foot and decreed that under no circumstances was he going to subject