It hurt that Nancy assumed her daughter’s thoughts were so frivolous, especially given the ambitious undertaking Jane was attempting—so ambitious it might, in fact, be impossible.
Magical items like the fairy dust of Peter Pan, the flying carpet of One Thousand and One Nights, or—Jane’s favorite—the witch’s broomstick had captured the public imagination since time immemorial. But actually getting objects—let alone people—to fly was seemingly impossible, even for a Master diabolist.
Therefore, to do so as an apprentice would be quite a feather in Jane’s cap, if she could manage it.
Most diabolists who wished to fly made the Pact with a demon that granted such an ability. But Jane had looked at the Bilinen Şeytanların Kitabı—The Book of Known Demons—and none of those demons seemed like her idea of a life’s companion. Especially Seven Clouds; beyond granting levitation, all it did for its diabolist was “calm the nerves,” and Jane could make herself a cup of tea for that.
And anyway, she didn’t want to levitate. She wanted to fly. Diabolists were like unto gods and goddesses; why should they not have the powers of such?
As she rinsed out her dust rag in the kitchen sink, Jane blushed, her eyes tracking nervously toward the door to the stairs of the Library. Her mother would not like to know that such a thought had crossed Jane’s mind. Nancy was always quick to remind them that diabolists were not gods; they were not kings and queens.
Fine with Jane. She didn’t want to rule anyone. Plenty of gods didn’t seem to care a fig for the struggles of men. They just wanted to have a good time, and that was Jane’s goal too. She longed to escape Hawkshead and Cumbria altogether so she might go on adventures in the deserts of Egypt wearing gauzy white; attend parties in fabulous flats in Paris wearing scandalous, alluring black, a color currently forbidden to her by her mother because, well . . .
We’re not witches, Jane.
Jane sincerely hoped her mother would enjoy the taste of her own words when Jane was zooming about the countryside on a broomstick like Margaret Hamilton in The Wizard of Oz.
Jane didn’t have her own looking glass, much to her chagrin, and the bathroom’s tin mirror revealed what could be only charitably described as an Impressionist interpretation of her face. For her final inspection, only her mother’s vanity would do, so just before noon, Jane took off her apron and went upstairs to see if she was at all mussed from her labors. But when she entered Nancy’s rooms, she found the vanity already occupied.
“I don’t know why braiding my hair makes me fly to pieces when I can create a potion of binding from memory,” snarled Miriam.
Jane felt an overwhelming rush of affection for her friend that did much to dispel her earlier pique.
“Let’s see what we can do,” she said, coming up behind Miriam. She freed Nancy’s comb from where her friend held it twisted in her fingers and then set to detangling the mess before her. There was no salvaging any of whatever Miriam had been trying to do; they’d have to start over entirely. Jane began by trying to find all the pins in Miriam’s hair with her nimble fingers.
Jane envied the dark waves that cascaded over Miriam’s shoulders. Her own mousy-brown tresses were so thin and fine that there were few fashionable styles that looked well on her—oh, to have Hedy Lamarr’s mane to start out with!
“Let’s do a few pinned rolls and then use a ribbon,” she said, running the brush through Miriam’s hair. A bit of blue would accentuate her friend’s dark hair and high color.
“I trust you,” said Miriam.
“You’ll look beautiful,” said Jane. It was true, she would, with her big dark eyes and her thick brows that would make Miriam really stand out if only she’d let Jane tame them a bit.
But, of course, the last thing Miriam wanted was to stand out.
“You manage it so easily,” sighed Miriam, as her hair began to take on an actual shape and style.
“I find it fun,” said Jane. “A harmless distraction from the war, if a bit pointless when one lives in a tiny village. Why, the only person around our age who lives within ten miles and seems remotely thoughtful is the blacksmith’s son—hey!”
Miriam had lurched around, her elbow narrowly missing the box of hairpins Jane had set upon the vanity. “Sam?” she asked, mouth hanging open in childish astonishment. “Do you fancy him?”
“Goodness no!” Jane put her hand on the top of Miriam’s head and physically turned it back to face the looking glass. “I just admire his ability to speak in complete sentences.”
“I see,” said Miriam.
The truth was, Jane had never fancied anyone, ever, and she didn’t think she ever would. In spite of what her mother might think, she felt nothing for Clark Gable or any other star of the silver screen. Jane’s interest in the cinema was academic, not romantic. Where else in Cumbria would she learn to act like a lady? The romance plots of films, for Jane, were always just a distraction from the tensions of a drawing room or the currents of a party sequence.
“But if you did fancy him . . .” said Miriam.
“Why, Miriam!” Jane pantomimed surprise. “Do you fancy Sam Nibley?”
Miriam blushed. “No!”
Jane leaned in, a shark’s smile on her lips.
“Are you sure? ” she drawled.
“Yes!” Miriam was now pale as a sheet. Jane genuinely couldn’t tell if her friend was feeling upset at being found out, or was mortified to be accused of something she did not feel. Either was possible, so Jane let the matter drop and turned her attention to the last few pins Miriam’s hair needed to stay in place.
When she was done, she stepped back and looked Miriam over with an exaggerated critical gaze, hand on her chin.
“I think you look marvelous,” Jane declared, “but how do you like it?”
Miriam finally looked up from her twisting hands. “Oh! I barely recognize myself. It’s far too glamorous!”
“Oh, stop. You look lovely.” The hairstyle wasn’t “glamorous” at all—it just showed off Miriam’s face rather than hiding it. “Now budge up and let me put myself together.”
Jane spent an enjoyable half hour making herself ready anew. A very fidgety Miriam hung about as she did so. She was anxious and doing a poor job of pretending not to be.
“All right,” said Jane, with a satisfied pat of her hair. “I think that’s all I can do.”
“Let’s go down to the Library, then!”
Miriam truly loved the Library—she would live down there if she could, Jane suspected. In fact, Jane was amazed Miriam had made small talk with her that afternoon instead of leaving her for the more solitary pleasures of its shelves and aisles.
Jane, on the other hand, couldn’t bear the darkness or the quiet for very long. In summer, she wanted to be under a tree, a tatty blanket under her bottom and a picnic basket by her side; in winter, feeding the wood burner in the kitchen with a kettle singing in the background. That wasn’t to say she didn’t love the Library—she did. She’d been nursed within its walls, taken her first steps across its floor, and said her first words to the sigils and guardians that were some of the cavern’s oldest protections.
Not for the first time, Jane wondered what the other residents of Hawkshead would think about this place. Most of them would simply be amazed to know a cave like this existed near them; nature enthusiasts would be a bit more unsettled to note that the curiously squared-off walls had been carved from no local slate or granite, but rather some decidedly imported tufa. The carvings were all authentic Etruscan, but it was a mystery whether its presence here, in Cumbria, was due to the efforts of ancient diabolists or more modern ones. They had records of its existence dating back to the fifteenth century but no further; no one knew how it had gotten there, but there it was, and the climate within always perfect for the preservation of the written word whether it be recorded upon paper, skin, or materials stranger yet. Not only that, but all attempts to move the Library had failed, and those few who had sought to destroy it had met with terrible fates—indeed, that had been the end of the diabolists’ organization previous to the Société.