Gwennoelle had spent a happy afternoon and evening looking at blueprints and taking notes.

The only interruption so far had been Laurette, just before lunch. It was exasperating. First the nonsense about Telesphore having three rather than two children, now the melodrama about that ridiculous Spanish priest.

“Oh, do what you want,” Gwennoelle had snapped. “Set up wards if it makes you feel better.” She didn’t bother to mention that she always had wards up.

The family line had truly degenerated. This was what came of living among the untalented, but what can one do when one’s own kind so cruelly rejects you?

Injustice, that’s what it was.

Terrible, terrible injustice, that still angered her over sixty-five years later.

And then, in Touperdu, she’d made the mistake of putting all her hopes on that sot, Telesphore. Gregoire was the one she should have cultivated — but how could she have known he was such a liar? A terrible thing when a child deceives his mother, even turns his own child against her. Unnatural, that’s what it was.

Never mind all that. Pity-Me Island was her’s now, and she was going to build a castle there that would make everyone on the island truly understand the Dudays were a people set apart. The family would rise yet. She had a plan. A good plan this time. And as old as she might seem to others, the Plessis’ had always been a long-lived family. Hadn’t her own Grandmere Yasmina Plessis lived to 115? Gwennoelle had time yet.

She ran her finger along the blueprints, imagining herself walking through the halls of her magnificent modern house-to-be, looking through its windows, out towards Hopekill Spit to the ocean on one side —

— to the town on the other.

And when she was gone at last, there would be another Duday living there, a Duday after her own heart, not a soft, dissolute Duday at all, except perhaps in name — a PLESSIS! Strong in Talent, with a brain to match, hard souled, and clear-eyed.

Gwennoelle raised her head. Someone was there. She could hear the wards parting, crackling, stripping the intruder of all possessions, worn or carried, scraping him bare.

With a great show of unconcern, she rolled up her blueprint, then looked.

It was standing in the shadows.

“Come out,” she said, turning her chair to face it. “Show yourself.”

It stepped a little closer and into the light.

It bowed.

Gwennoelle rose from her chair. “I said show yourself,” she demanded.

“Grandmere,” he said.

“What do you want?”

“My father is old. Sick. It is time for him to rest. I’ve come to take his place.”

“You?”

He smiled. “Even a cur has its uses.”

He was a handsome brute, she’d give him that. And self-possessed, not the slightest bit discomfited by his own nakedness.

“Bah. Perhaps some day if I need someone eaten I’ll decide I can use you,” she said. “Not now.” She turned to go back to her desk but with an animal grace and swiftness, he stepped around her and into her path and bent in supplication.

“Grandmere,” he said, his head down. “I have come to plead with you for your children, even though they may not deserve it. They are in danger. They have made terrible blunders, and they need your help. Papa is ill, and now Uncle Greg imagines he can take his place.” He raised his head to look at her so she could see the despair in his eyes. “You know, I think, as well as I do, what Gregoire is like.”

“Stop blithering,” she snapped. “Stand up straight. Come not one inch closer to me.”

He stood.

“Yes, I know what he is, you presumptuous little mongrel.”

Your Uncle Gregoire,” she said coldly “is Talented. He is ten times the witch your father could ever have hoped to be, and has twenty times the brains.”

“But what good is that, Grandmere, when he’s a coward?”

“All Greg cares about are women and books. I know Aunt Laurette was here today. Did she tell you what is happening? Everything?”

Gwenoelle shrugged. “She said there is a priest on the island who believes in witches and who might cause some trouble.”

“Grandmere, that Spanish priest destroyed a Child of Talent in Madrid, crushed his hands, crippled him, drove him mad. Did she tell you that?”

“That Spanish priest is writing letters to Madrid, to the Vatican, about all he sees here. About the Dudays. Did she tell you that? And that Spanish priest plans to do what he did in Madrid right here, and has joined forces with Madame Abbott — our next mayor. Did she tell you that?”

Gwenoelle’s face had grown hard, intent.

“What is Gregoire doing about this?” She asked.

“Calling meetings.”

“Meetings?”

“Yes, Grandmere, meetings. Everybody gathers around a table and talks. Including the wives. Including the untalented.”

“They talk, and talk and talk, and then Gregoire says, ‘Heaven’s we all need to think about this,’ and…””

Grandmere muttered what sounded like a curse in Fourchaise. “Cover yourself,” she snapped.

“You will come with me,” she said. “You will do exactly what you are told to do – nothing more and nothing less. Is that understood?”

The sound of her wand cutting the air made him whine faintly and turn his head, but he bowed as deeply as he could on four legs.

***

He wasn’t going to get back to sleep, of course.

When he was younger it was a different story. He could wake up when the moon was just right for checking on the mandrake, have a word with it in the garden, give it whatever food it wanted. Then he’d take a nice, long piss out there under the stars, and toddle on back to bed to sleep until well after sunrise.

Now he was almost seventy. Now he might as well top the night’s work off with a strong cup of Island coffee because he was going to be up until dawn anyway.

Tomorrow he would have one hell of a headache and the depletion…

Well, he’d just have to take a nap in the afternoon.

Greg had known saying “please” to Leon had been a mistake as soon as the word left his lips. Leon’s kind saw courtesy as weakness, and now the boy was out helling around with his grandma. Well, that would eventually end in tears, but untangling family politics in his brother’s house was not a high priority tonight. At least the two most likely to make trouble were busy and out of the way, heading towards Mrs. Abbot’s house.

As usual, Maman was expending too much effort in the wrong direction. In readings, her signifier came up as the Eight of Swords every damned time.

Forget them. The St. Elmo’s rectory was over there.

He concentrated, his fingers curling around his second-best wand.

Nothing too fancy. Nothing too noisy.

No reprise of ’31..,

Which had amounted to a panicky, disorganized temper tantrum…

Focus. Aim.

That was the key.

Because, to borrow a line from his grandaughter’s favorite movie…

These things must be done delicately.