Page 30 of The Curse of Penryth Hall
He ran a hand through his hair, pulling it back and knotting it with a bit of leather. “No. She seems to be looking for me but I am not hard to find. I haven’t seen her, that’s for certain.”
I stood slowly and walked over to the trunk of books I’d brought and lifted the lid, curious what it was inside that Jago had found that utterly convinced him of my wickedness.
“Careful.”
“Of your books? I assure you I know what I’m doing. I am the one who brought them here.” Good grief. Some were fifteenth-century demonologies. Recent reprints of the Big and Little Alberts.Pseudomonarchia Daemonium.A handful of grimoires. All five volumes ofThe Lesser Key of Solomonin pristine condition, which was a rather impressive find, even for Mr. Owen. No wonder the boy believed I was the spawn of Satan. Most were in Latin, though a handful were in ancient Greek. If he’d been able to read them, he’d likely be lighting the pyre for both me and his beloved Pellar.
Mr. Kivell laughed from behind me. “No, I mean mind your stitches. You are lucky to be alive.”
I snorted, carefully setting the books one by one on the old wooden shelf. “Charming townsfolk you have here. Speaking of your murderous villagers, did you figure out what was in that bottle you found under my bed?”
“Not yet. I’ve been reading—” He gestured to an ancient tome on his worktable. I moved closer. “I’ve not quite figured out who made it, but as far as I can tell it doesn’t do anything useful. The components counteract with one another. Someof them look like they might be for a protection charm, but others are less benign.”
“You mean to tell me it’s an ugly table decoration.”
“More or less.”
“A useless wish then.” Didn’t I have enough of those?
I pointed to another book on the table. One I’d never seen in Exeter. “Did I bring that one too?”
He nodded grimly.
I lifted the hidebound book and turned it over in my hands. It was ancient. Had to be fifteenth century as well. I opened the pages, but inside was a language I’d never seen before. Old English? No, it wasn’t that.
“It’s Cornish.”
How did he do that?“And you speak it?” No one knew it, at least not anymore. The language had been nearly eradicated by the mid-part of the last century. Only a handful of native speakers remained, the bits and remnants being salvaged and preserved by traveling folklorists and linguists in a desperate hope to preserve it for future generations.
He nodded. “Enough of it at least to make out the important bits. With time, I’ll probably figure out the rest.”
This Pellar of theirs was full of surprises. “What does it tell you?”
He added something unctuous from a bottle into the herbs he was crushing and continued with the pestle. “It’s the memoir of a sixteenth-century Pellar. Some of her charmwork. Countercurses. It’s why I had Owen looking for it.”
“Her? You mean there are female Pellars too?”
“Seventh of a seventh. From what I understand it doesn’t matter which you are. You see, I’m the seventh son of a seventh son, but she was the seventh daughter of a seventh son.” He shrugged.
“How very egalitarian. The constable called you a witch, you know.”
“I am.”
It hurt to laugh, but I did nonetheless. “You know I always imagined witchcraft was women’s work, something the church used to control our sex.”
Ruan sniffed, rubbing his nose with the back of his left forearm.
“But Pellars aren’t those sorts of witches, are they?”
He shook his head.
Mr. Owen had spoken of older things when he lured me out here to Cornwall. Perhaps this was what he meant. A sort of earth magic that predated the church. An ancient thing not a weapon of control, but a means of liberation. Not that I believed in any sort of supernatural nonsense, but it certainly was a compelling image.
Good God, I’d lost a lot of blood if my thoughts had turned so radical. That or perhaps I was one of Reverend Fortescue’s feared Bolsheviks seeking to unhinge the patriarchy one sleepy hamlet at a time. I ran my fingers over the ancient book cover. “Thisis why I’m here, isn’t it? Why Mr. Owen refused to let me open the box.”
“You see, to make the muddled mess even more complicated—” The grinding of the pestle echoed his words. He paused and pointed at me with the stone handle. “—the craft can only be passed from male to female or female to male. A male Pellar can’t train another male. Nor can a female a female. So, I’ve spent the greater part of a decade looking for this one.”
I cocked my head to one side. “How peculiar. Why is that?”
