“A small coin for your thoughts,” said Vivian beside him. She appeared totally relaxed now, the model of a relaxed and confident hostess, with nothing on her mind, for the moment, but chatting with one of her guests.
“Sorry. You’d never guess. I was trying to remember my grandmother.” And it became true as he said it; that would have been the next turn his thoughts had taken. Today was for, among other things, probing his own past. His parents had died before he could start remembering them at all. That happened to a fair number of kids, sure, but… the more he looked back on his childhood, the more he realized its strangeness.
“You’re right,” said Vivian calmly. “I mightn’t have guessed that. Was your grandmother fond of parties like this one?”
The question struck Simon as supremely irrelevant. The odd thing about this party, as it had turned out, was that all the disparate guests appeared to be enjoying each other’s company more and more.
Simon sighed, really trying to remember Grandmother now. A firm, sallow face. Nondescript gray hair, small frame. She’d died when Simon was away at his one year of college. He couldn’t remember having any important feelings when he heard the news. He chuckled. “I don’t know what Grandma thought about parties. I don’t know that the subject ever came up.”
“Maybe she gave you birthday parties when you were little?” Vivian was probing, as if she were interested.
“I guess. I guess they were routine, as those things go.” And now Simon noticed, without any particular surprise or concern, that Margie was not going to be the only exotically costumed entertainer of the evening. There were more acts than he’d been told about. Someone in an excellent, highly realistic toad costume was squatting in a corner, amid thick shadows at the far end of the great hall. Probably getting ready to do some kind of jester’s number as soon as he was noticed. Well, Simon wasn’t going to be the one to point him out to the other guests.
“I don’t remember my parents at all, you see,” he explained to Vivian. “And I don’t know much about my aunt and uncle either, come to think of it, though I lived with them for a time.” Now stop it, he warned himself, you’re going to give your identity away.
But Vivian only said: “Oh?” politely, and turned to speak to someone across the table.
Now, how could she fail to identify him sooner or later as her own second cousin, or whatever the hell the exact relationship was supposed to be? The boy from across the river, the one she’d once let… but maybe she had as little inclination as he did to keep up with relatives—and old lovers. He hadn’t been the first for her, that in hindsight was obvious enough.
Simon had never made any effort to keep up with relatives, or childhood friends. And now, whenever he tried to visualize any of the people he’d grown up among, their images came to the eye of memory with an odd, faded quality, like old photographs.
Except, of course, for the image of Vivian herself.
Now, on the other side of the table, the smooth rounds of Sylvia’s inflated breasts were more than half exposed to candlelight. Yet Simon had scarcely noticed, because Vivian sat beside him.
The night-sounds of the surrounding countryside besieged the castle, came in through the narrow windows piercing the enormous thickness of the walls. The dinner went on. Thunder grumbled louder. If rain now drummed on the roof that was so far above, in here no one could hear it.
Someone had just spoken to Simon, and he opened his eyes (when had he closed them again?) to see Vivian regarding him. The expression on her face was one of utter, almost worshipful intentness; and one of her little hands was raised in the shadow of a gesture, that must have been meant to warn some third person against interfering.
Simon began to speak, in a loud, clear voice: “If we must find something, an obstacle to be removed, then the place to look for it is—” And having got that far he stopped, listening to himself in utter amazement, with no idea at all of what he had started to talk about.
Vivian was leaning forward, concentrating so intensely on Simon that for the moment she seemed to have stopped breathing. The flicker of a reflected candle was the only motion in her eye. The folds of the shapeless kirtle did not stir across her breast.
“Yes,” she urged Simon when he paused. “Where is it?” Her voice was quietly solemn.
“I don’t know yet.” The answer felt like something forced from him. He had the feeling that it was true. Then he blinked and with an effort recovered something like normal control over his speech. “Sorry, what are we talking about?”
Vivian sank back a little in her chair. Disappointment had struck her but she was very brave and still hopeful. “We’re having a party, Simon. We can just relax and talk as our thoughts lead us.”
Thunder crashed again, this time even closer than before. A puff of wind somehow got into the great hall, to make the flames of torch and candle flicker. The dinner was almost completely cleared away by now.
Wallis down the table imitated thunder, with a laugh. The imitation was not too well done, but everyone, except for the silent, frightened servitors, seemed to enjoy the effort, and some applauded. “Good night for some ghost stories,” Willis told the table in a loud voice.
It’s showtime, folks, thought Simon. Vivian was now looking at him keenly, as if to make sure that he recognized his cue. As he could hardly fail to do.
Simon drew a deep breath, and tried to will himself back toward an ordinariness of mind and of perception. It was not to be, not now. But still he felt that he was ready to perform, more than merely ready. His vision was very clear, his hands supremely steady.
He got to his feet smiling, silently running through the last items on his mental preperformance checklist. He noted that the toad-costume was no longer to be seen. Good, no immediate competition. Establishing the proper atmosphere for magic? In tonight’s special setting that wasn’t going to be a problem; quite the opposite, in fact. He was going to have to be careful to keep it light.
Servants, presumably at someone’s signal, had already ceased activities, and most of them were out of sight. All eyes were on Simon as he stood up.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, looking up and down the table. “Our charming hostess tells me that she’s expecting one more guest—” Vivian was nodding, smiling tightly. “—and as on many occasions of this kind, when one more guest arrives, the hostess is somewhat upset to find that the balance of male and female guests has been upset.” Simon was ready here, should Vivian show the slightest sign of social distress, for the quick switch: But this is not one such occasion. There was no distress signal from her, and Simon moved smoothly on: “So I’m going to find out first what sex our impending visitor is. Vivian hasn’t told me. Am I right?”
She nodded encouragingly. “Right.”
“So my intention now is to summon up one of the fay, the fairies of the old world, to help us find out some more about this potential visitor. Maybe even to help him—or her—to find the way to get here.”
Vivian, enthralled, was nodding with great intentness. This wasn’t at all the way that Simon had planned to open, but once he stood up the stunt had just seemed to suggest itself. He could see, as in a flash of inspiration, how it was going to work. If the visitor then failed to arrive, Simon would have a way out; if he did arrive, so much the better. Margie was quick-witted, she’d pick up quickly on what he had in mind, and work along. “Would you all join hands, please?” Simon asked. “It’ll help the vibrations.”
With merriment, and a minimum of delay, the folk at the table all brought themselves into a hand-joined circle. “Now I need just a little more room,” said Simon, backing away a few steps from the table. He was standing now, as he had planned, with his back only a few feet from the fireplace, to which another log had recently been added. The blaze was up moderately, and he could feel the warmth of it, welcome in the damp coolness of the castle’s interior night. He had another reason to be glad for having his back to the fire now; when he’d first stood up he’d started seeing faces, real faces, in the flames. He could do without that kind of a distraction just now.