I Am Half-Sick Of Shadows (28 page)

Feely had occasionally played the Paradis Toccata at my request, but only when she wasn’t angry, so I hadn’t heard it very often.

“Th-thank you,” I said, almost speechless, and I could tell that Feely was pleased.

“Mine next,” Daffy said. “It isn’t much, but then you don’t deserve much.”

Again a flat thin package, tied with string and a label:
To F. from D
.

It was a steel engraving, glued to a piece of cardboard, of an alchemist at work among his flasks and flagons, his beakers and retorts.

“I cut it out of a book at Foster’s,” Daffy said. “They’ll never miss it. The only books they ever open are the Badminton Library. Hawking, fishing, and hunting and so forth.”

“It’s lovely,” I said. “Beautiful. I’ll ask Dogger to help me frame it.”

“If they find it’s gone missing,” Daffy went on, “I’ll tell them
you
nicked it. After all, what would
I
want with a stinky old alchemist.”

I stuck out my tongue at her.

Next was a package from Mrs. Mullet.

Mittens.

“She said you’re going to need them for your frostbitten fingers.”

“Are my fingers frostbitten?” I asked, spreading them out at arm’s length for examination. “They tingle a bit, but they don’t look any different.”

“Oh, just you wait,” Feely said. “Another twenty-four hours and they’ll begin to turn black, after which they’ll fall off. You’ll need to have hooks fitted, won’t she, Daff? Five little hooks on each hand. Dr. Darby says you’re lucky. They’ve improved hooks by leaps and bounds in the past few years, and you might even be able to—”

“Stop it!” I shrieked. My hands were trembling before my eyes.

My sisters exchanged a look whose meaning I had once known, but now, for the life of me, couldn’t remember.

“Let’s leave her alone,” Daffy said. “She’s not fit company when she’s like this.”

At the door they turned back, as if hinged together at their waists.

“Merry Christmas,” they said in unison, and then they were gone.

I lay for a long time in silence, staring at the ceiling.

Was my life always to be like this? I wondered. Was it going to go, forever, in an instant, from sunshine to shadow? From pandemonium to loneliness? From fierce anger to a fiercer kind of love?

Something was missing. I was sure of it. Something was missing, but I couldn’t for the life of me think what it was.

After a while, I let my legs slide heavily to the floor, then raised myself to a sitting position. Tiny fireworks exploded behind my eyes, the result of spending too many days in a horizontal position. I got shakily to my feet, clutching at the back of the sofa for unaccustomed support.

I stood for a moment, waiting for the faintness to pass; then, wrapping my housecoat tightly around myself and trying desperately to be quiet, I shuffled slowly to the door. If anyone knew I was creeping round the house there were bound to be stern lectures.

But the corridors were empty. The villagers and the film crew had gone.

The foyer rang with its usual dark-varnished silence. Buckshaw had returned to normal.

Coming from somewhere above, a solitary beam of sunshine shone down upon the black-and-white checkerboard tiles, falling precisely along the black line painted so many years ago by Antony and William de Luce to divide Buckshaw into two armed camps.

How sad, I thought. Their hatred had outlived them.

I made my way up the east staircase, one slow step at a time. At the top I stopped to rest, perching for a while on the last step like a bird on a bough.

Only here at the top of the house did I feel myself removed, in a way, from the crushing burden of being a de Luce. Up here, above it all, I was somehow myself.

Simply Flavia.

Flavia Sabina de Luce. Full stop.

After a time, I pulled myself to my feet and made my way unsteadily towards my laboratory. It had been simply ages since I’d been away for so long from my
sanctum sanctorum
.

I took a deep breath … opened the door … and stepped inside, and the smile that spread across my face brought tears to my disbelieving eyes.

“Yaroo!” I shouted, and I didn’t give a beetle’s bottom who heard me.

“Ya-rooo!”

AGAIN
TO MY
EDITORS
, Bill Massey, of Orion Books in London, and Kate Miciak, of Random House in New York City. Bill and Kate have been joint—and fearsome—Keepers-of-the-Gate while I’ve been away in 1950. Words can never express my gratitude.

To Kristin Cochrane and Brad Martin, of Doubleday Canada, whose faith in Flavia has never wavered. Kristin has twice stood in for me to accept awards: the kind of debt that can never be repaid.

To my agent, Denise Bukowski, for being there, always prepared, every step of the way. And to Sandra Homer, Elizabeth De Francesca, and John Greenwell of the Bukowski Agency, for scaling the mountains of paperwork, all with good humor.

To my friends John and Janet Harland, for their comments and many valuable suggestions.

To Susan Corcoran, Sharon Propson, and Sharon Klein, of Random House, my peerless publicists, those superheroes of the publishing world who do all the heavy lifting.

To Randall Klein, of Random House, who wears so many hats—all of them perfectly fitted, and to my copy editor, Connie Munro.

To Urban Hofstetter, of Random House, Germany, for his editorship and friendship; to Inge Kunzelmann, who got us on and off trains and planes throughout all of Germany without ever losing her smile; and to Sebastian Rothfuss for his valuable assistance with a most convoluted research question.

To my two charming masters of ceremonies, Margarete von Schwarzkopf in Berlin, Hanover, Frankfurt, and Cologne, and Hendrik Werner in Hanover, who translated with great style and good humor, making me sound as if I knew what I was talking about in German.

To the remarkable Anna Thalbach. It was my great privilege to sit at Anna’s side night after night as she brought Flavia to life before enraptured audiences.

To Axel Schumbrutzki, of the bookshop Hugendubel, and Florian Kröckel of Heimthafen Neukölln, who arranged a memorable evening in a vintage 1930s dance hall in East Berlin. Life is made of memories like this. Thank you, Axel and Florian.

To Klaus Eberitzsch of the bookshop Leuenhagen & Paris, in Hanover, who shares a birthday with me: same day, same year: We are now officially brothers. To Dirk Eberitzsch and Ina Albert, also of Leuenhagen & Paris. Ina and Klaus became the first booksellers ever to rush out into a busy street to hug me as I was still climbing out of a taxicab. Now I know why everyone loves Hanover!

To Mike Altwicker of the bookshop Hansen & Kröger, in Cologne, who not only organized, but got us to and from, a most memorable reading at Castle Bielstein.

To Camille Poshoglian, of Orion Books, master of international scheduling; and to Mike Vella De Fremeaux and Faye Bonnici, of Miller Distributors, Malta.

And finally, as always, with love, to my wife, Shirley, who has spent so many happy hours with me at Buckshaw.

ALAN
BRADLEY
WAS
BORN
in Toronto and grew up in Cobourg, Ontario. Prior to taking early retirement to write in 1994, he was director of television engineering at the University of Saskatchewan media center for twenty-five years. His versatility has earned him awards for his children’s books, radio broadcasts of his short stories, and national print for his journalism. He also co-authored
Ms. Holmes of Baker Street
, to great acclaim and much controversy, followed by a poignant memoir,
The Shoebox Bible
. His first Flavia de Luce mystery,
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie
, received the Crime Writers’ Association Debut Dagger Award, the first Saskatchewan Writers Guild Award for Children’s Literature, the Dilys Award, the Agatha Award, and both the Macavity and Barry awards for best first novel. Bradley lives in Malta with his wife and two calculating cats, and is currently working on the next Flavia de Luce mystery.