Secrets and Lies

The sun shone through the open, high, arched windows of Dorothy Warwick’s solar. The witch-in-hiding was sitting at her vanity brushing the shiny ringlets that was her copper-colored hair. It had been seven years since she had hidden her wand away, turning her back on her unfortunate heritage, and married Edward Warwick - six years since she had birthed their daughter… Dorothy smiled, hearing her little Sun-Beam outside in the garden playing. She placed her pearl-encrusted brush down on the vanity, a gift from her Edward on one of his many trips to the Caribbean, and leaned back on her padded bench, staring around at her solar. The room was wonderfully appointed, with high ceilings and rich materials - dark woods accented with brighter fabrics - satin and silk, with porcelain figurines of dancing ballerinas and life-like animals… Everything was perfect.

Dorothy peered into the mirror set into her vanity and leaned in, turning her face this way and that, though what she was looking for she couldn’t say. Eventually she sighed to herself and stood, patting the skirt of her dress flat and moving towards the open window, peering outside to see her daughter sitting within the roots of a large ash tree, book open in her lap, reading aloud to herself.

Dorothy leaned against the window sill, simply watching her.

Penelope was such a bright child - well-spoken for her age, mild-mannered, and sweet. She was everything a family like the Warwicks could want… But there was something about her that made her uneasy - in her heart of hearts, hidden behind genuine motherly love was fear. Not that she feared Penelope could or even would hurt her - more like a dread -for- Penelope, than anything.

There was a reason Dorothy had been willing to leave a respected career at the Ministry’s DMLE within the Magical Catastrophe Reversal Squad, her family, her very Magic, behind to marry Edward Warwick.

Her family was cursed, and at times it felt like she had been the only Rosier to see that inevitable end speeding towards them.

Dorothy pushed back from the window sill and left her solar, making her way through their manor, passing servants in their maid’s outfits, each of whom bowed and greeted her, greetings she returned with a soft smile and a nod of the head, until she was at the rear-entrance of the home. She could smell dinner being prepared by the chef - some sort of roasted pheasant with herb butter.

Exiting the home, Dorothy made for her daughter, catching snippets as she approached.

“Now for the evidence,” said the King, “and then the sentence.”
“No!” said the Queen, “first the sentence and then the evidence!”
“Nonsense!” cried Alice so loudly that everybody jumped, “the idea of having the sentence first!”

Dorothy smiled - only six and reading so well. She did wonder why Penelope was reading aloud, knowing that her daughter preferred to normally read quietly to herself - but that question was answered mere moments later when she heard Penelope mumble, “I was just getting to that part, Mora - what do you mean you want me to do voices for each character?”

Dorothy felt her blood run cold and she nearly stumbled half-a-dozen paces from her daughter, watching in stunned silence as the six year old looked up to see her, her freckled face splitting into a wide smile. “Hello Mummy! Good morning!”

Dorothy felt her fingers shake as she tried to process the word Penelope had just spoken and, with great difficulty, she swallowed through a tight throat. “G-good morning Sunbeam. W-who are you reading to?”

Penelope’s smile widened and she hopped off her root, patting her dress skirt flat the same way her mother had moments before. She used a ribbon to mark her place, having been taught to respect her possessions years ago and to never dog-ear her book’s pages. “Mummy this is Mor - wait where did he go?” She looked around, even turning and jogging over to the tree who’s roots she had been nestled in and peering behind it, as though she thought Mora was shy and hiding. “He was right here, Mummy… He must’ve had to go.”

‘It’s fine,’ she thought desperately, ‘children make imaginary friends all the time - Penelope is a smart, creative child - it’s only natural…’

“I-I see,” said Dorothy, trying to cover the swooping of dread sinking in her stomach despite how much she wished to push back against it, reaching down and patting Penelope on the head, mussing her copper-colored pigtails, “how about we go into the house - you can tell me about M-Mora…”

Penelope tucked Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland under her arm and grasped Dorothy’s hand with one of her own smaller ones, swinging it back and forth between them. “Mora’s really smart,” she started, not noticing her mother’s strange reaction, “but he seems really lonely, Mummy - he liked when I read to him.”

Dorothy kept her eyes forward, her neck held stiffly as her mind raced. “A-and when did you meet Mora?”

’This makes no sense! In six years Penelope has exhibited no magical talent - what would He want with her!?’

Penelope hopped the next few steps as though she were playing hopscotch on a sidewalk where only she could see the chalk-squares. “Last night! I had a dream about this really weird place. It was like a library but there were no ceilings and the sky was green and all the books were just stacked up on the ground - but they were so high up - taller than even Papa - and he was there! Then when I woke up he was in my room looking at my bookshelves!”

Dorothy had to consciously keep herself from reacting but even then there was a subtle warble in her cultured voice. “W-… Your... friend left so quickly, Sunbeam. W-what does he look like?”

Penelope giggled. “He’s just shy, I think. Maybe he’s like Peter Pan? One of the Lost Boys! Afraid of adults…” She held her book out in front of her, looking at it with a cocked head, her tongue poking out between pursed lips. “He has green hair - like seaweed - and bright yellow eyes. He’s my age too. He was really nice - Mummy where’s papa?”

Reaching the house, Dorothy held the door open and let her daughter enter first, looking over her shoulder back out at the garden, naked suspicion on her face before she followed along, closing and locking the door behind her… “He’s out for the day, Sunbeam… He’ll be back tonight.”

She needed her wand - then she had to do something she never thought she’d do again… Return home.

0

It was that time right after dusk, when the faintest hint of blue could be seen on the horizon as true night fell. The air was brisk, being that for north - nearly up to Hadrian’s Wall - where her ancestral holdings have rested since the Normans invaded the Isle centuries ago. The stillness of that late evening was shattered by a loud crack, almost like a gunshot, and before where there was an empty dirt lane there now stood a woman in form-fitted black robes, a grey stole around her shoulders and a green sash tied around her waist loosely. Her sleeves of were split into many tendrils right up to the elbow, revealing white full-arm gloves. In her right hand she clenched a wand of white wood. Her hair, normally copper-colored looked darker, almost like dried blood in the dim gloom, and Dorothy Warwick turned to the right automatically, as though it hadn’t been seven years since she had stood in this exact same spot - rote habit overpowering any hesitation.

‘The wards accepted me,’ she thought to herself, ‘I was banished from the family - why would they let me in so easily?… No, they’re expecting me.’

Dorothy raised her wand-hand, the tip of the Ash wood glowing brightly, letting the enchantments hiding the place from Ministerial and Muggle eyes get her measure before there was a deep, resonating sound - and then it was like the air itself peeled back, like curtain call at the opera, revealing a wrought-iron gate attached to a shoulder-height stone wall, each rock covered in tiny scratches - the weather-worn rune-work of an ancient Rosier - her great, great grandfather, if she remembered correctly.

Whatever protections placed upon the wall and gate seemed satisfied with her, for the heavy metal swung inwards noiselessly on well-oiled hinges. Dorothy stepped forward, glancing left and then right. In the distance she could see the silhouette of her family home, the windows dark except for dimly flickering candle-light, but before her was her destination - the Rosier mausoleum. Fog rolled forward as she walked, until her feet were obscured even to her own eyes - she must’ve looked like a specter of ancient Rosiers past, gliding forward silently.

Dorothy was a powerful witch - much like Penelope, she had been everything her parents had wanted her to be - everything except a muggle-hating Slytherin, that is. Having been sorted into Hufflepuff had been a blow - but it was well-known in the family that every House had born at least one member of their Line to greatness. When her gifts for the Mind Arts became evident, it looked as though the House of the Badger was about to do the same for her. Her father had even pulled connections at the Ministry to ensure a good entry position in the DMLE.

But beyond even that, she had excelled at the secretive, esoteric family magic unique to her bloodline - for they were not the average Pureblood house. The Rosiers had long been beholden to the extra-dimensional being known Hermaeus Mora - Lord of Hidden Knowledge, Fate, and Memory. The ‘Gardener of Men’ had been contacted in ages past by Xarxes Rosier, a wizard history remembered to be quite mad, but who had acted as Mora’s scribe, writing under His direction the Oghma Infinium - the tome of knowledge bound in human flesh that had served as the secret to the Rosier’s success.

It was that tome that Dorothy was here for - for if anything could explain today's strange events it would be that unique book.

As she approached the Mausoleum, she bowed her head in respect to her ancestors and raised a hand, reaching out to run her gloved fingers across the weathered stone of the building. It was cold - the stone was always cold, unnaturally so, even at the height of summer…

A soft push had that section of outer wall receding and then sliding to the right, revealing a dark archway. A gust of chill wind blew outwards and Dorothy steeled herself, stepping through the entrance.

Travel between the realms was never pleasant, in the case of Apocrypha, Hermaeus Mora’s Adjacent Place, that was two fold. The sensation of icy tendrils crawling across her body, and even delving into her mind followed by the feeling of slime dripping down her spine. She reinforced her mind with the steadying power of Occlumency as she appeared, dry and unmolested, under the stormy green skies her daughter had described that morning.

Apocrypha hadn’t changed since she had last been there. Towers of moldering tomes, arches of darkened metal twisted into a mockery of architecture. The floor was more of that same metal, though it was worked into complex geometric knot-work that left gaps just wide enough to see the sea of acid bubbling inches beneath her booted feet. There was a scent of ink and salt on the air.

A circle of people, robe-clad with hoods drawn heavily over their heads, obscuring their faces in impenetrable shadow - chanting in an alien language, guttural and resonating, Creatures watching with lizard-like patience - a younger Dorothy naked with harsh, angular runes painted in woad on her pale skin, laying on an altar, awaiting her Anointment as His oracle, His Sibyl…

Dorothy took a deep breath, fighting passed the memories this place and delved deeper, guided by memory and instinct. Lurkers, large, monstrous, fish-like creatures with needle-sharp fangs swam through the acid sea underneath, leaving viscous V-shaped wakes behind them, and Seekers, the tentacled Librarians of Mora’s realm glided half-a-foot off the floor through the stacks, paying her no mind - she was a part of this place, after all.

Seven years wasn’t enough to wash the stink of Apocrypha from her soul.

Occlumency kept her emotions in check, but even then she felt her grip on her wand grow slick with nervous sweat. The roofless-library of corridors shifted then, growing outwards and ballooning into a circular amphitheater, twins staircases on either side of her grew from the walls, looking more like the bones of Apocrypha than any mortal construction, meeting on the far-side of the room, at which was an altar a globular scrying orb placed in a pedestal atop it.

Dorothy steeped into the amphitheater, looking upwards at that green sky, her face set into a determined line, emerald eyes like chips of cut green glass as she stoked her magic within her for the first time in years - increasing its potency. Her skin tingled and the tip of her wand glowed, dripping sparks that fell towards the ornate metal floor - some slipping through those gaps while the majority skittered away like molten slag.

”Come out!” she commanded, normally posh voice strong and clear with protective energy, “I know you’re here! Hermaeus Mora - you’ve let me in here, you must want to talk to me! Was that why you revealed yourself to my daughter? Trying to lure me back into the fold!?”

There was a beat of silence and Dorothy took another step when the air of Apocrypha shifted violently, blowing the Sibyl's hair back, and the floors parted in three places in front of her, that acidic ocean fountaining upwards and coalescing midair into an orb that grew in size as more was added before it dripped away, revealing a golden yellow eye taller than she was possessing a horizontal bar for a pupil. Rifts in Apocrypha appeared near it as its otherworldly gaze focused on her, thigh-thick tentacles extending outwards, seeping ink-like ichor.

“My Sibyl,” it said, ponderous voice echoing around her from no truly discernible source, “you have returned to me.”

“I’m here for the book,” she said shortly, “the Oghma Infinium. It’s mine by right - just like my daughter is…”

“My words… They were given to your ancestor long ago - as per our deal, to do with what your family will in return for a servant to do my will… Take the book, Dorothy Rosier. Reach out your hand.”

“I’m not here to make a deal, Hermaeus Mora - leave my daughter out of this! She is an innocent - she’s not even a witch!”

Mora let out a deep, reverberating laugh - the sound like boiling tar in the ears.

“You truly have no Idea… You were so promising. You could have been the best of your Line - your gifts were undeniable. No knowledge - no secret beyond your reach. My perfect servant - and in exchange you would have wanted for nothing…”

“This isn’t a game!” snapped Dorothy - and if she were thinking clearly she would’ve been surprised that she hadn’t been killed for her insolence by now.

“Oh but it is,” countered Mora, horizontal pupil contracting in what would’ve passed for glee in a being like Mora, “and the prize is young Penelope. You of all people should know that Knowledge is Power, and you have handicapped your side by keeping her and your husband ignorant. Young Penelope will be a piece on the board greater even than yourself - I have foreseen it. You were distracted by inborn human sentimentality - it is not like you to blunder so badly. You have left this valuable piece open for the taking by coming here - just as I have informed your father you would…”

Dorothy flinched back a half-step. “P-Penelope!”

Cursing her foolishness, Dorothy turned and ran, heedless of Mora’s laughter, nearly tripping when the heel of her boot snagged against the metal knot-work in the floor, but Mora made no move to detain her, merely letting her leave. Stacks of books blurred by as she ran and as the archway into her Plane came into view, wisps of white mist and orbs of silvery light bled from her form until she was a streak of energy flying mere feet from the ground, passing through the gateway, that liminal bridge spanning the gap between Realms, but she didn’t stop there, the streak of energy seeming to turn in on itself, collapsing into a singularity that blipped out of existence…

… Only to reappear instantly with a loud crack of displaced air on the drive-way of her home, fully realized into her normal form.

Dorothy Warwick, formerly Rosier, dropped to her knees, caring not one whit that her knees scraped hard against the brick as she beheld the smoldering ruin that was the Warwick ancestral home.

“Dotti!”

Dorothy turned her head jerkily and her eyes widened, seeing the soot-covered form of her husband running towards her, one of their maids, unconscious or worse, carried in his arms.

End, Part One