Chapter 11 – Finding Mabel [Two weeks on]

It was now two weeks later. Joyce had spent much of that time under Mabel’s instruction, rediscovering abilities she had long forgotten: psychometry, automatic writing and, perhaps most importantly, how to remain detached while using them.

“All these practices come at a cost if you don’t learn to distance yourself,” Mabel had warned her. “There are forces in this world that feed upon emotion. Let them in and they’ll cling to you like parasites. I’ve seen people destroyed by them, Joyce, and I won’t allow that to happen to you.”

For the first week, Mabel remained with Joyce while she practised reading and recording from the diaries. During the second, she left that responsibility increasingly to Malkin, who acted both as watcher and tutor, answering Joyce’s questions about the Constants, their history and the supernatural world she was gradually learning to navigate.

Her day job had proved easier than expected. In a town with virtually no crime and few outsiders, policing Easterwich was largely a matter of being seen, knowing the community and maintaining contact with the naval garrison.

It left Joyce with plenty of time for the work that was increasingly beginning to feel like her real reason for being there.

As for what she was beginning to see, that was something else entirely.

There was a world within the world she had always known, and Easterwich was merely one small part of it. Across nations and continents existed communities like theirs, cults and ancient orders, different traditions of magic, and creatures Joyce would once have dismissed as belonging to myth or fiction.

Except they were real.

Gods still meddled in the affairs of mortals. Old powers survived beneath new religions and modern borders. And inevitably there were people who coveted those powers, willing to exploit, enslave and kill in their pursuit of them.

The more Joyce learnt, the more she understood why places like Easterwich existed.

What unsettled her most was not that this hidden world had survived.

It was how completely the ordinary world had forgotten it.

And there was one particular case that seemed to sum it all up. A case that had changed Mabel, changed Easterwich, and helped shape the community Joyce now found herself serving.

It was 1935, and the Nazi regime in Germany was rearming. Britain still had cordial diplomatic relations with Berlin, but there were growing concerns in Parliament over where that rearmament might lead.

There were also concerns about the state of Germany in Easterwich. Reports were coming out of other magical communities about the interest in occult practices and relics by the Nazis. For Mabel, this was not the first time she had seen this pattern.

She had first encountered German interest in the occult in the years leading up to the Great War. Men such as Dedrich Feld had believed that ancient powers could be found, controlled and turned into weapons. Feld was gone, but the ideas he represented had survived him.

Over the following decades they had passed through different hands, gathering followers and influence, until men within Himmler’s SS began pursuing their own distorted vision of Germany’s ancient past.

By 1935, Mabel recognised something she had seen before.

And she was determined to get in their way.

──✿──

In the past, you did not find Easterwich because you were looking for it. You found it because, for whatever reason, Easterwich allowed you to. And if you left, its memory conveniently faded with you.

That was old magic at its best.

But it belonged to another age. Certain people had discovered what Easterwich was and, more dangerously, what it contained. In the increasingly volatile world of the 1930s, its secrets had fallen into the wrong hands.

And those people weren’t going to forget.

By late 1935, reports were arriving from friendly states of growing Nazi interest in occult relics. Some had been purchased, others stolen. Most possessed no real power and posed little threat.

One did.

A fragment of a mirror that Mabel had believed lost had resurfaced.

More troubling still, word had reached Easterwich that a map case containing certain documents had attracted interest in Berlin.

If Mabel did not retrieve this artefact and the map case that it was stored in, a major threat to the safety of realm could be the result.

At first she informed her contacts in Naval Intelligence and was assured that they had the matter in hand. Mabel doubted they were even remotely capable of dealing with it, so she pressed the point. This time the response was quite different. She was advised to drop the subject.

Times had changed at the Admiralty. New blood ran departments whose younger officers had little knowledge of the old agreements, and even less inclination to honour them. What had once been understood had become inconvenient, then obscure, and finally something that could safely be ignored.

Or so they believed.

It was time to remind them of the authority the old blood possessed.

──✿──

Rear-Admiral Sir Arthur Dunstan-Smythe sat behind his desk in the Admiralty Building in Whitehall. It had already been a thoroughly unpleasant morning of combined forces meetings, filled with increasingly disturbing assessments of Germany and the deteriorating situation in Europe. He had spent much of it entertaining thoughts of retirement, preferably before somebody managed to start another world war.

Unfortunately, his morning was about to get worse.

A visiting card landed upon the blotter in front of him.

Arthur stared at it.

He had not seen anyone enter the room. His secretary had certainly not brought it in. Nevertheless, there it was.

He picked it up.

Mabel Shirley.

Arthur closed his eyes and groaned.

“Oh, good Lord.”

The card disappeared between his fingers.

Across the desk, the air shimmered.

The outline of a woman formed in the chair opposite him, indistinct at first, then gaining colour and substance until a well-dressed lady sat comfortably before him as though she had been shown in by his secretary five minutes earlier.

Lady Mabel Hazelgrove smiled.

“Good morning, Arthur.”

“Mabel.”

She reached into her bag, withdrew an old letter and placed it carefully upon his desk.

Arthur did not need to read it.

“Remember this, Arthur?” she asked bluntly. “Your department appears to have forgotten what it recognises. You and I both know the authority does not come from Whitehall. It comes from the Realm itself.”

Arthur looked at the document.

Edward VII’s signature remained perfectly legible.

He groaned again.

“Mabel, my apologies. That department has been in decline since I moved on. Please give me a moment.”

He lifted the telephone.

“Department Seven.”

A pause.

“Dunstan-Smythe. Have Lieutenant Caldwell report to my office immediately.”

Another pause.

“No. Not when he is free. Immediately.”

He replaced the receiver and looked across the desk.

“There are moves to close the department altogether.”

Mabel’s expression did not change.

“I’ve tried my best to save it,” Arthur continued. “Treasury considers it an extravagance. Half the younger officers regard its records as folklore, and there has been persistent pressure from certain quarters of the Church to distance government from your world. There are people in government close to those interests, and others who simply don’t want the old agreements acknowledged at all.”

“How convenient.”

“They think so.”

Arthur leaned back in his chair.

“Easier, apparently, to pretend none of it ever existed.”

Mabel tapped one finger upon the old letter.

“They don’t have to believe in it, Arthur.”

“I know.”

“They merely have to honour it.”

Arthur looked at her for several seconds.

“Yes.”

Mabel pushed the document towards him.

“This is not an authority granted to me by King Edward. It is recognition of a Legal Constant, from the Realm itself, in acknowledgement of the work my community has undertaken for this country over centuries. Governments change. Monarchs die. Departments are renamed. The Constant remains.”

“I am quite aware of what it means.”

“Apparently your officers are not.”

Arthur winced.

“What did they do?”

“I informed Naval Intelligence that an artefact of considerable danger has fallen into German hands. I received little response. When I persisted, I was advised to drop the matter.”

Arthur’s expression hardened.

“Who told you that?”

“It hardly matters.”

“It matters considerably to me.”

“It shouldn’t. Removing one fool merely leaves another fool to inherit his desk. Your problem is larger than that.”

Arthur glanced again at the document.

“What have the Germans found?”

“A fragment of a mirror I had hoped never to see again.”

Arthur became very still.

“You are certain?”

“Quite.”

“And Department Seven dismissed this?”

“They dismissed me.”

“That was unwise.”

“Very.”

There was a knock at the door.

“Come.”

A young naval officer entered, closed the door behind him and came to attention.

“Lieutenant Caldwell reporting, sir.”

Arthur regarded him for a moment.

“Caldwell, do you know what a Legal Constant is?”

The lieutenant hesitated.

“I am familiar with the term, sir.”

“That wasn’t my question.”

Caldwell glanced towards the woman sitting opposite the Rear-Admiral, then at the old document lying upon the desk.

Something in his expression changed.

“Yes, sir.”

“Good.”

Arthur picked up the letter.

“Then perhaps you can explain to Lady Hazelgrove why your department has just instructed the recognised holder of one to cease her enquiries.”

Caldwell’s face lost a little colour.

“Lady Hazelgrove?”

Mabel smiled pleasantly.

“Lieutenant.”

Caldwell looked at the document again.

“I understood these arrangements were obsolete.”

Arthur’s voice became very quiet.

“Obsolete?”

“Sir, I meant that they were no longer actively recognised within current departmental procedure.”

Mabel tilted her head.

“How fortunate that the Realm does not require departmental procedure.”

Caldwell said nothing.

Arthur placed the letter back upon the desk.

“Listen carefully, Lieutenant. King Edward did not grant Lady Hazelgrove this authority. The Crown recognised an authority that already existed. There is a considerable difference.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Apparently there is not, because somebody in your department has forgotten it.”

Caldwell swallowed.

Arthur continued.

“Nothing has revoked that recognition. Nothing has superseded the Constant. And no junior officer in Naval Intelligence possesses the authority to tell its holder that her concerns are inconvenient.”

“No, sir.”

“Good. We are making progress.”

Mabel reached forward and reclaimed the letter.

“I did try asking nicely.”

Arthur gave her a tired look.

“I suspect your definition of nicely and mine differ considerably.”

“They always have.”

Despite himself, Arthur smiled.

Then it disappeared.

“What do you require?”

Mabel folded the old letter and returned it to her bag.

“Access. Intelligence. Transport when necessary. No interference with my movements, and no questions concerning the methods I employ. I also require every report you possess concerning German acquisition of occult objects, archaeological material, religious relics and anything else Department Seven has decided is too embarrassing to place before its modern masters.”

Caldwell looked towards Arthur.

The Rear-Admiral did not hesitate.

“You will provide it.”

“Sir, some of those files are restricted.”

Arthur stared at him.

“Lieutenant, a woman has just appeared inside my locked office without passing through the Admiralty entrance, the security desk, my secretary or, so far as I can determine, several walls. I suggest you reconsider which of us currently has an access problem.”

Mabel suppressed a smile.

“Everything,” Arthur continued. “She receives everything relevant. You will also inform Department Seven that Lady Hazelgrove is acting under recognised Constant authority. Any instruction previously issued requiring her to discontinue her enquiries is withdrawn.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And Caldwell?”

“Sir?”

“Find out who issued it.”

“Yes, sir.”

Arthur waved him away.

The lieutenant saluted and left.

For several moments neither Arthur nor Mabel spoke.

At last Arthur sighed.

“You do realise you’ve probably just saved Department Seven from being abolished.”

“No, Arthur.”

Mabel rose from the chair, her figure already becoming faint around the edges.

“You have.”

Arthur watched her disappear.

The visiting card reappeared upon his desk.

Mabel Shirley.

He picked it up and stared at the name for a moment.

Then he reached for the telephone again.

Retirement, he decided, would have to wait.

──✿──

Department 7 had undergone considerable change, and Arthur Dunstan-Smythe had seen to most of it. More importantly, he had made certain that nobody would interfere with its purpose again.

Rank helped. Connections helped more. Arthur possessed both, along with the inconvenient habit of knowing precisely which doors to knock upon when lesser men became obstructive.

Intelligence was now flowing through Department 7 directly to Mabel, and Lieutenant Caldwell had proved himself to such an extent that she invited both him and Arthur to Hazelgrove Hall.

Caldwell needed to understand fully the world he had become involved with. More importantly, Mabel needed to discover whether he was capable of living with it.

They had finished lunch and were enjoying coffee.

“You’ve never once questioned any of the intelligence you’ve forwarded, Lieutenant. Your predecessors had a habit of leaving out the weird stuff.”

“In intelligence, every morsel of information has value, your Ladyship. Nothing should be overlooked simply because we don’t understand it.”

“Mabel, if you please.”

Caldwell hesitated. “Yes, ma’am. And I’m William.”

“What are your thoughts on the weird stuff, Will?”

“My mother attends a Spiritualist church. I grew up with visiting mediums and sitting in home circles before I was old enough to understand what a sitter was. It’s always been rather normal to me. In fact, it’s partly what attracted me to the post.”

Mabel smiled. She had always sensed something about this man.

“Do you believe any of it?”

William paused. For the first time that afternoon, he glanced towards Arthur. There were some answers a lieutenant did not readily give in front of an admiral.

“Let me put it this way. I’ve seen things that many people would dismiss as fraud, but which I know were not.”

He swallowed. That sounded considerably more ridiculous aloud than it had in his head.

Mabel took another sip of coffee.

“Would you like to know for certain?”

William looked towards Arthur.

The Admiral merely nodded towards Mabel.

“Answer the lady, son.”

William looked back at her.

“If you’re going to rattle the table, I’ll know you’re a fake.”

Mabel smiled.

“I can do better than that.”

She closed her eyes and brought her hands together.

“I hear Switzerland is nice this time of year.”

Something pulled at the room.

The walls distorted. The background seemed to swirl around them and, in an instant, Hazelgrove Hall was gone.

The three diners remained exactly where they had been, seated around the same table, coffee cups, saucers and silver pot undisturbed. But they were now sitting upon a hillside overlooking a vast blue lake, mountains rising beyond it.

A cow wandered past.

Its enormous bell clanked lazily with every step.

William stared at it.

Then at the lake.

Then at Arthur.

The Admiral was casually lighting a cigarette.

Finally, William looked at Mabel.

She was calmly sipping her coffee.

“Your coffee’s getting cold, Will.”

──✿──

The meeting at Hazelgrove Hall had been productive. Lieutenant Caldwell now understood that the “weird stuff” was real, and the intelligence he and Arthur had brought with them had finally given Mabel what she needed. They knew where Feld’s map case and the missing shard of mirror had gone.

Unfortunately, so did the Germans.

Both were now believed to be in the possession of the newly formed Ahnenerbe, an organisation established under Heinrich Himmler to investigate Germany’s supposed ancestral and occult past. Much of what interested them was nonsense, manufactured mythology dressed up as scholarship. Mabel could safely leave them to that.

Feld’s papers were not nonsense.

Neither was the mirror.

More worrying still was the disappearance of Professor Gabriel Rosenfeld, a leading authority on Germanic occult beliefs and practices. He had been recruited at Mabel’s suggestion as a person who could be of great help to them. He had been offered the post and given Whitehall clearance. However, before he was due to travel to England, he was removed from his university post. Rosenfeld had subsequently vanished into custody. Naval Intelligence believed the Ahnenerbe were holding him and forcing him to decipher Feld’s work.

That changed everything.

Feld had spent years trying to understand powers he was never capable of controlling. In the hands of men prepared to combine his research with the mirror, the danger extended far beyond Germany.

The map case had to be recovered. The mirror had to be taken from them.

And if Professor Rosenfeld was still alive, Mabel intended to bring him home as well.