It was an unusual feeling, Bowen thought, as he followed the group back toward Tywyll House, to truly have absolutely no fucking clue what to do next.
Bowen had always prided himself on finding solutions, Declan being the one, horrible exception to that rule. But that was what Bowen did. Figure it out. Why that magical ingredient, why that spell, which phase of the moon affected what element and how.
When it came to this, though? Finding himself hurled back to . . .
He ran the numbers in his head. His father had been born in 1960, and that had been three years after Bowen’s grandparents had gotten married. He remembered seeing the nearly illegible purple ink in the family records.
Henry Penhallow and Elspeth Carew, December 24, 1957.
1957.
“So I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess you’re just as confused about all of this as I am,” Tamsyn said in a low voice as she came up beside him, her arm once again slipping naturally into his.
It felt good—natural—to pull her in closer, and with the warm weight of her at his side, his thoughts cleared a bit.
“We’re at Tywyll House in December of 1957,” he murmured in reply, ducking a particularly stabby-looking branch. “Right around Yule, clearly, and this should be my grandparents’ wedding weekend, but . . .”
“But they’ve called it off,” Tamsyn confirmed with a nod, then looked up at him, her dark eyes wide. “But maybe they don’t! Is there any . . . I don’t know, family lore? ‘Remember how Nana told Pepaw to fuck off the night before the wedding, but then he . . . I don’t know, did something romantic, and the wedding was back on?’ Any fun family gossip like that?”
Bowen shook his head. “Not that I know of. And I didn’t call them Nana and Pepaw.” Stopping, he looked down at her. “In fact, I’ve never even heard the word ‘Pepaw.’ Is that really a thing?”
“Mmm-hmm,” Tamsyn confirmed. “I have two.”
“Huh.” Shaking his head, Bowen continued on as the maze widened back out. “Well, they were Taid Penhallow and Nain Penhallow when I was growing up. I never actually met them. They died before I was born.”
“Oh.” Now it was Tamsyn’s turn to come up short, and she tugged on his arm. “I’m sorry,” she said, and Bowen shrugged, uncomfortable.
“Sailing accident,” he said. “Da was only twenty. I always wondered if that’s why he was such a . . . Well, anyway.”
He had bigger problems to worry about than why his father was such a prick, but Tamsyn was still watching him with all those questions all over her face, and he heaved a sigh.
“I don’t speak to my da,” he told her. “Haven’t for over a year or so now. It’s complicated, but not nearly as complicated as this absolute mire of shite we’ve found ourselves in, so I’d rather not talk about it now.”
Tamsyn didn’t reply for a moment, looking down at the dark lawn before walking again, her arm still in his. “Man, 1950s you sure does talk a lot more,” she observed, and Bowen frowned.
“Nervous response,” he replied. “Not every day a bloke finds himself hurled nearly seventy years back in time.”
“But you’ve heard of this kind of thing, right?” Tamsyn asked.
Sighing, Bowen said, “Read about it, yeah, but it’s rare, and when it happens—”
“Don’t,” Tamsyn said, holding one hand up. “You’re just going to say, ‘And when it happens, the only way to get back is to carve out your own eyeballs and light them on fire,’ or something similarly horrifying, and I don’t need that negativity right now, Bowen.”
“Fair,” he acknowledged as the house came into view. It looked much the same as it did in the present day—that was a fun thing about old castles, the consistency—but it was lit up, light pouring from every window to leave bright, warm rectangles on the lawn. There were colored lights strung up on garlands just inside, he could see, and out on the terrace, the party was still milling around as several liveried footmen moved through the crowd. Some were holding heavy coats and distributing them to the guests, while the others circulated with silver trays of steaming mugs. As Bowen and Tamsyn approached the steps, Lady Meredith turned to them, gesturing with one arm as a footman helped her slide her coat onto the other.
“Ignominious arrival aside, you’ve really appeared at the perfect time!” she called down to them. “We were all just about to go cut down the Yule log before we realized Madoc had scampered off again. Honestly, Emerald, we told you you’d have to keep a sharp eye on the lad—slippery as an eel when he thinks no one is looking.”
A young woman already bundled up in a coat several sizes too big for her was standing just to the left of Lady Meredith, a flashlight in one hand, an open book in the other. She lowered both to glare at little Madoc, who was currently holding two mugs of whatever it was the footmen had been passing around, his round face wreathed in steam, making him look like a particularly cherubic demon.
“I’m fifteen now, Auntie Angharad,” the girl announced, lifting her chin haughtily. “I shouldn’t have to look after that little creature anymore.”
“Don’t call your cousin a creature, Emerald,” Lady Meredith replied with no real heat, and Madoc bared his teeth at Emerald, who stuck her tongue out in return.
Still more than a little dazed, Bowen accepted a black wool coat from one footman and one of the steaming earthen mugs from another. It was some kind of tea, spiced with cinnamon, ginger, and a bit of orange peel, and as Bowen took a sip, he also got the warm, medicinal hit of gin. It felt good going down, chasing back some of the chill, and Bowen took another sip, the taste familiar. Other Yules, long ago. Him and his brothers trudging through snow for a Yule log, a thermos of this secreted away in Wells’s bag . . .
No. That wasn’t right. It hadn’t been Wells with the thermos; it had been Simon. But Da hadn’t come out with them for that kind of thing, had he? He would’ve been too busy with his books and his magic, and while they’d always had a Yule log, Simon hadn’t gone with them to cut it.
At least that’s what Bowen thought, but now he wasn’t sure, and something about the memory made his chest ache.
“You okay?” Tamsyn asked in a quiet voice, and Bowen looked down at her with the tiniest smirk. “Fair enough, dumb question,” she acknowledged, even as she shrugged on her own coat. Like Emerald’s, it was a little too big, the sleeves covering her hands, the hem dragging on the ground, and when she accepted her own mug of spiked tea, her wrists looked fragile against those heavy wool cuffs.
Right, he was swooning over her wrists because he’d realized, about two seconds before they’d been forced through the space-time continuum into some kind of nightmare, that he was actually in love with her, and that was . . . a problem.
But then the terrace door swung open, and Bowen remembered he had bigger problems right now.
“I don’t see why I should have to go,” a woman said, marching out onto the stone patio. She was already wearing a coat, a red-and-green tartan creation with a bright red patent leather belt and a hood trimmed in white fur. The hood was down, revealing the woman’s auburn hair and pale skin, her upturned nose and wide-set eyes. She was beautiful, heart-stoppingly so, and was probably used to men staring at her, but Bowen was staring for an entirely different reason.
His grandmother.
He’d seen pictures of her, but not many, and none of them had captured how lovely she was or just how much power radiated off her as a witch. The very air around her seemed to crackle, and as Harri appeared just behind her, his expression miserable, Bowen had a sudden pang of sympathy for his grandfather.
Real bollocks, being in love.
“It’s tradition, Elle,” Harri was saying now. “And even if there’s not going to be a wedding, there’s still a bloody Yule, isn’t there?”
“Do not swear at me, Henry Penhallow!” Elspeth replied, and Tamsyn once again came close to Bowen’s side.
“Your grandparents are kind of hot,” she whispered.
