Seven for a Secret

By Elena Gaillard

Gerry Llewellyn's mother is teaching him death magic, and his grandmother thinks he might help the family take over the world. He's eight. 

Waning magic in their land, and a legendary curse, meant British demon-bred witches were unable to enter the Otherworld, source of their strongest magic, for 200 years. Gerry and his father are the first seventh-born witches in all that time, a signal the curse may soon end, heralding a new era of greater power for them. But even his family can't agree whether this is a good thing. They have peaceful lives, blending in with the rest of humanity, doing much as they please in the slightly more tolerant postwar years of the 1950s. Are vague promises of fabulous divine gifts worth upending that?

Already scarred by family secrets and politics, precocious Gerry hates being treated as a miracle child. And now Gerry's eldest brother is getting married, so the Llewellyn children have lots to do besides dealing with their emotionally damaged parents, death demon siblings, and a sundry lot of fractious relatives.

They are all about to learn that seventh sons are special all right, but it's their mothers you really need to watch out for...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elena Gaillard
• Release date: May 18, 2022
• ISBN: 9781519977571

Elena Gaillard

Elena Gaillard has a mild orchid obsession, but still finds time for knitting, cooking, beer drinking, bird watching, listening to all sorts of music, and reading lots and lots of science fiction and fantasy. In what passes for real life, she is a graphic designer and print production specialist.

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PART ONE

Chapter 1

Near Bangor, Gwynedd, Wales, UK

March 1952

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One spring day, three boys, a man and a dog ran up a Welsh hillside.

Rhodri and I were weeding the beets and peas on a cloudy April afternoon when Uncle Emrys and Rhodri’s elder brother Pryderi came running, shouting. "A sheep’s in trouble! We have to find her!" Uncle Emrys kept a finely-tuned scrying mirror on his desk for watching the flocks, but he made nine-year-old Pryderi divine our path with a finding-crystal he was just learning to use.

Hunting a sheep was far more entertaining than weeding. Off we ran.

One spring day, a demon-bred witch, his sons and nephew ran up a Welsh hillside.

Grim, the eldest of our sheepdogs, followed close as we dashed through the drifts of ewes and lambs peacefully grazing, causing unrest and startled baas of protest. Soon Pryderi whistled for Grim to move the flock downhill. Brilliant! Uncle Emrys said. Magic’s not always the best solution! The dog seemed to agree, a joy-filled flash of red and white as he circled and dodged and drove dozens of annoyed sheep past us. Too early to go downhill for the night! they complained. Leave us be! A few jackdaws fluttered up, cawing, disturbed from hunting bugs amid the sheep.

Finally only one ewe remained, standing on three legs and shivering whilst her puzzled lamb butted her. Poor unlucky thing, she’d broken a leg at the roughest hillside on Watkins Farm, where tasty spring grass and flowers hid treacherous stones and animal burrows. Three ravens watched, sensing blood, wanting to make a cruel supper of the lamb. Rhodri flung a pebble at them. They croaked and flapped and fussed but didn’t leave, as if they knew a child of Our Lady would never harm them. Emrys would have Rhodri’s head if he did.

Poor old girl! Poor thing! Uncle Emrys stroked the ewe’s coal black nose and murmured simple spells to ease her hurt and make her lie still. Forgive my stupid mistake, we should have kept you in the downhill pasture! He showed us the dangling hoof, the pink broken bone and bloody torn flesh. Sweet innocent boys that we were, Rhodri and I shuddered and of course moved in for a closer look. Rhodri was five and a half and I was five, just beginning to appreciate the pain of others.

See, lads, the break can’t be splinted, not like old Bet’s leg. We mustn’t let her suffer.

You can’t just heal it with magic, Da? Rhodri asked. Or Mum could?

You know we have limits, dear boy. This is one of them.

What was her name? I asked. Dozens of the oldest sheep, and a few young ones with very good wool, had names besides just ear-tag numbers. This ewe had only been Sixty-Three Zed.

The lamb bleated and kicked in Pryderi’s arms till he cast a calming spell. String from his pocket made a simple tether Rhodri could hold. The ravens fluffed their feathers impatiently...

Uncle Emrys drew his work knife from his belt and offered it to Pryderi. No, Da, Pryderi said, backing away a step. I don’t have to do this. It won’t be my farm. I don’t want to be a farmer.

That doesn’t matter. What’s happening now matters. What if neither Huw nor I were here, would you let poor creatures such as this be blinded, pecked to death, left alone? You never know what you might be called upon to do in life, to help others.

One spring day, a mage of the raven totem and his raven son argued everyday matters of life and death amid a flock of actual birds.

Some things are simply meant to be.

Uncle Em stroked the sheep’s head again, murmuring to her. Her eyes closed and she sighed. That tweedy old sorcerer loved every sheep, pig and chicken on his farm, despite their oftentimes grisly fates. Good old girl, he said. A good mother you were, a proud creature. Here’s our last gift to you. With a quick gesture he cast a stun spell on her, a final kindness.

Pryderi heaved a deep sigh, closed his eyes a few moments, said aloud Our Lady’s prayer wishing good passage for a spirit, pulled back the ewe’s nose with his left hand and cut her throat with one long deep stroke. He spoke spells in Welsh I never heard before. When had he learnt them? Uncle Em’s lips were moving, but I didn’t pay attention to whether he spoke the same spells at the same time.

Flutter like a big angry moth beating its wings inside my head...

I gasped and kept perfectly still several moments till the strange feeling faded. The tingles running round my heart lasted a bit longer.

I knew Uncle Em was powerful enough to kill an animal with a painlessly touched spell. Had the stun spell already killed the sheep before Pryderi used the knife? Being only five, I was a bit confused about that, but I did understand that being mere children my cousins and I weren’t powerful enough to kill with magic alone.

You didn’t do it right. You didn’t do all of it, I said, not knowing exactly why, staring at the blood soaking into the ground. The looks I got from Emrys and Pryderi were terrible in different ways.

I know I didn’t, Pryderi said. I feared I’d made him cross, but he was frowning at his father.

You felt something? Uncle Em asked me. Other than sorrow at the taking of a life?

I dunno, I said. Just odd for a second. I never liked telling elders about anything but dire emergencies. Not that we suffered many, thanks to endless protection charms.

It’s a bloomin’ test, Gerry. Pryderi sounded irritated. Just tell the truth.

That word test was scarier than anything. I got fizzy inside my head, Rhodri volunteered. I nodded agreement. It was as good a way to describe the feeling as any.

But that’s wonderful, Rhodri, Emrys said. Wonderful, and rare for a child your age!

I felt that too, Da, Pryderi finally said, but you were hoping I would. Hands shoved in his coat pockets, he looked gray and chilled rather than fizzy or tingly. His father didn’t seem to notice this.

I’m so very proud of all of you! Emrys said. The true blood of ancient Mona is within you! Blood of the black fae and the godlings of the crags! Our magic is returning! The miracles have truly begun anew for our people! I’d never seen him so excited, eyes glistening with unshed water as he grasped Pryderi by the shoulders and kissed his forehead.

You’re being strange again, Da, Pryderi said.

"But why did I feel fizzy, Da?" Rhodri asked, hugging the restless lamb.

Our powers naturally grow as we grow older, but Our Lady in her wisdom allows us to gain more in other ways. Emrys collected himself, as if starting lessons. History professor through and through. Gifts of power to be treasured. How blessed are my sons to be so gifted at so young an age! Your mothers will be ever so pleased!

One spring day, a fifth-born witch, his third- and fourth-born sons and seventh-born nephew stood upon a hillside freshly soaked in blood.

Pryderi stared at the dead animal. So what now, Da? he asked, always practical. Even more practical than his history professor father.

Gathering himself, Emrys helped Pryderi shift the carcass. He sliced open the belly, careful to not spoil any fine black wool as the bloody guts slithered out over flowers and grass. The ravens screamed thanks and eagerly attacked their meal after we stepped away, finally rewarded for their patience. Grim barked, excited by the blood smell. The other sheep had slowly returned to their favorite pasture, lambs once again bouncing about and trying to butt us. The flock’s ram stared at us, sniffed the air and went on his way.

The lamb tried to eat its tether, so Pryderi calmed it again and carried it away with us. I wanted to pet the lamb, but Pryderi wouldn’t let me. I first felt annoyed, and then suddenly I felt sadder than I’d ever felt in my life, sadder even than when an old sheepdog had died last year. My eyes filled with tears. My throat closed. I was horrified.

Witches weren’t supposed to weep over trivial things like life and death. Especially not on a farm, or out in the natural world. Nature is cruel. Creatures die horribly all the time. Sorrow is a luxury reserved for dead people and favorite pets. Not that I knew that wasn’t universally true, at the time.

I told myself I was sad for the lamb’s sake, but Uncle Em said the lamb would be fine. It was already weaned and would live among the down-pasture flock of patient old ewes. I snorted back my tears and wiped my eyes and pretended I hadn’t. Even Rhodri pretended not to notice.

You’ll learn more secrets of our people when you’re older. For now, tell no one of this spirit gift, outside of our family. Emrys made us solemnly swear to this. We were already quite used to keeping secrets. One more was hardly any trouble.

One spring day, four demon-bred sons of Our Silver-Eyed Lady ran up a Welsh hillside and made sacrifice, and the Mother of My People saw it was good.

One spring day, four witches went up a hillside and suddenly there was blood and gore everywhere.

So bloody typical.

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Does just one human thing ever happen without history, without complications, without further explanations required?

A sheep died. Three young demon-bred witch boys were initiated into mysteries of life and death. Just another day at the farm. I may not remember many other fine details of my tenderest youth but I think I’ve always remembered that afternoon pretty well. So did Rhodri. Pryderi never wanted to speak of it again, so I gathered from that he remembered it best of all. Never really cared what Uncle Emrys remembered or not...

Our bodies are full of tricks and traps left to us by our great-many times-great grandparents, whether they were demons or angels, but the cruelest is childhood. Relearning the ways of the world with each rebirth, confronting our twisted natures over and over again to some unknown end as our corrupt old souls struggle with new bodies, new minds, everything new, everything ripe for fresh corruption and despair. A cycle without end, or point, unless the Buddhists and Hindus are right and our ultimate reward is dissolution.

I fear they’re wrong, and the ultimate reward for old, old souls is far worse than blessed oblivion. I fear the demons laughing at us mortals, knowing they were once also mortal, knowing our fates and theirs are twined and twinned, that time and unknowable forces make mockery of us all.

We contain multitudes: soul and spirit born and reborn, arcanum and animas, body and mind. We move forward in time whilst clinging to memories. Nothing happens that we can’t misremember, distort, enhance or forget entirely. Spirit tempers soul’s desires and dreams. Soul demands more than spirit can give. Demon souls are terrible masters for weak human minds and bodies, being it’s so important to act human, to seem harmless amongst the suspicious neighbors. A few of our people do as they please despite the rules of polite society. Some thrive. Some die.

Are we men with hearts of demons, or demons with hearts of men?

Who cares? Drink up! Sláinte!

The fizz of death was a fleeting pleasure, a gulp of ginger pop leaving you wanting more. The lasting power that fizz gave you? Hot tea on a cold winter’s day, an ice lolly cooling your tongue in summer, a sip of a fine aged Scotch. Something to savor for as long as possible.

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The family gathered in the kitchen: Uncle Emrys, Aunt Gaynor, their teenage daughters Aderyn and Nesta, and Pryderi and Rhodri. And myself and my beloved true sister Caitlín, the odd little cuckoos in the nest. After the story was told, Aunt Gaynor urged us boys to try our favorite kiddie glamours and lo! Rhodri’s invisible biscuit and my snake skin lasted many seconds longer than ever before. We were so delighted we wouldn’t stop till our heads ached, so Gaynor played our favorite game of changing our hair all different colors and we laughed the headaches away.

Pryderi only watched, and sighed, and soon went off on our pet donkey to fetch a neighboring Watkins cousin to help butcher our victim. (Those related Watkins were fairly numerous near our farm and in nearby Bangor, among half a dozen other demon-bred families whose north Wales clan boundaries were rather blurry and extremely inbred, not that one could tell without examining their family trees.)

The lamb was weaned, so Caitlín and I fed it grass and herbs to help tame it and named it Zeddie. My sister was then six, and a leading authority on nearly everything.

I saw what happened in the pasture, Caitlín admitted. I was hanging wash with Nesta and saw you all running and shouting, so I followed and I hid inside the flock so none of you saw me but I couldn’t hear everything cos the sheep wouldn’t be quiet. Then I ran back.

You oughtn’t be so sneaky, Cat, Aunt Gaynor said. Though your uncle should have asked you along. He’s a wee bit too traditional sometimes, about what used to be thought men’s magic.

Aderyn and Nesta already had the task of wringing necks of young roosters, the only chickens we ate regularly besides laying hens that died of old age. Farm magic belonged to everyone.

Nobody’s let me make sacrifice yet, Caitlín said with a pout. "Not that I want to. I hate it when things die."

It felt nice, I said. It can’t be very bad if it felt nice.

No, it’s not bad, Gaynor said. It’s but the way Our Lady made things be for us. Her childhood Scots accent still colored her talk, though she’d lived in north Wales so many years.

A fifth-born witch sat with her brood and fosterlings and tried to explain the inexplicable to the innocent.

We ate Sixty-Three Zed’s brain with potatoes and eggs for supper, whilst the dogs devoured raw breast meat and the heart. Gaynor cooked the liver, lungs and other slimy bits into several pounds of haggis the next day, which I was already growing to like very much fried up for breakfast or lunch. The rest of the extremely gamy mutton was hung in the cool stone pantry shed, some for us but mostly for dog food. The skin was sold, but a few bits went into Aderyn’s tanning shed, a stinking stone box far from the house. Her experiments in leather and skin preservation—hard to call it proper taxidermy—decorated every room in the house.

I had to help clean the heavy black fleece later that week, a hard and nasty chore I grew to hate even more than weeding. In a few weeks more there would be dozens of fleeces to clean as shearing season began. Gaynor and the girls would spin some of the wool for knitting, the rest was sold or given away to other witches who wanted it.

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What did two innocent young lads make of it all?

Childhood memories are long, confusing sets of dreams. If we wake soon enough we might remember more than just a few fragments. Did I really have a favorite red jumper once? What month did Nesta summon a flock of gulls to attack an obnoxious family at the Bangor pier? Who else came to our summer picnics by the holy well at the Great Orme? Was Grandda Rhodri’s funeral really just six months ago? Lambing is always late winter, the weather still hard and cold, and planting always begins in spring, our shadows growing longer as we screamed it was unfair to be sent to bed before the sun had set. When did we decide long summer days were unfairly cut short? When did Rhodri, Caitlín and I realize we simply couldn’t hide from the elders anywhere?

Our divine heritage supposedly makes us precocious, children wise beyond our years, far beyond the common herd. I might have failed to live up to that expectation. Though I did enjoy lying still on the ground with Caitlín and Rhodri on pleasant days, soaking in the thrumming life-energy of the earth till it drowned out even springtime birdsong in our ears. No matter that Uncle Em said the thrum was simply bugs and bacteria going about their tiny lives. Our growing senses found it thrilling till finally we found it boring.

Demon-bred or not, five-year old children mostly care about food, toys and running amok. I paid little attention to my elders and their endless daily life-lessons and homilies. I had no idea what it meant that Emrys Watkins was an arch-mage of the Silver Eye, proud descendant of dozens of generations of outstandingly stubborn Celts, and the demons and godlings that once whispered in the ears of demon-bred kings before seducing their power-craving daughters. I had no idea what having demon blood really meant, or why the shining silver face of Our Lady in the night sky often filled me with dread instead of joy. I didn’t understand being called a miracle child, or why Caitlín and I lived on Watkins Farm instead of with our true parents.

I didn’t remember wondering about those things before Sixty-Three Zed died.

Who killed Zeddie’s mother?

I, said my brother,

With my father’s steel knife,

I killed Zeddie’s mother.

Who saw her die?

We did, said you and I,

With our little eyes,

We saw her die.

I sing-song whispered my terrible Cock Robin rhyme to Rhodri and Caitlín as we stared at the stars one night after supper, the shining silver eye of Our Lady partly closed. My rhyme came from somewhere else as we lay on the ground and felt the restless stirrings of the living world around us and within us, and I couldn’t rid myself of it. Nursery rhymes were stupid and violent but there was no escaping them. Gaynor sang some to us every night. I started to hate them, and when I told her so, she read us poems instead.

For all the fierce talk of sacrifice and blood, few animals died on that farm who didn’t simply fall over from old age. But then, demon-bred witches tended to see animals as our natural friends and most desirable companions. Humans were just a royal pain in the arse.

Rhodri and I knew many wild creatures needed our mercy, if that was indeed the point: fallen baby birds covered in ants, cat-mauled baby hares and hedgehogs, stoats and badgers trapped by the nasty, dull-witted farmers all around us. None of them gave us that fizzy feeling, but Doing the Right Thing was serious business. We cried a little the first few times, just as we still sometimes did when a beloved farm animal died. Life is sad. Living things die in terrible ways even when humans are nowhere nearby. We were Our Silver Lady’s agents of peace and release. No need for tears, any more than when an elderly chicken or rabbit became our supper, or a fox ate a vole in our garden.

The ravens, crows and magpies learnt to come to when we called them, though just as often they led us to something they’d already blinded and bloodied. They often couldn’t break the hide of larger prey to get at the good parts. We made knives from a green bottle we broke with rocks for target practice, kept them wrapped in bits of leather in our pockets till needed. Glass was a proper tool for witches, not steel. Pryderi knew that.

Caitlín caught us cleaning our glass knives one gray morning, as our favorite crow clan came to devour a baby badger’s mauled body near to the tanning shed. Our terrier Rally barked fiercely at the diners, the birds beating their wings in his face and making off with the bits we’d cut for them. We only let him have the head. The stupid dog was hell on the local wildlife.

Where did you get that cub? Badgers can hurt you! she exclaimed.

It was from that new sett by the hazel trees. Rally tore it from the hole and hurt it bad.

Did you get fizzy doing that? Caitlín asked.

Not really, Rhodri said. Maybe cos it’s so small.

Why would that would matter? Caitlín mused. A spirit’s a spirit, ain’t it?

Aderyn laid charms at the badger’s den so the dogs couldn’t find it again—the snarling mother still had two cubs. Any other farmer would’ve destroyed the lot, but witches adored badgers, foxes and even stoats, our fellow predators. We had our little ways for keeping our animals safe from them. Rally was not allowed an opinion.

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Watkins Farm was a bit of a lie, really. Not a bad lie. Professor Emrys Watkins really had grown up among the ancient witch clans clinging to the stony windswept foothills of Snowdonia. He drove to Bangor in his tiny battered Morris every morning, also bringing Aderyn, Nesta and Pryderi to school in the city. He left daily running of the farm to Gaynor and a couple of Watkins-Llewellyn cousins who lived in a cottage at the edge of the property.

His life as a history professor at Bangor University puzzled the local folk who had nothing but their sheep and pasture land for a living, or the soon-to-close slate mines. He was careful to never talk down to them, to know the latest gossip, and do his best to seem just a friendly fellow countryman. Which he was.

Few of the neighbors ever saw Watkins House Bangor, or knew it had that name among us. Elder Watkins lived there: Uncle Em’s parents, two of his sisters and their families, and a couple of cousins. He brought me, Caitlín and Rhodri there for a few days each week every spring, to give us a rest from the mayhem of shearing chores, and hot water baths a bit more thorough than allowed by our tin tub outside the farmhouse kitchen.

Their old stone house, with its many rooms and fireplaces, its piano and old stone statues, its stained-glass windows and once-valuable carpets, was perched above the Menai Strait, thick with the scent of the sea.  The streets near the bridge were a grand place to imagine the terrible fates of the ancient Celts of Anglesey, shaking their weapons and shrieking and cursing the murderous foreign Romans attacking from the shore where we now stood. Bones of the last Druids and their killers might’ve been beneath our feet.

The Watkins, Llewellyns, Griffins, Cadogans and Conways were the new Druids. Not that they called themselves such. They let other people dress up in robes and chant in circles to bring fantasies of the past to life. Even Emrys admitted there was no way of knowing what those long-dead mages truly did. Best to make our own way of things, and our clans had been doing so for centuries untold.

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Post-war rationing still held in 1952, and despite the high demand for meat and wool, Emrys mostly ignored government rules about trading his animals. The farm was his haven, his kingdom, his place far from the common folk, nosy parkers and prying eyes. It was also part of a huge network of farms and businesses throughout Britain, owned by demon-bred witches who really only cared about our own people, our comforts, our ways of life.

Spring grew greener every day. Sheepdog Bingley had six puppies, bad timing for a working dog but they were wanted by other farms. We planted more vegetables, and I learnt more charms against the weeds we couldn’t also eat. Aderyn and Nesta dyed the last of last year’s spun wool with herbs and flowers. I tended baby rabbits and chicks with Caitlín and Rhodri. Witches and a few local people came to buy wool, rabbit meat and pelts, ram lambs, and Gaynor’s herbal charms for health. They brought us fish, potatoes, cheese and precious jars of butter. The underground witch economy never failed us.

Gaynor was busy making arrangements for shearing season, besides riding her bicycle about the nearby farms and tiny towns checking on women having babies. Though she came from elsewhere the common folk called her a dyn hysbys, a wise woman, and she often brought home presents of food or clothes. Sometimes those neighbors came to our door seeking help for a child or animal: a sheep badly cut by shears, a person or dog kicked by a horse or cow, a feverish elder in danger of wasting away—things that never happened to witches. Having a professor husband meant she was obviously the best sort of wise woman.

Watkins House Bangor had a beautiful library room, and, though small, the farmhouse was also filled with books. During long winter nights we heard Uncle Em’s long stories about the people who once lived and fought on our land, and King Arthur, and the gods of the ancient days that were now just nursery tales unless you knew the hidden secrets of magic within. I did enjoy the bits about battles and swordfights.

Nesta and Pryderi loved those books and stories. One clear afternoon they went to the