“That’s impossible,” said Mrs. Davies. “I mean, begging your pardon, Miss Montgomery, but the keep’s right there, sticking up out of the ground, as large as life and twice as solid, at the top of the cliff above the boathouse. You see, the boathouse belongs to the keep—Miss Trelawny uses it for a little sailboat she has. A mighty fine little boat, and she’s a good sailor. When she was younger, she used to sail around the bay and pull it up on the sand below. Not that she had to do much pulling herself—there were always young men about, willing to help her. She was quite a favorite in the village, and at our dances. Any number of partners, she had! I was worried for a while that she might marry one of our fishing lads, which would have been below her station. Quite a wild young lady she was, but so lovely, with that long dark hair! I was glad when she got engaged to that solicitor from London. Such a handsome man, although handsome is as handsome does, my mother always says. But when they came here together, he was always genteel and wellspoken. So tragic, what happened—I don’t wonder that she left for London after the accident. I imagine this area held terrible sad memories for her. Now, if you’re not wanting any more stew, how about some pudding? I have a lovely quince fool to finish off your dinner.”
“Yes, please,” said Diana. “And I’ll have Beatrice’s fool as well, since she only eats goop.”
“All right, then.” Mrs. Davies nodded. “I’ll have them out in a moment.”
When she had gone, Catherine said, “We know Alice can make herself invisible.” She put the remainder of her stew in front of Justine. “Look, I picked out all the fish. You can have the rest.” She took the small plate on which Justine had put all her fish and started eating them as well. “Mrs. Raymond is stronger than Alice, and Queen Tera is even stronger. Could one of them have made the entire keep invisible? I mean, make us not see it. You know, by manipulating our perceptions of it. I swear, Diana and I walked along that path twice. We didn’t see anything.”
“That’s true,” said Diana. “I had to walk all the way to Perranwhatever and then all the way back. Does anyone else not want their fool? Because I’m hungry.”
“I don’t think Mrs. Raymond could,” said Mary. “If she could make an entire house invisible herself, she wouldn’t have needed to summon Queen Tera. But Tera? Who knows what she can do. See, this was the problem with confronting them at the keep in the first place. They’re behind stone walls, so they have physical defenses. They can anticipate our moments and prepare for us. And they can see us coming—keeps have windows, remember? I told you it wouldn’t work. We need to surprise them in some way. I guess we’ll have to go with the plan Beatrice and I came up with on the island.”
“All right then, since you’re such a genius planner,” said Catherine, “tell us your plan.”
Mary put her soup plate in the middle of the table. “Imagine this is the island. And this spoon is the causeway. This butter knife—Justine, give me yours as well. These butter knives are the harbor. It’s shallow, so to get Her Majesty to the island, they will send a barge out to her yacht, to bring her in. Our first line of defense is the beacon—I don’t have anything to represent that, so you’ll just have to imagine it. Or wait, I’ll put this piece of bread on top of the fish bones. All right, that’s the tower, except it really should be taller—you all saw it across the water when we were coming up from the train depot. St. Michael’s Mount has a beacon at the top of the tower that was once used to warn the inhabitants of Marazion when there were pirates in the cove. We’re going to light the beacon and warn the Queen’s yacht away from the island.”
“How are we going to get into the castle?” asked Catherine.
“I’m going to pick the lock,” said Diana. “That should be obvious. Mary doesn’t even need to say it.”
“Right,” said Mary, annoyed at Diana, although she was of course correct. “There are three doors: the castle, the chapel, and the tower. All the locks look as though they date from the medieval era.”
“Easy peasy,” said Diana.
“We will climb up the tower,” said Beatrice. “The housekeeper, Mrs. Russell, described a narrow staircase leading to the top. There, we will light a fire with rags soaked in turpentine. Perhaps some of you can come with me to the general store? I will need help carrying all the things we must purchase. I estimate that we will need a gallon of turpentine—it will be difficult to keep a fire burning in the storm that is coming tonight.”
“There is one additional complication,” said Mary. “No one will be allowed to cross the causeway tomorrow, so we have to cross at the next low tide, which is at eight o’clock tonight.”
“Mary, I told you it is dangerous,” said Beatrice. “How can we cross the causeway in the dark? We could miss our footing and be swept out to sea!”
“We’ll have to carry lanterns,” said Catherine.
“No lanterns,” said Mary. “Someone might see us. But it’s a full moon tonight—we should be able to see our way. At least, I hope we’ll be able to. Anyway, we don’t have much of a choice. We don’t have a boat, do we? We could hire one, but none of us knows how to sail. And I don’t think any of the local fishermen would be willing to carry five women over to St. Michael’s Mount after dark! Anyway, we’ll need to be there before low tide tomorrow morning to implement the second part of our plan. Our second line of defense is the spoon—I mean the causeway. Queen Tera and whoever is with her—I assume Margaret Trelawny and Mrs. Raymond, although they may have Alice with them as well—will need to cross the causeway at low tide, which begins at eight thirty a.m. They will probably make themselves invisible so they won’t be seen crossing. On the island, there is a stone wall that separates the village from the castle grounds. Cat, give me your butter knife. That’s the stone wall although it’s more curved. In order to get to the castle, you have to pass through that wall. Just where the causeway touches the land, where the spoon touches the soup bowl, there is an arched gateway in the wall that leads to the path up the hillside. I’ll use more bread for that. They’ll have to pass under that arch unless they want to go to the other side of the village, where there is another opening—but that one leads up through forest. I think they’ll choose the easier route. Before they can cross to the island, we’ll put fishing line across the gateway, with a bell attached. When they walk into the fishing line, the bell will ring. We’ll be hiding behind the wall, and we’ll know they’re there, even if we can’t see them. Then, we can spring out and spray Beatrice’s pepper solution into the air above the fishing line. We don’t have paprika, but she says she can make it with ordinary pepper, although it won’t be as strong. Hopefully, it will disrupt their concentration long enough for the illusion to dissipate, and we’ll be able to see them. If we can see them, we can wound Tera in some way before she fires off any of her lightning bolts, which will at least give us a chance. I wish we knew of some way to disrupt the mesmerical waves, but we still have not heard from Ayesha. No telegram again today—I asked Mrs. Davies and she even checked at the telegraph office for me. Nothing.”