“He’s been doing that flannel thing again; it’s not natural.”

“Flannel thing?” Mirielle D’Illay eyed her soon-to-be mother-in-law, Mabel Washwell, with curiosity.

“That Reggie fellow. He’s flannelling again.”

“Oh that,” smiled Mirielle. “Flâneuring, not flannelling. Don’t worry, it is fine. Baudelaire did it all the time in Paris.”

“Well, maybe she did, but this ain’t Paris and folks on Hopeless find it strange.”

“Reggie is strange,” said Mirielle, suppressing an urge to laugh, “but that is because…”

“He is English!” said Mabel, finishing the sentence for her. “Yes, you’ve said that before, at least a hundred times, and I can’t help but wonder why you want that mad old fool to give you away when you marry Septimus.”

“Because he is clever, and brave and well-mannered. All things that I wish my own father had been.”

Mabel knew that Mirielle’s father had been sent to the guillotine for strangling her mother.  They seemed to be a headstrong family.

“And he talks to himself,” Mabel said, disapprovingly.

Mirielle had heard enough. She stormed from the room, slamming the door behind her.

“She’s as mad as Reggie,” muttered Mabel. “I just hope that Septimus knows what he’s getting himself into.”

Reggie had, indeed, been flâneuring, wandering aimlessly around the island, waving his sword stick and, apparently, involved in deep conversation with no one in particular. 

“How on earth the family aren’t aware is beyond me, but is it my place to tell them?”

There followed a short pause, then Reggie said,

“But you don’t know that for certain, Annie, after all… no, please don’t interrupt, just hear me out…”

“Is everything alright, Reggie?”

The voice was that of Philomena Bucket. She and Drury were on their way back to The Squid and Teapot, after a bracing walk on The Gydynap Hills.

“What? Oh yes, all is tickety-boo thank you m’dear. Just thrashing out a few thoughts.”

“Only I heard you mention Annie. Is she trying to get out again?”

Annie was Reggie’s tulpa, the thought form he had created years before in India, while serving in the British army.

“No, she’s behaving herself,” smiled Reggie. “I was just running a few things by her.”

“You could run them by me instead,” said Philomena. “It would be a lot safer. You know what happened before…”

She recalled how the tulpa had escaped, and had it not been for a few well-chosen spells and copious amounts of absinthe, the experience might have cost Reggie his life.

Reggie nodded; the prospect of sitting in the snug of The Squid with Philomena, while nursing a tankard of Old Colonel, seemed much more appealing than wandering through an increasingly dismal day, talking to the shadow- form of someone who had walked out of his life twenty years earlier.

“Do you know the legends surrounding a seventh son?” asked Reggie.

Philomena looked at him questioningly. What a strange thing to ask. But surely he meant to say the seventh son of a seventh son?

“I am surprised that you haven’t sensed the power residing in that young man,” said Reggie. “I certainly have, and you are far more attuned to these things than I am.”

“You’re talking about Septimus? He’s nothing special, I don’t think.”

“Look closer, m’dear. I have seen it before. Whatever is brewing inside that lad, it is like a volcano, just waiting to blow its lid.”

“I thought it was only the seventh son of a seventh son who had such power,” said Philomena, suddenly realising what Reggie was trying to say.

“No, not necessarily,” said Reggie. “Occasionally it can fall to the first generation. How old is Septimus?”

“Twenty-one next birthday, I believe,” said Philomena.

Reggie groaned.

“Let me tell you a story” he said. “When I was in India, one of our young subalterns, a chap by the name of Arlingham, was being given a difficult time by some of the more senior officers. You know the sort, they’ll turn against anyone from the wrong class, wrong school and so forth. One way and another, they made his life Hell.”

Philomena wondered where this tale might be going.

“To young Arlingham’s credit, he did not make any fuss about it, he just kept his head down and scribbled away in his notebooks, keeping himself to himself, as far as possible.  On his twenty-first birthday I shared a drink with him, and it was then that he told me that he was a seventh son. Of course, I didn’t think any more of it. I didn’t know as much then as I do now. You see, that was before I met the Theosophist, Annie Besant.”

“So that was the mysterious Annie’s full name,” thought Philomena, storing the information away for later investigation.

“Anyway, I digress. From that moment on, strange things began to happen. My fellow officers started dying off in unusual circumstances. I could not help but notice that there was one common denominator in this spate of fatalities, and that was Charles Arlingham. Each and every victim had at some point given Arlingham a bad time. Outwardly, there was nothing to link him to the deaths, or indeed connect them together. A hunting accident, a snake bite, a mysterious illness, a fall from a building… all random mishaps, to all intents and purposes. But, with each new death, Arlingham looked increasingly petrified, as if waiting to be blamed. However, as I said, there was no way that he, or anyone else, could have been held responsible.”

Reggie took a generous swig of Old Colonel and stared into the fire for a few seconds.

“Then there was the final death,” he said. “That of Charles Arlingham himself. There was no doubt who did it, either. He took half of his head away with his rifle.”

Philomena winced. She sat quietly, waiting for the tale’s dénouement, and how it might affect Septimus.

“When, after his suicide, we went through Arlingham’s notebooks, we found that he had described, in great detail, the manner of death of each of his tormentors. It made no sense; he could not have planned the murders, and indeed, none of the fatalities could even have been ascribed to murder.  Nothing came of it, of course. Even if things could have been explained, the British Army are not in the business of drawing attention to such things. Arlingham and his colleagues were quietly buried with a few military honours and no more was ever said about the incident.”

“So why are you worrying about this now?” asked Philomena.

“I can see the same latent power in Septimus that – admittedly with hindsight – I noticed in Charles Arlingham. What I didn’t tell you, Philomena, was that he had listed that catalogue of deaths several weeks before they occurred. They were fantasies; wishes, if you like, not deeds, but once Arlingham had his twenty-first birthday, and the power of the seventh son was released, those wishes became flesh, so to speak. When he learned of the enormity of that which he had done, it drove the poor chap to take his own life.”

“And you’re worried about Septimus doing something similar?”

“Septimus is the first to admit that he has a violent side – that was how he came to take up Le Danse Apache, as you recall. If that lad has any malign thoughts towards anyone, they need to be purged now, before his birthday.”

“I don’t know what I can do?” said Philomena.

“Your grandmother might have some idea.”

Philomena nodded. Although she had been dead for years, the ghost of Granny Bucket could usually be relied upon to find a solution to most problems of an occult nature. The only problem was that Granny came and went as she pleased, and there was no way of getting hold of her if she had no wish to be contacted.

“She has invited herself to the wedding,” said Philomena, “and that is a few days before Septimus celebrates his twenty-first.”

“That’s cutting it fine,” said Reggie. “In the meantime, I’ll try and ascertain if that young man is harbouring any dark thoughts. Maybe Mirielle might know.”

“Good luck with that!” thought Philomena.