A Beasthood · The Green
Trusty Lake Estates
To be from here is to have been invited, and to know exactly who wasn't.
Their gift: The Threshold. Nothing uninvited crosses, the Grey included. The cost: Help can't get in either; a guest owes a guest's debt; a Shape can ride in on a Beast.
About 500 Beasts call Trusty Lake Estates home.
The place
Space is what old money buys here: long lawns, hedges clipped to a finger's width. The Lake holds the sky without a ripple, as if the water knows not to make a scene. By evening the estates go still on purpose: a latch, gravel, oars in time.
Their gift, and what it costs
The Threshold. Nothing crosses an estate's threshold uninvited, and a guest who eats there owes the house a guest's debt. The cost: help can't come in uninvited either. The limit: a Shape can ride in on a Beast who carries it.
What they want, and what they fear
Want: to keep what they have, and be thought well of. Fear: exposure: a pamphlet, a guest who talks, a gate left open.
People you might meet
- Pemberton (Hare, keeper of the oldest gate). Locks it at dusk, then comes back to check it. "A gate is a gate. That's rather the point."
- Muffy Vanderhoek (Piglet, Sunday host). Seats the guests the committee dreads next to the committee: "Let them be shocked over cake." Has already sent invitations for the Quiet Week's Sunday.
- Ashby Lytton (Hare, Open Trials' fastest arms). The Founders' Eight on Ashby: "Terribly fast. Fast is so very new."
- Cressida Lyle (Hare, of the Lyle house): "I painted the gate grey on a Tuesday, and the knocking stopped by Thursday. It isn't hiding. It's a colour."
Neighbours and old business
- Concrete Jungle: the Reveal showed the Jungle's first built the estates' oldest rooms.
- Bullhattan: new money, as far as the estates are concerned.
Books from Trusty Lake Estates
A Beast's Book is written from their holder's choices.
No Book from Trusty Lake Estates is open yet. A holder of a Beast from here can begin theirs in the game.
More about Trusty Lake Estates
Their scarIn the Grey Year the estates shut every gate on the Jungle's first and went still, and the Grey passed over.
In the Grey Year the estates shut every gate on the Jungle's first and went still, and the Grey passed over. In the Drowned Spring, fifty years ago, the first boat rowed out for help: the Long Row. At the Open Gate, five months ago, visitors came out humming names they didn't know. The estates' three Detectives have matched all but nine to the Hush.
What they argue aboutFounders' Eight against Open Trials: who rows the first boat each spring, the old houses or the fastest arms.
Founders' Eight against Open Trials: who rows the first boat each spring, the old houses or the fastest arms. The Eight hold the boat; Open Trials hold the boathouse after dark.
This seasonThe Understudy wants five Quiet Weeks before the Long Night and put Trusty Lake first, which the committee took as a compliment.
The Understudy wants five Quiet Weeks before the Long Night and put Trusty Lake first, which the committee took as a compliment. The vote is at the first frost, and the committee has it by one chair, Pemberton's. Passing is easy. Then someone must walk to Concrete Jungle, which reads names aloud every morning anyway, and ask it to say the estates' five hundred names every day of the week.
The Hush hereA grey gate passes for good taste here, and the Hush argue best on these lawns.
A grey gate passes for good taste here, and the Hush argue best on these lawns. The Understudy put it to a Sunday Lawn in one line: "You went still once and kept everyone. Do it again, and the next Long Night comes smaller." For: the committee, Cressida, every host too tired for another Lawn. Against: Muffy, Open Trials, and newcomers who would rather not owe the Jungle anything.
PlacesThe oldest house: frost doesn't form on its gate, and its knocker is set low, at the height of a small Beast's hand.
- The oldest house: frost doesn't form on its gate, and its knocker is set low, at the height of a small Beast's hand.
- The strongrooms: Marks under every house: the Beastside's quiet fortune.
- The Gatehouse Book: every guest since the Gathering, and the turned-away. Its second volume, every guest's debt, is read aloud each year on the night of the first frost.
What they think is going on"Patience. It passes."
"Patience. It passes." Slow to notice when it doesn't.