Blythewood (14 page)

This one cringed and skulked along the perimeter of the
circle, its sharp claws scrabbling over the ground, its tail lashing like a snake.

I didn’t think the creature looked particularly human
or
harmless. I had gone past the point of doubting the evidence
of my eyes. These creatures—at least two dozen of them now
ringed the glade—were not of this world. I had always wondered how my mother had made her stories so vivid, and now I
knew. She had seen these creatures firsthand.

“Some even look quite lovely.” Dame Beckwith held out her
hand and whistled a long trilling note. One of the lights outside
the circle detached itself from the fog and floated toward her
outstretched hand. “Don’t be alarmed,” Dame Beckwith said.
“Only the ones I summon can breach the circle.” When the blur
of light alighted on Dame Beckwith’s hand I saw it was a diminutive winged person—a sprite clothed in blue and green flames.

“Oooh,” Daisy cooed beside me. “She’s so pretty!”
“Yes, isn’t it,” Dame Beckwith said, turning her hand so
that the creature revolved slowly, like a ballerina pirouetting on
a spot-lit stage. “Genus:
Fatae
; species:
lychnobia
; subspecies:
ignis fatuus
. Commonly known as a will-o’-the-wisp, Jennyburnt-tail, Kit-in-the-Candlestick, or lampsprite. Collectively
known as a conflagration of lampsprites. Their favorite trick
is leading unwary travelers into bogs and marshes and then
laughing while they drown.”
The lampsprite tilted its head and blinked its wide yellowgreen eyes innocently at Dame Beckwith. “And if that was all
they did we might leave them be, but they also have another
nasty trick up their sleeves.”
Dame Beckwith brought her hand closer to her face, pursed
her lips, and blew as if she were extinguishing a candle. The
flames surrounding the lampsprite eddied in the gust and
shrunk around the tiny figure like scraps of crumpled silk.
Then a high-pitched whine, like the buzz of a mosquito magnified a thousand times, filled the circle and the tiny delicate creature exploded into a living, breathing fireball. Enormous wings
veined with lightning stretched over our heads. The pretty face
was transformed into a snarling mask of rage, pointed teeth
and long, sharp talons poised to tear Dame Beckwith apart. It
hissed and dove, but before it could reach Dame Beckwith one
of the cloaked figures stepped forward, lifted a bow, and shot
an arrow into the creature’s breast. The creature crumbled to
the ground at Dame Beckwith’s feet.
“Look at it,” Dame Beckwith commanded. “This is its true
face.”
Drawn by her voice—and a horrible curiosity—we all gathered round the wounded creature—all except the robed figures
and the seven Dianas, who stood guard around us, bows drawn.
Blue flames still flickered over its body, but the figure was no
longer the pretty thing that we’d seen a minute ago. Its face was
seamed with blue veins, its ears pointed and tufted with coarse
fur, its eyes bloodshot and bulging. A hideous monster.
“Like all creatures of Faerie the lampsprite assumes a pleasing mien to lure you astray. And that is exactly what they will
do: lead you astray. Members of our own Order have been led
astray by the most beautiful of these creatures—the Darklings.
“They were so beautiful they made us forget they were
not human, that they were
demons
. Once the Order even ventured into an alliance with them, but they soon showed their
true natures and betrayed us, after using their dark powers to
manipulate us. You must never forget that these creatures are
monsters. It is our duty to protect the world against them. That
is what you have come to Blythewood to do. You will learn here
the secrets of these monsters. How to recognize their wiles and
disguises and—”
Dame Beckwith touched the toe of her boot to the sprite’s
ribs and, like an ember stabbed by a fire poker, its body collapsed into a pile of gray ash.
“—how to hunt them down and destroy them.
“So, girls, now that you know the Blythewood mystery, I
ask you: Are you ready to take up the fight against evil?”
My fellow nestlings stirred. I looked at the faces of the
girls I’d come with. Cam, with her hair sticking up in spikes,
Daisy with her lacy high-necked nightgown and wide innocent
eyes, Helen with her snobbery and entitlement, Beatrice and
Dolores with their world-weary melancholy—all these differences seemed to have fallen away. I saw a dozen sets of burning
eyes, lifted chins, and firm jaws. I thought of Tillie suddenly, of
how she looked when she stood up to the bosses, and I thought
of what Mr. Greenfeder had called us:
farbrente maydlakh
.
Fiery girls. If Tillie were here, how eagerly would she take up
this fight!
“Yes,” Cam burst out. “I want to
do
something. I want to
make a difference.”
An answering murmur swept through the circle.
Yes, me
too!
It was impossible not to be swept up in the enthusiasm.
Who wouldn’t want to fight evil, to push back the tide of darkness?
“Then join me in your second oath of the night. You have
already sworn yourself to Blythewood. You now may swear
yourselves to the Order of the Bells.”
Dame Beckwith held up the golden handbell. The robed
figures on the edges of the circle each held up a handbell as well
and lowered their hoods. I saw the faces of our teachers illuminated by torchlight, glowing with a fervor that transformed
them from ordinary schoolteachers to knights and ladies in a
medieval stained-glass window. Even Euphorbia Frost’s heavy
face shone with passion. Only Lillian Corey’s face remained
unseen behind her veil.
“You have only to say, ‘I pledge myself to the Order of the
Bells.’ But to be sure, we ask that you repeat the words seven
times to the chiming of the bells.” She rang her bell—as did
all the teachers—and we all repeated the words, once for each
time the bells rang. Each time I said the words I felt them
sinking deeper inside of me, reverberating with the chimes,
the vibrations clearing away all other thoughts and doubts.
This
was why I had always heard the bells in my head! I had
always been meant to come here. When the bells rang the
seventh time I felt sure that I truly belonged to the Order.
I began to say the oath for the seventh and last time, but as I
did I saw something stir in the fog. Something with black wings
and a flash of eyes that looked . . . familiar. Could it be one of the
Darklings Dame Beckwith had spoken of? I gasped and looked
around to see if anyone else had spotted it, but all my classmates were looking at the bell in Dame Beckwith’s hand, their
eyes shining as brightly as its gold in their fervor and certainty.
I was the only one who was looking into the shadows—and
the only one, I suspected, who had failed to finish her vows.

WE WERE ESCORTED out of the grove, our teachers ahead
ringing their handbells and the Dianas bringing up the rear
with their bows drawn. The ghastly goblins scattered at the
sound of the bells, but I still heard rustling in the underbrush
and caught glimpses of the floating lights amid the fog-bound
trees. I didn’t see any sign of the Darkling. Perhaps I had imagined it.

“Perhaps it was all a dream,” Daisy whispered, echoing my
thought about the Darkling. “Perhaps we’ll wake up in our own
beds and realize it was all a dream.”

“I only dream of
nice
things,” Helen insisted. “Of cotillions
and dances, lace dresses and diamond earrings. I would never,
ever
dream of horrible slavering monsters!” She swatted angrily at a low-hanging branch and swore in a most unladylike
fashion when it snapped back and hit her in the face.

“You must keep up with the others,” admonished the Diana
behind us, a stern-looking girl with spectacles and sharp chin
whom I recognized as the girl who’d run by me chasing a falcon
yesterday. “You’re already the last in the queue and I’m not allowed to linger behind.”

“You’re a fine one to speak, Helen. The van Beeks are only
tolerated here because of your mother’s friendship with Dame
Beckwith.”

“How dare you! My mother would never presume on India Beckwith. Why, I didn’t even
want
to come here. I begged
Mother and Daddy to let me stay home, and Dame Beckwith
herself came to implore me to come.”

“Then why don’t you leave,” Charlotte Falconrath suggested, jutting out her sharp chin. “You were given a chance before
the initiation. Why don’t you just slink off in the dark like the
other cowards?”

“Dame Beckwith said there was no shame attached to
those who left,” Daisy cut in. Charlotte and Helen both turned
to stare, as startled as I was to hear Daisy speak up. Charlotte
recovered from her surprise first.

“
That’s
what we tell the girls who leave, but of course it’s not
what we say amongst ourselves. You wouldn’t know that, not
being one of our kind.”

“Leave her out of this,” Helen growled. “Daisy has just as
much right to be here as you or I do.”
“Maybe, but what right does
she
have”—Charlotte’s eyes
raked me with undisguised disdain—”after what her mother
did?”
The words were hardly out of her mouth before Helen
was upon her, fists flying. Charlotte was so shocked at the
attack that she automatically drew back her arms, releasing
the arrow she’d been holding ready. It shot into the woods
and hit something that yelped. We all looked at each other.
“Now look what you made me do—” Charlotte began, but
then her eyes widened with terror. Something was coming out
of the woods toward us. Something
big
.
“Draw another arrow!” I yelled at Charlotte, but she had
already turned and fled, running toward the house—which is
what we all should have done. But when I grabbed Daisy’s hand
and pulled, she was frozen to the spot. Helen grabbed a stick
from the ground and brandished it. I did the same and stood,
prepared to meet the thing that was coming for us. From the
noise it was making in the underbrush it seemed to be as large
as a rhinoceros. It broke through the fog with a crash, fair hair
flying, arms pinwheeling, spraying blood. Helen cocked back
her stick to strike it, but I grabbed her arm.
“It’s Nate!” I shouted, recognizing the pale, drawn face just
before Helen struck him.
“Nate?” Helen cried, falling to her knees beside him as he
fell to the ground. He was clutching his shoulder, from which
protruded Charlotte’s arrow. “What are you doing here?”
“I followed you  .  .  .” he gasped. “They told us about the
fairies at Hawthorn, but I wanted to see it for myself. Mother
forbade me—she said the initiation was only for girls—so I
snuck out.”
“But if you were outside the circle, why didn’t the goblins
and sprites attack you?” I asked, appalled at the thought of being outside with those creatures—and then realizing that we
were outside the circle with them
now
.
“I climbed a tree and hid,” Nate said. “Besides, they didn’t
look so fearsome until Mother provoked that fire thingum. And
look—it was one of her amazons that mortally wounded me.”
“Pshaw!” Helen clucked. “It’s only a scratch.” She pulled his
shirt back to uncover the place where the arrow was lodged an
inch into his skin. “I suppose I can pull it out.”
“No!” Nathan screamed. “Are you daft? I’ll bleed to death!”
“Well, then we’ll take you to your mother and she’ll see to
it,” Helen said. “She was a nurse in the Second Boer War.”
“But then she’ll know I was out in the woods and she’ll send
me away again. No, I suppose you had better take it out, but let
me brace myself—” Before he could finish, Daisy reached out
her tiny hand and wrenched the arrow cleanly free of Nathan’s
shoulder. Nathan screamed and grabbed his arm.
“Well done!” I told Daisy. “Now let’s wrap his arm. Here.”
I tore off the ruffled flounce at the bottom of my nightgown
and handed it to Helen to wrap around Nathan’s arm. We each
had to sacrifice a ruffle from our gowns to staunch the blood,
but when we were done the bleeding had stopped and Nathan,
although pale, was still conscious—and speaking.
“Are you sure I don’t need a few more lengths of bandage?”
he asked, ogling our bare ankles.
Helen swatted him. “The only cloth I’m going to sacrifice
for you is a gag for your mouth, Nathan Beckwith. Now if you
can walk, we’d better be getting back to the house or we’ll be
punished for breaking curfew.”
“I think we have a worse problem.” Daisy’s voice, hardly
louder than the creak of branches, made me look up from Nathan’s face to hers. She was staring into the woods behind my
back, her eyes huge as a startled deer’s. The hair on the back of
my neck rose and a cold chill crept down my spine. The bass
bell was tolling inside my head and had been for several minutes, I realized, only I’d been too busy tending to Nathan to notice it. I turned, slowly.
There were dozens of creatures: the rat-faced goblin men,
the glowing lampsprites, and others we hadn’t seen before—
hairy dwarfs with bulbous noses, green-scaled lizard men,
goat-horned women—all creeping stealthily closer to us.
“We’re surrounded,” Daisy whimpered. “What can we do?”
What
could
we do? We had no weapons—no bell, or bow
and arrow, or lantern fire. I saw one of the lizard men lick its
lips with a long forked tongue, drool dripping off sharp fangs.
It opened its mouth wide. I was sure it meant to lunge and bite
us, but then it did something even more frightening. It spoke.
“Hunn . . . gree!”
“Did it just say it was hungry?” Daisy asked, wide-eyed.
“Well I don’t think it’s asking us for tea!” Helen cried. “I
believe it means to eat us.”
“Not if I can help it,” Nathan growled, his good hand curling around a stick. “I’ll beat them back while you girls run.”
“No,” I said, the word coming out of my mouth before I’d
known I was going to speak. “We’ll stand together.” I found the
stick I’d dropped and grasped it. I rose to my feet slowly and
the others followed. I could hear Helen’s quick, shallow breaths
and a soft whimper from Daisy and a creak of wood as Nathan
shifted the stick in his hand. Back in the circle, while the rest of
my classmates took their oaths, I’d felt like I was on the outside
looking in, but now I felt like I belonged—maybe not to Blythewood, but to this little group of four. I clenched my arm and
swung back the branch and braced myself for the attack.
But it came not from the woods but from above. A great
whoosh of wind and roar of wings crashed into the clearing
like a black whirlwind descending from the clouds. The creature landed a few feet in front of us, its back to us, huge black
wings beating the air. One of the goblins darted beneath its feet
but the winged creature grabbed it and flung it against a tree,
where it slid limply to the ground. The goblins, sprites, and
other creatures scattered, evaporating into the fog as suddenly
and stealthily as they had appeared. Then the winged creature
turned to face us.
I heard Helen and Daisy gasp. My mother had taken me to
the Metropolitan Museum once and we’d seen a Greek sculpture of Adonis. This young man, dressed in only loose trousers,
had the same beauty, the same fine white limbs and muscular
chest—all the whiter against the ebony gloss of the enormous
wings spread out behind him. His wings were the same color
as his tumbling dark hair and bottomless black eyes—eyes I
had seen before, on the day of the Triangle fire and nearly every
night in my dreams since then.
“You!” I cried, the word escaping from my lips. His lips
parted, but before he could speak Nate ran at him with his stick
raised. The dark-winged boy flexed one wing and swatted Nate
away like a fly. Then he turned back to me, and his eyes locked
on mine. He took a step forward. As his wings beat, the air
stirred around me like warm water lapping against my skin. I
should have felt afraid, but I didn’t. The bass bell was no longer
ringing in my head. Instead the treble bell chimed sweetly as
a crystal chandelier swaying in a breeze. He tilted his head, as
though listening.
He heard them.
The dark-eyed boy could hear the bells inside my head. The thought filled me with joy. Because if someone else could hear the bells inside my head it meant I wasn’t
crazy.
But then the tinkling was replaced by a solemn knell, the
leaden bells of Blythewood ringing midnight. The boy looked
up, his white profile a cameo carved against the ebony of his
wings. When he turned back his eyes were as fearful as when
he’d seen the crows swooping down on us on the roof of the
Triangle building. I felt the same tingle of electricity flowing
between us as I had then. I took a step forward, my hand raised,
but he flexed his wings and took off, the force of his wings’ draft
knocking me backward as he rose into the night.
Something fluttered down to earth in his wake. I knelt and
picked it up. It was a long black feather, identical to the one I had
found on the floor beside my mother on the day she died.
The boy who had saved me from the fire, who haunted my
dreams, was one of the Darklings Dame Beckwith had warned
us about. And a Darkling had been with my mother when she
died.