Blythewood (15 page)

WE WERE ABLE to sneak back into the house because Nathan knew of a back door near the scullery that was never
locked.

“Won’t Charlotte have told them we were left behind?” I
asked.
“And get herself in trouble for abandoning us?” Helen
scoffed. “Not her. The Falconraths are notorious cowards. One
of her ancestors was executed for desertion in the Revolutionary War.”
“My bet is that she told the others that you returned,” Nathan added. “Otherwise there’d already be a search party out
looking for us.”
“Won’t your mother know you were gone?” I asked him,
unsettled by the idea that we all could have gone missing with
no one the wiser.
“Mother stays up all night in her study working. I doubt
she’d notice if the castle burned down around her—and besides, my room is two floors below hers in the North Wing.” He
shrugged and then winced at the pain in his shoulder.
“But won’t she notice that you’ve been hurt?” I asked.
“Not unless I fling myself between her and her books and
drip blood over some priceless ancient manuscript. Honestly,
I’ll be fine, but you three will get kitchen duty for a week if anyone catches you outside your room. You’d better hurry up.”
Daisy plucked at my sleeve, anxious to go. Helen was watching Nate and me warily.
“You’ve certainly become chummy with Nathan in a short
time,” Helen remarked when we’d left him.
“I’m worried about his injury. And not only that. He
seems . . . haunted somehow.”
Helen snorted. “Haunted by gambling debts and jealous
husbands, perhaps. Don’t let Nathan fool you. That
sensitive
soul
pose is just an act to make girls fall for him. Clearly it’s
worked with you. You obviously have a crush on him.”
“I do not—” I began, but Daisy, who was ahead of us on the
stairs, stopped dead and wheeled around.
“Are the two of you really arguing over a boy when we
have just learned that the world is populated by fairies and
monsters—which is definitely
not
what I was brought up to
believe—and
we
are the ones supposed to protect people from
them?”
“Of course it’s a shock—” Helen began.
“Did you really not know?” Daisy demanded. “Even with
all the van Beek women who have gone here?”
Helen shook her head. “I’d heard stories, but nothing like
this.”
“And you.” Daisy turned to me. “Your mother went here.
She never told you?”
“No,” I said. “Whenever she spoke of Blythewood it was
with fondness and longing. I knew there were secrets she

wasn’t telling, but I thought they had to do with my father.”
“Perhaps your father was killed by one of those monsters,”
Helen suggested.
“I’ll bet it was a Darkling,” Daisy said. “One of the creatures
that Dame Beckwith told us were so beautiful they tricked the
Order into believing they were good. You can see why.” Daisy’s
voice grew faint. “The one we saw
was
beautiful.”
“But deadly,” Helen said.
“But he saved us!” I blurted out. I couldn’t tell them that it
wasn’t the first time he had saved me. “I thought he was going to
abduct one of us from the way he was staring.” Helen shivered
and wrapped her arms around herself.
“He was staring at Ava,” Daisy said. “It looked like he was
going to grab her, but then the bells rang. That’s what saved us
from him. Remember what Dame Beckwith said—the fairies
can make themselves look beautiful to fool us. Who knows
what that Darkling
really
looks like. He could be a monster.
And it’s up to us to protect the world from his kind. I feel . . .”
Daisy lifted a hand and placed it over her heart. She was shaking so hard she swayed on the steps. I reached out a hand to
steady her, afraid that the shock had been too much for her and
she was going to faint or have a convulsion of some kind, but
when she spoke her voice was steady and strong as the toll of
the bells in the tower. “I feel as if, for the first time in my life, I
have found my purpose.”

Only when I was in bed did I allow myself to think about what
I had seen. Daisy and Helen likely assumed that my quiet while
we got into bed came from the shock of “the revelation of the
Rowan Circle (as, we would learn on the morrow, the Blythewood girls called the first night’s events). They couldn’t
know it came from the shock of discovering that the boy who
had saved me from the Triangle fire was a Darkling—the sworn
enemy of the Order.

But maybe he hadn’t been trying to save me. He’d shown
up at the factory just before the man in the Inverness cape had.
And then I’d seen him whispering in the man’s ear—to distract
him, I’d thought at the time, but what if he’d really been working with the man in the cape? After all, I’d woken up in Bellevue after the fire. Mr. Greenfeder said he thought the boy
had left me on the pavement, but maybe he was the one who
had carried me to Bellevue—right into Dr. Pritchard’s and the
caped man’s hands.

Knowing what I now knew about the dark-winged boy and
the other creatures that were part of our world, I wondered
what other symptoms of my madness were real. Had smoke really poured from the mouth of the man in the Inverness cape?
Had he followed me to my grandmother’s townhouse? What
about the bells inside my head? Were they somehow connected
to the Blythewood bells that scared away the boy?

And then there was the black feather I’d found lying on
the floor beside my mother’s body. Had a Darkling visited my
mother just before she died? Or even killed her?

My thoughts spinning in a dizzying cycle, I fell into an uneasy slumber . . . straight into the dark woods, where I was running, chased by slavering goblins and vicious firesprites. I heard
their angry growls behind me, coming ever closer. I tripped on
a root, fell to the ground, and felt their claws on my legs, their
hot, fetid breath on my face.

And then
he
was there, his great black wings beating away
all the fearsome creatures, his arms wrapping around me, lifting me up. I looked up into his face: as always, a rim of fire from
the setting sun haloing noble features stamped clean as a coin.
Then he turned his face and the line of fire spread in a network
of veins, just as lightning had spread across the face of the firesprite. The flame crawled from his face down the fine white
skin of his throat and across the carved sinews and muscles
of his chest. It spread like cracks in an old China teacup when
you pour hot water into it, only these cracks were made of fire
and burned away flesh, changing him before my eyes from the
beautiful boy of my dreams into a horrid monster.

I lifted my hand to ward off the sight and saw something
even more terrifying. The cracks had spread to me. My own
skin was dissolving along with his.

I woke, drenched in sweat, sheets tangled, to the sound of
bells. I held my hand up to my face, terrified that I’d find those
cracks in my skin. After last night who knew what was a dream
and what was real? Morning sunlight limned my fingers with
fire, but my flesh remained whole. Still, as I rose and dressed for
the day I felt as if the cracks were there, just as in an old teacup
that hides its flaws until hot water reveals them. Sooner or later
they would show up for all the world to see.

I discovered at breakfast that I wasn’t the only girl who had
been visited by bad dreams. There were empty places at the
tables in the dining hall. Passing Georgiana’s table I heard
her say, “At least
some
of the chaff has been separated from
the wheat. Notice that the girls who have left are not legacies.
Breeding will out.”

By my side, Daisy flinched. “I have half a mind to tell her
what I think,” she muttered under her breath, but just then a girl
at another table began screaming about “boggarts in the sugar
bowl” and had to be escorted from the hall.

“Irish,” Helen said with a sniff as we sat down at our table.
“We had an Irish maid once who had to be dismissed because
she said she’d heard a brownie in the chimney.”

“Does it occur to you now,” Beatrice asked drily, “that she
may have been correct?”
“Just because there are real fairies in the world doesn’t
mean we should credit every fool who believes in them,” Helen
tartly replied, and then added, “You certainly look nonplussed.
Did you know?”
“Father told us there would be surprising revelations in
store for us here,” Beatrice commented as she spooned brown
sugar into her oatmeal. “I thought it might be
something
of this
nature. We have always been quite sure that father had a more
important role in world affairs than he was letting on.” Dolores
nodded encouragingly and Beatrice went on as if she were conducting a conversation with her mute sister.
“Wherever we have lived, men and women of the most exalted rank and position have come to consult with him—the
Emperor Franz Joseph himself consulted Papa on the Serbian
question. And of course this explains father’s grave and serious
demeanor. How could one be frivolous once one knows of the
great evil threatening the innocent unknowing masses? We are
most gratified that we will now be able to take our places beside
him in this fight against evil.”
“
This
must be the important cause the hazelnut predicted
for me last night,” Cam announced, her eyes burning with a
fervor I’d seen in the young women who worked at the Henry
Street Settlement and marched in the suffrage parades.
None of my tablemates questioned the evil nature of the
creatures we had seen.
“Are
all
the creatures of Faerie evil?” I asked Sarah Lehman
when she joined us.
“Oh, yes,” she answered, briskly buttering her toast. “The
Order has done exhaustive study on all the creatures of Faerie. You’ll learn the classifications in science class, hear about
the horrible things they’ve done to mankind in Mr. Bellows’
history class, and”—she shuddered—“see the specimens in
Miss Frost’s class. Of course there are always naysayers in any
group.” She lowered her voice and leaned across the table. We
all leaned in to hear her whisper.
“There have been rumors that there’s a faction in the Order
arguing for greater tolerance for the creatures and renewed negotiations between the Order and the Darklings, but . . .” She
looked around anxiously before continuing. “Dame Beckwith
has strictly forbidden any discussion of this topic in class. Personally, I think—”
A phlegmy cough interrupted Sarah. We all looked up into
Miss Frost’s imposing bosom.
“It is not the duty of the head girl to share her personal opinions, Miss Lehman. Nor to model inappropriate table manners
by leaning across the table and whispering like a parlor maid
gossiping about her employees. Unless that is the line of work
you would prefer to pursue.”
“No, Miss Frost,” Sarah said, meekly leaning back in her
chair and coloring deeply. “I apologize for my behavior.”
Miss Frost sniffed. “Perhaps you are in need of a private etiquette tutorial.”
Sarah’s shoulders slumped at the suggestion. I could hardly
imagine anything more disagreeable than being shut up with
the overbearing Miss Frost.
“It was my fault,” I said quickly. “I asked Sarah if all the
creatures of Faerie were evil and she was explaining to me—”
I caught a panicked look in Sarah’s eyes. Clearly the talk about
factions proposing more tolerant treatment of the creatures
was
not
something she should have been sharing with me.
“That they most certainly are all evil. Every single one of them,”
I finished. Sarah breathed a sigh of relief.
“Of course they are!” Miss Frost exclaimed, her face turning the same purple as her dress. “What fool would question
such an obvious notion after all you saw last night?”
“That’s what Sarah said,” I replied. “I imagine she lowered
her voice to spare me the embarrassment of everybody else
knowing what a silly question I’d asked.”
Miss Frost lifted her lorgnette to her eyes and regarded me
critically. I held her gaze, aiming for a neutral, bland mien, the
same expression I would employ when my landlady came to ask
for the rent or the foreman at the factory would criticize a seam
I had sewn. As I met her eyes I heard the bass bell tolling in my
head and I knew that if I didn’t do something Miss Frost would
assign me some terrible punishment. I forced the bell to slow in
my head as I had when when I calmed Etta and got her to come
out of the dressing room. As it tolled inside my head I saw Miss
Frost’s eyes glaze over.
“Well, then,” she said, lowering her lorgnette and blinking
like a baby owl. “That’s another matter.” She looked around the
table as if she had forgotten why she had come. “I see they’re
serving kippers,” she remarked. “Do remember not to swallow any bones.” Then she turned and drifted away, zigzagging
across the dining room like a sailboat tacking across a windy
harbor.
“How did you do that?” Daisy asked when Miss Frost was
out of earshot.
“Do what?” I asked. “I only apologized . . .”
“Euphorbia Frost has never been swayed by an apology in
her life,” Sarah said. “You
bell-manced
her. It’s a technique we
learn for mesmerizing our quarry in a hunt, but it’s not taught
until the fledgling year and it’s usually done with bells. How did
you know how to do it?”
I shrugged, uncomfortable now. All the girls at our table
were staring at me. “I don’t know,” I said. “I’m sure it was an
accident.”
“Papa says each of us is chosen for Blythewood because we
have some inherent power,” Beatrice said. “This
bell-mancing
thing might be Ava’s. I’m hoping for
bibliosmosis
, the ability to
absorb the contents of any book by merely holding it in your
hand.”
“But wouldn’t that ruin the pleasure of reading?” Daisy
asked. The two girls were quickly engaged in an argument over
the purposes of reading, which was joined by the other girls
at the table—all except Sarah, who smiled and laid a hand on
my arm.
“Thank you for saving me from a private tutoring session
with Miss Frost. It’s bad enough I have to dust her specimen
cases. I shan’t forget it.”
I returned her smile, glad to have won Sarah’s gratitude
even though I had no idea
how
I had done it. Only later, when
the bells had rung for class and I was hurrying with the rest of
the girls to our first lecture, did I realize I’d never gotten to hear
what Sarah thought about the factions that thought the fairies
weren’t all evil. I wondered which side she fell on.