Blythewood (42 page)

I saw the young van Drood speaking to a young—and
quite beautiful—Dame Beckwith, the two of them consulting
the ledgers. She, I realized now, was the other woman I’d been
shown by the candelabellum, the one who had tried to draw van
Drood away from the shadows—but had failed.

“But that’s awful!” I objected. “Arranging a marriage as
though mating animals!”
Yes, I couldn’t agree with you more, dear Ava. If I had spoken of my feelings directly to Evangeline  .  .  . if I had spoken
sooner, things might have been quite different. But by the time
the Order approved the match, your mother had fallen in love
with someone else.
I saw van Drood and my mother standing in the garden,
beneath a rose arbor, silhouetted against a sunset sky like two
figures in an engraving. He held a small jewel box in his hand
and she was shaking her head. He reached for her. She withdrew. They looked like the automaton figures on the repeater
performing a dance. But then the picture flew apart into black
shards spinning through the sky like a startled flock of crows.
My mother ran toward the woods. Van Drood followed her, but
before he could reach her he was set upon by the black crows.
They swarmed over him, as they had the prince in the Merope
story, devouring him.
And why not?
van Drood whispered, his voice almost
gentle inside my head.
What did I have left? Why stay with
the Order when I had lost the one thing that made being a part
of them worthwhile? When their rules and regulations—their
damned old ways!—had cost me the love of my life? I left. I
learned the truth behind the Order. And learned how to destroy
them. They’re such fools that they don’t understand that the
things they hunt are what keep the world free of the shadows.
Without the Darklings, the balance between shadow and light
will be destroyed. The shadows will rule. I will rule! They’ve already made themselves into vessels with all their training. Look
at them! They’re no better than puppets!
I heard a gasp from behind me and turned to see the Dianas’ bows trained on Dame Beckwith.
Fools! They don’t realize that their training makes it easier
for me to get inside their heads. They’ve made it very easy over the
years for me to turn them into slaves, just as I’ve made this one my
servant.
Someone behind me stepped forward and grabbed my arm,
trying to wrest the feather away from me.
I spun around to face Euphorbia Frost—because who else
could he have meant by
my servant
—and came face to face with
Sarah Lehman instead. She smiled at me . . . and black smoke
poured out of her mouth.
“Sarah!” I cried. “Why . . . ?”
“Why should I be loyal to these people who treat me like a
slave?” she asked. “Why should you? These are the women who
drove your mother away because she’d polluted herself by contact with the Darklings.”
“I gave her a choice,” Dame Beckwith said, her voice firm
but her eyes riveted to the bows of the Dianas. “Stay and renounce the Darklings or go. She chose to go.”
“She gave Louisa the same choice the day she ran into the
woods,” Sarah said. “She’d fallen in love with a Darkling, too. It
was easy to lead her into the woods promising to take her to the
Darklings—easy to lead her into Faerie instead.”
“
You
led her into Faerie?” Dame Beckwith roared.
“Yes, me!” Sarah turned on Dame Beckwith, smoke now
billowing out of her mouth and eyes and fingertips. The smoke
filled and surrounded her, the shadows cloaking her like a cape.
She was the one who had called the
tenebrae
into Blythewood
and she was their beacon now. Van Drood wasn’t here in the
flesh; he was acting through his servant, Sarah Lehman, and
through the
tenebrae
she had summoned.
“She said she was my friend, but she was happy to leave
me for her Darkling lover. She left me all alone with
you
.” She
swept her finger in a wide arc at the crowd of teachers and students, smoke gushing from her mouth, fire sparking off her
fingertips. Her gaze fell on Dame Beckwith and her voice suddenly changed. “I was your slave!” she cried in a voice that made
Dame Beckwith cry out like a wounded bird. It wasn’t Sarah’s
voice any longer. It was Judicus van Drood’s.
He was inside her as he’d been inside me a moment ago. I’d
let that voice inside me because I’d let a bit of darkness inside
me as I watched the candelabellum and doubted my mother—
or maybe that bit of darkness had first gotten inside me the day
she died, when I first thought that if she had really loved me she
wouldn’t have killed herself. That darkness had been growing
since that day, feeding on every bad and ungenerous thought—
my jealousy of the girls who had more than me, my fears of being despised, of going mad. I’d let the shadows inside me, just
as Sarah had. If I didn’t expel them now they would devour me,
just as they had devoured Sarah and threatened now to destroy
everyone at Blythewood.
A wall of smoke billowed over Sarah’s head, heading for the
front line, for Miss Frost and Mr. Bellows, Miss Sharp, Miss
Corey and my friends—Helen and Daisy, Beatrice and Dolores, Cam  .  .  . everyone at Blythewood. Looking at them now,
torchlight flickering on their faces, shadows looming around
them, I saw a mottled ground of light and dark, like the dappled
things in Miss Sharp’s poem—light and shadow,
a dazzle dim
.
I saw Helen’s vanity but also her loyalty, the Jagers’ gloom but
also their stalwart hearts, Miss Frost’s cruelty but also her love
for her old teacher. Even Daisy, who shone like a beacon in the
shadows, had a flicker of darkness inside her, a doubt that she
still loved Mr. Appleby after all she’d seen and learned at Blythewood. And even Sarah, so consumed by darkness, still had a
spark of light within her: the love she’d had for Louisa.
I turned then and looked at the woods. The light of the blazing feather in my hand burned through the wall of shadows. I
could see past the line of Darklings to the lampsprites and goblins and all the other creatures of Faerie, strange and horrible
and sometimes beautiful. They, too, dwelled in shadow and
light, neither wholly good nor wholly bad.
And then there were the Darklings. A line of them stood
between the shadows and the woods. Their black wings glinted in the torchlight, their faces like carved marble. I saw Raven’s face alive with anger and love. They, most of all, possessed both shadow and light. They stood in between. They
kept the balance. Without them the world would be overrun
by shadows.
That’s why van Drood wanted them destroyed—and he
was using the Order to do it.
Behind me I could hear the Dianas drawing back their
bows. In front of me I could hear the rustling of the Darklings’
wings and beyond them the growl and chitter of goblin and
trow. The shadows writhed between them, hungry for blood
on both sides. They were growing stronger at the mere anticipation of bloodshed. Once they’d fed on blood they would be
unstoppable. Van Drood would be unstoppable. I felt him, even
though he wasn’t here in the flesh, feeding off the shadows,
just as they fed off the anger and hate in the crowd. The shadows needed his hate as a channel just as I used the repeater as a
channel for my bells.
The repeater. Could I use it to channel my bells now to defeat van Drood? But how? All it did was repeat the bells in my
head. Could I get it to repeat the danger bell in my head?
As I drew out the watch and pressed the stem, the repeater
played back the bass bell, but it sounded weak and tinny on the
little watch. I heard van Drood laughing inside my head.
That
only worked on me in the village because I was unprepared. You
can’t hurt me with your bells or that pathetic device.
It was true. What did I have in my little repertoire of bells?
The treble that I heard when I was with Raven . . .
The repeater played back the treble bells, intermingling it
with the bass bell.
Van Drood laughed again in my head.
Do you think you
can fight me with love?
he mocked. No, I hadn’t . . . but did van
Drood’s laugh sound just a little bit frightened? Was it possible
that he was still susceptible to love? And a little bit frightened
of it?
He laughed again—a laugh that echoed in the rattle of bows
and the growl of goblins. If I could look again on van Drood,
would I see a spark of light left in him?
“Is that why you’re not here in the flesh?” I asked aloud. “Because you don’t want me to see that spark of light left in you?”
“There is no spark left in me!” he roared, his voice suddenly
filling Sarah’s mouth. “Your mother made sure of that!”
The rage he felt for my mother made the bass bell ring louder, but also the treble bell. There was still a spark of love in all
that rage. I knew now what I had to do. Although it was painful
to use it like this, I played the tune my mother used to sing to me
in my head. I heard her voice—and then I heard it echoed in the
repeater, strong and clear now.
“Do you think that silly ditty means anything to me?” he
snarled from Sarah’s mouth.
But I thought I heard something in his voice that told me
it
did
mean something to him. And not just to him. Out of the
corner of my eye I saw Dame Beckwith’s face crease with pain
as if it brought up painful memories for her too. I played the
tune over in my head, concentrating on my mother’s voice, picturing my mother’s face as she sang. When the repeater played
the tune again, it was piercingly loud and unbearably sweet. I
could have sworn I heard my mother’s voice in the chimes. It
brought tears to my eyes . . . and silenced van Drood. Then I
heard him utter a low moan that shook the trees and made the
shadows shrink away.
It was working! He was withdrawing his presence, and
without his guiding force the shadows were losing substance
and his influence was waning from his servants. The Dianas
put down their bows, Miss Frost wavered on her feet—Sir
Malmsbury leapt forward to catch her—and Sarah seemed to
shrink two inches. She clutched her chest as if the wind had just
been knocked out of her. She stared at me, her eyes wide and
liquid in the torchlight.
“It’s all right,” I said softly, as if gentling a hawk. “He’s
gone.”
“He’s gone!” she shrieked, her voice so horrid that even the
shadows recoiled from her—and then gusted back, hungry for
the waves of anger rising from her. “What am I now without
him but a pathetic servant? You . . .” She pointed at me. “You
took him from me!”
She leapt so quickly I didn’t have time to think. Instinctively, I thrust out my arm to keep her from me—only I had
the blazing feather in that hand. The shadows writhing around
her caught fire like a cone of spun sugar. A pillar of flame surrounded Sarah. I heard a wild shriek of pain and smelled hair
and flesh singeing. She was on fire, and just like the girls at the
Triangle, she would burn to death, all because van Drood had
come for me. I couldn’t let her die this way. I lunged at her, determined to smother the flames that were engulfing her with
my own body, but as we hit the ground I heard the sound of
wings. The Darklings, I thought. They’ve come to take my soul
to Faerie. I felt something heavy fall, a wall of darkness, and I
knew nothing else.

THE WORLD WAS born in fire and ice, Mr. Bellows had
taught us in the mythology section of his class. According to
the Norse myths the fires of Muspelheim mingled with the
frosts of Niflheim to create the frost giant Ymir, out of whose
body the earth and all its creatures sprung. In the weeks that
followed the Night of the Shadows—as it came to be known in
Blythewood lore—I had an inkling how Ymir must have felt.
My body was a battleground between the warring forces of fire
and ice: the fire I had raised out of the Darkling feather and the
black ice let loose by the shadow creatures.

Miss Corey, who sat beside my bed for the two weeks I lay
unconscious, told me afterward that the flames from my feather torch had ignited the shadow creatures. “They turned into
a roiling mass of fire, shrieking and sizzling. What was most
horrible was that inside the mass we could see struggling bodies and faces screaming in pain and terror—the souls of the beings who had been taken over by the
tenebrae
—including Sarah
Lehman.”

“What happened to her?” I asked, horror-stricken that I
had killed the girl who had been my first friend at Blythewood.
Even though she had been van Drood’s spy I had seen a spark of
humanity inside her.

“We’re not sure. Once you set them on fire, smoke rose into
the sky. We saw shapes rising with it, and then the smoke was
blown away, although there was no wind.”

“The Darklings,” I said, remembering a sound that had
reached me in the depths of my darkness. “I heard their wings;
they must have used them to fan the smoke away.”

“Perhaps,” Miss Corey said, busying herself then with the
bandages on my hands. “When the smoke cleared we didn’t
see them. Dame Beckwith ordered a retreat. We had to get you
back to the infirmary to treat your burns.”

I looked down at my hands, which were swathed in white
gauze. The worst of the pain was there and along my shoulder
blades. I’d been afraid when I first saw the big clumsy bandages
that they covered two stumps. But when the nurse uncovered
them I was surprised to see that although the flesh was pink
and shiny, my hands were whole and strangely unscarred. It
still hurt to move them, but Miss Corey promised they would
heal completely in time.

“If you hadn’t thrown a cloak over me to douse the fire I
wouldn’t have survived,” I said.
“I didn’t throw a cloak over you,” she said, looking away. “It
was the Darkling. He flew straight through the flames and covered you with his wings. At first we thought he was attacking
you. One of the Dianas shot him—”
“Shot him?” I cried, my hands flying to my own heart.
“Was he . . . ?”
The corner of Miss Corey’s mouth lifted. “It was Charlotte,
and she only grazed his wing.” The small smile faded from her
lips. “He was able to fly away, but when he went back through
the flames his wings caught on fire. I’m afraid . . .”
“You think he died in the fire?” I asked, fear searing up from
my heart like the flames that had enveloped Raven.
Miss Corey took my hand. “I’m not really sure. I never
would have admitted that one of those creatures could be . . .
good. But I saw him risk his own life for you. If it’s any consolation it’s changed how I think of the Darklings.”
“But it hasn’t changed everyone’s minds, has it?”
Miss Corey shook her head. “There was so much chaos.
Everyone saw something different. Dame Beckwith believes
the shadows were creating illusions. She said that when Sarah
spoke she heard the voice of an old friend.”
An old friend?
Did she mean Judicus van Drood? I wondered. I remembered what I had seen in the candelabellum and
how she had looked at van Drood. Would she believe me if I told
her that Judicus van Drood was the Shadow Master?
“I have to speak with Dame Beckwith,” I said.
“Of course. She would have come already but she was hurt
in the retreat—she stayed behind until everyone was safe. Since
then she’s been busy trying to help Louisa regain her memories.
I’m sure she’ll come see you soon.” She paused, as if uncertain
about something, then went on. “You’re probably wondering
why no one’s been to visit.”
I wasn’t thinking of that at all, but I nodded.
“I’m afraid your lack of visitors is my fault. Helen and Daisy have been begging to come—and half a dozen other girls as
well. I just wasn’t sure you were ready for visitors. You were delirious as first, calling out names, and then . . . well . . . I thought
you might want to wait until  .  .  . um  .  .  .” Miss Corey’s eyes,
which had been skittering around the room, came to rest on my
face.
“Oh,” I said, a wave of heat rising to my scalp. With my
hands bandaged I hadn’t been able to inspect the damage done
to my hair and no one had offered me a mirror. “Am I hideous?”
Miss Corey looked horrified at the question.
It must be because I am and she doesn’t want to tell me.
Without a word she got
up, crossed the small room, and took down a small woodenframed mirror from the wall. She brought it to the bed, but held
it to her chest for a moment.
“Your hair caught on fire but the Darkling’s wings put it
out. We had to shave off what was left to apply the salve to your
scalp. We were afraid at first that your hair might not grow
back . . .”
The look on my face made her pause. I was picturing myself
bald as a boiled egg. “But it has!” she said. “And quite remarkably fast . . . well, look!” She thrust the mirror in front of me.
Her hand was shaking so much at first I couldn’t find my reflection—only a glimpse of wide startled eyes—but when her hand
stilled I saw myself.
The light chestnut hair I’d been born with was gone. In its
place was a fluff of deep garnet red the color of fire and the consistency of silk. It framed my face with feathery tendrils that
made my eyes look bigger and greener and my cheekbones
stand out more sharply.
I hardly recognized myself. I looked like a blade that had
been tempered in fire, burned down to its essential self. I
looked, I realized with a strange pang, like my mother. I wasn’t
a monster; in fact, in the moment when I looked at the reflection as though it were someone else, I had to admit that I was . . .
beautiful.
A scary kind of beautiful, but beautiful nonetheless.
“You see, I thought you’d want to get used to your new self
before you met your friends again.”
I tore my eyes away from the strange creature in the mirror and looked up at Miss Corey. For the first time I realized
that she was no longer wearing her veil. I remembered suddenly the morning—was it only a few weeks ago?—I’d come
upon Miss Sharp reading that poem to her.
Glory be to God for
dappled things
. The words had seemed to summon up a strange
unearthly beauty in Lillian Corey’s face. I had thought she kept
it hidden under her veil because she was ashamed of the markings on her face, but now I saw that she was shy of the strange
beauty she possessed. I understood then why she had kept my
friends away.
“They’re going to stare at me, aren’t they?”
Miss Corey grinned. It made her look even more beautiful. “You’re going to have to get used to quite a bit of staring,
I think.”
I smiled at her, and caught a glimpse of my reflection—of a
girl who had come through fire and ice and seemed to possess
a little of each. I remembered what Sam Greenfeder had called
Tillie and me in the park.
Farbrente maydlakh.
Fiery girls. Now
I’d really become one—a girl who’d come through fire twice.
And if
I
could come through fire . . . maybe Raven had as well.
“Well then,” I said, “I’d better start getting used to it.”