Darkwater (5 page)

Then, in the far corner, something shifted.

She dropped the papers and stared over. There was a clutter of things there, an hourglass with sand running through and a lamp, but the movement had been behind those. Curious, she pushed through the benches and went closer.

She saw a tall glass dome. Somehow it seemed faintly lit from inside, as if lined with some phosphorescent material. Above it was a card scrawled with the word GEMINI, and a drawing of twin embryos linked together, so realistic it made her feel sick.

As she lifted her hand, something moved inside the dome.

She stopped. Had it been her reflection?

And then she saw that a boy was sitting in the dome; tiny and far away, but alive. Real! He was reading, his hair short and oddly cut, his clothes strange. He looked well-fed and healthy. She recognized him; he was the boy in her dream, so she crouched, fascinated, her huge face level with him.

How had Azrael imprisoned him here? Tales of horrors crept into her mind, of created beings, things grown from parts of dead men.

“Can you hear me?” she breathed.

The boy ignored her. He pushed a small white box into the wall, where it stuck and made a click. A lamp lit next to him by magic. And she saw she was wrong; it wasn't one boy but two, one dissolving out of the other, identical, and the second twin could see her, because he jumped up and pointed, and his brother turned and said, “Where?”

Sarah leaped back. Her skirt caught the dome. It
wobbled and she grabbed it in terror, the two boys tumbling about inside like toys, and the door opened behind her and in the mirror she saw Azrael's face, white with shock.

“For God's sake!” he hissed. “Don't drop that!”

eight

A
zrael drew a black curtain around the dome and pushed it into a small wall safe, which he locked with a key on his watch-chain. Then he came over and leaned against the bench, arms folded. His face was grave, and still pale. She couldn't tell how angry he was. She clasped her hands behind her back, stopping herself from bursting out with ridiculous excuses.

“Well,” he said finally. “Perhaps Mother Hubbard was right. You are a troublemaker after all.”

“Changed your mind?” she murmured.

He smiled. “Once I set my sights on someone, Sarah, I never change my mind. But there ought to be some rules, don't you think? The first can be that you never enter this particular room without me.” He picked up a smooth egg-shaped stone and rubbed it with acid-scarred fingers, as if self-conscious. She almost felt disappointed. So she said, “What was in that thing?”

He looked up, sly. “What do you think?”

“I saw . . . two boys. Twins. They were real, like live people. How can you keep them in there? Won't they suffocate?”

He smiled again, shaking his head. “Oh, Sarah. Your education has been neglected. How we'll change all that.” He put the stone down and limped down the bench, putting things back in their places. Then he took his topcoat off, tied a white apron on, and began to stir and examine the retorts. “What you saw was best described as an image. Real, but not real.”

“I saw it,” she said, stubborn.

“A vision. Beings that might exist elsewhere.”

“Spirits?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

The cat had come in. It picked its way along the bench delicately, over shells and carved wood and models of insects. Then it looked at her and mewed.

“Yes,” Azrael said absently. “Quite right. Mephisto says it's time you started work.”

She stared at him. “Sorting the books?”

“Indeed.”

“Where do I start?”

He shrugged. “Wherever you wish. You'll find everything you need out in the rhino room. Take your time. Enjoy yourself.” He stroked his dark faint beard and lifted an eyebrow. “After all, this isn't Mrs. Hubbard's academy. This is another world, Sarah.”

And it was. It was heaven. She could hardly believe she had fallen into it. There were books of history, Greek plays and Roman battles, atlases and prints of beautiful paintings; there were poems and novels and scattered pages of strange music and hundreds of sepia photographs of Egyptian mummy cases, their painted eyes wide. Above all, there were the mysterious and magical books of alchemy, bound in calf and leather, their stiff pages closely covered with the dark letters of unknown languages, of spells and philosophic musings and recipes and diagrams.

The quest for gold fascinated her. What process could transmute dull metal into a shining beauty? What sort of power would that be?

For hours she just browsed and read, turning strange, wonderful pages. Scrab shuffled up with a tray at some time but she barely noticed him; later, when she realized she was hungry, the food had long gone cold, the afternoon dark. She hadn't eaten a thing, caught up in the enchantment and glory of the books.

Her head felt muzzy, her eyes tired. Picking up some meat and stiffened bread, she chewed it in delight, then crossed to the casement and opened it, letting a cold sea wind straight in.

Far out over the fishing fleet, the gulls and terns made screeching clouds; the lobsterpots were being lifted. Below, Lord Azrael was coming up the track on a pale horse. She hadn't even heard him go out. Scrab came down to meet him, greasy coat gleaming.

Azrael waved up at her. “Don't strain your eyes,” he laughed, the wind flapping his collar.

She shrugged. “I haven't even started yet,” she whispered to herself.

It was easy to forget, in the library. All week she lived in its warm cocoon. The books were a spell; once she touched them, their stories and knowledge held her tight. Gradually she worked out a careful plan; to get them all down, room by room, shelf by shelf, and sort them into categories—history, science, religion—and then to number them, making accurate lists. There were thousands, and it would take years to do, even if she could stop herself reading them, but the idea exhilarated her. Already she had discovered a whole cupboard full of chained Bibles in unknown alphabets; the unknowable squiggles of their letters fascinating her. She had to force herself to get out and get some air, walking between the heavy October showers to the beach, where the hard sand was pitted with rain marks. She ate her meals alone and she slept deeply, as if all the worries of the world had been wiped away. Twice, sleepily, she thought she heard the distant unbolting of a door, and sometimes through her dreams ran the deep thunder of a hidden river, far below her pillow, echoing in the foundations and walls and vast chimneys of the old house.

And she didn't go home. She didn't even think of the cottage until Azrael mentioned it. Late on the night before Hallowe'en, she helped him open the great casements in the laboratory and wheel out the brass telescope. Scrab was there too, muttering in disgust at the oil on his hands.

“What you want with this contraption,” he said sourly, “I don't know.” He ran a dark eye around the room. “Nor yet the rest of the junk I 'ave to clean.”

Azrael smiled. “All knowledge is in the heavens, Scrab.”

“And in 'ell, more like.” He shuffled out, wiping his palms on his sleeves.

“Why do you put up with him?” Sarah asked.

Azrael looked surprised. “He's an old family retainer. I'd miss him, if he went. He's devoted to me, of course.”

“It doesn't look like it.”

He smiled, sitting at the eyepiece, and turned the scope to face the moon, adjusting the focus carefully. “And as for you, well, tomorrow is Sunday. Your day off. You must go to church, and then home.”

“There's too much to read,” she said evasively.

“It will wait. You'll have a lifetime to read it all. Maybe more.”

She stared at him, but he was taking notes in the moonlight. So she said, “What if I don't want to go?”

“You must. Otherwise my name will be further blackened in parish gossip. Sarah Trevelyan kidnapped and held against her will!”

He swiveled around, his face lit with mischief. “Or they'll say we play cards eternally for the soul of your grandfather!”

The idea seemed to amuse him. He got up, took a pack from a drawer, and slapped it down in front of her. “Shall we, Sarah?”

“Don't make a joke of it.”

“I'm not! I mean it. Cut the pack.”

Alarmed, she said, “Why?”

“Do it! For a wager. It will help you understand how he felt—the recklessness, the madness! I tell you what—I'll wager all the books of my library. They could all be yours!”

She didn't trust him in this mood. He jumped up and leaned over the bench, his lean face transformed with feverish excitement. “There's nothing like it! The thrill of knowing you could lose everything.”

“I haven't got anything to lose.”

“Of course you have!” He smiled, sidelong. “You have what we all have. You have your soul.”

Sarah went cold.

The feeling she had had once before swept over her, of being balanced on the edge of a dark bottomless pit of terror, wobbling, unsteady.

“My soul?” she whispered.

“Yes.” Azrael looked eager. “The most secret part of you. The real you. The spirit that will live for all eternity.”

He was joking, of course. And yet pictures from the old Bibles of the library began to haunt her, the terrible screaming torments of the damned, who had chosen evil, burning, lost in unimaginable suffering. She turned to the table. “That's not funny.”

“Indeed no. But consider. Does a person's soul even exist?”

“You should know. You're the alchemist.”

He smiled. “I am. And science needs experiment. Why not find out? Go on, Sarah. Turn the card.”

Slowly, she put her hand out. She looked down at the pack, their backs patterned with tiny chevrons that almost mesmerized her. The room was quiet. Outside the open window, a few bats flitted under the eaves. The stars were bright and frosty.

She touched the cards.

The cat hunkered down, eyes wide. Far off in the stable, a horse whinnied. And she lifted her hand back and closed it tight.

“Maybe I should go to church,” she said.

Azrael smiled again.

nine

C
hurch was strange.

Azrael sat in the Trevelyan pew—she had never seen him there before. Darkly elegant, he listened to the sermon with scholarly reserve, raising an eyebrow now and then, or flicking a speck of dust off his knees, so that old Mr. Martin the rector got flustered and lost his place in his notes.

In her new dress Sarah felt everyone was looking at her. Mrs. Hubbard certainly was, over the rim of a gilt pince-nez, and behind her Major Fleetwood, his wife, and seven children, all identically dressed. Demure, Sarah smiled down at her gloves.

Over the chancel arch, there was a Doom painting. She had stared at it countless times before, but today it held her eyes as the doleful hymns of the service were sung, and the sea fog dimmed the candles and made old men cough. On the left a hideous demon grimaced and capered; his black, tailed attendants forcing damned souls into the grinning mouth of a vast hell; inside was all fire and torment. Small naked figures were being pulled out of their graves, wealthy and wailing, some with crowns, some with miters, tearing their hair, wringing their hands. It reminded her of Azrael's strange eagerness over the cards. She'd heard stories from Martha about men who'd sold their souls. To the devil.

He hadn't been joking.

The fear she had felt swept back, and she fidgeted, dropped a glove and picked it up. And for a moment, as she glanced back up at the picture, she saw herself in it, a small white-faced creature half out of a grave, wailing, and her father and grandfather and all the faces from the paintings screaming silently around her, so that she froze in her seat, eyes widening slowly, the mists of sea fog obscuring the ancient plaster.

And then they were only small, indistinct sinners again, lost in disintegrating, flaking paint.

She shivered. On the right, things were better. She preferred this side. Just above Azrael's head the blessed spirits ascended, ranks of beautifully delicate winged angels in white, guiding the righteous up ladders. The top of the painting was long lost. Ghosts of figures loomed there, brilliant, barely seen.

Azrael caught her eye, and winked darkly.

Mr. Martin lost his place again.

“Are you sure?” Martha said anxiously. “You really like it there?”

Sarah unpacked the fruit and cake and sweetmeats Azrael's cook had given her. “Yes, I told you! It's fine! These are for Papa. Don't tell him where they came from.”

“He'll know,” Martha said drily.

“How has he been?”

“Tormented.” The stout woman sighed, hitching the baby up on her hip. “So fretful. Sits all day and says nothing. You'd best see for yourself, Sarah.”

Reluctant, she turned. Even after only a week at Darkwater the cottage depressed her. She saw now how dim and smoky and filthy it was, and she knew for the first time something of the despair her father must have felt, how heartbroken he and his young bride must have been, on that terrible day fifteen years ago. She stared at the row of cracked plates with loathing. She knew one thing already. She could never live here again. And suddenly she hated it that Martha had to live here, that all of them had to endure it, the squalid cottages, the boys with no shoes, the red raw hands of the fishwives, salt-swollen at the harbor. She hated it that they worked so hard, in the fields, down the mines, Jack out at sea for days, and all for so little. Martha could barely write her own name. And was proud of the cracked plates, because there were six, all matching.

It made Sarah despair. Because there was nothing she would ever be able to do.

For any of them.

Her father was sitting up in the meager bed. He was reading an old newspaper, but he laid it down and looked at her coldly as she came in.

“New dress, I see. More than I could ever have bought you.”

She ignored it, and sat on the bed. He seemed weaker.

“How have you been, Papa?”

“As you'd expect. I exist, Sarah. I do not live. I think of you, up there. A servant in our house.”

She felt sure he was desperate to know all about it, but would never ask. She began to describe the wonders of the library but he cut her short at once, angrily. “Please. I have no desire to know the details of my destroyer's dissolute life.”

“He's not like that.” Sarah took an exasperated breath. “He's quite likeable, really.”

“Indeed.” Her father coughed painfully. “You seem to have taken to his servitude easily enough. You obviously don't feel the shame of it. Still”—he waved a bone-frail hand and picked up the newspaper—“that's to be expected. Your mother had no feeling for the family. You have always taken after her.”

White-faced with sudden fury she stood, hot tears prickling her eyes. She couldn't trust herself to say anything. Stalking past Martha she snatched her shawl and said, “I'll be back next week.”

But she wondered if she would.

In Newhaven Cove the wind was whipping up a storm, but she didn't care. It blew her hair all over and she let it. Tonight was All Hallows Eve. Tonight the wind would blow the ghost ships to land, and all the spirits of the drowned would climb the cliff path to the church. She watched the waves crash on barnacled rocks, spray flying as high as her own anger.

He was old. All the joy, all the excitement had withered out of him, so that all he could brood on were his misfortunes. She'd never be like that. She'd never let herself grow old. And it would go on until he died, because even twelve shillings all found wouldn't change things. He'd die in a damp bed in someone else's cottage, a man with no hope and nothing left but pride. There was nothing she could do about that either.

Unless she really sold her soul to the devil.

Turning, tired with anger and a bitter grief, she came across footprints. They crossed the ridged beach, crisscrossed by wandering paws, rock pool to rock pool. She followed them, walking fast, but she had to scramble to the cliff base before she found the tramp. He was sitting on a rock, gazing out to sea.

“Hello,” she said.

The tramp turned. His red, coarsened face broke into a toothless grin.

“Well, if it isn't the angry girl. Still angry too. Better dressed, though, and a mite cleaner. Saw that in the chapel, I did.”

She sat by him, kicking sand from her boots. “I didn't see you.”

“I was there. All watching thee, they were, the parish busies. And how is it, working for the Prince of Darkness?”

She laughed. “Is that what they call him?”

“ 'Tis what I call him. Don't thee trust him, mind. Not an inch. The devil incarnate, that one. Even his Hall built over a chasm that leads straight to hell.”

Sarah forced down her fear. “Rubbish. You don't know him.”

“Don't I?” The tramp stood up. “That one and I go way back. I could tell ye things about him . . .”

“What things?”

The tramp studied her. “How brave art thou?”

“Brave enough.”

“Aye?” He nodded gravely. “Well, look now. I'll be outside, in the Bear Garden, before dark. Don't come out after. Reckon you can get me summat to eat?” She nodded, rubbing the dog's dirty fur.

“Well, bring it. And in return I'll tell thee some home truths about thy precious Lord Azrael.”

He shuffled off down the path toward Mamble. At the bend he turned, hitching up his belt of rope. “Be careful. Don't tha make any agreement with him. No wagers, mind.”

For a long time, cold, ignoring the rain, she watched him go.

In the library, Azrael was sitting at the telescope, preoccupied. Behind him Scrab fussed around with a feather duster.

As she took off her coat, she felt his dark eyes watching her.

“Sarah,” he asked quietly, “who was that you were talking to?”

She turned, surprised; saw the lens cap was off, the brass tube tilted down. Scrab, now sweeping a burnt, twisted mass of glass off the floor, grinned to himself.

“Have you been watching me?” she snapped.

He looked abashed. “It was accidental.”

“Oh, was it! Well you've got no right. I can talk to whomever I want!” Then she remembered he was her employer and took an angry breath. “It was just some tramp, anyway.”

Azrael looked worried. He got up and wandered to the fireplace, crunching on the glass shards without noticing. Scrab scowled up at him. “Watch yerself!”

“I don't want you to speak to him again,” Azrael said.

Sarah stared. Then she said, “Why not?”

He picked up a small glass globe and shook it gently. Hundreds of tiny white snowflakes swirled and drifted inside. “He reminds me of someone I once knew. A troublemaker. A liar.” He looked at her sidelong. “I don't want him on my land. I don't want you to speak to him.”

“You can't tell me whom to speak to.”

He put the globe down, watching the flakes settle. Then he said, “You work for me now, Sarah. Don't forget that.”

His face was troubled.

“You don't own me,” she said. “Yet.”

But she knew a threat when she heard it.