Ravencliffe (Blythewood series) (23 page)

Ava
, he called, his voice brittle as cracking ice,
I see you survived the kraken. Do you think you emerged with your soul intact?

“Yes!” I cried. “My father—”

The excited clatter of ice made me stop. I couldn’t give away my father’s location to van Drood.

Aahh,
he crooned, an icy breath lapping against my face.
So your father’s come back to you, has he? Has he told you why he abandoned you?

I bit back a reply. I couldn’t tell van Drood about my father. A mist had risen in the grove. Where it touched my skin it turned into ice crystals that spread over my arms and face, creeping its way inside me.
How?
I wondered.
The Rowan Circle was supposed to be protected—

Against fairies
, Drood’s icy voice whispered inside my mind.
Not those of us trained in the Order.

He was inside my mind, creeping in with the ice. I tried to shake off the glaze that was spreading over my skin, but I couldn’t move.

Ah, he told you he didn’t know about you, that he stayed away for your mother’s own good—and you believed him! Poor little Ava, so happy to have her daddy back she’ll believe anything.

Tears pricked my eyes, but they froze before they could fall. I had to find a way to break van Drood’s spell over me before he found out where my father was and I became a frozen statue like the changelings. I fumbled numb fingers over my coat looking for my repeater, but it wasn’t in my pocket—Raven hadn’t put it there when he dressed me. All I found was one of his feathers clinging to the wool.

But if he really loved your mother, would he have been able to stay away? I know I couldn’t. The Order exiled me, too, Ava, but I returned. Doesn’t that mean I loved your mother more?

I squeezed Raven’s feather in my hand to keep from shouting out at him—and felt a bit of the ice melt. I remembered how I had used a Darkling feather mixed with lampsprite dust to start a fire—could I use it now to break van Drood’s hold on me?

Can a Darkling really love with all the darkness inside them?
he was asking now.
Can you love, Ava? Why didn’t you answer Raven when he declared his love for you?

The thought that van Drood had been listening to us in the trees made me feel sick—and then angry. I gripped the feather tighter and felt the ice begin to melt.

“We were interrupted,” I said through gritted teeth. “I was about to say that I’d follow him into exile—”

As your mother would have. Why didn’t Falco take her? No, Ava, he abandoned your mother. He abandoned you, as he will again. But I never let your mother go, as I will never let you go.

“You abandoned your own son!”

The words were out before I knew I meant to say them. A great stillness came over the forest; the clatter of frozen branches stopped, the creak of ice shushed. I knew suddenly that van Drood did not know that Nathan was his son.

Until
now
.

I tried to clear my mind of all thought, but he’d already found it.

Nathan
.

A gale swept through the woods, coming straight toward me. I wrenched up the feather and willed it into flame.

“You can’t have him!” I screamed at the ice gale rushing toward me. The crystals formed into a face—van Drood’s face, eyes black caverns, mouth open in a horrible scream.

“I
will
have him—and you, and everything you hold dear. I will bring the Order to its knees for everything it stole from me!”

I felt his icy breath on my face; worse, I felt his mind touching my mind. Smoke gushed from the cavernous maw and rushed into my mouth and nose. I felt the stealthy tentacles of the
tenebrae
squirming into my brain, searching for the tender spots to cling onto.
There
, they sighed when they found a spot of envy.
Ah
, they cried when they latched onto a barb of jealousy.
Yes!
van Drood crooned inside my brain.
Who do they think they are, lording it over you because you were once poor?

I was swept into a vision of swirling color and gay laughter. I was at a grand ball like the one at the Montmorencys’. I was seeing the dancing men and women through van Drood’s eyes, and he was seething with anger and resentment.
Yes
, I found myself thinking,
they think they’re better than us because they still have their riches. We’ll show them, won’t we?

Suddenly, the music changed to the all-too-familiar strains of
Die Puppenfee.
The dancers’ movements became jerky, like automatons, and their expressions were glassy. I saw a woman who looked like Dame Beckwith clutching her partner’s hand so tightly her fingernails had sunk into his skin and blood was dripping down their joined arms. Tears streaked her face. I looked down and saw that blood dripped from her dancing shoes.

They’ll dance to my tune
, van Drood hissed inside my head,
until they run out of time
.

Beneath the dripping shoes, the dance floor was designed to resemble a giant clock face. I could see the gears moving below it, controlling the pattern of the dance, counting down the minutes . . . but to what?

I couldn’t see that far into van Drood’s mind. I hadn’t wanted to see into his mind at all. I had braced against his intrusion, but now I pushed further.

I felt his shock—he hadn’t known I could do that!—and saw a glimpse of clock gears and then a blast of fire that annihilated everything.

Then I was on the forest floor alone—no, not alone. Raven was beside me. I had banished van Drood from my head, or he had banished me, I wasn’t sure which. But it didn’t matter now.

“Come on,” I said to Raven. “We’ve got to stop van Drood.”

25

RAVEN TOOK ME
to the edge of the woods where Etta was waiting. On the way I told him about my encounter with van Drood and what I suspected he was trying to do, before we bid each other a hasty good-bye.

Only when he had turned to leave did I remember that I had not answered his question. I wanted to call him back to tell him that I would gladly share his exile, but somehow it felt as though the moment had been marred. Besides, I had to get Etta back to the castle to warn Dame Beckwith.

The sun was coming up, turning the frozen lawn into a sheet of fire. Jagged icicles hung from every eave and windowsill of the castle, giving Blythewood the appearance of a fortress bristling with bloody spikes. It looked like it was armed for battle. I hoped it was.

We slipped in the side door unobserved.

“I have to go to Dame Beckwith’s office,” I told Etta. “You should go straight to your room and get out of your wet things.”

“So should you, Avaleh. You’re covered in ice.”

I looked down at myself and saw she was right. I remembered van Drood blowing icy mist at me. It had clung to my clothes and skin. I suddenly wanted very badly to get out of these clothes and into a hot bath where I could scrub all residue of the encounter away. Dame Beckwith might not even be awake yet, and if I woke her up looking like this she would think I was still hallucinating.

Maybe I was
, I thought as Etta and I climbed to the fourth floor. The vision I’d seen inside van Drood’s brain was crazy. Dancers moving to a tune of his making like puppets, dancing until their feet bled, dancing even to their deaths . . . that couldn’t happen here at Blythewood. We were too strong, the school too powerfully protected. Dame Beckwith wouldn’t let it happen!

I left Etta at her room and went on to mine. Halfway down the hallway I heard someone humming the waltz from
Die Puppenfee
and my blood ran cold. I ran down the hall and wrenched open the door just as Helen was going out.

“Thank the Bells!” she cried when she saw me. “When I woke to find you gone I thought you’d run off with Raven for good.”

I gave Helen a hug that surprised both of us. “We have to tell Dame Beckwith to cancel the dance.”

“It’s too late,” Helen said. “It’s tonight.”

“Tonight? How long have I been ill?”

“Too long!” Helen snapped. “The entire school has been possessed by a dance mania. Even Dame Beckwith. She cancelled exams.”

“Cancelled exams? But that’s—”

“Crazy? Exactly my point. And all the stodgy old board members have been invited. They’re staying at the Beekman Arms in town. I’d hoped perhaps this ice storm would keep them away, but they got up here yesterday before the storm began. Unfortunately, Mr. Greenfeder and his friends were supposed to arrive today, and I suspect they won’t be able to get through. Gillie says the trains are stopped and the roads from Poughkeepsie to Rhinebeck are impassable. Even the phone lines are down.”

“We’ve been cut off—” I began.

I was interrupted by Daisy swinging open the door. “Ava!” she cried. “I thought I heard your voice. Thank goodness you’re better.”

“Yes, Helen’s been telling me everything—” Behind Daisy’s head Helen was waving her hands and mouthing something I couldn’t understand.

“Fiddle-dee-dee!” Daisy cried, pulling me into the room. “Helen’s become such an awful worrywart while you’ve been ill. Don’t listen to a word she tells you about the dance. It’s going to be marvelous. Did you know I’m going to be one of the Spanish dolls? Come see my costume—oh, and yours arrived from Miss Janeway’s yesterday. You’re to be a Tyrolean doll.”

I stared at Daisy as she pulled a green dirndl skirt embroidered with Alpine flowers, a matching embroidered bodice, a white puffy-sleeved blouse, green hose, and a black felt cap out of a box. It was worse than the dress I’d been meant to wear to the Montmorency ball.

“I am not wearing that, Daisy. I’d look like a . . . a . . . marionette!”

“You’re meant to look like a doll, silly! We all are. Don’t you remember?
Die Puppenfee
, ‘The Fairy Doll.’”

“I thought the dance was a party where we danced with boys,” I said. “The ballet parts were just little in-between entertainments—divertissements.”

“Oh, that’s still the plan, but once Georgiana took over after you became ill, she and Herr Hofmeister agreed that we should all dress as dolls and carry the theme through the whole dance. It will be
très charmant
—and perfect for meeting eligible bachelors!”

Dolls. That’s what the figures in van Drood’s fantasies had been. Dolls that he controlled.

“Daisy,” I said, taking her by the shoulders. “Come to your senses! Besides, you don’t need to meet eligible bachelors—you have Mr. Appleby.”

“Don’t be silly, Ava,” she answered, wiggling out of my grip and slapping my arm with her Spanish fan. “I’ve broken off my engagement with Mr. Appleby!”

“Engagement?” I echoed. “You’re engaged?”

“
Was
engaged,” Daisy said, twirling around. “I’ve broken it off.”

“That was Daisy’s big secret,” Helen said. “She didn’t tell us because . . . well, because I was so awful about engagements in general.”

“Silly Helen,” Daisy said, “that wasn’t the
real
reason! I must have known I wasn’t meant to marry Mr. Appleby. The Order will pick a suitable husband for me.”

“Don’t look so glum!” she cried as we gaped at her in horror. “Maybe you two will find husbands, too!”

At breakfast I discovered that all the girls, with the exception of Helen and Etta, were as excited about the dance as Daisy. As I made my way through the dining hall the talk was of dancing slippers and dance steps and costumes.

“I wish I were in the mazurka!” one girl said, sighing wistfully.

“Oh, but the most beautiful costume is the fairy doll. I want to try out for that part next year!”

Next year
? Had the winter dance already become a tradition? As far as I knew, Blythewood had never had one before, but when Dame Beckwith addressed the dining hall she began with, “This year’s winter dance promises to be the most spectacular in Blythewood’s history!”

My hopes of seeking Dame Beckwith’s help were dashed as the girls exploded in applause. She went on to say that while the weather had prevented some guests from coming, there was no cause for alarm. Herr Hofmeister had commissioned a fleet of horse-drawn sleighs to convey our honored board members and their guests from the Beekman Arms in Rhinebeck to Blythewood for the dance. “It will be like a real Viennese ball!” she exclaimed, her usually placid gray eyes glittering.

The nestlings at my table sighed and swooned. “I’d love to go to Vienna one day,” Mary confided to Susannah. “Herr Hofmeister says that the very best dancing schools are there. And they have balls for everything!”

“Yes, even at the lunatics’ asylum,” Helen, who had pulled a chair over to our table, remarked to me dryly. “Which is what this is turning into.”

“It’s van Drood’s plan,” I whispered. “Is everyone under this . . . spell?”

“Not everyone,” Nathan, who’d followed Helen over, said. He’d grown thinner and more drawn during my illness, and his silver hair had turned a duller shade of gray. I shivered, remembering van Drood’s threat. Nathan didn’t look like he could withstand a strong wind, let alone van Drood. “Are you . . . I mean, why aren’t you waltzing around humming
Die Puppenfee
?” I asked him.

Nathan gave me an appalled look. “I’ve steered clear of Herr Hofmeister ever since he asked me to dress up as a tin soldier. I told him the only kind of soldier I would be dressing up as was an American one if things remained so unsettled in the Balkan States.”

I shuddered at the image of Nathan dressed as any kind of soldier. “Who else has remained untouched?” I asked.

Nathan slid his eyes to the other nestlings at the table. They were so busy gabbing about the dance that they didn’t seem to be listening to us, but I took Nathan’s point that it might be better to talk elsewhere.

“I have so much work to make up,” I said, taking a gulp of tea and grabbing a roll. “Would you two come to the library to help me study?”

We hurried through the empty North Wing, where the classrooms looked deserted and forlorn.

“Haven’t you all been having classes?” I asked.

“They were suspended last week so we could have more time for rehearsal,” Helen said with obvious disgust. I’d never imagined I’d hear Helen complain about missing classes.

“What do the teachers think about it all?” I asked.

“Most of them have been swept up in the madness as much as the students,” Nathan replied. “Mr. Peale is playing a bell ringer in a Swiss cuckoo clock. Miss Swift is dancing a polka. Miss Frost and Mr. Malmsbury are doing a tango.” Nathan grimaced. “They’re actually quite good. Even Mrs. Calendar has a minor part as a granny doll. Only Miss Sharp, Mr. Bellows, and Miss Corey have resisted the allure of the dance.”

Nathan knocked on the library door, which I was surprised to see was locked. I saw Miss Corey’s face appear in the glass pane, and then the door was unlocked and she pulled us in.

“Oh, Ava, thank the Bells you’re up and better! Hurry!” she whispered. “Herr Hofmeister is trying to find Vi and get her to try on a Chinese doll costume.”

“He tried to get me to play the puppet master,” Mr. Bellows, who was sitting by the fire with Miss Sharp, said with a shudder. “But I refused.”

“The puppet master?” I repeated. “I don’t recall there being a puppet master in
Die Puppenfee
. There’s a toy maker who makes the fairy doll, but he doesn’t control her.”

“Herr Hofmeister has made alterations to the plot to give the dance more
drama
,” Miss Sharp said, rolling her eyes.

“He does have a point that
Die Puppenfee
is a rather insipid ballet, but then why do it in the first place?” Miss Corey asked. “He’s borrowing elements from other ballets and Hoffmann’s tales, mostly to make the ballet parts longer and more complicated. The poor girls are rehearsing noon and night. I begged Dame Beckwith to rein him in, but she said it was good for the girls to experience discipline and that it would make them more marriageable.”

“The whole thing is insidious,” Miss Sharp said, shaking her head. “I’m afraid it might be part of a larger plot.”

“It’s part of van Drood’s plot to destroy the Order,” I said as the pieces fell into place. I told them what I’d seen in the Rowan Circle. “He blames the Order for destroying his chances of marrying my mother.”

“How like a man,” Miss Corey said, “to blame his romantic failures on some outside cause and flail about making everyone else suffer for his disappointments.”

“I’m afraid this looks more serious than a spurned lover’s revenge,” Mr. Bellows said. “This ice storm has all the earmarks of spelled weather. It’s halted the changelings’ search for Rue
and
isolated us for this damned dance. We’re under siege—have been under siege all these past few weeks without us even knowing it. Herr Hofmeister’s dance has worked a kind of mind control on the students and teachers and even on Dame Beckwith.”

“But Herr Hofmeister is such a . . . a . . .” Miss Sharp began.

“Ninny?” Miss Corey finished for her. “Yes, he hardly seems capable of staging an attack on Blythewood.”

“Van Drood can take over a person if he’s weak—or she,” I said. “Remember how he took over Sarah Lehman last year? She was vulnerable because of her resentment and jealousy. Herr Hofmeister must have a similar weakness that van Drood is preying on to make him his slave.” I thought of how van Drood had tried to make me distrust my father and to see myself as a monster. “He almost got me.”

“Is that why you’ve been sick?” Miss Sharp asked.

I told them about my experience with Mr. Farnsworth, leaving out the part about the Darkling who saved me being my father.

Miss Corey was more interested in the library I described. “We’ve been searching through all the books here to find a cure for this dancing fever, but we haven’t found anything. Maybe the Darkling library has one.”

“We could ask,” I said. “And I think we should tell the Darklings what’s happening here. The last time van Drood got control of the Dianas he tried to make them kill the Darklings.”