The Darkly Luminous Fight for Persephone Parker (14 page)

The girl in the nightgown floated close, getting louder. “She’s coming. She’s coming. She is coming!”

Long ago Percy realized the calls of the dead often meant nothing at all. She hoped that was so now.

“What?” Alexi asked.

Percy winced. “ ‘She is coming,’ the girl screams.”

Rebecca turned to Alexi. “Remember little Emily, the Luminous case months prior—?”

“I don’t think this one means Prophecy,” Alexi retorted. “Someone else.”

Percy shuddered. The Guard turned back to the remaining ghosts.

“Children, I demand that you go to bed this instant!” Rebecca cried, using her best headmistress tone. Alexi followed the admonishment with a renewed burst of blue fire. The spirits screwed up their faces and descended, sinking again into the earth beneath the small gravestones marked with lambs and flowers, floating onward to where Percy did not know. The sight saddened her, but at least the job was done.

Returning to their carriages, Rebecca addressed only Alexi, but made no effort to hide her anxious question from
Percy, whom he instinctively kept locked by his side. “Athens?”

Alexi raised an eyebrow. “Now?”

“I don’t mean to alarm you, Alexi, but what’s happening on the grounds is so…strange. Oughtn’t you come? There are matters—”

“Rebecca, dear, it’s near midnight. Fresh phantasms can await the dawn.”

“Indeed,” said the headmistress, her mouth thinning. She straightened her shoulders and marched off.

Percy watched her retreat. A few paces behind her was Michael, attempting to be noticed. Rebecca deigned to allow him to ride back in the same carriage, and they vanished into its interior. A thought occurred. “You would have gone, wouldn’t you? Before?” she asked Alexi.

“What do you mean?”

“Before our marriage. You would have gone to Athens. Rebecca seemed surprised. Disappointed. I’m all right, Alexi. If you should go, please don’t hold back on my account.”

“I’m taking you home, and that’s final,” he said. The look in his eyes made Percy’s body flood with heat. “We must dole out your supernatural excitement in pieces. I’ll not subject you to more, no matter what may lie in wait at Athens.”

As the children foretold, she was nearly complete. The Groundskeeper hummed as he peered over the coffin lid. The shape of a female body lay in the coffin. His sweetiesnaky lass. Not much could be said for her condition, being that she was entirely ash, a headless body of congealed grey soot that registered tiny, hitching breaths from a quivering sternum. He had catalogued her requisite parts and mostly put them back. There were a few pieces missing, to his dismay, and he wasn’t sure she’d come together exactly whole. Or what the effect would be. But something still lived and stirred in those ashes, angry.

Her head was the last of the large jars to be uncorked. He lifted it gently, ash inevitably flaking off for him to collect and return. The fragile head made rattling, hissing sounds, its mask of an open mouth frozen in a moment of rage and defeat. He attempted to soothe it. The body trembled as he poised the head above the crumbling neck. “That’s it, my Dussa-do. Soon my pretty girl lives again.”

He set the head atop the neck and massaged the ash together. The body hitched and seized, ash flaking off as a hideous growl sounded in the room like a growing storm. The ashen body sat up, slamming flaking hands on the side of the coffin. Its open mouth roared, and the entire Whisper-world shuddered the echo.

“WHERE IS SHE?”

“Mrs. Rychman, you ought to establish calling hours, in the interest of becoming better acquainted with your husband’s baffling bohemian set,” Mrs. Wentworth said after breakfast. Preparations were being made to return to Athens.

Percy blinked. She turned to Alexi, who also appeared confused.

Mrs. Wentworth sighed. “Honestly, Professor. You ought to attempt the civility your station requires, and encourage your wife to do the same.”

Alexi wrinkled his nose. “Calling hours. Headmistress Thompson always said ladies should have offices for those sorts of things. And really, Mrs. Wentworth, I’d never have thought you cared one whit for my civility—or for my ‘baffling set.’”

“While I’ve had no cause to disapprove, mystery does not breed utter indifference, sir,” the woman replied with a slight smile.

Alexi chuckled then allowed, “Calling hours, eh? Only when I’m in class. Otherwise she’ll be with me at Athens. I can’t spare her more,” he added, grazing Percy’s hand with his own.

Seeing the warm expression he caused, Mrs. Wentworth importuned, “Mrs. Rychman, please give me an invitation list and I’ll take the cards out promptly.”

“Thank you very much,” Percy said with a shrug. When it came to matters of society or the house, she vowed to simply smile and agree, still thinking it mad that she should be mistress of a fine estate at all.

She dressed for the meeting at Athens in dark blue, in a dress finer than that of any student yet suited for her new profession. She stared into her wardrobe mirror for a long moment, then dove into a drawer to pull a soft scarf of pale blue. She’d once wrapped herself daily in it. The familiar shield, along with her dark, tinted glasses, she would keep close at hand. She placed both items in her reticule.

Wandering into Alexi’s study, she found him deep in a pile of notes, attempting to decipher which marks he had given to which student. A week of exams had been overtaken by grave prophecy, peril and marriage.

“Alexi, will my old professors be in attendance?”

“Hmm? Yes, some of them will be there. Not everyone attends the meetings, however…” Alexi trailed off, raising his hand in triumph as he found what he sought. “Why?”

Percy drifted to a leather chair, staring out the window at the sky.

“Alexi, I disappeared. What will they think? What of my final tests? Will I not have to answer to them?”

“You fell ill. And then we were married,” Alexi replied. “The staff has already been warned of our union. Our vows will appear sudden, perhaps even lecherous on my part, yet marriages have been made over less. There was every rumour about the headmistress and me, and I’m sure this outdoes anything they may have assumed of me prior. But there isn’t a thing to be done for opinion,” Alexi replied with a nonchalance Percy envied.

She grimaced, not wishing to recall her own assumptions of the closeness between him and the headmistress. “You’re
such a help.” Then another thought made Percy gasp. “They’ll think I’m with child.”

“What?”

“They’ll think that’s why we had to marry so suddenly.”

Alexi’s brow furrowed a moment before he shrugged. “Perhaps.”

“But, Alexi. What if I…what if we…? I mean, could…?
Can
I? Can we? Is that part of Prophecy? I…” Percy worked herself into breathless shock. “There’s so much, Alexi, so much in this new life of ours, I’m…Forgive me my ignorance and frailty.”

“Hush,” Alexi said. He moved to kneel before her and took her hands. “I don’t care a whit what staff may think, Percy, and I hope you’ll soon feel the same. As to your question, my dear: of course I’ve wondered. I don’t know if we may conceive. While child-rearing hasn’t been part of The Guard’s expectations so far, things with you and me may be different. And, of course, we are mortals, so there is no reason to assume it an impossibility. Yet we mustn’t expect it. We must take our lives one day at a time. Can you pledge to do so with me?”

When Alexi cupped her cheek, she stared into his dark eyes and could breathe again. “You calm me so,” she murmured. But the thought was there, and she was not sure she could contain the raptures of her sudden sentiment.

“The idea of a little one does have its delights, though, does it not?” he murmured, making her wonder if he had the ability to read her mind. The two of them gazed quietly at each other before finally turning away from the powerful subject.

Mr. Wentworth was on hand to drive them to London in the good professor’s finest carriage. As Alexi settled opposite Percy, he watched her rustle in her reticule and withdraw her scarf. Winding it through her hands, she then pinned up her braid in ritualistic fashion, wrapped the scarf about her head and slid her dark glasses upon her nose.

“I thought we discussed this,” Alexi spoke up. “Shall my wife hide herself?”

Percy bit her lip. He stared at her with that same unsentimental acceptance that had bolstered her from their first private meeting, the look that allowed her to believe she could escape the personal limitations of her ghostly appearance. She smiled. “I suppose if I was able to go without this in a ballroom, I might do so in a meeting. I derive such fortitude from you.”

He almost smiled. “I’ve stubborn pride enough for us both.”

Outside her office, Rebecca pointed across the wood-paneled hall. Alexi and Percy turned to behold a narrow door, a soft light emanating from beneath. The door hadn’t been there before, and it was marked with a seven.

Alexi folded his arms and peered close. “There’s a draft. I don’t suppose you’ve opened it?”

“Not while you were away, no. I thought it best to have our whole group present.”

Alexi pursed his lips and turned the knob. Locked. He raised an eyebrow. “Skeletons in your closet?” When Rebecca scowled he suggested wryly, “I suppose haunts have keys and guest rooms now.”

“I’ve a key,” Percy spoke up, pulling her mother’s key and phoenix pendant into view.

Rebecca furrowed her brow, squinting. “And that came from…?”

“My grave.”

Rebecca looked in alarm at Alexi, who merely shook his
head. “I believe your key is meant for our sacred space, Percy. We’ll try it tonight.”

“Speaking of meetings, ours is about to start,” the headmistress stated, glancing at the watch on her waist-pocket chain. “I suppose we’ll have to see if any of the faculty have noticed our little…renovations. Where do you think this leads, Alexi?”

“The spirit world—cold draft, eerie light and all,” Alexi replied, and walked away toward the grand staircase. Rebecca and Percy hurried to catch up.

“But Alexi,” the headmistress said. She leaned close and spoke softly, and Percy had to strain to hear as they walked. “Doors that open from the spirit world into ours—actual physical doors like we’ve never seen, and that are locked from this side? Don’t we want to keep them shut?”

“I didn’t say I was fond of the idea,” he replied. Looking around for Percy, he drew her forward and tucked her arm into his so that they all three strode side by side. The act made Percy’s heart swell: she would not be left out. She was privy to this madness, too, and her powerful, mysterious professor wanted her on his arm.

Rebecca moved ahead. Percy found herself wishing Michael were there; he always seemed ready to take the headmistress’s arm. But Michael wasn’t employed by the school, so there seemed no remedy.

As they ascended the stairs, Marianna rounded the corner, espied Percy and ran to throw her arms around her neck. Alexi moved out of the way as if dodging something dangerous and braced for a squeal.

“How was the honeymoon?” the blonde girl crowed.

Percy blushed as a few staff turned with raised eyebrows. Marianna bit her lip and tried to drag her into private. Alexi had moved down the hall a few paces but was staring back at her expectantly, so she extricated herself from Marianna’s grasp and said, “It was wondrous, darling, but I must
go. I cannot be late to the staff meeting. I hope to see you soon!”

Her friend withdrew as if ashamed, stared at her as if she were something different. It was true that she was. Things were altered—yet Percy wanted to lose none of the warmth and delight of her friend, exchange it for distance and cold formality, so she grasped Marianna’s hands in hers. “We’ll make time to talk, I promise. You simply must visit the estate.”

Her friend nodded. “Of course, Mrs. Rychman,” she replied.

Percy blushed. “While that title yet thrills me, you mustn’t call me it. To you of all people I will always be Percy.”

Alexi inclined his head, still waiting. Percy nodded nervously, kissed Marianna on the cheek and rushed off to take his outstretched hand. Glancing back she saw the blonde smile, buoyant and seemingly unruffled, but a slight melancholy tinged her lovely green eyes as she turned and descended the staircase, off to the classes from which Percy had been removed.

This shift between them was only natural, Percy supposed. She was older than the other girl, and her relationships must unfold as they would. Her new responsibilities were adult ones.
Prophesied
ones. Particularly those of The Guard. And she wished to be nowhere else but at this school and by the side of her formidable husband.

The Athens staff meeting was held in a small lecture space on the second floor of Promethe Hall. The conversation was quiet and mostly polite, if a bit strained as Percy and Alexi first entered. Utterly unruffled, her beloved went about business with enough indifferent arrogance as to confound any possible critics. Still, as Percy could feel eyes upon her and an impending wave of speculative gossip, it became more and more apparent that Alexi, while claiming no care for public opinion, seemed to be enjoying the idea of their
scandal. A mischievous sparkle lurked in the corners of his sharp eyes as he boldly kept hold of her hand. She couldn’t help but be amused.

Headmistress Thompson ran the meeting with brisk efficiency, stating that attendance was holding and that there had been no notable infamy among their modest student body. Everything was well in hand. When a teacher inquired about her recent health, Rebecca coughed and dismissed the notion with embarrassment.

Occasionally Alexi and the headmistress would glance at each other, surely wondering if the subject of architectural changes to Athens would arise. But it seemed these were doors only visible to The Guard. This relieved them both, Percy could tell, though the lines relaxed only around her husband’s mouth, not Rebecca’s.

There was a brief welcome given her, the new linguistic appointment, and Percy was grateful for the utter lack of ceremony. Her former dormitory chaperone, Miss Jennings, kept a scowl on her face, stewing over the unexpected couple. If she had only done her job, her thickly knitted brows seemed to say, that haughty Rychman would never have been so bold.

Meeting adjourned, Percy released a breath and was the first to glide into the open foyer beyond. Alexi moved behind her. “Come, my dear, let me show you to your office.”

“I’ve an office?”

At the end of a long hallway there was a paneled wooden door with freshly painted gold script that read:
Translation Services, Mrs. A. Rychman.
Alexi opened the heavy door, and the sight beyond garnered Percy’s gasp. The room was a fair size, with a bay window that took up nearly an entire wall and looked down onto the school courtyard. Light shone brilliantly through its Bavarian-style glass and the smooth panes at the centre. Every furniture cushion was a royal purple. The walls held books, floor to ceiling. Percy was agape.

“Mrs. Rychman,” her husband began grandly. “Our Athens translator and envy of all faculty as resident of the Bay Room.”

“Oh, Alexi, I don’t deserve this. How was this beautiful room not occupied?”

“Because it is most assuredly, and most constantly, haunted.” He grinned. “I didn’t think you’d mind.”

A few books floated from a bookshelf and opened their covers to settle gently on the leather-topped desk. The room dropped a number of degrees and a greyscale, square-jawed, professorial gentleman came through the bookcase to fix Percy with a transparent stare. His hair was long and bound behind him. Percy glanced at the books on the desk: poetry in several languages.

The ghost held out his hand, and a lovely woman with windswept hair slipped through the bookcase and into the room. Alexi nodded in greeting. “Professors, may I introduce your new tenant, our new linguistic administrator and my wife Persephone? Percy, Professors Michael and Katherine Hart.”

Percy smiled. She recognized them. Every year on their anniversary, these wraiths were known to waltz in the tiny graveyard behind Apollo Hall. She’d watched them, enraptured. The deceased academics eyed her appraisingly.

“Hello, Professors Hart.” She made a small curtsey. “Pleasure to meet you. I see you have placed a book of sonnets on my desk. I do hope you’ll do me the pleasure of reciting your favourites. I, unlike others, am able to hear your ghostly voices.”

The floating forms turned to each other and smiled. Katherine said in a sweet voice like the wind, “You’ll do fine then. Perfect, in fact. Welcome.” She took her husband’s arm and remarked absently, “Lovely couple. Wonderful how those with gifts find one another.” The two vanished back through the bookshelves.

“I remember them, you know,” Percy said.

Alexi took a seat upon the bay window and gestured for her to join him. “The waltz in the graveyard?” He gave a slight smile. “I saw you from my office window that night, your arms open to them, starved for such a thing. I didn’t know what else was to be done but teach you how.”

“Our waltzes…” Percy breathed, remembering his lesson, then the academy ball, when the blooming flower of their affection could at last be denied no longer.

The sound of her breathless recollection compelled Alexi to kiss her. He drew back after a languorous moment to see Percy’s eyes remained dreamily half open. “While I could easily busy myself with you in all manner of ways, I’ve a bit of business,” he admitted. “As for your new position, I’ve a book for the Russian consulate. Your work will fund a scholarship for young girls in need of education. Shall I fetch it so you may begin?”

“Wonderful!”

“I’ll be back again in a moment.”

She watched him go and bit her lip, indulging a bit of a swoon against the bay window cushions.

“Oh, how you love him!” declared a strong female voice. “I admit it’s a balm to my weary soul. I’ve worked so hard.”

Having thought herself alone, Percy jumped to her feet and whirled to find a ghost floating near her desk. “Hello, Mrs. Tipton,” she said.

The spirit straightened to greet Percy properly. Her presence in life must have been very potent, as intimidating as Alexi and the headmistress had been to Percy at first, as her shade lingered on in a form very nearly solid. “My lady!” She floated forward. “You look so much the spirit. I wonder how you managed that particular trick.”

“Excuse me?”

“Your colour. I wondered how on earth you managed it.”

Percy flushed. “No trick, madam. I certainly would not
have chosen this colouration had it been within my power to affect.”

“Well, it shall come in quite useful on the Whispering side.”

Percy hoped Beatrice didn’t mean what she assumed. “Would you…care to sit down?” She was trying to be, as Mrs. Wentworth suggested, a civilized lady. But etiquette with the dead wasn’t in any ladies’ handbook.

“No, no, you sit. I suppose you’ve questions for me.”

“Indeed.”

“Lovely wedding,” Beatrice murmured. “Made me think of the rite Ibrahim and I had. Intimate. Powerful.” Her eyes hardened. “But that was long ago. Where shall we begin?”

Percy sat again at her bay window, a sliver of sunlight falling across her lap. She wished she could busy her trembling hands with a cup of tea. “Please, tell me of my mother.”

Beatrice stared at her a moment, impassive. “For the brief span I knew Iris, she was a good woman. Kind, generous.” The ghost looked away. “Full of a faith I never understood, giving herself to her fate in a way that I admired. Because, damn it if I didn’t fight my own fate.” She turned again to Percy, her expression pained. “Remind me that you remember nothing of the old times, of the other side, of the life prior to your current flesh.”

“All I know are the simple visions that led me to Alexi. Tiny flashes. Should I remember more?”

“No, it’s just as well.” Beatrice sighed. “You’ve begun again, a clean slate. I just have to remember not to lay any lingering resentments at your feet, my lady, for it isn’t your fault.”

“I’m Percy, please.”

“Indeed. You’re not my lady. You’re Mrs. Alexi Rychman, and all is as it should be.”

“Is it?” Percy asked. When Beatrice looked up she added, “Why did you fight your fate?”

“We’ve not the time for my lengthy answer. I both loved
and hated the Grand Work, what it took from me. In life I was a mortal pawn for an ancient vendetta, preparing for a prophecy of strangers, and I remain servile to it here in death. I resented the powerful force that was Our Lady, and yet I loved her, for while she was not mortal she loved like one, wished to live as one, and loved The Guard like family. But she couldn’t know the burdens she brought onto us by this calling. She had so many burdens of her own, her poor form faltering after so many years in that dark Whisper-world for which she was never meant. And so she never truly knew how it was for us.”

Percy sat silent, feeling a bit helpless, regarding Beatrice with open empathy.

The spirit wafted closer, her edges softening. “But we must finish what we started. What began eons ago with a murder.”

Percy shuddered in sudden recollection. “I relived a horrific death by fire, more vision than memory. There was a great, winged angel of a man, reminiscent of Alexi—”

“Yes. That was terrible history. Phoenix splintered under Darkness’s fist, but he could not be quenched. He and his attendant Muses lived on in what became The Guard, using mortals to fight Darkness’s viler whims. The goddess Persephone deteriorated without her true love, quite literally rotting in the Whisper-world. She awaited the day she could finally give over, could choose this side for good and be close to the pieces of that life she cherished. She brought remnants of Phoenix to this school. Eventually she was brave enough to choose this life. To become you, something immortal made flesh. Much like they say of Je—”

Percy’s hands flew up. “No, you mustn’t.”

“Ah, yes, you’re Catholic.” Beatrice chuckled. “Theologically confusing, I’m sure. Will be interesting when you next pray your rosary. You could choose not to believe in anything, like me, and then be surprised by moments of supreme divinity. Tell me: are you happy?”

Percy, reeling, took a moment, thought of Alexi and all that had changed. “Yes. I would say I am most blessed.”

“Good.” Beatrice nodded and stared out the window.

“Why the gift of language?” Percy asked suddenly. “Why can I hear, know and speak each tongue I encounter?”

Beatrice stared at her. “Because death speaks every language.” When Percy shuddered, Beatrice added, “The goddess spoke to all the dead. She was beloved for it. It seemed she passed on that gift to you. Oh, it taxed her immensely, but she tried to set as many to rest as she could. Sometimes it only takes one word of kindness, you know, to set a soul at ease.”