“Go, quickly,” Gretel said, leaping to shut Edward’s door—but leaving it open a crack for my exit. “Before you’re found. Go, and I’ll stall her call for you.”
Grateful, I hurried to the door, only to hear the clack of feet upon stairs. Gretel closed the door and looked around, frantic as I felt inside.
“Under the bed, or in the closet, quickly.” She pointed at both in turn, but little good a closet would do me if betrayed by my own nose and a speck of dust.
Delight at the home’s cleverness sprung to heart. I raced to Edward’s own wardrobe and pressed two fingers underneath. The passage opened, too slowly by far, for when one lives by seconds, even a moment seems like an eternity.
Gretel’s worry shifted to a smile, and believe me when I say I’m sure I saw her eyes fill with tears. “Go, Miss Ellison. You have much of your father in you. He’d be proud, I’m sure.”
And although I didn’t understand what she meant then, I believe I do now.
I think she saw what was coming, perhaps not in the manner of a mage or a mystic, but clearly she had enough knowledge of The Book and the house’s secrets that she sensed a shifting.
A change in the wind, perhaps.
I raced into the passage, and rather than attempt to climb the attic ladder in my gown, I made haste to the laundry … and that is where I hid the second of my beautiful gowns, where it would rest until becoming a plain white shift once today became yesterday.
I changed back into a plain cotton dress and scrubbed my face with a small bit of lye that sat upon the washtub. With hair suitably mussed, I proceeded to the front hallway. Victoria stood alone at the base of the steps, clutching her gloves and staring into nothing. I fought the temptation to run the other direction, to return to Edward, but her gaze locked on me before I could change my mind.
“Bring me some tea,” is all she said, and she stepped into the parlour.
At this hour? I wanted to ask after Charlotte, but—
“Two teas, girl.” Celia descended the steps, expression blank and vague. A hollowness opened in my stomach at the sight of her. I nodded and left to do as told, despite the lateness of the evening. At least, that was my intention, but it occurred to me that if Celia and Victoria waited in the parlour for tea, no one was watching over Charlotte—if indeed she had returned home with them.
I slipped back into the laundry, through the passage, and upward to the room that Charlotte now called her own. And, without regard for safety, for discovery, or for what I might be risking in that moment, I pulled the lever and waited for the door to open.
It did.
I remained in the passage, taking deep breaths and praying that Curson’s promise to hide the passageways as asked functioned just as well as the actions of the other spirits. With the passageway door wide open, I looked through toward the window, for I could see only a corner of the room from where this passage opened.
Charlotte sat in a velvet chaise by the window, curtains drawn back so that only a hint of moonlight shone on her face. However, with her back to me and seated, I couldn’t see if she had indeed been injured by the evening’s ordeal.
Temptation grew. I could creep to her door and pretend to knock, or perhaps I could even come back with tea before the others noticed what I was doing or—
I stopped myself with a mild rebuke. What did I hope to gain by coming here? What would I learn? It was Celia whose actions were the strangest of all, though the very simple fact that both Charlotte and Victoria still lived after what happened—it was enough to make me, yes, fearful.
But not as fearful as I should have been.
I pulled back into the passageway, but in my haste and lost in thought, I slammed my elbow against the outer wall. Stinging pain spiked up my forearm and into all five fingers, and the sharpness of my breath did exactly what I had intended to avoid.
Charlotte’s gaze snapped to the right.
“Who’s there?” she squeaked. “Mother? Is that you?”
I dared not take another breath. Another step.
And just when I thought I could wait no longer, her gaze turned still further. Over her shoulder. Across her back. To the other shoulder. As an owl spins its head to see throughout the night sky, that is how my stepsister Charlotte looked from one side of the room to the next.
Fear and disbelief grasped at my chest.
I couldn’t believe my eyes, and yet, how could I not? And worse came still when she stopped, head turned to look backward as a doll in a careless child’s hands, for it was then that I saw her eyes. Even in the pale moonlight, there could be no mistaking—no white remained.
Pools of liquid black stared directly at the place I thought to hide, where I stood near-helpless between the walls.
And yet, she did not see me.
“I can hear you,” she said, high-pitched squeak lowering. She stood. Turned her body to meet her head. And stepped forward.
“I can smell you.” Her voice lowered to a hiss, and I swallowed hard.
This wasn’t the Charlotte I knew. The Charlotte I knew should be lying abed, if alive at all, after what I’d seen. But this Charlotte?
She advanced, step by silent step, toward my hiding place.
“I know you’re there.”
She drew closer and I couldn’t help but slink back, ever so slowly, into the darkness. Perhaps some part of me knew that I had still to close the passageway, once opened. Not that it would be difficult, but I wonder if perhaps the other half of me wanted to know—needed to know—that I was safe within the walls.
That Edward would be safe, should it come to that.
She moved close, and I saw her with clarity. One arm, she held loose by her side, and the way she stood, as if … as if some part of her middle had been pulled apart from the rest, and then put back together in a hurry. Like dishes stacked by an inexperienced scullery boy, piled too high.
The black pools of her eyes were what frightened me the most. Even more than the pointed, sharp teeth that brushed her lips as she spoke. Even more than the bluish tint to her skin, which the night’s gleam revealed as so pale that dark veins popped from her neck and hands. Even more than the rasping voice with which she spoke, so different from the mouse-squeak I knew her for.
No, the eyes told me everything, and struck me with a terror beyond all I’d felt so far, for Charlotte’s eyes were the same as those of the spirits I had conjured.
And those eyes—those dark hollows—revealed a soul of true and pure evil.
Her arm swung forward, hand reaching, spiked talons where gloved fingers should have been. As she reached for me, I came to my senses and pulled the door back, swinging her heavy wardrobe back into place with every ounce of strength left in my being.
It latched, but I didn’t wait to be sure.
I turned, and I fled.
28
The Disappearing
Edward, Edward, Edward.
I burst into his room, limbs shaking, breath quick and shallow and dizzying. Charlotte, by truth or by design, was no longer the girl we’d thought her.
Lord Almighty, save our souls.
I paced back and forth in front of my brother’s bed. What would we do? What would I do? I could not keep him here, not with that … that …
Charlotte was not human.
Had she ever been?
By God, had we lived in this house with …
No, it could not be. I would have known.
Would I?
Victoria, first. Then Charlotte. Both, by all rights, should be dead upon the ground, their souls headed toward judgment.
And what of Celia’s touch?
Sick crawled up the back of my throat at the thought of it all.
It would be all right. We would be all right. Perhaps Gretel and I could escape with Edward, travel … where?
Gently, but in haste, I drew Edward’s head into the crook of my arm and sat him up, though still he slept. Hi
s blankets, I bundled around his form, and tucked a toy soldier into the front folds for company. He began to fuss and mumble, twisting in the sheets, so I drew him closer, seized by worry. He felt far too light for a boy of his age and size.
“Hush, Edward,” I whispered, “you’ll be all right soon. We only need to—”
The door flew open with a crash and I leapt to my feet, Edward still wrapped and in my arms.
“Ella.” Celia stood in the doorway, arms folded across her bosom. “Did I not ask for tea?”
It was then I realized—Gretel no longer sat in the room. In my panic, I’d forgotten about her.
How had Celia known I would be here?
“I set the water to boil,” I said, voice and words coming stronger than I felt. “It’ll be ready momentarily.”
She came into the room, head shaking. “I’m afraid not, girl. It will be ready now.”
And then she stopped at Edward’s bedside, reaching toward us, fingers outstretched, and I froze with uncertainty as I recalled Charlotte’s reaching hand only moments before.
“The ball,” I shouted, “how was it?”
Taken aback, Celia withdrew her hand and gazed at me with something akin to thoughtfulness. “Delightful. There will doubtless be a wedding soon enough.”
The audacity of her!
“Oh?” I played the coy, naïve child. “To whom?”
Celia snorted, reminding me evermore of her daughters. “One of mine, you blundering gnat. We’ll be living at the palace within the month.”
My stomach sank, though my mind raced to make sense of her words. We? And how could she be so certain?
“That is delightful,” I murmured, holding Edward tighter and inching toward the still-open passage entrance. What would happen if I stepped through while she stood in the room? Would we vanish like ghosts, or would that very action break the enchantment that held her blind?
“Such a loving sister,” Celia cooed. I stopped, feet rooted to the floor. “Where do you plan to take him? Surely it’ll be difficult to serve tea while holding him in such a way.”
“He’s unwell,” I said, “and he’ll find more comfort near me than in this room alone.”
Celia’s blank expression twisted into a smile. “I’ll stay here with him. Don’t you worry.”
But there was no power in heaven or on earth that could force me to leave him alone with her. And especially not with Charlotte—that Charlotte—nearby.
So I thought myself quite clever when I asked, “Will Charlotte not be taking tea with you?”
The smile flickered as a candle flame caught in crosswinds. “No. Not tonight. It’s quite late and she has decided to rest for tomorrow’s event. We will do the same, momentarily.”
A scream tore through the house.
Celia and I exchanged a wordless look, and she knew that I had won this round. With a huff, she withdrew from the room in haste, and I, in my hurry for Edward’s safety, closed his door and dragged a chair over to push beneath the handle. I tilted the chair in such a way that it would take some effort to shift the chair and open the door, but in case this failed, I also dragged two wooden toy boxes to the door and stacked them across the entry and under the chair for leverage, surprised at how easily I now moved such large and unwieldy objects.
If anything, perhaps it could buy a moment of time.
With a kiss on Edward’s forehead, I left again through the passageway and emerged with caution in the library. Dangerous, perhaps, but where else could I guarantee not to be seen? I crept to the kitchen, where I planned to ready the tea and catch a few words between Celia and Victoria.
Where had Gretel gone?
As I prepared the tea, the night began to call to me, and I yawned without ceasing for what felt like hours—though of course it was not, for once the kettle began whistling, my eyes opened enough to pour the water and set all that was needed on the tray.
Only then did I notice that a pot set upon the stove, which I had taken for empty in my tired stupor, held now-boiling water inside. Someone had placed it there before I’d entered the room, but for what? The need to prepare any sort of meal could surely wait the few hours until morning … unless Celia had demanded a dish from Gretel out of her own selfishness.
And because I couldn’t see Gretel in the kitchen, and because I have a penchant for caving to the temptations of curiosity at the most inconvenient moments, I chose a wooden ladle and plunged it into the pot.
I stirred, hitting a large item in the murky, boiling water. Boiled roast? At this hour? I couldn’t resist and drew up the item, though through the haze of impending sleep, what I saw didn’t make sense.
Long, fleshy knobs like fingers. Four, attached to a central root, with—
I dropped the ladle with a crash and fell backward, scream caught in my throat. Bile rose to splash my tongue and I pressed my lips together.
A hand boiled in that pot. A hand.
I couldn’t hold back any longer, and emptied the contents of my stomach—which mercifully contained very little—onto the kitchen floor.
I recognized that hand. It had touched my cheek earlier that night.
I felt nothing.
Numb and hollow, I knelt in my own sick and watched the rivers of fluids seep into the cracks along the floor. Smelled the stench of my insides.
I hadn’t believed them. Not truly, not until this moment.
I hadn’t understood the depths to which they would dive. Oh, my head knew. My heart had not.
A moan rose from the deep of my innermost places, but even as I squeezed shut both eyes and clamped down upon my tongue to keep from crying out, buckets of salted water flowed in heavy streams across my face, joining the same that pooled in the cracks beneath the place I knelt.
And then I felt everything all at once, as if the whole of me turned inside out, as if hot brands seared every inch of skin, as if … as if …
I had no words. Utter torment diffused through my being, for in this moment I knew that only a monster could do such a thing.
I had three.
Racked with heavy, silent cries, I pitched face-first onto the hard floor. Both fists pounded upon the ground, sending spikes of pain to jar my bones, but what did it matter?
Gretel, dead. But why?
And with a horror that grew from a tiny seed of long-held doubt, I understood.
Miss Mary. Our butler. The scullery boy, barely of age to ride a horse on his own.
All of them, gone.
I blinked until my vision cleared, and saw bright red eddies that slid across my battered fists, but instead of my own blood there was nothing but Gretel—panicked and afraid. Miss Mary, confused and terrified.
Did their blood flow as mine, in their final moments?
Lord Almighty, why?
Might I blame the terrors, instead? Perhaps I was wrong—how I wanted to be wrong—but no, nothing so obscure as terrors had done this.
Celia. Charlotte. Victoria.
These terrors had names that tasted of death.
These three, deliverers of destruction to the undeserving.
Murderers.
Gone now, everyone else, all but Edward and I, alone.
No one would come to save us, for they were all dead.
Every last one.
I rinsed my mouth of its bitter tang and cleaned the mess. Better not to reveal what I knew, little that it was. I picked up the tray of tea and, with shaking hands and a stomach that threatened to empty itself of nothing once more, took careful steps to the parlour.
I stopped outside the entrance, as whispered words wafted through to my listening ears.
“Patience, girl,” said Celia, for there could be no mistaking the alluring lull of her voice, harsh and beautiful even at a whisper. “You’re lucky your impatience hasn’t cost us more than it might have.”
“That’s skill, mother, not impatience. And I can’t help it. The streets are empty i
n the night.” Victoria sniffed, and I imagined her haughty expression and nose pointed to the sky. “And after what has happened these two nights, fewer still will venture forth. I thought you said this would be naught but a simple snatch of power.”
A slap echoed throughout the parlour, sharp enough to ring in my ears where I waited.
“You forget your place, you impudent creature. There have been … certain unforeseen complications. Someone is here, someone who I had believed long gone. An old foe. But the coward will not face me, it seems … so I will draw him out myself.”
He? My stomach tightened, and the taste of bitter bile returned.
“Your power—”
“—is certain. As like draws to like, I believe half the task may be done for me.” There could be no mistaking the smile that surely showed upon her face, though I didn’t understand what she meant by it.
“If you’re so powerful, why didn’t you stop it—”
Another slap, and I gasped at the snarl that came from within the parlour, like a wild beast unchained. I couldn’t help it—my hands shook with a violence that rattled the cups on their trays. I released a breath of fear as the parlour became silent once more.
“Ella?”
I hated that she still called me that.
“Ella, sweet child, is that you?”
No. Not me. If I could have given my soul to vanish in that instant, surely I would have.
The tray rattled again, and so I couldn’t hide. I stepped into the parlour with head held high, presuming to exude calm, though certain the entire kingdom could hear the beating of my heart against my chest.
Celia and Victoria were seated at opposite sides of the room. I served both, and Celia thanked me—a strange gesture, I thought.
Victoria, however, looked at me with a wry knowing that halted my breath and nearly caused my hands to falter in presenting her cup. I thought of Charlotte’s words: I can smell you.
“You have such lovely skin, sister.” She took the cup and stared me down.
I couldn’t help it. I looked Victoria in the eyes. They were black as pitch and hard as stone. I didn’t cry out. I didn’t drop the tray, nor did I wish to turn and run as I had mere moments before. No, in that instant the absurdity of every echo of their presence, from the second each woman and girl walked through our front door, fell across my shoulders like a soft blanket. So, I did the one thing Victoria did not expect. I smiled.
Cinderella Necromancer Page 17
