“Perhaps we should —” I am interrupted by the heavy click of shoes approaching from one of the rooms at the back.
The woman who approaches carries a smile of welcome. But only for a moment. The minute her eyes light on Madame Berrier, her round face tightens, her mouth setting into a grim line.
Madame Berrier’s smile is dazzling. “Bonjour, Mrs. Harding! And how are you this fine afternoon?”
Surely Madame Berrier can see the distaste with which the town librarian views her, but there is nothing in her manner to acknowledge such a truth. Instead, she greets the other woman as if they are long-lost friends.
The woman called Mrs. Harding nods her head in a minute gesture of acknowledgment. “How may I help you?” She asks as if she has never seen Madame Berrier before this day, though it is clear they have had some dealings in the past.
“Now, Mrs. Harding,” Madame Berrier teases, leaning her head to one side, a playful smile touching her painted lips as she holds out an open palm, “I’m quite certain you know why I have come.”
Mrs. Harding’s face sets even further. She reaches into her pocket, withdrawing something from it and dropping it into Madame Berrier’s hand. The Madame’s fingers close quickly around it, but not before I see a glint of silver and realize it is a key.
“Merci, Mrs. Harding. I shall return it when I am finished, as always!” Madame Berrier calls over her shoulder, already making her way to the back of the library.
Sonia and I are spurred from our reverie by a scowl from the librarian directed, this time, at us. We rush forward to catch up to Madame Berrier, already halfway down the hall leading toward the back of the building. When we finally reach her, she has opened the back door of the library and is standing outside on a small porch.
Sonia shakes her head in confusion. “Where are we going?”
Madame Berrier waves to the well-groomed garden behind the library. “The answer you seek, my dear, lies not in the carefully catalogued books within the library but in those cast aside, hidden in shame behind it.”
There is no time for further questions. Madame Berrier steps off the porch, and we scramble to follow as she leads us through the manicured garden, beautiful even with the approaching winter. I think we have come to the end of the property when we step around a potting shed that, for all its diminutive size, is still better kept than the decrepit building to which Madame Berrier crosses.
She takes the key given her by Mrs. Harding and inserts it into the lock hanging from the door. It catches with a click, and Madame Berrier pulls open the doors with a great heave and creak. We follow her in, our eyes drawn upward.
“Oh! It is… it is unbelievable!” I cannot keep the amazement from my voice, but there is sadness, too. Father would have wept to see the books piled high in every direction with so little thought to their care. “What is this place?”
The ceiling soars three stories above us. Even from the ground, I see small holes in the roof. It is clear from the damp smell permeating the building that no one minds the rain leaking onto the books within these walls.
Madame Berrier’s neck is stretched, taut and white as a swan, as she surveys the room with equal awe, as if, even knowing what it holds, she cannot help but be impressed. “It is an old carriage house. It was used when the library was still a home.”
“Yes, but… all these books! Why aren’t they catalogued and kept with the others?” It is a question my father would have asked, though with a good deal more anger, I’m sure.
She smiles sadly at us. “These are the books the town does not want sitting in full view beside the more… traditional offerings. They cannot destroy them altogether, you see. That would not be good for appearances. But they can, and as you see, do, keep them separate from the others.”
Sonia’s eyes shine in the dim light of the carriage house. “But why?”
Madame Berrier sighs. “Because these are the books about things people do not understand, things you and I know are as real as the world in which we stand this very minute. Books on the spirit world, on witchcraft and the history of it, sorcery… anything that does not fit into a neat and tidy box, I should say.” She walks farther into the room, startling a bird that rises toward the ceiling, disappearing in a flutter of wings somewhere above us.
The sudden movement shakes loose my awe. “I don’t understand what this place has to do with the keys, Madame, though I must confess to being quite astonished at the sight. My father would have had a conniption!”
She meets my eyes, smiling. “Then I’m quite sure I would have been very fond of your father, dear girl.” She gestures for us to follow. “As to your question, I think there may be a reference to Samhain in an old Druid text I have seen lying about. As far as I know, I am the only one who comes here. I’m quite sure it will be just where I remember it.”
Sonia and I follow her farther into the building, past stacks of books streaked with bird droppings and mildew. We step carefully over anything we cannot identify and almost bump into Madame Berrier when she stops at one of the warped and leaning bookcases.
“Let me see… I think it was near here. This may be it.…
No. Not that one. Perhaps it was over here.” She mutters to herself as if we are not present, crossing to different shelves several times as we look helplessly on. “Ah! Here it is. Let me have a look.”
Balancing the book in one hand, she turns the pages with the other. It is an incongruous site — the elegant Madame looking entirely at home surrounded by such filth and disrepair. I flash Sonia a nervous smile, afraid to interrupt whatever thought process seems to go along with the Madame’s muttering.
“Ah! Yes, yes! I knew it! Here it is! Come closer, girls, and we shall see if this might be of help.” We shuffle closer, stopping as she begins to read. “Since twenty-three hundred B.C. the Beltain Fires have signified the beginning of Light, that joyful season when the days shall be full of plenty and the nights full of passion and new life. The Season of Light, or Beltain, begins on May first and lasts for six months until Samhain, the Season of Darkness. Following the harvest and Celebration of Light comes a time of Darkness, that sorrowful season when night reigns and darkness rules the land, and when the veil between the physical world and the Otherworld is thinnest and most transparent. Samhain and the time of Darkness begin each November first.” Her words echo through the carriage house. They inspire a kind of reverence, and we stand silently for a moment, side by side, before Madame Berrier lifts her eyes from the book and speaks. “Does it mean anything to you? Could it be a clue to the keys you seek?”
I shake my head. “I don’t think so. It means nothing to me. Nothing at all. I —”
“It’s my birthday.” Sonia’s voice is a whisper. “At least, that is what Mrs. Millburn tells me.”
Her words do nothing to clarify my thinking. “What do you mean? Your birthday is November first?”
She nods. “November first, eighteen seventy-four.”
Madame Berrier looks as puzzled as I feel. “Might it be a coincidence?”
Chewing my lip, I wonder if she is right. I drop onto a bedraggled stool, ignoring the plume of dust that rises from its seat as I try to push down a tide of anguish. All of this and we have found next to nothing.
“Do not despair, Lia. We shall figure this out, you’ll see.” Sonia’s voice is calm and reassuring, and I wonder how she can always be optimistic when I should like to throw something at the walls and scream.
I look up at her. “But we still don’t know where to find the keys. The date… Well, that November first is your birthday is interesting, but it doesn’t tell us a single thing about the keys. I had hoped…”
“What, dear girl?” Madame Berrier is still holding the book, looking down at me with sympathy.
“I don’t know. I suppose I had hoped Samhain was a landmark of some kind, a city or town or something. I hoped it would lead us clearly to the keys.”
I am ashamed to feel tears burn the backs o
f my eyelids.
They are not tears of sadness, but of frustration, and I blink rapidly, inhaling the dusty air and trying to compose myself.
“All right,” Sonia says, “we shall simply file this bit away for now, that’s all. The reference to Samhain clearly refers to a date. Perhaps that will be important later. There’s still the next bit, is there not?”
I nod, pulling James’s notes from my bag and peering at them in the dim light of the old building. “Yes. All right, then. Let me see… here it is: ‘Birthed in the first breath of Samhain, In the shadow of the Mystic Stone Serpent of Aubur.’ ” I look up at Madame Berrier.
She holds out a hand. “May I?”
I hesitate. My shock at realizing first I was the Gate and now the Angel has made me feel that no one is what they seem. Certainly not Alice or I. And not Father, either, working all those years to protect me while I remained ignorant. Even still, Madame Berrier has tried to help us, and it is obvious we must widen our circle if we are to have a chance of finding the keys.
I hand over the notes. “Perhaps it will make sense to you.”
She lowers her head, the proximity with which she holds the paper to her face making me wonder if she is nearsighted. She reads for a moment, eyebrows knitted together in concentration, before handing the notes back to me across the darkness.
“I am most sorry, but… I’m not sure. That is, it sounds rather familiar, but only in the sound of the word itself, not with any sort of recognition.”
Sonia shakes her head. “What do you mean?”
Madame Berrier sighs. “ ‘Aubur’ sounds English, or… perhaps Celtic. But I don’t recognize it as the name of a town or place.” She brings her other hand to her mouth, tapping there as if this will bring to mind the answers we seek. “Let me ponder it a bit.” She moves past us toward the door. “And let us leave this place. We have been thinking too long and hard on the prophecy. I should like to get back into the sunlight, away from the shadows of the past and the things yet to come.”
We stop in front of Madame Berrier’s building before leaving. A biting wind lifts her hat, and she places a hand on top of it to keep it in place, glancing at Edmund a few feet away before speaking.
“There is one thing I feel I should say.…”
I swallow the apprehension that rises in my throat. “What is it?”
“If what I have heard is true, the simplest thing you can do to protect yourself from the Souls is to guard against wearing the amulet.” Her words are said with such nonchalance that they take me off guard.
“The amulet?”
Madame Berrier gestures with one hand, as if it is obvious to what she is referring. “The amulet. The bracelet. The medallion. The one with the mark.”
My gaze slides to Sonia. I have not made a point of telling her about the medallion because I knew not its place in the prophecy.
“The medallion?” I try not to betray any emotion. “What of it?”
“What of it indeed!” Madame Berrier is aghast. “My dear, it is said that every Gate comes into possession of a medallion, a medallion that matches perfectly the mark on her wrist. The Souls can make their way back only when the mark on the medallion is aligned with the mark on the Gate. But for you… well, for you the medallion is even more dangerous. You are the conduit for Samael himself. The small protection you have is to shun the medallion, avoid wearing it, though even this may not be enough.”
Her words are not the surprise they should be. I knew instinctively that the medallion was in some way connected to the pathway back for Samael. Still, this new proof brings forth a question that has teased the darkest parts of my mind. One I have not dared speak aloud until now.
“There is something I don’t understand, Madame. Even if I were to wear the medallion, how might Samael pass into our world? He is but a spirit thing, is he not? An empty soul. How would he move in our world without a body?”
“That, my dear girl, is rather simple.” Madame Berrier presses her lips into a grim line before continuing. “He will use yours.”
16
I cannot keep the disbelief from my voice… “What you say is mad! What havoc might a thing wreak in the body of a young girl?”
Madame Berrier eyes me solemnly.
“Once here the Beast and his Army may change into any form they desire. It might be a man, a demon, an animal, even a simple shadow. But you… well, once your body has been occupied by the spirit of the Beast, the astral chord will be severed. And your body lost to you forever.”
“I’m sorry, Sonia. I didn’t… I truly didn’t know until just last evening.”
Sonia does not answer as Edmund navigates the street toward her residence. Her silence plants seeds of fear in my belly. Fear that she will no longer be my ally, my friend, for who would align themselves with someone like me?
“If you and Luisa wish to work together, I shall understand.”
She turns to me. “Do you feel yourself the Gate? Do you feel anything… untoward?”
My face feels warm, and I am glad she cannot see me clearly in the darkening carriage lest she should take my blushing cheeks as a sign of guilt. “In truth, I feel like myself most of the time, though a good deal more confused and uncertain.”
But Sonia is trained to listen for the nuances of a thing, and my words are not lost to her ears. “Most of the time?” she prods gently.
“There are times… not many, but some, when I feel the pull of… something. Oh, it’s so difficult to explain! It isn’t that I find myself on the verge of committing some terrible act, it is only… well, it is only that I sometimes feel a connection to the medallion. I sometimes feel the call of it. Of wanting to wear it. Of wanting to fall into sleep and the travel I know it will bring. And then…”
“And then?”
“Then I come to my senses, quickly, and remember that it is my call to fight it.”
“And you remember this even now? Now that you know it is not your call? That you are not the Guardian but the Gate?”
“Now more than ever.” I find comfort in the certainty of my belief.
She nods before turning her face to the window for the rest of the ride.
When we come to the house of Mrs. Millburn, I step out of the carriage and stand next to Sonia on the walk while Edmund anxiously looks on, tapping his foot in a not-so-subtle reference to the passing time. The people streaming past us seem strangely ominous, perhaps even dangerous, and I hear Madame Berrier’s words in my mind; the Beast and his Army may change into any form they desire… a simple man, a demon, an animal, perhaps even a simple shadow. There are likely thousands of Souls already in our world from previous Gates. And they could be anywhere. Everywhere. All waiting for one moment of weakness from me.
Sonia takes my hands in hers. “There is a reason you were chosen to be the Angel, Lia. If the power of the prophecy deems you fit to make such a decision, why shouldn’t I feel the same?” Her smile is small but true. “We shall stick together. It is our best hope of finding the answers we need. Luisa shall have to speak for herself, but I am with you.”
“Thank you, Sonia. I will not disappoint you. I promise.” I reach over and embrace her, overcome with gratitude at the show of her friendship.
She shivers, wrapping her arms around her shoulders as the cold of evening approaches ever faster.
I think about the children, the ones that Father brought from England and Italy and the others not yet found. “Oh, there are so very many things to discuss! And no time! No time at all, with Luisa at Wycliffe and you here with Mrs.
Millburn and me at Birchwood and the coming…” My thought hangs, unfinished, as an idea begins to take shape.
“The coming what? Goodness, Lia! I shall freeze if we do not say goodbye soon!”
I nod, coming to a decision. “The three of us must have more time together. That is what it comes to, isn’t it? Leave it to me. I shall take care of everything.”
Sonia and I have said our goodbyes, and
I am halfway back to the carriage when I feel a hand on my arm. “Oh, pardon me, but do please —” The rest of the words escape me when I turn to shake myself loose and find myself looking straight into James’s face.
“Lia,” he says, his eyes colored with something I have never seen before. Something too close to anger to be called anything else.
“James! What are you… ?” I look around the street, stalling for an explanation for my presence in town. “What are you doing here?”
“I happen to live in town. In fact, it’s quite unusual for a day to pass when I do not have to stroll the streets for one reason or another.” His eyes flash. “You, on the other hand, live some distance.”
His words set a quiet fury boiling in my veins, and I feel anew the pressure of his fingers, still on my wrist. Pulling my arm away takes effort, but I do it. I pull it away and step back, feeling the anger burn hot on my cheeks.
“Shall I stay home like a proper girl, then? Is that what you’d like? Shall I take up the needle and worry over taking too much sun? Oh, you are just… just… Ugh!”
Anger matching my own flashes in his eyes. But it is only a moment before he shakes his head and lowers his eyes to the walk under our feet. “Of course not, Lia. Of course not.”
He is quiet for a moment, and my eyes drift to Edmund. Were my public altercation with anyone other than James, Edmund would have seen me to the carriage long ago. But now when our eyes meet, he drops his to the ground in embarrassment. James’s voice, softer now, pulls my thoughts away from Edmund.
“Can’t you understand my concern? You remain… distant after your father’s death. I know it is a blow, but I cannot help but feel something else lies between us. And now… well, now you are wandering around town, unchaperoned, with people I don’t know, and —”
My mouth falls open in shock. “You’ve been following me? You’ve followed me through the streets of town?”
Prophecy of the Sisters Page 12
