by E. E. Holmes
Catriona’s head snapped up and her mouth began to move in a rapid, silent mantra. I leaned in, so close to her lips that I might have kissed them. I watched as they formed the same words over and over again, heard the breath rushing in and out, carrying them just far enough to reach my ears.
“Little book. Little book. Little book.”
“Yes, that’s right. Little book,” I told her. “What is the little book? What does it mean?”
“Little book, little book!” Catriona cried imploringly, but her voice was suddenly ten voices. Every Host was repeating it now, and every face was alight with desperation.
“What is the little book?” I repeated.
Every Host immediately dropped into a sitting position and began to mimic the act of writing.
“Give her the pen!” Fiona whispered to me. “Give her the paper!”
I slid the piece of paper across to Catriona and very carefully slipped the pen into her moving hand. At once, words began to appear in a messy trail behind her hand. “Dear Little Book, Dear Little Book, Dear Little Book.”
“She’s writing, “Dear Little Book,” I told the others excitedly, before addressing Catriona again. “Was the little book yours? Was it some kind of… journal, or diary?”
Catriona dropped her pen abruptly and placed her hand upon her chest. “Little book!” she answered, nodding vigorously.
“Where is it? Is it here? Does it still exist? Can you show it to me?” I asked her, my heart beginning to pound with anticipation.
With alarming speed and agility, Catriona leapt to her feet and dashed to the window overlooking the grounds. The rest of the Hosts followed like so many puppets controlled by a single set of strings. I watched in fascination as each of them raised a violently shuddering hand and pointed off down the path into the darkened grounds beyond.
I stood up and joined them at the window, squinting into the gathering darkness. I turned to the Host right beside me and realized with a start that it was Celeste.
“Is it close?” I asked her. “Here on the grounds?”
She nodded solemnly.
“Can you show me?”
Every head nodded before turning again to stare off into the night. Every mouth began working in the silent mantra again. “Little book, little book, little book.”
I turned back to Fiona, Finn, and Mrs. Mistlemoore, all of whom were standing and watching with their mouths agape.
“We need to go where they lead us,” I said. “We can end this tonight.”
“I’m going to alert the Council,” Mrs. Mistlemoore said at once, turning and hurrying toward the door.
“No, you can’t do that yet!” I cried, running after her.
She turned around to stare at me. “Why ever not?”
“They’ll just hold us up!” I said. “Let’s just go, let’s just find this book and see what it says!”
“Jessica, I have indulged your whim, despite my reservations, and I do not doubt that it has paid off. But I will not proceed any further with this new information until I alert the Council and they give us their instructions.”
“I’m on the Council,” Fiona said, crossing her arms. “Can’t you just take my instructions?”
“You know very well that I cannot,” Mrs. Mistlemoore said impatiently. “Letting you in here is one thing, but letting any of them out,” and she pointed over to the Hosts still crowded around the window, “is another matter entirely. It would mean breaking the quarantine. It would also risk one of the Hosts escaping, and we cannot possibly risk that without authorization. If one of the Hosts escapes, we won’t be able to reassemble the Shards or expel them from the rest of the Hosts.”
I let out a deep sigh of frustration. “They will find a way to screw this up, I know it.”
“That is a chance I am willing to take,” Mrs. Mistlemoore said. She had nearly reached the door when Carrick came shooting through it.
“Mrs. Mistlemoore, we need…” Carrick began, but stopped abruptly when he caught sight of me. His face went blank. “Jessica? What are you doing here? Where’s Hannah? You’re not… she’s not a Host?”
“No, no, we’re fine,” I assured him. “But are you? Is everything okay?”
“It’s Finvarra.” Carrick said shortly. His face spoke volumes.
“Is she…” I couldn’t finish the sentence, as my heart had risen into my throat.
“No. But she is failing quickly,” Carrick said. “Mrs. Mistlemoore, we need you in the High Priestess’ chambers.”
“Oh, Carrick, I’m so sorry,” I said. I took several steps toward him, my hand reaching out, but then I abruptly stopped myself. What exactly did I want to do? Hold his hand? Hug him? I didn’t really know, and I certainly didn’t have the emotional capital to invest in figuring it out. So, like any mature adult, I pretended it hadn’t happened. Luckily, Mrs. Mistlemoore burst through the awkward moment, popping it like a bubble.
“Of course, I’m coming now,” she said, snatching a large, black leather bag from a nearby table before turning back to me. “I must go tend to the High Priestess. Stay here. I’ll speak with the Council and return as soon as I can.”
She gave a stern, lingering look at Fiona before turning and heading for the door.
“I must go with her,” Carrick said, and there was something of an apology in his voice. “Are you… you’re alright here, are you?” He asked the question with a quiet sort of desperation, a tone that indicated that he could only bear to hear one answer.
And so, I gave it to him. “I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”
He nodded in grateful acknowledgment of the lie, and shimmered out of view just as Mrs. Mistlemoore pushed the door open and Frankie stumbled in, looking startled.
“Frankie! What are you doing here?” I asked, momentarily distracted.
Frankie answered nervously, her eyes darting around and taking in the bizarre scene. “I went with your sister to find Celeste, so that I could tell her I wanted to start my training, but we never found her, and then a couple of those big burly guys came and took Hannah away.”
“They wanted to ask her some questions about the Shattering,” I said, attempting to keep the anger out of my voice.
“Yes, that’s what they said, but… she seemed kind of freaked out,” Frankie said. “I went to Celeste’s office, but the Caomhnóir there told me she was down in the Grand Council Room, and that she would be back later. I waited for a while, but she never showed up. So, I decided to come down here and see if I could find out how Savannah was doing.”
“She’s… well…” I gestured helplessly into the back corner of the room, where all of the Hosts, including Savannah, were still gathered around the window, murmuring and pointing like they were all having the same sleepwalking nightmare.
Frankie’s eyes went wide as she watched them. “What are they doing?”
“They’re trying to lead us to a clue somewhere out on the grounds,” I said, “but we can’t let them out of the ward without Council permission.”
Frankie looked utterly horrified. I wanted to tell her something comforting—it would all be okay, or some other cliché like that—but I just didn’t have it in me to lie to the poor girl. I turned back to Fiona. “Now what? We just wait here, doing nothing?”
Fiona pursed her lips, running a paint-spattered finger over them as she thought. Then she walked over to the crowd of Hosts and elbowed her way through them to the window.
“Fiona, what are you—” I began, but the rest of my question was swallowed in a gasp as I watched her lift the catch and push the window wide open.
“We tried to stop her, but she overpowered us and escaped through the window,” Fiona said, shaking her head in mock regret. “We had no choice but to go after her.”
I laughed nervously, and then stopped. “Are you serious?”
“Have you ever known me to joke?” Fiona shot back. “Just Catriona, though. We can’t risk letting them all out. We’ll never be able to keep track
of them all, and if we lose one, we are well and truly fucked.”
I turned to Finn. “Alright, let’s have all of your objections.”
He stepped away from the door and crossed his arms. “I have none. As long as we can make sure the other Hosts are safely contained, I think it’s a brilliant idea.”
I gaped at him. “I’d ask if you were serious, but you joke about as often as Fiona does, so I won’t waste my time.”
“We must be careful, though. Someone has to stay here with the other Hosts,” Finn said. “And someone needs to alert the Council that Catriona has escaped once we are safely out of the building.”
“I’ll stay with them,” Frankie said in a voice cracked with fear.
“Are you sure?” I asked her. “Don’t be a hero if you don’t think you can handle it, Frankie, honestly.”
Frankie’s face was set. “No. I can handle it. I can do it. I want to help Savannah.”
“If she says she can do it, then let her,” Fiona said impatiently.
“Who do we send to the Council for help?” I asked, but it was Frankie again who answered.
“There are two girls sitting on the bench out there,” she said, pointing to the door out to the hallway. “I could wait until you’ve gone and then run out there and ask one of them to go for help. Maybe the other one can stay and help me, if I need another set of hands.”
Finn looked surprised, but nodded. “Brilliant. Do you think they would do it?”
“Róisín and Riley have been sitting out there for hours. I think they’d do anything we asked if they thought it would help their mother,” I said.
“Right then, what the hell are we waiting for?” Fiona barked. She turned to Catriona and gestured toward the open window. “After you, then.”
43
Grave Robbing
ONE BY ONE, we led the rest of the Hosts back to their beds, leaving Catriona at the window, where she kept vigil like a seaman’s wife keeps watch on the horizon after a storm. When we were quite sure every Host was calm and resting again, I turned to Frankie.
“Give us maybe a five-minute head start,” I said. “Then send one of the Lightfoot girls for help. The most important thing is to keep all of the Hosts in this room. Fire completely freaks them out, so if you’ve still got that lighter, keep it hidden. Remember the cover story?”
Frankie nodded obediently and repeated it back to me. “Catriona broke free and climbed out the window. You all followed her so that she wouldn’t escape. You are going to bring her right back. I saw you head in the direction of the river.”
“Perfect. Thank you, Frankie. I really appreciate this, and I know Savvy would, too.”
Frankie nodded again, and then went to sit on the edge of the bed, where Savvy lay unnaturally still and quiet.
I joined Finn, Fiona, and Catriona where they stood waiting for me by the window. I placed myself between Catriona and the glass, so that she was forced to look at me.
“The little book. Can you take me to the little book?” I asked her slowly and clearly.
Catriona picked up the familiar refrain, “little book, little book, little book,” and in one swift movement, pushed herself up onto the window ledge and disappeared through it.
“Blimey!” Finn cried, leaping after her. The hospital ward was on the first floor, thank God, but it was still a sizable drop to the ground. Luckily, the December wind had swept the snow up into a pillowy drift against the wall of the castle, and both Finn and Catriona landed softly. I helped boost Fiona through the opening and then followed her, dropping like a stone into the snowbank.
Catriona moved with the blind purpose of a sleepwalker. It was difficult to tell who had control of her body at this moment. Either the spirit was having a hard time maneuvering the body or some part of Catriona was fighting against the spirit’s impulses, but every motion seemed to take an enormous effort, as though Catriona was trying to move and not move at the same time. Nevertheless, she trudged forward across the grounds, plunging through the buried flowerbeds, taking no heed of the paths, and making no effort to avoid impediments. Several times Finn had to rush forward and guide her around a potentially dangerous obstacle. She seemed unable to follow anything but the most direct path between herself and her destination. He pulled a flashlight from the waistband of his jeans and clicked it on, so that a wide golden beam of light could illuminate some of the potential obstacles in our way.
“Do we have any inkling as to where she might be headed?” Fiona asked breathlessly after a few minutes. She was struggling the hardest of all of us to keep up because she kept losing her ratty loafers in the snow.
“That way,” I said unhelpfully, pointing ahead of us. “There’s no way to know, Fiona. We just have to keep following her and hope she isn’t heading for the open countryside. This was your brilliant plan, remember?”
Fiona swore under her breath but kept plowing forward, teeth chattering.
A few minutes later, though, our destination became clear. We were headed straight to the southeast corner of the grounds, where stood the ancient Fairhaven cemetery, nestled in a grove of towering pine trees. Closer and closer we drew, falling in line with a path at last, as it became the shortest possible route leading straight to the wrought iron gates.
No one spoke as the realization set in. I repressed a shiver that had nothing to do with the frigid temperatures and everything to do with the prospect of entering a graveyard in the dead of night. It may seem ridiculous that the place would have any sort of effect on a person who was permanently haunted, but I had to admit I was not thrilled that this was where Catriona had led us. As far as I was concerned, there was a big difference between a spirit and the rotting corpse they left behind. I’d take the spirit any day.
Catriona walked right up to the gates, which were secured with a massive length of chain, and began trying to squeeze herself between the bars. Finn rushed forward and firmly, but gently, closed his arms around her and prised her fingers from the metal.
“Now what?” I asked, clutching at a cramp in my side that had me nearly doubled over. I looked up, trying to judge the height of the fence. “Do you think we could just climb it?” I placed a hand on the nearest bar; it was slick with frost.
But Fiona was already pushing past us. “No need, no need. I know the combination,” she said.
“Why the hell would you know the combination?” I asked her.
“From all the late night grave dancing,” Fiona said baldly, then rolled her eyes. “There are statues and carvings in the graveyard. Their upkeep falls under my purview.” She slid the sleeve of her shirt down over her hand so that she could hold the bitterly cold metal against her skin as she whirled the dial on the lock. For a few moments, there was no sound but for Catriona’s ragged breathing as she strained against Finn’s hold.
With a heavy clunk, the lock fell open. I jumped forward and helped Fiona heave the heavy loops of chain off the bars, pulling it link by link until it lay curled on the ground like a sleeping serpent.
The moment the chains were gone, Catriona pulled free and heaved herself against the gate, which swung forward with a deafening screeching sound. Finn lunged forward to catch her before she plunged headfirst into the snow. The silence inside the graveyard was oppressive, intensified by the muffling blanket of snow and the towering canopy of pine trees. The golden beam of Finn’s flashlight did not seem to penetrate nearly as far now, as though the darkness itself was deeper here. The snow was scanter on the ground; the trees had caught most of it, and were now bent nearly double with the weight of it. Graves stuck up out of the ground at strange angles, as though they had sprung up naturally, nourished like plants by the death and decay nestled beneath them. The stones were clearly all very old, the corners and carvings worn to soft curves and vague impressions. Even if anyone ever did come to visit this graveyard, how would they even know who lay beneath the ground? The graves were nearly indistinguishable. And despite the vast number of spirits in and around
Fairhaven Hall, the place seemed to be completely devoid of ghosts.
“So strange,” I breathed through my now chattering teeth. “I would have expected this place to be packed with spirits.”
But Fiona shook her head. “No Fairhaven spirit would ever hang around here. Everyone here, living and dead, understands too much about the reality of death. They know the bodies we leave behind are just shells. There’s nothing here for them.”
There was no time to digest this nugget of wisdom, for Catriona had struggled her way up off the ground and was now stumbling forward down the path. We hurried after her, huddled together partly for warmth, and partly to keep to the narrow strip of visibility provided by the flashlight beam.
Without warning, Catriona came to a sudden stop, and we all plowed into her, knocking her to her knees. She did not seem to notice. Her eyes, her attention, indeed every fiber of her being was fixed upon the low stone structure looming out of the darkness in front of us. The sight of it seemed to freeze her in her tracks.
“What is it?” I asked, although I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer.
“A mausoleum,” Finn replied. He raised the flashlight to examine it. The beam illuminated the greenish copper roof, the gracefully curved stone sides, and the arched wooden door before finally revealing the name carved above the lintel: Larkin.
Larkin. I’d never seen or heard the name in my life, but it rang through my body like a current, shooting down to the tips of my fingers, and making them twitch with a desire to draw a now familiar face that had been haunting my sleep for days.
“This is it,” I murmured. “Larkin. This is right, I know it is.”
Catriona had recovered from her shock or whatever it was that had kept her momentarily still. She stumbled forward until both of her violently shaking hands were pressed up against the mausoleum door. Her whispered mantra rose to a shrill, keening cry that raised the hairs on my arms and made me feel, somehow, even colder than I’d already felt.
