“Indeed.” Percy grinned. “I shan’t forget the look on her face the day I was reading a book aloud in the courtyard in a language none of us had yet learned. What was it?”
“Greek,” Sister Mary Therese answered immediately—and, Alexi noted, uncomfortably. She opened the door behind her, and the room beyond was lit by a great fire in a hearth, casting everything in yellow light against cool shadows. The reverend mother’s voice boomed out.
“My dear Percy! Come embrace me before you introduce this husband of yours.” She came around the desk, a wrinkled, round woman whose mousy brown and grey hair poked insubordinately from her white coif, opening her arms. Percy ran to embrace her.
“So quickly, Percy,” the woman murmured with an amazed laugh. “So quickly. This incredible news.”
“Yes, Reverend Mother,” Percy exclaimed joyfully. “I’m as shocked as you.”
Alexi approached and bowed in deference. “Reverend Mother, it is an honour to finally meet you. I owe you tremendous thanks, for I cannot imagine my life had you not sent Percy to Athens.”
Percy blushed furiously, but while the reverend mother’s smile was warm, the look in her eyes was far from trusting. “Indeed. Well, these convent walls could not contain such a woman as she, Professor, as I’m sure you understand.”
“Percy, will you walk with me for a bit?” Mary Therese spoke up.
“Yes, go,” the reverend mother said. “I wouldn’t mind a moment to consult Professor Rychman on a few…fiscal matters.”
Percy looked to Alexi for permission, and he nodded as if she needn’t ask. With a wave and a tiny smile she disappeared into the hall.
“Professor,” the reverend mother said as the door closed. “There are many reasons why I wish to speak with you alone.”
Alexi pursed his lips. “I imagine finance ranks among the least important.”
“Indeed.”
“Well, if it is any concern at all, I am descended of a wealthy family and have many vested interests and a comfortable estate. Percy shall not lack.”
“While I am pleased to hear that, money is not my focus.”
“What is?”
“Your intentions.”
Alexi raised an eyebrow. He had assumed he would be welcomed with relief, not questioned as a possible threat. “Why, my intention was to make Miss Parker my wife, which I have done.”
“While Percy is admittedly unique, and older than the rest of your students, she was still your pupil. Is it not forbidden for there to be relations between—”
“Of course. And after Miss Parker and I confessed our mutual sentiments to each other, we were quick to withdraw her as a student and make our union complete.”
“Before her schooling was finished?”
Alexi shook his head. “Reverend Mother. With all due respect, you surely know that—proud as I am of the academy—Percy was suited for Oxford not Athens. The only class that gave her any trouble was mine, and I’d like to think that was due at least in part to distraction.”
Levity infused his last comment, but there was none to be found on the reverend mother’s face. “Professor, forgive my bold statements, but I am concerned that your interest in Percy may be of a fleeting, novel nature, and not one of lasting devotion. Perhaps you hastened into marriage due to…improprieties.”
“I did not ruin the girl and marry her out of duty, if that is what you are insinuating, Reverend Mother,” Alexi stated. “I maintain I am a gentleman.”
The woman winced. “Of course.”
“Of what else must I assure you?” Alexi asked.
“The girl is not merely an oddity, Professor, not something to be shown off at parlour séances. Her heart is vast with love but incredibly delicate. If you should abandon her to take up perhaps with another student…” She shuddered. “The effect upon her would be cataclysmic. Irreparable.”
Alexi sighed. “Reverend Mother. True, you know nothing about me, and one might fear a lover making some sort of curious trophy of Percy. This is hardly the case. You surely know the transformative power of my wife’s radiant soul; I merely became the fortuitous recipient of her affections. I would have preferred not to marry a student, but the fact remained that Persephone was a heaven-sent angel and I wished to do right by her as soon as possible.”
“I want to like you, Professor,” said the reverend mother, frowning. “In fact, I want to rejoice in you.”
Alexi shrugged. “If you are concerned about Percy’s lasting presence in my life, perhaps the announcement that she has become a permanent member of our Athens staff will help.”
“Really? Staff?”
“Yes, we’ll be keeping her busy with literary translation. Fitting, don’t you think?”
When Alexi offered a slight smile, the reverend mother at long last returned it. “Perfect.”
“So. Your strange, dear little charge has become mistress of a fine estate, gained a husband and employment in a matter of months. She has not done poorly for herself, has she?”
“No.” The reverend mother laughed. “It’s far more than I could possibly have dreamed. Thank you, Professor.”
“The pleasure is mine, I assure you.”
After a moment of pleased reflection, the old woman spoke. “There is yet another sobering matter.”
“The grave of her mother,” Alexi guessed.
The reverend mother moved to a cabinet and unlocked a drawer. She pulled out an envelope marked with a simple Celtic cross. “Here is a map.”
“Thank you.” Alexi regarded her. “Percy has been strange business for you, hasn’t she?”
The reverend mother nodded. “Yes. I always knew I had to take…special precautions.”
“If I might ask, what have you done? You’ve not closed her off from the strange portents of her life; you have allowed them.”
“You’re a man of science and will scoff at my reasoning, I’m sure.”
“As I once told Percy, Reverend Mother, you’d be surprised how little I find strange. Percy was hesitant to tell me of her visions, of her interactions with the dead, and I love her all the more for them. There’s much about the universe that defies our explanation.”
The old woman smiled. “Oh, my. A man of science with an open mind. What a treasure! I wish the rest of your kind were as forgiving to us clergy…In a dream, precisely nine months before the infant Percy arrived, the Holy Virgin proclaimed that unto us a strange child would come, but not to fear her, and whatever would be asked of her care, to do it. She proclaimed the girl would bring light and love to those lives she touched. How could I not obey? I sought to serve this prophesied child, and with you here now…Well, I rest easier knowing she has someone to love and protect her.”
“That she has,” Alexi said. “Now, you said ‘whatever would be asked of her care’…?”
“To attend to the burial of the mother as you will find. And then I was told of Athens. I made inquiries. Your school is not easy to find, you know.”
Alexi smiled wryly. “Indeed, it is part of our…charm.”
“Once examined, I saw the school was precisely suited for her. The Lord provided.”
“Indeed,” Alexi repeated. “Rest assured, my dear woman, I care for Percy more than I can express. I pledge my life for her safety.”
The reverend mother moved to Alexi and embraced him. “I am grateful for you, Professor.”
“That pleases me greatly.”
A knock came upon the door, and, grinning, the old woman called, “Come collect your husband, Percy.”
Percy entered, moving as if she had to keep herself from running to him. “Business all attended?”
“Yes, love,” Alexi replied. “It seems I’ve married a pale pauper. Not a penny to her name.”
Percy looked mortified. “But—”
“And I don’t mind a bit,” Alexi stated, sliding his arm around her waist. It took Percy a moment to realize he’d been teasing. “Shall we take a turn round your old haunts?”
“Of course, dear.” The woman chuckled. “But be sure to come back and bid me farewell.”
Percy led Alexi about the cloister, from the courtyard garden where she had named every flower and staged her own version of a faerie play at age six, to the small grey confines of her old room with its one narrow window and within which she and her Elizabethan spirit friend Gregory had recited Hamlet in the dead of night. She explained the haunts of each of her spirit friends, only a few of whom still lingered against her uncanny knack for setting them to rest.
“Oh, Alexi,” she exclaimed when the tour was finished. They sat on a courtyard bench. “Thank you for listening to tales of a weird childhood. I led a magical but desperately lonely life, knowing no one would ever understand or believe. How wondrous to have someone who understands, a lover who—” She bit her lip, shivering. The word “lover” was still such a deliciously fresh concept.
“Indeed,” Alexi replied, kissing her blushing cheek. “You’re a tonic of youth for an old man.”
“Old man. Hardly,” she scoffed. She drew near, looking furtively around to be sure they were alone. “You’ve proven otherwise,” she murmured, brushing his lips with hers.
The sound he made, and the way his hands tightened upon her, were signs that his control was being tested. “My God, Mrs. Rychman, you lure a professor into marrying you, then drive him mad with desire inside your old convent walls? You were never meant for sisterhood.”
Percy blushed, giggling. “Is this where my melancholy prince tells me to ‘get thee from a nunnery’?”
Alexi grinned. “Indeed. And we’ve turned tragedy into a happy ending. We are products of our fool romantic age in the end,” he murmured, running a finger along her collarbone. “Now, what did Sister Mary ask?”
“If our hasty marriage was because you’d ruined me.”
Alexi chuckled. “Your abbess wondered the same. Come then,” he said, rising. “Onward.”
After making their good-byes, they were escorted out the massive front doors by the reverend mother and a parade of the abbey’s ghostly denizens, their numbers greatly diminished since Percy’s birth. Percy waved one last time to those who remained while Alexi spoke with the carriage driver; then she settled in for yet another long journey.
Alexi took a deep breath. “Before we return to London, my love, we’ve one last appointment. We must pay our respects at the foot of your mother’s grave.”
Percy’s brow furrowed. “My mother’s grave? Why didn’t I know about a grave?”
“I think we’ll see soon enough,” Alexi replied.
They traveled down a road thick with brush. Percy noted the quaint York surroundings growing wilder and increasingly unkempt. At last came an unmarked iron gate and a narrow, deep patch of flat ground interspersed with white stones. As Alexi helped Percy from the cab, she took in a full view of their destination.
Alexi was sure to keep her arm tightly in his as he opened the squealing hinges of the cemetery’s rusting gate. Percy stared at old, untended graves, sandstone eroded beyond recognition, moss over the epitaphs. There were no spirits that lingered here; those interred had either found peace or their lingering wraiths had managed to flee.
In a corner plot lined with thin-branched evergreens, two small stones lay apart from the rest. Alexi crossed directly toward them, and Percy felt her blood grow cooler with each step. Then she realized it wasn’t just her blood; the air was drastically colder here, as if she were standing in the wake of a spirit. But she saw none.
The flat grey stone they sought was not nearly as worn as its neighbors, and the moment Alexi saw it, he pressed Percy closer, holding her as she gasped and nearly fainted. The larger stone was inscribed: I. PARKER, MOTHER. The stone to its left: PERCY PARKER, INFANT.
Percy choked, turning in to his firm embrace. “How cruel. To feel such a ghost already, and then to see this? Shouldn’t it unhinge my very senses?”
“You’re flesh and blood, Percy,” Alexi assured her. “There’s another reason for this grim landmark. Be strong, love, and wait here a moment.”
Percy watched him turn and walk away, his black cloak billowing. He returned to the carriage and unlashed something from its rear: a shovel. The very sight of it made Percy ill.
“Oh God, Alexi,” she called across the graves. “What are you doing?”
He calmly approached and drove the shovel into the earth beneath the smaller stone. Percy cried out. “Alexi!”
“Your infant body is not within this grave, Percy. What is?”
The question could not stay unanswered. It did not take long to unearth a small, rotting wooden box the size of a dead child. Alexi pried open the lid. Inside was a metal container, its contents a clump of folded paper bound by twine and an odd silver key. Alexi lifted both, brushed a few specks of dirt away from each and handed them over.
Percy accepted the items gingerly, her gloved hands shaking. She was scared to open the twine, and she hadn’t the slightest idea about the key. She had lived without any knowledge of her mother and had become accustomed to that mystery. But, looking into Alexi’s eyes, she found strength.
He picked up the shovel and began refilling the grave. Replacing the patches of grass, he stepped upon the ground to make it level. The disturbance of the earth would not be readily apparent. Then, their purpose complete, he took her arm again. “Shall we linger?”
“Allow me a moment, if you would,” Percy replied quietly. Alexi promptly obeyed, walking away without question.
Percy stared down at the larger tombstone. This lonely grave was all that remained of a true family. “Mother. So much has happened to me in such a short time, and I did not expect to see this. All I can think to do is offer thanks and pray for your peace. I’m sure I owe you more than my life. I’ve a husband! And, isn’t it incredible that an oddity such as me should have one so grand? I wish we both could have known you. I only hope heaven grants you such comforts as he has given me.” Her hand closed around her phoenix pendant, her only inheritance. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Alexi standing just beyond the iron gate, patient, his arms folded in his cloak. She allowed his magnetism to draw her back. He was her family now. As were The Guard.
He loosened his arms for her to fall into. She lingered there, in his warm, comforting darkness, breathing in his subtle spices before she drew back. “Well,” she murmured, “shall we journey on?”
“Yes, my dear, I can hardly wait to bring you home.”
This roused an eager smile, and in that moment all surprises and sorrows were forgotten.
In the carriage, Alexi knew better than to sit opposite her. He shifted to allow her specific place in the crook of his arm. When she looked up, he nodded at the folded paper. “I’ll not look, if you would rather—”
“No, Alexi, I wish to hide nothing from you. What do you suppose this key might be?”
Alexi examined it. “I once found a tiny keyhole at the centre of the floor of our sacred space below the chapel, and I always wondered of it. Perhaps we shall try it there, though I hesitate to guess what we may unlock.”
Frowning, Percy ran her finger across the peculiar knots and grooves of the key. Unclasping her necklace, she slid the key onto it. Lifting the silver phoenix on the chain she asked, “Why would Mother have given me this and withheld the rest?”
The open patch at her breast revealed the perfect imprint of the silver bird, the scar that had both alarmed and excited him. “This sign branded you, brought you to us, but apparently the prophecy required you shouldn’t have that key until we were united.”
Percy nodded and took a deep breath. She opened the accompanying letter and read: “ ‘My dear child, while I’ll never know you, I know about you. Much like the Lord, your coming was foretold. Do not be afraid. I am not. I was delivered from death to deliver you. I wish I were clever enough to devise a more delicate beginning, but there is only the stra
nge wonder of your birth these words stand witness to.’ ”
Folding the papers with slightly trembling fingertips, Percy reached to caress Alexi’s hand, leaned into him with her full weight and shut her eyes. “I…I’m too overwhelmed,” she murmured. So the letter was left untouched for the remainder of the journey home.
“So, again, beloved, I’m left to wonder,” Alexi murmured as she slept on his shoulder. “What, exactly, are you?”
CHAPTER TEN
If the balance between the mortal and the spirit worlds was a tapestry, now and then a thread of that tapestry would begin to tug, perhaps tear. It was in response to this disruption that The Guard acted, to smooth each snag in the fabric. Rebecca’s awareness of this phenomenon was unmatched; it was as if the whole of London were a map written in her blood, and though she was haunted by a lingering guilt that hung over her like a guillotine, the Pull at this moment was a rustle of leaves under Rebecca’s skin that tumbled into a cluster. Two familiar problems were brewing due east: one on Rosebury, the other down Fleet. Perhaps the occupation would do her good.
As she had a horse brought to the Athens portico, a broad-shouldered silhouette trotted up the alley. “Hallo, my dear. Feel the Pull, do you?”
“Yes, Michael,” she replied, having hoisted herself sidesaddle onto the mare. “And while I appreciate your diligence, I believe I can disassemble these fools alone.” She grimaced. “Seems to be the night for severed heads.”
Michael chuckled. “Ah, Goldsmith and Grimaldi. Of course you can handle them. Still, I thought I would offer.”
Rebecca shrugged. “I’m only fit for my own company.”
“While I don’t agree, I do believe you must prove to yourself why we turn to you as well as Alexi. Now that he has his…preoccupations, you’ll need to step fully forward.”
She stared down at him a moment before her face softened. “You are right.”
Michael grinned. “I could smugly say ‘I know,’ but that sounds too much like Alexi and we can’t have that. I’ll just thank you for agreeing.”
“No. Thank you, my dear. I need someone to tell me sensible things,” Rebecca murmured. Then she rode off, before he could add anything else.
The Darkly Luminous Fight for Persephone Parker Page 13
