by Anya Allyn
Armand inclined his head. “Henry, you’re a Johnny-come-lately. You spent your short life totally cut off from the chateau, not even knowing of its existence. What would you really know?” He looked about for affirmation from his family. They nodded in his direction.
Unperturbed, Henry adjusted his cravat. “When I discovered my connections to the castle, all I found here were limp ghosts and a bunch of self-important relatives—relatives who had frittered away most of the riches of the castle. Alcoholics, gamblers and interbred, weak-minded sponges.”
Armand glowered at Henry, indignant surprise stamped in his eyes.
“Now see here, Henry,” interjected Zach’s father. “That is harsh and insulting—and damned unnecessary.’
“Unnecessary?” said Henry. “Don’t you see what I’m getting at? If the families of the château are its foundations, then the foundations are crumbling. The books of the Speculum Nemus were in the possession of Balthazar Batiste once. He went to tremendous lengths and feats of daring and bloodshed to obtain the books. They should have stayed with the chateau. But as much as I despise my uncle Tobias—it must be noted that he was the one to track down the books. He at least, had the brazen spirit needed for such a task.” Henry straightened. “The others at the château at the time were too absorbed in drinking and partying. Back in 1920, when I first came here, that’s all I found. The château needs to strengthen its foundations. It’s not going to do that by choosing wives for its men amongst its blood relatives. And all of us—all of us—are blood relatives. It wants fresh blood. It wants to breed strong descendants.”
Armand gave Henry a cold smile. “Perhaps so. It’s just unfortunate that two of the females it chose are hostile toward the chateau.”
“Indeed,” said Henry. “But perhaps the château had no choice amongst the young people it is being offered. Perhaps it is looking to the future generations. After all, it has weathered centuries of generations.”
“I fear you are pinning far too much hope on those two. Especially the small one. She may have visions, but she has not yet shown you where to find the second book. This is what we get for relying on mere girls. Fou!”
“Do you have another idea, some other plan of action?” Henry asked.
Grimacing, Armand raised his fist. “We must force our way into the strongholds of those who oppose us—smash their defenses.”
The men behind Armand crossed their arms. They all held deathly cold expressions—the expressions of people who looked like they could reach inside and squeeze the blood from your heart. I realized then that Armand and the men were all ghosts. Deadly ghosts.
“You Baldcotts have a habit of forcing your way in and taking no prisoners,” said Henry grimly.
Audette sidled up beside Henry, clutching his arm. She shot the men a dark look. “You know, you didn’t have to send your men to shoot us dead.”
Armand Baldcott shrugged at her. “What’s done is done—we can’t change what happened almost a hundred years ago. Our brother was missing. What did you expect us to do?”
“Ask questions, shoot later,” Henry told him. “After all, it wasn’t us who killed Allan.”
“You should have had better control of that damned serpent shadow monstrosity.” Armand’s eyebrows drew down. “It wasn’t supposed to kill any of us.”
Henry bristled. “Allan should have known better than to venture alone into the dollhouse. And he certainly shouldn’t have been chasing my fourteen-year-old cousin down there. She died hiding from him.”
I gasped, glancing at Molly. Jessamine must have died in terror—she’d made up that story she’d told me about playing hide-and-seek.
“Perhaps she shouldn’t have run away from him,” smirked Armand. “Anyway, for the life of me I don’t know why Allan wanted to marry Tobias’s little circus brat granddaughter. He could have had much better.”
Henry stormed towards him. “You people took the lives of three of my family.”
“Hold on there, Henry.” Parker’s father held up his hands. “No point bringing any of this up now.”
“Of course you’d say that,” Henry spat. “You’re a Baldcott, after all.”
Parker’s father took a glass of wine from Francoeur. “Look, we’re all of the same family line. And none of us need concern ourselves with death, now do we? The families of the Batistes and Baldcotts will pursue every avenue to obtain the knowledge of the complete works of the Speculum Nemus—and we will prevail!”
He raised his glass. The others raised their glasses and a deafening cheer shattered the air.
Henry stood back a little, and then nodded his head. “We will prevail,” he repeated.
Armand Baldcott stepped around Henry, almost circling him. “Now getting back down to business, tell me why is so hard to defeat the defenses of the small group who oppose us?”
Henry’s expression tensed. “The Order begun by Madame Celia may not seem strong, but they cannot be underestimated. She had years to prepare and she was ready for us. They've trained themselves to use a very effective form of mind control, and it totally blocks us. They gathered in Miami, as that is the last known place where the second book was held. They have plagued me at every step as I have tried to recover the book. Even sending the world into a veritable ice age has not diminished them. They endure. And there’s offshoots of the Order to contend with—including one who call themselves the Holy Order of Sister Celia—a cult group that has somehow put religion into the mix. That group is holed up in the museum at Miami—that’s the extent of what we know of them. We cannot see within a hundred miles of Tobias’ house, much less force our way into that area. It is closed to us.”
“What about the girl?” Armand raised a bushy eyebrow.
“Yes, she’s our way forward,” said Henry.
“This I do not understand,” replied Armand. “How is it that you trust a hostile girl to find you the book? It makes no sense. And how is she supposed to find it? She has no instruction, no guide—yes? Is she meant to just dig in the ice until she uncovers it—like a snow fox seeking a rabbit?”
A smattering of deep, haughty laughs came from the men who stood behind Armand.
Henry straightened. “Do not underestimate me, Armand. I come from a tough background. As a child, I had to go out to work to bring in money for my dysfunctional parents. I’ve had to fight for every step forward I’ve ever taken. You are right that I am not like you people from the chateau.”
“You puff a lot of hot air, for a ghost.” Armand stroked his beard. “Your words tell me nothing.”
Henry’s gaze grew ice cold. “While you have all been posturing and looking like you are doing something, I have been busy peering into the other worlds. And I have seen a pattern emerge, something that cannot be ignored. The girl—Cassandra—is the key. She is perhaps the only one who can find us what we seek. At first, I believed she could find us what we seek through her visions, but then I discovered the reason that she is able to go into the visions and peer into other worlds. And that reason will bring us the book. We are sending her and the other girl back to the frozen Miami today—when we find where they have scurried off to.”
Armand marched up to Henry, his eyes dark and full of fire. “Tell me how. How is the girl the key? And why do these people of the Order allow the girl in?”
I tensed, fingers holding tight onto the arms of the chair. Molly turned to me, her face perfectly still as though holding her breath.
Henry slipped his hands into his coat pockets. “Dear cousin Armand, you don’t think I’d give that away, do you? Go ahead and storm the strongholds of the Order and report back on your successes.”
A grinding noise sounded underneath us, deep within the bowels of the castle.
The woman with purple hair stared about fearfully. “The château is restless.”
Armand gazed into his wine, swilling it around. “And it won’t wait... much longer.”
Audette placed her hands on her hips. “Well, if yo
u’re going to send those two off to Miami, don’t dilly-dally. I just spotted them skulking in the library.” She pointed over at us, a mocking smile playing on her gleaming pink lips.
21. THE LETTER
We stepped out of the shadow on the other side of the bay.
Molly stared about in dismay. “I didn’t want to go here. I want to go back to the museum, and find out if they’ve found Frances.” Her voice was tight.
I held my hands to my head. There were tanks crossing the frozen ice of the bay, and there was no way we could cross without being seen. “I know where we are. We’re close to the Batistes' house. They must want us to go there.”
“But we can’t do their bidding. We heard Henry. There’s something they want you to do—something they’re not telling us about.”
“Whatever that is and whatever we find, we just have to conceal it from them. If they can’t see into this world, then they can’t see us.”
She nodded. “And if we do find the book—we’ll destroy it.”
“Yes,” I said fervently.
“Okay, let’s head to the house.”
Moving as fast as the snowy ground allowed, we found our way through the streets of houses. Molly knocked snow from street sign after street sign, until we’d found the street of the Batistes’ house. Every house looked the same—hulking, two-story homes half-buried in white.
A house toward the end of the street loomed before me, icicles like daggers on its windowsills.
“This one.” I nodded at Molly.
The door had previously been boarded-up, but now it hung slightly ajar. We pushed it open. Inside, white, bitter air swirled in from the cracked windows. Frost clung to furniture and the stair bannister.
Just a week before, Molly and I had been here in this house, in another world.
We skidded on the iced-over stairs as we made our way to the second floor. Every bed in every room was left unmade, thin layers of cracked ice on the quilts. Every cupboard and drawer was open—their contents spilled out. As though looters had been through here. Or someone more sinister—someone seeking the book.
Molly and I trod back downstairs and checked the dining room and ballroom. Out in the yard, the snow continued all the way across the water—you couldn’t tell where the yard ended and the lake started.
I could still see the night of the ball, and how Zach looked in his suit—his eyes bright with the night reflection of the lake. Before my world tipped on its edge.
We headed into the study. An asthma mask and medication lay on the floor. Molly leaned her head against the wood of the mirrored tree carving.
“Are you okay?” I eyed her with concern.
“I’m fine,” she assured me. “I’m just so cold.”
I nodded. “I don’t know how anyone can survive these temperatures.”
My own parents were out there, somewhere. I had to stop myself from thinking about them, from imagining what might have happened to them.
A glint caught my eye—a small piece of metal in a corner, frozen underneath a thick layer of ice. I headed out to the kitchen to find something to chip at the ice with. The drawers were frozen on their rails. Tugging hard, I freed the three drawers near the sink. Amongst the tongs and scissors, I found a meat tenderizer and two antique pistols.
I struck at the patch of ice while Molly checked the desk. Shards of ice flew aside. My back stiffened as I took the oval piece of metal from the floor. Jessamine’s locket.
Molly dropped the papers she was looking at, gazing at the locket as I held it out on my gloved hand. “God....”
“She must have dropped it when she brought the girls here from the dollhouse.” I stared at my hand.
Molly took the locket, frowning in concentration as she ran a finger over the carousel horse on the front of it. “I saw something a minute ago that looks exactly like this.”
I followed her out to the ballroom. The immense wooden carving of the mirrored tree spanned the wall. Mr. Batiste had proudly shown off his restoration of it at the ball, just before Molly had whispered to me that ghosts made up half the guests. Just before my world shattered.
Stepping over to the carving, Molly bent down to a small oval-shaped metal plate near the bottom. It just looked like one of those plates that craftsmen sometimes put on their furniture to show who crafted it. But this plate had an indentation of a carousel horse—an exact match of the one on Jessamine’s locket. Carefully, Molly fitted the locket into the plate.
“Listen,” I breathed.
The old wood of the mirrored tree creaked and groaned. We stood back, gasping as the wooden branches of the tree began sliding over each other, rearranging themselves. Like some kind of huge, secret puzzle, the branches slid back to reveal a tiny wooden drawer.
My limbs shook. “Could that be...?”
Molly’s eyes and mouth were opened wide. “If it is, it’s dangerous for us to have it.”
I pressed my lips together hard. “It’s dangerous for us not to have it.” Swallowing, I knelt to pull the drawer free. Protected from the frosty air, it slid out easily.
I breathed out a slow lungful of air. No book sat inside the drawer. There was nothing but a letter. Spidery writing spelled out Jessamine on the brittle envelope.
With trembling fingers, Molly plucked the letter from the envelope. Beside her, I bent my head over the letter as she unfolded it:
My little Sparrow,
I will be with you soon as soon as I can manage it. My regrets are many and I know now that I should not have left you. I have been a very foolish old man. I wished for things that were not mine to wish for.
I must tell you that you can no longer trust Henry or Audette. And you must stay away from Allan Baldcott. Pack a bag and leave by any means you can. Take as much gold and diamonds from the dollhouse as you can carry. Ask the gardener, Thomas McAllister, to take you far away and hide you. Reward him well.
I cannot return just now as there is something I must do but I will be with you as soon as I can.
I will try to explain, and to do so, I must explain my true past—though it pains me. What I am about to tell you, I should have told to your father. We cannot run from our family histories. But we can learn and try not to repeat the mistakes of the past.
My name is Tobias—that much is true, but my family name is not Fiveash. My real name is Tobias Tibault Batiste.
I grew up in a castle—on a cliff in a cold, forbidding part of the French coast. It might sound that we were rich, but we were not. All the fortunes had been squandered centuries ago. The castle was in ruin. The families of the Batistes and the Baldcotts lived there, and had done so since the fourteenth century. It was originally built by a lord with vague ties to the French royalty—Monseigneur Balthazar Batiste.
Cruel punishments were metered out to the children. For any misdemeanors, we were locked in cellars and the dungeons, hit with whips and sticks, and starved. Life at the castle was very strange and dark, but I do not have time now to tell you all of that.
I ran away from the castle with my younger brother, Gilles, when we were sixteen and fourteen. We hid in a ship bound for America. I was hell-bent on making my fortune so that I never need return. We changed our names to Fiveash and explained away our accents as having had a French governess.
Gilles and I found work in a circus. I soon decided to create my own circus. Gilles went his own way—and soon became caught up in gambling and drinking. I don’t judge him for this—we both had the demons of our pasts to conquer. My circus grew quickly and made a name for itself.
By this time, Gilles had his own family—and they were so poor they were starving. I took them in and gave them a home in the circus. I met your beautiful grandmother and we had a baby boy—your father—and life was grand. I thought I was a king at the top of the world. When my son grew to a man and you were born, it was the icing on top of the cake.
As I look back now, I know I craved success too much and I pushed everyone too hard to achieve
that success. Even you, my little Sparrow. I was a relentless, hard taskmaster. My investments in gold and silver and property were booming—and the circus brought in a fine income—but I never rested. I never allowed anyone else to rest. If I had my time back, I would have built the house in Florida decades earlier. I would have given my family a true home for much of each year and not forced them to spend their lives on the road. But I was always running, always trying to escape my past.
When your grandmother passed away, my world collapsed. But I soldiered on. When your father was killed on The Wheel of Death the following year, I fell into a dark place that I could not climb out of. It seemed that everything I had built up with the circus had been for nothing. It seemed that I was cursed and that the darkness of the castle had caught up with me.
I began seeking a way to bring Simon back to me. I consulted with mediums and clairvoyants and all kinds of charlatans. My depression grew. In my darkest hour, I recalled my childhood in the castle—the families there had been seeking a set of books named the Speculum Nemus. The books purportedly held the secrets of the universes. The secrets to life itself. The books had briefly been in the possession of the Monseigneur of the castle back in the fifteenth century—but had been stolen when the castle was ransacked by villagers. I will not state here the reason that the villagers ransacked the castle, for it is too terrible.
I did what I said I would never do. I returned to the castle. I pretended I wanted to mend my ties there. But secretly, I searched the libraries for mentions and translations of the book. I found enough clues to begin tracking the book. After a year of searching, I located the first in a temple in India. I am not proud to say I handsomely paid an expert jewelry thief to break in and steal the book.
With the first book of the Speculum Nemus in hand, I then had to set myself the task of finding someone to translate the ancient language. Eventually, I found such a person in Egypt—a ninety-year-old former professor who had studied ancient languages. His mind was failing him and it was a struggle for him, but he was able to translate a good deal of the text. Enough for my mind to cross universes and look into other earths. You might think I would find it shocking that such a thing could be possible—but I had grown up hearing about such things.
