He held out his hand. As if lifted by a string, my own hand floated up and found itself in his. It was like dropping my hand into ice water. The iciness spread from my hand, up my arm, and into my chest—a cold so intense it burned. I looked down, expecting either a block of ice or a charred lump where my hand had been. My gloved hand lay lightly in his gloved hand, but I could no more have removed it than if it had been trapped inside a metal vise. I lifted my eyes back to his.
“Judicus van Drood,” he said.
“Avaline Hall,” I replied, feeling as if someone else was speaking. The numbness had reached my lips. I had a horrified feeling that anything might come out of them—shocking improprieties, bawdy songs, gibberish.
“Ah, I believe I knew you mother,” he said. “You have her eyes. My condolences for her untimely demise.”
“Thank you,” I said through frozen lips, “for your sympathy.” Inside I was screaming. I would rather have shouted obscenities than trade polite niceties with the man who had hounded my mother to her death.
“Such a shame,” he continued, clucking his tongue as though my mother’s death was a broken vase. “For such a lovely woman to die so young. I’m afraid that her constitution was weakened by too much intellectual stimulation. Education can have that unfortunate effect on the frailer sex. Even after she left Blythewood she wasted her time reading foolish books, didn’t she? In fact, those last few months she was engaged in a search for a particular book, was she not?”
I tried to clamp my lips shut, but the words came bubbling up. “Y-yes . . . she sent me to the library for s-s-some books . . .”
Hot tears sprung to my eyes, but they froze before they could fall. The burning ice had risen to my eyes. Soon it would be inside my brain and then I would be his entirely.
“I just hope you’re not following in your mother’s footsteps, Ava. I was very concerned to hear that you’ve been looking through the Blythewood special collections.”
I wanted to ask how he knew that, but the words would not come out of my mouth. He smiled, parting his lips, and a puff of smoke slipped out of his mouth. Before my horrified eyes, I watched it form into the shape of a crow that flapped its wings and settled on his shoulders. I wanted to turn my head and see if anyone else could see it, but I couldn’t move.
“Never mind who told me that you’ve been looking through the special collections. I know you haven’t found it there. But I am intrigued about this little trip to the post office. Have you located a copy of the book? If so, I’d very much like to know where.”
Mr. Farnsworth’s name and address were on the tip of my tongue. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep them from spilling out. The taste of blood momentarily melted the ice in my mouth. Iron and blood, Mr. Jager had once told us, were our best defenses against other magic. But it wasn’t enough. The name was still coming . . .
The church bells began to ring the noon hour. Van Drood swiveled his neck toward the sound. The minute his eyes were off mine I felt a loosening of the ice. I wrenched my hand out of his, but I still couldn’t move my legs. He snapped his head back toward me.
The ninth bell rang. If I didn’t get away before the toll ended I would give him Mr. Farnsworth’s name and something terrible would happen to him. The bells tolled ten and I heard it echo within me, the iron of the bell reverberating in the iron of my blood. The bells tolled eleven. The sound was inside me, a part of me. I was a chime child. The bells belonged to me.
The bells tolled twelve.
Judicus van Drood lifted his hand and reached for me.
The bells tolled thirteen.
His eyes widened, black pupils swelling over the whites.
The bells tolled fourteen.
His hand was frozen midair. The shadow crow on his shoulder shattered into shards and the ice that held me shattered with it.
The bells tolled fifteen. How many more chimes did I have? I should bolt.
I looked into van Drood’s eyes. The black pupils had totally overrun the white. That darkness seethed like smoke. A vein throbbed at his temple so angrily it looked as though it was going to explode.
I smiled. “My mother always said that men who oppose women’s education are afraid of women becoming too strong because they themselves are too weak. You have a weakness, Mr. van Drood. I will find it and destroy you for what you did to my mother. Good day.”
I turned and walked back down the bluestone path. Pins and needles stabbed my legs as my limbs slowly came back to life. I had to concentrate on not falling and strive very hard not to break into a run. The bells were still tolling. Men and women stood on the street staring up at the church’s bell tower, some walking toward the church.
I didn’t know why the bells were still ringing, but I knew I had to get as far away from van Drood as I could before they stopped. The streets were crowded now, full of townspeople wondering why their church bells were tolling as if for a funeral or a fire. I crossed the street to get farther way from van Drood and picked up my pace as my legs warmed up. At the corner of Livingston Street I bumped into a short plump woman.
“Pardon me,” I said, trying to get around her, but she grabbed hold of my hand. I let out a yelp and pulled away, frightened of being touched so soon after van Drood’s hands had been on me.
“It is you!” The little woman cried. “I knew it! I told Hattie that only a chime child could do this.”
I looked down into Emmaline Sharp’s kind plump face.
“Are you in danger?” she asked.
I nodded and began to shake.
“You poor child, your hands are like ice. Come along to Violet House with me.”
“But the bells,” I said, looking back down Main Street. Van Drood was no longer standing in front of the inn. “If I started them mustn’t I stop them?”
“They’ll stop when you feel safe again. Come. We’ll sit you by the fire and get some hot tea into you.” She steered me down Livingston Street, past houses where people stood on their porches and in their yards, talking about why the bells were ringing. Harriet Sharp stood in front of Violet House with her brother Thaddeus. She was stroking his arm, murmuring something to him. His sparse hair was standing up in disordered clumps and he was rocking on his heels, clearly agitated. When he saw me with Emmaline he began to hop in place.
“Be gone, say the Bells of Rhinebeck,” he yelled out at the top of his voice. “Shadows fly back to Hell’s Gate!”
Hell’s Gate? Where was that? Could Uncle Taddie know what had happened from the sound of the bells?
“Yes, yes, Taddie,” Aunt Harriet said soothingly. “The shadows are all gone. And here’s Ava come to have tea. Why don’t you go to the greenhouse and pick her a posy?”
Taddie grinned at me. “A posy for the chime child who banished the shadows. Yes, yes!” He turned and zigzagged across the lawn to the greenhouse. Aunt Harriet turned to her sister.
“You were right, Emmy, it was Ava! She must have been in terrible danger. But,” she turned to me, “you’re safe now. Come on in. Emmy said there’d be company for tea, so Doris baked a Victoria sponge cake.”
I was ushered up the porch steps and through the front door by both aunts. The house was warm and smelled of violets, tea, and cake. I breathed in the comforting warm aroma and willed my heart to stop racing. You’re safe, you’re safe, I told myself, but still the church bells rang. Would I ever feel really safe again?
Hattie and Emmy bustled me into the conservatory, where a fire crackled on the hearth. They sat me down in an overstuffed chintz chair and draped a cashmere shawl around my shoulders as I falteringly told them about my encounter with the Shadow Master, whose name, I now knew, was Judicus van Drood. I thought I saw the aunts exchange a meaningful look when I mentioned his name, but then Hattie quickly poured another cup of tea and Emmy threw another log on the fire. Still the bells rang.
Doris brought in a silver tray laden with hot buttery scones and golden sponge cake. Taddie came in from the greenhouse with a bouq
uet of violets and laid them on the tea tray. The entire household bustled around me, but still the bells rang.
A floorboard creaked behind me and the aunts and Taddie looked up. “Oh,” Emmy said, “I’d almost forgotten. You haven’t met our new boarder . . .”
The last thing I wanted was to meet a stranger. I looked up at the tall dark man entering the room, wondering how on earth I was going to manage polite conversation . . . and my mouth fell open.
“Avaline Hall, allow me to introduce you to Mr. Corbin,” Harriet said.
The dark-haired young man bowed his head in greeting. His hair was slicked back and he wore heavy horn-rimmed glasses, a bulky tweed jacket, and a barely-suppressed grin. Despite his urbane appearance I had no trouble recognizing Raven.
There was an awkward silence as I stared up at him openmouthed. Then Taddie broke the silence by turning to his sisters.
“Listen,” he cried, “the bells have stopped!”
29
MY SECOND AFTERNOON tea at Violet House was a stifled affair compared to the first one. I could barely string two words together after the shock of finding Raven in the Misses Sharps’ conservatory dressed as an ordinary mortal—and a rather fussy one at that. He even had on spats and braces! I wondered if the latter might have something to do with keeping his wings in place. I found myself peering at his back every time he leaned over to pour out the tea.
Thankfully, the Sharp sisters attributed my muteness and jumpiness to the shock I’d had. It was soon clear to me that they had no idea that their boarder was a Darkling—and that they were entirely enamored of him.
“Imagine our luck!” Hattie enthused, accepting a cup of tea from Raven, “to find such a suitable boarder. Mr. Corbin is an apprentice clockmaker. He’s helping Taddie fix all of Father’s clocks.”
“Raymond says I have a sharp eye for working with mechanical things,” Taddie said with an adoring look at Raven.
“Raymond?” I repeated, lifting an eyebrow.
“Yes,” Raven said, “but all my friends call me Ray. If it isn’t too impertinent, I’d be happy if you did, too, Miss Hall. Even though we’ve just met I feel as if we’ve known each other for ages.”
I saw the aunts exchange pleased smiles. “Oh, we’re so glad you’re getting on,” Aunt Emmy said. “I had a feeling”—she winked at me—“that you would. Mr. Corbin . . . Ray,” she corrected herself after a mock stern look from Raven, “is interested in all the things you are, Ava—books, poetry, bird-watching— why, he’s even made a study of bells!”
“You’re too kind, Miss Emmaline. My study of bells is only a component of my interest in clocks. After all, what good’s a clock that doesn’t chime the—”
As if on cue, all the clocks in the house began to chime the half hour. They each played a different tune, but those tunes somehow added to each other to create a lovely symphony, just as Mr. Sharp must have originally planned. The two sisters listened with their hands clasped and eyes closed. When the chiming ended, Miss Emmaline wiped a tear from her eye. “We haven’t heard them all chime together like that since Father died. We are so very grateful, Mr. . . . Raymond.”
“And I am so grateful for the hospitality all three of you have shown me,” Raven said, looking down at his teacup. “It means so much to me to be made to feel so . . . at home.” He looked up and I saw a genuine look of gratitude on his face.
“But,” he said, getting to his feet, “I’m afraid I must go. I have to stop by a house on the River Road to attend to a clock that needs fixing. Perhaps if Miss Hall is ready to go back to school I might accompany her.”
“Oh yes, that would be best,” Miss Emmy said. “Ava met a most disagreeable man at the post office. We wouldn’t want her
CAROL GOODMAN [ 359 to encounter him again. But first she must come in the . . . er . . . library with me for that . . . er . . . book I promised to send back to Vionetta.” She turned to me and screwed up one eye in such a peculiar fashion I thought she must have something stuck in it, but then I realized she was winking at me.
“Oh yes, the book! Miss Sharp will be disappointed if I forget it!”
As I got up to follow Miss Emmy into the library, Raven bowed formally and asked Miss Emmy if she needed any help retrieving the book. “I’m very good at getting into high places,” he added mischievously.
“Oh no, no!” Miss Emmy chirped, her hands fluttering like agitated birds. “You wait here. We’ll only be a moment.”
As soon as we were in the library—a snug octagonal room with more violet pots, antique clocks, and figurines than books—Miss Emmy confessed there was no book. “It was a ruse I made up to get a moment alone with you. I feel quite awful tricking that sweet young man.”
“I’m sure you wouldn’t have done it unless it was important. Did you have something that will help me focus the bells?” I looked around the bookshelves, wondering if A Darkness of Angels could possibly be here amongst the aspidistras and china shepherdesses. But instead of a book, Miss Emmy produced a pocket watch from her pocket.
“My father made this for me,” she said, cradling it in her plump palm. Its gold case was etched with a design surrounding a small enamel watch face. At the top of the watch face were two bells. Two figures flanked the bells—a woman and a man with wings. They were each holding a small hammer poised above the bells. When Emmaline pressed the stem at the top of the watch, the two figures struck the bells, producing a faint, tinkling tune. A familiar tune. It was the same tune that the Blythewood bells rang when I first heard them.
“It’s an automaton repeater,” Emmaline said. “My father programmed it to play certain protective tunes and also to repeat whatever tune was in my head so that I could learn how to make the bells in my head ring to my command.”
“And have you learned how to do that?” I asked.
Miss Emmy smiled. “I’ve learned to slow the bass bell—the one that signals danger—to calm myself and others. It works wonders with Taddie when he gets agitated. But I’ve never been able to hear more than one other bell. Papa said there was a book somewhere that explained how.”
“A Darkness of Angels?”
“Yes, that was the one. He looked for it everywhere but never found it.”
“I may have found a copy.” I told her about Mr. Farnsworth.
“Oh, Papa was good friends with Mr. Farnsworth. They looked together for the book. Perhaps he has found it. But in the meantime you hold on to this.” She pressed the watch into my hand.
“But it was from your father!” I cried. “I couldn’t.”
“He would want you to have it.”
“But don’t you need it?”
She shook her head, her curls trembling. “Oh no, I have that tune memorized and all the clocks in the house are here to remind me now that Raymond has fixed them.” She wiped a tear from her eye. “You need it more than I do.” She squeezed my hand closed around the smooth gold watch. I could feel it ticking, like the beat of a bird’s heart.
“Thank you,” I told Miss Emmy. “I promise to take good care of it.”
“Just take good care of yourself . . . oh, and here . . .” She plucked a book off the shelf. It was a guide for the cultivation of violets.
“What’s this for?”
“Why, it’s our alibi!” she said, attempting another wink. “So Mr. Corbin doesn’t think we lied to him.”
“How clever of you,” I said, smiling at the thought of Miss Emmy thinking she was fooling Raven. She turned to leave, but I thought of one other question.
“You said you learned to summon one other bell. Which one?”
“Oh, Merope’s bell,” she replied, blushing. “But I didn’t summon it. It summoned me.” Lowering her voice, she whispered, “It’s the one that rings when you fall in love.”
z o Z Raven escorted me down Livingston Street, my arm tucked firmly under his elbow, as if he were my suitor walking me home from the Sunday church picnic, smiling and tipping his hat at the good townspeople of
Rhinebeck. My heart fluttered in my chest like a trapped bird. What if Raven’s wings suddenly burst free of his tweed jacket? What would those good townspeople think of me then?
“How do you do it?” I asked quietly.
“Do what?” “Play a part so . . . convincingly. You’ve got the Sharps completely bamboozled.”
He laughed. “They’re sweet, trusting people. Why shouldn’t they believe I am what I say I am?”
“But Emmaline is a chime child. Shouldn’t she . . . sense there’s something wrong with you?”
His arm muscles tensed under my hand. “Wrong?” he echoed, an edge of anger in his voice.
“I didn’t mean it like that. I meant different.”
“A chime child senses danger. If I meant the Sharps any harm—which I don’t—Emmy would sense it. What about you? What do you feel with me now?”
Lightheaded? Giddy? Airborne? All occurred to me as possible answers, but instead I replied primly, “Confused. I mean,” I added when he cocked one eyebrow at me, “I don’t understand what you’re doing at the Sharps pretending to be a clockmaker’s apprentice.”
“I am a clockmaker’s apprentice,” he snapped. “I’ve signed papers with Mr. Humphreys for a year’s apprenticeship after I demonstrated my expertise. I’ve been practicing, you see, for some time. I like fiddling with clocks and I’m good at it. So why shouldn’t I have a job like anyone else? Do you think I want to live in a tree the rest of my life?”
I stared at him, open-mouthed. We’d reached the corner of Main Street and had to pause to let a streetcar go by. Raven was staring at the traffic as though he’d like to vault over it. “But you’re a . . .” I lowered my voice at his warning glance. “A Darkling. You can carry souls across the worlds. You can fly! Why would you want to live an ordinary life?”
He stared at me for a long moment, those dark eyes resting on me with a touch soft as velvet. His arm, though, was rigid as steel beneath my fingertips and I could see the cords in his neck tensing and his jaw clenching. I felt the ripple of muscles from arm to back. He was holding himself tight to keep his wings from unfurling and breaking through his jacket. There was so much pent-up energy inside him that I could see it, rising off him like heat waves on a sultry day. Then the ripple passed and he let out a soft sigh.
Blythewood Page 30
