Blythewood

by kindle@abovethetreeline. com

  “You’re right,” he said through tight lips. “Why would anyone want to live an ordinary life with a monster like me—?”

  “Wait,” I said, “that’s not what I meant.”

  But Raven ignored my interruption as he steered me across the street and headed us north on Main Street. “I have other reasons to be at Violet House. Thaddeus Sharp was quite the inventor—and he was a friend to the Darklings. He understood that the Darklings weren’t the enemy, but that the tenebrae were. I believe the clocks in the Violet House were designed to repel tenebrae. I’m studying them to see if I can understand how they work.”

  “I think you’re right that Thaddeus Sharp was trying to find a way to repel the shadows with his gadgets. Emmy gave me this.”

  I took out the pocket watch and opened it up. Raven stopped dead in the street and cupped my hand in his as the watch played its tune. The touch of his bare hand made me feel warm all over. I heard the treble bell in my head and thought of what Emmy had said it meant—but who knew if she knew was she was talking about. And besides, when had she been in love?

  When the tune had played out Raven folded my hand over the watch to close it and then abruptly dropped my hand. “An automaton repeater. Interesting. Yes, I think that will help protect you—and you’ll need it if you’re going to take on the Shadow Master on the streets of Rhinebeck. What did you do to draw him out, by the way?”

  Ignoring the sharpness of his tone—and glad that he had looked away so he wouldn’t see the blush that had risen to my face—I told him how I’d found A Darkness of Angels listed in the catalogue, written to the librarian at Hawthorn, and decided to post the letter in town.

  “He was waiting for me. He knew that I’d found something in the Special Collections and come to town to post a letter. I would have told him who the letter was to if the bells hadn’t rung! When he touched me I felt this burning ice creep through me.”

  “Tenebrae.” Raven hissed the word. “I’ve heard that’s how they feel when they get inside you—first cold, then burning, and then, after they burn through you, a dead numbness. If you hadn’t gotten away you would have become his slave.”

  “I was able to break his hold on me,” I said. “But I can see how he does it. Perhaps his spy is someone he took over . . . someone weak. I think it might be our deportment teacher, Miss Frost.” As if saying her name had summoned her, the lady herself emerged from the door of the Wing & Clover just as we passed.

  “There she is!” I hissed, pulling Raven into the doorway of the greenhouse next door.

  We needn’t have been so secretive. Miss Frost did not look as if she would notice an elephant parading down the main street of Rhinebeck. She stood blinking in the sunlight, swaying unsteadily on her feet, her face as flaccid as blancmange. I felt an unexpected pang of pity for her in her confused, helpless state, but that sympathy vanished when she was joined on the sidewalk by Judicus van Drood.

  Raven pulled me deeper into the doorway, shielding my body with his. I felt the rustle of his wings beneath his jacket straining to break free. I placed my hand on his back, between his shoulder blades, and willed the bell—which had begun tolling inside my head as soon as van Drood appeared—to slow and its vibrations to travel from my body to Raven’s, just as I had done with little Etta at the factory. I held Emmy’s pocket watch in my other hand. The bell slowed in my head, but Raven’s wings still beat, tearing at the heavy tweed of his jacket. Then I remembered that with Etta I had held her bare hand in mine.

  I slipped my hand under the collar of his jacket and touched his bare neck. His skin was hot and he was trembling. I stroked his back, listening to the bells in my head and felt the taut cords in his neck slowly relax. His wings subsided beneath his jacket. I took a deep breath and craned my neck around Raven to see what was happening.

  Van Drood was standing next to Miss Frost, whispering in her ear, his unnaturally red lips nearly touching her skin. I shuddered at the sight . . . and then saw something worse. His lips parted and he spit out a writhing stream of black smoke that snaked into Miss Frost’s ear. I felt my knees buckle and I gasped.

  Van Drood must have heard the sound. He lifted his head away from Miss Frost’s ear and swiveled his neck like Blodeuwedd when she heard a mouse squeak—only his eyes were colder than any owl’s. I felt the chill of them move over our hiding place, saw the blood-red lips pull back over blackened teeth. My hands turned slick at the sight. I nearly dropped the pocket watch . . . and somehow hit the stem, releasing a tinkling chime. Now he’d be sure to find us! But instead of pouncing on us, the black eyes fogged over as though a mist had risen in them— a mist that had also risen around Raven and me. In my hand the watch continued playing its tune—a different one, I noticed now, from what it played before. I wondered if the mist would continue to conceal us when the tune was over. But before it finished I heard a familiar voice calling Miss Frost’s name. Van Drood snapped his head toward it. Sarah Lehman, in her threadbare black coat, a thin scarf wrapped around her face, was crossing the street.

  “Miss Frost, do you need me to find you a cab?” she called, making straight for van Drood.

  I wanted to call out and stop her, but Raven held me back. Van Drood tipped his hat to Sarah. “You are just in time, Miss . . .” Sarah stopped a few feet away and stared at van Drood. “You must be one of Miss Frost’s students whom she was just praising so highly. I am afraid she has overexerted herself and suffered an attack of . . . um . . .”

  “Neurasthenia,” Miss Frost blurted out as if she were one of the automaton figures on the repeater come to life. “It’s my neurasthenia. Yes, I had better return.” She looked around her as if unsure of where she was.

  “To Blythewood,” van Drood supplied. “Please allow me.” He raised his cane to summon a passing hansom cab. It stopped with a screech of breaks and van Drood opened the door, guiding—nearly pushing—Miss Frost inside. He pressed something into Sarah’s hands—cab fare, I imagined—then, bowing low, strode briskly north on Main Street, swinging his cane. Sarah stood at the cab door staring after him.

  “Come on,” Raven said, pulling me out of the doorway, “this is your ride.”

  “But why?” I began to object, but Raven ignored me and marched straight up to Sarah Lehman.

  “Excuse me,” he said, tipping his hat to Sarah. “But are you going back to Blythewood? Would you mind taking Miss Hall with you? She’s feeling a bit faint.”

  Sarah stared at Raven—and then me. “Ava?” she said. “What are you doing here?”

  Raven answered for me. “She was having tea at Violet House, where I am a boarder. Raymond Corbin, clockmaker’s apprentice.” He held out his hand.

  Sarah placed her hand in his. “Sarah Lehman,” she said.

  “Oh yes, Miss Hall has often spoken of you.”

  Had I? I wondered. But Raven was speaking so quickly I didn’t have time to remember. He was chattering on, explaining to Sarah how I’d nearly fainted in the street and he’d helped me into the greenhouse for a rest, when I’d recognized Sarah and Miss Frost and he had suggested I share their cab back to the school. Within minutes it had been settled and Raven was bustling me into the cab, his eyes already scanning the street, with only a hurried whisper in my ear to “keep an eye on this one.”

  Of course, I realized, he wanted to go after van Drood and needed to get rid of me first. I felt like a parcel that has been delivered as I squeezed up against Miss Frost’s bulky—and inert—form. She had fallen heavily asleep and was already snoring. Sarah perched on the jump seat across from me and looked out the back window as the cab drove away. I craned my neck around and saw that she was following Raven’s progress down the street.

  “What a charming young man,” she said when I turned back. “Have you known him long?”

  “Oh no!” I nearly shrieked. “I only just met him at the Sharps.”

  Sarah tilted her head and looked at me quizzically. “But he said you’d spoken of me often and you two se
emed . . .” She wrinkled her brow. “As though you’d known each other longer somehow. Almost intimate.”

  Blood rushed to my face. Had Sarah seen us in the greenhouse doorway, pressed close together, Raven’s arm around my waist, my hand on his bare neck? My blush deepened as I recalled the moment. A slow smile dawned on Sarah’s face.

  “Ava! You’re blushing! Is he a secret beau?”

  There was something so gleeful in Sarah’s expression that I hated to disappoint her. Of course I couldn’t tell her the real story, but I could tell her something close to it.

  “I met him in the city,” I said. “In Washington Square Park while walking to work. His . . . um . . . the clock shop where he worked was nearby . . . on Waverly Place,” I added, recalling that there was a clock shop on Waverly. “We passed each other often and one day he spoke to me. . . .”

  As I embroidered the details a picture began to take shape in my head—a moving picture like the ones that played in the Automatic Vaudeville House in Union Square. It was my old life of working in the factory overlaid by a gauzy construction— walking through the park with Tillie, who might have urged me to talk to the handsome clockmaker’s apprentice we saw each morning. He likes you, Tillie would have whispered in my ear. With her encouragement, perhaps I would have been so bold as to let him walk me home from work one day. He’d have brought me flowers. Perhaps he would have bought me an ice from one of the Italian stands on Minerva Street. Eventually I might have agreed to accompany him to Coney Island one Sunday. . . .

  “How romantic!” Sarah cried, her voice breaking into my little daydream. I’d barely realized I was saying it all out loud. “And now he’s followed you up here to Rhinebeck!”

  “Oh,” I said, “I’m not sure. I suppose it was the opportunity to work with Mr. Humphreys.”

  “Nonsense!” Sarah leaned forward and lowered her voice, even though Miss Frost’s snores assured us of her comatose state. “He’s come for you. Why else would he be staying at the Sharps, where it will be easy for you to find excuses to meet?”

  “I don’t know about that,” I said, suddenly nervous at the turn Sarah’s imaginings—or rather my imaginings—had taken. If it got around that I was seeing a strange boy in town, how long would it be before Raven’s true identity came to light?

  Sarah’s eyes widened at my obvious discomfort. “Don’t worry,” she said, grabbing my hand and squeezing hard. “I’ll keep your secret. I could even carry messages for you if you ever need me to. I’m always going into town on errands for her.” She slid her eyes over to the recumbent Miss Frost.

  I looked into Sarah’s wide brown eyes, as trusting and hopeful as a spaniel’s, and realized how happy I’d made her by taking her in my confidence. Perhaps few other girls, if any, shared gossip with “Lemon.” And I might need to get in touch with Raven. He had told me to keep an eye on Miss Frost. I would do that—and report back to him.

  “And you won’t tell anyone else?”

  Sarah’s eyes shone. “Your secret is safe with me,” she said solemnly, pressing my hand in hers over her left breast.

  “Secret . . .” Miss Frost’s voice blearily echoed Sarah’s words.

  Sarah rolled her eyes and, giving my hand one more squeeze, let it go. “We’re almost back at school,” she said loudly to Miss Frost. “Shall I help you to your room? I have a new dose of your physic.” Sarah held up a parcel from her bag and shook it. The sloshing sound seemed to revive Miss Frost.

  “Be careful with that,” she snapped, reaching across me for the parcel. As she leaned over me I was nearly overwhelmed by her odor—the familiar scent of tea rose, gin, and formaldehyde, now overlaid by something new. The stench of something burnt.

  30

  I WALKED UPSTAIRS trying to sort through all that had happened today—van Drood’s appearance in Rhinebeck, what I’d done with the bells, Raven showing up as a boarder at Violet House, Miss Emmy’s gift of the magical repeater pocket watch that seemed to have the power of raising a concealing mist, and confirmation that Miss Frost was the spy. The last revelation was the one that most worried me. Shouldn’t I go to Dame Beckwith and tell her? But would she believe me? All I’d seen was a wisp of smoke as van Drood whispered in Miss Frost’s ear. I’d need more proof than that to convince Dame Beckwith that her old friend was a spy. Better that I watch her as Raven had told me to.

  In spite of all the tumult of the day, I smiled when I thought of Raven at Violet House. Because he’s safer there than in the woods, I told myself, pausing on the fourth-floor landing to look out at the frozen woods. It had been horrible to think of him out there with the ice giants. Far better to think of him taking tea with the Misses Sharp and tinkering with clocks with Uncle Taddie at Violet House . . . where I could visit.

  That was the real reason I was happier with Raven at Violet House, I admitted as I turned away from the window and continued to my room. Now I knew where to find him. It would be easy to send a message with Sarah, or go into town to visit the Sharps, perhaps even visit the shop where he worked. It would be not unlike the little story I’d made up for Sarah. And why shouldn’t a story like that come true for me? I might not be rich like Helen van Beek, but a clockmaker wouldn’t require a huge dowry. . . .

  “You certainly look pleased with yourself.” Helen’s voice startled me out of my daydream. I’d walked right by her without seeing her at her desk, where she was huddled over some papers. “Where were you? In the woods again?”

  “No,” I said sharply. “I went into town to post a letter . . . and then ran into Emmaline Sharp, who invited me to tea. Then I took a cab back with Sarah and Miss Frost.” With the subtraction of van Drood and Raven, my afternoon sounded innocent enough for me to meet Helen’s gaze with only the slightest of blushes. And boring enough to allay even her curiosity. It would never occur to Helen that I might meet an interesting male at the Sharps’. It probably wouldn’t occur to her that I’d meet an interesting male anywhere.

  “Oh,” she said, looking back down at the papers spread out on her desk. “You might have told me you were going to the post office. I have some very important letters to mail.”

  In other words, more important than anything I would be sending.

  “I’m not your maid, Helen,” I said, my voice shaking. I turned to hang up my coat and fur hat and muff in the wardrobe so she wouldn’t see the color flare in my cheeks. “I know you’re used to having servants at your beck and call, but you’re

  CAROL GOODMAN [ 373

  going to have to learn to do for yourself while you’re here at Blythewood. You can’t always lean on Daisy and me.” “I wasn’t aware I was leaning on you,” Helen said, her voice cold and haughty. I turned to see that she was gathering up the papers on her desk and getting to her feet. “Or on Daisy, whom I barely see anymore. But I will endeavor not to be a burden.”

  “I didn’t mean—” I began, sorry I’d spoken so sharply to her. “No, you said exactly what you meant,” Helen interrupted. “And you’re right. I have to learn to ‘do for myself.’ So that’s what I’m doing—going to be by myself.” With that she turned and swept out of the room before I could say anything else.

  And what could I say? Helen and I came from two different worlds. She couldn’t understand mine and I couldn’t begin to understand hers. Perhaps it was better if we spent less time together.

  As I hung up my coat my hand lingered on its fur collar, the silk plush of it reminding of the touch of Raven’s wings. But when I brushed my cheek against it I smelled smoke and ashes.

  z o Z The castle had lots of unused rooms, and it was big enough that everyone who wanted to be alone could find a place of their own—which more and more seemed to be what everyone wanted. I assumed Helen had found some little nook to study and write her letters in. Daisy was always off on some unspecified mission, only stopping by meals long enough to stuff her pockets with rolls and apples like a squirrel hoarding nuts for the winter. Even gregarious Cam would often vanish to an ind
oor target practice that she said some of the Dianas had set up on the sly—“strictly against the rules,” she announced in a loud stage whisper, “so I can’t tell you where it is.” Dolores and Beatrice were doing research “for Papa” in the labs.

  Between classes and meals, all the girls of Blythewood scattered into their separate nooks and crannies like beetles scurrying into the woodwork. Sometimes walking the deserted hallways I felt like they had all vanished and I was the last person left in the castle.

  Except for Sarah. I was always running into her on her errands for Miss Frost. No matter how busy she was, she would take time to chat with me and ask if I had a message to send to my “beau” at Violet House. The problem was that I had nothing to report to Raven. After our encounter outside the Wing & Clover, Miss Frost had taken to her room on the third floor of the North Wing with a bout of ague.

  I made it a point to walk with Sarah when she brought up meals and her medicine to check that she was really bedridden. When Sarah unlocked the door (“She has a horror of being disturbed,” Sarah confided), I was nearly overwhelmed by a wave of hot, camphor-laden air. “She likes to keep it warm,” Sarah whispered as I followed her in. “And the camphor fumes are good for her lungs.”

  At first I could barely see. Heavy drapes were pulled over the windows. The only light came from a low fire in the hearth and the flickering flames of spirit lamps, on which small copper basins of liquid bubbled and steamed up a brew of camphor and strong-smelling herbs. A heavy fog hung in the air. Miss Frost lay in the center of it like a beached whale on her four-poster bed.

  “Have you brought me my medicine, girl?” she asked querulously as Sarah approached the bed.