“Our friends will be dining with us, followed by entertainment in the music room.”
“Sounds lively.”
“Karl!” Elisabeth’s tone stung more than she intended and her husband’s blue eyes darted, troubled, to her face. The look melted her. Cold he certainly was, but he was not cruel.
“Karl,” she tried again, “do you ever wonder how different our lives might have been if…”
“If what, my dear?”
“If… our Maria had not been sick.”
The King’s soldierly bearing softened not a fragment, but he put a hand to his beard. A display of keen stress. “In truth, Elisabeth, I strive not to think of it.”
Which is how Karl would deal with the echoing sense of loss. The loss greeted the queen in any moment of the day she had neglected to fill with one of her many pursuits. The same sense, she assumed, led the King to avoid any display of excess emotion.
Just now, as they circled slowly back up the terraced patios to the grand arch, the queen weighed the cost of asking the one question to which she already guessed the answer: “When our sweet Mariechen died, did you swear to never again love anyone, even her mother?”
But, as always, she hesitated. Already so strained, what might honesty add to the turmoil? No, far better to accept the coolness in place of warmer emotions and, philosopher-like, remark that the weather was pleasant enough to require only a light wrap. She placed her arm in his, reminded him of their evening engagements and, at the door, parted from him with a sensation like frostbite pulsing in her throat.
Their precious Itty had died. Karl was changed. And Carmen Sylva had a thousand volumes yet to write buried deep in her bruised soul. If the king wanted her, she informed another servant passing in the hall, she would be at her desk, writing.
Maria kicked through the last layer of coffin lid. Now covered in sawdust, plaster, and crumbs of antiquity, she lay there panting a moment. A living corpse, that’s what she was. A sweaty, cramped, terrified little corpse. Maria pushed against what she now took to be a paving stone and shifted it a little. Another push with greater strength behind it, and daylight peered down upon her.
“Heath,” she squeaked pitifully to the empty air, then thrashed up and out of the coffin, spitting bits of debris out of her mouth.
A high, cadenced ceiling rose up, up, up above her; a ceiling just like music. Once her eyes adjusted, she saw that she lay in state in an inner sanctum of a church. Heavy murals of somber saints stared at her from their perches high up in the owlish gilding. Another time she would have been frozen in awe, but she was more immediately concerned with getting out of this wretched coffin. One of her Toms caught on the coffin’s edge as she stepped out, tripping her. She caught a good scrape on her already glass-sliced palms, but it was good, solid paving stones that did it. In a sudden flush of gratitude, Maria bent and kissed the cool floor.
“Thank God for stone floors,” she whispered, and kissed it again.
“Pace,” a man’s voice said, nearby. “Peace.”
Maria jumped to her feet and brushed off the worst of the dust. A priest stood before her, hands folded in his sleeves, brow knit. He looked from the wrecked coffin to Maria and back again, wavering visibly between anger and polite confusion.
She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and smiled. “P-pace.” There was no hand offered to shake so she went for the traditional cheek kiss. The man backed away.
Priests. Right. Priests.
“I’m… I’m so sorry.” Her face flamed. She hid her hands in the small of her back.
“English?” the man said.
Maria smiled. “Yes.”
“Why are you here?” His English, though accented, moved easily. His eyes scanned her disapprovingly until they came to rest again on her face. “You are vandalizing our church.”
“I came from… Peles Castle.” It all seemed so distant, as if she’d traveled not through a secret passage but through miles and seasons and years.
“Peles Castle?” the priest hummed the name to himself, eyebrows rampant. “Wherever you mean to say you are coming from, does not explain why you are… abusing our church. In Romania we are not coming into churches and breaking things.”
“Abusing… oh!” Shame rushed over Maria that the priest would even think she had come from the outside of the church in to defile the sanctity by—what? Robbing a grave? She looked down at the cracked tombstone near her feet.
“Weep not;” half of it read, and the other half: “she is not dead, but sleepeth. Luke 8:52.”
Like The Sleeping Plague. Not dead but sleeping. Though this was certainly no dream. Maria read it over twice and memorized the reference to look up later, when she got back to Heath and her big-girl career. Who was buried here, and why had their family chosen a verse so—so relentlessly hopeful? A peculiar epithet for an old grave. And then there was the fact that she’d come through about three coffins at once, all neatly stacked like some gauche Russian nesting doll. Shuddering, Maria looked at the dust and plaster littering the sanctuary floor and the priest who waited with a Monday face.
“I do apologize for the mess. I came through…” she twisted and pointed. “Through there.”
“Through the grave?” The priest’s twisted countenance showed too plainly he did not believe her. “This is foolish speaking. I am thinking the authorities have better do talking with you.”
Maria reached out for the brother’s arm to keep him from leaving for the police, then thought against it. His reaction the first time was bad enough. He might truly call the police—or the Pope or something—if she touched him again.
Maria stepped away from the wreckage and motioned to the ceilings. “This chapel is beautiful. Who did the friezes?”
“You are an admirer of the art?”
“I am.” She smiled. The priest was young and, despite an unfortunate haircut, not bad-looking. “Back home,” she continued, taking the center aisle of the church, head tilted back to view the decorations, “I’m a set designer.”
“Set… designer?” The man looked not much older than Heath. How different the two were. “For the theatre?”
She hugged herself. “You know. Movies. Hollywood.”
He removed his gaze, evidently embarrassed by the topic.
Maria looked him over. “How old are you? It’s my birthday,” she added, so he wouldn’t think the question too odd.
He glanced up. “I have twenty-four years.”
“How many as a priest?”
“Eight.”
“Mmm. Do you like it?”
“Like it?”
“Being a priest.”
He regarded her quietly, owlishly, and shrugged. “It is my calling. A calling is not the same as what you are speaking of as a… job. Does it matter if I enjoy it? No. But it is mine to do. I am provided for and I am able to help.” Another shrug. “This is how it can be.”
Near the front doors now, Maria stuck her hands in her jeans pockets and flapped her elbows.
“I really admire your commitment. I really do.” She pushed the wooden doors open with her backside and let in a swirl of city noise. “This is a beautiful church.”
The man bowed his head.
“Thanks for showing me around! I’d love to stay and talk but I’m sure you’ve got some candles to light or something.” She grinned, waved, and ducked into the saving grace of the open air. He would not call the police once she was gone, she was sure. Dodged that one.
Maria trotted along the street, vaguely aware of the crisp air and the rough paving under her shoes. The few elderly men and women with whom she crossed the street wore funny, antiquated clothing. Just as she reached the center lane of traffic, a vehicle rumbled past her, barely missing the chance to knock her over and crush her to jam. The driver shouted and glared as he darted past but it was not this, nor twisting her ankle as she stepped back, nor the curious looks bestowed on her by her fellow street-crossers that made her squeak, “Oh!” in an
enraged, desperate tone.
For Maria, whom precious little could surprise or ruffle, was entirely undone by the sight of the vehicle, a utilitarian horse-drawn omnibus. The road rattled with other similar transportation: wagons, carriages, carts; not a single bus, taxi, or car relieved her frantic eyes.
She limped to the farther side, holding herself close, scanning the street. No telephone lines. No power polls. No tram system. No cell phones. Then, in the window of the abandoned storefront closest to the street, Maria found her answers. Though she knew precious little Romanian, she understood months, and the dates shouted at her, stamped at the top of the fresh newspapers in the shop windows:
19, Septembrie, 1897.
21 Septembrie, 1897.
25 Septembrie, 1897.
“Oh. Oh no. Oh no!” Maria tapped the glass with her panicked finger. “No, no, no. This can’t be happening.”
But it had. She’d done it now. She’d gone and time traveled. No one on that end would know what had happened and no one on this end knew she was coming. Maria gulped down her terror and made a quick calculation. Even the oldest living person from her era wouldn’t be born for another—twenty-eight years.
Blast Heath. Where was her intern when she needed him?
III.
The Family
Heath squinted at a painting on the wall of the office in Peles Castle. A copy of something not too fine to begin with. Far below the standard set by the rest of the castle.
“Dah, dah,” the tour guide cooed into the phone. “Bine, bine. Ceau, ceau, ceau.” She hung up, twisted the phone’s cord around her fingers, and looked him over.
“Well?” Heath leaned forward, hands on his knees. “Where did my boss go?”
“I cannot tell you.”
Sing-song.
“Why not?”
“Because there is no staircase in that wall.”
Heath was too clever to fall for the favorite “Americans are stupid so I will try to lie to them” trick. “Ma’am, all I know is that your bookcase swallowed up my boss and there is an entire film company in America who will continue to throw themselves at your office door unless you tell me where she went.”
The tour guide’s honey-hued eyes riveted Heath as if she’d taken her hand and tipped his chin to force the connection. He found an alluring, unsettling conviction in their touch.
“Peles,” she said melodically, “is a palace, not castle.”
Heath shook himself away from her gaze. “I don’t give a—listen, ma’am. Maria Wied is missing on your palace grounds. I watched her vanish into that wall.” Who cared if he had begun to shout? If the other guests might hear and wonder what this crazy American had to complain about? “And if you don’t give me a convincing reason as to why you can’t tell me her location, I will have the American ambassador on this property in two hours.”
She tilted at him with her golden-handed eyes, then settled back lusciously in her seat. “Traffic is bad in Buchuresti this time of day. I think it will take longer than two hours.”
“Try me.” His concern had tended more toward annoyance at the beginning, but each moment it mounted into a deeper, more unnerving feeling that Maria had gone somewhere far beyond his reach. And he actually cared.
Heath hadn’t worked long with Maria Wied, but time didn’t matter with someone of her composition, he told himself. She was smart, talented, vivacious, and occasionally grossly naïve. He did sometimes wonder how she managed to take care of herself all alone in the big, bad world, but he respected her. It was his personal business to simultaneously annoy and direct her and she’d always been near to hand for it. And now she wasn’t. And now he cared.
“So what’s it going to be?” Heath took his cellphone out of his pocket and waved it at the guide. “You going to tell me where Miss Wied went, or do I have to call the embassy?”
The guide smirked. “Do you even have phone service here? We are, after all, on top of a mountain in a foreign country. No, you do not have to answer me.” She came to his side of the desk, leaned against it, and crossed her arms.
“Your English keeps getting better and better,” he said.
She smirked again. Such an unpleasant expression. “I think you mentioned it was your Miss Wied who broke the glass in my bookcase, no? So if you call the authorities, what are you going to tell them? That your boss vanished after stealing one of my books? I have been down to the library. I see The Spindle is gone with her. It is a very rare copy of a very rare book. Valuable. And Miss Wied escaped with it. I trust you understand what you will be implying about her if you are calling your ambassador.” She pushed the phone toward him. “But by all means.”
Heath clamped his jaw shut to keep from spewing an armament of uncivil English words. His hands trembled. The woman, obnoxiously, was right. If he called the embassy, the law would be on the palace’s side. They would take it as a given that he and Maria had planned the theft and that she had secreted away the target item without him. It happened often enough on crime shows. Why split the profit when you could have it all yourself?
He rose stiffly from the chair and felt better, looking down on the petite woman from this height. “I’m leaving now,” he said. “And I will be back. Oh, by the way.” Heath bent to rip the shoe-covers from his feet. “Your plastic booties are ridiculous.”
Her eyes glinted at him. “I know. But you are all so funny to watch in them.”
Murder would only heighten the charges against him and Maria.
Heath stalked away from Peles at double speed. He had left their yellow Fiat van in the far parking lot, so, fuming, he struck out down the long, cobbled drive. Half his anger bent toward Maria, who just had to go shoving her fist through a historic bookcase. The other half, fueled by fear, wondered how the heck he was supposed to find his boss. He wouldn’t call headquarters yet. Better to get away and think first.
Heath forced himself to notice the wide, forest-lined avenue and the sound of a river purling a short distance away. Could a more pleasant, Alpine afternoon be requested? He passed a sign warning the pedestrian of possible bear sightings, and grimaced. If a bear would show up now and take care of everything for him, he’d probably not mind as much as he would have this morning. Before Maria had been so asinine. Before she’d vanished in a wall four inches thick. But—how had she?
Something was terribly wrong, and Heath’s mood spun sour again.
God help him, he’d fix that tour guide.
When she was quite sure the comely American had departed and would not surprise her by returning, the tour guide exited the upstairs office, turned the lock, and pocketed the key.
Carlotta, as she was called, made her way upstairs to the library, careful to keep out of step with any tours going along. She checked her gold watch. The last permissible tour of the day, according to the rules, should have finished by now, the tourists being ushered back down the red-carpeted stairs in their idiotic plastic booties. Tepid vindication warmed Carlotta as she lurked in the hall, watching that final tour shuffle through the pink, Italian-marble hall with its Murano glass accents and tall mirrors. Twenty-three years she’d spent learning every detail about this strange world. Twenty-three years passing the portraits of the man and woman she most hated, guarding the secret second staircase against the chance of their little daughter ever slipping homeward. Twenty-three years and the daily sight of hundreds of foreigners shuffling through the castle her only amusement. Paltry entertainment, but if that was the best to be had in her current life, it had better satisfy, hadn’t it?
Carlotta skimmed through the palace. Her footsteps made no sound and even if they had, there was no one to disturb as she moved along crimson carpets in the white, vaulted halls. Just an empty palace, hollow and shuddering with a devastating beauty which had set it so far above any other, that it could never be loved in the familiar way again. She passed giant mirrors, the movie theater, the concert halls and tea rooms, and in all the bauble of it, she passed her own jealou
sy. Finally, she stepped into the library, and forced herself to calm.
Carlotta faced the shattered bookcase and a terrible rage. The world had once known and respected her gypsy power. Not now. She ran her hand into the glass, saw the red blood from the young princess’s hand smeared on the shelf.
“So unlikely,” Carlotta muttered. How many times had she searched through the tour groups, knowing that Maria, daughter of Elisabeth of Wied, would, by Fate’s hand, try to come home? Her suspicion always landed upon a woman fair of form and face, light and laughing as the child had been last she saw her. And she’d watched such women, guided them away from the bookcase, sing-songed them to the safety of the outer court. Till this one—this very American, brown-haired, green-eyed person, slightly plump and not graceful in movement—slipped past her notice. Why? Because she had not considered a Romanian princess could have looked so wonderfully—commonplace. When they had come through by magic, Carlotta had lost the little princess but she knew magic would not play false. It would place the princess somewhere. And someday she would try to come home.
Carlotta hissed and slid her palm along the empty place in the bookcase where The Spindle once slept in peace. No, she could not afford to lose that book of spells. The common ones—the cleaning spells and forgetting spells and communication spells—she had memorized. But other magic whispered on the pages. Deeper magic Carlotta could never hope to employ without aid of the book. One particular spell had, since the day she’d killed to make The Spindle hers, kept off the ravages of a terrible illness. Her fingers shook as she touched the empty space. Already, she felt weaker. It hurt too sharply to breathe, and she knew instinctively that her fever had returned. The illness would claim Carlotta if she did not find a way to retrieve the yellow spellbook, and she acknowledged the fact with a sneer.
She had paid much in the way of blood and gold to achieve what she had achieved for that world behind. Here, a century and a quarter ahead of her times, she was safe from the retribution of home, and with The Spindle she could live in relative comfort. Twenty-three years had passed here; twenty-three years had passed there. This whole time Carlotta had thought the distance great enough. No one who knew anything about the Princess Maria would live long enough to meet her in this future. It was impossible. But she had not reckoned with the idea of the Princess herself succeeding in slipping past the vigilance of a gypsy’s envy.
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