The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl

by Theodora Goss

  It tasted more than a little bitter, but Mary drank it down, then continued. “Can we perhaps get into the keep tonight and attack while they’re asleep? A scouting expedition should let us know if there are ways to get in. But we have no way of knowing if an attack on the keep will work, so we also need to take a look at St. Michael’s Mount. We need to be ready to protect the Queen tomorrow, no matter what. It’s still early—damn, I’ve forgotten to put on my wristwatch.” Of course she did not usually put it on until she got dressed and here she was, still in her nightgown. Her dream of the night before must have disturbed her a great deal. Ordinarily, she would have been dressed by now—and she would certainly not have said “damn”!

  DIANA: If you said it more often, you might not be such a bore.

  “Almost seven,” said Beatrice, looking at the watch pinned to her lapel. She wore it upside down, like a hospital nurse.

  “Right. The tide should be down now—it rises again around ten o’clock, so we need to get across the causeway and back before then. Since we have two things to do today, I suggest we split up—some of us to the keep, some to St. Michael’s Mount.”

  “I’ll take the keep,” said Catherine. “I still think attacking the keep today, or tonight if you insist, is the best idea. And I’ll take Diana with me. She can pick any locks we need picked. All right, Diana?”

  “Awww, how did you know I was here?”

  Mary turned, startled. Sure enough, there was Diana standing by the door.

  “I sneaked in so quietly, too! I thought I would take you all by surprise.”

  “You certainly took me by surprise,” said Beatrice. “I did not even notice you had come in.”

  “Neither did I,” said Justine. “That was clever of you, Diana.”

  Mary hated to admit that she had not noticed either. But she would not give Diana the satisfaction of saying so. The girl was already puffing herself up because Justine had called her clever!

  “You can’t outsneak how you smell,” said Catherine. “You didn’t take a bath last night, and you still smell like dog. Anyway, I heard your footstep outside the door, even before you turned the knob. Are you coming with me? We’re not going to attack the keep by ourselves, or try to burn it down, or anything of that sort—so don’t think you’re going to do what you did at the mental hospital in Vienna!”

  “You mean saving Lucinda all by myself?” said Diana.

  “Cat, do you absolutely promise you won’t do anything foolish, or let Diana do anything but reconnoiter? I don’t want the two of you going off and getting yourselves electrocuted by Queen Tera. But we do need to split up, and I think I had better go to St. Michael’s Mount.” Mary stood up. Her head was, indeed, starting to feel better. “I’ll try to find out Her Majesty’s itinerary. That should give us a sense for when and how they might try to abduct her—and where we can defend her. I think this is a lot harder than what we faced in Budapest! I wish we had Mina here to help us.”

  “I shall go with you to St. Michael’s Mount,” said Justine.

  “No, cara mia,” said Beatrice. “You are my patient, and I say you shall do no such thing. Your heart is beating strong and steady today, but if we are to fight tomorrow, you must be as rested as possible. We cannot spend your strength on a scouting expedition. I shall go with Mary, and you must wait for what I hope will arrive—a telegram from Ayesha. I remain convinced that she is our best hope for defeating Queen Tera. She must know of some way to counteract or combat energic power.”

  “All right then, I’ll get dressed,” said Mary. “We had better grab a quick breakfast downstairs. We all need food—well, except for Beatrice. And then we’ll try to figure out how to save the Queen!”

  MARY: It’s ironic, isn’t it? There we were, calling on Ayesha, the President of the Alchemical Society and our enemy, to save us.

  BEATRICE: Ayesha has never been our enemy. You simply do not understand her perspective.

  CATHERINE: Life is filled with coincidences and strange reversals. If I made one of my Astarte books as complicated and unaccountable as real life, it would be criticized for being unrealistic. And I write about spider gods!

  BEATRICE: Although they are quite realistic spider gods. I mean, it is obvious that you have done your research into the anatomy and mating behavior of arachnids.

  MARY: I’m not sure what that adds to the books.

  CATHERINE: Because you’re not a writer.

  As far as Catherine was concerned, autumn in England proved that if God did exist, He was an actively malevolent deity. Who else would have created all this rain? Although it was not raining today. Instead, water simply hung in the air as a curtain of gray mist, shifting so that sometimes she could see the landscape in front of her, and sometimes it was hidden from her eyes. Shrouded—yes, that was the word for it, the word she would use if she ever wrote a book about their experiences.

  Although why should she? No one would ever believe it was a true account. Anyway, she was no Mary Shelley, merely a writer of stories for the popular press. The Mysteries of Astarte would be coming out soon. How would the public receive it? Would it be reviewed in The Guardian or St. James’s Gazette? She did not think so. To the important journals, it would be merely an adventure story. But then, it would bring pleasure to readers like Alice, who had been the first to say, “You really should write down that story about Astarte and the spider god, miss. It’s much better than the one I’ve been reading—see? The Curse of the Loathsome Worm. There’s a girl in it, Miss Penelope Tulkinghorn, but the Loathsome Worm has already killed her, and now it’s about how her fiancé and his best friend have to go down into the Worm’s lair. And I’m only on the third chapter! I guess the other ten chapters are about them hunting the Worm or something. Why do the girls always get killed? Astarte never gets killed—she just kills people. You should write that story. I would read it—and pay a penny for it, or even tuppence! Really I would.”

  So Catherine had written it, and it had been serialized in Lippincott’s, and soon it would be published as a real book. She was filled with trepidation at the thought. No, the idea of writing about their experiences—hers, Mary’s, Diana’s, Beatrice’s, and Justine’s, was silly. Who would read such an account? Anyway, the others would never allow her to write it. They would not want their lives, their thoughts, exposed to the public.

  MARY: And we still don’t. Really, Cat, you ought to listen to us when we tell you there are certain things we don’t want the general public to know. After all, these are our lives.

  CATHERINE: Who is this we? You’re the only one who ever objects to anything. Diana says include more of her misadventures, Beatrice wants to make sure we address social issues, and Justine never objects to anything, no matter how personal.

  JUSTINE: Forgive me, Mary, but I believe it is best for readers to understand the truth. Perhaps, in some way, they will see themselves in us and our experiences. That is what literature does, is it not?

  MARY: If you call this literature! I mean, Catherine is a good writer—you’re a good writer, Cat, I’m not saying otherwise. But this isn’t Shakespeare or George Meredith!

  CATHERINE: George Meredith is a bore. Anyway, since when have you been a literary critic? You’re just upset because I keep writing about things that you think are embarrassing.

  MARY: Well, yes. There is that.

  “I see a village,” said Diana.

  “Where?” Catherine walked up to where Diana was standing, on a stile in a stone wall. Yes, there to their left was a village that had not been visible through the hedge. She could see stone houses with flowers growing out of the rough walls that surrounded them, along a street that wound uphill toward a church steeple visible above their slanted roofs. It was a small place, much smaller than Marazion, with none of the seaside shops or tearooms. She looked down at the map she and Mary had bought yesterday, and that Mrs. Davies had marked with an X for the location of Kyllion Keep. “There isn’t supposed to be a village between Maraz
ion and the keep.”

  “Let me see.” Diana almost snatched the map from her hands.

  “Stop that! You’ll tear it. Let’s go into the village and ask where we are. Perhaps we got lost or turned around somehow?”

  “How? We’ve been on this path the whole time.” Diana pointed back behind them, at the path that followed the line of the cliffs. Almost all along its length, they had been able to look down to the sea below, crashing against the rocks. “Anyway, I never get lost.”

  The village turned out to be Perranuthnoe. When Catherine showed their map to the proprietor of the village pub, he said, “That’s right, Kyllion Keep is almost a mile west of here, halfway to Marazion. I don’t know how you could have missed it. It’s surrounded by the ruins of the old castle—Kyllion Castle, it was called, once, until it was burned down by Cromwell. The cove is named Kyllion too, although no one goes there nowadays, on account of it’s too rocky except at low tide. The Kyllion family used to have a dock there. But none of the family lives there anymore, not since Lord Branok Kyllion was convicted of piracy in the early part of the century and hanged at the assizes. Then it stood empty until a Professor Trelawny bought it. But the keep sticks out of the ground like a thumb above Kyllion Cove. I don’t know how you could have missed it, even in this weather.”

  MARY: Always ask at the pub. Sherlock taught me that. The pub always knows.

  CATHERINE: And there is always a pub. It’s the one thing you will always find in an English village. Well, apart from the church.

  They thanked the proprietor and walked back along the coastal path, but saw nothing that looked remotely like a keep. To their left, there were rocks and crashing waves. To their right rose forests and fields. In one field, Diana chased a rabbit, and Catherine waited impatiently. What was the point of chasing prey if you weren’t going to eat it? While she was waiting and pacing around, she noticed a set of wooden steps going down the cliff face. Below it, in the shelter of the cliff, where it would not immediately be seen from above, was a stone boathouse. She clambered down the steep, narrow steps to take a closer look, but it was just a boathouse, with a small sailboat stored inside. Around it the rocks formed a cove that protected the boathouse from the ocean winds, and there was just enough sand to pull the boat down to the water without damaging the hull. She wondered whom it could belong to—there did not seem to be anyone out here who might want to sail a boat. And then she realized where they must be. On the map, there was only one cove between Marazion and Perranuthnoe. This must be it.

  “I still don’t see a keep,” said Diana, who was waiting for her when she had climbed back up to the path again.

  “I don’t think you’re going to.” Catherine sat down on a rock. They had walked, what, two miles back and forth in this wretched weather? She felt thoroughly dispirited. “This has to be Kyllion Cove, which means the keep is here, somewhere. We just can’t see it. Alice could make herself invisible, right? With her mesmerical powers. Well, from what we’ve heard, Mrs. Raymond has mesmerical powers as well, and so does Queen Tera—especially strong ones. How hard would it be for them to make a house invisible?”

  “You mean it’s just not there?” asked Diana.

  “No, it’s there all right. Or here, somewhere around us. Mesmerical powers don’t actually make anything vanish. They just affect your brain so you think you’re a pig, or the Prime Minister, or something. They’re confusing our brains so we can’t see the keep. Which means they probably know we’re here. We’d better get back to Marazion and tell Mary.”

  “Can’t we just walk around and see if we bump into it?” asked Diana. “Maybe we’ll fall over a wall, and then we can feel our way. They can’t confuse our sense of feel, right?”

  “I don’t know. Probably. They can probably make us believe just about anything they want, and we don’t know the limit of their powers. Anyway, look at all this—” Catherine swept her arms around, indicating the cliff top and the crashing sea below. “Do you really want to walk around this area, hoping we’ll bump into something? What if they make it look as though we’re walking on solid land, and we’re not? What if we walk over a cliff? Without knowing more about what they can make us see, or even feel, it’s too dangerous. Let’s go back—at least we can help the others.”

  “Fine,” said Diana, kicking at the stone Catherine was sitting on. “I should have gone with them in the first place.”

  “But then you would have missed my scintillating conversation.” Catherine did not mean to sound quite so sarcastic, but she was seriously angry. This had been a complete waste of time, and evidently there was some water on that stone. It had soaked through her skirt, and now her bottom was wet!

  Suddenly, Diana looked interested. “What does that mean? Scintillating.” She tried out the word, as though tasting it. “I didn’t learn half the things I should have at the bloody Society of St. Mary Magdalen. Tell me more words I don’t know.”

  So they trudged back to Marazion through the mist, while Catherine searched her brain for rare and unusual words so Diana would, while she was trying out each one, leave her alone for just a moment. Malaprop, sesquipedalian, tincture… What else could she think of? It was exhausting being with someone who needed to be amused at every moment.

  DIANA: You like teaching me words, and you know it.

  CATHERINE: Yes, when I have a dictionary! Not when we’re in the middle of trying to save Alice, and Mr. Holmes, and England!

  This was exactly the sort of weather Beatrice liked. The sky was gray and overcast. Mist hung in the air—she could feel the moisture on her skin. For Mary’s sake, for her sense of propriety, she was wearing this silly coat—but why would anyone not want to feel the atmosphere around them? Of course it was chillier than she liked, but that had been true since she had come to England.

  “It looks slippery,” said Mary, examining the causeway that connected St. Michael’s Mount to the mainland.

  The tide had gone out, but the stones of the causeway were still wet and covered with bright green algae. Here and there, Beatrice could see the slick shells of snails. On either side were sand, some of it covered with sea wrack, and weathered rocks. Behind them, low cliffs rose up to the town of Marazion.

  “Perhaps it would be best if we held hands?” she said, holding hers out.

  Mary stared at her, surprised.

  “It’s all right,” she said, a little wounded by Mary’s expression. “You see? I am wearing gloves.”

  “Well, of course you are. I mean, I expected you would be. We are paying a visit, after all. It’s just that you don’t often hold hands with anyone, gloved or otherwise.” Mary took her hand. “Come on.”

  Beatrice was used to this sort of reaction—or at least, she should be used to it. It had, after all, been her life since she was a child. Her own father had avoided contact with her. When she was still too young to understand her own toxicity, she had found a stray kitten wandering in the garden. For one golden, never-to-be-forgotten hour, it had played with her, and then it had lain down on the garden path and slowly grown stiff and cold. Butterflies that landed on her shoulder would last a minute, or maybe two, before they ceased to move. The only one who did not avoid her touch, even now, was Clarence. And that was even more difficult, because she must avoid it for him, to make certain he did not burn his hand while holding hers. He was fearless, so she must be fearful. It was sweet to live in the consciousness of being loved—for he had told her that he loved her, as he had bidden her goodbye on the train platform in Budapest. But it also made life more complicated.

  “Why in the world would anyone build a castle out here?” asked Mary.

  Beatrice drew her mind back to the present. It was a relief to be on an adventure, to think of action and not emotion for a while. The problem of her own heart could wait. The immediate problem must take priority now.

  “I’m certain they will tell us in the castle itself! Come.” Beatrice held out her hand again. This time Mary took it, and she
felt once more a pleasure she had not felt often in her life before joining the Athena Club—of being wanted and trusted.

  They walked cautiously along the wet causeway, between water on either side, out to the island. Although the tide was low, there were still small waves on the water, crashing in white foam on the rocks. There was a storm coming—she could feel it.

  The walk up the wooded hill to the castle, on a series of stone steps, was steep, and by the time they reached the front entrance, they were both breathing heavily. The castle itself was not as elegant as the French and German castles Beatrice had seen in her travels, which looked as though they had come out of fairy tales. But it was what a castle should be, when it was perched on an island in the Atlantic—gray and squat, as though hunkering down from wind and weather. It had peaked, small-paned windows high up on the stone walls, innumerable chimneys, and a turreted central tower that seemed to stand guard, looking out over the vast gray water. She rather liked its roughness, its gothic simplicity. Mr. Ruskin, who had written The Stones of Venice, would surely have admired it.

  “Are you here for the tour?” A woman standing in the doorway was speaking to them in somewhat formidable tones. She was dressed in violet watered silk with a white collar and cuffs. A chatelaine hung at her waist. Was she the mistress of the castle? Mrs. Davies had told them it was owned by the St. Aubyn family. The head of the family had been made Lord St. Levan by the Queen herself.

  “Yes, we are,” said Mary. “Does it start soon? We are so looking forward to seeing the house, Mrs.—” Mary waited a moment.

  “Russell,” said the woman graciously. “In half an hour, miss. If you would like to tour the gardens yourself, I would be happy to provide you with a labeled map.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Russell,” said Mary. “We would like that very much.”

  When they were walking away from the front entrance, toward what looked like a series of terraces going down to the sea, Beatrice whispered to Mary, “How did you know she was a housekeeper? I thought she might be Lady St. Levan.”