Mistress of Souls

by Michelle Zink

  “Are you certain it isn’t an inconvenience?”

  She smiled. “I would be grateful for the company, if the truth is told.”

  His nod was slow. “All right, then. If you’re certain.”

  She opened the door wider and he stepped into the foyer, looking around as if he’d never been there before. She led him down the hall and settled him in the library before making her way to the kitchen to put the water on to boil. Then she hurried upstairs to change.

  She was embarrassed to realize how rarely she actually dressed. She had once paid close attention to her outward appearance, spending freely on the latest gowns from abroad and taking special care of her long, thick hair.

  But since Virginia’s departure, she had grown accustomed to being alone in the house. There was little point in dressing for each day. Most of the time, she simply rose, bathed, and put on a fresh nightdress. Her time was spent in the Dark Room anyway, interrupted only by brief journeys to the kitchen when absolutely necessary.

  Now she entered her chamber for the first time in weeks. She threw open the door to the wardrobe and stared at the gowns hanging there. There were greens, blues, pinks, and there, peeking out from behind her mourning gown, a flash of scarlet. She pushed the others aside and fingered the red silk, remembering the fuss it had caused with Lia, her shock when she had seen the brightly colored gown.

  “But…you don’t mean to wear it to Wycliffe?” she’d said, her eyes wide.

  Alice had flipped her hair, feigning nonchalance when, really, she quite enjoyed shocking her sister and always had. “Of course. Where else would I wear it in this ridiculously boring town?”

  Lia had shaken her head, her green eyes shaded with thoughts Alice knew she would not speak. Lia never did speak her mind, and in her most private moments, Alice admitted to taking perverse pleasure in trying to force the words from her mouth using any means necessary.

  “It is…Why, it is a scandalous color, Alice!” Lia had exclaimed. “Surely you know this.”

  Alice had turned to the looking glass, pretending to study her face. “I hardly care what anyone here thinks of my gowns, Lia.” She had met her sister’s eyes in the mirror. “And you shouldn’t, either.”

  Lia had said nothing, not even when Alice had worn the dress to Wycliffe the very next day, nor when some of the more staid of her peers stared at her, whispered behind their hands as if this prevented Alice from knowing they were talking about her. She had only worn the dress once. It had served its purpose and had been no use to her afterward.

  But now she did not want to be scandalous. She wanted to be…acceptable. The realization gave her only brief pause. James was waiting. She did not have time to examine her motives. She was simply happy at the prospect of company, and she pulled a bundle of rose-colored silk from the wardrobe and dressed hurriedly, combing her hair quickly into submission and finishing it with an ivory ribbon.

  By the time she returned to the kitchen, the tea kettle was whistling. She turned off the stove and prepared a tray with a teapot, two cups and matching saucers, and some of the cookies she had purchased from Mr. Owning.

  “I’m sorry to keep you waiting,” she said as she carried the tray into the library. “I’m afraid I’ve grown careless in Virginia’s absence.”

  “Understandable,” James said, though of course it was not. He crossed the room from the bookshelf where he had been standing. “I did not realize until our meeting in the bookstore, however, that you were entirely alone here. I would have come sooner.”

  Alice smiled, her cheeks growing warm. It had been a long time since someone had shown her concern. She was not quite sure what one said in such an instance.

  “I’m fine, truly.” She laughed a little as she poured the tea. “Though I suspect the horses and cattle would say otherwise were they able to speak.”

  James took the cup and saucer she offered him. “Thank you.” He settled back on the sofa, sipping from the cup, his brow furrowed. “Where did she go? Virginia, I mean?”

  Alice set down her cup, remembering Mr. Owning’s words: Your aunt informed me of her extended trip to London.…

  “I don’t know for certain.” The lie was on her tongue before she had time to consider her motive in telling it. “She didn’t say.”

  James nodded. “I heard it may be London.” His tone was overly casual, and Alice had a sudden realization.

  James did not know where Lia was.

  Lia had not spoken of her last conversation with James, nor of her tactics in explaining her absence. But now it was apparent that she had left without divulging her destination to James. Alice should not have been surprised. Knowing her sister, the secrecy was an attempt at keeping James from the workings of the prophecy.

  Alice considered her options. She could tell James where Lia was. The Milthorpes maintained a home in London. It was logical to believe that it was where Lia had taken up residence.

  She hesitated. If he knew where Lia was, surely he would go after her. It had not been formally announced, but they had been more or less betrothed their whole lives. Everyone had assumed they would marry, have children, and live quietly at Birchwood. Would James give it all up so easily?

  Would he give Lia up so easily?

  Alice thought not. There was nothing to keep him in New York save his father, who, though elderly, seemed to get along quite well. James was loyal and true. It was her sister’s misfortune that she had not trusted him.

  “Hmmm,” Alice finally murmured, taking another sip of her tea. “I don’t know. Virginia only said that she would be gone for some time. And I am sorry to report that Lia and I were not…well, we were not in good standing at the time of her departure.”

  James looked into her eyes. “I know she loves you, whatever your conflict.”

  Alice tried to smile, but the words brought forth an uncommon wave of sadness. She did not allow herself the luxury of thinking about love, from her sister or anyone else.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  James took a cookie and bit into it. Then he put it down, brushing his fingers off on his plate. “I’ve just remembered!” he said suddenly. “I have something for you.”

  She could not hide her surprise. “For me?”

  He pulled something from his waistcoat and held out a book tied with a ribbon. “I thought you might like to have one of your own, though I know your father has at least five different editions.”

  She looked down at the present. It was the book of Keats poems she had been reading in the Douglases’ shop. She did not doubt that he was right about the Milthorpes having one in their collection. He was likely more familiar with it than she was, given the many hours he and Mr. Douglas had spent cataloging Father’s collection. And yet he had brought this one just for her. Had remembered her reading it in the store.

  “I…I don’t know what to say,” she stammered.

  His cheeks reddened slightly, and he reached for his cup, trying to hide his discomfiture. “It’s nothing. I’m an admirer myself. I hope you enjoy it.”

  They spent another twenty minutes making polite conversation before James rose to leave. “Father is expecting me back at the shop. Thank you for your hospitality. I enjoyed our conversation.”

  “And I, as well. Thank you for the book…and for checking up on me.” She bowed her head, feeling suddenly melancholy. “I suppose I have been lonelier here than I was willing to admit, even to myself.” She laughed, wanting to make light of the moment, wanting to lessen the vulnerability she suddenly felt in James’s presence. “And yet, I remember: ‘We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers.’”

  His eyes lit with surprise. “Thoreau,” he murmured.

  She smiled. “Yes.” She made her way to the door of the library. “I’ll see you out.”

  She led him down the hall to the front door. Reaching for one of the pegs on the wall, she handed him his coat. “Please give your father my regards.�
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  He nodded, shrugging on the overcoat. “I will.” He hesitated on the threshold, uncertainty clouding his gaze in the moment before it cleared. “Take care of yourself, Alice.”

  And then he was gone. She shut the door and turned to face the great house, suddenly emptier than it had been before, the ticking of the clock her only company.

  It was some time before she made her way back to the Dark Room. She had taken the tea tray back to the kitchen and washed the dishes before putting everything away. While she worked, her mind turned over James’s visit, replaying every nuance of his speech, every movement.

  She wandered upstairs, humming her eerie melody, recalling the look in his eyes when he’d turned to leave. She had no doubt there were words left unsaid. She only wished she knew what they were.

  Finally, she returned to the Dark Room. She changed back into her nightdress and kneeled on the floor in her circle. Closing her eyes, she thought of the Souls, brought their presence forward, out of the shadows of her mind.

  They were there, whispering. She listened, trying to discern the words of a new spell, but at first all she heard were snippets of conversation, either among themselves or directed at her.

  “Mistress…the Gate.”

  “She who guards…go to her.”

  “Dark…Beast.”

  And then, out of the clamor of whispers, she heard the spell.

  It was difficult to put her finger on how she knew, but she always did. The Souls were always whispering to her, of course, but a spell sounded different. The words were primeval. They awakened something within her. She would be sitting on the floor of the Dark Room, listening to the Souls speak, sometimes answering back into the silent chamber, and the whispering would change. She would feel something shift inside her, an opening, a welcoming of the spell that her soul somehow knew and recognized.

  Once it had been a spell to see her parents and Henry. She had been desperate to know if they had crossed into the Final World or if they were still traversing the Plane, if she might still see them. She had repeated the words to the spell gifted her by the Souls and had immediately seen her mother and father, each holding one of Henry’s hands, rushing under the steely sky of a barren Otherworld. Alice recognized the place immediately as a dark counterpart to the world in which she lived. She had met Lia there once, though she usually avoided it. Even she felt afraid there.

  Her parents and Henry had been hurrying across a great field, her father glancing around as if expecting a pursuer, Henry trying hard to keep up.

  Walking, nearly running. Free of his damaged legs at last.

  That was when she knew: They were on the run in the Otherworlds. Had not crossed into the Final World for reasons Alice could not fathom.

  Now she began to repeat the spell, her own voice just a whisper in the Dark Room, the candles flickering around the circle. The Souls’ voices grew quieter, fading into the background of the spell little by little until it was only her voice that repeated the strange words.

  And then she was not in the Dark Room any longer, but standing in the foyer of a house, a staircase rising in front of her. It was dark, the house and its occupants sleeping and silent.

  She was alone, and she made her way to the stairs, her steps oddly light. She looked down as she ascended the stairs and noted that her legs were not quite solid. She could make out the treads under her feet, the impression of the foyer’s wallpaper through her nightdress.

  She was both here and not here.

  She continued up the stairs. When she reached the top, she did not hesitate before turning right down a long hall. She did not know how she knew where she was going, but she was somehow pulled forward, as if her other self, this ghost-self, understood her destination.

  The sconces cast flickering shadows on the papered walls, and she continued past three doors before stopping outside a fourth. She surveyed the knob with hesitation. Would it open if she turned it? Would it make a sound? Wake someone?

  You are a wraith, the Souls whispered in her mind. You are not bound by the rules of the physical realm.

  She took two steps forward and felt nothing as she walked through the door.

  She was in a bedchamber. A large four-poster bed dominated the room, a sleeping form under the coverlet. Alice knew it was her sister even from where she stood. They were twins; each had always had an uncanny sense of the other, even with all their differences.

  She approached the bed hesitantly. Not because she was afraid Lia would hear her. She understood now that her body was still in New York while her spirit had made its way to London. That she did not exist here in the same way she did there. That she was not bound by things like mass and sound.

  But she had not seen Lia in three or four months. Not since she had left for London immediately after Henry’s death. It had been easier to aid the Souls without her sister’s presence. Without the reminder of their bond.

  Still, she had been brought here by the Souls, and this trip was just the beginning. A way to learn the rules of such travel, to commit the spell to memory as she had all the others. Asleep, Lia could offer no insight into her activities with regard to the prophecy. There was no point standing at the door, observing her sister’s sleeping form from afar, when she had been offered such an unfettered view.

  She did not feel the carpets beneath her feet as she moved toward the bed. Rather, it was like drifting, floating toward it. She stopped when she reached the side and looked down at her sister. She had forgotten how strange it was to look upon her twin. Like looking at a slightly distorted version of herself, both foreign and eerily familiar.

  Lia lay on her back, her chestnut curls a tumultuous tangle on the pristine linen pillowcase. Her mouth was slightly open, the breath emerging softly from her ruby lips. Her face was smooth and unlined with worry or fear, at peace in a way that reminded Alice of when they were children, when the prophecy did not stand so solidly between them, when their parents were both alive and Henry was but a rosy-cheeked babe.

  It was not so long ago, really. This was Lia. Her Lia. The rose to Alice’s thorn. The day to her night. The sun to her rain.

  For, just as she clung to the identity given to her by Samael and his Souls, by the belief they placed in her, hadn’t she also been shaped by Lia? The other side to her coin? Hadn’t she been more fully herself in her efforts to stand apart from her sister?

  The thought gave her pause. It opened a Pandora’s box of possibilities, the reality that they were shaped not only by who they were, but by who they were not as well.

  And yet, it didn’t matter. She and Lia were on opposite sides of the prophecy, for better or worse. It was how it had always been, not just for them, but for the generations of Guardians and Gates, the generations of sisters, before them.

  They had never stood a chance.

  She remained at the side of the bed for some time, dimly registering the soft ticking of the clock on the mantel over the firebox. She allowed her eyes to roam her sister’s face, memorizing every detail, every nuance.

  Then she turned to go, knowing she would see Lia again. That she would be back many times, observing, listening as Lia plotted to find the missing page that would close the Gate to Samael—and bring to a close any possibility that Alice would finally come into her own power at his side.

  She drifted through the door and down the hall toward the staircase. She thought of Birchwood as soon as her feet touched the floor of the foyer. She was back, opening her eyes in the circle of the Dark Room, in almost the same instant.

  As soon as she awoke the next day, Alice knew spring had arrived. It was always that way. One day, the wind would be bitter and cold, New York still firmly ensconced in winter. Then, all at once, the sun would be shining, some invisible shift having occurred in the night, one season over while another began.

  She washed her face and dressed before heading downstairs where she made a quick breakfast of bread slathered with sour cherry jam. She washed it down with hot te
a and was cleaning up her dishes when she heard a knock at the door. Wiping her hands on a tea towel, she made her way down the hall to the foyer, wondering who could be calling and for what purpose.

  When she opened the door, it was to James, standing on the porch. He surveyed her with uncertain eyes.

  “Good morning,” he said, tipping his hat.

  “James!” She thought briefly about her attire, glad she’d bothered to put on a gown and prepare properly for the day. “How nice to see you.”

  He placed the hat back on his head. “I thought about what you said, about the animals.”

  “The animals?” she asked, searching her mind for the reference.

  He shuffled from one foot to the other, clearly nervous. “You mentioned that they might be in need of care,” he said. “It must be difficult to keep up with so great a house by oneself. I thought I could check in on the horses and cattle for you.”

  Now she remembered. She had mentioned in passing that the animals might be neglected.

  “I wouldn’t want you to go to any trouble….”

  “It is no trouble,” he said. “Your family has been very good to us. I would consider it a privilege to return even a small portion of the kindness your father showed to mine.”

  She nodded. “All right, then. But only if you’ll agree to lunch when you are finished.”

  He tipped his head at her, a slow grin spreading across his handsome face. “I think that is more than fair.”

  She watched him step lightly down the stone steps, turning toward the back of the property and disappearing around the house. For a moment, she could only stand there, staring after him.

  James had come to call. On her.

  She hurried back into the house, double-checking her appearance in the looking glass that hung on the foyer wall. She looked pale but otherwise well, and she pinched her cheeks to put some color into them before heading to the kitchen.

  She surveyed the cupboards, wishing that she had more prowess in the kitchen so that she could prepare a proper meal. But of course, that had never been part of her schooling, and she began piling things on a tray, resigning herself to working with what she had.