by Alyssa Moon
“Sounds like a plan.” Alexander took the opportunity to slow down and walk next to her again.
That night, as she built a campfire on the bank, Delphine examined the dry twigs. What if . . . ? She pulled her needle from the sheath, holding it carefully, remembering the silvery tingle that had leapt from the needle into her paws the night before. It had happened as she had looked up at the stars and the moon. She gazed toward the sky, and at the stars peeking through the clouds here and there. She let her gaze soften, slowing her breathing, then looked back down at the needle. If she could connect with that power without letting it take her over . . .
She pictured the silver sparks that had appeared earlier. As she imagined them leaping from the needle again, they became so real in her mind that she could nearly see them.
The needle trembled in her grasp, and a shower of sparks burst into existence, landing on the twigs. They were ablaze in an instant.
She gasped. “I did it! Alexander, did you see? I lit the fire!”
He turned around from where he had been hanging up his waistcoat to air on a bramble. “Oh? Yes, nicely done. Good show.”
Delphine rolled her eyes and turned back to the little fire, the needle still warm in her paws. She could do magic!
Delphine smelled the ocean before she could see it. Her nose twitched with the unfamiliar smell as they hiked around one last bend in the river and then came face-to-face with the endless black sea. It had been almost two weeks since they had left the monastery, but they had finally made it. They could see the cliffs where Parfumoisson was supposed to lie according to Father Guillaume’s map, but not one building or lighthouse gave a hint of civilization. The late-afternoon sun was already low in the sky.
Where were they supposed to go?
Delphine and Alexander walked out farther on the small stretch of beach until they had a clear view along the coastline. Now they could see the docks of a human town directly to the north. If they hurried, they could reach Parfumoisson before dinner.
The sun was falling quickly, broad bands of orange and red reflecting off the ocean and up onto the cliffs. As they walked, it seemed as if the beach was narrowing. Delphine stopped and looked back. No, it wasn’t her imagination. The edge of the water was definitely getting closer to the base of the cliffs.
“Uh, Alexander?” Delphine stopped. “I think the ocean is, well, moving toward us.” It sounded absurd. “Can it do that?”
Alexander glanced at the water, and his ears went white. “The tide,” he said. “The ocean is coming toward us, and it’s going to keep coming. Delphine, we need to go. We need to go now.”
In an instant, Delphine realized what he was saying. Picking up her skirts, she began to run. They moved in tighter to the base of the cliff, hugging it as closely as they could, but the water was already lapping viciously at their paws. Delphine panted as she pushed herself to run even faster, the needle sheath bouncing against her back.
Only a sliver of sun remained, trembling above the horizon. A wave swept in around Delphine’s legs and nearly knocked her over. She stumbled against the cliff rocks and felt the stones scrape her paws, but she managed to catch her balance. Another wave hit both of them hard, and they fell. Delphine pushed herself up again, tasting the salt water in her mouth. She looked back over her shoulder.
“Go!” Alexander cried.
Delphine glanced at the horizon just in time to see a faint green flash, and then the sun was gone. Another wave, the largest yet, picked her up and smashed her against the cliff.
“Alexander!” she screamed. And then she was pulled under.
Another wave crashed over Delphine, knocking the breath out of her. She clutched desperately to the cliff stones as the water buffeted her from every direction. When the wave finally receded, she could breathe again. She heard Alexander’s claws scrabbling on the rock behind her.
The dock pillars beckoned ahead, the closest only a few tail’s-lengths away. As soon as the next wave passed, Delphine shoved off the rocks as hard as she could, hoping Alexander was doing the same. She lashed her tail as she swam, the ocean water freezing cold. Then her paws bumped up against the wood of the pillar. She scrambled upward out of the waves.
Alexander was climbing up the other side of the post. They both reached the top and collapsed on the slats of the dock, gasping for breath. Finally, he lifted his head and looked at her.
“No more water,” he said. “I don’t care where we go next on this quest of yours. But no lakes, streams, oceans, or springs. I’m tired of nearly drowning.”
When they had finally regained their strength, they looked up at where they had landed. The dock stretched toward a sheltered cove with a tiny beach, large enough for four or five human boats to be pulled up on the sand. Cliffs surrounded the town of Parfumoisson on the other three sides. A path climbed steeply upward from the tiny harbor through the town.
Now I’ll find some answers, Delphine thought as they started up the road.
“Now I’ll be able to get my doublet cleaned and my whiskers restyled properly,” Alexander said out loud.
Delphine laughed despite herself.
The town was nestled into the curve of the cliffs behind the cove, houses stacked one on top of another so closely that they appeared to be hanging on to the craggy walls like barnacles. Narrow cobblestoned streets squeezed their way between the buildings. Delphine and Alexander spotted the welcome signs of animal inhabitants everywhere. A mouse-size door carved above a lintel. Tiny stairs curling up around a window box. A row of glass-paned windows, each no larger than a human thumbnail, just below the eaves of a human roof.
The sky had dropped into inky night and candles glowed in the windows of both human and animal dwellings, but the town seemed oddly silent. Every one of the shopfronts was shuttered and dark.
“Where are all the humans?” whispered Delphine.
“Let’s just count our blessings that they’re not out here, trying to capture us with their traps,” said Alexander. “I think maybe it has something to do with the change of seasons. It’s a fishing town, isn’t it?” He pointed at the canvas-covered boats pulled up on the beach behind them. “Maybe they mainly stay inside this time of year.”
That made some sense, although it raised another question in Delphine’s mind. “So they don’t fish for the entire winter? How do they get by?”
Alexander shrugged. “Perhaps they dry fish in the summer months, like how we preserve and put up vegetables?”
That wasn’t something Delphine ever expected to hear from Alexander. “How do you know about putting up vegetables?”
He shrugged again. “I used to sneak down to the castle kitchens, remember?”
Delphine shook her head. “Alexander de Soucy Perrault, just when I think I’ve got you all figured out.” A cat yowled somewhere in the distance, and they both jumped. “Come on. Let’s find a safe place to spend the night.”
They headed up the main street, Delphine keeping her eyes peeled for a mouse inn.
“Look!” Alexander pointed to a tiny stone plaque at the very base of a building, far below the human-size sign overhead. “The animals of this town have their own street names. ‘Rue Moule.’ And there’s ‘Rue Balthazar.’” He read off the little street signs as they walked. “‘Rue Huître.’ ‘Rue Champignon.’”
The buildings were growing narrower and taller. Ornate carvings of sea creatures decorated the lintels and doorframes. Delphine caught sight of a cheese shop and then a vegetable stand, both with separate mouse entrances, both closed for the night.
“‘Rue Bouillabaisse,’” Alexander reported next to her. They were coming into the center square, with a horse trough on the left and an impressive church on the right. “‘Rue Fortencio.’”
“Alexander, maybe we should—” she began, then stopped. “Wait! Did you say Fortencio?”
He pointed to the old stone plaque affixed at the bottom of a nearby wall, with an arrow pointing down a side street. It rea
d RUE FORTENCIO in carefully carved letters, just big enough for a mouse to see, but small enough to go unnoticed by humans.
“That’s the surname of the music master!” Delphine dug in her apron pocket for the scrap of vellum. “It can’t be a coincidence!” She headed down the side street, tail twitching excitedly, scanning the buildings carefully.
If they hadn’t been looking for it, they would have missed it completely. Halfway down the block on the left side, at the base of a human church, decorative stone panels had been mounted long ago on either side of a pair of mouse-size stone doors. Looking at the panels up close, Delphine could make out music notes in the carvings. The stones seemed ancient, worn by centuries of summer sun and winter frosts. The hinges, the handles, even the intricate lock that overlapped both doors . . . everything was coated in a fine layer of peeling red rust. Delphine reached out to trace her paw along one of the music notes.
“This was Fortencio Académie,” she breathed. “I’m sure of it. And that means my ancestor was here, too. The mouse with the needle and the silver whiskers. We have to get inside!”
“Now?” squeaked Alexander.
“Why not?”
“Well.” He hesitated. “It might be—”
“Haunted?” She quirked an eyebrow.
“That is not what I was going to say,” he insisted. “What if it’s, well, dangerous? Structurally unsound? These old buildings can appear to be sturdy, yet interior-wise . . .”
Delphine pushed on one of the door handles, but it was closed tight. The lock had some sort of detailing, but she couldn’t make it out under the years of rust. Brushing flakes off her paw, Delphine stepped back, staring at the doors thoughtfully. Then, in a moment of inspiration, she withdrew her needle. Alexander eyed her nervously but said nothing.
Letting her needle rest gently in her grasp, Delphine closed her eyes, feeling the softness of the silvery whispers beginning to tingle in her paws. That rust . . . there was solid metal somewhere beneath it. She pictured moonlight flowing over the lock, washing away the flakes of decay.
Alexander gasped and her eyes popped open. A gentle shimmer was streaming from the needle, blowing away the rust like dead leaves in a breeze.
They leaned forward, examining the now-shining metal lock. It was formed with a series of interlocking panels, each etched with a musical note. Delphine stared in frustration, and her momentary elation vanished. She might as well have been staring at a series of Greek symbols.
“B, D, A, C-sharp, C, D, G,” said Alexander nonchalantly.
“You can read music?”
He gave her an odd look. “Of course. Growing up in the castle, everyone has to learn how to play an instrument. It’s item number four in Oddsley’s Traits of the Genteel Mouse.”
She looked blankly at him. “Is that a book?”
“A handbook, actually.” He hummed the music notes aloud.
The series of tones struck a chord in her. “Do that again.”
He did, and she focused hard. It wasn’t quite right, but if reshuffled, the notes made her think of bedtime, her mother’s embrace, tucking the pinkie mice into their cribs. The memory made her heart soar. Of course! It was the oldest lullaby she knew.
Whiskers soft and eyes are closed, she sang softly. Time for baby mine to doze.
“Alexander! That’s it!” She hummed the melody again, a little louder. “All the notes are there, just in the wrong order. We have to rearrange the order to match the song!”
“Sing that once more.” He listened as she hummed. “D . . . A . . . G . . . B . . . D . . . C-sharp . . . C,” he said slowly.
Delphine reached out and pressed the panels on the lock in order. D, A, G, B, D, C#, C.
There was a soft click. She pushed cautiously on one of the handles, and the door swung open noiselessly, despite the rust on the hinges. Delphine looked at Alexander. “Would you care to join me?”
He hesitated, then nodded and followed her across the threshold.
The hallway that stretched in front of them was wide and low, with empty sconces on both sides. Soot coated the ceiling overhead in dark streaks. Moonlight from the open doorway dappled the ancient flagstones beneath their paws.
“See? That wasn’t so hard,” she said jovially.
Alexander narrowed his eyes. “So now you’re just going to wander around an abandoned music school in the middle of the night, with no light, until you find, what? A tapestry that tells the story of who your ancestor was, why she had that needle, what she did here, and all the other answers you’re hoping to find?”
“That’s the plan,” she said, marching forward.
He sighed and fell in behind her. “Who knows what creatures might still be lurking down here?” he mused out loud. “Centipedes love living underground, and they can be dangerous when provoked. Termites, ants . . .” He shuddered a little. “Do you hear something down the hall? Skittering feet? Thousands of tiny claws scratching over the stone?”
Delphine shot him a deadpan stare. “So that oath you took to protect me . . . I gather it doesn’t apply to dark passages?”
She turned to continue onward, then stopped and pointed at an alcove in the wall. There was an age-darkened plaque with what appeared to be a shrine laid out below it. Burned-down candles, long-dried flower petals, ancient anise seeds. “Look!”
“I still hear skittering, and it’s definitely getting louder,” Alexander mumbled.
She peered at the plaque in the dim moonlight. “‘Cécile Montroulard, née 1661, morte 1682,’” she read aloud, tracing her fingers across the lettering. “ ‘Soprano, Sword Master, Protector of Our School. Bravest is the one who sacrifices all.’ How sad. I wonder what happened?”
But the answer was lost to time. They left the shrine behind, heading down the hallway, which grew darker with every step. Delphine started to think it might have been prudent to wait until morning after all, but she’d be bee-stung if she was going to admit to Alexander that he had been right.
Scrrrritchhhh.
Delphine’s whiskers twitched nervously. “Alexander,” she whispered. “Do you hear that? That scratching sound?”
“That’s what I’ve been saying,” he whispered back, his voice strained.
It was a scrabbly, scuttering noise. She pressed herself against the nearest wall. It seemed to be getting closer. Which direction was it coming from?
Then another sound joined the mix. Voices. Many voices, rising in deep, ominous harmony.
Delphine and Alexander clung together, shuddering.
“What is that?” Alexander finally managed to whisper.
“Singing, I think.” Delphine listened, trying to calm her beating heart. “You were right. Someone’s down here.”
They listened for another minute. The singing didn’t seem to be getting any closer, but it wasn’t fading away, either. The low, eerie tones echoed down the pitch-black hallways. It made her fur stand on end, but she couldn’t stop listening. The longer they stood, the more it drew her in.
On a sudden impulse, she turned back to Alexander. “We need to go find the source of it.”
“Why—?” He stopped himself and sighed. “If you say so.”
With Delphine leading the way, they continued to feel along the stone wall through the inky blackness.
A thought struck Delphine. She held up her needle and pictured the silvery rays of the moon, holding the image in her mind as clearly as she could. The needle grew warm, and then it began to glow faintly. There. The passageway was still dark, but the needle gave off enough of the pale silver light to make the flagstones visible beneath their paws.
They tiptoed closer and closer toward the sounds until they could see the outline of a door recessed in the stone wall. Delphine rested her paw on the dusty metal handle. The scratching sound and ominous voices were definitely coming from the other side of the wall. With a deep breath, Delphine pushed the handle and the door slowly scraped inward, hinges squeaking in protest.
T
he light on the other side of the door was so bright that they were momentarily blinded. As they blinked, they began to make out a large round stone room, with a vaulted ceiling far at the top. Stubs of candles ringed the edges. In the center a swarm of hooded figures stood in concentric circles around a curious device, singing the strange harmony they had heard. Now she could hear the lyrics as well.
Ever onward comes the night, leading toward tomorrow’s day.
And the moon who brings us light, waxes full, then fades away.
Passing through the seasons fair, then the seasons dark and cold.
Till the cycle starts again, year by year the story’s told.
Delphine and Alexander stood unnoticed, taking in the scene. At the center of the singers was a hunched figure, whiskers springing out from either side of its hood. The figure was turning a crank that rotated a series of gears leading upward. Delphine’s gaze moved up to where the gears touched the domed ceiling. She gasped.
She had been so intent on the hooded singers that she had missed the magnificent painting above—a scene that circled upon itself without end. It showed towns, mountains, pastures, streams: a whole countryside. As her eye traveled over the mural, Delphine saw the changing of the seasons—trees springing to life, then heavy with fruit, followed by red leaves fluttering until snow lay thick on the branches and the whole cycle began again. A long series of tiny numbers wrapped around the bottom. She noticed an intricately carved arm of metal pointing to one of the numbers just below the autumn scene.
Delphine’s jaw dropped. “It’s a calendar,” she breathed. The metal arm was being cranked from one date to the next, its point dragging on the stone. It was the scratching sound they had heard.
The figures sang on, still unaware of the two mice who had tiptoed into their midst.
Delphine turned to whisper to Alexander, but he was no longer by her side. He had stepped forward out of the shadows, paws akimbo on his hips. “Demons of the underground, you shall not harm us!” he cried with fervor.