Hawthorn

by Carol Goodman

  “I think it is,” I agreed, reaching out to take her hand. But before my fingers reached her the door banged open and van Drood walked in. His head was bare, his silver-streaked hair wild, and his cape thrown back from his shoulders. He looked bigger than before, as if his nighttime wanderings through the crowds had inflated him. The skin over his face was red and stretched taut as if he’d been singed by the bonfires. His lips were very red as if he’d been drinking red wine—or gorging on blood.

  “Ah, my two little turtledoves,” he said, “still safe in the nest. I was afraid one of you might have flown the coop.” He gave me a look that made me think he knew exactly where I’d been. I was terrified that he’d punish Helen for my transgression, but instead he grinned and clapped his hands. “Pack your bags. We’re leaving Paris within the hour!”

  26

  WE LEFT PARIS that morning in van Drood’s Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow, Spring-heeled Jack driving. Van Drood suggested we sit in the rear-facing seats so we could get a “last glimpse of Paris before it falls” while he sat across from us facing “the front,” as he called it. We drove north through the city, caught up in the crowds of men heading toward the Gare du Nord and the Gare de l’Est. We passed the salons de couture on the Rue de la Paix, all their shop windows now sporting tri-color flags. The opera house was draped in red, white, and blue bunting, too, and in the cafes along the Rue la Fayette the usually bored- looking coffee drinkers waved flags at the troops marching to the station.

  “Fools,” van Drood said. “They think they’re going off to a fancy dress ball. Look at those ridiculous red trousers. They’ll make easy targets for the Hun.”

  “I think they look handsome,” Helen said.

  “They do,” I agreed, “but perhaps they should wear something a little less . . . conspicuous into battle.”

  “It won’t matter,” van Drood said, rubbing his hands together. “In a month those pretty red pantalons will be covered in mud and the only red anyone will see will be their blood oozing into their precious French soil. Listen to them . . .” He cranked the windows so we could hear the soldiers singing. Instead of “La Marseillaise” they were singing a song about Alsace and Lorraine, the territories France had lost in the last war.

  “All they can think about is getting their precious Alsace and Lorraine back.” He paused, as if aware he’d said too much, but I detected in him a rare willingness to talk, perhaps fed by the fervor of the crowds.

  “So these troops will go to the French-German border. What’s wrong with that?”

  Van Drood snorted, but didn’t say anything.

  “Oh,” I said after a moment, “it leaves the Belgian border undefended . . . but the Germans wouldn’t march through Belgium, would they?”

  “I see you’ve studied your geography,” van Drood replied warily. “I commend your history teacher—what was his name? Rupert Bellows? Is he still in London trying to rouse the doddering old fools at the foreign office to the current threat?”

  I was surprised that van Drood didn’t know that Mr. Bellows was in the Ardennes. Instead of answering his question I asked one of my own. “Wouldn’t the Germans risk angering the British by violating Belgian neutrality?”

  Van Drood made a mocking sound. “The British won’t commit their troops so fast, and when they do it will be too little too late. The German army, aided by my recruits, will sweep over France. They’ll be marching down the Champs-Élysées by September. So don’t look so sad, my darling.” He leaned forward to pat Helen on her face. I tensed, afraid he’d notice that her veil was torn. I had wrapped a bit of netting around my wrist to keep him from seeing that I was free, and I’d helped arrange Helen’s veil so the torn bit wouldn’t show, but if he touched it . . .

  But as his hand approached Helen’s face the veil moved. It was only a slight stir, but it seemed to change van Drood’s mind. He dropped his hand and sat back in his seat and looked out the window.

  “Yes, we’ll be back in Paris before the leaves fall,” he said heartily, but I thought I detected a shadow of uncertainty pass over his eyes. Was he afraid of the shadow net that he himself had thrown over Helen? If so, that might be useful. But the thought that even van Drood was afraid of the thing he’d entrapped her with made me feel sick with fear for her.

  We drove northeast through Picardy and Champagne, over flat country and rolling hills, past dozing villages and castles perched on hilltops, van Drood ticking off the names of villages like bowling pins the German army would soon knock over. The names sounded familiar to me and I knew I should pay attention in case he revealed a bit of strategy that would prove useful later, but I hadn’t slept the night before and the movement of the car combined with van Drood’s droning voice soon put me to sleep—

  —and dropped me, as though I’d fallen through a rabbit hole, into the burnt and ruined Blythewood of the future. I was standing in Mr. Bellows’s classroom in front of the map of Europe reading the names of villages marked with red pins.

  Liège, Ardenne, Charleroi, Mauberge, Sambre, Nancy, Verdun, Reims, Meaux, Paris . . . someone had pinned a photograph next to Paris. I took it down and stared at it. It was a picture of a man and woman driving on the Champs-Élysées, only it was obviously shot in a studio against a painted backdrop of the Arc de Triomphe. The man’s face was a blur.

  I knew this photograph. Etta’s sister Ruth had had it taken with van Drood in Coney Island last year.

  “He was planning even then on taking Paris.”

  I whirled around and found Helen standing behind me. She was dressed head to toe in black and wearing the shadow veil, but it was torn and ragged. She stepped forward and looked up at the map.

  “We should have paid more attention in class,” she said with a rueful smile that reminded me of the old Helen.

  “Are we really here?” I asked. “Or are we in the car with van Drood?”

  She shrugged. “How should I know? Raven’s the one who’s been attending lectures on time at the Sorbonne.”

  I sighed. “This is just a dream, then. I didn’t tell you about Raven going to the Sorbonne. You’re just a projection of myself.”

  Helen frowned. “That seems awfully self-centered of you.” She shook her head. A blonde curl escaped from under her veil and a piece of the netting fell off. I noticed now that the netting on her sleeves was also unraveling. “No matter, though, what’s most important is that we stop this.” She tapped the map with a gloved finger. “We’re already too late for some of these places. Liège, Charleroi, Mauberge . . . but we could still stop him here.” I leaned over her shoulder to see where she meant, but a fog had risen obscuring my vision.

  “Uh-oh,” Helen said. “He’s here. I’d better go now.”

  I jolted awake in the car, my neck jerking painfully against the seat cushion, upsetting Helen, whose head had been resting on my shoulder. Van Drood was staring at me.

  “Bad dream?” he asked.

  “I-I don’t remember,” I stuttered.

  His lips parted in a wolfish grin. “You shouldn’t keep such late hours. I’ll have to keep a better eye on you in Bouillon.”

  “Bouillon?”

  “A quaint village in the Ardennes on the river Semois with none of the distractions of Paris.”

  He jerked his chin toward the window and I looked out—and immediately wished I hadn’t. I was staring into a churning abyss. We were on a steep winding road far too narrow for the huge Rolls-Royce. Below us a fast-moving river dashed over jagged rocks. We were so close to the edge that I could feel the car teetering as I leaned toward the window.

  I shrank back from the window, afraid my weight would send us hurtling to our deaths. Van Drood laughed. “Anyone would think you couldn’t fly! Now, my dear fiancée is afraid of heights, I know. Aren’t you, my dear?”

  “I’m much better than I used to be,” Helen replied. “Heights seem a minor thi
ng to be afraid of given the state of the world today.”

  Van Drood barked a short laugh. “Delivered with élan, my dear. But I really can’t have a wife with such a crippling disability. Jack . . .” He clapped his hands and Jack looked back toward van Drood. Seeing him take his eyes off the road made me feel sick. “Can you pull over at the top of this next curve? I want to show my bride the view.”

  “That’s not necessary,” Helen said. “Ava will tell you I’m not much for scenery. I’m really more of a city girl.”

  “Nonsense! I’ve gone to a lot of trouble to bring us all this far. I want you to appreciate my efforts. Right here will do, Jack.”

  We came to a stop in the middle of the road. There was no shoulder on the side on which to pull over, which meant that if any other vehicle came around the hairpin turn in front of us it would likely plow right into the Rolls and send it crashing down the cliff. But there seemed little point in mentioning this to van Drood. He was already getting out of the car, pulling Helen with him. I followed, determined to spread my wings if he pushed Helen over the cliff.

  Which looked like what he was trying to do. He’d dragged her to the edge of the road, where the earth dropped away into empty air. His arm was clasped around her waist, one hand gripping her elbow. Helen was pressed back against his arm, staring down into the chasm. The air roared with the sound of the rushing river and the thrum of my blood thundering in my veins. I stepped next to Helen and looked over. Across the valley stood a ruin of a castle, the stones so black they seemed to block out all the light. A waterfall tumbled from the rocks into the river below. The rocks looked very sharp from here.

  “Don’t worry,” I whispered. “Even if he pushed you I could fly and save you.”

  “Could you?” As he spoke I heard a heavy click and felt something cold encircle my wrist. I looked down and saw that Jack had snapped a metal cuff to my wrist. It was attached by a metal chain to the radiator grill of the Rolls. I jerked at the chain but it wouldn’t budge.

  “I’d stay still if I were you,” van Drood said. “If you thrash around you might upset Helen’s balance.”

  To demonstrate he gave her a little push. She teetered on the edge of the cliff, dislodging stones and clods of earth that plummeted straight down to the river. She turned around to reach for me but as I shot out my hand Jack was there with another metal cuff to snap onto my wrist.

  Van Drood smiled and pushed Helen over the cliff.

  The veil billowed out to reveal Helen’s horrified face as she reached for me. I screamed and flailed against the chains, the cold steel biting through my skin. At the last second van Drood reached out and grabbed her hands. He knelt at the edge of the cliff, holding her over the abyss, and leaned forward to whisper something in her ear. I only heard it because of my Darkling ears.

  “Don’t . . . you . . . ever”—he spit out each word—“ever try to get inside my mind again.”

  Then he lifted her up to the road and let her go. He stood up, dusting the dirt from his knees, and turned to Jack. “I think the ladies have had enough sightseeing for the afternoon. You can remove the handcuffs from Ava. I don’t think either of the young ladies will be giving us any more trouble.”

  Helen wouldn’t meet my eyes for the rest of the drive, but I kept staring at her. The netting on her sleeves was torn—just as it had been in my dream.

  The descent into the little village of Bouillon would have been pretty if I wasn’t sick to my stomach with fear. What did van Drood mean by Helen getting inside his mind? I knew that through the shadow net van Drood was able to get inside Helen’s mind, but had Helen somehow found a way to reverse the process? And what about my dream? Was it really only a dream or had Helen found a way to communicate with me in a shadowy dream space? What was she trying to tell me? Could she dare risk trying again after van Drood’s threat?

  By the time we wound our way down the steep, twisting road I was dizzy. Looking up at the blackened castle rising vertiginously from the river only made me feel dizzier. The Castle of Bouillon stood on a high dark rock in a sharp bend of the river, cut off from the land as if by a moat. Wreathed in river fog, it looked like a floating island, remote and unassailable. Only an arched bridge attached the castle to the town, but it looked as if it might crumble at a heavy footstep. The town itself, cowering in the shadow of the hulking castle, looked dreary and deserted. No one sat in the one cafe. The only person we passed was a girl in a peasant dress and white lace cap leading a bleating sheep, and she gave the Rolls one look and hurriedly turned into an alley and vanished. The only sound in the town was the monotonous rushing of water.

  Perhaps the villagers had heard the Germans were on their way and gone into hiding—or perhaps living so long in the shadow of the great hulking castle had made them naturally timorous.

  There was no one in the lobby of the village’s one inn. Van Drood struck the bell on the counter so hard it rang out like a gunshot. A large woman in a rusty black dress with an elaborate white collar appeared from the dim interior of the back office and approached the counter.

  “Your best suite for my fiancée and her companion,” van Drood said in French. “And something facing the street for me. I want to see the soldiers when they come marching through the town.”

  The manager turned pale and quickly bent over a large dusty register, studying it as if the hotel were full to the brim, and finally produced two enormous old keys, each chained to a heavy brass fob and a tattered red tassel.

  “Do the mademoiselles require more than one key?” she asked in heavily accented French.

  “Non,” van Drood replied. “They are so devoted to each other that they go everywhere together. Besides, my fiancée is not feeling very well. She will need to rest.” He looked around the dismal lobby, which contained one worn settee, two straight-backed chairs, and an empty birdcage, as if it were the lobby of a grand resort where invalids came to take the waters and rest cure. “And it looks like we have come to the right place for that.”

  I helped Helen up to our “suite,” a dim shadowy room papered in faded toile and furnished with two lumpy twin beds, a towering mahogany armoire that listed to the left, a round table covered with a dingy lace doily, a chipped enamel washstand, and two chamber pots. I expected Helen to make a withering remark, but she only lay down on the bed farthest from the window and closed her eyes. I sat down beside her, the bedsprings moaning at my weight, and moved the veil from her face. The veins at her temple stood out blue against her dead-white skin.

  “Helen,” I whispered. “Can you tell me what van Drood meant? Are you able to get inside his head?”

  She shook her head and screwed her eyes more tightly shut. Her face was rigid with pain. I filled the basin with cool water and bathed her face, loosened her clothes, and covered her with the mildewed counterpane. When her face finally relaxed and her breathing evened I got up quietly and went to the window to let in some fresh air.

  There was an iron grate over the windows—a decorative pattern of acanthus leaves and scrolling vines, but prison bars nonetheless. I shook it in the hopes that like everything else in the old hotel it would be frail and broken, but although it left rust marks on my hands it was solid and unyielding. I checked the door and found that it was locked from the outside. We were van Drood’s prisoners in body and, I was beginning to suspect, in mind.

  27

  WHILE HELEN DOZED fitfully, moaning in her sleep, I sat at the window and watched the sun set over the castle. As the sky turned rose, then lilac, then deep purple, the towers of Castle Bouillon grew blacker and seemingly larger, as if they were drawing up the darkness from the river and swelling with it. I felt as if they might overflow at any moment and pour darkness down over the town—and they did. When the sun dropped below the curtain wall, a cloud of smoke poured out of the highest tower and streamed over the battlement walls and down the steep rock slope. I let out a startled
gasp and rose from the window, fumbling for the shutters to shut out the onslaught.

  “It’s the bats, mademoiselle. They live in the castle tower and come out when the sun sets.”

  I turned to find a young girl dressed in a peasant’s homespun dress, starched white apron, and white cotton cap, standing in the doorway holding a heavy tray.

  “My grand-mère says they are the souls of the dead. It is a cursed, dark place.” She took a tentative step into the room, angling the tray sideways to move past me.

  “Let me help you with that,” I said, stepping toward her. I could push past her, I thought, and run. But what would happen to Helen? I took the heavy tray from the girl and laid it on the rickety table, which rocked under its weight.

  “You speak English?” I asked her.

  “Oui, mademoiselle. A little. The nuns taught me. Madame Berthelot told me you were two English sisters and one of you is sick.” She looked at Helen. “She does not look so well.”

  “She’s not my sister, she’s my best friend. I’m Ava. What’s your name?”

  She looked surprised to be asked. “Manon, mademoiselle.” She curtseyed. “I am sorry your friend is sick. Madame Berthelot sent up broth and bread. She says you will be staying in your room and that I should lock the door when I leave, but I told her I didn’t like to do that. What if there is a fire? I say to her. But she say there has never been a fire at the Hotel de Bouillon and that the gentleman you are traveling with insisted that the ladies were in danger from a jealous suitor and must be protected. Is that true, miss? Do you have a jealous suitor pursuing you?”

  “No, Manon, the only ones pursuing us are our friends. It is the man traveling with us who is our abductor.”

  Manon’s eyes grew wide. “Mon dieu! I knew that man was no good.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “I thought he might be a German spy sent to plan an attack on our village. Do you think the Germans will come here, mademoiselle? My brother Albert left to join the reserves and half the village has gone to visit relatives in France. I was glad to see him go!”