Ninth House

by Leigh Bardugo

  Darlington pointed out the stores of bone dust and graveyard dirt, with which they would provision themselves on Thursday nights, and the rare vials of Perdition Water, said to come from the seven rivers of hell and that were to be used only in case of emergency. Darlington had never had cause to tap into any of them, but he kept hoping.

  At the center of the room sat Hiram’s Crucible, or, as the delegates of Lethe liked to call it, “the Golden Bowl.” It was the circumference of a tractor wheel and made of beaten twenty-two-karat gold.

  “For years, Lethe knew there were ghosts in New Haven. There were hauntings, rumors of sightings, and some of the societies had managed to pierce the Veil through séances and summonings. But Lethe knew there was more, a secret world operating beside ours and frequently interfering with it.”

  “Interfering with it how?” Alex asked, and he could see the narrow line of her shoulders tighten, that slightly hunched fighter’s stance.

  “At the time, no one was sure. They suspected that the presence of Grays in sacred circles and temple halls was disrupting the spells and rituals of the societies. There were signs that stray magic loosed from rituals by the interference of Grays could cause anything from a sudden frost ten miles away to violent outbursts in schoolchildren. But Lethe had no proof and no way to prevent it. Year after year they attempted to perfect an elixir that would allow them to see spirits, experimenting on themselves through sometimes-deadly trial and error. Still, they had nothing to show for their work. Until Hiram’s Crucible.”

  Alex ran her finger against the gilded edge of the basin. “It looks like a sun.”

  “Many of the structures in Machu Picchu were dedicated to the worship of the sun god.”

  “This thing came from Peru?” Alex asked. “You don’t need to look so surprised. I know where Machu Picchu is. I can even find Texas on a map if you give me enough time.”

  “You’ll have to forgive my lack of familiarity with the curriculum of the Los Angeles School District or your interest in same.”

  “Forgiven.”

  Maybe, thought Darlington. But Alex Stern looked like the type to hold a grudge.

  “Hiram Bingham was one of the founding members of Lethe. He ‘discovered’ Machu Picchu in 1911, though that word tends to ruffle feathers, since the locals were perfectly aware of its existence.” When Alex said nothing, he added, “He was also rumored to be the inspiration for Indiana Jones.”

  “Nice,” said Alex.

  Darlington held back a sigh. Of course that would be what got her attention. “Bingham stole about forty thousand artifacts.”

  “And brought them back here?”

  “Yes, to Yale, to be studied at the Peabody. He said they would be returned after eighteen months. It took literally one hundred years for Peru to get them back.”

  Alex flicked her finger against the crucible and it emitted a low hum. “They forget this in the return shipment? It seems pretty hard to miss.”

  “The crucible was never documented because it was never given to Yale. It was brought to Lethe.”

  “Stolen goods.”

  “Very much so, I’m afraid. But it’s the key to the Orozcerio. The problem with Lethe’s elixir wasn’t the recipe; it was the vessel.”

  “So it’s a magical mixing bowl?”

  Such a little heathen. “I might not put it that way, but yes.”

  “And it’s gold all the way through?”

  “Before you think about trying to run off with it, keep in mind that it weighs twice as much as you do and that the whole house is warded against theft.”

  “If you say so.”

  With his luck she’d find a way to roll the crucible down the stairs into the back of a truck and melt it down for earrings.

  “The elixir has plenty of other names besides Orozcerio,” he said. “The Golden Trial. Hiram’s Bullet. Every time a member of Lethe drinks it, every time the crucible is used, he takes his life in his hands. The mixture is toxic and the process incredibly painful. But we do it. Again and again. For a glimpse behind the Veil.”

  “I get it,” said Alex. “I’ve met users before.”

  It isn’t like that, he wanted to protest. But maybe it was.

  The rest of the tour was uneventful. Darlington showed her the storage and research rooms in the upper stories, how to use the library—though he warned her not to use it on her own until the house got to know her—and finally the bedroom and adjoining bath, tidied and readied for her as Lethe’s new Dante. He’d moved his own things to Virgil’s suite at the end of last year, back when he’d still believed he’d have a proper protégé. He’d felt embarrassingly sentimental about it all. Virgil’s quarters were a floor above Dante’s and twice as large. When he graduated, they would be left empty so that they would be available to him if he chose to visit. The vanity had belonged to Eleazar Wheelock. Half of the wall facing the bed was taken up by a stained-glass window depicting a hemlock wood, positioned so that as the sun rose and set throughout the day, the colors of the glass trees and the sky above it seemed to change as well. When he’d moved in, he discovered that Michelle had left him a bottle of brandy and a note on her last visit:

  This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,

  Bearded with moss, and in garment green, indistinct in the twilight,

  Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic …

  There was a monastery that produced Armagnac so refined, its monks were forced to flee to Italy when Louis XIV joked about killing them to protect their secrets. This is the last bottle. Don’t drink it on an empty stomach, and don’t call unless you’re dead. Good luck, Virgil!

  He’d always thought Longfellow was tripe, but he’d treasured the note and the brandy anyway.

  Now he watched Alex sweating amid the luxury of his old rooms, rooms that had been rarely used but much beloved—the dark blue walls, the canopied bed with its heavy teal covers, the armoire painted with white dogwood. The stained glass here was more modest, two elegant windows—clouds in shades of blue and violet set atop starry skies—bracketing a fireplace of painted tiles.

  Alex stood at the center of it all, her arms wrapped around her middle, turning slowly. He thought again of Undine. But maybe she was just a girl lost at sea.

  He had to ask. “When did you first see them?”

  She glanced at him, then at the window above her, the moon waxing forever in a stained-glass sky. She picked up the Reuge music box from the desk, touched her finger to the lid, but then thought better of it, set it down.

  Darlington was a good talker, but he was happiest when no one was speaking to him, when he didn’t have to perform the ritual of himself and he could simply be left to watch others. Alex had a grainy quality to her, like an old film. He could tell she was making a choice. Whether to reveal her secrets? Whether to run?

  She shrugged and he thought she would leave it at that, but then she picked up the music box again and said, “I don’t know. I thought they were people for a while, and it’s not like anyone pays attention to a kid talking to no one. I remember seeing a fat guy in nothing but socks and undershorts, holding a remote control in one hand like a teddy bear and standing in the middle of the street. I remember trying to tell my mom he was going to get hurt. On our trip to the Santa Monica Pier, I saw a woman lying in the water like a picture of…” She gestured as if stirring a pot. “With her hair and the flowers?”

  “Ophelia.”

  “Ophelia. She followed me home, and when I cried and shouted at her to leave, she just tried to push closer.”

  “They like tears. The salt, the sadness, any strong emotion.”

  “Fear?” she asked. She was so still, as if she were posing for a portrait.

  “Fear.” Few Grays were malevolent, but they did love to startle and terrify.

  “Why aren’t there more of them? Shouldn’t they be everywhere?”

  “Only a few Grays can pass through the Veil. The vast majority
remain in the afterlife.”

  “I’d see them at the supermarket, around the hot-foods case or those pink bakery boxes. They loved our school cafeteria. I didn’t think about it much until Jacob Craig asked if I wanted to see his thing. I told him I’d seen plenty of them, and somehow it got back to his mom, and she called the school. So the teacher brings me in and asks, ‘What do you mean you’ve seen lots of things?’ I didn’t know to lie.” She plunked the music box down. “If you want to get Child Protective Services called fast, just start talking about ghost dick.”

  Darlington wasn’t sure what he’d expected. A dead highwayman lurking romantically at the window? A banshee roaming the banks of the Los Angeles River like La Llorona? There was something so ordinary and awful about her story. About her. Someone had reported Alex’s case to CPS, and one of Lethe’s search algorithms or one of their many contacts in one of the many bureaus that they paid off had caught mention of those notable key words: Delusions. Paranoia. Ghosts. From that point on, she’d probably been watched. “And that night in the apartment on Cedros?”

  She frowned and then said, “Oh, you mean Ground Zero. Don’t tell me you haven’t read the file.”

  “I have. I want to know how you survived.”

  Alex rubbed her thumb over the edge of the windowsill. “So do I.”

  Was that enough? Darlington had seen the crime-scene photos, video taken by officers arriving on scene. Five men dead, all of them beaten nearly unrecognizable, two of them staked through the heart like vampires. Despite the carnage, blood spatter indicated it was all the work of one perpetrator—arcs of red, every vicious blow struck from left to right.

  Something was off about the whole thing, but Alex was never a suspect. For one thing, she was right-handed, and for another, she was far too small to have wielded a weapon with so much force. Besides, she had enough fentanyl in her system that she was lucky she hadn’t died herself. Her hair had been wet and she’d been found naked as a newborn. Darlington had dug a little deeper, unable to shake his suspicions, but there had been no blood or remains in the drain—if she’d somehow been involved, she hadn’t showered the proof away. So why had the attacker left the girls alone? If the police were right and this was some kind of beef with another dealer, why spare Alex and her friend? Drug dealers who beat people to death with bats didn’t seem like the spare-the-women-and-children type. Maybe the attacker had believed they were dead already from the drugs. Or maybe Alex had tipped someone off. But she knew something more about what had happened than she’d told the police. He felt it in his bones.

  “Hellie and I got high,” she said quietly, still brushing her finger against the windowsill. “I woke up in the hospital. She didn’t wake up at all.”

  She looked very small suddenly and Darlington felt a stab of shame. She was twenty, older than most freshmen, but she was still just a kid in a lot of ways, in over her head. And she’d lost friends that night, her boyfriend, everything familiar.

  “Come with me,” he said. He wasn’t sure why. Maybe because he felt guilty for prying. Maybe because she didn’t deserve to be punished for saying yes to a bargain no right-minded person would refuse.

  He led her back to the gloom of the armory. It had no windows, and its walls were lined in shelves and drawers nearly two stories high. It took him a moment to find the cupboard he wanted. When he rested his hand on the door, the house paused, then let the lock give with a disapproving click.

  Carefully, he removed the box—heavy, gleaming black wood, inlaid with mother-of-pearl.

  “You’ll probably need to remove your shirt,” he said. “I’ll give Dawes the box and she can—”

  “Dawes doesn’t like me.”

  “Dawes doesn’t like anyone.”

  “Here,” she said. She pulled the shirt over her head, revealing a black bra and ribs shadowed like the furrows of a tilled field. “Don’t get Dawes.”

  Why was she so willing to put herself in his hands? Was she unafraid or just reckless? Neither trait boded well for her future at Lethe. But he had the sense that it was neither of those things. It felt like she was testing him now, like she’d laid down another challenge.

  “Some propriety wouldn’t kill you,” he said.

  “Why take the chance?”

  “Usually when a woman takes her clothes off in front of me I have some warning.”

  Alex shrugged, and the shadows moved over her skin. “Next time, I’ll light the signal fires.”

  “That would be best.”

  Tattoos covered her from wrist to shoulder and spread beneath her clavicles. They looked like armor.

  He opened the box’s lid.

  Alex drew in a sudden breath and skittered backward.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked. She’d retreated nearly halfway across the room.

  “I don’t like butterflies.”

  “They’re moths.” They perched in even rows in the box, soft white wings fluttering.

  “Whatever.”

  “I’ll need you to stay still,” he said. “Can you?”

  “Why?”

  “Just trust me. It will be worth it.” He considered. “If it’s not, I’ll drive you and your roommates to Ikea.”

  Alex balled her shirt in her fists. “And take us for pizza after.”

  “Fine.”

  “And dear Aunt Eileen is going to buy me some new fall clothes.”

  “Fine. Now come here, you coward.”

  She crossed back to him in a kind of sideways shuffle, averting her eyes from the contents of the box.

  One by one, he took out the moths and laid them gently on her skin. One at her right wrist, her right forearm, the crook of her elbow, her slender biceps, the knob of her shoulder. He repeated the process with her left arm, then placed two moths at the points of her collarbones where the heads of two black snakes curled, their tongues nearly meeting at the hollow of her throat.

  “Chabash,” he murmured. The moths beat their wings in unison. “Uverat.” They flapped their wings again and began to turn gray. “Memash.”

  With each beat of their wings, the moths grew darker and the tattoos started to fade.

  Alex’s chest rose and fell in jagged, rapid bursts. Her eyes were wide with fear, but as the moths darkened and the ink vanished from her skin, her expression changed, opened. Her lips parted.

  She’s seen the dead, he thought. She’s witnessed horrors. But she’s never seen magic.

  This was why he had done it, not because of guilt or pride but because this was the moment he’d been waiting for: the chance to show someone else wonder, to watch them realize that they had not been lied to, that the world they’d been promised as children was not something that had to be abandoned, that there really was something lurking in the wood, beneath the stairs, between the stars, that everything was full of mystery.

  The moths beat their wings again, again, until they were black, then blacker. One by one they tipped from her arms and dropped to the floor in a faint patter. Alex’s arms were bare, stripped of all sign of the tattoos, though in places where the needle had gone deep, he could still discern faint ridges. Alex held her arms out, breath coming in gasps.

  Darlington gathered the moths’ fragile bodies, placing them gently in the box.

  “Are they dead?” she whispered.

  “Ink drunk.” He shut the lid and placed the box back in the cupboard. This time the lock’s click seemed more resigned. He and the house were going to have to have a discussion. “Address moths were originally used for transporting classified material. Once they drank a document, they could be sent anywhere in a coat pocket or a box of antiques. Then they’d be placed on a fresh sheet of paper and would recreate the document to the word. As long as the recipient knew the right incantation.”

  “So we could put my tattoos on you?”

  “They might not fit quite right, but we could. Just be careful…” He waved a hand. “In the throes. Human saliva reverses the magic.”

  “On
ly human?”

  “Yes. Feel free to let a dog lick your elbows.”

  Then she turned her gaze on him. In the shadows of the room, her eyes looked black, wild. “Is there more?”

  He didn’t have to ask what she meant. Would the world keep unraveling? Keep spilling its secrets?

  “Yes. There’s plenty more.”

  She hesitated. “Will you show me?”

  “If you let me.”

  Alex smiled then, a small thing, a glimpse of the girl lurking inside her, a happy, less haunted girl. That was what magic did. It revealed the heart of who you’d been before life took away your belief in the possible. It gave back the world all lonely children longed for. That was what Lethe had done for him. Maybe it could do that for Alex as well.

  Months later, he would remember the weight of the moths’ bodies in his palm. He would think of that moment and how foolish he had been to think he knew her at all.

  5

  Winter

  The sky was already fading into gray when Alex finally made it back to Old Campus. She’d stopped at the Hutch to shower with verbena soap beneath a hanging censer filled with cedar and palo santo—the only things that would counter the stink of the Veil.

  She had spent so little time in Lethe places by herself. She had always been with Darlington, and she still expected to see him tucked into the window seat with a book, expected to hear him grumble that she’d used all of the hot water. He’d suggested leaving clothes there and at Il Bastone, but Alex already had so little to wear that she couldn’t afford to stash an extra pair of jeans and one of her two bras somewhere other than her ugly school-issue dresser. So when she stepped out of the bathroom into the narrow dressing room, she had to opt for Lethe House sweats—the Lethe spirit hound embroidered at the left breast and right hip, a symbol meaningless to anyone but society members. Darlington’s own clothes still hung there—a Barbour jacket, a striped Davenport College scarf, fresh jeans neatly folded and creased, perfectly broken-in engineer boots, and a pair of Sperry Top-Siders just waiting for Darlington to slip into them. She’d never seen him wear them, but maybe you had to have a pair in case your preppy card got pulled.