Ninth House

by Leigh Bardugo

  “It’s the town,” said Sandow. “You need New Haven. This is where the magic lives.”

  Belbalm smacked her palm against the arm of her chair. “This dump of a town.”

  “You had no right,” said Alex.

  “Of course not.” Belbalm looked almost confused. “Did the boys of Skull and Bones have the right to cut that poor man open?” She bobbed her chin at Sandow. “Did he have the right to murder Tara?”

  Sandow flinched in surprise.

  “You knew?” asked Alex. “Did you eat her soul too?”

  “I am not a dog to come running when the dinner bell rings. Why would I trifle with a soul like that when I had a feast set before me?”

  “Oh,” said Sandow, pressing his fingertips together. “I see. Alex, she means you.”

  Belbalm’s glance was cold. “Don’t look so pleased, Elliot. I’m not here to tidy up your mistakes, and I don’t intend to waste any time worrying about you blabbing my secrets. You’re going to die in that chair.”

  “I think not, Marguerite.” Sandow stood, his face suffused with the same determination that had possessed him the night of the new-moon rite, when he’d looked into the fires of hell. “The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, the lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea—”

  North cringed backward. He cast a desperate look at Alex, scrabbling futilely at the walls as he began to fade through the bookshelf, fighting his banishment even as fear of the death words seized him.

  “North!” Alex cried, holding out her hand to him, trying to pull him back into her. But it was too late. He disappeared through the wall.

  “The plowman homeward plods his weary way,” declared Sandow, his voice ringing loud through the room. “And leaves the world to darkness and to me—”

  Belbalm rose slowly from her chair and shook out the sleeves of her elegant black tunic. “Poetry, Elliot?”

  Death words. But Belbalm didn’t fear death. Why would she? She’d already met it, bested it.

  Sandow focused his hard eyes on Belbalm. “Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid some heart once pregnant with celestial fire—”

  Belbalm drew a deep breath and thrust out her hand to Sandow—the same gesture Alex had used to welcome Hellie, to draw North into her.

  “Stop!” Alex shouted, lunging across the room. She grabbed Belbalm’s arm, but her skin was hard as marble; she didn’t budge.

  Sandow’s eyes bulged and the high whistle of a teapot beginning to boil emerged from his parted lips. He gasped and fell back into the chair, with enough force to send it rolling across the floor. His hands gripped the armrests. The sound faded, but the dean remained sitting upright, staring at nothing, like a bad actor miming shock.

  Belbalm pursed her lips in distaste and daintily wiped the corner of her mouth. “Soul like a mealy apple.”

  “You killed him,” Alex said, unable to look away from the dean’s body.

  “Did he really deserve better? Men die, Alexandra. It’s rarely a tragedy.”

  “He won’t pass behind the Veil, will he?” Alex said, beginning to understand. “You eat their souls and they never move on.” That was why North hadn’t been able to find Gladys or any of the other girls on the other side. And what had become of Tara’s soul, sacrificed to Sandow’s ritual? Where had she gone in the end?

  “I’ve upset you. I see that. But you know what it is to carve out a place in the world, to have to fight for your life at every turn. You can’t imagine how much worse it was in my time. Women were sent to madhouses because they read too many books or because their husbands tired of them. There were so few paths open to us. And mine was stolen from me. So I forged a new one.”

  Alex jabbed a finger at Belbalm. “You don’t get to turn this into some kind of feminist manifesto. You forged your new path from the lives of other girls. Immigrant girls. Brown girls. Poor girls.” Girls like me. “Just so you could buy yourself another few years.”

  “It is so much more than that, Alexandra. It is a divine act. With each life I took, I soon saw a new temple raised to my glory—built by boys who never stopped to wonder at the power they claimed, only took it as their due. They toy with magic while I fashion immortality. And you will be part of it.”

  “Lucky me.” Alex didn’t have to ask what she meant. Belbalm had rejected Sandow’s offering because she hadn’t wanted to spoil her appetite. “I’m the prize.”

  “I’ve learned patience in this long life, Alexandra. I didn’t know what Sophie was when I met her, but when I consumed her soul? It was wild and gamey, bitter as yew, lightning in the blood. It sustained me for over fifty years. Then, just as I was beginning to weaken and age, Colina appeared. This time, I recognized the smell of her power. I scented her in a church parking lot and followed her for blocks.”

  Their deaths had been the foundations of the tombs for St. Elmo’s and Manuscript.

  What was the word Belbalm had used? “They were Wheelwalkers.”

  “It was as if they were drawn here to feed me. Just like you.”

  That was why the killings had paused in 1902. Girls had died in rapid succession through the late 1800s as Daisy fed on ordinary girls to stay alive. But then she’d found her first Wheelwalker, Sophie Mishkan, a girl with a power just like hers. That soul had kept her sated until 1958, when Belbalm had murdered Colina Tillman, another gifted girl. And now it was Alex’s turn.

  This town. Did New Haven draw Wheelwalkers here? Daisy. Sophie. Colina. Had Alex always been on a collision course with this place and this monster? Magic feeding magic?

  “When did you know what I was?” Alex asked.

  “From the moment we met. I wanted to let you ripen for a while. Wash the stink of the common from you. But…” Belbalm gave a profound shrug. She threw out her hand.

  Alex felt a sudden sharp pain in her chest, as if a hook had lodged beneath her sternum, notched into her heart. Around her, she saw blue flames ignite, a ring of fire surrounding her and Belbalm. A wheel. She felt herself falling.

  Hellie had been sunlight. North had been cold and coal smoke. Belbalm was teeth.

  * * *

  Alex was swaying next to the grill on the tiny balcony at Ground Zero, the smell of charcoal thick in the air, smog smeared across the hills in the distance. She could feel the bass track thumping through her bare feet. She held up her thumb, blotting out the rising moon, then making it reappear.

  A woman leaned over her crib, reaching for her again and again, her hands passing through Alex’s body. She wept, silver tears that fell on Alex’s chubby arms and vanished through her skin.

  Hellie had hold of Alex’s hand. She was pulling her along the Venice boardwalk. She slid the Nine of Wands from a tarot deck. Alex already had a card in her hands. No way I’m getting that inked on me, said Hellie. Let me draw again.

  Len took one of the leather bracelets from his arm and fastened it around Alex’s wrist. Don’t tell Mosh, he whispered. His breath smelled like sour bread, but Alex had never been so happy, never felt so good.

  Her grandmother stood in front of the stove. Alex smelled cumin, meat roasting in the oven, tasted honey and walnuts on her tongue. We’re eating vegetarian now, Mira said. At your own house, said her grandmother. When she comes here I feed her strength.

  In the garden, a man lingered, pruning the hedges that never changed, squinting at the sun even on cloudy days. He tried to talk to Alex, but she couldn’t hear a word.

  One by one, Alex felt the memories plucked away like threads, caught on the spikes of Belbalm’s teeth, unraveling her bit by bit. Belbalm—Daisy—wanted them all, the good and the bad, the sad and the sweet, all equally delicious.

  There was nowhere to run. Alex tried to remember the smell of her mother’s perfume, the color of the couch in the common room, anything that would help her hold on to herself as Daisy swallowed her down.

  She needed Hellie. She needed Darlington. She needed … what was her name? She couldn’t recall, a girl with red hair, headphone
s around her neck. Pammie?

  Alex was curled up on a bed. She was surrounded by monarchs that became moths. A boy was behind her, nestled against her. He said, I will serve you ’til the end of days.

  Belbalm’s teeth sank deeper. Alex couldn’t remember her body, her arms. She’d be gone soon. Was there some relief along with the fear? Each sadness and loss and mistake would be wiped away. She’d be nothing at all.

  Belbalm was going to crack her open. She was going to drink Alex dry.

  A wave rose over the stone plaza of Beinecke; a beautiful dark-haired boy was shouting. Let all become mid-ocean!

  She could drift into the Pacific, past Catalina, watch the ferries come and go.

  The wave crashed over the plaza, carrying away a tide of Grays.

  Alex remembered cowering on the floor of that beautiful library, tears streaming down her cheeks, singing her grandmother’s old songs, speaking her grandmother’s words. She’d been hiding from the Grays, hiding behind … Darlington, his name was Darlington … Darlington in his dark coat. She’d been hiding the way she had her whole life. She’d sealed herself away from the world of the living, for the sake of being free of the dead.

  Let all become mid-ocean.

  Alexandra. Belbalm’s voice. A warning. As if she knew the thought as soon as it entered Alex’s head.

  She didn’t want to hide anymore. She’d thought of herself as a survivor, but she’d been no better than a beaten dog, snapping and snarling in any attempt to stay alive. She was more than that now.

  Alex stopped fighting. She stopped trying to close herself off from Belbalm. She remembered her body, remembered her hands. What she intended was dangerous. She was glad.

  Let all become mid-ocean. Let me become the flood.

  She threw her arms wide and let herself open.

  Instantly she felt them, as if they had been waiting, ships on an endless sea, forever searching the dark horizon, waiting for some light, some beacon to guide them on. Throughout New Haven she felt them. Down Hillhouse. Up Prospect. She felt North climbing his way back from the old factory site where the death words had thrown him, felt that kid forever looking to score tickets outside the vanished Coliseum, felt the Gray running wind sprints outside Payne Whitney, felt a thousand other Grays she’d never let herself look at—old men who had died in their beds; a woman pushing a crumpled pram with mangled hands; a boy with a gunshot wound to his face, reaching blindly for the comb in his pocket. A desiccated hiker limped down the slope of East Rock, dragging her broken leg behind her, and out in Westville, in the ruined maze of Black Elm, Daniel Tabor Arlington III drew his bathrobe tight and sped toward her, a cigarette still hanging from his mouth.

  Come to me, she begged. Help me. She let them feel her terror, her fear burning bright like a watchtower, her longing to live another day, another hour, lighting the way.

  There was no end to them, flowing over the streets, past the garden, through the walls, crowding into the office, crowding into Alex. They came on in a cresting wave.

  Alex felt Belbalm recoil and suddenly she could see the room, see Belbalm before her, arm outstretched, eyes blazing. The Wheel still encircled them, bright blue flame. They stood at its center, surrounded by its spokes.

  “What is this?” Belbalm hissed.

  “Call to the missing!” Alex cried. “Call to the lost! I know their names.” And names had power. She spoke them one after another, a poem of lost girls: “Sophie Mishkan! Colina Tillman! Zuzanna Mazurski! Paoletta DeLauro! Effie White! Gladys O’Donaghue!”

  The dead whispered their names, repeated them, drawing closer, a tide of bodies. Alex could see them packed into the garden, halfway in and out of the walls. She could hear them moaning Sophie, Colina, Zuzanna, Paoletta, a rising wail.

  The Grays were speaking, calling out to the scraps of those souls, a murmur of voices that rose in a broken chorus, louder and louder.

  “Alexandra,” snarled Belbalm, and Alex could see sweat on her brow. “I will not relinquish them.”

  It wasn’t up to her anymore.

  “My name is Galaxy, you fucking glutton.”

  At the sound of Alex’s name, the Grays released a unified sigh that gusted through the room. It ruffled Alex’s hem, blew Belbalm’s hair back from her face. Her eyes went wide and white.

  A girl seemed to emerge from inside her, peeling away from Belbalm like a pale onion skin. She had thick dark curls and wore the apron of a factory worker over a gray blouse and skirt. A blonde in a plumed hat appeared, skin like a faded apricot, her plaid dress high-necked, her waist cinched to an impossible size; then a black girl, shimmering in a soft pink cardigan and circle skirt, her hair pressed into shining waves. One after another they pulled themselves from Belbalm, joining the crowd of Grays.

  Gladys was the last and she did not want to come. Alex could feel it. Despite all of the years she’d spent cowering within Daisy’s consciousness, she was afraid to leave her body.

  “She doesn’t get to keep you,” Alex pleaded. “Don’t be afraid.”

  A girl emerged, barely visible, a scrap of a Gray. She was a far younger version of Belbalm, slender and sharp-featured, her white hair bound in a braid. Gladys turned to stare at herself, at Belbalm in her black tunic and rings. She held up her hands as if to ward her off, still frightened, shrinking back into the crowd as the other girls gathered her to them.

  Belbalm opened her mouth as if to scream, but the only sound that emerged was that high teakettle whistle Alex had heard the dean make.

  North was beside Alex now; maybe he’d been there all along.

  “She isn’t a monster,” he said, begging. “She’s just a girl.”

  “She knew better,” said Alex. There was no room for mercy in her. “She just thought her life was more important than all of ours.”

  “I didn’t know she was capable of such things,” he said over the clamor of the crowd. “I never knew she had such a heart.”

  “You never knew her at all.”

  Careful Daisy, who had kept her secrets close, who had seen ghosts, who had longed to see the world. Wild Daisy, cut down before she could even start to live. Cruel Daisy, who had refused her fate and had stolen life after life to keep herself fed.

  Alex spoke the final name. “Daisy Fanning Whitlock!”

  She thrust out her hand and felt Daisy’s spirit inch toward her, slowly, grudgingly, fighting to hold on to her body like a plant determined to curl its roots in the ground and remain.

  Alex took strength from the Grays surrounding her, passing through her. She let her mind form teeth, let them sink into Daisy’s consciousness. She pulled.

  Daisy’s soul hurtled toward her. Alex cast it free before it could enter her and seize hold.

  For the briefest moment, she glimpsed a dark-haired, pixie-faced girl in wide skirts and ruffled sleeves. Her chest had been blown open by a gunshot; her mouth was stretched in a scream. The Grays surged forward.

  North threw himself in front of Daisy. “Please,” he said. “Leave her be!”

  But Gladys stepped forward, thin as air. “No.”

  “No,” chorused the lost girls. Sophie and Zuzanna, Paoletta and Effie and Colina.

  The Grays surged past North. They fell upon Daisy in a whirling horde.

  “Mors irrumat omnia,” Alex whispered. Death fucks us all.

  The Wheel spun and Alex felt her stomach lurch. She thrust her hands out, trying to find something, anything, to hold on to. She smacked into something solid, fell to her knees. The room went suddenly still.

  Alex was on the carpeted floor of the president’s office. She looked up, her head still spinning. The Grays were gone—all but the Bridegroom. She could hear her heart pounding in her chest and, through the door, the sounds of the party. The dean lay dead in the desk chair. When she closed her eyes, an afterimage of the Wheel burned blue against her lids.

  Belbalm’s body had collapsed in on itself, her skin dissolving to a powdery husk, her bones crumbling a
s the weight of a hundred years fell upon them. She was little more than a pile of ash.

  The Bridegroom stood staring at the heap of dust that had once been a girl. He knelt and reached out, but his hand passed right through it.

  Alex used the edge of the desk to pull herself to her feet. She stumbled to the French doors that led onto the garden. Her legs felt wobbly. She was pretty sure the wound in her side had reopened. She unlocked the door and cold air blew through. It felt clean on her flushed cheeks and scattered Belbalm’s ashes.

  Helplessly, North watched them gust up from the carpet.

  “Sorry,” Alex muttered. “But you have shit taste in women.”

  She looked at the dean’s body and tried to make her mind work, but she felt wrung out, empty. She couldn’t quite keep hold of her thoughts. In the garden, daffodils were just pushing up through the soil of the flower beds.

  Turner, she thought. Where was he? Had he gotten her message?

  She took out her phone. There was a message from the detective. Working a case. Stay put. Will call when I’m done. DON’T DO ANYTHING STUPID.

  “It’s like he doesn’t even know me.”

  A burst of laughter floated through the door. She needed to think. If the records from the other deaths ascribed to Daisy were correct, then Sandow’s death would most likely look like a heart attack or stroke. But Alex wasn’t taking any chances. She could sneak out through the garden, but people had seen her going into the office with him. She hadn’t exactly been discreet.

  She would have to slip back into the party, try to mingle. If anyone asked, she’d claim she last saw the dean talking to Professor Belbalm.

  “North,” she said. He glanced up from where he’d been kneeling. “I need your help.”

  It was possible he wouldn’t be willing, that he would blame her for Daisy’s final death. Alex wondered if the Grays would leave any part of her to pass beyond the Veil. North’s presence here, his grief, didn’t make it seem likely.