This woman was not much older than I was, and she bore a deep glow, as if she possessed a joyful secret. And I thought—I will never know that secret. I will never feel that joy. And I thought—I’ve chosen not to. And I thought, finally—but she will tell me the secret.
I waded onto the shore. She waited, her head tilted, light glowing in her eyes. And then I reached her, and we embraced. I knew I was squeezing her too hard, but this was my mother, the woman Silky had barely known but whose place I had tried so hard to fill for my sister. This was the woman who had burned so bright that her death had sent my father into perpetual mourning.
She held me at arm’s length and looked me over.
“You’re beautiful,” she said finally. “Beautiful and cool as the east wind. Poor Trey. I didn’t know what to expect, given all that’s happened to you.”
“My nose is too long,” I said, and she laughed. “But you should see Silky. She’s lovely. Can you see Silky?”
“I don’t look much,” she said quietly. “It’s peaceful here. I knew I left Silky in good hands, and that was enough. But come now. You don’t have much time.”
“And you?”
“I have forever.”
And my mother took my hand, and we began walking along the beach. Her hand was warm, but I had to ask.
“Am I dreaming?”
She laughed. “Does it matter?”
I thought about it. “Yes,” I said. “It matters.”
“No,” she said. “You’re not dreaming.”
I looked around. Sea and sand and, in the distance, dunes.
It was a quiet country.
The odor of meadow and moonflower had grown stronger.
“Can I stay?”
“No,” she said.
“Can I stay for a while?”
“No. Time passes more quickly where you come from. Here, time barely passes at all.”
“Do you miss me?”
“I do. But there’s no place for sorrow here.”
Without letting go of her hand, I picked up a shell. The sea had smoothed the outside of it; the inside was pale pink, the color of a baby’s ear.
“If I go back,” I said, “I’ll have to feel.” My mother dropped my hand, but I barely noticed. I was looking out at the tranquil bay.
I could walk out into it. I could walk until it was too deep to stand, and then I could just keep going. My mother would watch me to the end, and there would be nothing to fear. Perhaps I would find myself back in the quiet country. Or perhaps I would find oblivion.
And now the scent of moonflowers—poisonous, powerful, alluring— seemed to fill the air completely. I felt as if I were choking on it. The water beckoned even more. The water would wash away everything, even my frightened, confused, agonized and, yes, lonely self. For a moment, my love for Silky, my terror that she would die—these were only burdens to be set down.
And then my mother stroked my arm.
“It’s time to go, Angel,” she said. The scent of moonflowers began to fade.
“Don’t make me go,” I said. “Please.”
“I’m not making you do anything. But,” she seemed to consider for a moment, “perhaps it’s time the book was read. I didn’t have the courage for the knowledge. We’re all guilty in the book—but maybe it’s time for change.”
“I don’t understand.”
She said the words with a sigh, as if they now meant very little to her: “The casteless shall be Great. The Great will be brought down.”
I didn’t understand her.
“I can’t bear it, Mother. Silky—the others—they’re probably going to be murdered.”
“And what were you thinking about your own fate?”
“That’s different,” I said. “I’m separate. I’m different—alone already. They’re going to be torn from the world.”
“You love them,” she said.
“Love makes it harder.” I had said four words too many. Because suddenly I had heard myself, and I realized I was a coward.
“You love many people,” she said.
“That’s not what I mean.”
“Maybe,” said my mother, “it isn’t love you fear. Maybe you’re afraid of being in love.”
“I’ve never been in love.”
My mother laughed.
“The St. Clares love deeply,” she said.
“But who do I love?” I asked.
“I suspect,” said my mother, “that you know the answer very well.”
She put a creamy white shell into my hand, and she kissed me softly on the forehead. The scent of roses now was everywhere. She didn’t move away, but as I breathed in the scent, the scene began to fade. And then I was under water again, swimming up toward the bright surface, toward loss and sacrifice and pain and betrayal and disease and horror.
Toward love.
Chapter Thirty
The Awakening
I could taste blood. I could smell blood. I opened my eyes, but then the world went away for a little while. When I opened them again, the room was blurry at first, and inclined to spin, but soon my vision cleared. Silky, Renn and my father were standing and looking at me as if waiting for something. I wondered where Trey was, but only for the half second it took me to realize that the warmth and comfort I felt came from the fact that he had me cradled in his arms.
“Angel.”
It sounded as if he had been saying my name for some time. But what I wanted was my mother; I had become, for a little while, a child again.
I was perfectly comfortable in Trey’s arms. I reached up to touch his damaged face.
The reaction, somehow, was not what I had expected. He almost dropped me. His expression, so far as I could read it, was one of shyness and chagrin.
“She’s alive,” said Silky.
“I’m sorry, Lord Kestling of Montrose,” said Trey to my father. “I didn’t mean to take such liberties. I’m sorry, Angel. I thought you were dead.”
So apparently it was all right to hold a woman who might be dead, but not a live one. There was something seriously wrong with the Arcadian rules of conduct.
“Well, I’m not dead,” I said. And then I said “Ow” because my arm ached and my head felt as if it had been hit by the butt of an axe. Which was probably the case, although my arm must have deflected the blow—or I would still be in the quiet country. Trey made a move to put me down.
“Sorry,” he said as his arm grazed my breast. Then he grimaced, because, of course, he should have just pretended it hadn’t happened. I almost slipped out of his arms.
“Don’t drop me,” I said irritably, “just because I’m alive. Think of me as wounded. Which I am. Is that my blood?” There was a pool of it on the floor, dark and congealing. I must have been gone for a while, although it seemed I had spent only minutes with my mother.
“You bled like a pig,” said Silky.
“Thank you for that,” I said, and then, because Trey was having a hard time figuring out where to put his hands and arms, I sat up and pulled away from him.
He looked both let down and relieved.
I felt peculiar, but good peculiar, at being held. Illegally held of course. Suddenly the idea that Leth might ever have held me like that—that he might have had every reason to expect to touch me—was horrifying. What on earth had I been thinking to consent to such a marriage?
I hadn’t been thinking about Trey.
And I hadn’t been thinking about Renn. Strange, dark Renn.
My mother had been right. I hadn’t known my heart at all.
Now that I was back from the quiet country, everything looked and felt different—more vibrant. The world dripped with saturated color, and the air pulsated with sound.
Silky came and put her arms around me, and I felt myself c
oming more and more to my senses. I felt as if I had been traveling a great distance over the vastness of time. In fact, I was fairly sure that was exactly what I had been doing.
“I thought I’d lost you,” said my father, which was an odd thing to say, because the last I knew he had been on the side of my sadistic brother and my equally sadistic ex-pre-contract.
“Lord Kestling of Montrose has joined us,” said Trey, and I saw a small, ironic smile.
My father came to my side. “I couldn’t let Kalo kill you,” he said.
“Thank you,” I said, although the response seemed a peculiar one even as it came out of my mouth. Thanks-for-not-letting-your-sadistic-son-kill-his-sister. Thanks-for-not-murdering-your-eldest-daughter. Thanks.
I was light-headed.
“Somebody catch me up,” I said. Given how hard my head and arm were aching, given how close to death I had obviously come, given that I was quite sure we were still in trouble, I was remarkably cheerful. Crossing the ultimate divide and chatting with one’s loving, long-dead mother had that effect.
I considered for a moment whether or not I might have dreamt Leth and Kalo, but there, close by, was the Keeper’s body. And there, close by, was the Keeper’s head.
“Kalo thinks he killed you,” said Silky. “We couldn’t hear you breathing. Well, actually, Trey thought he heard you, but I thought he was—“
“Let me tell it, Silky,” said Trey. “You’re already digressing.”
“Go ahead,” I said.
“When Kalo saw you lying there bleeding,” said Trey, “he lifted his axe to hit you again. Your father—Lord Kestling, that is—stopped him. And so did I.”
“There was some kind of commotion outside,” said Silky, interrupting. “Shouts and yelling. Kalo and Leth left us with Father as guard and went with some of the soldiers.”
I heard voices and a clamor in the distance. Meanwhile, I saw that The Book of Forbidden Wisdom was still closed and on the pedestal. Father followed my eyes.
“They think I’m keeping The Book from you until they return,” he said. “They want to be here when Angel reads it.”
“Are you?” asked Silky. “Are you going to keep Angel away?”
“No, daughter,” said Father. “I’m tired of Kalo’s greed and malice. I had always thought that Angel was my problem child, but I see that I was wrong.”
“All this way, Angel,” said Silky. “And we’re finally alone with The Book. And you can’t read it. If only Mother had told you the secret of the reading.”
“If only,” I said. “Now will somebody help me over to The Book so that I can at least take a look?”
“You do know how to read it,” said Trey.
“Yes,” I said. “I do.”
And I felt more in control, stronger, more certain than I had in a long time—maybe ever.
My father moved toward me, but Trey intercepted him and gave me his arm to lean on, which was about as far as etiquette would stretch under the circumstances. He almost slipped on blood as we approached the reading stand. I looked down.
“Move the Keeper’s head,” I said. “He deserves better.”
My father came over, picked up the head, and put it back next to the Keeper’s body.
With Trey’s help I clambered onto the podium.
The book was a thing of dark and magical beauty. I opened it, and it was as if power were flowing into my fingers. Whatever was there, I knew I wouldn’t be left unchanged. The strange markings and notations, the captions under the picture, seemed to rearrange themselves in front of my eyes.
I was reading.
I was reading The Book of Forbidden Wisdom.
I turned a page. And then, after a moment, I turned another.
And another.
The world had fallen silent; there was nothing except the markings in The Book in front of me.
I read fluently and carefully.
Chapter Thirty-one
The Book of Forbidden Wisdom
I was ready to find the deeds to the lost lands. I was ready to find the power to rule Arcadia under my fingertips. And as I read the first page, I did think it might be an enormous Book of Land, like the ones that were signed at weddings. I found, too, on the second and third pages, that I was looking at dozens of deeds, either pasted into The Book (those were easy to read) or scribbled directly into The Book in code. An odd thing about the code: I knew it as if it were the first writing I had learned: the squiggles—letters; the dashes and squares—punctuation. My mother must have twined that language into me, and I didn’t know when. It was as if I had understood these markings all my life.
After having read only the opening pages, however, I realized that this was no book with the deeds to lost lands. Not in the sense that anyone had ever thought.
This was not a book that would give greater power to the landed.
This was a book with the power to undo the Great. To unmake. To unravel the social fabric of Arcadia.
“Well?” asked Trey, and I realized that I had been focused entirely on the book before me. Everything else had fallen away—thoughts about Silky, Trey, Renn, my father. There was only The Book of Forbidden Wisdom.
“Give me a little time,” I said. “If I read it, it’s ours. If I get out of here alive, they can’t take it away. Think of my memory. And let me read.”
The notations on the first pages had been recent land transfers. Big ones. Some I knew about. A section of prime meadowland had gone to the Nessons, and I remembered when that had happened, but none of the details. I could scarcely make out the hand of the previous owner. The signature was an illegible scrawl.
Now I looked at other deeds, some coded, some not, and the pattern was similar. Large land transfers were being made to Great Houses from people I’d never heard of who could barely write their names.
I heard noise outside the room. “Hurry,” said Silky, and she wrung her hands with impatience.
But there was no hurrying. “I need to figure this out,” I said. I turned the page.
I was expecting more deeds of sale, but I found myself looking at coded marriage transactions that had resulted in the shifting of land and power. I couldn’t read half of the names involved—they were smudged and blotted—but then I saw a name that surprised me.
“Angel?” said Trey.
“Don’t let anyone in,” I said.
“You read,” said Trey. “We’ll take care of the rest.”
I looked at the familiar name again.
Lady Brynne of the House of Tonnow.
She had married a man named Cor. No title. No other name. But he had brought to the marriage table twenty thousand hectares of timber. And Tonnow, I knew, had been a poor House in the past.
I paused.
Because I knew Lady Brynne of the House of Tonnow. She had been invited to my wedding, although we all knew she wouldn’t come. She lived in seclusion in the rambling castle that belonged to the family, and she had not been seen outside that castle for years. It was said that she had vowed never to marry. Being single was allowed if the family approved.
But here was a contract certificate, eight years old. Lady Brynne had been married years before my almost-wedding—she would have been ten at the time of the contract.
Cor. His signature on the documents was like a child’s scrawl. His age was given as thirty-two.
I was confused and disgusted by the gross illegality of it—she had been contracted two years before the age of consent for girls.
I raised my head. Noise came from beyond the room.
“I’m going to brace the door,” said Trey.
I looked back down at The Book—unfolding events were far less real than its contents.
Here was another marriage contract. This time between Wilcomb
Surry and one Jane Upton. Wilcomb was the man Kalo had once tried to match with Silky.
I had never heard of Jane Upton, something that was seemingly impossible. I knew all the marriageable men and women of the Great Houses—I knew all of the heirs and the rankings of the children.
Jane Upton? Never heard of her. And she had a low name, like that of a vagabond.
If she were indeed a vagabond, of course, it would explain why I had never heard of her, but it made her marriage to Wilcomb Surry impossible.
Impossible.
I only became aware of the world around me when someone actually began trying to force the door. I looked up from The Book in time to see Renn and Silky trying to wedge it closed.
“Read,” said Trey.
And it slowly dawned on me what I was reading.
The landless, the vagrants, the casteless in fact owned great swaths of land: they carried the deeds to the lost land—only they didn’t know it. Outright stealing might have revealed everything; these thefts had been accomplished through secret marriages. Generations of men and women of no repute had been used and robbed of their inheritances.
Jane Upton and Wilcomb Surry. I saw the details of the land transaction at the marriage: the meadows of Champlain passed from Jane Upton to Wilcomb Surry. But I had been invited to no ceremony.
The land transfer would explain the Surrys’ rise in prominence. The meadows of Champlain were famous for grazing and farmland.
I could smell land greed.
In the place for Jane’s signature there was an X.
Trey moved to the door. Renn and Silky were already there; Renn was futilely trying to shove Silky behind him.
“Lord Kestling?” said Trey. “We need to block the door.” There was a scrambling noise outside, and I thought I heard Kalo’s voice and the sounds of fighting in the near distance.
My father joined the others at the door—my father, who had never before acknowledged Trey—except to banish him from my presence. And now, here we were, and Trey and my father were united by a common enemy.
“Hold the door,” Renn said. “Hold it.”
The Book of Forbidden Wisdom Page 27