by David Liss
And then she was gone.
There was no flash, no cry, nothing to mark her passage. She simply dissolved out of existence, as though the air folded over her. At the same instant Mr. Buckles was gone. He was no longer in the room with them, and Lady Harriett stood in mute astonishment.
Lucy set down the child behind Mr. Morrison, who kept his gun trained on Lady Harriett. She needed her hands free. Reaching into the hidden pocket of her frock for her little pouch and fishing out the talisman she needed, finding it by touch even as she worked herself into a sprint, Lucy ran directly at Lady Harriett. Perhaps she was about to die, but she would not let anyone else die for her. There had been sacrifice enough, and Lucy would rather die than let Mrs. Emmett and Mary destroy themselves for nothing.
With the talisman in her hand, she leapt at Lady Harriett, shoving it deep into the revenant’s black gown. It was the talisman to vulnerability, the one she had made in Lady Harriett’s house after seeing Byron tossed across the room. The wards should have rendered it useless, but Lucy remembered Mary’s words the day she had first told her about the Mutus Liber. The most powerful sacrifices could nullify the most powerful of wards, she’d said, and the most powerful sacrifices are those that friends make out of love. Two of Lucy’s friends had obliterated themselves from the universe out of love for her.
Lady Harriett toppled under her. Lucy saw the look of surprise on her face as the two of them struck the earth of the mill. Lady Harriett tried to rise, tried to push her off, but her arms had no strength, and Lucy saw the panic in her ancient eyes.
Straddling Lady Harriett, holding her still with the weight of her body and her left arm, Lucy fished in her bag until she found her tiny vials of gold, sulfur, and mercury. Placing them between her fingers, pressed near her knuckles, she removed the cork stoppers with her teeth. She then gripped all three vials in her tight fist, and glared hard at Lady Harriett.
“You are a fool if you don’t know that I am immune,” said Lady Harriett.
“Oh, I know,” answered Lucy.
“Then what do you mean to do with your elements?”
“I mean to make you eat them.”
She pressed her free hand to Lady Harriett’s jaw and forced it open, as one would with an animal, and poured in the contents of all three vials. Lucy shifted hands, using her left to hold Lady Harriett’s head still. The revenant’s eyes bulged. Her body bucked weakly, and her arms flailed ineffectually at Lucy’s sides. She might have been immune to the elements, but surely they were unpleasant. Beneath her shut mouth, Lady Harriett appeared to retch.
Maybe her efforts would amount to nothing, and maybe all her friends had given would be in vain, but what Lucy intended seemed possible. She might suceed, and so Lucy intended that she must succeed. The pages would want that. Twelve pages and twelve enchantments. By itself that meant little, but with everything Lucy knew and did, with everything Mary and Mrs. Emmett had given, perhaps those twelve enchantments would mean everything.
“Mr. Morrison,” called Lucy. “As we have been disarmed, be so good as to find a knife for me as quickly as you might.”
Mr. Morrison, with his free hand, drew one from inside his waistcoat and handed it to Lucy. “Sleight of hand,” he said. “But what do you mean to do, Lucy? The power of those sacrifices must wear off soon, and the elements may make her unhappy, but they shan’t kill her.”
“Let’s see about that,” said Lucy. She took the knife and began to carve into Lady Harriett’s forehead. She would have to act quickly because she knew that the revenants healed with remarkable speed, but she believed she could effect it in time. That she was straddling this woman, carving into her flesh, she was distantly aware of, but she was too focused on the act, on the necessity of what she did to dwell on its strangeness and barbarity. First she drew a square of tolerable symmetry, and then, within it, a triangle. Below her, Lady Harriett struggled against the power of the symbol, and she understood its meaning. She redoubled her efforts to throw Lucy off, and Lucy detected a new strength. Perhaps it was her will to save herself, or the power of the sacrifice was already fading. Either way, Lucy was almost finished. It was the same symbol Lucy had left upon Mr. Gilley, who was so afraid of catching cold—the talisman to make its victim susceptible to what he most feared.
With one last quick stroke, Lucy made an X inside the triangle, completing the charm by speaking Lady Harriett’s name. Briefly Lucy wondered how she would know if it worked, but it was but an instant, for Lady Harriett was gone, vanished as if she had never been there. Lucy knelt over the empty earth, knife in her hand, and even its tip was clean of blood.
* * *
Lucy rose, letting the blade fall to the earth. She scooped Emily off the floor and cradled the cooing child to her breast. She had done it. She had done it all. She had rescued her niece, saved the book, and destroyed the most powerful and dangerous creature to walk the earth. It had cost her Mrs. Emmett, and it had cost her Mary, and Lucy could take no joy in what she had done. She must settle for relief.
Lucy wanted to cry for her friend and for herself and for her loss, but she would not. She would cry later. “Have we won?” she asked Mr. Morrison. “Is there more to do, or have we won?”
Mr. Morrison stared at the spot where Mary had stood, he looked at the empty circle. “Yes,” he said. “You have done it.”
Lucy clutched the baby tighter. How she resembled Martha, and also her namesake, Emily. There was nothing of Mr. Buckles in the baby, though perhaps that was wishful thinking. What mattered was that the child was safe. Lucy had the sweet, sleeping child in her arms. Their struggles were over. Mr. Morrison had said so.
She turned to him to say something to comfort him, to let him know that he was not alone in his grief. She was about to speak, but no sound came out for she watched as his chest exploded with blood.
* * *
Lord Byron strode into the room, tossing aside the freshly fired pistol. In his other hand he held a torch, and with his newly free hand he removed another pistol from his pocket “That was so we know that I’m serious. Also, I’ve always hated him. Now, Lucy, give me the book, and give me the baby. The baby you shall get back. It is merely a means by which I can get away unharmed. You’ll not curse me or bring down any dark magic upon me if the baby is in my care. When I am somewhere safe, I shall send you the child.”
With Emily clutched to her breast, Lucy bent over Mr. Morrison. He was breathing, but his breaths came shallow, and there was blood in his mouth. She needed to work magic upon him, but she could not do it in the mill, not with all the wards set upon it.
“You have not much time to act,” said Byron, tossing his torch onto a pile of hose. It went up at once, and the flames began to catch, spreading over the stocking frame, and then catching to the next. “Hand me the pages, Lucy. And the child. If you do not, I shall shoot you and take the pages off you myself. How shall your niece fare then?”
The building would burn in ten minutes, but Mr. Morrison had not that much time. The moment had come. She saw it with perfect clarity. She had been carrying the piece of paper upon her for weeks, for Mrs. Emmett had said she must. Mrs. Emmett had known this time would come. Lucy’s fingers trembled as she reached into her sack. Doing this was against everything she believed, and yet she could not let Mr. Morrison die. Not when she had discovered that she loved him.
She took out the paper, the magic circle she had botched, the one Mrs. Emmett had saved her from using because it contained a flaw, a flaw that would set the demon free and have it assault the most arrogant living thing in the room. Here and now, that must be Byron. It had to be.
She balanced the sleeping baby in the crook of her arm while taking the circle between her fingers. Using her thumbnail, she dug savagely into her own finger until she succeeded in making a cut. It was small, but it was enough, and she let a drop of blood form upon the circle.
“What are you doing?” asked Byron. “Your spells won’t work here.”
&nbs
p; “The spell was cast long ago,” said Lucy. “I merely awaken it.”
It happened too quickly to see. It was like a wall of wind, dark and terrifying in its shapelessness and void. It was without form, and yet that form had a face and eyes and teeth in its nothingness. It was like the creature she had seen those months ago when she had freed Byron of his curse, but more so—blacker and more shapeless and more horrifying. It was invisible to the eye, and yet it blotted out all light. It was terror itself, and Lucy’s mind reeled at the thought of what place such a being must come from.
She staggered back, remembering to hold the baby, concentrating, for she knew if she did not, she would let go. She would let go of everything—the child, her sense of self, her sanity. She had unleashed this thing upon the world, and she had to hope it did not destroy her.
The terrible, empty void lifted Byron and tossed him across the room. He hit a wall and landed upon the floor. His body rocked with spasms, and blood flowed freely from his mouth. Then he was still, his eyes wide and unblinking. Whatever manner of creature had killed him had gone back to whence it had come. It had been in the mill for but a few seconds, but Lucy believed she was lucky to have escaped with her sanity intact. Lord Byron was not so lucky. The poet lay amid the growing flames with his neck twisted into an impossible, grotesque angle. Blood poured from his nose and open mouth. Lord Byron was dead.
* * *
There was no time to regret what she had done. The fire was spreading quickly, and smoke was already choking the mill. Mrs. Quince had already fled the building. Sophie ran over to Byron’s broken body, weeping silent tears.
“There is no time,” Lucy cried. “He is dead. Get out before the whole place burns.”
Sophie could not hear her. Had she the power to hear, she still would not have comprehended the words. She was lost in grief.
Holding Emily in one arm, Lucy put her other around Mr. Morrison’s chest and began to drag him to the door. He was so heavy, and her exertion strained her every muscle, yet she would not relent. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sophie doing the same with Byron. She was making great progress as well. Good for her, Lucy thought. Let us see what she could do with a baby in one arm.
Emily began to cry, perhaps from the movement, perhaps from the growing heat. Lucy could spare nothing even to soothe her. She pulled and pulled, gaining ground by inches, until she managed to get Mr. Morrison out of the building and ten feet away. She dropped him, heaving, panting for breath. Emily was wailing. Lucy saw a crowd of workingmen, of machine breakers, of Luddites. She recognized one from the crowd who had, so long ago, accosted her outside Norah Gilley’s party.
“Don’t worry, miss,” he said. “We won’t keep the mill from burning, but we’ll make sure it don’t spread. And we already took care of Lady Harriett’s men and her woman Quince too. You do what you’ve got to, while we put out the fire and then destroy every frame in there.” In the crowd she thought she saw a familiar form, stooped and ragged and visible only out of the corner of her eye. It was Ludd. Only it was not Ludd any longer. He was diminished—perhaps by Mary’s death. Lucy could not know. Now he was but a man, a strong, healthy, and vibrant man, but no longer magnificent and unknowable
Lucy set down the baby, who continued to wail loudly, but out of fear, not pain. For now Mr. Morrison needed her. She took out her bag, and began to reach for her healing herbs. She tore open his shirt to reveal the wound, above the heart and to the right. It bled copiously. It would be fatal, she was sure, without her help, but she would keep him alive. She would save him. He would still need a surgeon to remove the bullet, but she would keep him alive until one was found.
Lucy applied her herbs. She wrote out a healing charm in the dirt around him, and gathered dirt and put it in his pocket. She placed a bloodstone and a piece of quartz in his pockets.
His breathing came more easily. He turned to her. “Byron?” he asked.
“Dead,” she said.
“And me?”
“Not dead.” She forced herself to smile. “I mean to keep you that way.”
“If I do not live, you must not use the book on my behalf. I do not want that.”
“I could not if I wished it,” said Lucy. “Sophie had the book all along. I could not risk Lady Harriett finding it upon me.”
Mr. Morrison tried to rise but fell back again. “You must get the pages away from her. She has knowledge of the craft.”
“But what could she …?” Lucy began to say, and then she saw what Mr. Morrison meant. She knew what Sophie could do with it. Holding the crying child close to her breast, she darted up to where she had last seen Sophie, but the girl was gone, as was the body of Byron. In the soft earth, two sets of footprints led away, and remaining, pressed to the earth with a stone, were only the pages of the Mutus Liber fluttering gently in the soft breeze as though they were not mere paper, but living things.
35
SUMMER WAS NOW COME TO THE HOUSE CALLED HARRINGTON IN Kent, and it was thus far a mild summer, pleasant but not cool enough to worry the farmers who longed for a good harvest. The days were bright and green, and Lucy could not remember ever seeing her sister, Martha, so happy. Little Emily showed no ill effects of her abduction in the spring. She was, as before, a cheerful and robust child, prone to inexplicable bouts of irritation and sadness, as were all babies, but easily soothed by her mother’s kiss or a happy diversion. She was a precocious thing, not yet ten months, already spewing a babble of noises in imitation of words, crawling quite skillfully and making the occasional, if unsuccessful, attempt to walk upon her plump legs.
Lucy was gone from her Uncle Lowell’s house, with no intention ever to return. She was in her old home, and she could not be happier, though her stay there was but temporary. Upon Mr. Buckles’s death, Harrington reverted to an even more distant cousin, a naval captain of no small heroic reputation. He had written a long and blustery letter to Martha, proclaiming that he was in no hurry to take possession of the estate, not when there were so many French prizes yet to be had, and left the house in her care until such time as the war ended and he had the leisure to see to mundane affairs such as farming and household management. She and Martha would have to vacate sometime, but Lucy was grateful for this period of gentle transition.
She went to town but seldom, and only when necessary. Rumor of her shame at the hands of the rake poet Byron had spread quite rapidly to Kent, and Lucy could not appear in public without exposing herself to the upturned noses of women or the lecherous stares of men. The world believed Lucy would lift her skirts without hesitation, and while this infamy saddened her, she could not regret it. Her reputation was a small sacrifice to preserve the people she loved—small indeed in comparison to what Mrs. Emmett and Mary had given.
Mary had given everything to preserve England, to save Lucy and her niece, and to make certain the Mutus Liber did not fall into the wrong hands. Now the book was back with its true owner, and every day Lucy dedicated long hours to decoding the confusing and obscure elements of alchemy. Slowly she came to understand its symbols and how to apply them. Alchemy was change, and change was but an alteration of what was into another shape. Lead into gold, aging into immortality—these were but the low-hanging fruit that had tempted generations of alchemists, but the art was so much more than that, so much more subtle, and Lucy regularly sat up long into the night, her eyes straining by the candlelight, to grasp what was, by its nature, almost too slippery to be contained.
More than once she had almost quit the endeavor and thrown the book aside as incomprehensible madness. Or, if not that, at least too complicated for her mind. Perhaps others might make sense of it, but Lucy would entrust it to no one. In those dark moments she told herself that she need not master the book. Perhaps it was best that she not master it, and enough that she keep the book out of other hands. These moments of despair did not last long, and soon enough, feeling ashamed of her weak will, Lucy returned to the task. Mary had allowed herself to be erased f
rom existence so that Lucy might retain control of the book. Lucy would make certain she honored Mary’s sacrifice.
Lucy could not think of Mary without being struck by melancholy. She had chosen annihilation and oblivion, had elected to be blasted out of existence, with no hope of continuation or resurrection.
Or, Lucy thought, one morning a month or so after the decisive encounter at Newstead, it was what she believed she had done. Could Mary know, truly know, what she would face after her earthly demise? Was she not as ignorant as men are of their own fate? That something lay beyond this life was now a certainty to Lucy. She had seen far too much evidence to doubt it, but Mary could not know that she was barred from such a continuation. It soothed Lucy to think that somewhere, in some state, her friend continued.
It also comforted her to look upon those who had benefited from Mary’s sacrifice. Emily thrived, as did Martha. The loss of her husband had initially been a terrible blow. Lucy had not told her sister the truth, not at first, for there was so much to absorb, but in time Lucy chose to sit Martha down and tell her everything. First she told her about the magic, proved it to her with a dozen demonstrations before Martha could bring herself to anything like belief. Then she unveiled to Martha the truth about Mr. Buckles, and all that had passed between them. It had been a difficult evening, full of tears and horror, but it had been necessary. She would not say it, but Lucy knew that Martha had accepted that if ever a creature deserved destruction, it was Mr. Buckles, a man willing to sacrifice his own child at his mistress’s whim.
Martha’s life was made easier by not wanting for money. Martha immediately gave Lucy the five thousand pounds that should have come to her upon the death of their father. The money itself meant not so much to Lucy, now that she was free of her uncle’s tyranny, as well as any threats of unwanted marriage. She also felt certain she could use her talents to meet any needs. What mattered to her was that her father’s wishes had, at last, been fulfilled, and that somewhere he knew that. Other than the safe return of her niece, nothing she had done in her life gave her more satisfaction.