Blythewood

by kindle@abovethetreeline. com

  It was the rhyme that Uncle Taddie had recited, but the next two lines were different.

  Swallow the shadows down To make them all drown.

  Then the voice laughed—a horrible laugh that echoed in my ears. That’s what your mother did, only she was too late. The darkness was already inside her. Just as it’s inside you, Avaline Hall. “No!” I screamed, thrashing out in the dark. “That’s not true!”

  The well filled with the sound of beating wings. My hands struck against something smooth and . . . feathered. The talon grip on my neck suddenly loosened and melted like ice water rushing down my back—cold, but instead of numbing me, it woke me up. I opened my eyes.

  I was looking up into a darkened face surrounded by a halo of light. Enormous black wings blocked out the sun. Dark shapes wheeled in the glare—as if feathers from those wings had been torn loose and sent spinning through space. I heard bells . . .

  Only this time they weren’t in my head.

  The winged creature turned his head to listen to them and I recognized his face in profile—the same face I’d seen carved white as a cameo, now carved out of ebony against the glare of the sun. It was the Darkling. My Darkling. He’d come for me— but what did he want?

  His turned and his face was in shadow. I couldn’t see his expression, but I could tell from the bend of his head that he was looking at me. His gaze felt like a warm bath after the ice claws of the crow—a warmth that was healing me from the attack. I wanted to move closer to that warmth. I reached out and felt his hand grasp mine. The shock of warm solid flesh shattered the last shards of ice from my body. I rose feeling light and free.

  Then his hand was wrenched out of mine and he spun around. There was a flash of steel, then wings beat the air and knocked me backward. I was blinded by the flurry of black feathers. When I opened my eyes Nathan was standing over me. He was holding a fire poker.

  “Nathan! How . . . ? What . . . ?”

  I wanted to ask why he’d attacked the Darkling who was saving me, but my lips were still numb, my body still weak from the alternating waves of ice and fire I’d just been through.

  “I was on the roof when I saw those birds attack you,” Nathan cried, his voice full of the horror he must have felt at the sight. “I ran to the tower and rang the bells. It seemed to do the trick. They melted.”

  “Melted?” I asked, recalling the sensation of freezing water running down my back and the long cold plunge into the dark well. My mouth was full of a coppery taste. Had they melted inside me? Had I swallowed them?

  “But then when I got down here I saw that monster crouched over you. I hit him with this.” Nathan brandished the fire poker proudly, his face glowing. I’d never seen him with so much color in his face. Or looking so . . . happy. How could I tell him that the Darkling hadn’t been trying to hurt me? He’d been the one to save me from the crows. Or at least I’d thought he was saving me.

  “And a jolly good job you did!” Rupert Bellows had reached us. He clapped Nathan on the back and then looked down at me. Miss Sharp came up behind him and let out a little cry when she saw me. She knelt down and laid her hand on my forehead.

  “Don’t just stand there, Rupert, help me carry Avaline inside.”

  “I can walk,” I objected, although I was none too sure that I could. The thought of being carried by Mr. Bellows, though, made me go hot and cold all over. I struggled to my feet with Nathan’s and Miss Sharp’s help. Stinging prickles ran up my legs as though I was standing in a briar bush. Helen was suddenly there, slapping dust away from my skirt, tugging my waistband straight and patting my hair neat. Ordinarily I would object to her fussing, but her brisk hands were bringing life back to my limbs.

  “When I looked back and saw that you’d fallen I ran right back. But then that monster landed . . .”

  Why did they keep calling him a monster when he’d saved me? I tried to correct her, but Miss Sharp cried out.

  “Where is Lillian?”

  “She went on to the hall to tell Dame Beckwith what happened,” Helen said. “Look, they’re coming now.”

  Everyone turned to the house except for me. I spied my posy of violets where it had fallen and knelt to pick it up. As I stood up I looked down the drive to the gate and felt my heart stutter in my chest.

  Standing in the center of the open gates was a lone dark figure of a man in an Inverness cape.

  “Look!” I said, turning to Nate. “It’s the man who was in the Wing & Clover.”

  “What man?” Nate asked.

  I turned back to point at the figure at the bottom of the hill but he was gone, melted away as quickly and completely as the murder of crows.

  21

  I WANTED NOTHING more than to go back to my room, wash my face, lie down, and think about what had happened in privacy. What were those crows? Were they the same ones I had seen circling the Triangle building the day of the fire? The Darkling had been there then, too—did he summon them? But it seemed that the Darkling had come to save me from the crows and I’d felt that rush of warmth in his presence. I’d wanted to go with him.

  The confusion wasn’t just in my head—it seemed to be in my body. Alternating waves of hot and cold broke over me as I remembered in turn the icy grip of the crows’ talons and then the heat of the Darkling’s touch. But there was no time to sort through my warring feelings. We were summoned to Dame Beckwith’s study.

  I’d passed the tall oak double doors to the headmistress’s study in the north wing a number of times on my way to classes and noticed that there always seemed to be a few girls fidgeting nervously on a long narrow bench waiting for the summons to enter. I had hoped I might never be one of them.

  Expecting the room to be forbidding, I was relieved to find a charming room, lined with books and bathed in the last

  246 Blythewood lingering light of the sunset. Glass doors led onto a balcony overlooking the river. The sun had sunk below the mountains on the other side of the river, turning the ridges deep blue and purple. Wisps of cloud flared pink and lilac above them. Glancing at them reminded me of the Darkling’s darkened face and the flash of his wings behind him. Those wings weren’t entirely black—they held the iridescent colors of the sunset in them.

  I was startled out of my reverie by a touch of a hand—cooler than the Darkling’s hand and smaller, but no less firm in its grip. It was Dame Beckwith, who had risen from her desk and grasped my hand, her steady gray eyes gazing deeply into mine.

  “Are you all right?” she asked me. “Are you sure you’ve come to no harm? I saw that monster hovering over you. I thought . . .” Her voice cracked. I was shocked to see her strong, firm jaw tremble as she fought back tears. “I thought we were going to lose you.”

  “We might have if Nathan hadn’t rung the bells,” Miss Sharp said, stepping forward, “and attacked the Darkling.” “It was just lucky I grabbed that poker,” Nathan said. “I ran

  down to fight the crows. I didn’t know the Darkling was there

  until I reached the lawn.”

  “He wasn’t at first,” Miss Sharp said. “It was just the crows.

  But then he showed up.”

  “It was when the crows attacked Ava,” Daisy said, her voice

  small in the presence of Dame Beckwith. “I saw that beastly

  crow sink its claws into Ava’s neck. I tried to get it off . . .” Daisy’s voice cracked.

  I let go of Dame Beckwith’s hand and reached for Daisy. “You were so brave!” I said. “I saw you swing your reticule at

  the crows. And I know how much you love that bag!” “It has all of Mr. Appleby’s letters in it!” she blurted out. I stared at her for a moment, then felt something bubbling

  up inside of me. I wasn’t sure if I were going to laugh or cry until

  I heard Helen giggle, and then I began to laugh, too, helplessly

  and a little bit hysterically. The adults all stood around staring

  at us, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, until the door ope
ned and

  the housekeeper came in carrying a heavy silver tray loaded

  with teacups, teapot, creamer, and sugar bowl.

  “Oh thank goodness, Bertie,” Dame Beckwith said, “that’s

  just the thing. I’m afraid these girls have had a terrible shock

  and are now having an attack of nerves. They need hot tea with

  plenty of sugar.”

  Helen, Daisy, and I were made to sit down. Shawls were

  draped over our shoulders and we were each given a cup of hot

  sweet tea as if we were invalids. Although I would have thought

  I’d had enough tea for one day I gulped the hot liquid gratefully.

  I could feel the chill in my bones dissipating with each mouthful, but laughing with Helen and Daisy had chased the cold

  away even more effectively than the tea.

  “Now,” Dame Beckwith said briskly, “let me have the whole

  story from the beginning, one at a time. Why don’t you go first,

  Miss Sharp, as I believe you saw the shadow crows first?” Shadow crows? Was that what they were? I wondered as

  Miss Sharp explained how she had realized right away that

  the crows were a “malevolent manifestation.” She described

  in some detail the mesmerism spell she had employed to divert

  them. “I had to use shadow runes,” she said in a low whisper. Shadow runes? Hadn’t Mr. Jager said that shadow magic

  was strictly forbidden?

  “Perfectly acceptable under the circumstances,” Dame

  Beckwith said briskly.

  Mr. Bellows, when it was his turn, lavished praise on Miss

  Sharp’s brilliant deployment of the spell and added that all but

  three of the crows were effectively mesmerized.

  “But those three broke away?” Dame Beckwith asked. “Yes, they flew up the hill and attacked Daisy and Avaline.

  Thank goodness the bells rang.”

  Nathan was then asked to describe what he had seen from

  the roof. He explained how he had recognized the crows as

  shadow demons because we’d read about them in Mr. Bellows’s

  class, and remembered that they could only be banished by the

  tolling of the bells. He’d run to the belfry and alerted the bell

  ringers on duty to ring a shadow-dispersing peal; then he’d run

  down, grabbing a fire poker from the fireplace in the Great

  Hall, and dashed out to see if he could help out on the ground,

  which was when he saw the Darkling standing over me. “The Darkling must have summoned the crows,” Mr. Bellows said. “The birds must be their minions. I’m afraid we may

  have to call out the Hunt.”

  “Wait,” I said, interrupting Mr. Bellows. “The Darkling

  wasn’t trying to abduct me. He saved me!”

  Dame Beckwith’s eyes narrowed. “And what makes you say

  that, Miss Hall?”

  I stared back at her, desperately trying to think of some

  way of explaining how I felt about the Darkling without giving away how we’d first met. But if I didn’t say something,

  Dame Beckwith would call out the Hunt to destroy him. “Because he did it once before,” I said, trying to keep my

  voice from shaking. “He saved me from the fire at the Triangle

  Waist factory.”

  I saw Helen and Daisy staring at me and then exchanging

  a look.

  “I’m sorry I never told you,” I told them. “But since I’ve come

  here, I’ve tried to forget about it. At the hospital, they tried to

  convince me that I’d imagined the boy with the wings who’d

  saved me, but I recognized him the first night when I saw him

  in the woods, and today I recognized the man in the Inverness

  cape who I saw at the Triangle factory.”

  I told them everything then: about seeing the man in the Inverness cape at the factory, and how the fire had burst through

  the airshaft windows and raged across the factory floor—the

  flames like burning rats and the smoke like the crows we’d

  seen today. I found myself telling them about the girls pinned

  between the flames and the glass windows—how they’d been

  forced to jump or be burned alive. I told them about how the

  boy had helped me and Etta and Tillie up to the roof, but the

  crows had swooped down on us and the man in the Inverness

  cape had pushed Tillie off the roof and the boy had saved my

  life. I even told them about the months in the hospital and how

  I’d seen the man in the Inverness cape there, and again below

  my window at my grandmothers, and then today inside the

  Wing & Clover.

  As soon as I mentioned the Wing & Clover, Nate blanched. I

  caught his eye and shook my head to let him know that I wouldn’t

  give away that he’d been there, too, but he spoke up anyway. “I saw him there—a man in a dark cloak and hat. His face

  was shadowed and somehow strange.” Nate frowned and shook

  his head. “I can’t somehow recall what he looked like.” “Did he speak to you?” Dame Beckwith asked, her eyes

  looking truly frightened.

  “Yes . . .” Nate answered haltingly, as if trying to remember

  something in a dream. He scratched his head, looking puzzled.

  “Funny thing, I can’t seem to recall what we talked about.” “He mesmerized you,” Dame Beckwith said, her voice

  trembling. “That monster!”

  “You know who he is?” I asked.

  “I know what he is,” she said. Her face looked stricken, the

  firm smooth flesh sagging around her jaw and making her look,

  for the first time since I’d been here, old. “I-I can’t . . . explain,”

  she stuttered, the first time I’d ever heard her voice falter. “But I

  can show you. Come.”

  z o Z We followed Dame Beckwith through the winding halls of the North Wing to the library, barely able to keep up with her. Was she going to show us something in a book? She swept past the floor-to-ceiling shelves with the same intensity of purpose until she reached the enormous fireplace at the end of the room. I’d spent many a class staring at the intricate carving on the stone mantelpiece, following the pattern of interlocking spirals and strange creatures. Did the identity of the man in the Inverness cape lie in the pattern’s labyrinthine maze? But Dame Beckwith didn’t pause to examine the design. She placed her index and middle fingers in the eyes of a particularly frightful gargoyle and her thumb in its mouth. A horrible groan emanated from the stone, as if the gargoyle had indeed just had his eyes poked out, and the floor beneath my feet trembled. The great hearthstone in the fireplace was sinking as if the foundations of Blythewood were crumbling. A cloud of soot and ash rose into the rom. When it settled, a great gaping hole had opened up inside the fireplace. Dame Beckwith took a lantern from the mantel and held it above the hole, lighting up a curve of spiral steps carved out of stone. Miss Corey was handing out lanterns to each of us.

  “Oh my!” cried Daisy. “It’s like something out of one of Mr. Poe’s stories.”

  “Yes, the one in which the madman walls up his enemy in a

  dungeon,” Helen said, shaking soot off her skirt, only the tremble in her voice giving away that she was afraid.

  “Is that we’re going?” Daisy asked. “To the dungeons?” “In a manner of speaking,” Miss Sharp explained. “We’re

  going to see something in the Special Collections, which happen

  to be in the dungeons. Watch your step. It’s a long way down.”

  z o Z We descended single file down the narrow, spiraling steps. I had the feeling that we were drilling our way into the ground. The walls on either side of
the stairs were damp and in the flickering lantern light mottled with mold and crawling things. It felt like the well in my vision when the crow had dug its claws into me. Perhaps I was still in the well. The Darkling had never come to save me. My friends had never come to save me. Perhaps this was a punishment for asking who the man in the Inverness cape was. I wanted to shout that I didn’t need to know anymore. Whatever it was that Dame Beckwith was going to show us down here in the bowels of the earth, I didn’t need to see it. Daisy and Helen were behind me on the stairs, but I could push past them and run back up. I stopped, ready to turn, but before I could, Nathan looked over his shoulder at me, his eyes flashing silver in the lantern light.

  “It’s all right,” he said, as if he knew what I was planning. And suddenly it was—not because of his reassuring tone, but because of the look in his eyes. He was afraid, too—maybe more afraid than I was—but he was ready to brave his fears to see what lay below. If he could do it, his look told me, so could I.

  I nodded and followed him, wondering, as he turned, what he was so afraid of.

  At the bottom of the stairs we passed through a corridor lined with filing cabinets and glass cases. Holding my lantern up, I saw that some of the shelves contained books while others held mysterious objects—shells, bones with runic inscriptions on them, clay figurines, bronze bells coated with a green crust-like algae, and long tattered tapestries embroidered with enigmatic figures. The Special Collections wasn’t just a library; it was a museum of the Order’s history. Dame Beckwith must want to show us some object from the collection. But she passed by the cases without a glance to either side. At the end of the corridor she asked Miss Corey to hold her lantern so she could remove a ring of keys from her pocket and unlock a door.

  “Leave your lanterns in the hall,” she told us. “You won’t need them in here.”

  One by one we left our lanterns on a ledge beside the door and passed into a room so dark it was as if we’d been swallowed by the earth. Then a light flared, a blinding pinpoint like an exploding star. It ignited other stars—a galaxy. When my eyes adjusted to the glare I saw that Dame Beckwith was lighting the candles of an enormous crystal chandelier hanging from a high domed ceiling. I’d seen chandeliers in the houses where my mother and I delivered hats, but I’d never seen one like this. It was crafted of concentric brass rings of candles and crystal bells, each bell carved with intricate designs that sprung to life as the candlelight touched them and cast shimmering patterns over the walls and domed ceiling. By the candlelight I could now see we were in a circular room, empty save for a round table directly beneath the chandelier.