Blythewood

by kindle@abovethetreeline. com

  Miss Corey shook her head. “There was so much chaos. Everyone saw something different. Dame Beckwith believes the shadows were creating illusions. She said that when Sarah spoke she heard the voice of an old friend.”

  An old friend? Did she mean Judicus van Drood? I wondered. I remembered what I had seen in the candelabellum and how she had looked at van Drood. Would she believe me if I told her that Judicus van Drood was the Shadow Master?

  “I have to speak with Dame Beckwith,” I said.

  “Of course. She would have come already but she was hurt in the retreat—she stayed behind until everyone was safe. Since then she’s been busy trying to help Louisa regain her memories. I’m sure she’ll come see you soon.” She paused, as if uncertain about something, then went on. “You’re probably wondering why no one’s been to visit.”

  I wasn’t thinking of that at all, but I nodded.

  “I’m afraid your lack of visitors is my fault. Helen and Daisy have been begging to come—and half a dozen other girls as well. I just wasn’t sure you were ready for visitors. You were delirious as first, calling out names, and then . . . well . . . I thought you might want to wait until . . . um . . .” Miss Corey’s eyes, which had been skittering around the room, came to rest on my face.

  “Oh,” I said, a wave of heat rising to my scalp. With my hands bandaged I hadn’t been able to inspect the damage done to my hair and no one had offered me a mirror. “Am I hideous?”

  Miss Corey looked horrified at the question. It must be because I am and she doesn’t want to tell me. Without a word she got up, crossed the small room, and took down a small woodenframed mirror from the wall. She brought it to the bed, but held it to her chest for a moment.

  “Your hair caught on fire but the Darkling’s wings put it out. We had to shave off what was left to apply the salve to your scalp. We were afraid at first that your hair might not grow back . . .”

  The look on my face made her pause. I was picturing myself bald as a boiled egg. “But it has!” she said. “And quite remarkably fast . . . well, look!” She thrust the mirror in front of me. Her hand was shaking so much at first I couldn’t find my reflection—only a glimpse of wide startled eyes—but when her hand stilled I saw myself.

  The light chestnut hair I’d been born with was gone. In its place was a fluff of deep garnet red the color of fire and the consistency of silk. It framed my face with feathery tendrils that made my eyes look bigger and greener and my cheekbones stand out more sharply.

  I hardly recognized myself. I looked like a blade that had been tempered in fire, burned down to its essential self. I looked, I realized with a strange pang, like my mother. I wasn’t a monster; in fact, in the moment when I looked at the reflection as though it were someone else, I had to admit that I was . . . beautiful. A scary kind of beautiful, but beautiful nonetheless.

  “You see, I thought you’d want to get used to your new self before you met your friends again.”

  I tore my eyes away from the strange creature in the mirror and looked up at Miss Corey. For the first time I realized that she was no longer wearing her veil. I remembered suddenly the morning—was it only a few weeks ago?—I’d come upon Miss Sharp reading that poem to her. Glory be to God for dappled things. The words had seemed to summon up a strange unearthly beauty in Lillian Corey’s face. I had thought she kept it hidden under her veil because she was ashamed of the markings on her face, but now I saw that she was shy of the strange beauty she possessed. I understood then why she had kept my friends away.

  “They’re going to stare at me, aren’t they?”

  Miss Corey grinned. It made her look even more beautiful. “You’re going to have to get used to quite a bit of staring, I think.”

  I smiled at her, and caught a glimpse of my reflection—of a girl who had come through fire and ice and seemed to possess a little of each. I remembered what Sam Greenfeder had called Tillie and me in the park. Farbrente maydlakh. Fiery girls. Now I’d really become one—a girl who’d come through fire twice. And if I could come through fire . . . maybe Raven had as well.

  “Well then,” I said, “I’d better start getting used to it.”

  CAROL GOODMAN [ 461

  z o Z Helen and Daisy came first. Helen screeched when she saw my hair. “It’s the exact shade of the Countess Oborensky’s hair when she was presented at court. However did you get it? Is it . . .” she lowed her voice, “dyed?”

  “It just grew back this way after the fire,” I replied. “It will be lovely when it grows in,” Daisy said diplomatically, eyes riveted to my scalp.

  “I think I may keep it short,” I said. “Perhaps I’ll start a fad.”

  Daisy looked scandalized, but Helen only laughed. “I’m glad you came through the fire with your humor intact. You’ll need it to bear the events Beckwith has planned for you—speakers, fêtes, high teas, parades. You’re to get a heroine’s reception once you’re out of this cell. Why are you still here anyway? You look fit as a fiddle . . . rather better than you did before, as a matter of fact.”

  I smiled at Helen’s backhanded compliment. “I still have some pain in my hands and along my back, but I’ll be out soon. Catch me up on all the news, will you? I don’t want to feel a complete ninny when I make my reappearance.”

  Helen readily obliged, as I knew she would. I was happy to have the attention focused away from my strange new looks and lingering injuries—and my mind taken off whether Raven had survived the fire or not—by Helen’s gossip. I learned that not everyone was thrilled with my new status as heroine.

  Georgiana Montmorency had loudly proclaimed at dinner one night that I had led the Darklings out of the woods with my torch and had been stopped by the Dianas. Cam had promptly risen to her feet and socked Georgiana in the jaw. A fight had broken out between Georgiana’s friends and mine. Interestingly, not all of her friends had not come to Georgiana’s aid. In fact, Alfreda Driscoll had been seen dumping a blancmange over Georgiana’s head, effectively quelling the outburst—although Dolores Jager had gotten in one more jab at one of Georgiana’s cohorts.

  “Dolores? Really?” I asked, finding it hard to imagine the melancholy quiet girl taking part in a brawl.

  “I wouldn’t underestimate Dolores,” Daisy said. “The next day Georgiana’s hair turned green after using a soap I saw Dolores leaving in the showers.”

  “Well at least I’m not the only one with a new hair color,” I said, smiling at the image of Georgiana with green hair. “But does anyone else think I was leading the Darklings to attack Blythewood?”

  “Oh, no!” Daisy and Helen both said together. “The next day Dame Beckwith, after giving us all fifty demerits for fighting, announced that it had been Sarah Lehman who had summoned the Darklings and you were a hero for defeating them.”

  “But it wasn’t the Darklings who were attacking; it was the shadow creatures—the tenebrae.”

  Daisy and Helen exchanged an uneasy glance. “Are you really sure?” Daisy asked, taking my hand. “When the shadows burned away we all saw the Darklings. It looked as if they had summoned the shadows.”

  “But they were trying to protect the woods from the shadow creatures. Nathan knows the truth . . . and Miss Sharp. What do they say?”

  Daisy and Helen exchanged a guilty look. “Um . . . they’ve been busy,” Daisy said. “And they’ve been staying at Violet House.”

  “Because of Louisa,” Helen said softly.

  I flushed, embarrassed that I hadn’t asked about Louisa right away. “How is she? Has she recovered from her stay in Faerie?”

  They looked at each other again and then Daisy said, “Not exactly. She only wants to play cards all the time and she has this vacant look in her eyes.”

  “That description could fit my mother,” Helen said tartly.

  I was about to tell her she shouldn’t jest, but then she added, “But you should see Nathan. He sits with her all day playing cards. He’s the only one who can keep her calm. That’s why they’re a
t Violet House—that and to keep Louisa from running back into the woods.”

  “Poor Nathan,” I said, wondering if his shadows had been banished now that Sarah was gone. I recalled what my mother had said about him—that I was the only one who would be able to keep the shadows from claiming him. But how could I do that? “He worked so hard to get Louisa back.”

  “Yes, well things don’t always work out as we plan,” Helen said. “And speaking of plans . . . this letter arrived for you a few days ago. I saw it in the post and nabbed it before anyone else could see it and wonder why you’re receiving mail from a strange man in Scotland.”

  I snatched the envelope out of Helen’s hand and ripped it open.

  “Why are you receiving mail from a strange man in Scotland, by the way?”

  “It’s from Mr. Farnsworth, the librarian at the Hawthorn School. He has a copy of the book I’ve been looking for—A Darkness of Angels. He says he’s setting sail for New York in a few days—on April tenth. What day is it now?” I asked anxiously, realizing I’d completely lost track of the days.

  “April fifteenth,” Helen replied. “He should be in New York in a few days, then. About the time my parents are returning from their trip. I had a letter from Daddy a week ago saying they had run into your grandmother in London and that they were traveling back to New York together. Does he say what ship he’s on?”

  I flung the bedclothes away, ignoring Helen’s questions. She probably wanted to gossip about who else she knew crossing the Atlantic. “I have to get up and start moving around so I’m ready to go into New York to meet him,” I said.

  Helen picked up the letter from the bed and read it. “Ah,” she said, “he is coming in on the same ship as my parents and your grandmother.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked. “You can barely remember your declensions. How can you remember the name of the ship?”

  “That’s easy,” Helen replied. “Everyone’s heard of the Titanic. It’s the ship built to be unsinkable.”

  38

  THAT EVENING I had a nightmare. I was standing looking up at a range of great ice mountains, cliffs of black ice looming over me, making me feel smaller and smaller . . . because the cliffs were gliding steadily toward me to crush me in their icy maws. The worst part, the part that gripped me in an icy sweat, was when I realized that the cliffs were alive. They were ice giants come to smash me to bits and drag me to the bottom of the sea.

  I awoke in the dark to find Helen sitting on the side of my bed, her face in the moonlight as white and immobile as one of the ice cliffs.

  “It’s sunk,” she said, barely moving her lips. I thought she was talking about my dream at first, but then she said. “The Titanic has sunk.”

  “But that can’t be,” I replied blearily. “You just told me it was unsinkable . . .” But already I knew it was true—that it was just as in my dream. The ice giants had come to destroy the ship that carried Mr. Farnsworth . . . and my grandmother and Agnes and Helen’s parents.

  I got up and got dressed in a numb daze, barely hearing what Helen—and then others who came and went—had to say.

  468 Blythewood There were conflicting reports. The Titanic was being towed into port by another ship, the Titanic was at the bottom of the ocean; everybody had been saved, nobody had been saved.

  Somehow I managed to get myself ready to travel to New York. Daisy had packed for both Helen and me. She wanted to come with us, but I heard myself telling her to stay. “We’ll need you when we get back,” I told her, although I was not sure what I meant.

  Then we were in the coach and Gillie was taking us to the train station. A fog covered River Road, just as it had on my first day at Blythewood—a cold fog that came, I felt sure, straight from the arctic sea where the ice giants had calved their lethal bergs and sent them to destroy the Titanic. Even now one might loom in the fog.

  “Poor lass,” Gillie said when he carried our bags down to the station. Helen stood like a statue, staring at the river as if watching for a ship to come out of the fog with her parents safely delivered.

  “Yes,” I agreed, “I hope her parents are all right.” “I hope so, too,” Gillie said, “but it was you I was talking about. You’re barely recovered from you own trials. How do your hands feel?”

  “My hands feel fine,” I said, flexing them under their light kid gloves. “My back still hurts, though, right along the shoulder blades. The fire must have run straight down them, but I’ll be all right. To tell the truth, I’m glad to be up and away—not that I’m glad for the reason,” I added, seeing that Gillie was staring at me oddly.

  “Nay, you’re right,” he said, “better for you to get away. You let us know when you hear any news . . . as soon as ye see Agnes Moorhen . . .” His voice faded and my mouth went dry. Agnes. I hadn’t even let myself think that Agnes might not be all right. Seeing the look on my face Gillie clamped his large hand to my shoulder. “She’ll have come through all right,” he said. “It would take more than a hunk of ice to sink our Agnes.”

  Helen was silent on the journey down, staring out the window at the fog-cloaked river. I’d never known her to go so long without uttering a word. When we arrived at the Grand Central Station Terminal she wanted to go straight to the White Star Line offices to get what information we could, but I convinced her we should go to her house first and wait for news. What news had reached the shipping offices now was likely not to be reliable.

  We took a taxi to Washington Square. It was strange to be in the city again, passing familiar sights that no longer looked familiar, perhaps because I had learned so much about the world since I had last walked these streets, and now I suspected every shadow or wondered if all the people on the streets were entirely human. Or perhaps it was because I’d never looked at those streets from the window of a taxicab.

  The van Beek townhouse was smaller than I had imagined it would be, a narrow brownstone with rooms painted in somber colors, the furniture draped in canvas looming out of the shadows like ghosts. The housekeeper apologized for not having the house ready and then burst into tears. I expected Helen to chide her but instead she patted the woman on the arm and said, “There, there, Elspeth,” and asked if there’d been any news. There was a stack of wires and letters, mostly from friends and family asking if Helen had heard anything. I convinced Helen to go to bed, promising her that we’d get up first thing in the morning and walk over to the White Star Line offices to check the lists of survivors. Before we went to bed I made Elspeth promise to wake me first if there was any news.

  The next three days were a blur of raised hopes, dashed expectations, and tortuous waiting. The early survivor lists were contradictory. Mrs. van Beek and my grandmother were listed as survivors on one and as victims on another. Agnes and Mr. van Beek weren’t mentioned on either. Nor could I find Mr. Farnsworth’s name on any of the lists.

  Finally on the night of the eighteenth we heard that the Carpathia had been sighted coming into harbor with the survivors. We rushed down to the pier where she was expected to dock and waited in the rain with the largest crowd I’d ever seen assembled. When the survivors began to disembark, the crowd came to life. Names were called out. Men and women pushed through the crowd to embrace survivors. Some fainted. Helen stood, her face stony, until she spotted someone.

  “Mama!” she cried, her face turning instantly younger. I could barely keep up with her as she pushed through the crowd. As we got nearer I saw that Mrs. van Beek was clutching the arm of another woman—my grandmother. I searched the faces around them, my heart sinking when I didn’t see Agnes . . . but then, a little way back up the gangplank I spied, above the heads of the crowd, a navy feather.

  “Agnes!” I cried. The feather twitched at the sound and a gloved hand shot up beside it. By the time I reached Helen and her mother and my grandmother, Agnes had reached them as well. I threw my arms around Agnes’s neck.

  “Well!” I heard my grandmother say. “I’m glad to see you’re happy one of us is ali
ve.” I let Agnes go and threw my arms around my grandmother. Under her heavy wool coat she felt small and frail and her mouth seemed to be crumpling.

  “Now, now,” she tutted. “Let’s not make a fuss. You didn’t think Miss Moorhen would let me drown, did you? What do I pay her for if not to take care of such details?”

  Agnes rolled her eyes and whispered into my ear. “You should have seen the trouble I had getting her to wear a lifejacket.”

  I started to laugh at the image, but then I saw Helen. She was looking around the crowd, her eyes skittering from stranger to stranger until they landed back on her mother.

  “Where’s Daddy?” she asked.

  z o Z I stayed at the van Beeks’ through the rest of April and into early May, at first to see Helen through the early days of grief and then to help her sort through the morass of financial entanglement that descended on the van Beek household.

  It seemed that Mr. van Beek had fallen deeply into debt over the last few years, something to do with a bad investment and then an attempt to recoup his losses that went even worse. Intimations of his losses had been coming for months. Having failed to prevail on his wife to curtail expenses, Mr. van Beek had confided his concerns to Helen to see if she might talk sense to her mother. That had been the subject of all the letters going back and forth between Helen and her parents.

  The situation, though, was made far worse by Mr. van Beek’s death. I couldn’t make much sense of the explanations given by the men in dark suits who descended on the house like a murder of crows and, I saw, neither could Helen or her mother. So I called Agnes in to help. She came in a trim navy suit with a cerulean feather in her straw boater, and Mr. Greenfeder in tow. Together they marshaled the lawyers and accountants into order. Within a day she’d written up a clear report for Mrs. van Beek and sent Mr. Greenfeder on errands around the city to see what could be done to investigate the circumstances of Mr. van Beek’s failed investments. When she was done, she left mother and daughter in the library and came out to talk to me in the parlor.