Blythewood

by Carol Goodman

  Knowing what I now knew about the dark-winged boy and the other creatures that were part of our world, I wondered what other symptoms of my madness were real. Had smoke really poured from the mouth of the man in the Inverness cape? Had he followed me to my grandmother’s townhouse? What about the bells inside my head? Were they somehow connected to the Blythewood bells that scared away the boy?

  And then there was the black feather I’d found lying on the floor beside my mother’s body. Had a Darkling visited my mother just before she died? Or even killed her?

  My thoughts spinning in a dizzying cycle, I fell into an uneasy slumber . . . straight into the dark woods, where I was running, chased by slavering goblins and vicious firesprites. I heard their angry growls behind me, coming ever closer. I tripped on a root, fell to the ground, and felt their claws on my legs, their hot, fetid breath on my face.

  And then he was there, his great black wings beating away all the fearsome creatures, his arms wrapping around me, lifting me up. I looked up into his face: as always, a rim of fire from the setting sun haloing noble features stamped clean as a coin. Then he turned his face and the line of fire spread in a network of veins, just as lightning had spread across the face of the firesprite. The flame crawled from his face down the fine white skin of his throat and across the carved sinews and muscles of his chest. It spread like cracks in an old China teacup when you pour hot water into it, only these cracks were made of fire and burned away flesh, changing him before my eyes from the beautiful boy of my dreams into a horrid monster.

  I lifted my hand to ward off the sight and saw something even more terrifying. The cracks had spread to me. My own skin was dissolving along with his.

  I woke, drenched in sweat, sheets tangled, to the sound of bells. I held my hand up to my face, terrified that I’d find those cracks in my skin. After last night who knew what was a dream and what was real? Morning sunlight limned my fingers with fire, but my flesh remained whole. Still, as I rose and dressed for the day I felt as if the cracks were there, just as in an old teacup that hides its flaws until hot water reveals them. Sooner or later they would show up for all the world to see.

  I discovered at breakfast that I wasn’t the only girl who had been visited by bad dreams. There were empty places at the tables in the dining hall. Passing Georgiana’s table I heard her say, “At least some of the chaff has been separated from the wheat. Notice that the girls who have left are not legacies. Breeding will out.”

  By my side, Daisy flinched. “I have half a mind to tell her what I think,” she muttered under her breath, but just then a girl at another table began screaming about “boggarts in the sugar bowl” and had to be escorted from the hall.

  “Irish,” Helen said with a sniff as we sat down at our table. “We had an Irish maid once who had to be dismissed because she said she’d heard a brownie in the chimney.”

  “Does it occur to you now,” Beatrice asked drily, “that she may have been correct?”

  “Just because there are real fairies in the world doesn’t mean we should credit every fool who believes in them,” Helen tartly replied, and then added, “You certainly look nonplussed. Did you know?”

  “Father told us there would be surprising revelations in store for us here,” Beatrice commented as she spooned brown sugar into her oatmeal. “I thought it might be something of this nature. We have always been quite sure that father had a more important role in world affairs than he was letting on.” Dolores nodded encouragingly and Beatrice went on as if she were conducting a conversation with her mute sister.

  “Wherever we have lived, men and women of the most exalted rank and position have come to consult with him—the Emperor Franz Joseph himself consulted Papa on the Serbian question. And of course this explains father’s grave and serious demeanor. How could one be frivolous once one knows of the great evil threatening the innocent unknowing masses? We are most gratified that we will now be able to take our places beside him in this fight against evil.”

  “This must be the important cause the hazelnut predicted for me last night,” Cam announced, her eyes burning with a fervor I’d seen in the young women who worked at the Henry Street Settlement and marched in the suffrage parades.

  None of my tablemates questioned the evil nature of the creatures we had seen.

  “Are all the creatures of Faerie evil?” I asked Sarah Lehman when she joined us.

  “Oh, yes,” she answered, briskly buttering her toast. “The Order has done exhaustive study on all the creatures of Faerie. You’ll learn the classifications in science class, hear about the horrible things they’ve done to mankind in Mr. Bellows’ history class, and”—she shuddered—“see the specimens in Miss Frost’s class. Of course there are always naysayers in any group.” She lowered her voice and leaned across the table. We all leaned in to hear her whisper.

  “There have been rumors that there’s a faction in the Order arguing for greater tolerance for the creatures and renewed negotiations between the Order and the Darklings, but . . .” She looked around anxiously before continuing. “Dame Beckwith has strictly forbidden any discussion of this topic in class. Personally, I think—”

  A phlegmy cough interrupted Sarah. We all looked up into Miss Frost’s imposing bosom.

  “It is not the duty of the head girl to share her personal opinions, Miss Lehman. Nor to model inappropriate table manners by leaning across the table and whispering like a parlor maid gossiping about her employees. Unless that is the line of work you would prefer to pursue.”

  “No, Miss Frost,” Sarah said, meekly leaning back in her chair and coloring deeply. “I apologize for my behavior.”

  Miss Frost sniffed. “Perhaps you are in need of a private etiquette tutorial.”

  Sarah’s shoulders slumped at the suggestion. I could hardly imagine anything more disagreeable than being shut up with the overbearing Miss Frost.

  “It was my fault,” I said quickly. “I asked Sarah if all the creatures of Faerie were evil and she was explaining to me—” I caught a panicked look in Sarah’s eyes. Clearly the talk about factions proposing more tolerant treatment of the creatures was not something she should have been sharing with me. “That they most certainly are all evil. Every single one of them,” I finished. Sarah breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Of course they are!” Miss Frost exclaimed, her face turning the same purple as her dress. “What fool would question such an obvious notion after all you saw last night?”

  “That’s what Sarah said,” I replied. “I imagine she lowered her voice to spare me the embarrassment of everybody else knowing what a silly question I’d asked.”

  Miss Frost lifted her lorgnette to her eyes and regarded me critically. I held her gaze, aiming for a neutral, bland mien, the same expression I would employ when my landlady came to ask for the rent or the foreman at the factory would criticize a seam I had sewn. As I met her eyes I heard the bass bell tolling in my head and I knew that if I didn’t do something Miss Frost would assign me some terrible punishment. I forced the bell to slow in my head as I had when when I calmed Etta and got her to come out of the dressing room. As it tolled inside my head I saw Miss Frost’s eyes glaze over.

  “Well, then,” she said, lowering her lorgnette and blinking like a baby owl. “That’s another matter.” She looked around the table as if she had forgotten why she had come. “I see they’re serving kippers,” she remarked. “Do remember not to swallow any bones.” Then she turned and drifted away, zigzagging across the dining room like a sailboat tacking across a windy harbor.

  “How did you do that?” Daisy asked when Miss Frost was out of earshot.

  “Do what?” I asked. “I only apologized . . .”

  “Euphorbia Frost has never been swayed by an apology in her life,” Sarah said. “You bell-manced her. It’s a technique we learn for mesmerizing our quarry in a hunt, but it’s not taught until the fledgling
year and it’s usually done with bells. How did you know how to do it?”

  I shrugged, uncomfortable now. All the girls at our table were staring at me. “I don’t know,” I said. “I’m sure it was an accident.”

  “Papa says each of us is chosen for Blythewood because we have some inherent power,” Beatrice said. “This bell-mancing thing might be Ava’s. I’m hoping for bibliosmosis, the ability to absorb the contents of any book by merely holding it in your hand.”

  “But wouldn’t that ruin the pleasure of reading?” Daisy asked. The two girls were quickly engaged in an argument over the purposes of reading, which was joined by the other girls at the table—all except Sarah, who smiled and laid a hand on my arm.

  “Thank you for saving me from a private tutoring session with Miss Frost. It’s bad enough I have to dust her specimen cases. I shan’t forget it.”

  I returned her smile, glad to have won Sarah’s gratitude even though I had no idea how I had done it. Only later, when the bells had rung for class and I was hurrying with the rest of the girls to our first lecture, did I realize I’d never gotten to hear what Sarah thought about the factions that thought the fairies weren’t all evil. I wondered which side she fell on.

  Our first class was in the North Wing lecture hall, which resembled the Third Street Vaudeville House, only the seats that rose in a semicircle around the stage were uncushioned and the performer wasn’t a dancer in spangles and feathers but an earnest young man in a tweed suit, which was much too heavy for the warm weather, and gold-rimmed glasses. Still the story he told was as fabulous as anything I’d ever seen on a vaudeville stage (including Varney the Sword Swallower and the magical feats of the Amazing Houdini).

  Rupert Bellows took off his glasses, gripped the podium on both sides, leaned forward, and told us that the history of the world was “one long story of the fight between good and evil.”

  “Last night you encountered the face of evil, but it is not always so plainly disclosed. In this class you will learn how evil forces have been secretly at work behind the scenes for centuries. The barbarians that overran the gates of Rome? Mongolian centaurs! The bubonic plague? Spread by goblin-rats! Napoleon’s attack on England? Instigated by a succubus! And wherever evil arises, the Order has been there to strike it down. The Order established their schools throughout the world: Mont Cloche in the Pyrenees, the Glockenkloster in Vienna, the Gymnasium Klok in Holland. That is the tradition you are heir to. . . . Some of you are literally heirs to the men and women who created those schools.”

  His voice full of emotion, Mr. Bellows paused and took off his glasses to rub the fog that had clouded them. I looked around the room at the assembled girls in their white shirtwaists and dark skirts and noticed that although many of them were from the Dutch and English families of Old New York, some were from other countries, like the Jager twins, or a Russian girl named Grushenka whom I’d heard someone whisper was related to the Tsar’s family, or a shy Spanish girl named Fiamma who spoke hardly any English. They were all riveted by Mr. Bellows’s lecture, their eyes burning.

  Only one student didn’t seem to be under Mr. Bellows’s spell and that was the only boy in the class. Nathan Beckwith sat in the last row, his chair tipped back, a straw boater tilted over his eyes. “Is it all left to the women, then?” he drawled. “Doesn’t seem quite sporting.”

  Mr. Bellows put his glasses back on and regarded Nathan coolly. “The prince who rode to the aid of the bell maker’s daughters sacrificed himself for their safety. His knights founded a knighthood to serve the sisters of the Order. Those accepted into the knighthood train at Blythewood’s brother school, Hawthorn. I believe you’re familiar with the institution, Mr. Beckwith.”

  Nathan snorted. “I didn’t see any evidence of knighthood training, only a bunch of boring old men lecturing on obedience and service.”

  Mr. Bellows colored deeply and gripped the podium as though he wished it were Nathan’s neck. “Perhaps you’ll feel differently when you learn whom we knights serve.” He went on to tell us that the women of the Order had learned the four elemental magics of the fairies—the magics of earth, air, fire, and water—and how to communicate with the falcons and train them to aid us in the hunt against the most brutal creatures, the goblins and trows. “They learned from the master hunters themselves—the Darklings.”

  Mr. Bellows pronounced the name in an ominous voice that created a rustling in the room as girls shifted uneasily and rubbed their arms as if they were suddenly cold. I felt a shiver, too, but not of fear. I was remembering how the dark-winged boy in the woods had looked at me and how his eyes had made me feel warm. I’d wanted to lean into his arms and let him carry me up. . . .

  “They studied the Darklings because they were their worst enemies. It was a Darkling who abducted and killed Merope.”

  The words broke into my head like the lash of a whip. What was I doing daydreaming about one of these monsters? If the other girls knew what I was thinking they would shun me—worse even than if they thought I was mad. I would be a pariah.

  There was a sharp cracking noise behind me. Startled, I turned, half expecting that my thoughts had summoned the Darkling, but it was only Nathan, who had tilted forward on his chair and was now following with full attention as Mr. Bellows retold the story of the bell maker’s daughters—only this time explaining that it was a Darkling who had stolen the youngest daughter.

  “After Merope’s abduction, the Order of the Bells was founded to protect the world against the fairies and the Darklings. We study our enemies to learn how to hunt them down and we use the bells, made of iron and our own blood, to keep them at bay.”

  “And what about the girls they steal? What do we do about getting them back?”

  The question came from the back of the room. I knew it was Nathan because he was the only boy here, but I hardly recognized his voice. Gone was the bored, upper-class drawl he’d first affected—gone, too, the excited boyish voice I’d heard in the woods last night. There was an anger and gravity to his voice now that made him sound years older. I glanced back and saw that he’d taken off his hat and raked his hair back off his forehead. His pale gray eyes flashed silver. A muscle twitched above his clenched jaw.

  “That is not my area of expertise,” Mr. Bellows began in a faltering voice totally unlike the one he’d used to lecture us.

  “Then what good are you?” Nathan demanded. “What good is it to learn the history of these bastards”—several girls gasped—“if we don’t do anything about them stealing our own?”

  There was a stunned silence as Mr. Bellows put his glasses back on and stared back at Nathan.

  “Now we know why he got kicked out of Hawthorn,” Helen whispered under her breath.

  But Mr. Bellows didn’t throw Nathan out. Instead he said, “You make an interesting point, Mr. Beckwith, and I sympathize with your outrage. Why don’t you stay after class a moment to discuss the issue with me. The rest of you—read the first hundred pages in Claveau’s History of the Order of the Bells and write a three-page pensée on the doctrine of bell magic for class tomorrow. Class dismissed.”

  We gathered our books and filed out past Nathan, who sat fuming in his seat. I tried to catch Nathan’s eye to show him I wouldn’t ostracize him, but he stared straight ahead in such a rage that I doubted he saw any of us.

  “Why is Nathan so angry?” I asked Helen when we were in the hall.

  Helen looked around and then pulled me into an alcove. “Nathan’s sister Louisa disappeared a week ago. Dame Beckwith said she went to a sanatorium in Switzerland, but I overheard Mother tell another Blythewood alumna that she vanished.”

  “Nathan’s sister is the girl who went missing?” I asked, appalled. “Dame Beckwith’s own daughter? Why didn’t you tell me? Why is everybody keeping it a secret?”

  Helen looked puzzled at the question. “Well, it would seem rude to talk about the headm
istress’s daughter like that.”

  “Rude?” I barked, startling both Helen and myself. “A girl’s gone missing and you’re all worried about the rules of etiquette?”

  “You needn’t get yourself all in a twist about it. You sound like one of those suffragettes! Actually, you sound a bit like Louisa the last time she was at our house for tea. Honestly, when I first heard she’d gone missing I was sure she’d run off to England to march with Mrs. Pankhurst, but when I saw Nathan here I knew it must be more serious than that, and after last night . . .”

  Her voice faltered. In the brief time I’d known her Helen hadn’t looked unsure about anything, but right now she looked worried.

  “You think he’s come back to find her?”

  “Yes,” she admitted, “but if she went missing in the woods he must realize it’s hopeless. No one could survive alone in those woods, except . . .”

  “Except who?” I asked.

  “Except your mother. I think that’s why Nathan was asking me about her. She disappeared into the woods for a whole month and she came back.”

  15

  I WALKED TO our next class—science with Mr. Jager—in a daze, trying to make sense out of what Helen had told me. My mother had gone missing in the Blythe Wood for a whole month. What had happened to her there? I tried to imagine what it would be like to be all alone in those woods with the fearsome creatures that roamed through them. How had my mother survived? Had she seen something so awful there that she’d never been able to recover? Was that why we moved so often, why she begged me not to talk to strangers? Was she running from something she had seen in the woods—the source of the hunted, shadowed look in her eyes? It was the same look, I realized now, that Nathan had in his.