Blythewood

by Carol Goodman

  Helen squeaked and clutched Nathan’s arm. “A mouse! You’ve got a mouse in your pocket! A live mouse!” She looked like she was going to clamber up on top of Nathan’s shoulders.

  “I rescued it from Miss Frost’s specimen room,” Daisy said, cradling the small creature. “I thought better a fast death out in the open than whatever terrible thing Miss Frost had planned for it. And at least it will die for the good of the group.” She looked from me to Helen to Nate. Poor Daisy. Since my fight with Helen all she’d wanted was for us to be united again, like the time we all faced the goblins together in the woods. She didn’t know anything about the bloodline records in the dungeons or that she and I would never really belong here at Blythewood. But then Helen did something very strange. She folded her own hands over Daisy’s hand and held the mouse.

  “That’s a very noble sacrifice, Daisy. We all know how much you care about small helpless creatures.”

  I looked at Nathan, expecting him to mock Helen’s sentiment, but instead I saw something shift in his eyes. The haunted look I’d seen since that day on the roof had softened. He reached out and took my hand and Helen’s, linking the four of us together.

  “All right,” Nathan said, “we’ll all go together, but only if you all promise to follow me and do what I say. We’re going to find that Darkling and make him tell us what happened to my sister. And if I find out they’ve killed her . . .” He let go of Helen’s hand to hold up the dagger and turn it in the light of his lantern. The dark runes carved on its blade leapt into life. For a moment I saw the runes floating in the air, casting shadows over the faces of my three friends, linking us together, but in what fate I didn’t know.

  We could not have picked a worse night. The sky was crystal clear. Even though the moon was less than a quarter full, it reflected off the snow so brightly that it might have been daylight. I didn’t see how we’d make it across the lawn without Gillie seeing us. But Nate pointed to the stone wall that edged the formal garden.

  “If we stay in the shadow of the wall we’ll be okay. When we get to the end of the wall we’ll wait until we see Blodeuwedd, and then Daisy can toss out the bait and we’ll run for the woods.” He waited until we all nodded our agreement, Daisy looking wistfully at the mouse in her pocket. If we survived this, I swore to myself, I’d find her another to keep as a pet.

  We crept along the garden wall, Nate first, then me, Helen, and Daisy, all of us keeping to the shadows. When we reached the end of the wall there was still a long expanse of moonlit snow, against which was painted a shadow of enormous wings. I clutched Nathan’s hand, thinking the Darkling had come to meet us, but then I looked up and saw the white wings and wide pale face of Blodeuwedd lit up by the moonlight. Her solemn heart-shaped face seemed to look directly at me. I pressed myself against the stone wall, feeling helpless as the mouse in Daisy’s pocket.

  “Deploy the mouse, Daisy!” Nathan hissed.

  “I don’t think I can,” Daisy cried.

  “Oh, hell’s bells!” Helen swore.

  I looked back to see Helen putting her hand in Daisy’s pocket, making a face. She flung the poor mouse out onto the grass, where it squeaked in alarm. Instantly, Blodeuwedd’s remorseless face swiveled toward the noise and she plunged on soundless wings toward the mouse.

  “Now!” Nathan cried. He ran for the edge of the woods. I followed, nearly stumbling because my legs were numb from crouching, but Helen caught my arm and pulled me upright. Daisy was on the other side of me, her face wet and shining in the moonlight. Relief swept over me when we reached the shadows of the trees . . . until I looked into those shadows.

  Amidst the snow-dusted and icicle-hung trees stood looming figures of glowing white ice. My first thought was that they were statues from the garden that had been coated in ice, but if they were statues why was the bass bell clamoring in my head? Besides, they didn’t look like any of the statues in the garden. Instead of beautiful, classical youths and maidens, these statues were of huge, shaggily bearded men holding clubs and grimacing through mouths full of sharp teeth.

  “What . . . ?” I began, but then one of the statues snarled and took a lumbering step toward me.

  “Ice giants!” Nathan shouted, grabbing my hand. “Come on, we have to reach the Rowan Circle.”

  “Why the Rowan Circle?” Helen shouted over the wind as we ran from the lumbering ice giants. On every side of us trees thrashed in the wind, spraying snow and icicles. Ice-coated branches reached out to block our way, and roots writhed under the snow to trip us. I could hear the lumbering steps of the ice giants pursuing us.

  “It’s enspelled to keep out fairies and demons,” Nathan replied. “I read about it in one of the books from the Special Collections.”

  The whole woods seemed to be throwing itself in our way. Branches fell from the trees and roots erupted from the ground. A vine scratched my face. When I tried to brush it away sharp claws dug into my arm. A wizened face loomed in front of me, its mouth opened in a toothy grimace.

  “Hunn . . . gree!” it cried.

  I screamed and silver flashed in front of my eyes and blood splashed in my face. “Goblins!” Nathan shouted, drawing his dagger out of a limp, furry creature that had the face of a wizened old man. “Run!”

  We ran blindly through the woods. I no longer knew if we were headed toward the Rowan Circle, only that I had to get away from the creatures at my heels. The sound of them alone was maddening—a chittering combined with sounds that might have been words. Could goblins talk? The one that had attacked me had said something that sounded like “hungry.” If they could talk they weren’t animals, but “hungry” seemed to be the sum total of their vocabulary, and I didn’t have time to turn around and try to converse with one. Their smell, like rotten meat and fetid water, covered my skin with an oily film and crept down my throat, making me gag. Somehow I knew that the smell came from their last meal and that my flesh would soon join the rotting meat stuck between their teeth.

  I doubled over, retching at the thought, and felt something snatch at my arm. I flailed out, but it was Nathan dragging me away from the snapping jaws of a tortoise-faced goblin and into the Rowan Circle. Letting go of me, Nathan spun around to face the creature, dagger flashing. Helen was beside him, an arrow drawn in her bow. Daisy reached into her pocket and drew out a handbell that had been stoppered with a handkerchief. She unstoppered it and rang the bell in a slow steady beat. My friends had all brought weapons to fight the enemy—only I had come empty-handed.

  Or almost empty-handed. Reaching into the pocket of my jersey I found the black feather. I ran my fingers along its bristled vane and the bell inside my head slowed. I felt immediately calmer. I looked down at the feather and wondered if this was what Miss Emmaline had meant by finding something to focus the bells. Wasn’t it odd, though, that it should be a feather from a Darkling? But I couldn’t worry about that now. I held the feather up and watched it sway in the wind, proud and regal as the plume of a warrior going into battle. The chittering goblins, ringed all around us now, went silent. I felt the force of their yellow eyes all trained on the black feather.

  Nathan, Helen, and Daisy followed the direction of their gazes to me. “Brilliant!” Nathan cried. “Are you doing a mesmerizing spell like the one Miss Sharp did?”

  I had no idea what I was doing. My arm was moving in a definite pattern, but I wasn’t controlling it. Light as it was, the feather was pulling my arm into wide swoops and flourishes, writing furiously on the air as if driven by the mind of a mad poet possessed by the muse. I could almost see the words it wrote rising luminescent into the night air and floating up into the trees, a desperate distress message sent out by a sinking ship.

  The bell in my head was tolling to the rhythm of my swaying movement as if I were conducting a symphony. Even the goblins grew quiet watching the runic signs floating up into the air. Was this shadow magic? I wondered. If it was, how did I
know how to do it? The wind stilled and all the creatures of the forest went silent, as small birds and mice grow quiet when a hawk is on the wing.

  Into the silence dropped the sound of a long low whistle, followed by the thunder of feet pounding the forest floor—a hundred goblins running away from us and scattering into the trees as fast as they could go.

  “They’re all running away!” Daisy cried.

  “Yes,” said Nathan, “but what are they running from?” He turned from the woods to me and then tilted his head up. “Perhaps you’d better stop now.”

  But it was too late. Above us the moon and stars were blotted out by enormous black wings. The Darkling landed in front of me, its huge wings beating away Nate and Helen and Daisy. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Helen draw back her bow and Nate lunge forward with his dagger. Daisy was ringing her bell but the sound was drowned out by the whoosh of wings.

  The Darkling paid no attention to any of them. He stepped forward and wrapped his arm around my waist, pulling me tightly against his chest. I felt the length of his body against mine, the steely power of his arms holding me, the beat of his heart against my breast, the long hard muscles of his legs bending and tensing as he sprang up.

  And then we were airborne, rising above the Rowan Circle and into the dark.

  25

  I MUST BE DREAMING, I told myself, as we rose into the sky. I had had this dream so many times before. But in those dreams I hadn’t felt the heat of the Darkling’s skin, or heard his heart beating against my cheek, or noticed the long white scar that ran from his elbow to his wrist. Nor gotten a cramp in my arm from trying to hold on to him.

  “Hold on a few more minutes,” he shouted against the wind. “We’re almost there.”

  There? Where was he taking me? To Faerie, where monsters would rip me apart and feast on my bones? We were still above the treetops, which looked like spearheads waiting to impale my falling body. I would wait until we reached the ground, I thought, and then run.

  Only we didn’t reach the ground. We flew lower to the treetops and then he suddenly folded his wings, tipped forward, and plummeted straight down. I’d watched hawks perform the same maneuver when they spotted their prey, always miraculously swooping back up before they crashed into the ground, but as branches whizzed by us, frozen pine needles brushing against my face, I was sure he meant to dash my brains out on the forest floor.

  As quickly as our descent had begun, though, so it ended. His wings snapped out, cupping the air, and beat backward. We landed on a thick pine bough, scattering snow. The whole tree swayed with the impact, icicles in the branches clattering against each other like wind chimes. I felt the motion in the soles of my feet when they touched the bark, not the movement just of this tree, but of its neighbors swaying in sympathy, the whole forest moving from pointy treetops down to roots burrowing deep in the rich loamy earth. I felt a part of it all . . .

  Until he let go of me. Then my arms flailed and my knees buckled. He laughed and steadied me with a wing. “You’ve got to get your tree legs. But until then, perhaps you’d better have a seat.”

  Still steadying me with his wing, he lifted up a needled branch and gave me a gentle push forward. I groped in the darkness until I felt solid wood beneath my feet. We were on some kind of platform built into the tree branches, but it was too dark for me to see how far it went. I stood still and looked up. Between intertwined branches I saw stars so bright and so close I felt I could reach up and touch them.

  Then light bloomed around me as if one of those stars had exploded. I looked down and saw the Darkling crouched over a lantern, adjusting its wick. The light cast his winged shadow on the curved wall behind him and the sloping roof above us, painting the whole space with a delicate lace-like feather pattern.

  He stood up and the space was filled with the beat of wings louder than the beat of my heart. I stepped back . . . into the wall. I could see how powerfully built the Darkling’s chest and wings were. Taut muscles rippled under his marble-white skin. Ebony wings thrashed the air into a windstorm. One flick of those giant wings would crush me. Still I held my feather up between us as if I could use it to fend him off.

  “What do you think you’re going to do with that?” he asked, folding his arms over his chest.

  “It summoned you, didn’t it?” I asked, feeling suddenly foolish but determined not to show it.

  His lips quirked into a crooked smile. “You think that’s why I came to your rescue? Because you waved a feather in the air?”

  “Rescue?” I squawked. “Is that what this is? It looks more like a kidnapping to me. If you were rescuing me why did you bring me to your . . . your lair?”

  “Lair?” He raised an eyebrow. “Look around you. Does this look like a lair?”

  I looked around. We were in a circular room with a floor laid with smooth planks, the walls and ceiling woven of tightly intertwined branches kinked and mortared with soft green moss. Even in the depths of winter, plants grew in the moss pockets—orchids and hanging ferns and fragrant herbs. Under the scent of pine I detected rosemary, mint, and something deliciously sweet . . . violets! Some were growing in the moss, but there was also a bouquet in a glass vase on a shelf beside a stack of books. A teapot and blue-and-white willow-pattern teacups were on another shelf along with an assortment of clocks, some of which had been taken apart, and other metal contraptions. Violets? Clocks? Teacups? He was right. It wasn’t particularly lair-like.

  “Do you . . . live here?” I asked. He started to laugh again but then he registered the look in my eyes. Slowly he stilled the beating of his wings and drew them in close to his back until they were folded neatly between his shoulder blades. Then, keeping his eyes on mine and moving with the same cautious pace as I’d seen Gillie use approaching a skittery hawk, he reached for a shirt hanging from a hook and put it on. I noticed the shirt had neatly sewn slits to allow his wings to come out. “It’s okay,” he said, “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  As he spoke I realized that the bell had stopped ringing inside my head. Did that mean there was no danger here—or was the Darkling able to silence it?

  “Why should I believe you? You killed my mother.”

  This brought him up short. “Killed . . . ?” He looked genuinely puzzled. “Why would you think that?”

  I brandished the black feather. “Because I found this by her side. Do you deny that it’s one of yours—or one of your kind’s?”

  He stepped forward until he was only a few inches away. His wings were beating behind him, agitating the air. I felt the breeze from them on my face, and despite all of my reasons to fear this creature, I felt my fear dissipating.

  He took the feather out of my hand and ran his finger along the vane, then held it up to his nose. “It’s one of ours, but it’s not mine,” he said, handing it back to me. “Another Darkling must have come to your mother when she was dying, but he wouldn’t have hurt her. Why do you think any of us would hurt you? I came to the Triangle to help you; I caught you when you fell from the roof.”

  “But you let Tillie die!” I cried.

  “Is that what you think?” he asked angrily. “After all I’ve done to help you and your friends?”

  Abashed, I remembered how he had helped Tillie and Etta and me up to the roof. But then I remembered something else.

  “You took me to Bellevue!”

  His face darkened and his wings began to unfurl again, but he tightened his jaw and drew his wings back between his shoulder blades. He took a deep breath and I saw his lips moving, as if he were counting to himself to master his anger. I wondered if he heard bells in his head. When he spoke his voice was icy and formal.

  “I regret that you ended up in that awful place, but I don’t understand why you think I brought you there. I laid you down on the sidewalk so that I could help the other girls. I saved a few, but there was only so much I could do.” H
is lips trembled and he looked away from me. I saw the pain etched in his face. I suddenly understood that his anger wasn’t directed at me—it was at himself for failing to save more of the girls and for failing to keep me out of Bellevue. Still, when he reached toward the shelf with the clocks and teapots and removed one of the metal contraptions, I jumped.

  “What are you going to do with that?” I asked suspiciously.

  “With this,” he said, changing his icy tone to a menacing growl. “I’m going to make you a cup of tea.”

  I sat on a low bench while my Darkling abductor performed the homely and practical chore of tea making. The metal object was a small gas stove. He lit it and poured water (melted snow, he told me) from a ceramic pitcher into an iron teakettle.

  “I thought fairies couldn’t touch iron,” I said.

  “I’m not a fairy,” he replied, shaking a tin. “Earl Grey or Darjeeling?”

  “Earl Grey,” I said. “Are you a . . . Darkling, then?”

  His lips quirked into that crooked smile again—they were full, finely molded lips, shaped like a bow—and he whistled softly under his breath. I’d heard the falcons in their mews make a similar sound. “Isn’t it customary in your society to introduce oneself by name first before identifying one’s race?”

  “Oh,” I said, feeling as if I’d been admonished by Miss Frost. “I didn’t think . . .”

  “That I had a name?” He asked, quirking one eyebrow up. “Well, I do. It’s Raven.”

  “Oh! I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Raven,” I held out my hand to shake his, determined now not to neglect the social niceties. He laughed so hard he spilled water from the kettle.

  “Just Raven,” he corrected, taking my hand. As it had when he first touched me, I heard the treble bell chime inside my head, startling me so that I dropped his hand abruptly. He turned away and busied himself cleaning up the water he’d spilled. “As for what your kind call us—Darkling is one name for us. The Greeks called us aggelos, messenger, because we traveled between the worlds and carried the souls of the dead to the next world—the mortals to their afterworld and the fairy creatures back to Faerie.”