Ravencliffe

by Carol Goodman

  Then the mirrors started spinning, faster and faster, like the Human Roulette Wheel—or like a zoetrope I’d watched once in the nickelodeon, a wheel with images inside it that made a moving picture when you looked inside. Only I was inside it, and the pictures that began to emerge of a snow-filled forest were not just pictures. I felt the bite of the cold snow blowing through those woods and heard the howls of the wolves that prowled it.

  Shadow wolves.

  I knew exactly where I was.

  I’d seen this story twice before—once in the candelabellum, a device kept in the Blythewood dungeons, and once in a spinning teacup that Raven had showed me. It was the story of how the Order of the Bells came to be. In both stories the seven daughters of a bell maker set off through the woods to deliver a set of seven bells to a prince at a castle. They were set upon by shadow wolves, creatures possessed by the tenebrae. When their cart toppled, the youngest sister, Merope, rallied her sisters to play changes on the bells to keep the shadow wolves at bay. They rang the bells through the night, one by one ceasing as they grew exhausted, until only Merope rang her solitary bell. When the prince and his knights came to rescue them Merope was gone, leaving a blood-filled impression in the snow.

  That’s where the stories diverged.

  The Order believed that Merope was abducted by a Darkling—an evil creature on the side of the tenebrae and all the monsters of Faerie. But Raven had showed me a version in which Merope was in love with the Darkling Aderyn, who saved her and then, together with the creatures of Faerie, helped battle the tenebrae. What story would van Drood show me in the hall of mirrors?

  I watched warily as the shadow wolves pursued the bell maker’s daughters and Merope rang her bell to drive them away. Surprisingly, van Drood’s story followed Raven’s, as the great black-winged creature descended toward her and her face lit up with love. Aderyn gathered Merope up in his arms and carried her into the sky. Together they followed the sisters and the knights back to the castle, fending off the shadows that pursued them. I watched in horror as the prince was set upon by shadow crows and devoured by them—just as van Drood must once have been devoured by the tenebrae to become what he was now. Was that why he was showing me this story? Was he showing me how he became a Shadow Master so that I would feel sorry for him . . . or even save him?

  “Can you be saved?” I asked aloud.

  The revolving pictures juddered for a moment as I’d seen moving pictures in the nickelodeon jerk when the film got stuck in the projector—or as I’d seen van Drood himself jerk once before. He had looked then like a broken machine. Was a piece of him that was still human struggling to break free?

  But then the pictures ran again all too smoothly. The prince was ripped apart by the shadows, the crows burrowing beneath his skin to eat him from the inside out. I bit my cheek to keep from crying out.

  The thing that was once the prince turned to me, face bulging as the shadow crows moved beneath its skin, red eyes glowing, mouth spewing smoke. I watched in horror as the creature ripped open its own chest to extract a writhing crow.

  I ducked to dodge the flying missile and heard a thud and cry of pain from behind me. I turned, thinking someone had joined me in the hall of mirrors and been hurt, but the cry came from a creature in the mirrors. Aderyn, the Darkling that had saved Merope, clutched his chest, his eyes wide with pain.

  No! Merope’s scream rent the air, shaking the mirrors, but not enough to dispel the image of Aderyn ripping the shadow crow from his chest. He tore it out, but a bit of the darkness had already burrowed inside.

  Where it remained until his dying day, destroying him and Merope and their children and cursing all the Darklings. Van Drood’s voice was very near now. I could feel his breath against my skin.

  The shadows are already inside you, his voice hissed, as they are inside all Darklings since they corrupted Aderyn. His infection cursed all the Darklings. That is why they can no longer enter Faerie. That is what Raven didn’t tell you. And that is why you are a monster now. Just like me.

  “No!” I whirled around, flailing my arm out in the direction the voice had come from, but it only hit glass, as did the pocket watch that I wore on a chain around my neck. The bells inside the watch chimed with the impact, faint and tinny, but loud enough that they reminded me of the watch’s purpose. It wasn’t an ordinary watch. It was an automaton repeater, given to me by Miss Emmaline Sharp to help me focus my own bells. I’d used it once before to dispel the tenebrae and once to banish van Drood. Now I grasped the watch in my hand and pressed the stem, praying it would play a tune that would destroy van Drood’s hold on me.

  The two automaton figures—a woman and a winged man—drew back their hammers and struck the two bells between them, playing, to my surprise, the calliope tune I’d heard before on the Bowery. Perhaps it was just because that was the last music I had heard. I certainly didn’t see how the gay, antic tune would do anything against van Drood.

  But the figures in the mirror began to move backward in jerky motions, faster and faster, as if they were actors in a vaudeville melodrama performing the parts. And now when Merope played her bells they rang out in the crazy calliope tune, growing louder and louder, the music shaking the mirrors. I stepped away from the glass just in time, before all the mirrors shattered.

  As the glass fell all around me, one fragment landed on my hand. I looked down at the shard and saw inside it the image of a crow, its yellow beak just where the point impaled my skin. I flung it from me and looked up, prepared for a murder of mirror crows to descend on me, but the glass had all fallen away, and in its place stood the dwarf from the Blowhole Theater and Omar the Hindu Hypnotist, incongruously flanked by Nathan and Helen.

  8

  “THANK THE BELLS we found you!” Helen cried, crunching toward me over a sea of broken glass. “Mr. Marvel and Mr. Omar said you’d be in here.”

  “Mr. Marvel?” I asked as Helen brushed mirror fragments from my skirt and straightened my shirtwaist.

  “Kid Marvel,” the dwarf said, striding forward and sticking out his hand. “Showman and impresario, entertainer to the crowned heads of Europe, and,” he added with a wink, “dwarf. And not just the human variety, if you get my drift.”

  “Oh,” I said, not sure I did, “do you mean you’re a fairy dwarf?”

  “Right on the nose!” He tapped his own bulbous and painted proboscis. “Or as your folk would say, genus: Fatus; species: dvergar. I hope you’ll excuse the liberties taken back at the Blowhole. Just doing my job, you know. But then Omar here”—the tall Hindu bowed his head—“said you were looking for the girls gone missing, and when I saw you chasing the humbug I knew you’d get yourself in trouble.”

  “The humbug?” I asked, remembering he’d used the word before.

  “A fake, a con, a master of disguise.” Kid Marvel rattled off the names. “A gyp, a hoister, a goniff . . . a thing that ain’t what it’s got up to look like—”

  “In short,” Omar interrupted, “what my esteemed colleague Mr. Marvel is attempting to establish is that the man you pursued is no longer a man, but a creature possessed by demons. In my land we called such a creature a pishaca, a flesh-eating demon wont to haunt cremation grounds and feed on human souls.”

  I shivered at the description. “We call him a Shadow Master. This one’s name is Judicus van Drood.”

  Kid Marvel and Omar exchanged looks. “Yeah, we seen him here before,” Kid Marvel said. “Bloke who’s always got a different bleak mort on his arm, spreading the muck around.”

  “What—?” Helen began.

  “He’s always got a pretty girl with him and plenty of spending money,” Nate translated, and then shrugged at Helen’s stare. “A fellow spends time in the gambling hells, he picks up the lingo.”

  “You’d be well advised not to spend so much time in hells, sahib,” Omar said, staring sternly at Nathan. Then turning to Helen
and me, he added, “Nor should you be allowing these young ladies to chase after dangerous creatures.”

  “It’s not up to him to allow us,” Helen said, bristling. “And we’re not ordinary young ladies. We belong to the Or—”

  “Helen!” Nathan and I cried.

  “My dear young lady,” Omar said, bowing his head to Helen. “We know all about your Order. But I suggest if we are going to talk of such weighty and clandestine matters we repair to the privacy of my pavilion.”

  Helen, Nathan and I looked at each other. Omar the Magnificent and Kid Marvel were clearly not ordinary humans—or even humans at all. If they knew about the Order, they knew we were charged with destroying their kind. They might be leading us into a trap. And yet they had come to my rescue and they knew about the shadows and had seen van Drood escorting young women around Coney Island . . .

  “We shall be delighted,” Helen answered for us, as though accepting an invitation to tea. “I’ve never been to a hypnotist’s pavilion before!”

  The Golden Pavilion of Omar the Magnificent turned out to be a wooden caravan plastered with theatrical posters parked between the fun house and the freak show. From the outside it looked too small to hold the five of us—even if one of us was a dwarf—but it proved to be surprisingly commodious on the inside. The floor was covered with thick Indian carpets, the walls and ceiling draped with beautiful silk scarves edged with tiny brass bells. We were offered seats on low tufted cushions and served spicy tea from a brass samovar in delicate gilt-edged glasses.

  “How lovely!” Helen cried, sampling an iced cake from a brass tray. “I’m going to give my next tea party an Oriental theme.”

  “We’re not here to trade recipes for scones,” I said sternly. “We’re here to find a girl.” I laid Ruth’s picture on the brass tea tray. “This is Ruth Blum. She went missing on July fourth. A change—a witness said she saw Ruth meeting a man who matched van Drood’s description at the Steeplechase entrance on the day she disappeared.”

  “Your witness must not be an ordinary mortal if she was able to recall the pishaca’s face,” Omar said, seating himself cross-legged on the rug. “The pishaca is even more adept at the arts of mesmerism than I. To the undisciplined mind his face would appear as a blur.”

  “My mind is quite disciplined,” Nathan objected. “And I only recall him as a blur.”

  “You, sahib, have indeed a fine mind,” Omar said, bowing his head to Nathan, “but I am afraid it has been sadly addled by liquor—”

  “The blue ruin, eh?” Kid Marvel concurred, tapping his nose. “What a cab moll serves at a flash-panny’ll give you the barrel fever in the end. Better stick with the scandal soup.” He held up his tea glass, took a sip, and screwed his face up.

  “—and by melancholy,” Omar continued, leaning forward and pinning Nathan with his glittering black eyes. A fog seemed to rise in Nathan’s pale gray eyes, and he swayed like a cobra rising from a snake charmer’s basket.

  “Stop that!” I cried, snapping my fingers in front of Nathan’s drugged gaze. “It’s not fair to use your powers on us.”

  “No more than it’s fair for you to wander into our turf without laying all your cards on the table,” Kid Marvel snarled back, his voice an octave lower than it had been a moment before. “You know we’re madges and we knows you could turn us into the Order of the Ding-Dongs. Your kind has never shown our kind a bit of mercy. You hunt us down and kill us. Why do you think we’re hiding out here at the freak show? Where else can we go that’s safe from youse ding-dongs? Why should we trust you? Why should we help you?”

  “Madges?” I echoed. “Ding-dongs?”

  Helen had shrunk back at the dwarf’s venomous attack. Nathan was clenching his fists as if he’d like to punch the little man. Omar was silent and watching, his black eyes moving across our faces. When those eyes reached me I felt a pinprick behind each eye and an itching along my shoulder blades.

  “By madges my esteemed colleague means magical beings, and by ding-dongs, well . . .” Omar spread his hands wide. “While I admit it’s not exactly a respectful name for the Order of the Bell, I’m afraid I must agree with Mr. Marvel’s assessment. We would be foolish to trust your kind. When your emissaries came to my country they rooted out our gods and ransacked our temples. They combed our ashrams looking for children with magical ability and took those children from their homes, promising their parents they would be raised as equals in their schools.”

  Omar held up his hand. I heard Helen gasp as she recognized the ring on his finger. It bore the Bell and Feather insignia.

  “But we were never equals. They used us to learn our magic and then treated us as servants. Why should we trust you now?”

  “He’s right,” Nathan said. “Their kind and ours can never work together. They don’t care if helpless girls are being stolen from their families. They’ll never help us.” He unfolded his long legs and began to rise stiffly to his feet, pulling Helen up with him.

  “It’s you who’d sacrifice those poor helpless girls instead of taking help from our kind!” Kid Marvel cried, jumping far more agilely to his feet and jabbing his finger at Nathan’s chest, jarring Helen’s arm in the process. She dropped her teacup. As it shattered on the brass tea tray it made a sound like a bell ringing. The sound expanded in my head, swelling into a maddening peal that filled the caravan. The tiny bells on the hanging scarves rang and the glasses on the brass tray chimed. The whole caravan was shaking. I looked at Omar, sure he must be making the caravan move, but saw from his wide, surprised eyes that he wasn’t. I was the one doing it.

  “A chime child,” Omar said, with something like awe in his voice. “And an unusually powerful one.” He fastened his glittering eyes on me. I felt my wings straining against my corset as if Omar was a wing charmer and he was coaxing them out. Would he reveal my true nature to my friends?

  “A ringer!” Kid Marvel cried. “We could use you in the business, kid, if you ever get tired of working for the ding-dongs.”

  “You never know,” I answered, looking at Omar instead of Kid Marvel. “I might need a change of scenery.”

  Omar bowed low to me. “We would be honored to have you among us, garuda.”

  “Then you’ll help us?” I asked, wondering what he’d called me.

  Omar nodded at Kid Marvel, who stuck out his hand to shake mine. “Sure, kid, for a ringer, anything you want.” I was sure, though, that the reason Omar had decided to help me was because he knew now what I was, and that I couldn’t turn him and Kid Marvel in without endangering my own secret. As far as Omar and Kid were concerned I was one of them. Another madge. I supposed there were worse clubs to be a member of.

  “But I don’t know how easy it’ll be. These molls that the humbug makes away with aren’t just strolling down Fifth Avenue. He puts ’em in a flash-panny tight as the Tombs.”

  I knew by “the Tombs” he was referring to the jailhouse, but still the word made me shiver. I wasn’t sure what a flash-panny was, so I asked.

  “A house of ill repute,” Omar said. “This one’s called the Hellgate Club.”

  I shivered at the memory of the churning whirlpool that had sucked Molly down into the river last night. “There’s a place in the East River called that.”

  “Yeah, that’s what it’s named for. They say sailors who survive the Hellgate come to the club after. And,” Kid Marvel added in a lower, more ominous tone, “they say them that don’t survive frequent it too, if youse take my meaning. It’s down on the waterfront—not a neighborhood nice kiddies like yerselves ought to go. It’s surrounded by gin joints and hop dens. It looks nicer than those places, but it’s not. All them dives are havens of grace compared to the Hellgate. If your friend is there it’ll take a pretty big con to get her out.”

  “Mr. Marvel is correct,” Omar said. “The Hellgate Club is protected by the most ruthless gangsters of the underwor
ld, corrupt officers of the New York City police force and demons of the shadow world. The girls are never allowed out and the building is guarded night and day. All who work there—and all who enter—are held in thrall to the shadow demons. It would be easier to extract a prisoner from the Tombs. Only a master confidence man could get a girl out of the Hellgate.”

  “And luckily,” Kid Marvel said, grinning, “you’ve found one.”

  9

  FIVE HOURS LATER Miss Corey and I were sitting on the rooftop of the Hellgate Club, an unassuming brownstone on Water Street in the shadow of the looming Gothic tower of the nearly finished Woolworth Building and within sight—and smell—of the East River. The odor reminded me that the real Hellgate whirlpool was not far, and that poor Molly had escaped from here to throw herself in the river last night.

  Once Kid Marvel had agreed to help us he had outlined his plan—or his con as he called it—so speedily I wondered how long he’d been devising it.

  “Trick of the trade,” he’d confided. “I’m always workin’ the angle—how to get in a place, how to get out.”

  It had been clear right away that we needed more players for the con and he’d agreed to let me enlist Miss Sharp, Miss Corey, and Agnes Moorhen. We’d met at the Henry Street Settlement after it closed for the night.

  Once they’d agreed, despite Miss Corey’s reluctance to collaborate with “carnies,” as she called them, Kid Marvel had laid out the con. Agnes had suggested that her lawyer friend Sam Greenfeder could drive the “getaway” car. Sam had been in his last year of law school attending a lecture in the building next door to the Triangle factory when the fire had broken out. He and his fellow students had helped girls across the roof to safety. He’d met Agnes at the pier where the bodies were laid out and spent months helping her track me down. In recognition of his bravery, Sam Greenfeder had been deputized as a retainer to the Order and entrusted with the rudiments of its mysteries.