Ravencliffe

by Carol Goodman

  “What do you mean our sashes?” Helen asked, her voice suddenly icy.

  “Oh, didn’t I say? I suggested to Dame Beckwith that she make you both wardens, too. I thought it would help with Helen’s . . . er . . .” she cupped her hand around her mouth and stage whispered, “tuition expenses. You’ll even be paid a stipend that you can use for pocket money. Mr. Appleby and I agree that a woman should make her own money and be independent—”

  “How very thoughtful of you, Daisy,” Helen, who had been turning nearly the same violet shade as her new badge throughout Daisy’s speech, interrupted in a sugary voice, “to remember me in my impoverished state. But why, pray tell, have you volunteered Ava? She’s still rich.”

  “Oh,” Daisy beamed, “that’s the best part. Since we’re all wardens we get our first pick of rooms on any floor. I chose our old room for us. I thought you’d like that, Helen. What will all the other . . . er . . . alterations you’ve had to endure.”

  For a moment I thought Helen might throttle Daisy, but instead she crushed her to her bosom and, eyes shining, said, “That’s perfect, Daze. That’s exactly what I need.”

  In the next few hours I saw how right Daisy had been to get us our old room back. It was true that Blythewood had not changed for centuries. The very castle had been brought stone by stone from the Order’s first abbey in Scotland; the men’s monastery was still there serving as our brother school, Hawthorn. The events of last spring, though—the shadow demons’ attack on the castle and the return of the long-lost Sir Miles Malmsbury and Nathan’s sister from Faerie—had jarred the school off-kilter, as if one of the ancient cornerstones had been yanked out of its foundations. Daisy filled us in as we made our way up to the fourth floor of the South Wing.

  “First of all, Sir Miles and Miss Frost got married.”

  “No!” Helen cried. “Do you mean to say that Euphorbia Frost is now Lady Malmsbury?”

  “Oh no, Sir Malmsbury has renounced his title. He says that among the lychnobious people such class distinctions are considered primitive. He and Miss Frost—who has chosen to keep her maiden name in the spirit of progressivism—will be teaching a class on the tolerance and understanding of cultural differences of nonhuman species.”

  “That is a change,” Helen said. “Last year she was pinning and pickling lampsprites.”

  “It’s a good change,” I added, thinking to myself that if the Order was beginning to accept the lampsprites, perhaps they would someday accept the Darklings.

  “Not everyone thinks so. Miss Swift threatened to quit if she couldn’t use lampsprite feathers in her arrows after Sir—I mean, Mr.—Malmsbury explained that the lampsprites consider the use of their feathers as weapons a desecration of their most sacred beliefs. The lampsprites came up with an ingenious compromise. They offered to collect stray bird feathers from the forest for Miss Swift. Featherbell came up with the idea,” Daisy added proudly. Featherbell was the lampsprite Daisy had rescued last year.

  “Featherbell?” Helen asked. “Are you still . . . in touch?”

  It was a little hard to imagine how Daisy could have corresponded with a creature who communicated telepathically by dispersing the powder from her wings.

  “I saw her as soon as I got back. She had a lot to tell me—as did I her.” Helen turned bright pink. “I still haven’t told you—oh, you there, new girl, you can’t block the hall with those trunks. I don’t care if your father owns the Knickerbocker Bank—”

  We left Daisy remonstrating with a nestling who appeared to have brought the entire contents of Ladies’ Mile with her and proceeded to our old room at the end of the hall. While I was relieved to have our old room back, I saw now that the disadvantage was that we were surrounded by nestlings. Loud nestlings.

  “Were we this . . . boisterous last year?” I asked Helen as we threaded through a clot of giggling girls.

  “I have never been boisterous,” Helen replied, scowling at a girl practicing a dance step in the middle of the hall. “I don’t know what the Council was thinking this year. Clearly they’ve lowered their standards. And we’ll have to be ‘in charge’ of this lot. I’m not sure I like Daisy taking the liberty of volunteering us to be wardens.”

  I was pretty sure that what Helen didn’t like was the fact she needed the money from the job. “But don’t you see,” I said, “it will give us the perfect opportunity to keep an eye on Etta.”

  As I said her name she flitted by with Mary and Susannah. “Oh, Avaleh, what a wonderful place! Daisy arranged for me to share with Mary and Susannah and I even have my own bed! Mary and Susannah are showing me the washrooms. They’re indoors, on the very same floor!” She disappeared with her new roommates to discover the wonders of indoor plumbing.

  “I’d say Etta doesn’t need much watching over,” Helen said. “Let’s hope the rest of them don’t. I’m not looking to be nursemaid to a bunch of nestlings. Perhaps there’s an aversion spell we can cast over our door to keep them from intruding—as these girls are trying to do. That’s our room,” she said loudly as we came to the end of the hall and found two new girls peering inside.

  “Oh, we just wanted to have a look,” a girl in a pink gingham dress and matching hair ribbons said. “It’s quite the best room. Do you have to be warden to get it?”

  “Not at all,” Helen replied haughtily. “For your information my roommates and I performed acts of valor and heroism last year, for which we were rewarded with our choice of rooms. Perhaps when you have ceased wasting your time with silly dance steps and ribbons you will someday do something worthy of such an honor. In the meantime, I suggest you change out of that ridiculous pink dress and try to comport yourself like a Blythewood girl. Now, shoo!”

  Helen waved the goggle-eyed girl away and swept into our room. I hurried in behind her, giving the frightened girl an apologetic look. I was hardly in before Helen slammed the door behind her and leaned back against it as if barricading the entrance from an attacking army of goblins and trows.

  “What an insufferable ninny!”

  “Actually, she reminded me of Daisy last year. Remember, Helen, these girls haven’t had their initiation yet. They seem frivolous and silly because they haven’t learned what the world’s really like. They don’t know about the door to Faerie, or the frightening creatures that roam the woods, or that they will be called upon to defend the world from those creatures. Why not let them be silly for a few more hours before they have to face those horrors?”

  Helen stared at me for a long moment, during which I imagined she was thinking of a different set of horrors—creditors, unpaid bills, poverty, an enforced loveless marriage.

  “You’re right,” she said. “Let them enjoy their innocence a few more hours. But don’t tell me I have to watch it.”

  Helen glanced around the room and sighed. “At least this is the same. Good old Daze, she must have spent hours setting the room up just as it was.”

  I looked around and saw what she meant. Helen’s and Daisy’s beds, on opposite sides of the long room, were made up with the same cheerful quilts we’d had last year. A tray with teapot, teacups, tea caddy, cocoa canister, and biscuit tin was laid out by the fireside where we used to have our tea and cocoa parties. Worn but comfy cushions—raided from the downstairs parlor—were strewn around the hearth.

  On the mantel were framed photographs taken last year—Helen winning first prize for archery, the three of us, arms linked around one another’s waists, in front of Violet House, and one of Nate clowning beside the statue of Diana in the garden, Helen in the background trying to look severe and failing. Helen paused in front of that one with a wistful look on her face. I turned away to give her privacy and carried my bag over to the chest by my bed.

  My bed was on the far end of the room, fitted into an alcove below a window with a view of the river. Knowing how I liked fresh air, Daisy had left the window open. A breeze flutte
red the lace curtains, letting in the scent of river water, roses from the garden, fresh grass . . . and something else. I knelt on the bed, opened the window wider, and leaned out, sniffing the air. I smelled moss and tree bark and leaf mulch, the wild cresses that grew in the secret forest springs, and the resin of pine needles. The Blythe Wood. I not only smelled it, I heard it—the wind soughing through acres of pine, the rattle of dry leaves falling from oak and maple and beech, the song of birds calling one to the other, the rustle of small creatures gathering food for winter, even the roots seeking through the soil for water. All of it calling to me, stirring the wings beneath my skin to break free and take flight . . .

  “If you’re not careful you’re going to fall out.” Helen’s reproving voice called me back from the brink. I drew my head in, untangling a curtain from my hair. My hand brushed against something caught in the lace: a long black feather.

  I quickly glanced in Helen’s direction to see if she had noticed, but she was turned away from me, contentedly folding her chemises and corsets into a drawer, humming to herself and every so often lifting her eyes to the picture of Nathan, which she’d moved to the top of her bureau. Speared on the sharpened quill point of the feather was a piece of folded paper. I unfolded it.

  Meet me tonight in the woods, it read. There’s something I must tell you.

  The note wasn’t signed, but there was only one person it could be from. My heart pounding, I folded the note into a tiny square and tucked it into my skirt pocket along with the feather, where, for the rest of the afternoon as I unpacked, they rustled like trapped birds.

  13

  IT WAS DIFFICULT to get through the afternoon and dinner with Raven’s note stirring restlessly in my pocket. What made it worse was that in our new capacity as wardens we were each expected to oversee a nestling table. I managed to get Etta’s table with Mary, Susannah, Myrtilene, and two girls whose names I instantly forgot, but I would have much preferred sitting with my friends. I briefly saw Beatrice and Dolores in passing, but only long enough for Beatrice to say they had some momentous news that we’d hear at dinner and for Dolores to give me a silent, but surprisingly firm, hug. Camilla Bennett flew by me on the stairs and quite startled me by announcing she’d gotten her “wings.” After a moment I realized she wasn’t talking about the kind of wings I was getting. Cam was an aviation enthusiast, so she no doubt meant she had taken flying lessons.

  But for now I had to answer an endless litany of questions that ranged from “Why are there so many forks?” (from Susannah) to “Is that bacon in the soup?” (from a wide-eyed Etta) to “Is this what y’all eat up here?” (from Myrtilene) to “What’s this initiation all the girls are whispering about?” (from a frightened-looking Mary).

  “Don’t worry,” I told Mary, “you’ll be safe. It’s just . . .” I found myself unable to finish. What else could I tell her? That everything she thought she knew about the world was about to be cracked in two? That she would be all right? Not everybody survived the initiation mentally intact. Miss Sharp’s uncle Taddie had become so agitated during the initiation that he’d run off, gotten lost in the woods, and never been the same again. Some girls became hysterical and left the school. Nathan’s sister, Louisa, was so haunted by what she had learned that she was drawn back into the woods and got stuck in Faerie. For all I knew there were girls who never made it back. What was I doing leading these innocent girls into danger? How different was I from van Drood abducting girls into the Hellgate Club?

  “Actually, Mary—” I began.

  “Actually, Mary,” a male voice drawled, “you’ll be perfectly fine because I’ll be keeping an eye on you.”

  Nathan plucked an apple from the basket on the table, tossed it into the air, and winked at me. Mary MacCrae dimpled and blushed.

  “You must be Dame Beckwith’s son. We’ve heard all about you.”

  “Don’t believe a word of it,” Nathan said, crunching into the apple. “Rumors fly around here—actually, a lot of things do.” Again he winked at me. I shifted uneasily in my seat and heard Raven’s note crinkling in my pocket.

  “Second years don’t normally go to the initiation,” I said to Nathan, more to cover up my guilty secret than because I cared about the rules.

  “Spoken like a strict warden,” Nathan rejoined. “But how could I resist accompanying such lovely ladies?” He gave Mary and Susannah a smile that reduced them to simpering puddles of giggles. Even Myrtilene was stretching her long neck to work her way into Nathan’s field of vision. I glanced across the room to where Helen was sitting two tables away and saw her scowling in our direction. Perhaps that was the whole point of Nathan’s performance—to make Helen jealous.

  Or perhaps not. After a witticism that made the whole table burst into laughter Nathan bent down to retrieve a fallen napkin and whispered in my ear, “I’ll be keeping an eye on you, too, Ava.” Then he retreated with bows and smiles for the new girls.

  “Oh, what a handsome and charming young man!” Mary MacCrae swooned with one hand pressed over her heart.

  “And a very brave one,” Etta said, looking up from her nearly untouched plate.

  Et tu, Etta? I almost said, but then I remembered that Nathan had rescued Ruth from the Hellgate Club. Of course he was a hero to Etta—as he clearly was to the rest of the girls. I had my work cut out getting them to quiet down when the first bell rang.

  “Shh . . .” I hissed, pointing to the gold handbell in the middle of our table. “One of you has to ring the bell. It’s part of the tradition.”

  All the girls except for Myrtilene looked toward Etta, who, smiling shyly, grasped the bell in her small hand and rang it fiercely.

  The Great Hall filled with the clamor of ringing bells as the teachers of Blythewood filed onto the stage. I told the girls each of their names as they appeared: Vionetta Sharp, Rupert Bellows, Euphorbia Frost followed by Miles Malmsbury, returned from Faerie—both he and Miss Frost wearing elaborate ceremonial headdresses of lampsprite feathers, which I supposed the lychnobious people did not find objectionable—Martin Peale, the bell master, Matilda Swift, the archery mistress, and Mrs. Calendar, the ancient Latin mistress. I was looking out for Professor Jager, our science teacher and Beatrice and Dolores’s father, but instead a svelte gentleman in black tails, bow tie, white gloves, and spats glided onto the stage.

  “Oh, look!” Mary cried. “It’s Herr Hofmeister, the dancing master.”

  “But where’s Professor Jager?” I wondered aloud.

  I looked across the hall to Beatrice and Dolores’s table. They were both sitting ramrod straight with their hands clasped tightly in front of them, eyes shining. Had something happened to their father? I tried to catch Helen’s eyes, but she was rolling them skyward as the elegant dancing master grabbed ancient Mrs. Calendar and spun her around to the delight and amusement of students and teachers alike.

  I looked back to the center of the dais, where even Dame Beckwith was smiling indulgently at the dancing teacher’s antics. She pantomimed a little applause and then turned her gaze on the room, commanding silence with her clear gray eyes. When her gaze fell on me I felt a tingling down my shoulder blades. I suddenly recalled that Dame Beckwith possessed the power of compelling truth with her gaze. What if she could tell merely by looking at me that I was turning into a Darkling? Worse, what if her gaze could draw the wings right out of my back? I could feel them pressing against the tight laces of my corset. I imagined fabric splitting, my wings exploding into the air, the shocked and horrified faces of my friends and schoolmates and teachers . . . then the drawn bows of the Dianas and the lethal arrow to the heart.

  But then Dame Beckwith smiled at me.

  Instantly I felt a peacefulness pervade my soul. My wings subsided, my heart slowed. As she had last year, Dame Beckwith began by acknowledging those who had not returned to Blythewood. I thought of Sarah Lehman, my friend who had turned out to be a spy for van
Drood and had perished in the fire during the battle with the tenebrae. As Dame Beckwith spoke proudly of our alumnae who’d gone into the world to spread the mission of the school to the four corners of the globe, I thought of the seniors who had graduated last year. It all sounded very inspiring, but I couldn’t forget what Omar had said, that the emissaries of the Order had combed through the temples and ashrams of India looking for magical adepts to use their skills—but not to invite them into the Order.

  Then I realized Dame Beckwith was talking about Professor Jager.

  “. . . and one of our esteemed professors has also gone into the world on a mission of the utmost importance. Professor Ernst Jager”—Dame Beckwith looked toward Beatrice and Dolores, who sat up even straighter and glowed with pride—“has gone abroad on a diplomatic mission of great delicacy and international significance. It is no exaggeration to say that the very fate of civilization as we know it hangs in the balance. That is how important the Order of the Bell is. You girls are the heirs to that tradition of service. Who knows what missions each of you may be called upon to perform in the difficult times that lie ahead.”

  Dame Beckwith paused and allowed her gaze to travel around the room. As her gaze fell on each girl she sat a little straighter, and her eyes burned a little more fiercely. “Let us begin, then, as we do each year, by pledging ourselves to the light and pledging ourselves by the bell.”

  After dinner the nestlings rushed upstairs to their cocoa parties, but I stopped Etta outside the dining hall.

  “You didn’t eat anything,” I said, looking down at her plate. “I know you’re excited to be in a new place . . .” I faltered when I saw her blushing, then I blushed myself. “I am a complete idiot! Of course your family keeps kosher. I’ll speak to the cook immediately—”