by Anya Allyn
The maids curtsied and left.
Zach’s father brought me back out to the ocean passage.
A young man dressed in medieval soldier’s clothing walked up to me. His face was the same as the man who had stood beside me in the chapel. Balthazar. Only this was a younger version of him, not more than twenty. But his eyes held the same cold glare—that of black volcanic glass. This was a man who would have one day impaled live people for pleasure and watched them die in agony, had he remained in his own world.
He circled me. “This be my bride?”
“Yes, Balthazar,” Zach’s father told him. “This is she.”
A sneering smile inched across the man’s face. “She doth not look happy to see me.”
The people laughed.
“She is yours.” Zach’s father opened his palms out, as though giving me to this Balthazar.
Balthazar stared at me intently, arching an eyebrow.
“And as per our agreement,” continued Zach’s father, “once your body becomes one with the spirit Balthazar of the chateau here, everything will be yours. You will be as king, with riches beyond compare—riches that are soon for the taking. Do you understand?”
He nodded. “Thy speech and thy times are strange indeed, but I hath understood and I wilt do this. I wilt sacrifice myself for the glory and greatness.”
Zach’s father exhaled slowly. “We are relieved. For if you are willing, your spirit will keep your body alive. Last time we brought a Balthazar of a different world, and we did not explain anything to him—we did not prepare him. And therefore his body did not last.”
“But this time,” the young man said, “my body wilt live forever. Is that not the truth of it?”
Behind him, the men glanced warily at each other.
“That is the truth.” Zach’s father gave a solemn nod.
I knew they had lied to him. Balthazar’s ghost had told me the new body would live long enough to impregnate me and not much longer. I knew that without the knowledge of the second book, the castle people could not bring a healthy body through the centuries. The young man standing before me would soon turn to dust and ruin.
Parker’s father caught the look in my eyes. He turned to Balthazar. “Remember, you must not listen to anything this girl says to you.”
The man shrugged in my direction. “She is but a female. I hast no time for their fanciful chatter.”
“You will accompany this young man into Balthazar’s chambers,” said Zach’s father to me. “He will become one with Balthazar and then you will consummate your marriage—which is an honor and a privilege for you.”
I stared at him rigidly. “You are not even half the man your son is.”
His expression faltered. “Zachary allowed himself to be swayed by a pretty face. But he understands that his loyalties lie with his family, and he will grow into his destiny.”
“There is no destiny,” I spat. “Only fools believe in such things. No one is born to rule.”
The young double of Balthazar closed his fist around my arm. “This one hath the mouth of a man.” He brought his face close to mine. “Thou wilt do as thou art asked, fille. Shut thy mouth before I shut it for thee.”
The speech of the younger Balthazar was not as slow and calculated as the elder, but the same icy hardness lay underneath.
He took the casks of wine offered to him by Francoeur in one hand and pushed me roughly toward the other end of the ocean passage, turning his head back to the others. “I wilt see thou all on the other side.”
Nodding, they bowed at him and left the passage. I heard the click of the door being bolted from the other side.
I was alone here with this man. My body was made of sawdust and glue as I stepped from the sunlight into the darkness of the passages. He strode behind me impatiently. When we reached the chambers, he moved past me, gazing about the grimy quarters both in horror and in raw anticipation.
He set the casks of wine down on the children’s drawers, fingering the set of metal toy soldiers that stood there. “These soldiers be mine, when I be a boy.”
He startled as his gaze fell upon the sleeping Balthazar.
The ghost-Balthazar’s eyes snapped open.
I felt a sword of ice twist inside me. After months of slumber, he was about to rise.
Balthazar’s ghost disappeared from the bed and appeared before us. A grin slithered across his charred, deformed head. “Yes,” he hissed. “I am to live again.”
The young man took a quick step back, taken aback by the sight of the ghost. “You art me?”
Balthazar’s ghost nodded. “I am what you would have become.”
The man’s mouth twitched. “The villagers did this to thee?”
“Yes.” Balthazar’s ghost raised his eyebrow-less forehead. “I see revulsion in thine eyes. Thou art young and think thee art king of the world and nothing canst harm thee. But the villagers struck back. They brought fire to my room and burned me whilst I slept.”
“Prithee tell what crime caused such outrage?”
“No greater crimes than thee hast committed.”
“I hast committed no crimes.”
Thou canst not say you hast committed no crimes yet. I see in your eyes you hast already wrought foul deeds upon your fellow humans.”
The young man pushed his chest out. “I am bound by the laws of no country. My deeds hath done nothing if not rid my own world of some of the unworthy.”
Sighing, Balthazar’s ghost moved closer. “Ye wouldst hath stopped lying to thyself about thine supposed noble quest one day, had thee stayed in thine own world, and ye wouldst hath stepped fully into thine darkest desires. How I appear to thee now is nothing but a reflection of the darkness inside thee.”
“Ye art an old man whom traveled thy own path. Be it that our paths were the same to a point, the paths I wouldst hath taken be not written in blood.”
“Ah, but the seeds be planted. The sapling becometh the tree. An apple tree doth not become a peach tree.” He smiled cruelly. “Ye hast been to the tree—the Speculum Nemus—upon which the castle be built, and there ye hath committed deeds thou durst not speak to thy mother. I say to thee that thy path be hammered out in Satan’s own forge. Ye hast just come to thy end route sooner.”
A thin streak of sweat traveled along the side of the man’s face. “I was assured by Seigneurs Batiste and Baldcott that if I doth not desire to go forward with the exchange, then I art free to return to my world.”
The eyes of Balthazar’s ghost bulged with a yellow patina as he stared into the eyes of his younger self. “But I art thou,” he crooned. “What I desire be what thou desires. The exchange wilt take place. Thou canst not run from me—I wilt take thee and I wilt use thy body. When your body crumbles from me, they shalt bring me a replacement. Do not concern thyself. Thee shalt surely live long enough for me to delight myself in this girl and put my child inside her.”
The man’s trembling hands tightened into fists. “Non! That be not the promise.” He backed away. “I am promised eternal life, not to be used and cast aside.”
“Ye made a deal with thine own self, for I am thee. And ye must know, more than any soul in the universes, that thy words are not to be held in good faith.”
Balthazar’s ghost advanced on him, his mouth cavity growing and widening horribly, like a snake. He swallowed the yelling and horrified man’s head, and then his body.
Only one Balthazar now stood in the room—a flesh-and-blood Balthazar, with smooth skin, and dark hair falling over sharply handsome features. For a moment, terror shot through his eyes—the terror of the young man who had walked into this room just moments ago. But only for a moment. Balthazar gazed down at his limbs and his hands, a cold fire lighting in his eyes.
His gaze lifted to me. “I wilt take thee now, bride.”
My body petrified to stone.
“Speak!” Stepping toward me, he twisted my arm. “Thou wilt speak and bow before me and tell me it is an honor for the
e to receive me. If thou doth not, I wilt make thee scream. I will not bed a silent bride.”
His breath was poison on my face.
My mind was ash and decay.
Raising my chin, I met his dark eyes. “If I must speak, then I must speak the truth. A new body does not change you from being the foulest creature who ever walked the earths.”
Incensed, he smacked his hand backwards against my face, sending me to the floor. “I told thee I am a harsh husband and thee will soon learn the extent of my temper.”
By the arm, he dragged me toward the marriage bed. My skin scraped on the rough stone—my limbs too numb to feel the pain.
He pushed me onto the bed, his smile leering. My mind tore away.
“Thou hast grown even more beauteous during the months I slept.” He pulled and clutched at the lace and ribbons of the wedding night gown, his breath hot on my face and smelling of death.
Terrified sounds gasped from my chest.
I wished I’d taken the chambermaid’s advice and had downed the wine she’d offered me. All of it. On the distant wall, the brides of Balthazar stood in the cabinet. I imagined Etiennette’s eyes fluttering open, staring at me.
You suffered what I am now to suffer, I told her silently.
I welcomed the insanity of seeing Etiennette move. I would go willingly into a fantasy world.
My hands curled into fists.
Stopping for a moment, Balthazar turned his head and cursed in French. “I need wine to wet my tongue. Centuries without a drunken night hath sullied my senses. Didst I see some in the nursery? Girl, fetch me the wine.”
Crawling backwards from the bed, I turned my face away from his. It was a reprieve—however brief.
I stepped away and around the corner to the area where the children’s quarter stood. Stepping toward the cask of wine, I stared at the thick red liquid—liquid like blood. Like all the blood ever spilled in the world. Like the blood of the girls in the cabinet.
My fist curled around the cask. My mind fixed on the key I’d hidden within the drawer beneath. It had been my one secret, my one connection to something far and away from Balthazar. The pattern of Voulo’s opening of the doors played in my head in rapid succession. I recalled his need to close and lock the doors as quickly as he could.
Thorns pricked the back of my neck. What if Voulo had to close the doors to stop something from happening—or to stop something from getting out?
My heart stilled.
Prudence’s words burned in my mind. She’d said that Balthazar might have bound the spirits of every one of his brides.
If that were true, it would explain Voulo’s crazy haste in shutting and locking the doors. But if their spirits were really in there, would the opening of the cabinet doors cause the brides to wake?
A fearsome plan jolted inside me, shooting through my veins with electric charge.
If Balthazar chose to keep me in the cabinet after each time in his bed, I might never have the chance I had now. Even if Balthazar’s human body crumbled away and his spirit went back to sleep, Voulo would start locking me away again. And next time, I doubted Voulo would want to wait for me to die of natural causes before he stuffed me into the marionette case—permanently. I might never have the chance to find out for myself what it was that had Voulo slamming the doors as though demons would escape. I had to find out for myself—now.
Breath caught fast in my chest. Sliding the drawer open, I retrieved the key from inside the jewelry box. Stepping to the board of keys, I stole the five keys from their hooks that I’d seen Voulo take so many times, taking care not to let them jangle against each other. The stool was still against the cabinets. Voulo hadn’t had to put me back into the cabinet this morning. As silently as I could manage, I slid the keys into their locks. I gazed at Etiennette’s painted wooden face as I pushed Reed’s key in. I had all six keys in place.
“Cassandra, do not delay thy fate,” Balthazar commanded. “If I must fetch thee, it wilt go so much the worse for thee.”
My heart clutched and released like a fist. I turned each key in its lock.
It was done. My last act of defiance.
The marionettes remained motionless.
The shutting of the doors had to be just some nervous compulsion of Voulo’s. Nothing more.
“Cassandra!”
I took the casks and made heavy steps toward Balthazar. He reclined spread-eagled on the bed, a cruel light in his eyes. My fingers shook on the casks—a fact that didn’t go unnoticed by him. A sneer edged into his mouth. He gestured for me to walk quicker.
As I laid the casks on the chest beside him, his hands grabbed my shoulders, digging into my flesh. “Thou art slow as a stuck pig. Remove thy garments and show thy husband thy submission.”
I drew back, my fingers fumbling for the ties of the negligee.
His chin jerked slightly as his attention moved from my chest to something behind me. “Be there anyone skulking about in this room? I sense someone and my senses never be wrong. Voulo? If thou want to watch, show thyself.”
No answer came.
Rising from the bed, Balthazar exhaled air hard between his teeth. Angrily, he knocked past me and stepped around the room. “Be thee human, I wilt stretch thee on the rack and strike thy peeping eyes with hammer and nails! Be thee spirit I wilt crush thee into oblivion.”
I stared at the marionettes—and awaited my fate. The marionettes remained perched in their half-sitting half-standing pose as they had for centuries.
He turned slowly as he caught sight of the keys in the cabinet doors from his side vision. He angled his head toward me, rage flashing in his eyes. “Thou didst this?”
My breaths rattled in my throat, loud in my ears.
Instead of advancing toward me, he rushed at the cabinets, toward Etiennette’s compartment. Unlike Voulo and myself, he didn’t need the stool—he was more than tall enough to reach. “Voulo!” he yelled, “I doth not recall thy cursed combination of the locks!”
Etiennette’s eyes opened.
They opened.
Her lips parted, and she raised a hand to the glass—her palm against the thick glass of her prison.
As I watched, filmy spirits pulled painfully from their wooden hosts—their eyes beset with grief and confusion.
Balthazar recoiled as though he’d been seared with a hot poker, staring at his past wives in horror. He stumbled backward.
Etiennette pushed her door open and stepped from her prison—leaving her wooden marionette behind. Standing on the floor, she tried to speak, but no words came. But in her eyes I saw her fear for me. She made her way across the room—stopping at the children’s quarters. Gently, she rocked the two cradles. I felt her sadness and her longing.
Balthazar’s eyes grew round as he followed her. “It hath been a long night since last I saw thee, Etiennette.”
Disdain passed through the childlike planes of her face.
“Thou canst look at me with revile, but thee art my wife yet,” he asserted. He pointed to me. “She is but a replacement for you. I doth wed her, but she wilt not take your place. Etiennette, we wilt be together again before long, my love.”
She shook her head, tossing her long hair down her back. “Non! Jamais plus!”
Her mouth did not move and her voice sounded as though it came from a distance. I understood that she had told him never again.
His mouth pressed into an angry line. “Thou art but a weak shadow of thyself. I command thee return to thy resting place, until time comes for thy resurrection.”
More spirits broke free from their places in the open cabinets, unnoticed by Balthazar. The five spirits moved free of the cabinets. Raising their arms, they forced keys to fly off their hooks and through the air to the cabinet. The keys inserted themselves into the locks, and turned with a series of clicks. The other thirty-one spirits woke, their faces registering the same alarm and wonder as the first six. They joined their sister-brides. Their spirits seemed weak and waver
ing as they gathered behind Balthazar in their flowing dresses, like a silent Greek chorus.
Balthazar wheeled around. “Voulo!” he roared.
Voulo appeared in the middle of the chambers. His mouth opened in disgust and fear at the sight of the spirits.
“How didst Cassandra open the cabinet? And how didst she gain Etiennette’s key?” Balthazar demanded.
Voulo stiffened. “The key is on my chain, Master, where it is hath always been.” He held the key up to show Balthazar. His gaze pierced me as he looked my way. “She is a witch! I didst knoweth this whence I saw her flesh heal itself of the affliction. She doth pretend innocence yet she doth use sorcery.”
Balthazar turned sharply to me, then to the other brides. “Thou art witches—all of thee. None of thee are to be trusted or art worthy to be wives of le château sur la falaise solitaire. Return! I bind thee!” Helplessly, he swept the regiment of tin soldiers to the floor. “Did thou not hear me? I bind thee!”
A girl with the palest of white hair closed her eyes and tilted her head upward. Her expression calmed, as though a great peace had come upon her. Her spirit faded, until all that was left was an empty space where she had stood. I knew she hadn’t returned to the cabinet. She had gone to wherever spirits go. Balthazar seemed to have no hold over them—perhaps there were too many. Together, they were a force.
Panic gripped me. If that girl had gone, then they all would go. And I would be left alone with Balthazar, and made to pay for what I’d done.
But the remaining spirits didn’t leave yet. They moved toward Balthazar and Voulo, circling them, restraining them. I sensed that the girls couldn’t manage to hold them for long. The girls hadn’t spent the centuries practicing their craft as spirits—they had been in a long sleep.
Etiennette broke away from the circle, making her way over to me. She wrung her hands together as her dark eyes looked into mine. She was so like me, so like Prudence.
“Cassandra Claiborne,” I told her breathlessly, pointing at my chest.
From her frowning expression, I knew she didn’t understand me.
Desperately, I tried to remember French phrases. I didn’t know the word for ancestor. “Famille,” I told her, using the French word for family.