by Anya Allyn
“I don’t have time for this,” said Ethan.
“Don’t have time for us here? Too busy with the cushy castle life and hobnobbing with the snakes, right?”
Ethan jabbed a finger in the man’s direction. “Calhoun, you know nothing about where I’ve been.” Ethan closed his hand around mine and strode away, taking me with him.
“Stay away from the weapons stores. I don’t trust you, McAllister.”
Ethan stopped. “I’m not going anywhere near the stores.”
“Then where are you going in such a damned hurry?”
“The basement, if you have to know. Cassie just wants to check on the girls.”
Mr. Calhoun shook his head in an exaggerated gesture. “Nope. Right now, I’m taking you two to the Order, and they can decide what to do with you.”
“That’s insane,” Ethan told him. “I’m not going to stand here and argue with you.”
But the Order were already stepping down the stairs from an upper level together, their faces turned to us expectantly.
Mr. Calhoun motioned toward us to walk up to the meeting area.
By the time we arrived there, it seemed the entire population of the museum had assembled themselves. By their curious eyes, I guessed most had come to see why the long-gone Ethan and the strange girl were back again. Only the scientists and some of the children were missing. Sophronia, Frances and Nabaasa weren’t there either. Disappointment sharpened inside me—I’d hoped to see them. Overhead, the massive aquarium was empty—the lone shark had perhaps become food.
“What about the people we saw outside?” I whispered to Ethan.
He eyed me grimly. “I’m afraid we can’t do anything about that right now. Calhoun is just going to dispute us. It looks like they headed somewhere else, whoever they were. There’s still people surviving out there somewhere.”
I fell into silence. But an unease had settled inside me. People who weren’t rangers normally dressed in colors as close to white as possible so they wouldn’t be seen. Those two hadn’t bothered. Had the castle people followed me so soon?
I shivered. My limbs were so cold I was beginning to feel like I were turning to stone.
Sister Bettina made quick steps toward me, her mouth drawn in. “Miss Claiborne, surely you are aware that your attire might well inflame the male population of the museum, and cause them to sin in their minds.” She took an overcoat from one of her male followers and handed it to me.
“Sister,” Ethan exploded, “we’ve just escaped from a monster. She needs blankets and rest. Her leg is all scraped and bloody from swimming through an underwater cave. She's freezing. Yet all you care about is what she’s wearing?”
I stared down at my calf. I hadn't even noticed that I was hurt. Silently, I took the bulky coat and slipped my arms into it. I didn’t care what I wore. My mind was distant... far and away from here. My mind was fog and splinters of glass. I could see Balthazar’s murderous eyes in the ocean cave. I could see Prudence with her life draining from her in the tower. I could see Etiennette’s spirit pulling free from her marionette prison. And I could see the light in Ethan’s eyes as he handed me the music box.
Satisfied, Sister Bettina took calculated steps to the front of the group. Her voice rang out, but I didn’t hear what she said. It was only when her sharp gaze centered on Ethan and myself that her words grated clearly in my ears. “We have called a meeting in light of the new, and troubling, developments. As we are all aware, when Ethan McAllister unceremoniously took his departure from us, we were mysteriously granted a reprieve from the threat of the monstrous serpents. Now, are we to assume that on Ethan’s return, we will again be plagued by the serpents?”
The Order murmured among themselves.
“He’s been gone three long months—that much is true.” A man dressed in the rough-robe garb of the council nodded at Sister Bettina.
A cry rattled in my throat. “You don’t understand anything. The serpents were called off because of me, not because of Ethan being away.”
Sister Bettina’s gaze needled into me. “Because of you? How so?”
I breathed deeply. Ethan turned to me with alarm in his eyes, but I couldn’t stay silent while they blamed him. “It was a marriage agreement.”
Mr. Calhoun grabbed my wrist, turning my hand around. “What’s this bloody thing on your finger?”
The ugly, ornate ring that I had been forced to wear on my wedding to Balthazar caught a slant of light from a high window—showing the depth of the red color. I hadn’t been able to wrench the thing off—Etiennette had been three years younger, and she was smaller than me—her ring was tight.
A man with white hair and sallow skin inspected the ring closely. “This is old. I mean old. I owned an antique jewelry store in Maine—and while I can say with all certainty that I never saw anything like this, I’d place it as being fourteenth century.”
Sister Bettina peered from the other side. “So, she wears a ring from the castle itself?”
The man gently took my hand from Mr. Calhoun and turned it to and fro. “Yes, I think so. It bears the crest of a castle at least. And this is no ruby or any lesser stone. This is a most rare gem—so rare as to be practically unobtainable. A red diamond. Such a ring would have been reserved for medieval kings to bestow on their brides. And so, such a ring can only have been stolen from the royal treasury, or gained through marriage to the lord of the castle.”
The assembly stared at me with frozen faces.
Ethan put an arm around my shoulders, moving me away from the man and Sister Bettina. “Yes. Cassie became the wife of Balthazar Batiste. But by force.”
Sister Bettina spread her hand over her chest. “You have brought a bride of that foul creature here?”
“It was not her choice. It was a forced marriage,” Ethan repeated. “The marriage is hardly valid. And anyway, he is nothing but a spirit.”
The sister pursed her lips. “Was the wedding presided over by a priest?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
She drew herself up, her chin jutting out. “Then you are his bride, and you will return to your fate. There can be no more discussion on the matter.”
Ethan’s breaths grew rapid with anger. “She does not belong with him.”
“A marriage is a marriage and we shall honor it, Mr. McAllister,” she said primly.
One of the guards—a short, stocky woman with black hair dye almost grown out of her blonde locks—shot Ethan and me a sympathetic glance. “Where’ve you been, Ethan? We were all going crazy wondering what happened to you.”
Ethan tore his locked gaze away from Sister Bettina, relaxing slightly as he looked the guard’s way. “Hey, Zoe. The castle tried to kill me, but they didn’t succeed. I ended up far north—in Canada. A family found me drowning in a lake and saved me. In return, I helped them fight the rangers and get their children to safety. It took everything I had to make my way back to Miami and then back to the castle to find Cassie. I finally get here with her, and this is the reception I get.” He shot a meaningful glance at Sister Bettina and the council who stood behind her.
The sister clasped her hands together as though she were about to start praying. “We have no way of discerning the truth. All we can do is to try and protect the small enclave of light that we have established here. A place for the faithful to fight against great evil to the best of their ability.”
Ethan dropped his arm from around me and strode toward her. “I’d been here at the museum since the beginning. I fought for all of you. I rescued the captives. I risked life and limb to go out and bring back food and supplies. Isn’t that proof enough of who I am?”
She closed her eyes, as though to shut him out. “Have you noticed a number of our guards and people missing? They joined with the rangers. They turned against us. We know for certain that we can trust in the Order of Sister Celia, in those who remain in the museum day after day, bending their minds to the task of keeping the castle at bay. But in regard to t
hose who roam outside the enclave, we have no way of knowing what they do.”
Zoe bristled. “Without those who go out and risk their lives to take food and supplies from the rangers’ stores, none of you would survive.” The guard was small in size, but I could tell she didn’t stand back or keep quiet easily. I liked her.
“You speak truth,” said Sister Bettina. “But things are what they are. And now, with a bride of the castle here, we will have a barrage unleashed upon us of the type that we will perhaps not be able to endure. Life gives us difficult choices, Miss Manford, and it is crucial that we do our best with the choices we have.”
Zoe’s hand tightened on her rifle. “We protect those who seek shelter here. That’s what we’ve done since this insane ice age started.”
“Yes, indeed,” Sister Bettina replied. “But this girl is no ordinary refugee.”
Ethan swore under his breath. “Then I’ll take Cassie far away from here. Where the castle won’t find her.”
“I’m afraid we can’t permit you to do that, Mr. McAllister.”
I gasped, eyeing Ethan in fear.
“You what?” Ethan pointed a finger at her. “What did you just say?’
She opened her palms out, as though she were giving us a gift, instead of trying to send me back to the evil of the castle. “You are aware that we control passage in and out of this area. We do not permit you to take her to another world. It is an abomination to travel between worlds.”
He shook his head at her, his eyes furious. “I have traveled freely between worlds.”
“We allowed you to do so because there was no saving you. You had already stained your soul,” she said. “But we have allowed no others from the museum to travel to another world. For us to do so, we would be destroying that person’s chance at being saved by the grace of God.”
“Show me where that’s written?” he demanded.
“It does not need to be written. There are instructions that are given to the faithful in the very air they breathe.”
Ethan exhaled air hard. “The only reason I’ve put up with any of you is that you are stopping the castle from coming in here and finding the damned book. But we could have got the others out—the families—long ago. They could have been safe on another earth.”
It was true that the Order were the only ones stopping the castle from charging in. Their combined, continuous meditation blocked Henry and the others from seeing or passing into America. Because of that, the museum had to put up with the Order’s craziness.
“It is for their own good, and the salvation of their souls that we have not permitted it,” she said piously.
“Sister Bettina,” I said, “I just want to see the girls downstairs before I leave. Surely that is not too much to ask? And I want to say goodbye to the others—Sophronia and Frances.”
A woman gave me a nervous smile, holding a baby against her chest. I recognized her and the baby as the family Ethan had saved from the rangers. “Sophronia and Nabaasa are tending to a birth on level three. And Frances is with the other young children in the playrooms.”
“Thank you,” I told her sincerely. “I’ll head down to the basement, then go up to level three and see Soph, Nabaasa and Frances just before I leave.”
Sister Bettina’s expression grew cold. “I’m afraid there is little point in going to see the two girls in the basement. Their souls are gone from them. They’re no longer there.”
I stared at her directly. “You can’t say that. No one can say that. For all you know, they hear and know everything that’s happening around them.”
Mr. Calhoun pushed his tongue to the side of his mouth. “I sincerely doubt that.”
I shot him a fierce look. “And why would that be?”
He gave a slight shrug. “Because we made the decision to cut the power to their machines in the basement this morning. What’s the use of a couple of vegetables using up our power supply? Bloody madness.”
Blood ran cold through my veins.
“Who authorized that?” Ethan’s voice was harsh, crushed.
“We had what you might call an informal meeting,” Mr. Calhoun told him. “Anyway, it’s done now. An hour ago or so. If you still have the stomach to go see the bodies, better do it now I guess. Those two will start stinking soon.” He stood his rifle on the floor. “I’ll be waiting here for you two, so don’t try goin’ anywhere else.”
“Nothing can help those poor souls.” Sister Bettina sucked her cheeks in, casting a brief glance in our direction. “You will be allowed ten minutes, if you wish it, but no longer.”
She spoke in the tone of a school principal admonishing a student. A dull, almost maniacal light in her eyes told me there was no human compassion inside Sister Bettina.
My heart was a stone, sinking through me.
I turned. Nabaasa and Sophronia were rushing toward the group, terror in their faces.
“Surely this isn’t true!” Nabaasa’s voice filled every space of the museum.
Sister Bettina forced a smile onto her thin face. “They are at rest. A natural rest. It is not the will of God to keep them lingering.”
Sophronia cried out. “No... that was not the Order’s decision to make alone!” Her eyes widened in disbelief as she caught sight of Ethan and me standing there. She ran to us and hugged each of us in turn.
I walked together with Ethan, Sophronia, Nabaasa and Frances through the dim corridors that led to the basement—each step laden with dread. With the machines on, there had been hope, however slim. Now, that flicker of light was gone.
14. In the Half Light
CASSIE
Sophronia reached for the handle of the hospital room. As the door cracked open into a dim light, the air was caught in a still hush. No bleeps of machines. No soft hiss of ventilators.
She pushed the door all the way. Her back stiffened suddenly and a loud gasp drew from her lungs. She looked back at us with huge eyes. I stared past her into the room, fear clawing at me.
Two dark figures sat beside the girls in the beds—the otherworld Molly and Aisha. They eyed us in shock from beneath the hoods of their castle cloaks. Now I knew who the pair were that we’d seen out on the ice. I guessed that they had come in through the ventilator ducts, the same way Molly and I had before—most probably while Ethan and I had been trying to convince Calhoun there were strangers out there.
Nabaasa took Frances by the hand, taking her away to a corner of the room.
My gaze fell to the comatose Molly and Aisha that were lying there like statues. Their eyes twitched slightly beneath closed eyelids. They were alive. Still alive.
Molly drew her hood back, letting her snow-flecked hair spill out. Relief flooded her pale features. “Cassie, you got away....”
Words jumbled inside my head. “God, I never thought I’d see you again....”
I started to rush forward—to hold her, to assure myself that she was really here—but she held up the palm of her hand, silently signaling to me not to come closer. I stopped, uncomprehending.
She bowed her head. “I can’t tell you what it means to me to see you here. I’ve died a thousand deaths knowing you were there with Balthazar.”
My jaw trembled. “Parker’s father told me about you... about those medical tests....”
She nodded somberly. “The illness I had in the dollhouse was caused by the leukemia. Back when I woke from the coma, the doctors managed to put it into remission. But even then they told me that the kind of cancer that I had wasn’t curable. I didn’t want to tell you—I didn’t want you or your mother worried or fussing over me.” She pushed back a curtain of deep red hair. Her face was almost bloodless—dark rings around her sunken eyes. “I wanted my life to mean something. So I threw myself into finding out all that I could about Henry and why we were all kept in the dollhouse. I wanted to stop him. But now my time is running out....”
“You never rested.” My words came out in a rush, almost scolding her, full of my fear and pain. “Yo
u always kept going until you collapsed. You need to take some time now, time to rest. You need to get better.”
“Cassie, I’m not going to get better,” she said quietly. “I might only have days left. Maybe just this day. I don’t know.”
My mind hardened—it became coal and cinders. I wanted to shut out what she’d just told me, take her words and burn them as though they’d never been spoken.
Ethan moved his arm around me. “Molly... I was going to go back to the castle to get you.... But why are you here? Did Henry send you?”
“Yes,” she replied. “We were sent to find out anything we could—to keep searching for the book. He’s given us two hours before we return. Except, we’re never going to return....”
I stared at her and Aisha. “What do you mean, you’re never going to return?”
Aisha’s eyes were shadowed and impossible to read beneath the hood she kept pulled over her forehead. “We’re not going back to the castle.”
Molly’s fair eyelashes drifted down. “Cassie, my heart ached for you every day you were forced to exist with Balthazar. When the last day of summer came and went, I could stand it no longer. I knew that Balthazar would be waking and I had to do something.” She eyed the double of herself that was lying still in the bed. “But I knew I couldn’t do much if I’m not going to live for much longer. So I convinced Parker that I was on their side, that I wanted to search for the book. I asked to be sent back to the ice world. But of course, he didn’t know what I planned to do here.” She drew her lips in, a tremendous strain showing in the delicate lines of her face. “I only have one thing left to give. Myself. If this double of me has survived all this time without any treatment, then she is far stronger than me. And together, we would be stronger than one.”
My heart jolted in horror, my breaths quickening as I understood just what it was she had planned to do. “No! You can’t....”
A deepening frown indented her smooth forehead. “I have two choices. Die, and allow the Molly of this world to die too. Or give us both a chance of living on.”