“Tonight? How long have I been ill?”
“Too long!” Helen snapped. “The entire school has been possessed by a dance mania. Even Dame Beckwith. She cancelled exams.”
“Cancelled exams? But that’s—”
“Crazy? Exactly my point. And all the stodgy old board members have been invited. They’re staying at the Beekman Arms in town. I’d hoped perhaps this ice storm would keep them away, but they got up here yesterday before the storm began. Unfortunately, Mr. Greenfeder and his friends were supposed to arrive today, and I suspect they won’t be able to get through. Gillie says the trains are stopped and the roads from Poughkeepsie to Rhinebeck are impassable. Even the phone lines are down.”
“We’ve been cut off—” I began.
I was interrupted by Daisy swinging open the door. “Ava!” she cried. “I thought I heard your voice. Thank goodness you’re better.”
“Yes, Helen’s been telling me everything—” Behind Daisy’s head Helen was waving her hands and mouthing something I couldn’t understand.
“Fiddle-dee-dee!” Daisy cried, pulling me into the room. “Helen’s become such an awful worrywart while you’ve been ill. Don’t listen to a word she tells you about the dance. It’s going to be marvelous. Did you know I’m going to be one of the Spanish dolls? Come see my costume—oh, and yours arrived from Miss Janeway’s yesterday. You’re to be a Tyrolean doll.”
I stared at Daisy as she pulled a green dirndl skirt embroidered with Alpine flowers, a matching embroidered bodice, a white puffy-sleeved blouse, green hose, and a black felt cap out of a box. It was worse than the dress I’d been meant to wear to the Montmorency ball.
“I am not wearing that, Daisy. I’d look like a . . . a . . . marionette!”
“You’re meant to look like a doll, silly! We all are. Don’t you remember? Die Puppenfee, ‘The Fairy Doll.’”
“I thought the dance was a party where we danced with boys,” I said. “The ballet parts were just little in-between entertainments—divertissements.”
“Oh, that’s still the plan, but once Georgiana took over after you became ill, she and Herr Hofmeister agreed that we should all dress as dolls and carry the theme through the whole dance. It will be très charmant—and perfect for meeting eligible bachelors!”
Dolls. That’s what the figures in van Drood’s fantasies had been. Dolls that he controlled.
“Daisy,” I said, taking her by the shoulders. “Come to your senses! Besides, you don’t need to meet eligible bachelors—you have Mr. Appleby.”
“Don’t be silly, Ava,” she answered, wiggling out of my grip and slapping my arm with her Spanish fan. “I’ve broken off my engagement with Mr. Appleby!”
“Engagement?” I echoed. “You’re engaged?”
“Was engaged,” Daisy said, twirling around. “I’ve broken it off.”
“That was Daisy’s big secret,” Helen said. “She didn’t tell us because . . . well, because I was so awful about engagements in general.”
“Silly Helen,” Daisy said, “that wasn’t the real reason! I must have known I wasn’t meant to marry Mr. Appleby. The Order will pick a suitable husband for me.”
“Don’t look so glum!” she cried as we gaped at her in horror. “Maybe you two will find husbands, too!”
At breakfast I discovered that all the girls, with the exception of Helen and Etta, were as excited about the dance as Daisy. As I made my way through the dining hall the talk was of dancing slippers and dance steps and costumes.
“I wish I were in the mazurka!” one girl said, sighing wistfully.
“Oh, but the most beautiful costume is the fairy doll. I want to try out for that part next year!”
Next year? Had the winter dance already become a tradition? As far as I knew, Blythewood had never had one before, but when Dame Beckwith addressed the dining hall she began with, “This year’s winter dance promises to be the most spectacular in Blythewood’s history!”
My hopes of seeking Dame Beckwith’s help were dashed as the girls exploded in applause. She went on to say that while the weather had prevented some guests from coming, there was no cause for alarm. Herr Hofmeister had commissioned a fleet of horse-drawn sleighs to convey our honored board members and their guests from the Beekman Arms in Rhinebeck to Blythewood for the dance. “It will be like a real Viennese ball!” she exclaimed, her usually placid gray eyes glittering.
The nestlings at my table sighed and swooned. “I’d love to go to Vienna one day,” Mary confided to Susannah. “Herr Hofmeister says that the very best dancing schools are there. And they have balls for everything!”
“Yes, even at the lunatics’ asylum,” Helen, who had pulled a chair over to our table, remarked to me dryly. “Which is what this is turning into.”
“It’s van Drood’s plan,” I whispered. “Is everyone under this . . . spell?”
“Not everyone,” Nathan, who’d followed Helen over, said. He’d grown thinner and more drawn during my illness, and his silver hair had turned a duller shade of gray. I shivered, remembering van Drood’s threat. Nathan didn’t look like he could withstand a strong wind, let alone van Drood. “Are you . . . I mean, why aren’t you waltzing around humming Die Puppenfee?” I asked him.
Nathan gave me an appalled look. “I’ve steered clear of Herr Hofmeister ever since he asked me to dress up as a tin soldier. I told him the only kind of soldier I would be dressing up as was an American one if things remained so unsettled in the Balkan States.”
I shuddered at the image of Nathan dressed as any kind of soldier. “Who else has remained untouched?” I asked.
Nathan slid his eyes to the other nestlings at the table. They were so busy gabbing about the dance that they didn’t seem to be listening to us, but I took Nathan’s point that it might be better to talk elsewhere.
“I have so much work to make up,” I said, taking a gulp of tea and grabbing a roll. “Would you two come to the library to help me study?”
We hurried through the empty North Wing, where the classrooms looked deserted and forlorn.
“Haven’t you all been having classes?” I asked.
“They were suspended last week so we could have more time for rehearsal,” Helen said with obvious disgust. I’d never imagined I’d hear Helen complain about missing classes.
“What do the teachers think about it all?” I asked.
“Most of them have been swept up in the madness as much as the students,” Nathan replied. “Mr. Peale is playing a bell ringer in a Swiss cuckoo clock. Miss Swift is dancing a polka. Miss Frost and Mr. Malmsbury are doing a tango.” Nathan grimaced. “They’re actually quite good. Even Mrs. Calendar has a minor part as a granny doll. Only Miss Sharp, Mr. Bellows, and Miss Corey have resisted the allure of the dance.”
Nathan knocked on the library door, which I was surprised to see was locked. I saw Miss Corey’s face appear in the glass pane, and then the door was unlocked and she pulled us in.
“Oh, Ava, thank the Bells you’re up and better! Hurry!” she whispered. “Herr Hofmeister is trying to find Vi and get her to try on a Chinese doll costume.”
“He tried to get me to play the puppet master,” Mr. Bellows, who was sitting by the fire with Miss Sharp, said with a shudder. “But I refused.”
“The puppet master?” I repeated. “I don’t recall there being a puppet master in Die Puppenfee. There’s a toy maker who makes the fairy doll, but he doesn’t control her.”
“Herr Hofmeister has made alterations to the plot to give the dance more drama,” Miss Sharp said, rolling her eyes.
“He does have a point that Die Puppenfee is a rather insipid ballet, but then why do it in the first place?” Miss Corey asked. “He’s borrowing elements from other ballets and Hoffmann’s tales, mostly to make the ballet parts longer and more complicated. The poor girls are rehearsing noon and night. I begge
d Dame Beckwith to rein him in, but she said it was good for the girls to experience discipline and that it would make them more marriageable.”
“The whole thing is insidious,” Miss Sharp said, shaking her head. “I’m afraid it might be part of a larger plot.”
“It’s part of van Drood’s plot to destroy the Order,” I said as the pieces fell into place. I told them what I’d seen in the Rowan Circle. “He blames the Order for destroying his chances of marrying my mother.”
“How like a man,” Miss Corey said, “to blame his romantic failures on some outside cause and flail about making everyone else suffer for his disappointments.”
“I’m afraid this looks more serious than a spurned lover’s revenge,” Mr. Bellows said. “This ice storm has all the earmarks of spelled weather. It’s halted the changelings’ search for Rue and isolated us for this damned dance. We’re under siege—have been under siege all these past few weeks without us even knowing it. Herr Hofmeister’s dance has worked a kind of mind control on the students and teachers and even on Dame Beckwith.”
“But Herr Hofmeister is such a . . . a . . .” Miss Sharp began.
“Ninny?” Miss Corey finished for her. “Yes, he hardly seems capable of staging an attack on Blythewood.”
“Van Drood can take over a person if he’s weak—or she,” I said. “Remember how he took over Sarah Lehman last year? She was vulnerable because of her resentment and jealousy. Herr Hofmeister must have a similar weakness that van Drood is preying on to make him his slave.” I thought of how van Drood had tried to make me distrust my father and to see myself as a monster. “He almost got me.”
“Is that why you’ve been sick?” Miss Sharp asked.
I told them about my experience with Mr. Farnsworth, leaving out the part about the Darkling who saved me being my father.
Miss Corey was more interested in the library I described. “We’ve been searching through all the books here to find a cure for this dancing fever, but we haven’t found anything. Maybe the Darkling library has one.”
“We could ask,” I said. “And I think we should tell the Darklings what’s happening here. The last time van Drood got control of the Dianas he tried to make them kill the Darklings.”
“You want to go to the Darklings for help?” Nathan asked.
I returned his look levelly, steeling myself for his disapproval. “Yes,” I said. “Who else are we going to go to? We can’t reach anyone else.”
To my great surprise Nathan nodded. “You’re right,” he said. “Let’s go. I’d like to see this Ravencliffe.”
It was decided that Nathan, Miss Corey, and I would go to Ravencliffe, leaving Miss Sharp, Mr. Bellows, and Helen to ‘keep watch’ over Blythewood. We decided that the quickest and safest way to get to Ravencliffe, given the number of trees that had toppled in the Blythe Wood, was to skate on the frozen river.
Miss Corey took off down the frozen sloping lawn like a speed skater. She and Nathan were so enthusiastic that I hadn’t the heart to tell them I’d never been on skates before in my life. I imagined, though, that it couldn’t be harder than learning to fly.
I was wrong. My ankles wobbled like aspic as Nathan and I made our way down to the river.
“You’ll be better off when we get on the river,” Nathan assured me, gliding easily over the frozen lawn. His cheeks were pink, and he was wearing an enormously long striped woolen scarf wound many times around his neck and a black wool cap that made him look like the illustration of Hans Brinker in the story my mother used to read me when I was little. It was good to see him with some color in his cheeks. If van Drood was coming for him he’d have to be strong.
“I’m glad you didn’t succumb to the dancing fever,” I said, linking my arm under his.
“Ugh, I heard quite enough Viennese waltzes last summer while waiting around with Louisa in sanatoriums. I suppose I lost my taste for the music. When I hear it now I think of her stuck in that dreadful place while doctors prod at her ‘subconscious’ trying to unearth the source of her ‘trauma.’”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I wonder if there might be something in the Darkling library that will help her.”
“Yes,” he said, steering me onto the river, “I’m rather hoping there is. Now hold on. We’ll never get there if you totter like an old woman.” He tightened his grip on my arm and propelled us both forward, taking long gliding strokes that forced me to do the same. I soon fell into the rhythm and felt the sharp wind sting my cheeks. When I looked down at my feet I noticed dark shapes moving under the ice.
“Fish,” Nathan said when I pointed them out. “They’re following us.” I laughed and looked up. The river was a glittering expanse of clear ice between the blue riverbanks. On the west side of the river the snow-covered Catskills stood white against a gentian blue sky. On the east side we passed stately mansions and formal gardens all glazed in ice. It was like skating through a toy Christmas village from the Woolworth windows. I’d nearly forgotten our mission until I saw the looming tower of Ravencliffe ahead of us.
“There it is,” I told Nathan, pointing out the tower.
“That old place?” Nathan asked. “I’ve seen it from the river before and always thought it was deserted. Your Darkling friends aren’t much on upkeep, are they?”
I was about to quip back that they had more important things to concern themselves with—like ferrying souls to the afterworld—but I noticed how tense Nathan’s arm was and realized he was nervous. He still considered the Darklings his enemies, but he was going into their territory to help the girls at Blythewood. That was Nathan all over—no matter how cynical his manner, he was always ready to sacrifice himself for someone else. Perhaps too ready.
“It will be all right,” I said. “Raven won’t let any harm come to us.”
But as we walked up the steep bank to the house, I wondered if Raven could really stop the Darklings from hurting us if they thought we were a threat. And Miss Corey, striding on ahead, looked like a fierce ice maiden. Before she could reach the front door, two Darklings—a man and a woman—dove down from the tower and landed directly in front of her, their wings snapping in the frigid air.
“What’s your business here, human?” the male Darkling—a huge man with shaggy white-blond hair and a scary-looking scar across his face—demanded. He towered over Miss Corey, his wings casting a shadow over her on the icy ground. Miss Corey straightened her back and tilted her head up toward the menacing giant.
“I am Miss Lillian Corey, head librarian of the Blythewood School and lady of the Order,” she said in a clear, ringing voice. “And I have come to consult a book in your library. Please inform your librarian of my request.”
The giant Darkling looked perplexed. I whispered to Nathan, “Is there some secret diplomatic immunity among librarians?”
“Not that I know of,” Nathan answered, “but Miss Corey seems to think so.”
It was clear from the giant’s expression that he wasn’t sure either. He must have decided not to take a chance.
“Come,” he roared at Miss Corey. “I will take you to Master Quill.”
We followed the giant into the tower room I had been in the night before. Without the crowd of Darklings roosting in the upper tiers I could see that the entire tower was lined with books and ledges where Darklings sat over desks reading or writing.
“Master Quill is in the scriptorium on the top level,” he said. “I will carry you up.”
He made a move toward Miss Corey, but she nimbly evaded his grasp. “I will walk,” she said indignantly.
“There are no stairs,” he pointed out.
Undeterred, Miss Corey studied the honeycomb of shelves and ledges that lined the tower walls. “That shouldn’t be a problem,” she replied, sitting down on the lowest ledge and removing her ice skates. She then nimbly climbed barefoot up the bookshelf onto the next ledge and
from there to the next level. Nathan and I looked at each other and quickly took off our skates to follow her. It was surprisingly easy, as if the tower had been fitted out to accommodate nonwinged guests. Perhaps, I thought, stepping over a shelf of books with English titles on subjects that ranged from philosophy to agriculture, there really had been a time when the Darklings and the Order were friends—and perhaps there could be such a time again.
When we arrived, a little breathless, on the top tier, we found Master Quill warmly greeting Miss Corey.
“Ah,” he said, “you have been in a Darkling library before, haven’t you?”
“No, but I’ve studied the architecture of all the great libraries of the world,” she replied. “We were taught how to do research in all kinds of libraries . . . but I’ve never seen anything like that.” She was staring at my father, who was sitting on the far side of the upper ledge, his wings stretched out across a high shelf. Two scribes were seated beneath him writing in large ledgers, their eyes moving from my father’s wings to their pages.
“Nor have I,” Master Quill answered. “It’s like having a master index that can speak. You can ask him where anything is and he’ll tell you the exact page number and line.”
“Remarkable,” Miss Corey said, her eyes shining. “May I?”
Master Quill nodded, but before proceeding, Miss Corey turned to me. “Would you introduce us, Ava?”
I swallowed. I hadn’t thought about whether I would reveal my father’s identity to Miss Corey and Nathan, but I saw now that Miss Corey had guessed.
“How long have you known?” I asked.
“Since the night on the roof of the Hellgate Club, when we talked about secrets.”
I glanced at Nathan and saw him looking confused. I could, I supposed, find an excuse to send Nathan away, but I didn’t have the heart to. I led Miss Corey and Nathan along the ledge to where Falco sat patiently, his grave eyes watching me.
“These are my friends,” I said to him, “Lillian Corey, head librarian of Blythewood, and Nathan Beckwith.”
Ravencliffe (Blythewood series) Page 23