by Sara Beaman
“It doesn’t matter.” She shoves a valise into Mirabel’s arms. “I hope you’ve memorized Titania’s part. Margaret’s lost her voice.”
Josephine is close enough that, even in the dim lamplight, Mirabel can see the black hairs on the underside of her chin, but suddenly she seem miles away, a distant afterthought. This is her chance. Her break. Titania, Queen of the Fairies. On a real midsummer’s night, right here in New York.
“Can you do it or not?” Josephine asks, irritated. “Because if you can’t—“
“Of course I’ll do it,” Mirabel says. She opens the bag and rummages through it for the bodice. “If you’ll just help me get dressed…”
Minutes later Mirabel is on stage, floating like a feather on the breeze, beaming out at the audience. She feels radiant, resplendent in the beauty of the moment. She cannot see her beauty for herself, but she senses it in their watchful eyes, in the wonder behind them.
“Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania,” someone says from stage right.
For a moment Mirabel forgets she is supposed to deliver the next line.
“What, jealous Oberon!” she hastily replies, trying to hide her surprise. “Fairies, skip hence…”
Here her memory becomes unclear. The audience is a shifting blur. She’d only glanced at the crowd at the time, only seen them as a gestalt. Ever since, she has worried over her memory time and again in search for a particular pair of eyes among the masses: those of her Lucien. He is out there, somewhere, but she can’t recall where.
The Mirabel on stage goes through the lines she knows so well, arguing as Titania with her Oberon, but, looking back, Mirabel the beholder pays no attention to herself. Compared to Lucien, the play is of no importance at all. Was he down in the pit with the rabble? Up in the boxes with the whores? In truth, she can’t remember. But she is certain he was here for this very performance. She strains to pick him out, but the harder she looks, the more the audience’s faces slip from her mind.
She and Oberon finish their argument; the scene ends. She goes backstage, back into the narrow, gaslit corridor, and waits for her next cue, running the scene in her mind, mouthing the words. Then out onto the stage again, where she feigns sleep, allowing Oberon to approach and bewitch her with the poison of a strange flower.
Even as she lies sightless, she searches. Somehow it is easier to see Lucien’s face now, with her eyes closed, than it is to see him with them open.
Oberon begins to recite:
“What thou seest when thou dost wake
Do it for thy true love take,
Love and languish for his sake…”
She lies still, anticipating what will happen next. When at last she’d opened her eyes, the first thing she’d seen was Lucien’s face. That was when she saw him for the first time. And that’s when she’d fallen in love. Oberon’s enchantment had been real.
She can see him now.
Mirabel the former remains prone on the floor, but Mirabel the latter opens her eyes, stands, and beholds the audience. Now her memory is in high definition, crystal clear. Her Lucien stands in the middle of the pit, the only man dressed in black, floating in a sea of brown coats and grey hats. He is tall, pale, rail-thin, with short dark hair and angular features. He wears a modern black suit with a black tie and rectangular, wire-rimmed glasses. In his hands he carries a journal and a deck of cards.
His face is mine.
This isn’t a memory any longer, I realize. It is a wish.
Mirabel is seeing me as Lucien, and through her eyes I am seeing myself.
Visitors
{Kate}
I spend the next few hours sitting on the chaise lounge, looking through the Brit Lit textbook, trying to keep myself awake and calm. At one point I look up to see that someone has slipped a small piece of paper under the door to the hallway. Stooping down to pick it up, I see it is a card like the ones Julian gave Adam: the deck of cards that allowed him to find his way through the shifting basement hallways of the estate.
On the face of this card is a picture of the massive library that Julian calls his study. I’m being summoned, I suppose.
I pull down the hem of my dress, comb my fingers through my hair, and go out into the labyrinth, holding the card in my left hand. A familiar feeling of being led forward comes over me, and I follow its pull. As I walk down corridor after corridor I keep looking for the telltale signs of hyper-perfection Richard taught me about, but by the time I reach the double doors to the library I still haven’t found anything that matches his criteria.
Both of the library doors are open. I step inside. From here I have to follow the sound of voices; the pull is gone. Placing my steps carefully, I pick my way through books and papers, trying not to trip on any number of things that are scattered on the floor—boxes, pens and pencils, poster tubes, electric cords.
From deeper inside the study, I hear Jennifer say, “It’s been thirty-six hours.”
“If she’s still not here she’s probably not coming back,” Haruko says.
“We’ve searched the entire estate?” Jennifer asks.
“Everywhere save the sepulcher,” Julian says.
“I doubt she went in there,” Jennifer says.
“I think we should check it just in case,” Haruko insists. “She might know that Wardens can’t see past the perimeter. She could be using it for cover.”
“Why don’t you go and take a look for us?” Julian says. “After all, you have the card, don’t you?”
I stop short behind a bookcase. Julian’s tone is making me nervous—genial on the surface, with venom underneath.
There is an awkward pause.
“Something must have happened that I’m not aware of,” Jennifer says, “if Haruko has a card to the sepulcher.”
Haruko ignores her. “Sure, Julian. I’ll go check the graveyard. Any other errands you’d like me to run?”
“I’ll give that some thought,” Julian says.
There is a creaking sound as Haruko rises from her chair, then footsteps.
“Kate’s coming with me,” Haruko says, poking her head behind the bookcase I’m hiding behind. “Come on.”
“O-okay,” I say.
“Don’t waste any time,” Julian says. “Dawn is in two hours.”
“I’ve got a watch,” Haruko says over her shoulder. Then, to me, “Let’s go.”
Haruko leads me out of the library and through the labyrinth to the stained glass doors that lead out of the garden, clenching her fists, gritting her teeth.
“The two of them are useless,” she says as she walks down the gravel path away from the main building of the estate. “They’re not taking this seriously.”
“What?” I ask. “Finding Adam?”
“Not that, not the situation in Red Hook, not the ongoing clusterfuck with SpiraCom.” She shakes her head. “When I told them we should set up a perimeter in case they come for us here, the two of them practically laughed at me.”
“In case who comes for us here?”
“The WotA. Mirabel. Either or both.”
“How would the Wardens know to come here?”
“Don’t be stupid, Kate. It’ll be one of the first places they look as soon as they see the security footage from Red Hook.”
“But Jennifer wiped it.”
“And yet, that doesn’t change the fact that Mirabel saw everything. You think she hasn’t told the President?”
At first I think she’s talking about the White House, but the I remember the Watchers of the Americas is also a democracy.
“But why would they come for us here?” I ask. “Mirabel didn’t see Julian, as far as we know.”
“Aya,” Haruko says. “Her involvement implicates Julian.”
“Shit. I guess you’re right.”
She nods. Her expression is grim.
“Then what should we do?” I ask. “Where can we go?”
“Well…” She sighs. “Adam had contacts. People who could hide us. That was
the initial plan, if things went south. To go into hiding.”
“Did he give you their information?”
“He gave me some addresses, but it’s not like I can just show up without him,” she says. “Do you really think another revenant would take in a Warden and one of Mirabel’s doubles just because we drop Adam’s name? Plus, a lot of them aren’t even in America.”
“No, I guess not.”
We’ve reached the outer edge of the garden. We head through the outlying fields towards the line of trees in the distance.
“That’s been his job this whole time—opening doors,” Haruko says. “I guess it’s easy to forget how important that is.”
“Wasn’t he the one who started the mission in the first place?” I ask. “To recover Mnemosyne’s head, I mean?”
“No. That would be Desmond.”
“Oh.” I frown, confused.
“Let’s talk about something else,” Haruko says.
“All right,” I say. “Do you really think we’ll find Aya out here?”
“In the sepulcher? Probably not. Not if she has any sense—though, she doesn’t really have any, so who knows.”
“Do you have any clue where she might have gone?”
Haruko shrugs. “This is one area where the two of them might be useful. Julian for obvious reasons—he’s lived with her for years—and Jennifer since she was on the team that recovered Aya from Markham’s estate.”
“The one in Chicago?” I ask. “The brownstone?”
Haruko frowns. “How do you know about that?”
I remember it from Julian’s memory—the one that Adam recovered. But I don’t know if Haruko knows about that, and I don’t know how much I want to explain it to her.
“Something Adam mentioned,” I say, hoping that will placate her. “Do you think Aya might go back there?”
“I don’t know why she would. Markham has been missing, presumed dead, for half a century now. No one has seen him since Aya was rescued.”
“You all said the same thing about Jennifer.”
She shakes her head. “That’s different. She’s a Warden. Falling off the map was probably pretty easy for her. Markham would have needed that amulet to disappear like he did, but of course Aya had it. So, unless there are two of those amulets floating around, Markham’s almost certainly dead.”
“But Aya doesn’t know that. She might think he’s alive.”
“It’s not hard to deduce—“
“But you just said she has no sense.”
Haruko rolls her eyes a little, but she says, “All right. Point taken.”
We’ve reached the edge of the shifting forest. What looked like trees from far away is, close up, a kaleidoscopic swirl of leaves, branches and shadow, constantly moving and changing.
Haruko grabs my hand. “Hold on,” she says. “As soon as we see an opening—“
A narrow footpath materializes right in front of us and she lunges forward, dragging me behind her. I have to run to keep up. The canopy blocks out the moonlight almost completely; it’s just about impossible to see. But Haruko rushes forward, taking sharp corners and hairpin turns seemingly at random. Here and there branches catch me, whipping me in the face, the stomach, the shins. By the time we reach the stone doors to the sepulcher I’m panting—not from cardiovascular effort but from mental exhaustion.
“You all right?” Haruko asks.
“I’m fine.” I push aside the vines and brush covering the right-side door.
Haruko reaches for the door handle. She winces as the jagged underside slices into her flesh, and pulls the door open just enough for us to slip through. Around the perimeter of the grave site the trees form a living wall, dense as any stone or brick; within the perimeter, the sky is wide open and the moon shines bright. I’ve seen this place plenty of times before, in Adam’s memories—and in Julian’s—but somehow stepping inside it on my own two feet is different. I feel small.
We walk down the long flight of stairs that coils its way around the edge of the pit. Each stair, only inches deep, takes two long strides to cross.
“You don’t happen to have Clairsentience, do you?” Haruko asks. “As one of your strains?”
“No. Why?”
“Because it would make our lives a lot easier right now if you did.”
“Oh well,” I say.
Then a thought occurs to me.
“Shit,” I say. “I don’t have it, but Aya does.”
“So?”
“What if she’s here but she’s gone invisible? She’d have seen us coming for sure.”
“Shit.” Haruko stops her descent, runs a hand through her hair.
“Let’s keep going,” I say.
“What’s the point? Even if she’s here, we won’t be able to find her.”
“Maybe I can lure her out.”
Haruko frowns, skeptical, but she continues walking down the stairs. We make our way down to the bare earth floor of the clearing. Along the far wall, the raised tombs of Mnemonics are arrayed in an arc. Between us and them are the two pools of water, one deep, one shallow. Mnemosyne’s tomb is gone, leaving the entrance to her subterranean labyrinth exposed.
“Jesus, I hope Aya didn’t go down there,” I say.
“If she did, she’ll never make it out,” Haruko says. “Now what was it you wanted to try? To lure her out?”
“A strain I do have,” I say. “Compulsion.”
Haruko gives me an appraising frown. “Go on.”
I clench my teeth and ball my hands into fists. Imagining Aya is present with us, I issue a silent command: If you’re here, come out. Surrender. I scan the clearing and imagine filling the space with my silent voice. Give yourself up, I continue. Relinquish the amulet.
Haruko recoils as if from an invisible hand. “What the hell did you just do?”
“Just, you know, what I do,” I say.
“I felt it even though you weren’t talking,” she says, grabbing her own biceps. “Only other person I’ve seen do that is Mirabel.”
I scratch the back of my neck, feeling awkward.
“Well, I guess Aya’s not here,” Haruko says. “No real surprise. Let’s go.”
We climb back up the stairs in silence. I can feel Haruko’s eyes on my back. She’s looking at me differently now, I can tell. It’s subtle, but that little demonstration of my fledgling abilities must have reminded her that I’m a Mnemonic now. No one trusts Mnemonics, I guess. Not even Wardens, even though we can’t affect them.
I’m not sure why Haruko’s suspicion bothers me, but it does. I want her to trust me. I want to show her I’m not like the rest of the House.
I slip between the stone doors to the sepulcher. Haruko follows me through. As she wriggles free, she inhales sharply and looks up, alarmed.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“We have company,” she says. “Back at the estate. Two revenants and a dhampyr.”
If there’s a dhampyr with them, it’s almost certainly one of Mirabel’s doubles.
“What do we do?” I ask.
Haruko looks at her watch. “Shit. It’s too close to sunrise. We’ve got to go back inside.”
“Go back inside? Seriously?”
“Maybe she isn’t expecting us. Best case scenario, we can catch her off guard.”
“With what? Witty insults?”
“No, idiot. With something like you just did back there.”
“Oh,” I say. “Yeah. All right.”
“Let’s get going,” Haruko says.
***
Haruko and I hurry back through the twisting forest paths to the grounds. From there, we sprint back to the estate. By the time we reach the back doors, the sky is beginning to turn blue. We climb down a flight of stairs and step through the door that leads into Julian’s labyrinth. Haruko pulls out a deck of cards from her back pocket and flips through it.
“They’re in the meeting room,” she says, pulling out the corresponding card.
�
�Doing what?” I ask. “Having a chat?”
“I guess we’re about to find out.”
I follow her through the halls to a blue door with a shiny brass knob. I flatten myself against the wall; Haruko places her ear against the door.
“Just go inside?” I whisper. “Or…?”
“Stay out here,” she says in an undertone. “And listen.”
“Until what?”
“Until I need you.”
I throw up my hands to show I don’t understand, but she ignores me. She opens the door and storms into the meeting room.
“Davis. Claire. Mirabel,” she spits. “What are you doing here?”
“Excuse me?” Mirabel’s voice. “You’ve been absent without leave for three days and you’re interrogating me? Where the hell have you been?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know,” says Haruko.
“I’d like to hear you say it,” Mirabel’s double says.
“Tough shit,” Haruko says. “I don’t answer to you.”
They continue to argue, the double making obvious attempts to lure Haruko into implicating herself. Meanwhile, I rack my brain, trying to think of something I can do. I remind myself of my strains: Compulsion. Dream. Illusion. Aya is an illusionist, and she can do all sorts of things. Go invisible, for example.
It’s worth a shot.
I put my hand in front of my face and envision seeing through it. It takes a minute, and a line of thinking that feels like delusion, but eventually my hand wavers, flickers like a flame, and fades from view. I wave it back and forth; it shifts seamlessly with the scenery behind it. I push the illusion up my arm, then my other hand, my other arm, my feet and legs. It takes every fragment of concentration I have to complete the vanishing of my torso. But when I reach my head and face, I get stuck. I can’t see those parts of myself. If only I had a mirror…
“Enough,” Mirabel shouts, nearly breaking my concentration. “Where is she?”
“Who?” Haruko asks.
“Katherine Avery.”
“That name’s not ringing a bell…”
“The dhampyr!”
I look towards the door, anxious. The shiny knob catches my eye. In its distorted reflection I can see my head floating in midair. I force myself to focus my mind and erase it.