What had the witch said to her, that first night at Strachan’s Ghyll? You need only wish for the stone, and you will be yourself again. If your wish is strong enough, your strings will snap and Grisini’s spell will be broken. If Clara wished, she might save Parsefall; she could save him if she stole the stone herself. The curse would fall upon her. Clara shut her eyes in terror.
The room went dark.
She opened her eyes and the room reappeared. She blinked, unable to believe that she could open and close her eyes. Her chest hurt, as if her heart were struggling to beat in a space too small for it. I will, thought Clara. I will steal the stone. I will wish for it with all my heart.
An unseen hand plucked her strings. Clara felt them, taut against the holes in her flesh. She swayed and twisted, shifting her weight as if she were on a swing. There was a soft pfffft as a head string snapped. Clara’s head flopped sideways. Then she raised her chin. She could do that; she could lift her head, and clench her fists. She curled her fingers and wrapped her thumbs around them. Fiercely, joyfully, she hammered the air, yanking the threads that ran through her palms. Her left knee stung as a leg string gave way. Another string twanged, then another. There was a rush of air — a sensation of falling — and a hard landing, one that rattled every bone in her body.
Clara stumbled to her feet and ran to the witch’s bed. Cassandra was as pale as death, but her eyes glittered. “I caught you, I trapped you!” she panted. “I knew I could do it! I saw into your mind, and I knew you loved the boy. Love is always a trap!” She bit off the last word so fiercely that spittle shot from her mouth.
Clara plunged under the bed canopy. The witch hissed and retreated, protecting the filigree locket with both hands. Clara wedged her thumbs into the hollows of the old woman’s fists, prying open the gnarled fingers. She snatched the locket with such force that the gold chain gave way. Once the locket was in her hands, Clara leaped back. She cried out in pain. “It’s burning me!”
Cassandra gasped like a fish out of water. “Yes, it’ll burn you,” she panted. “It’s burned me for years. It’s more powerful — if you let it hurt you.”
Clara stared at her reddened palm. She had cherished a hope that she might destroy the stone by consigning it to the flames. Now she saw that she could not fight fire with fire. A weird fancy swept into her mind. “Wait,” she whispered. She flew to the window and opened the casement. The frigid air came in like a blessing.
She gazed out the window. Her eyes took in the fresh-fallen snow, the floating stars, the immense white saucer of the lake. The lake . . . With shaking hands, Clara gathered snow from the window ledge. She found the clasp that opened the locket and released the fire opal.
The gemstone fell onto the mound of snow. Clara caught her breath. She had never seen anything as beautiful as the flaming jewel against the white crystals. The play of color mesmerized her: blood red and grass green and peacock blue. . . .
The sound of a moan shattered her reverie. “Please,” sobbed Cassandra. “I want it back. Give it back.” The witch was crying openmouthed, like a child; her mouth and her chin were slick with mucus. Clara shuddered. She clapped the jewel between two handfuls of snow and clasped it against her breast. She turned her back on the witch, passed through the double doors, and started down the grand staircase —
Grisini was watching her.
He stood at the foot of the stairs, clinging to the newel post for support. There was a lamp there, and the dim light made the blood on his cheeks look black instead of red.
“Clara!” he said in a happy whisper. “Little Clara! You have the phoenix-stone, haven’t you, mia piccina?” He beckoned, his fingers spinning like the spokes of a wheel. “From this night on, we will share the stone’s magic, you and I! The stone will be yours, and you will be mine! Vieni qua, madamina! Come, my little puppet!”
Puppet. Clara froze. Then her mind pitched forward, frantically reviewing her choices. The front door was at the foot of the stairs, but Grisini could creep up behind her while she wrestled with the lock. If she fled back upstairs, she ran the risk of leading him to Parsefall. For a fraction of a second, she considered surrendering the fire opal: why shouldn’t Grisini suffer the stone’s curse? Then she imagined what he might do, given its magical powers, and she steeled herself to outwit him.
She looked down the staircase. The darkest part was halfway down, equidistant from the lamps at the top and the bottom. Clara crept downward, seeking the privacy of the shadows. With one hand she broke the chain of her birthday locket. Then she shrieked, “Take it!” and hurled the locket at Grisini.
There was a metallic clang as it struck the tiles. Grisini fell to his hands and knees, searching. Clara darted down the staircase and dodged past him. She sprinted into the Great Hall, passing the high windows that overlooked the lake. The lake, thought Clara as she crossed the threshold into the music room. When she reached the library, she heard Grisini utter a bellow of rage: he’d found her birthday locket and discovered that it was a decoy. Clara screamed, too. She wanted to rouse the household — but there was no time to wait for help to come to her. She must get out of the house and onto the lake.
Grisini was closer now. The darkness between them was stifling and rank, polluted by his presence. Clara found the servants’ staircase and scuttled down the narrow stairs as fast as she could. The cellars were pitch-dark, and she lost her way. At last she blundered into the kitchen and lifted the latch of the back door.
It was strangely light in the snowy garden. The sky was not dark but a weird pinkish color, like wine diluted with ashes and water. The trees were sharply black against the sky. Clara bent down and scooped up more snow. The kitchen door slammed. She leaped forward, running downhill. She lost her footing but jumped to her feet and dashed forward onto the lake.
The ice was solid. Clara slipped and slid, venturing farther and farther from the shore. Her fingers were numb around the dripping snowball. She heard the sound of Grisini’s feet scuffling through the snow and turned to see where he was.
He paused at the lakeshore. After the slightest of hesitations, he stepped out onto the ice and trotted toward her. His hands were thrust out, ready to hook his dirty claws under her skin. Clara thought how long Parsefall had lived in the shadow of this man. She felt a great swelling of love and rage, and her fear was as nothing. As long as Grisini chased her, she would run. If he caught her, she would fight. She would die before she let him have the stone. Her hands tightened around the ball of ice, and she pressed it against her heart.
The glassy shell of the opal cracked. Clara felt it: a tingling flash, the sensation of a bubble bursting against her fingers. Her hair stood on end. At the same instant, she heard a deep and hollow sound, like the vibration of a huge drum. The ice beneath her feet began to shake. Cacophony: a low booming, a nasal creaking, a series of snapping noises like gunshots. Clara opened her hands. The fragments of the fire opal looked like bits of sucked candy.
Grisini screamed. He swayed back and forth like a falling tree, his arms flailing. The ice beneath him shattered and gave way. There was a loud splash. Clara started forward. The ice groaned. She looked down and saw the cracks around her feet: crooked and angular, like the skeleton of a tree in winter. Dark water oozed up between them. Clara’s slippers were wet. The water that would drown her was lapping at her feet.
“Lie down!” The voice was Lizzie Rose’s. “Lie down flat! We’ll help you!”
Clara lowered herself onto her knees and stretched out on her stomach. The ice ceased to groan beneath her weight. But her sense of relief, though acute, was short-lived. Now that she was lying still, she felt the cold keenly. Her legs trembled, and she curled her toes and arched her back, trying to make herself smaller. Her teeth chattered. She hugged herself and squeezed her thighs together.
There was a faint creaking to her left. Clara twisted her head. Before her, walking barefoot over the starlit ice, was an angel. It wore a white robe and crept toward her with a que
er mincing gait. Clara’s blood ran cold. Was it Death, coming for her? Had she drowned or frozen without knowing it?
But the angel was wingless and had no halo. It made its way over the ice in an oddly haphazard manner, zigzagging around the larger cracks. And the white robe wasn’t a robe but a nightshirt — and all at once Clara’s face broke out in a smile of wonder, because surely this was the angel of her twin.
She raised herself up a little. Now that he had come, she remembered him with perfect clarity. She had not seen him for seven years, but she remembered how he looked in his nightshirt. Every morning he left his bed to creep into hers, and the two of them played together before their nurse was awake. They made caves of their blankets and pretended to be bears. She remembered how his cheeks broadened when he giggled and how his eyes curled up at the outer edges. Her brother, her own dear twin, had come to comfort her while she lay dying —
But no: Charles Augustus had dark hair, like her own. Charles Augustus was a solid little boy, whereas the boy in the nightshirt was spindly and light haired and carried a coil of rope over his shoulder.
“P-Parsefall,” croaked Clara.
He halted, checking his balance. The ice squeaked and he got down on his belly, skittering toward her like some skillful insect. “I got a rope,” he told her. “Lizzie Rose uses it to tie up her bloody ’orrible dog. She thought I’d better bring it ’cos I’m lighter’n her.”
“Thank you,” Clara said with absurd formality. She stretched out her arms, and he uncoiled the rope and lashed it like a whip, so that the end was within reach. “Is Grisini —?”
“Drownded,” answered Parsefall. He was shivering as hard as she was, but he didn’t seem a bit sorry that his former master was dead. “Bleedin’ cold, ain’t it? Don’t move yet. I’m goin’ to get back where the ice is thicker, and then I’ll pull you.”
Clara rolled to one side, trying to slip the end of the rope under her sash. Her fingers shook. “I broke the fire opal,” she said. She crossed one end of the rope under the other and pulled, making the first half of a double knot. She jerked her head at a small mound of snow. “It’s there.”
Parsefall reached down and scooped up the snow. He peered at the remains of the gemstone. Then he clapped the snowball back together and tossed it over his shoulder.
Clara heard a faint splash.
“I’ll pull you,” Parsefall said. He was backing up. Already his voice sounded far away. “Just ’old on. I’ll pull you.”
Clara lay flat. She felt the tension of the rope as she began to move, the ridges in the ice scraping her skin. She heard her skirt tear. She thought, Parsefall is pulling my strings, and in spite of the danger and the piercing cold, she laughed.
Lizzie Rose stood at the edge of the lake and prayed. She heard the squeal and crackle of the ice, and she strained to see through the darkness to the place where Parsefall was trying to rescue Clara. The children had come to the lake just in time to witness Grisini’s fall. It was Parsefall, with his cat-keen eyes, who spotted Clara; she was fifty-some paces farther from the shore than Grisini had been. Lizzie Rose had been forced to think rapidly, to direct Clara to lie down, to remember the rope that served as Ruby’s tether, to agree — too quickly — that Parsefall would be safer on the ice than she would. Now she held herself rigid and prayed that no one else would drown.
She heard footsteps behind her, crunching through the snow. She looked over her shoulder and saw two bundled-up shapes: Mrs. Fettle and her son, Mark. Mrs. Fettle was carrying a lantern. Lizzie Rose turned back to the lake and resumed her prayers.
She watched as Parsefall, bent like a plow horse, towed Clara across the jagged ice. He was swearing, but almost cheerfully; Lizzie Rose had heard him swear like that backstage. Clara half crawled, half skidded toward the shore.
Mark Fettle took off his coat and handed it to Lizzie Rose. “Give my coat to the girl. I’ll carry the boy.” He went to the lake’s edge and held out his arms. “Come here, lad. I’ll carry you back to the house — save those bare feet of yours.”
Parsefall looked startled but did not protest. As soon as he came within arm’s length, Mark Fettle swept him up, one arm around his shoulders and the other under his knees. Lizzie Rose went to Clara and draped Mark’s coat over the girl’s shoulders.
“Inside,” Mrs. Fettle said curtly.
She lit their way up the path. Mark Fettle followed, carrying Parsefall, then Lizzie Rose, and Clara, with the rope dragging behind her like a tail. They were halfway up the hill before they saw the house. Lizzie Rose halted, staring. She heard Mark Fettle say, “God!”
“The tower,” said Parsefall.
“It’s fallen,” gasped Mrs. Fettle.
The shape of the house had changed. The great tower had collapsed. The remains resembled a hand with the three tallest fingers drawn together. There was a trio of uneven peaks where the tower wall adjoined the house. Near the bottom, where the hollow of the hand might be, was a great mound of rubble: stone, plaster, shingles, and timber.
“I told Madama it was unsafe,” said Mrs. Fettle. “I warned her, but she wouldn’t listen to me.”
“That must’ve been what we heard,” Mark Fettle said in wonder. “We came out into the garden and I felt the ground shake. I thought it was an earthquake.”
“It was an earthquake,” declared Mrs. Fettle. “What else could make the tower fall and the ice crack? Someone might’ve been killed.” She rounded on the children. “What were you doing out on the lake past midnight? And what was the meaning of all that screeching? And who’s this girl, and what’s she doing here?”
Lizzie Rose said imploringly, “Oh, please, ma’am! It’s dreadfully cold, and we haven’t any proper clothes on! Mayn’t we go inside?”
Mrs. Fettle sniffed. “You may and you will,” the housekeeper said grimly, “but once you’re inside, you’re going to tell me the whole story.”
Lizzie Rose quailed at the prospect. She followed Mrs. Fettle up the path, trying to think how to explain the events of the evening to a grown-up. Her mind was still blank when they reached the house.
The kitchen door was ajar. Clara hastened to the stove and knelt down, her teeth chattering. Parsefall squatted an arm’s length away. Lizzie Rose took the poker and stirred the coals, clouding the air with smoke and coal ash. “Might we have a basin of cold water, Mrs. Fettle? I’m afraid of frostbite — Parsefall hasn’t any shoes on and Clara’s slippers are wet.”
Mrs. Fettle filled a basin with water and banged it down before Parsefall. “There. Stand in that and let your feet thaw.”
Parsefall dipped one foot in the water and jerked it back again. “It’s bloody ’ot!” he said, outraged.
“It isn’t,” snapped Mrs. Fettle. “It’s cold water; it only feels hot because you’re half frozen. And I’ll thank you not to use that language in this house.” She darted a sharp look at Clara. “I’d like to know who you are and what you’re doing here. Where did you come from?”
Clara sidestepped the first two questions, fastening on the third. “From London, ma’am.”
Mrs. Fettle’s eyebrows rose. “If you live in London, why are you here? When did you come, and where are your parents? Why were you out on the lake in the middle of the night, without any coat on?”
Clara hesitated. She fumbled with the buttons on the borrowed coat, playing for time.
Lizzie Rose spoke up. “Grisini was chasing her.”
“Chasing her!” exclaimed Mrs. Fettle. “Mr. Grisini’s down at the gatehouse. He’s too weak to chase anyone. Why on earth —?”
Parsefall interrupted her. “He ain’t down the gatehouse. He’s dead. ’E fell in the lake.”
“Do you mean just now?” Mrs. Fettle stared at him as if he had lost his mind. “Tonight? Do you mean he’s out there —?” She turned to her son. “Mark,” she said urgently.
Mark Fettle shook his head, dumbfounded.
Parsefall stopped chafing his toes. “He drownded,” he explained. “
I saw it. The ice cracked and ’e slid down between the pieces. His ’ands was snatching at the edge, but he couldn’t catch ’old, ’cos the ice broke off. Then he sank, an’ he never come back up. We both saw, didn’t we, Lizzie Rose? And Clara, too.”
Lizzie Rose looked pleadingly at Mrs. Fettle. “We couldn’t help it, Mrs. Fettle, indeed we couldn’t. There wasn’t time.”
“You might have told me,” Mrs. Fettle said resentfully. She picked up the kettle as if to refill it, then set it down again. “We’ll have to send for the doctor —”
“’E’s dead,” Parsefall insisted.
Mrs. Fettle frowned at the ceiling, calculating. “There’ll have to be a death certificate. And the constable had better come. You’ll have to go, Mark.”
“Aye, I’ll go.” Mark Fettle looked uncertainly at Clara. She stood up and took off his coat, holding it out to him. He touched the rim of his cap. “Thank you, miss.”
“Thank you,” Clara said courteously, and he shrugged himself into his coat and went outdoors.
The jangling of a bell made them all jump. “Dear heavens!” breathed Mrs. Fettle. “Madama.” She raked her fingers through her hair and rushed out of the kitchen.
Once she was gone, Lizzie Rose breathed a sigh of relief. For a little while at least, there would be no more questions. She felt a sudden weakness in her knees and realized she was trembling. So much had happened: the attempted escape, the torture of Grisini, Parsefall’s nightmare, Grisini’s death . . . and Clara. Lizzie Rose stared at Clara as if she were a ghost.
Clara seemed to understand. She smiled and patted the floor, inviting Lizzie Rose to sit by her.
Lizzie Rose sank down on her knees between Clara and Parsefall. Clara snuggled against her, burying her head in Lizzie Rose’s shoulder. The two girls clung together, rocking a little. Parsefall rolled his eyes and rubbed his toes.
No one spoke. Shoulder to shoulder, the three children sat before the kitchen fire, gazing into the flames. They inhaled the dense smoke, watching it billow and change shape. Lizzie Rose stared at the orange-red coals until the backs of her eyes smarted.
Splendors and Glooms Page 27