Blythewood (44 page)

“Will they be all right?” I asked, noting that even the feather in Agnes’s cap was wilting.
She sighed. “I’ve outlined a plan by which, if they are willing to cut back and be frugal, they should be able to manage. I’m
afraid the rest is up to them. If the mother were able to be a little
stronger for Helen’s sake . . .” She faltered, perhaps remembering the example my mother set.
“It’s all right,” I assured her. “I’ve learned why my mother
did what she did. She may have been weak in the months before
she died, but in the end . . .” My voice quivered, but I went on. “In
the end she did what she did for me. She drank the laudanum to
destroy the shadows, not because she had given in to them.”
Agnes’s chin trembled and I reached out to squeeze her
hand. It felt strange to be comforting the indomitable Agnes
Moorhen. She must have felt it, too, because she smiled ruefully. “You’ve changed up there at Blythewood, and not just
your new hair,” she said, laughing. “Although I do think that
it’s quite fetching on you. But what I meant is that you’ve grown
stronger.”
I laughed. “Well, I didn’t have much choice, did I?”
Agnes looked suddenly somber. “There’s always a choice.
And I’m afraid you’re going to have to make some difficult ones
in the future.” She looked around the van Beek parlor, peering
behind the aspidistras as if someone—or some
thing
—might
be lurking in the shadows. “There’s something I have to tell you
about what happened on the ship. There was a man on board
whom I recognized . . .”
“Was it Judicus van Drood?” I asked.
“How did you know?” Agnes cried, trembling at the sound
of his name.
“Because he was the man in the Inverness cape who followed me and my mother.”
“But why . . . ?” Agnes’s eyes grew wide. “Wait . . . I remember when he taught at Blythewood your mother was his favorite
student. There was some talk that they had formed an inappropriate relationship.”
I shuddered, recalling van Drood’s name on the chart betrothing him to my mother. Was it possible that he was my father? I pushed away the thought. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I
asked Agnes.
“Because I didn’t believe it for a minute! Evangeline Hall
would never have had an improper relationship with a teacher—
not even with Mr. van Drood, whom all the girls liked so
much . . . although I always thought he was a bit strange. When
we met him on board I was quite sorry that Mr. van Beek invited him to our table.”
“Helen’s father knew him?”
“Why yes, the families have known each other for generations. Mr. van Drood had been advising Mr. van Beek on some
business matters . . . oh! I should have thought of that sooner.
I wonder if van Drood’s advice led to the van Beek’s financial
difficulties.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” I said. “What did van Drood talk
about at dinner?”
Agnes shook her head as if trying to scatter cobwebs. “It’s
all rather a blur. I always had a headache after those dinners. I
thought it was from the motion of the ship, but I don’t generally
get seasick, as I told Mr. Farnsworth—”
“Mr. Farnsworth! Mr. Herbert Farnsworth! The librarian
of the Hawthorn School?”
“Why, yes! He sat at our table. He was quite . . .” She dimpled and colored. “
Learned
. We had some fascinating conversations about books.”
I quickly explained that Mr. Farnsworth had been carrying
a book for me.
“Ah,” Agnes said, “that explains a few things. He carried
with him a leather portmanteau strapped across his chest at
all times because, he explained, he had some important documents in it that he could not risk leaving unattended . . . oh my!”
Agnes turned pale. “I’ve just recalled that Mr. van Drood took
quite an interest in Mr. Farnsworth.”
My mouth went dry. “What happened to Mr. Farnsworth?”
I asked as gently as I could.
Agnes shook her head and bit her lip. “I don’t really know.
Mr. Farnsworth and I were on the deck the night we hit the
iceberg. We saw Mr. van Drood standing on the foredeck staring into the sea. Then the iceberg appeared . . . everyone was so
shocked at its appearance, but not Mr. van Drood. I remember I
had the strangest feeling that he had
summoned
it.”
I recalled the dream I’d had about the icebergs coming to
life as ice giants and what Raven said about the ice giants leaving the woods and going back north. Had van Drood somehow
gotten control of the ice giants? Had he lured them to the
Titanic
to destroy the ship?
“What happened then?” I asked.
“Chaos! I had to go find your grandmother and Mrs. van
Beek and help them get into their life vests. Mrs. van Beek
wanted to retrieve her jewels from the safe! Can you imagine?
Mr. van Beek said he would wait for the jewels and sent us on
ahead. Poor Mr. van Beek—we never saw him again! I saw Mr.
Farnsworth once more. He helped us find a lifeboat with space
to take us. I wanted to go back and help more people but he lifted me bodily from the deck and placed me in the boat! Then he
started to give me his portmanteau—”
“He was going to give you the book!”
“Yes, but then he looked over his shoulder and changed
his mind. Instead he . . .” Agnes blushed. “Well, let’s just say he
gave me a very
fervid
good-bye. Then he was gone. I lost sight
of him when the boat was lowered. That was the last time I
ever saw him.”
I squeezed Agnes’s hand. “When Mr. Farnsworth looked
over his shoulder, did you see what he was looking at?”
“No . . . I . . . well, now that you
ask . . .”
She furrowed her
brow, trying to concentrate. “When I try to think about it everything gets all . . .
shadowy
.”
“Do you think it could have been van Drood?”
Agnes winced, as if in pain. Then she shook her head as if
she were trying to clear water out of her ears.
“Yes!” she said suddenly, a look of determination replacing the fog on her face. “Yes! I don’t know why I didn’t remember earlier. That man! He was following Mr. Farnsworth even
then . . . even with the ship sinking! And Mr. Farnsworth must
not have given me the book because . . .” A sob burst from Agnes’s mouth.
“Because he would have pursued you for it,” I said. “And
no doubt drowned you and everyone in your lifeboat for it. He
lured van Drood away from you.”
Back onto a sinking ship,
I almost said, thinking of someone who had flown through fire to
save someone. “What a brave man!”
“Yes,” Agnes said, wiping her eyes, “but I’m afraid he must
have drowned in his heroic efforts. I did not see him among the
survivors on the
Carpathia
.”
“And did you see van Drood?”
Agnes shook her head. “No . . . at least, I don’t think so . . .
no, I’m
sure
. The only place I’ve seen that devil since is in my
nightmares.”
“Then let’s hope he drowned,” I said with as much conviction as I could muster. I had a dreadful suspicion, though, that
it would take more than the
Titanic
sinking to destroy Judicus
van Drood.

HELEN AND I left for Blythewood the next day. Mrs. van
Beek insisted that Helen go. “Your kind Miss Moorhen and her
friend Mr. Greenfeder have promised to look in on me and help
me make some alterations in our domestic economy. You’d only
be in the way. Best you go back to school. Who knows? Maybe
you’ll marry that funny Beckwith boy and support your old
mother in her dotage.”

Helen blushed at the reference to Nathan and chided her
mother, but I could tell that it was the reminder of Nathan that
decided her. She’d had a letter from him expressing condolences for her father’s death that she must have read a dozen times
on the train ride up to Rhinebeck.

“He says Louisa is making some progress. She plays games
of patience most of the day, but she’s willing to play bridge with
the aunts and Uncle Taddie after tea. He says he’s taking her to
a sanatorium in Marienbad this summer.”

“Perhaps they’ll be able to help her,” I said, wondering if it
was the same sanatorium that had been unable to restore Uncle
Taddie’s mind entirely. “Does he . . . um . . . mention a boarder
at Violet House?”

a boarder who suddenly vanished. A clockmaker’s apprentice . . .” Her voice trailed off. The old Helen would have grilled
me on my interest in a mere apprentice, but she only looked
out the window, her eyes growing as vague as the mist rising
off the river.

Gillie met us at the train station. He took off his cap and
bowed formally to Helen to express his sorrow for her father’s
death, then turned away when he saw she was struggling not to
cry. She lost that struggle when Daisy greeted her on the steps
of the school. We shuttled her quickly up the steps then, knowing she’d hate for the other girls to see her crying. As we unpacked Daisy kept up a constant chatter about her plans to get
us through finals.

“I’ve organized all my notes and made a schedule,” she said,
demonstrating a thick ledger book with color-coded flags for
each subject. “Dolores and Beatrice are going to prep you for
science and I’m going to quiz you on bell changes. Cam has gotten Miss Swift to agree to drop your practical in archery, seeing
how Ava saved the school with that feather trick of hers, and
Helen . . .”

“And poor Helen’s father died?” she asked, a bit of her customary tartness returning. “Am I to be passed out of pity?”
Daisy looked embarrassed. “Not at all. Miss Swift said she
had no doubt you could shoot the tail feathers off the rest of the
girls. She wants you to run the archery club next year.”
“Oh,” Helen said, abashed. Then recovering, she quipped,
“Well, high time. I’ll help you practice in exchange for all the
work you’ll be doing to get us through finals . . . and . . . er . . .
thank you, Daisy. I can’t imagine what we’d do without you.”
Daisy beamed, dropped her ledger, then had to reorganize
her colored flags.
Helen was right. We wouldn’t have been able to get through
finals without Daisy’s help—or without Beatrice, Dolores, and
Cam pitching in. Other girls helped, too—Alfreda Driscoll
taught us a spell to help with memorization. Andalusia Beaumont lent me her lucky arrow for the practical, which I chose to
take even though I’d been excused and even though my shoulders still ached when I drew the bow.
At first I thought they were all helping because of Helen
losing her father, but I soon learned that my role during the
Night of Shadows had spread throughout the school and I
had become—at least according to Helen and Daisy—a Blythewood legend. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. Some of
Blythewood’s legends didn’t turn out so well.
Judicus van Drood, for instance.
I wanted to talk to Dame Beckwith about the identity of the
Shadow Master, but she had gone to Europe with Louisa and
Nathan and wouldn’t be back until the Fall term. By then perhaps I’d know more about what had happened to Judicus van
Drood. If he had really perished on the
Titanic
perhaps there
was no need to tell her that her old friend and colleague had
been taken over by the tenebrae. Or if I did have to tell her, at
least it would come after Louisa was better.
On the day the exam results were posted and we learned we
had all passed, Miss Sharp threw a celebratory tea party in the
Great Hall for the whole school, helped by her aunts, who were
a bit at loose ends since Nathan and Louisa had left for Europe.
There were cucumber sandwiches, bread and butter, scones
with clotted cream and fresh raspberries, Victoria sponge cake,
and iced cakes topped with sugared violets. It lived up to the
most elaborate feasts in Miss Moore’s girls’-school books.
But none of Mrs. Moore’s feasts culminated in the strange
spectacle we were treated to after tea. Euphorbia Frost stood
up to make an announcement. I hadn’t seen her since I’d come
back, and I noticed right away how changed she was. She’d
lost weight during her illness, and although her figure was
still ample, she no longer looked stout. Color had returned to
her face and she had stopped dying her hair that awful eggplant color. It had come in a soft, silvery gray that better suited
her violet eyes.
“I have been consulting with my esteemed mentor, the eminent Sir Miles Malmsbury, since his return from the field, and
he has convinced me that the practice of keeping specimens of
the
lychnobia
is inhumane . . .”
“Do you think?” I heard Daisy mutter under her breath.
“And contradicts the burial habits of the lychnobious
people. And so, today, Sir Malmsbury and I will return the
lampsprites to their proper burial ground. If you would care to
join us . . .”
Gillie had rigged up a pony cart with ribbons and flowers,
which he led to the edge of the Blythe Wood. I peeked inside
and saw that the sprites’ bodies were laid out on white linen, the
pins removed from their breasts. It was a sad sight, but when we
reached the edge of the woods, a breeze stirred over their bodies and they began to disintegrate. The breeze quickened into a
gust that picked up the sprite dust and carried it into the air. We
all looked up to see a conflagration spreading across the sky.
Some of the dust fell on our upturned faces and we heard their
song as they vanished into the woods.
Remember us,
they sang,
remember us.
I looked around at my friends and teachers and saw tearstained faces streaked with sprite dust. Would remembering
the lampsprites change how they thought of the fairies? Would
they ever accept that the Darklings weren’t evil if I didn’t find
the book that proved it? I wasn’t sure—but I knew we had all
changed this year and that Blythewood would never be the
same.
When the last of the sprite dust had vanished into the air,
the crowd turned and headed back to the castle, all except Gillie, who stood gazing into the woods, his moss-green eyes the
same color as the shadows beneath the trees. I noticed he had a
sprite feather tucked behind his ear.
“That’s where you come from, isn’t it?” I asked.
He took so long to answer that I grew afraid that I’d offended him, but when he did speak at last his voice was gentle. “Aye
lass, that is where I’m from, but your true home is with the ones
ye love and I’ve come to care for the creatures on both sides of
the woods.”
“Do they know?” I asked, afraid for him.
“The Dame knows.”
“But how can she teach that all the creatures of Faerie are
evil if she knows you’re not?”
Gillie smiled. “Folks can hold two opposite ideas in their
heads at the same time, lass. Don’t forget that. And don’t stray
too long in the woods . . .” He winked at me. “I’ll only be able to
cover for you for a little while.” Then he turned to go, whistling
the same tune that the lampsprites had sung:
Remember me, remember me.
When he was halfway across the lawn I slipped into the
woods.
The trees on the edge of the forest were charred from the
fire, but once I got past them I was enveloped in a deep green sea
with flashes of sunlight flitting through the depths like tropical
fish. As I went deeper into the woods I noticed that the flashes of sunlight had wings, and the birds, which had gone quiet
when I first entered the woods, were now calling to each other.
Were they warning their flocks that a hunter had entered the
woods—or were they sending a message to him?
Since Miss Corey had told me about Raven flying through
the fire to save me—and flying back again through it—I had
hardly dared hope he had survived. And while I’d told myself
that I had stayed out of the woods so far because of the patrols,
the truth was that I’d been afraid to learn that he hadn’t.
I found the tree that held Raven’s nest. I looked up, but the
canopy of green leaves was too thick for me to make out his
nest. I stood still and listened to the birdsong. It was sweet and
sad and reminded me of a funeral dirge. Where did Darklings
go when they died if they couldn’t go to Faerie? I wondered.
Surely not into the shadows . . .
I felt the sting of tears on my face and lifted my hand to
wipe them off, but before my hand reached my face something
else brushed them away—a sweep of wings that cloaked my
back. I spun around, so fast the woods spun with me in a whirl
of green, and found him standing there, his dark eyes the only
steady beacons in a spinning world.
I rushed into his arms, desperate to know he was real. As he
folded his arms and wings around me, I pressed myself to his
chest. I could feel the heat of his skin through the thin cotton
of his shirt.
Yes! He was real, he was alive!
But then I realized his
skin wasn’t just warm, it was
on fire
.
I stepped back and gingerly touched the collar of his shirt.
His skin beneath was red and scarred. Looking up I saw that he
was wincing against the pain of my touch.
“You
were
hurt!” I gasped.
Raven shrugged. I noticed now that he held one of his wings
stiffly. “You were hurt, too, in saving us. How are your hands?”
I held them out for him to see. He took them both in his
and I was glad he was looking down at them so he couldn’t see
the blush that had risen to my cheeks. I noticed how small my
hands looked in his, like doves cupped in a nest. They fluttered
like doves, too, until he covered them both between his two
hands and looked up into my eyes. “I’m glad you did not suffer
any worse injuries,” he said so formally I almost laughed.
“My shoulder blades still hurt sometimes,” I said, unnerved
by the force of his gaze.
His brows drew together. “Your shoulder blades? I didn’t
see the fire reach your back.”
I shrugged, embarrassed to seem as if I had been complaining. “It’s nothing,” I began, but he was already turning me around, his hands on my shoulders. I could feel his
breath on the nape of my neck and, through the thin fabric
of my shirtwaist, his hands running down my back.
His touch seemed to waken something inside me—a stirring that began in my chest and fluttered across my back. My
skin felt prickly, as if it were stretched too tight across my
bones. My heart beat so hard I thought it would burst out of
my chest. After a moment he turned me back to face him. He
was very close, his face hovering over mine, his lips only inches
away. I felt myself leaning in toward him, but he stopped me by
laying a hand on my chest.
“Ava, there’s something you must know. It’s about  .  .  .
your father.”
My mouth went dry. I thought about the charts I’d found in
the dungeons and the shadow play I’d been shown by the candelabellum and all that van Drood had told me about his courtship of my mother. Van Drood thought she loved him, and even
my mother had said she had cared for him once. I didn’t know
much about how these matters, but I had begun to suspect that
van Drood and my mother might have been . . .
intimate
before
my mother broke things off.
“I’m that monster’s child, aren’t I?” I said with a horrible
sinking in my chest.
Raven flinched as though I’d struck him. He clenched his
jaw as if against some terrible pain. “What monster?”
“Van Drood. He loved my mother. She refused to marry
him, but she must have loved him once and . . .
been with
him.
That’s why she ran away. She saw what he was becoming and
didn’t want to raise me with him. But that’s why he was looking
for me.” I felt my chin wobbling, but I bit the inside of my cheek
and forced myself to look Raven in the eyes. “That’s why you’ve
stayed away, isn’t it?”
Raven gave me a long, level look.
“Do you think I would forsake you because of something
like that?”
I felt a quiver of relief, but also a sinking in my heart. “So
it’s true.”
“Where did you get this idea?” Raven asked.
“I saw it in the candelabellum.”
“Tell me exactly what you saw,” he commanded in an oddly
stern voice.
I told him about the scene of van Drood and my mother in
the garden and her running toward the woods, the crows chasing her, the wings dissolving into larger wings, and then vanishing. “Because she was swallowed up by the shadows,” I said
at last. “I’m afraid they were always inside her from then on.”
“And this is what she told you when you saw her in Faerie?”
“No,” I replied. “There wasn’t time.”
“Ava,” Raven said, gripping both my shoulders in his hands.
“What you saw in the candelabellum wasn’t complete. When
your mother disappeared in the woods she wasn’t swallowed by
the shadows. She was fleeing to her lover.”
“Van Drood said she loved someone else, but I thought it
was just his jealousy.”
“No, she did love someone very much, someone she couldn’t
stay with.”
“So van Drood’s not my father!” I cried, so relieved I felt
tears pour down my face. “The young van Drood looked so
familiar to me.”
“Yes, he would look familiar to you, because you know
his son.”
“His son? Who . . . ?”
But then I saw it—the way Dame Beckwith had looked at
van Drood in the vision I had seen in the candelabellum and
the way her face had changed when she heard his voice coming out of Sarah’s mouth. She hadn’t wanted to believe that the
shadow creature was speaking with his voice because she had
once been in love with him.
“Nathan is van Drood’s son?”
“Yes. That’s why I was afraid of you getting too close to
him. He’s half submersed in the shadows already.”
“No!” I cried. “Just because Nathan is a monster’s son
doesn’t make him a monster.” I remembered what my mother
had said, that I was the only one who could save Nathan from
the shadows. I looked into Raven’s eyes. He still gripped my
shoulders, still stared at me.
“I’m glad you see it that way,” he said. “It will make it easier
for you.  .  .  . You see, the man your mother loved  .  .  . well, he
wasn’t a man.”
“What . . . ?” But I was seeing the shadow play again, watching the swirl of wings. I could hear them in my head, almost
drowning out Raven’s words, but not quite.
“Those pains you feel in your shoulder blades are fledgling
pains. We all feel them when our wings are emerging . . . You
see, Ava, your father was a Darkling . . .” His voice faltered at
the look on my face.
“No!” I cried, unable to disguise the horror in my voice.
“Is that so horrible?” he asked, his voice hoarse with emotion. “That you are becoming like me? Do you think I’m a
monster?”
“Of course not . . . it’s just I—I . . .” I stammered to a halt,
searching for the right words, but before I could find them I
heard Helen’s and Daisy’s voices calling my name. I turned and
shouted to them that I would be there in a moment and when I
turned back Raven was gone. I hadn’t even heard his wings. For
a moment I wondered if I’d imagined his appearance. Perhaps it
had all been a dream and I wasn’t turning into a Darkling after
all. But when I turned back toward Helen and Daisy I felt the
ache in my shoulder blades again and I knew it was true.
I walked out of the woods and found Helen and Daisy on
the lawn standing a few feet from the edge of the woods.
“Daisy was worried, so we came looking for you,” Helen
said. Daisy opened her mouth to object but one look at Helen’s
drawn and anxious face made her close it again. “Yes, I was
worried,” Daisy said. “And Helen agreed to come look for you.”
She reached out her hand and took mine. “Come along or you’ll
be late for the farewell dinner.”
Helen hooked her arm in mine and we all turned to walk
back to Blythewood as the bells began to ring the dinner hour.
They rang us all the way home and then, when they were done,
the seventh bell rang from beneath the river, its tone clear and
sweet in the spring air, only instead of saying