Hawthorn (27 page)

“I'm here to warn your mistress of an attack,” I said out loud. In response I heard a hiss behind me. I whirled around and saw something white flit over the bridge, a gauzy scrap that could have been a wisp of fog, only it was accompanied by a piercing shriek.

“Stop that!” I cried. “We're on the same side!”

Something wet and clammy brushed across my back. I screamed and whirled around. As I did I felt the wet clammy thing wrap around my waist. I tore at it with my fingernails and shreds of wet tissue fell to the stones with a disgusting
plop
.

“Is that your plan?” I demanded. “To
tissue
me to death?”

“Yes,” a voice hissed in my ear.

I whirled to face it and a damp cloth fell over my eyes. I reached up to peel it away but it was tightened from behind.

“So you want to play blind man's bluff?” I drew my dagger and spun around, slicing through wet cloth. Something screamed. So the thing, whatever it was, could be hurt. I ripped the blindfold from my eyes and found myself staring into black bottomless eyes not two inches away from my face. The creature was wrapped in layers of white gauze that floated around it as if buoyed by watery currents. Its face was as white as its dress and blurry, like a statue that's been worn down by centuries
of wind and rain. Only the black holes of its eyes and gaping mouth stood out distinctly. Its breath smelled like river water. I braced myself to keep from running—
if I run it will chase me down and kill me
—and spoke to it.

“You're a Witte Wieven,” I said. “One of the handmaids of Lady Aesinor. I've come to speak to your mistress. She'll want to hear what I have to say. Take me to her, please.”

The Wieven curtseyed, holding up its tattered dress in bony hands, and began to hum.

“That's right, you like to dance. Very well. I took dancing lessons last year. True, they were with a homicidal maniac who tried to bomb the Woolworth Building, but still he was an excellent dancing teacher.” I curtseyed back to her. The humming grew louder. Fog was rising from the river and spilling over the walls of the bridge. There were white shapes in the fog swaying to the monotonous humming.

“This isn't much of a dancing tune,” I said. “Perhaps I can provide something better.” I took my repeater out of my pocket and depressed the stem. The tinkling strains of a waltz began. “Oh, I think you'll like this. It's about a river, after all. It's a waltz called the Blue Danube.”

The Wieven tilted her head, listening to the tune, and began to sway to the infectious waltz. She snatched my hands in hers and twirled me around, taking the lead, and sweeping me over the bridge. At the next drawbridge she passed me on to another Wieven. The rest of the Wieven whirled around us, their white gauzy draperies spinning in a dizzy blur. They clearly liked the music, and why not? The waltz had the rush of the river in its
lilting strains. Dancing to it felt like being carried by the current. I could almost feel the splash of water on my face—

I did feel something wet. As we danced over the third drawbridge, the Wieven's dress billowed around me, shedding droplets of cold water. I tried to brush the water away but I couldn't free my hands from the Wieven's grip. Perhaps, I thought, as a length of wet cloth wound around my shoulders, this hadn't been such a good idea.

“It's been lovely dancing with you,” I said, as I'd been trained in Herr Hofmeister's class to respond to an awkward dancing partner, “but I really must be going.”

The Wieven grinned, revealing a mouthful of needle-sharp teeth. A wet scarf wound around my waist. Another slipped over my hips. It was getting harder to move my legs, but the Wieven bore me aloft and spun me around the courtyard, holding me closer to its damp bosom—which smelled, I realized, like rotting fish.

I remembered the story Manon had told me. When the castle was besieged, the queen's ladies-in-waiting had jumped from the tower—and drowned in the river. I looked into the Wieven's face. It wasn't just blurry, I saw now, it was bloated. I looked down at the pale, spongy substance winding around my arms. It wasn't cloth; it was flesh. The flesh of a drowned woman falling off her bones. The Wieven was wrapping her decaying flesh around me so I would suffer the same fate she and her friends had.

“I understand . . .” I began. An awful cackle echoed off the courtyard walls, which were festooned with white swags and
ribbons as if decorated for a medieval jousting tourney—only the ribbons and pennants were made of the Wievens' rotting flesh and fluttered with the Wievens' voices.
How can you understand? You didn't see . . .

But I could see. I was a Darkling gifted with the ability to share the memories of a dying soul. The Wieven might already be dead but their spirits still hovered between worlds and their flesh now encased me. I closed my eyes and saw a beautiful woman bathing in a forest spring, surrounded by her handmaids and other creatures of the forest—lumignon and lutins, pixies and elves, and even Darklings. They all lived in peace together. They were happy. But then one day a man came, a man on horseback wearing cold steel armor. He saw the beautiful woman and fell in love with her and begged her to marry him. I saw the castle of Bouillon rise from the river bend, a creation of fairy magic and love, carved of stone the color of sun-warmed honey, not the blackened hulk the castle was now. I saw the years of happiness pass, the pageants and festivals, Godfrey's knights flirting with and wooing Aesinor's handmaids, and I realized that Aesinor's tragedy hadn't been just her own. When Godfrey spied her in the bath and fled the castle he took his knights with him. When he raised an army, his own knights, who had courted the ladies-in-waiting, rode on the castle. It was that betrayal that sent the seven ladies over the tower wall. I saw Aesinor become an angry winged serpent, breathing fire on the castle walls and Godfrey and his knights, destroying all in her path. Then I saw her raising her dead ladies-in-waiting from the river, fog-like wraiths who stood on the drawbridges
waiting for human men to pass by. Centuries flew by; hundreds of hapless travelers were seized, wrapped in cocoons and presented as gifts to the Lady Aesinor—including one tweedy schoolteacher whistling a happy tune as he crossed the drawbridge—

“Mr. Bellows!” I cried out, opening my eyes. “What have you done to Mr. Bellows?” I searched the courtyard. A tented pavilion had been set up at one end, a dais for viewing a joust, with a throne at its center. In front of the throne lay three bundles swaddled in the Wieven's ghastly white flesh. Protruding from one I spied a tweedy leg. Within the other two I detected the shape of wings.

“You've got Raven and Marlin, too! But they've all come to help!” I cried out, anger making my wings flex and strain against the fleshy bandages. The wrappings smoldered and smoked. I stoked my anger with the thought of poor kindhearted Mr. Bellows, brave Marlin, and Raven! My own beloved Raven—

My wings burst into flame, searing through the fleshy bindings. The Wieven let go my hands and stumbled backward. I spun around, fanning the flames with my wings into a circle of fire. The other Wieven shrunk and fell back. The fire caught the draped dais and it burst into flames, raining sparks down on my trussed-up friends. I rushed to the three prone shapes and stripped the wrappings off Marlin first, who immediately began to free Mr. Bellows. I ripped the cloth off Raven, my heart pounding with fear and anger. He was so still . . . but then he was coughing and shaking the rest of the wraps off him.

“You're still alive!” I cried, looking around at Marlin and
Mr. Bellows, who was picking the last shreds of Wieven flesh from his tweed walking suit. “You're all alive!”

“Are we?” Mr. Bellows gasped. “These fish women have been saving us to snack on our bones. Hurry—we have to get out of here before their queen arrives.”

But it was too late. A wind roared through the courtyard, fanning the flames. Lightning hit the tower above our heads and lit up the looming black stones and the sky above. A piteous wailing echoed off the old stones and I thought I could feel the whole castle shake. I looked up to see a winged serpent descending from the sky. Her wings were bat-like, her skin scaled, but her eyes were the eyes of the painted saint in the niche below the drawbridge. I realized now why they had looked familiar. I had met her sister and brother. Aesinor, guardian of the third vessel, had arrived.

“WELL, IT'S ABOUT
bloody time you put in an appearance,” I said, marching up to the throne where Aesinor had settled, her flashing green tail coiled around its legs, her red leathery wings fanned out behind her. “While you've been gone your she-devils have been trussing up my friends like Christmas turkeys while we came to help—”

Aesinor opened her mouth and spit out a stream of fire. I only avoided getting it square in my face by crossing my wings in front of me. Marlin and Raven leapt to either side of me, their wings flexed to spring at her while I heard Mr. Bellows comment, “A fire-breathing Melusine! Fascinating!”

“I do not need your help, Darkling.” She spat out the words in smoky gusts. “Or the help of your male companions—Darkling or human. Males of both species have done nothing but betray me.”

“How have the Darklings betrayed you?” Marlin demanded.

“They were pledged to defend me when Godfrey stormed the castle, but they never appeared. They let me fight alone until all was lost and my handmaids took their own lives.”

The Wieven swayed and moaned behind the throne.

“Do we know anything about a treaty with a Melusine at Bouillon?” Marlin whispered to Raven.

“No, only that we were driven out of the Forest of Arden by giants.”

“A lie to excuse you breaking your treaty with me. I owe you nothing. And as for this . . .
man . . .”
She glared at Mr. Bellows. “I owe him only the same watery grave his kind consigned my handmaids to.”

She spat fire at Mr. Bellows and I stepped in front of him, shielding him with my wings. “Mr. Bellows is a good man,” I said. “He's always been kind to me and my friends. And even though he was in love with Miss Sharp he didn't begrudge her happiness when she fell in love with Lillian Corey, did you, Mr. Bellows?”

Mr. Bellows blushed and stammered his reply. “I-I only want her to be happy.”

“See! He's no Godfrey. I'm sorry your husband was so awful to you. He shouldn't have cared what you did with your free time or what you looked like in your bath. He sounds like a very shallow person. My friends are not like that. They've accepted me even with my”—I flexed my wings—“differences. But there
is
a terrible man on his way to seize the castle and open the vessel. His name is Judicus van Drood and he's a shadow master. He wants the whole world to be as dark as his soul.”

“Let him come!” Aesinor roared, beating her wings. “My Wieven and I will eat him alive!”

“And what if he's too strong for you? This isn't a hapless traveler out for a stroll—”

“I was on an official expedition,” Mr. Bellows objected.

“—or two Darklings not expecting an attack—”

“She did take us by surprise,” Marlin murmured.

“—but a shadow master with an army. He has been planning this for a long time. If he breaches your walls—”

“What then? Will he kill me? Let him. I am tired of living. As for my handmaids, they are already dead. What more can he do to them?”

“But he'll get to the vessel!” Mr. Bellows cried. “And release the rest of the
tenebrae
. The world will be overrun by darkness.”

“He's right,” I said. “I've seen the future where the third vessel has been broken. It is a dark and ruined place with no hope.”

“Perhaps that would be better,” Aesinor replied, curling her tail around her throne. “I built this castle to protect the vessel from your kind—ah, you've heard the story that the peasants tell, that I built it as a wedding present for Godfrey. That is true, but it is not the whole story. I sought an alliance with Godfrey because I saw how powerful and violent you humans were becoming. I built the castle around the hill where the vessel was buried.”

She gestured toward a well that stood in the middle of the courtyard. “It lies deep below us, sealed by solid rock. But after Godfrey's perfidy I saw that the shadows were everywhere—they even tempted Godfrey to spy on me in my bath and made him turn on me. But I was the fool to believe a human could be anything but a base betrayer.”

She beat her wings so angrily that she rose from her throne, her tail lashing like an angry cat's, her eyes blazing fire as she spit down at us. “Over the centuries I have watched the
humans who live in this valley and beyond nurse foolish hopes of love and peace and happiness only to have those hopes dashed as cruelly as my handmaids' bodies were dashed on the river rocks. Your countries are girding for war as we speak—and for what? You say it's your Shadow Master who is bringing this war, but is it really the darkness that rallies men to war, or foolish dreams of glory and valor in battle? These men march off to war because they want to be heroes in their sweethearts' eyes. And the women wave them good-bye and toss flowers to them. They pray that their men will come back to them. Wouldn't it be better if they knew they would not be coming back—at least not as the men they once loved? Wouldn't it be better if they gave up hope and love?”

The Wieven moaned in answer. She didn't wait for us to respond. “It's hope that breaks our hearts. The world would be better off without it. Let your Shadow Master come. I will greet him with open arms and show him the way to the vessel.” She spread her arms to demonstrate and swooped over the well, her words reverberating in the long, hollow shaft.

“If you meant that, then why haven't you broken the vessel yourself?” I asked. “Why have you remained here protecting it?”

Aesinor bristled at my question, puffing up with rage. Marlin and Raven edged closer to me. “It is mine,” she hissed. “It is the one purpose that remained to me.”

“That hasn't been your only purpose,” I said, stepping closer to the throne. Raven and Marlin moved with me, but I waved them back. “The women of the village pray to you as Saint Eleanor.”

“That is their foolish business.” She ruffled her wings
again, but this time it struck me as less with anger and more with pride.

“But you said you heard their prayers,” I pointed out. “Why do you listen to them if you don't care?”

“To relieve the boredom,” she replied.

“So you never answer them? It seems funny that all those women would keep praying to you if you never answered them.”

She hesitated. The Wieven were pulsing behind the throne like airborne jellyfish, humming. “As I said, humans are stupid. You should hear the stories my handmaids bring me—wives beaten by their husbands, scullery maids abused by their masters, mothers who can't feed their babies because their worthless husbands spend their wages on drink.”

“Did never a woman do wrong?” Marlin muttered. “Or ever a man do right?”

“They also come to pray for their sons and husbands and brothers,” I said. “I've seen the shrine.”

Aesinor's wings beat the air three times before she answered. “I hear . . . occasionally of a male specimen who is not entirely reprehensible. And for the sake of the woman who speaks for him I sometimes, for my own amusement, intervene.”

The Wieven suddenly burst into song. “She brings the rain to nourish the earth and eases the pain in childbirth. She lights the path for the girl who is lost and leads home the soldier to his mother's arms. All hail, Eleanor the Good!”

We were all silent for a moment after this extraordinary outburst. Even the Wieven deflated as though embarrassed. It was Mr. Bellows who broke the silence. “You love them,” he said simply. “You love the people of this village.”

“And what if I do?” Aesinor demanded.

“Do you know what will happen to them if we don't stop van Drood?” I asked.

I stepped forward and laid my hand on Aesinor's arm. Her skin was burning hot but I held on just the same. I was hoping that just as a Darkling could read the thoughts of the dying so we could transfer our thoughts to the living. I closed my eyes and let myself remember the future I had seen at Blythewood—the ruined castle, the lists of the dead, the blasted woods, the fearsome zeppelins ruling the skies. I felt Aesinor shudder and knew she was seeing it, too—and more. We weren't just remembering what I had seen, we were in the future, ranging over the world van Drood and his shadow army had made. We saw the forests burnt to the ground, trees blasted by gunfire, the cities destroyed, the mounds of the dead piled high like logs, the hollow eyes of the survivors as they marched to the orders of the shadows. We saw the factories van Drood would build on the blasted ruins—vast, airless tombs in which human slaves toiled without a glimpse of hope or love. It was a world of no light, no beauty.

“Aesinor,” I said aloud, “this is what the world looks like without the foolishness of hope. Is this what you want?”

I opened my eyes and looked into hers. They were wide and shining, the eyes of the saint, not the monster.

“No,” she said. “It is not.” And then, including my companions and her handmaids in her gaze, “I suppose we might as well all be fools together.”

We made plans late into the night. Aesinor agreed to let us set up camp in the castle and begin to fortify it against van Drood's attack.

“Since he hasn't attacked already, we can assume he's planning to gather a stronger force first,” Mr. Bellows said.

“Manon said he's gone to Liège,” I said.

“I'll fly there tonight,” Raven said, “and see what he's up to there. Then I'll fly on to Vienna to tell Gus and the Jagers that we're making a stand here.”

“And I'll fly back to Paris to let Miss Sharp and Miss Corey know to send recruits,” Marlin said.

“Tell them to wire Daisy in London,” I added. “See if she and the Hawthorn boys can get here before the borders close.”

“And send Omar here,” Mr. Bellows suggested. “He'll know best how to fight an army possessed by the shadows.”

“And Kid will have an idea of how to con the German army,” Marlin said with a grin.

It was the first time anyone had smiled all night. It seemed a good note to end on. “I'd better get back and check on Helen,” I said.

Raven flew with me to the outer drawbridge. “That was amazing the way you talked to Aesinor,” he said as we landed on the bridge. “You don't, er, feel like that toward men, do you?”

I laughed at the worried look on his face. “No,” I said, “it seems to me that there are some very good men in this world—human and Darkling.” I moved closer and laid my hand on his chest. “Like you.” He bent his head to kiss me.

“But,” I said when he lifted his head, “when I worked at the Triangle, and then at the Henry Street Settlement, I saw some
terrible things—girls who came to work with black eyes and bruises on their arms, women who had more babies than they could feed because their husbands wouldn't leave them alone, girls who turned to prostitution because no one would give them a decent job. . . .”

Raven laid his hand on my arm and I realized that I was close to tears. “You know I would never treat you like that,” he said hoarsely.

“Yes,” I told him, “but that doesn't mean I don't understand how Aesinor felt when she was betrayed by Godfrey. I'm just glad we were able to convince her to stand with us—”

The trill of a lark interrupted me and I noticed that the sky was lightening in the east—and realized how little time I had left with Raven. “I wish you weren't flying east,” I told him, laying my head down on his chest. “There could be fighting already . . . guns, bombs . . .”

“I'll be careful. You be careful, too. I hate leaving you with van Drood.”

“Maybe he'll stay away in Liège,” I said.

“Maybe he'll step in front of one of the Germans' big guns,” Raven said, “and solve all our problems.”

“Just make sure you don't step in front of one of those guns,” I said, shivering at the thought.

“I won't. I have too much to live for.” Then he kissed me and launched himself into the sky so fiercely that he shook feathers loose. I watched him until he was only a speck in the eastern sky and then I turned and walked down the steps.