Splendors and Glooms (37 page)

O
utside the witch’s bedchamber, Parsefall headed for the Tower Room. A figure at the far end of the hall beckoned to him, and for a moment, his heart stood still, because he thought it was Grisini. Then he recognized Lizzie Rose. She beckoned again, holding her finger to her lips.

Parsefall hesitated. His orders from Madama were clear. He was to put on his nightshirt, to dream, to remember — but she had not told him where to sleep. At the back of his mind was a shadowy conviction that he would be better off close to Lizzie Rose. He tiptoed down the hall toward her.

Lizzie Rose led him into her bedroom and shut the door. The White Room, with its pale wool hangings and rose-colored curtains, looked safe and inviting. The bed had been turned down, and there was a good fire on the hearth. Parsefall began to undress. As if from a great distance, he heard Lizzie Rose questioning him, asking if he was quite well. He answered her curtly, without knowing what he said.

The witch had told him to put on his nightshirt; she hadn’t known that he was wearing it next to his skin. He kicked off his boots and removed his outer clothes. When he had finished undressing, he saw that Lizzie Rose had stripped the blankets off her bed, so that he could have his usual nest beside the fire. She was watching him through tears. A wave of fatigue washed over him, and he turned away and crawled between the blankets.

He fell asleep, not by stages but immediately, as if he were falling off a cliff. His body had no time to relax, and his muscles knotted and twitched. The dream claimed him at once. The floor beneath him tilted, like the board of a seesaw. Then he heard a creaking sound, the sound of the rocking chair.

“Parsefall.”
It was a girl’s voice, not Grisini’s. She stood beside him in the darkness. “Parsefall, I’m here. I’ll stay with you.”

Who are you?
Before he was able to shape the question, he sank deeper into his dream.

His eyelids fluttered. He was no longer in the White Room, but in a third-rate lodging house. A dingy light made its way through streaked windows. He saw the curved arm of a rocking chair, grotesquely enlarged, and the frayed sleeve of Grisini’s frock coat. Grisini was sitting in the rocking chair, and he — Parsefall flinched in his sleep — was sprawled across Grisini’s lap. He was very small. Too small: Grisini could cup his fingers around Parsefall’s skull.

But it was not Parsefall’s skull that Grisini was holding; it was Parsefall’s right hand. Grisini held it between his thumb and forefinger. As the chair rocked, Parsefall’s head lolled back, and his left arm swung like a pendulum.

“You see what happens when you are disobedient,” Grisini murmured. His voice was as soft as the hum of a contented bee. “You become a puppet — my puppet — but you have too many fingers for a puppet, so”— he picked up a file —“I shall shave them off.” He began to rub the file against the outside of Parsefall’s hand. There was no pain, but Parsefall could see tiny pieces of flesh breaking off. His finger was being filed away.

Parsefall wanted to weep. He wanted to beg Grisini to stop; he wanted to promise never to disobey again; he wanted to howl with outrage. But his face was as stiff as rawhide, and he could not draw breath. He lay limp in Grisini’s lap, one knee twisted backward and the left arm swinging.

“Nine fingers left,” said Grisini. He sounded pleased. “Most puppets only have eight. Shall I take off one on the other hand, for the sake of symmetry? Or are you prepared to obey me from now on?”

Parsefall could not answer. He felt Grisini pinch his other hand between two giant fingers, and again he longed to speak, so that he might promise perpetual obedience. The chair rocked, and his body tilted dizzily. If only Grisini would drop him; if only he could slide to the floor, away from Grisini; if he could get away from Grisini for even a second —

“Parsefall!”
It was the girl’s voice again; in some unfathomable way, she was following him through the nightmare. “Parsefall, you’re dreaming! Wake up and you’ll escape from it — wake
up
!”

The rocking chair slid out from beneath him. Grisini disappeared. Parsefall turned and saw Clara. Her white dress shone in the dimness; her eyes were wide with shock and compassion.
“Wake up!”

He tried to kick, to open his mouth and scream himself awake. The sound that came from him was hoarse and strained, scarcely a whisper. He made another sound, louder than the first, and at last he drew breath and shrieked as he had never shrieked in his life.

The scream was good. It separated him from the nightmare in which he was mute. In a moment, Lizzie Rose was at his side, holding him tight. “Parsefall, it was a bad dream, only a bad dream —” Ruby was whining and pawing at him, trying to climb into his lap. “Shh, Parse. It’s all right, you’re safe now. I’m here —”

He held up his hand, inches from her eyes. “It woz Grisini,” he gasped. “He shaved off me finger. Grisini did. I’m going to kill ’im.”

Lizzie Rose’s arms tightened. She rocked him back and forth. “Shh, now, Parse —”

Parsefall wouldn’t let her finish.“’E did it, he did. You know it, Lizzie Rose. He changed me like he did Clara. An’ he took off me finger. You know how puppets only ’ave eight of ’em —’e did it on
purpose
— and I’m going to do the same to ’im — change ’im and file off his little finger, all ’is fingers, one by one, and I’ll take a knife an’ gouge out his eyes —”

“Shhh,” Lizzie Rose whispered, “hush, Parse; hush, you
can’t
—”

“I can,” Parsefall shot back at her. He pulled himself free. “Just like Madama did. I can do anyfink I want to, if I get that magic stone. I’m going to steal it.”

I
’m going to steal it.
From her high perch in Cassandra’s room, Clara heard Parsefall’s words and knew that he meant them. Any moment now, he would enter the double doors and steal the fire opal. The stone would be his doom: he would inherit both the witch’s power and her despair.

And Clara could do nothing to stop him. She couldn’t bar the doors against him; she couldn’t even shout out a warning. She was as helpless as she had been when she was little and cholera struck the Wintermute house.

Her mind flashed back to those desolate days. The Others had fallen ill, and she alone had been spared. Her papa had quarantined her in the attic; her mamma had given her a china doll and told her that she must play very quietly, or her brothers and sisters would not get well. Clara remembered crouching in the narrow space between the wall and the bed, hugging her doll, afraid even to whisper. But her silence had not saved the Others. Now she was silent again.

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.