The Knaveheart's Curse (6 page)

THE SECRET OF THE ICE MIRRORS

V
oila!” Her mother was smiling as she pried open the UPS box.
Maddy knew what was inside. The Dead Ringers’ Graveyard Gates tour T-shirts. Their parents’ three-city tour wasn’t starting until October, but they’d been waiting for the T-shirts with great anticipation. It didn’t seem like a tour until there was a T-shirt.
“Ooh, purple!” Maddy whooped.
“Worth the wait,” agreed her mother. “Let’s see. A size small for Hudson, a small for you, and a medium for Lexie.” She scooped out the T-shirts.
“Lexie needs a large,” said Maddy. “She got tall this week.”
Frown marks appeared between her mother’s eyes. “Jeez, Mads, you noticed that? I did, too. So I did some research, and humans don’t grow
noticeably
in one week. I better take her to Dr. Harte and see what’s up.”
“Yeah, and if Lexie’s going to be seven feet tall, you’ll need to find the store that sells extra-long shoes, too.”
Her mother nodded. “The Elcris Shoe Emporium specializes in footwear for the big and tall. We’ll get you some new sneakers, too.”
That name again! Maddy didn’t say that she had boycotted the Elcris Shoe Emporium and anything else to do with horrible Lisi Elcris. “Mom, does Lexie seem less Lexie-ish to you?” she asked carefully.
“Yes.” Her mother sighed. “It’s been on my mind. According to my research, she’s in this mortal stage called ‘terrible teens.’ And I don’t think it helps that she always hangs around with that hormonal Pete Stubbe.” She unpacked the rest of the T-shirts and flattened the box for recycling. “I’ll call the doctor today. Probably you
all
need checkups. And speaking of checkups, I think you should check in with Dakota Underhill. Her mother was so worried about you, and she keeps calling. You still haven’t apologized, have you?”
“Mmm,” said Maddy.
“I mean it, Maddy.”
“Mmm.”
It took all morning for Maddy to make the call.
“Oh. Hi, Maddy . . .” Dakota sounded nervous.
“Since I only spent half my Day of Friendship with you, I wanted to come over and spend the other half. Okay?” Maddy could feel her face turn hot—a horribly human trait. Back in the vampire days, she never blushed. She tried to get the apology out, but it seemed to be stuck like a cherry pit in her throat.
“Um, okay.” Dakota’s voice was faint.
“Good. See ya later.” Maddy hung up.
The worst thing about going to Dakota’s apartment was that Maddy couldn’t take her fabulous walking cane. But she could show off her cape. The velvet was heavy for the middle of July, but it matched the purple letters of her new T-shirt that spelled out DEAD RINGERS—THE GRAVEYARD GATES TOUR.
Down the hall of the twenty-fifth floor of the building where the Underhills lived came a delicate music. Music that got louder as Maddy came closer but ended the moment she rang the buzzer.
Dakota opened the door. In her hand was Lexie’s clarinet. “Mum’s at work,” she said. “But come on in.”
“Great.” Whew. No mom meant no apologizing.
Dakota’s apartment was the darkest and coldest that Maddy’d ever tipped a toe inside. “Brrr!” It was like being trapped inside Big Bill’s deep freeze.
All the lights were off, the blinds were drawn, and the curtains were closed against any hint of illumination. Maddy’s fangs and fingers tingled to their tips.
A dreadful thought soaked up all the other thoughts in her head. Were the Underhills purebloods? Had she walked into a trap?
Impossible. For one thing, mirrors hung everywhere. And mirrors, of course, are a vampire’s enemy. Unless the Underhills were a vamp species that Maddy had never heard of.
Dakota was eyeballing her. “You want cocoa?”
“Oookay.” Fear slid like the point of a claw along Maddy’s spine.
As she followed Dakota, she flipped up her cape collar. What was up with all these mirrors? Full-length, oval, skinny, mottled. Mirrors in heavy gilt frames, mirrors propped against walls, mirrors hanging on thick portrait cord, mirrors leading all the way down the hallway. Just as strange, a carpet of leaves and twigs was scattered loose over the floor.
Dakota was whispering over her shoulder. Maddy spun around.
“Who are you talking to?”
“You.” But Dakota looked flustered. “I w-was just asking if you prefer milk or water for your cocoa?”
“Water.” Milk, gross. Fruit hybrids and dairy products did not mix.
The air was cold enough that Maddy saw her own breath in it. She trailed Dakota to the kitchen. Vaporous currents slid past like gauze. Mirrors were so thickly ice-frosted that Maddy couldn’t have seen her reflection even if she’d had one. She tightened the cape around her shoulders. It didn’t stop her teeth from chattering.
Dakota, busy at the stove top, was whispering again.
“Who are you talking to?”
“Me? Nobody.”
“Huh.” Maddy didn’t believe it. She began to prowl, swooshing around the kitchen, kicking up leaves, checking under the chairs and table and behind the hutch. Every time she sneaked up on another space, she snarled, “Aha!”—only to find nothing.
But there was a presence here. Maddy’s animal instincts sharpened. “Dakooty, who else is in this apartment with us?”
“Nooobody,” Dakota insisted. “La la la.” She began to sing at the stove top as she stirred the cocoa. She picked a leaf out of her ear.
Nervous singing. The sign of a lie. Leaves sprouting from ears. The sign of . . . what!? Maddy remembered the car trip to Lullaby and how Dakota and her mom had brushed all of those leaves off their laps.
Maddy waited until Dakota had handed her a mug of hot chocolate. “Drink up.”
Quickly, Maddy made her eyeballs drain of color, dark to light brown to gray to clear. “Tellmewhoyouare.”
Dakota’s eyeballs were harder than rubber.
Boing
, Maddy’s trick bounced off them, ricocheting her own hypnosis back on her to trap her in a trance that was instantly paralyzing and not much fun.
“Your eyes are transparent—that means you’re part vampire!” Dakota gasped.
“Your eyes refract trances—that means you’re part ghost!” Maddy gulped, ten seconds later, once she was released from the spell. Creepy! She wasn’t used to being tricked. Or frightened. Especially by kids her own age.
She backed away from Dakota. “Okay, game’s up. Who are you, for real?”
“I’m a hybrid,” Dakota admitted, advancing. “Otherwise known as the Australian ghost dryad. Mom is part dryad, otherwise known as a tree nymph. My dad is a ghost. Oh, but don’t run off just yet, Maddy. You haven’t finished your cocoa.”
“A ghost? Your mom married a ghost?” Maddy wasn’t sure she’d ever heard of that before. Was it the cold or her nerves that were making her teeth chatter?
“They eloped. Mom was a landscaper at the hotel that Dad was haunting,” Dakota explained. “Ghost marriages are the special privilege of dryads, as you know.”
Maddy had thought that was just a rumor. Being part ghost and part tree nymph seemed more exotic than her own mix of vampire-fruit bat.
“If your mom’s a dryad and your dad’s a ghost, then what are you?”
Dakota looked pleased with herself. “Mostly human DNA, with some ghosty traits, and I’m dryad-ishly good at climbing trees. Plus I shed leaves when I’m feeling emotional—I got that from my mom.”
“Yeah, I noticed.”
Dakota plucked a tiny leaf from her nose. “There’re many of us in Queensland, so we had heaps of friends. But Mom and Dad wanted me to get to know more mortals. So we all moved to New York. Once Mom gets old and dies, she can join Dad in the afterlife. Then she’ll be with him always.”
“Okay, but . . . where is he now?”
“Haven’t you guessed?” Dakota pointed. “Dad’s in the portals.”
“Mirrors, you mean?”
“Not precisely mirrors. They’re passages to the Other Side. Dad comes out on special occasions, but like all ghosts, he needs to stay where he belongs. We keep it cold so he can see us and write us messages through the frost. Look—there’s one now.”
Maddy’s eyes darted toward the portal, and she nearly jumped out of her sneakers at what she saw.
The words on the surface of the mirror were jagged, as if traced by a single, frozen finger.

“That’s a message from your dad?” Maddy asked.
“Yep.” Dakota smiled. “Dad’s always around. He’s a stay-at-home ghost.”
“He’s asking you to play clarinet?” Maddy wanted to stop trembling, but it was difficult. She wasn’t sure she could stay one more minute in this haunted apartment.
“No, Dad wants to play a tune for you. If I face him while holding the clarinet to my mouth, the notes travel into my breath. Simple, really.”
In all her centuries as a nightwalker, Maddy had witnessed just about everything, but rarely a trick as odd as the one Dakota proposed.
“Interesting,” she said, with some doubt.
“Dad might be a little shy. We’re not used to company.” Dakota sat in an armchair and motioned for Maddy to take the ottoman next to her. As Maddy sat, she pulled her cape around and tucked up her feet. On the off chance Dakota’s ghost dad was a biter. Most ghosts thought biting was funny, though it clearly wasn’t.
The frost thinned. In the glass appeared the image of a young man.
“Ooh.” Maddy gaped. He was perched in an armchair that was a replica of Dakota’s, and he held a clarinet. The only extraordinary thing about him—besides his ghostliness—was that he had one foot stuck in a paint bucket.
“Why is your dad’s foot in a bucket?” Maddy whispered behind her hand.
“That’s where it was when he died,” Dakota whispered back. “He was painting the hotel roof when he tripped over that stupid bucket. He fell forty-six floors.”
“Sorry,” said Maddy.
Dakota’s dad allowed a sad smile, then raised the clarinet to his lips. Then, as Dakota mimicked his movements, he began to play his ghost clarinet, and Maddy realized that this was the same exquisite tune she’d heard earlier, when she was waiting for Dakota to open the door. The piping notes melted away Maddy’s doubt.
After he finished, Maddy jumped up and whistled through her teeth. “Woo-hoot! Your dad rocks!”
By then, the glass had frosted over. Dakota’s dad bowed and vanished.
But Dakota was beaming. “I haven’t had such a lovely afternoon in ages.”
“Me either.” And because it seemed like the right time to say it, Maddy admitted, “I’m kind of a hybrid, too. My whole family used to be vampires, but we weren’t born that way. After the Bite, we had immortality and sustained ourselves on a part-blood, part-fruit diet. When we moved here to New York, we got the chance to exchange our immortality for a vegan lifestyle. We’re losing our vampire traits slowly as we build up our mortal blood.”
“Wow.” Dakota smiled. “So we’re both hybrid immigrants. That’s cool.”
In that moment, it seemed to Maddy more like a real-friends smile than a fake-friends smile, though she couldn’t be sure.
“How about let’s go to my house now?” suggested Maddy. “No offense, but your apartment is colder than a hangman’s heart.”
Dakota nodded. “Let me fetch my moleskin cloak. They’re all the rage among Queensland dryads. I don’t wear it in the New World because I’m trying . . .” She lapsed into silence. Maddy could guess what her half-a-day friend was too timid to say. Dakota wouldn’t wear her moleskin because she was trying to fit in with humans. Maddy knew all about that.
They strolled down the sidewalk, elbow to elbow. Dakota’s cloak was long and olive green, with a peony pink lining and pink tassels. It billowed like a sail alongside Maddy’s wave of purple. A breeze snapped the capes higher, and as they crossed the street, Maddy could feel everyone’s eye caught by the splashes of color.
Dakota and Maddy exchanged another smile. Old World-style capes rocked.
Even Hudson seemed impressed when Maddy caught sight of him staring through the living room window. Hmm. Odd for Hudson to be in boy form.
But her brother had opened the front door before Maddy had a chance to pull out her house key. Something was wrong.
“Most sage sister,” said Hudson in the Old World language he often defaulted to when he got tense. “’Tis many a flummoxed moment I’ve awaited your arrival.”
“What’s up, Crud?” Maddy asked.
“A vexing and curious—”
“In plain New World, please.”
“Uh, sorry,” he stammered. “It’s Lex.”
“My big sister,” Maddy explained.
“Something’s wrong with her. Not even Pete can get her to stop. Come upstairs and see for yourself.” Hudson looked Dakota up and down, his eyes widening in surprise. “You too, Susanality. I didn’t realize you were one of us.”

LEXIE AT LARGE

Lexie had grown—more. That was the first thing Maddy saw. Then she noticed that the walls of her sister’s bedroom were tar black.
“Your parents let your sister paint her bedroom black?” Dakota blinked, dazzled, as she stepped inside. “Lucky!”
“When did the paint job happen?” asked Maddy.
“I did it myself, last night,” said Lexie. Her arms were moving like windmills as she threw books, notebooks, and her beloved vintage clothing into a couple of open garbage bags.
“Should I text your parents?” whispered Pete. “They’re at the recording studio. They probably have a right to know that their oldest child has gone berserk.”
“Not yet,” Maddy whispered back. “They’re
really
busy. And she hasn’t done anything destructive.”
“Yet,” muttered Pete.
They all watched in silence. But when Lexie dumped out her bowl of potpourri, Maddy had to speak up. “Hex, why are you chucking out your fave smells?”
Her sister stopped and squinted. Her eyes had nearly doubled in size. They shone with a darkly emerald hue. Her hair had lightened further, to maple syrup brown with auburn tints.
“I’m not chucking them. I’m losing them,” said Lexie in a husky voice. “Remember—‘The art of losing isn’t hard to master. So many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster.’”
“Uh, sure. Whatever you say, Lex.” Maddy wasn’t fooled by the charm of the quote. Her heart went into overdrive when she saw that her sister’s teeth glistened a translucent pink.
Lexie’s attention moved to her mosquito net curtains, which she began to yank down.
“Dearest sister, no! Those curtains took you a fortnight to sew and countless hours to drape just right,” Hudson protested.
Dakota was less perturbed. “Wow. Is your sis the black sheep of this family or what?”
“Not even close.” Maddy was indignant. “
I’m
the black sheep—Lex is the goody gumdrop!”
“Well, she’s a licorice-flavored gumdrop today,” said Dakota.
Hudson sidled over. “Examine the fingertips,” he whispered.
Maddy jumped forward and grabbed Lexie’s hand. Lexie swatted her. But not before Maddy had seen. Sliced into every single fingertip of Lexie’s right hand were green-blue welts. “How’d that happen?”
“Leave me alone.” Lexie snatched back her hand and then swept an autographed lyric sheet of folk singer Elliott Smith from her bureau so that it fell in the lawn bag.
“Ooh,” Maddy gasped. In his too-short, doomed life, Elliott Smith had signed ninety-three autographs, total. That sheaf of music was Lexie’s best treasure. Maddy scooped it out of the bag and passed it to Pete, who rolled it up and tucked it into his pocket.
“We must take action. ’Tis not our Lexie anymore,” said Hudson in his gravest Old World. “Afore mine eyes, mine sister has become a changeling.”
Boom.
Hudson’s Old World word blasted into Maddy’s head like a firecracker. Her heart hadn’t beat so hard since she won the chin-up competition in gym class last year. But then it had beat in victory. Now it was pounding with fear.
She raced up the stairs to her room and grabbed her
The Gospyll of Trydrbllel Species & Unknwyble Chryttres.
In the index, under “chaengeling,” there it was.
 
 
Chaengeling: Knaeveheart chaengeover, transfusion, heir, p. 1833. Chaengeling—Hynt of Chaenge, Poemme of the Tenth Knaeve, Boris Afanasyev, p. 616.
 
With shaking fingers, Maddy flipped to page 1833.
 
 
Chaengeling Knaevehearts: When a Knaeveheart is reddy to hand over the dynastie, transferring power to the pureblood heir, the chaengeover is comprehensive. From physycal characterístícs to persona to plasma, the Ninth Knaeve transfuses into the Tenth in a temporary state called “doubling.” A doubling ensures that the chainne of the Knaeveheart dynastie continues unbrokken.
 
Maddy swallowed. Now it was beginning to make sense . . .
Zelda. The mysterious cousin who was visiting from Denmark, who was staying with Lisi Elcris. The guitar-playing enchantress was actually transferring power—and everything else—into her sister. Sweet, fruity, poetry- and doomed-song-loving Lexie. And if Maddy’s hunch was correct, once that transformation was complete, the sister formerly known as Lexie would become the Tenth Knave.
If Maddy didn’t figure out a way to stop it, Lex would then return to the Old World and begin serving her thousand-year rule of terror and destruction.
“But I
will
stop it.” Though the challenge sank Maddy to her knees and made her feel a little bit sick to her stomach. Okay, this was really bad.
She flipped pages to the “Storey of the Tenth Knaeve,” re-deciphering the phrases for clues. A particular line caught her eye.
A family sircle makes a pact . . . defends the Knaeve from front to back.
That would be Lisi’s family! That’s why those Elcrises were everywhere—the Candlewick Café, Club Lullaby, Dolly World . . . They were everywhere that Zelda was.
“Aha,” she said.
She tore down the stairs and motioned Dakota to join her in the hall outside her sister’s room.
“You’ve been to Lisi’s apartment, right, Dakota?” she asked quietly.
“Sure, lots of times.”
“Cool.” Maddy retied her cape tassels.
“What’s going on, Mads?” asked Pete as he stepped into the hall, Hudson close behind. “I can tell you’ve cracked a clue.”
Maddy put a finger to her lips. “I think Zelda’s the Ninth Knave and she’s transferring power to Lexie. It’s all in the book. From
glass-eyed witnesses daren’t blink
to
poison strings
and
picque
. Doll’s eyes and guitar strings and picks, that is.”
They stared at her. “A Knave? Like Vlad the Impaler? But . . .” Hudson shook his head. “No way. Lex is just a girl.”
“So am I, but I’m the only one in the family with the ruby-and-gold Slayer’s pin. I destroyed the von Kriks, remember?” Maddy arched an eyebrow.
“Point taken. What do we do next?” asked Pete.
“Crud—you come with me. Pete, you watch Lex. Don’t let her leave the house or let her fall asleep—or else her blood will start to go Knave-y.”
“Where are we going?” Hudson asked.
Maddy slapped Dakota’s back. “My
friend
is going to show us the way. We’re off to pay a little visit to the family Elcris.”