The Strangely Beautiful Tale Of Miss Percy Parker (26 page)

“I did not see, miss, but I was told Professor Rychman found her. Oh, my, miss, how she’s been murmuring!” The nurse spoke with noticeable discomfort. “Desperate pleas, but all in foreign tongues. I can’t catch a word.” Then, bowing slightly, she hurried off.

Marianna picked up a small towel at the bedside to blot the moisture pooling on Percy’s forehead. “Percy, my sweet, you know what myth we learned about yesterday in class? I now know your namesake. We learned of poor Persephone, kidnapped and dragged below the earth. Please don’t let the underworld take you, Percy, I could not bear it!”

Her friend’s eyes suddenly shot open, and Marianna gasped as her arm was clenched tightly by white hands. With a sick and ashamed chuckle, Percy let her head fall limply to the side in order to gaze up at her friend. “Hello, darling. Sorry—thought you were a demon come for me.”

“Who has done this to you?” Marianna asked.

Percy shook her head gravely, and after a long pause decided to reply with a bit of verse. “‘Nobody, I myself’!” she murmured.

Marianna shook her head. “No, no, my Desdemona, I’ll not take Shakespeare for an answer. What Othello brought you to this?”

“From the moment he sent me away, everything is falling apart!”

“Who, who sent you—?”

“I am mad, dear Marianna! Can one suffer their very own apocalypse, meant only for them? My world is coming to an end, and I see it all…As prophe—” Percy choked.

“You are not coming to an end, Percy,” her friend argued. “What is it that you see?”

“Dogs—horses and dogs, approaching closer, snapping their hundreds of jaws, closer, closer, my fever burns, here a feather, there a portal, a burning bird, snakes…hounds…one or hundreds…”

“What drove you into the storm, Percy? And why are there bandages on your skin?”

“Wounds of a shattered heart.”

Marianna shuddered at the sound of her friend’s rattling lungs. “Shattered by whom?”

Percy set her lips.

Marianna shook her head. “You leave me to guess?”

“It does not matter,” Percy murmured.

“Oh, no, of course not! You are bloodied, driven to madness, out in a maelstrom to catch your death, but of course it does not matter,” Marianna replied. She leaned close. “If that professor of yours—”

Reacting as if stabbed, Percy clapped a hand over her mouth. “Please!”

“I see.” Marianna gritted her teeth. “You would shelter and defend
das Schwein
to your very death.”

Percy collapsed again on the bed. As her eyes rolled up beneath her eyelids, she began to mumble. “I am on fire.” Marianna took a towel, dipped it in the washbasin and placed it upon her forehead. Percy’s head lolled to the side and she murmured, “Sick with the scent of scorched feathers—”

“Feathers?”

“Something terrible from another time,” Percy breathed, unable to focus. “Something’s after me, and none of it’s what we think…”

“What isn’t? Percy, stay—look at me.”

“Hell is not down. It’s sideways,” Percy murmured, and her eyelids closed.

“Percy?” There was no answer. Marianna felt for her friend’s pulse, terrified, and found it racing. “Dear God, Persephone Parker, what is happening to you?”

“Miss Linden,” Alexi said carefully, bowing.

Lucille swept into his office, shimmering in an immaculately tailored silver dress. “Professor Rychman.” She curtseyed in return.

“Shall we take a turn about the courtyard?” Alexi offered. “The weather has broken. Perhaps only for a moment, but I suppose we must seize our chances.”

The woman’s ruby lips formed a delicious smile. “What a lovely idea. Quite peculiar weather we’ve experienced of late, don’t you think?”

“A portent,” Alexi replied.

“Ah, of course.”

Descending the front steps of Apollo Hall, they both took a deep breath of air pregnant with moisture and the fragrance of decaying leaves. A flock of birds swept around the corner, taking refuge in an evergreen to weather the next onslaught of the storm.

Percy’s eyes shot open. She heard horrid noises of indescribable creatures. Her mind had just been staring at the charred face of a once-beautiful man.

Things were crawling on her. Flinging the covers aside, she jumped out of bed with a cry…but her own body was the only strange thing that had been writhing in the bedclothes, and her bandages fell away to reveal little red hash marks.

“Miss Parker, darling miss, you’ve just had another dream. Back to bed with you,” a nurse commanded, rushing over and putting a hand on her forehead. “My God, your fever burns yet.”

Percy trotted awkwardly to the terrace doors. “I need a breath of air.” The nurse opened her mouth to reprimand such sudden exertion, but her words fell short as Percy stared at her; the sparkling madness burning in her eyes stemmed all protest.

A heavy breeze cooled Percy’s enflamed body, whipping through her thin hospital gown, and she closed her eyes to relish the air, trying to avoid staring at how the sky remained broken into two separate layers. Her momentary peace was disturbed by a familiar, strong sound of footsteps in the courtyard below. None other than her very own black-clad heartbreaker walked two floors below. She shook violently.

In Percy’s heightened state, she could sense an energy about Alexi that was as dire as her own, a desperate aura between strained hearts. On his arm was that beautiful woman,
Miss Lucille Linden. The pair neared the fountain, almost directly beneath the balcony where Percy stood frozen. Several spirits passing across the courtyard were scoffing, but it was behind Miss Linden’s and Alexi’s backs.

Watching them, Percy felt a sickening cry begin inside her throat like bile. An image before her was coming clearer, and she was overwhelmed by a wave of new horror. When she’d first glimpsed the woman at the gala ball, Percy had imagined Miss Linden’s coiled black locks as serpents. This time, she didn’t just imagine them. Writhing and slithering over the woman’s head, asps leered up at Percy with menace; their red eyes were made of fire, forked tongues hissed fl ames.

Alexi halted as if he sensed something, but he did not look up.

Percy wailed aloud. Clapping a hand over her mouth she sank to the floor, curled into a huddled mess against the wall. Biting her palm, she fought as her body convulsed with dry heaves. Hot tears coursed down her cheeks.

“Miss Parker?” The nurse rushed over, having heard her cry. She bent over Percy and lifted her feeble form in strong arms to return her to bed. “Poor dear,” the nurse sighed, her red cheeks flushing further as she helped settle Percy under a sheet. “Your dear friend said she would return to sit with you soon. Until then, you must calm your nerves.”

Percy’s eyes rolled as her breath hitched, and she felt the darkness of unconsciousness claiming her once again. “All the creatures of the Old World, and nothing to protect me! The spirits are crying ‘Beware,’ but for what? He can’t hear their warning! Oh, the snakes…what his grandmother warned—”

Percy fainted.

Alexi heard a wretched cry above him, and he turned to find the source of the sound, looking first to the terrace of Pro
methe Hall and the infirmary floor. A white figure flickered out of view. His heart burned in his chest, and he looked at Miss Linden curiously as a shudder ascended his spine.

“What is it?” she asked gently. Not a hair, bead or dainty bit of lace was out of place on her immaculate figure.

“I…thought I saw something,” he choked out, his eyes flicking again to the terrace. Unsure if the form had been a ghost or indeed Percy, he prayed that it was her and that this meant her frail body was recovering.

With a growing unease, he noted how the spirits of Athens, men and women of various ages and periods, stared at Miss Linden. Aware that she could see them as well, he tried to make his evaluation as surreptitious as possible as he attempted to discern their attitude. Their moods were of no help, for their transparent faces were inscrutable. Yet each ghostly mouth moved. Alexi wished more than ever he could hear their words, or that he had Percy by his side as translator, for he desired to know if these spirits were offering a benediction or a warning.

“So,” Miss Linden began gently. “Tonight we have a meeting?”

“Yes,” Alexi replied.

“What shall I expect?”

“Well. I’m not sure really.”

“You have a common meeting place, then?”

Alexi nodded. “Yes, a secret place we found upon our possession, the location and entrance of which came to us like an old, dormant memory resurfacing after many years.”

“Upon ‘possession’! Why do you call it such a thing? How on earth—”

“We were around the age of thirteen, some fourteen,” Alexi said, attempting to explain what he had always considered inexplicable, “when something slid through our bodies—a soul into each of our veins, claiming us for our Grand Work. We were led to a sacred place where we received our
prophecy from a goddess, the divine creature who told us what we are. We have a vague mythology.”

“Oh! Do you now?” Lucille looked enthralled.

“I beg your patience, Miss Linden. I cannot tell you the whole of our history, or what scraps of it we may have gathered over the years, in one brief turn about the courtyard. Did you ever experience such a thing?”

“What? A possession? No. Not exactly.”

“Well, then. What about you?”

“I was born strangely,” Lucille began, and at the sound of her words let out a sparkling laugh. “As if I was born specifically for someone. I knew I had a magnetism, something that kept people…and spirits…
staring
at me. I knew I was meant to see all manner of incredible things in my life, and have all manner of incredible things see me.” She paused and tilted her head. “Professor, what shall we do once we arrive at your meeting place?”

“Well.” Alexi took a breath. “We will form a circle, sing incantations, I’ll ask the Great Force for a benediction and see what, if anything, happens. There’s no rule book for this thing, Miss Linden. I wish it were a science but it is not. Of course, we’ll also be looking for that door of yours.”

“Ah, yes, the sign.”

A drizzle of rain began to fall. Lucille squealed and dragged Alexi by the hand, running beneath the portico of Apollo Hall.

“Miss Linden, I must attend to business. May I lend you a parasol, escort you to your carriage and leave you until later this evening?”

“By all means, dear Professor. And again—do call me Lucy, won’t you?”

Alexi hurried to his office and plucked a parasol from a rack. Lucy followed silently. He felt her watching his every move as he led her back down the stairs, out onto the path to the waiting carriage, and opened its door.

“Thank you for the company, Professor,” she stated warmly, her perfect cheeks rosy and her gaze just as inviting. She cocked her head to the side, closed the distance between them and stood staring, her wide green eyes searching his. Then, lightly, she placed her mouth to his cheek and kissed him. He stood rigid and allowed it. Lucy lingered, breathing him in. When she drew back, blushing, and ducked inside the carriage, Alexi folded her parasol and placed it on the seat next to her.

“It will become easier,” she said as he closed the door, his face blank. She poked her head out the window and said in a sultry tone, “Soon you’ll want to kiss me back! Until this evening, then.”

Alexi nodded.

“Thank you, dear Professor,” she murmured. Waving daintily as the carriage rolled off, Lucille kept her eyes upon him to the last.

Alexi felt the rain again permeate his robes. He walked slowly, dragging wet footsteps up the stairs of Promethe Hall until he stepped into a cavernous white room that smelled sharply of medicinal fluids. A blonde girl at her side, Percy lay as if entombed yet still looked angelic.

Marianna turned, sensing movement. She stared blankly at Percy’s professor, taking in his tall form draped in damp black fabric, the crimson cravat around his disheveled collar open like a wound. He stood like a statue, chiseled features harsh, hypnotic eyes drinking in the sight of the supine body before him.

“What did you do?” she demanded.

The professor grimaced and said nothing. The sight of something above Percy seemed to rattle him. Marianna looked up to find nothing. The professor turned and exited, trailing black fabric and raindrops, leaving a keen emptiness where his piercing presence had just seethed. Marianna watched as the door swung shut and clicked. She sighed, turned once again to her friend and started.

Percy’s eyes had suddenly shot open, and she was staring in abject horror at the ceiling. Marianna felt the air around her grow unnaturally cold. Percy shuddered.

“Percy, what is it?”

“They’re all watching.”

“Who?”

“All the haunts. They are all above me, staring down. Waiting for me to die.”

Marianna paused. “There is nothing above you, Percy. I just now looked.”

“Well, there they are, waiting for me to join them. I wonder how long they’ve been watching.” She coughed, turning to Marianna with eyes full of tears. “I am in such pain, my friend. I don’t know what is inside me. Or outside me.”

All of the spirits of Athens Academy had indeed gathered above Percy’s bed and stared down at her. Numerous sets of ghostly eyes were watching, wondering. They pointed. They offered no explanation, only stared blankly.

One of the spirits moved closer. Marianna shivered as he did. Percy recognized the spirit as the young boy who hovered around the chandelier near Athens’s front door. His soft brogue murmured just over her head. “Miss, I still don’t know what you are, but are you goin’ to do somethin’ about the mess you’re in, or are you goin’ to join us?”

Percy pursed her lips, her nostrils flaring. She didn’t know if she was relieved the boy had broken the spirits’ dread silence, or if she’d have preferred the quiet. Marianna squirming nearby reclaimed her attention.

“I do not know if I should tell you this,” the German girl began, “considering I know not the role he may have played in this…but he came by. Your professor.”

“Oh!” Percy’s body flooded with both joy and fear. “Aand?”

“He was all brooding power and sour expressions. I asked him what he had done. Forgive me, Percy, but I had to—”

Percy’s hands fluttered at her side. “What was his response?”

“He said nothing. He stared at you—intently, sadly, I think—looked above you and left as abruptly as he came.” The German girl halted as Percy doubled over and burst into tears. “Oh, dear. Percy…”

Wordlessly Percy wept, the last of her tears and strength draining away. She cried herself into unconsciousness while Marianna sat sentry next to her, clutching her hand, begging her softly to hold on.

Alexi paced about his estate. As the clock struck a quarter to eleven, his temperature rose. Nearness to the exquisite Miss Linden had not cleared Percy’s taste from his thoughts, and he feared those reflections would influence the course of the coming ceremony. He tried to shove thoughts of her snowy face from his mind, but she haunted him; he saw Percy’s eyes through his bedroom window, heard her voice in the corners of his mind, felt her vibrant heart in every shadow of his house as the pressure from her lips rested upon his in a phantom kiss. A sinking realization came to him: Persephone Parker would haunt him forever.

With great effort, he imagined bringing Miss Linden to his estate, imagined her lovely and poised, sitting with him in his drawing room. He tried to picture her lounging in the arched alcoves of his parlor, dancing on the veranda, caressing his flesh behind the thick curtains of his four-post bed…

These things he had, with an oft-thrilling guilt, imagined with Miss Parker. Thoughts of Percy had been known to fever him in the privacy of his midnight hours, where he dreamed of educating her not on mathematics but the finer points of seduction. Such thoughts of Lucille brought no such fire, no matter how exquisite her face and form. Percy’s face, however singular her pallor, was infinitely more breathtaking to him. She had shaken his steeled, embattled foundations and shone a curious light inside just when he had begun to lose faith; nothing else had ever brought such
warmth to his existence. Hers was the face painted like a locket portrait on the inside of his eyes.

Would it be for naught, the power and experience he had accrued throughout the years? So long he had toiled, leading The Guard, maintaining the Balance. But now was the moment of truth. If he chose incorrectly, if he was still pining for a marble angel with whom he had waltzed by moonlight when he was supposed to love a raven-haired temptress, would that require him to fail? Would he be betraying his goddess, his friends and his destiny? Jealousy for the commoner who could love freely again took hold.

Or, was Rebecca right after all? Was love indeed not part of Prophecy? Was he free to love Percy no matter her relation to the Grand Work, or would fate always keep them apart?

The clock struck eleven. He fell to the floor and began to pray. He had never been one for heavenly supplication, but he supposed if there was a time for it, the time was now. He prayed for presence of mind, to know what to say and do in the coming hours. He begged for Percy’s continuing life and strength, for her to be kept safe at all costs. And he prayed that, even though he was sure that Prophecy was meant to be his lover, that he might be able to love Percy anyway…