Whisper of Souls: A Prophecy of the Sisters Novella (2 page)

The morning rose damp and gray. Adelaide removed the medallion from her wrist, placing it in the very back of her night-table drawer. She dressed quickly and washed in the basin of water brought to her by Margery, the maid who saw to her needs and filled the firebox with wood.

Drying her face with a soft linen towel, Adelaide gazed at her reflection in the looking glass above the bureau. Her eyes were always more green after she traveled, though that was the only indication that she had done anything during the night but sleep soundly in her bed.

She tied back her thick auburn hair, telling herself that Thomas would not know. That Ginny would not gaze upon her and see the guilt in her eyes.

Most important, she prayed that neither of them would see the residual pleasure there, because that is what she felt when she was her truest self, traveling the Plane of the Otherworlds. It was only then, the Lost Souls surrounding her, protecting her in the womb of their velvet wings, that she was free.

She knew, of course, that it was traitorous, for each time she traveled she awoke with the medallion on her wrist, the medallion that allowed more of the demonic Souls to pass into the world as she traveled. And each Soul that crossed over from the Otherworlds was one more Soul to unite with Samael should he ever find a way to make the journey.

And one more Soul to be fought, quite possibly by her own daughter, in an effort to keep the world safe from the evil that would reign in their hands.

It didn’t matter that she tried not to wear the medallion. That she placed it in the farthest reaches of her bureau drawer, and had once even buried it outside. It always found its way back to her. Back to her wrist and the mark that corresponded exactly to the one on the medallion.

She leaned back from the mirror, straightening her gown. She pulled a bronze cuff encrusted with amber from the bejeweled box on the bureau. The bracelet went nicely with her dark brown walking gown, and she was preparing to wrap the cuff around her left wrist when she heard a knock at the door.

“Yes?” she called.

The door opened and her husband stepped into the room. He came toward her, a weary smile on a face creased with worry. He looked smart and handsome in trousers and a waistcoat cut to suit his still-trim figure.

He stopped in front of her, putting his hands on her shoulders and bending to kiss her tenderly on the cheek. She inhaled his scent—shaving cream, wool, and tooth powder. He smelled clean and fresh while she felt tired and dirty, soiled by the night’s travel.

“Good morning, my love,” he said. “Did you sleep well?”

She looked down at the bracelet, away from his probing eyes. Her jittery fingers toyed with the clasp as she focused on the weight of it in her hands.

“Fine, thank you. And you?”

He nodded, gently plucking the cuff from her hands. “Very well, thank you.” He lifted her hand, kissing the mark that branded the translucent skin on the inside of her wrist. “Though I would have slept better in the company of my wife.”

He wrapped the bracelet around her wrist, covering the mark and clasping the cuff carefully so as not to pinch her skin.

“I’m sorry, Thomas.” And she was. Thomas was a good man. A man who loved and understood her as no other man could. “I’m still not well.”

He adjusted the cuff and then straightened, surveying her with a tired smile. “You look well to me. More beautiful than ever, in fact.”

“Thank you.” She bowed her head. She could not find the words to tell Thomas that the kinder he was to her, the more shameful she felt. The more undeserving.

He pulled her into his arms, nearly crushing her against his own body. “How long must you punish yourself?”

She could not answer and he continued.

“I miss you. I miss your body next to mine, your breath in my chamber. Come back to me, Adelaide, if only so that I can hold and comfort you.”

Emotion threatened to overwhelm her. She pulled back, taking Thomas’s dear face in her hands, looking into the blue eyes that had captivated her since the day on Altus so many years ago when she had first seen him skipping stones into the sea.

“Of course I’ll come back to you, Thomas. I love you. I simply need time. Just a little more time, my darling. Can you grant it to me?”

He hesitated before nodding. “I will grant you anything. But you must stay with us. You mustn’t surrender yourself to the Souls, to the Plane. Things cannot improve if you are not here to make it so.”

She nodded, rising on tiptoe to kiss his whiskered cheek.

He looked at her a moment more, his expression grave. Then he forced a smile.

“I must be going. The girls will be finished with breakfast soon, and I want to conclude their lessons early today.”

Adelaide reached up, straightening his waistcoat, brushing imaginary lint from his strong shoulders like she used to when they were newly married and she sought any excuse to touch him, to brand him as her own.

“Hurry along, then,” she said. “I think I’ll walk this morning. Clear my mind with some fresh air.”

He nodded approvingly. “Very good. I’ll see you at supper, if not before.”

He turned and left her, closing the door behind him. She stood for a moment, the room larger somehow without his solid presence filling it. His words echoed in her mind. They were a bell chiming the coming end. Reminding her that she would not be able to maintain the charade forever.

Someday soon, she would have to choose.

She left the room and made her way down the hall. She could hear the nurse cooing to little Henry behind the door of the nursery but did not consider stopping in to see him. In truth, she was afraid to hold him. She had done him enough harm.

The door to the girls’ chamber was open, but when Adelaide peered into the room she found it empty, the beds already neatly made.

She continued down the steps, hoping not to meet Ginny on her way out. Her sister did not approve of her solitary wanderings about the grounds and almost always tried to force companionship on her.

She knew it for what it was; an attempt to keep watch over her. To glean information about her well-being, her use of the Plane as a way to bring forth the Souls, her growing loyalty to Samael.

She preferred to keep her shame private, though it was likely Ginny already knew of her weakness.

“Good morning, Mother.”

The small voice came from behind her as she reached the bottom of the staircase.

When Adelaide turned, it was too meet Lia’s clear green eyes. It was like looking into a mirror, though Lia’s gaze held none of the confusion Adelaide sometimes saw in her own.

Adelaide stepped toward her daughter, bending to her level. “Good morning, my darling. Did you sleep well?”

Lia nodded solemnly. “But Alice didn’t.”

“No?”

Lia shook her head.

Adelaide tried to smile. “How do you know that, if you were sleeping?”

“I just know,” Lia said. “I felt her.”

“Tossing and turning on the bed?” Adelaide asked.

“No. I felt her in my dreams. She wasn’t sleeping.”

The blood seemed to freeze in Adelaide’s veins. “Well, yes. You are twins, my darling. You will always feel each other in ways that others don’t.”

Lia’s gaze was knowing, as if her mother didn’t understand the complexity of what she was saying. As if Adelaide herself needed to be humored.

Adelaide’s gaze was drawn to Alice as she stepped into the hall. “I don’t need sleep like Lia,” she said.

Adelaide straightened, forcing a laugh. “Whatever do you mean, Alice? Of course you do. Everyone needs sleep.”

But she knew well what Alice meant. That allowing her soul to leave her body, to lift into the sky of the Otherworlds, to allow the Souls to show her wonder after wonder, was better than sleeping.

“You know what I mean,” Alice answered, as if hearing her mother’s thoughts.

For a moment, Adelaide could not move. She could only stand, locked in Alice’s gaze. Then she went to her as if nothing at all was wrong when, of course, everything was.

“I’m sure that I don’t, my dear. And I’m afraid you’ll have to explain it another time. I must be going.” She bent to kiss Alice’s cheek before touching her lips to Lia’s.

“Where are you going?” Lia asked.

“I’m taking my morning constitutional.”

“Can we come, too?” Lia asked.

“No. You have your lessons with Father. I’m sure he’ll be looking for you any moment.”

She turned to leave. She was lifting her cloak from one of the hooks by the door when Ginny came down the staircase.

“Good morning,” her sister said. “Are you going to the cliffs?”

Adelaide smiled. “Yes.”

“It’s quite chilly out.”

“Is it?” Adelaide tied the cloak at her neck. “Well, I need the fresh air. I won’t be gone long.”

“Come to think of it,” Ginny said, hurrying toward her, “I could do with a walk myself. Do you mind if I join you?”

Adelaide did mind. She wanted to avoid Ginny’s worried gaze, her prying questions. Still, declining would be rude, to say nothing of the increased worry and observation it would cause.

“Of course,” Adelaide said.

Ginny grabbed her coat from one of the pegs, buttoning it hurriedly as if she were afraid Adelaide would change her mind. When finally Ginny had done all the buttons, she turned to Adelaide.

“Shall we, Addy?”

Adelaide nodded, clamping her tongue over the rebuke that rose in her mouth. She did not like to be called Addy. Ginny knew this, had been told time and again. But she never seemed to remember. Either that, or she enjoyed raising her sister’s ire, because she continued to call her by the dreaded nickname, as she had done since they were small.

 They stepped onto the stone portico. The air hit Adelaide like a slap, cold and sudden. She relished the sting of it on her cheeks, the winter wind forcing her into an awareness she had seldom felt since Henry’s birth. Now it was as if she floated through the days of her life, a ghost inside her own skin. She felt things only distantly—unless she was traveling the Plane. Then everything was sharp and vivid, her pulse beating in time to Samael’s, the dark soul of all dark souls, as he lured her closer and closer with each passing night.

Continuing across the stone walkway, Ginny followed Adelaide as she stepped onto the grass to the right of the house.

“Are you certain you wouldn’t rather go to the river today?” her sister asked.

“It’s so much closer.”

“You may stay at the river if you’d like.” Adelaide did not slow or look over at Ginny as she spoke. “I’m going to the cliffs.”

She hoped Ginny would stay. That she would choose to forgo the long, cold walk to the cliff. But she only sighed, hurrying to catch up.

“All right, then.”

They began the ascent up the hill. The grass was already dry underfoot. Adelaide knew from the scent in the air—moisture, dried leaves, and a distinct metallic tang—that it would snow early this year. She did not relish the idea. Did not look forward to the long months inside Birchwood Manor. Months in which she must hide her desire to travel, her need for the sleep that would set free her soul from the body that seemed more and more cumbersome with each passing day.

“Did you sleep well last night?” Ginny asked. “I thought I heard you in the hall.”

“I slept fine.”

Ginny said nothing in response. They continued their climb up the hill, the sky a dark woolen blanket overhead. The wind rushed through the trees, blending with the distant sound of the rushing river until it was impossible to tell the two apart. It became colder as they ascended, the wind fiercer. By the time they reached the crest of the hill, Adelaide’s hair had escaped its pins. She heard a little cry from Ginny and turned to see her sister struggling to keep her own hair in some semblance of order.

“Why do you bother?” Adelaide asked. “It will only come loose again in this wind.”

“Yes, well, we needn’t have come up here in such harsh weather,” Ginny snapped.

“
You
needn’t have come at all,” Adelaide reminded her.

Ginny glared as they crossed to the bench that sat under a tree at the top of the hill. She sat, leaning back to gain as much cover as possible from the tree’s large, overhanging branches.

Adelaide walked to the edge of the cliff, gazing out across the expanse of water below. It did not glimmer blue-green the way it did on a sunny day. Today it was unreadable, a murky shade of gray not unlike the large granite cliffs that descended in a sheer drop to the lake.

“Adelaide, come back from the edge, will you?” Ginny called to her.

“Why?” Adelaide spoke loudly, wanting her voice to carry across the wind though she did not turn to face her sister as she spoke. “Do you fear I will fling myself to the rocks below?”

“Addy!”

Adelaide heard the horror in Ginny’s voice.

“You mustn’t say such things.”

“But that is what you fear, isn’t it?”

Ginny’s footsteps sounded behind her. Adelaide felt a gentle hand on her shoulder.

“Addy, I—”

Adelaide shrugged off her sister’s touch. “Don’t call me that!”

“I’m…I’m sorry.” Adelaide paused before continuing. “I’m worried about you.
For
you, Adelaide.”

“I don’t know what you mean. I’m fine.”

“I don’t think you are,” Ginny said softly.

“And you would know more than I?” Adelaide asked coldly.

“It is simply that…” Ginny dropped her voice, as if she were afraid someone was listening. “I feel you traveling the Plane at night, Adelaide. I hear you walking the halls of the house.”

Adelaide turned to meet her sister’s eyes. “And what of it? Am I not allowed to walk the halls of my home at night? It is my home, Ginny. Not yours.”

Adelaide felt a moment’s shame when she saw the color rise in Ginny’s face. Ginny insisted that she would rather be alone than married to any of the simpering men from town, and the Brothers from which Thomas descended were in short supply in New York. Perhaps if Ginny had traveled more frequently to Altus she would have found a match. As it was, she was already a spinster.

“I’m well aware that Birchwood is your home, Adelaide. That Thomas is
your
husband. The children whom you barely look upon are yours. If my residing here makes you unhappy, I will leave.”