[English] PROPHECY OF THE SISTERS (Lời Tiên Tri)

Prophecy of the Sisters
Page 10



She delivers the words with good humor, but I feel the tension in her voice, see it on the too-careful set of her face. This is the theatrical version of Alice, the one who has carefully rehearsed her lines.

I smile in answer as Edmund opens the carriage door.

“Miss.”

“Thank you, Edmund.” I wait on the sidewalk as Alice emerges from the carriage. As usual, she does not bother speaking to him.

He turns to me before leaving. “I’ll be back at the end of the day then, Miss.” He doesn’t often smile, but he does it now, so faintly I wonder if anyone can see it but me.

“Yes, of course. Goodbye, Edmund.” I hurry to catch Alice as she heads for the steps in front of Wycliffe. “You might at least be polite, Alice.”

Alice spins around, favoring me with a carefree smile. “And why is that? Edmund has worked for the Milthorpes for years. Do you think a simple ‘please’ or ‘thank you’ makes his tasks any easier?”

“Perhaps only more pleasant.”

It is an old argument. Alice’s treatment of Birchwood’s servants is notoriously poor. Worse, her rudeness often extends to family, particularly Aunt Virginia. My mother’s sister does not complain aloud, but I see the resentment pass over her face when my sister treats her like a glorified nanny.

Alice sighs in exasperation, reaching for my hand and pulling me up the steps toward Wycliffe’s door. “Oh, for goodness’ sake, Lia! Come along, will you? You shall make us late.”

As I stumble up the stairs after my sister, my eyes drift to the Douglases’ bookstore, tucked into the storefront under the school. James is three years older than I and finished with his formal schooling. I know he will be at work in the shop and wish I could open the door and call to him, but there isn’t a moment left before I am pulled by Alice into the vestibule at Wycliffe. She closes the door, rubbing her gloved hands together for warmth.

“Heavens, it’s getting cold!” She unties her cloak, eyeing my still fingers. “Hurry, Lia, will you?”

I cannot think of any place I want to be less than Wycliffe. But Edmund has already gone, so I force my hands to move and hang my cloak near the door. Mrs. Thomason hurries toward us from the back of the building, looking in equal parts annoyed and flustered.

“You’re late for morning prayers, Misses! Now if you hurry, you might slip in without too much fuss.” She gives me a little push toward the dining room, as if I somehow need it more than Alice. “And I’m most sorry to hear of your loss. Mr. Milthorpe was a fine man.”

I follow Alice to the dining room, rushing to keep up with her purposeful gait. Through the doors, the voices of the other girls are strung together in eerie unison as they recite morning prayer. Alice pushes one of the heavy doors and steps through it in one motion. She doesn’t even try to be quiet, and I have no choice but to follow meekly behind her, wondering how she holds her head so high and her back so straight while making a spectacle of us both.

Miss Gray’s voice falters as Alice marches in, causing most of the girls to peek at us from behind closed lids. Alice and I slide into our seats at the table, mumbling the words along with the other girls. When everyone has said “Amen,” thirty pairs of eyes open *****rvey us. Some do it in a way they must think is careful, but others, like Victoria Alcott and May Smithfield, do not bother to hide their curiosity.

“Alice, Amalia. So nice to have you back with us. I know I speak for everyone at Wycliffe when I say that we are most sorry for your loss.” Miss Gray remains standing before the table as she delivers her practiced speech, sitting only when we have murmured our thank-yous.

Emily and Hope, the girls on either side of me, avoid my eyes. I have never been a skilled conversationalist, and death undoubtedly makes for awkward company. I study the napkin on my lap, the silver sparkling next to my plate, the butter congealing on my toast. Anything but the uncomfortable glances of the other girls. They avoid my eyes.

All but one.

Only Luisa Torelli looks at me candidly, offering a small smile that I feel as condolence even from across the table. Luisa always sits alone, the seats on either side of her empty whenever the girls at Wycliffe can arrange it. The other girls whisper about her because she is Italian, though with her raven curls, cherry-stained lips, and exotic dark eyes, jealousy is the more likely culprit. That I am now set apart for something even simpler — the novelty of being an orphan who has lost both parents to a bizarre set of circumstances — doesn’t seem to matter. All at once, it seems we are more the same than different, and I wonder if perhaps Luisa and I were meant to be friends all along.

Mr. Douglas has acquired an old French text, and we are divided into two groups and sent to the Douglases’ bookstore as part of our translation studies. I should like to have a quick word with James about the book, but he is at work in the back with his father, the other girls, and Mrs. Bacon, our chaperone.

In no time at all, I’ve completed my assigned passages and am standing at the bookcase nearest the window, browsing the new arrivals from London, when I hear hushed conversation coming from one of the other shelves. Leaning back, still hidden in the shadow of the towering bookshelf, I see Alice speaking in an urgent whisper to Victoria. Alice sets her mouth into the hard line that means she has made up her mind and will not change it no matter what is said, and with that, they look around and slip from the shop as if it is the most natural thing in the world.

It takes me a moment to realize what they have done. When the force of it hits me, I’m both relieved and oddly hurt not to have been included in whatever scheme they have planned.

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It doesn’t take as long as it should to come to a decision that could land me in such trouble. Were it any other chaperone I might think twice, but Mrs. Bacon can be counted on for one thing above all others — her propensity for falling swiftly and deeply asleep on almost every occasion that Wycliffe’s girls are in her charge.

I move to the door with quiet purpose, trying to behave as if I have every reason to leave the bookstore. The soft clearing of a throat sounds behind me as the cold knob turns in my hand.

“A-hem.”

I briefly close my eyes, hoping it is James who has caught me sneaking away, for he will surely not tell. But when I turn, it is Luisa Torelli, leaning against one of the shelves and staring at me slyly from beneath the fringe of her inky lashes.

“Going somewhere?” she asks softly, eyebrows raised.

There is no menace in her face, only excitement barely concealed under the smile teasing her mouth. I should probably think through the decision to include her, but Alice has gone, and I don’t want to lose track of her while I stand about trying to make up my mind.

“Yes.” I tip my head to the door. “Are you coming?”

A brilliant smile breaks across her face as she nods, springing to the door as if she has been waiting years for the invitation. She is bolder than I, out of the shop and trotting down the walk while I pull the door shut quietly behind me. She is waiting, halfway to the corner, when I reach her.

She resumes walking, her eyes focusing on my sister’s retreating back, Victoria beside her. “I assume we’re going that way?”

I nod as the magnitude of our infraction begins sinking in.

Luisa seems oblivious. “Where are they going?”

I look over at her and shrug. “I have no idea.”

Her laugh is musical, ringing through the air as a passing gentleman turns to stare. “Wonderful. It’s a proper adventure, then.”

I fight a smile. Luisa is nothing like I imagined. “Yes, one that will land us in a heap of trouble if we’re caught.”

Her mouth widens in an impish grin. “Well, at least we shall take Victoria Alcott with us.”

Alice and Victoria have come to a building not unlike the one that houses Wycliffe. They stop on the walk, conversing as they steal glances at the door at the top of the steps. I have not given thought to Alice’s reaction when she realizes we’ve followed her, but there is nothing to be done and nowhere to hide. Her mouth drops open as Luisa and I approach.

“Lia! What… Whatever are you doing here?”

Quiet fury washes over Victoria’s face.

I lift my chin, refusing to be intimidated. “I saw you leave. I wanted to know where you were going.”

“If you tell,” Victoria threatens, “you will live to regret it. You —”

Alice casts Victoria a silencing glare before looking at me. “She shan’t tell, Victoria. Will you, Lia?” It is not a question that requires an answer, and she continues. “All right, then. Come along. We haven’t all day.”

They don’t give Luisa a glance. It is as if she isn’t there at all. As we follow them up the steps, I realize Alice did not answer my question. She does not break stride until we reach the top of the steps, leaning in to beat an enormous lion knocker against the carved wooden door. We shift nervously on our feet until we hear the sound of approaching footsteps.

Luisa tugs on Alice’s sleeve. “Someone’s coming!”

Victoria rolls her eyes. “We can hear that, Luisa.”

Luisa’s onyx eyes flash in anger, but before she can defend herself the door is pulled open. In almost the same moment, we are met with a dark stare from the woman standing on the threshold.

“Yes?” She levels each of us with her gaze, as if to see who among us is sure to be the troublemaker. I should like to point her in Victoria’s direction, but I don’t have the chance or the nerve.

Alice pulls herself up straight, putting on her haughtiest air. “Good morning. We have come to see Sonia Sorrensen.”

“And who, may I ask, is calling. And for what purpose?” The woman’s skin is the color of dark caramels, her eyes a shade lighter, almost amber. She reminds me of a cat.

“We would like to pay her for a sitting, if you please.” Alice’s manner is imperious, as if the woman has no right to question her, though Alice is a mere girl who should not even be on the streets without a chaperone.

The woman’s eyebrows rise ever so slightly. “Very well. You may step into the foyer. I shall see if Miss Sorrensen has time for visitors.” She holds the door open as we file in, our skirts rustling and crowding around our legs in the small entry. “Please wait here.”

She ascends a simple wooden staircase, and we are left in a perfect silence broken only by the ticking of an unseen clock in a room beyond the parlor. The desire to flee presses upon my chest as I realize we are standing in a strange house with who-knows-who upstairs and not a soul in the world to know where we are.

“What are we doing here, Alice? What is this place?”

Alice’s smile is cold and hard. In it I see the pleasure she finds in knowing things other people do not know. “We are here to see a spiritualist, Lia. Someone who can speak to the dead and see the future.”

I do not have time to ponder Alice’s reasons for wanting to know the future. Voices drift from the room above us, and we look to each other in the crowded vestibule. Our eyebrows lift in silent question as heavy footsteps rattle the floorboards over our heads.

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The woman peers down the steps, beckoning us up the staircase. “You may come.”

Alice pushes to the front. Victoria and Luisa follow her up the stairs without hesitation. It is only when Luisa reaches the third step and turns to me that I realize I haven’t moved.

“Come on, Lia. It’s all in good fun.”

I swallow my sudden fear and smile a response, following her up the narrow steps and through a door at the right of the landing.

The room is dark, the shades drawn over the windows so that only the faintest whisper of light lurks about the edges of the frame. But the girl sitting at the table is full of light, surrounded by candles flickering gold against her creamy skin. Her hair shimmers even with the meager glow from the covered windows, and although the room is full of shadows, I can see the curve of her cheek and am sure even from the doorway that her eyes are blue.

“Miss Sorrensen is a touch under the weather.” The woman who brought us to the room glances accusingly at the girl. “She can only offer you a brief sitting.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Millburn.” The girl’s voice is a murmur to the older woman, who closes the door behind her without reply. “Please sit down.”

Alice and Victoria move cautiously toward the table, taking the chairs opposite the girl. I, on the other hand, am so drawn to her that I take the seat to her right. Luisa sits next to me, closing our mismatched circle.

“Thank you for coming. I am Sonia Sorrensen. You’ve come for a sitting, then?”

We bob our heads, unsure what to say. No social lesson at Wycliffe has prepared us for such an outrageous occasion.

She meets our eyes, one at a time. “Is there someone with whom you’d like to make contact, a message you hope to retrieve?”

Only Victoria speaks. “We would like to see what you know about the future. Our future.” She sounds impossibly young, and I wonder if I might remember her shaking voice to call upon the next time she is mean at Wycliffe.

“Well…” Sonia looks at each of us again before settling her eyes first on Alice, and then me. “Perhaps I shall have a message for you.”

Alice’s eyes find mine through the dark. For a moment, I think I see cold fury there, but I quickly discount it. I am not thinking clearly. The forbidden outing and strange house, a house likely made strange as a way to make Sonia’s task easier, has loosened the strings of reality. I take a deep breath.

“Let us join hands.” Sonia holds her hands out to either side. Hands are clasped until it is only mine that is left to be joined with Sonia’s to complete the circle. When I reach out, careful to conceal my wrist, her hand is cool and dry in mine. “I must ask for silence. I never know what I will see or hear. I work at the will of the spirits, and sometimes they have no will to join me at all. You must not speak unless directed.” Her eyelids flicker and then close.

I peer at the faces, distorted and shadowed, around the table. In them I see remnants of the girls I know, but here no one is as they seemed in the sunlit street. With nothing to do but stare at Sonia, they close their eyes one by one. Finally, at last, I close mine as well.

The room is so completely sealed that I do not hear a sound — no horses’ hooves or shouts from the streets below, not even the ticking clock in the house below us. Only the whispery in and out of Sonia’s breathing. I settle into it — in, out, in, out — until I am not sure if it is her breathing or my own pacing the seconds and minutes.

“Oh!” The sound bursts forth from the seat next to me, and I jump as my eyes fly open to Sonia’s face. Her eyes are already open, though she seems very far away. “There is someone here. A visitor.” She looks at me. “He’s here for you.”

Alice looks around, wrinkling her nose. I smell it a moment later. Pipe smoke. Just the memory of it, really, but a memory that my soul knows no matter what my mind says.

“He wants to tell you that everything will be all right.” Sonia closes her eyes for a moment, as if trying to see something that cannot be seen with them open. “He wants you to know that…” And here she stops. She stops and opens her eyes wide in surprise, staring at me before turning her gaze to Alice and then back again. Her voice is the murmur of whispered secrets. “Shhhhh… They know you’re here.”

She begins to shake her head, muttering as if to herself or someone else very near, though it is quite clear she is not speaking to us. “Oh no… Oh no, oh no, oh no. Be gone, now,” she says softly, as if negotiating with a wayward child. “Go on. It is not me. I am not the one. I didn’t summon you.” Her voice, held in quiet calm until now, cracks with the strain of her false demeanor. “It is no use. They will not listen. They’ve come for…” She turns to me, lowering her voice to a whisper as if afraid someone might overhear. “They’ve come for you… for you and your sister.” She is perfectly lucid, looking directly into my eyes with such clarity that it is impossible to think her mad, though her words should make it easy to believe.

The room grows quiet. I don’t know how long we sit in the surprised silence before Sonia finally blinks, looking around her as if realizing where she is for the first time. When she sees me she sits up straight, fixing me with a stare filled with accusation and fear.

“You shouldn’t have come.”

I shake my head. “What… What do you mean?”

She looks into my eyes, and even in the flickering candlelight I see that they are blue, just as I thought. Not the saturated ocean blue of James’s eyes, but a blue as brittle as the ice that forms on the deepest parts of the lake in winter.

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“You know,” she says softly. “You must know.”

I shake my head, not wanting to look at the other girls.

“Please, you should go now.” She pushes back from the table so fast her chair tips to the floor.

I look up at her in shock, frozen in my seat.

“Well, if this isn’t a load of poppy****!” Alice rises, her voice breaking through the awed silence. “Come, Lia. Let’s go.”

She marches over, pulling me up from my chair and turning stiffly to Sonia, who still stands with such horror on her face that I’m almost immobilized all over again. “Thank you, Miss Sorrensen. What is the fee for the sitting?”

Sonia shakes her head, blond curls bouncing. “Nothing… Just… Please do leave.”

Alice pulls me toward the door. She does not have to say a word to Victoria, who is already making her way out of the room. Luisa waits for Alice and me to leave. I hear her footsteps on the floor behind us, an unfamiliar comfort as we make our way from the room.

I hardly know what I am doing as Alice leads me down the stairs, past the woman called Mrs. Millburn, and out the front door. I have the vague sensation of pressed bodies and swishing skirts as Victoria and Luisa work their way out around me.

Otherwise, it is nothing but a dream as we hurry down the street in awkward silence.

The cool afternoon air, together with the possibility of being caught having taken our leave from the bookstore, should be enough to force me back to reality. But somehow it isn’t, and my earlier unease with my sister is forgotten as I stumble through the streets with my hand in hers as though I am a child. Victoria walks a few steps ahead, while Luisa trots alongside, saying nothing.

When Mr. Douglas’s shop comes into sight, I see Miss Gray, standing outside and speaking harshly to James and Mrs. Bacon. They turn their eyes to us as we come into view. I avoid looking at Miss Gray’s face. If I do, I shall know for certain how very much trouble we are in. Instead, I focus on James. I stare intently into his face, creased with worry, until it is only him I see.

6

Alice and I pull on our coats in silence, Miss Gray’s reprimand ringing in our ears. Luisa’s stricken face as she was sent to her room is still fresh in my mind, making it impossible to feel sorry for myself.

It is only Miss Gray’s pity for our recent loss that has saved us from a report to Aunt Virginia, and by the time we close Wycliffe’s door behind us, it is near enough to dismissal that Edmund is already waiting, standing tall beside the carriage. Alice marches down the walk and is already settling into the darkness of the carriage when I hear the voice behind me.

“Excuse me, Miss! Miss?”

It takes a moment to find the person belonging to the voice. She is so small — only a child — that I look around and above her before coming to the conclusion that it is, in fact, the little girl who is speaking to me.

“Yes?” I look back toward the carriage, but Alice is hidden inside and Edmund is bent over, inspecting one of the spokes with both hands and singular concentration.

The child walks toward me, golden ringlets gleaming and a confidence in her step that makes her seem older than she probably is. She has the face of an angel, plump and pink at the cheeks.

“You’ve dropped something, Miss.” She bows her head a little, holding out her hand, her fingers closed into a fist so that it is impossible to make out the thing she holds.

“Oh no. I really don’t think so.” I look down at my wrist, noting the small bag still swinging there.

“Yes, Miss. You have indeed.” She meets my eyes, and something there makes me hold very still. My heart beats hard and fast in my chest until I look more closely at her small hand. The white teeth of my small ivory hair comb are revealed in the girl’s fingers, and I exhale a breath I did not realize I was holding.

“Oh my goodness! Thank you ever so much!” I reach out and take the comb from her hand.

“No, thank you ever so much, Miss.” Her eyes darken, her small face sharpening as she dips in a curtsey every bit as odd as her gratitude. She turns and skips away, her skirts swishing behind her, a childish hum fading with her footsteps.

Alice leans forward in her seat, calling to me from the open door of the carriage. “Whatever are you doing, Lia? It’s positively freezing, and you’re letting all the cold air into the carriage.”

Her voice shakes me from my position on the street. “I dropped something.”

“What is it?” She surveys me from the cushioned seat near the window as I climb in beside her.

“My comb. The one Father brought me from Africa.”

She nods, turning to stare out the window as Edmund closes the door to the carriage, wrapping us in muffled silence.

I am still clutching the comb, but when I open my hand it isn’t the ivory comb that gets my attention but a loop of black velvet that trails from behind it. Something cold and flat lies in my palm behind the comb, within the velvet, but I do not dare unravel it for fear of Alice discovering it at the same time.

The teeth of the comb bite into the soft flesh of my palm as I close my fingers around it, and it is then that I remember. Reaching back, I touch my hair, recalling my rush to get ready for Wycliffe this morning. I didn’t have time for coffee, and in my hurry I barely managed to pin my hair into place.

But I had used the pins — it was the comb I’d skipped in my rush to leave the house. I can still see it, sitting on the dressing table as I rushed out of my room a few hours before. How it traveled from my chamber at Birchwood all the way to town and into the little girl’s hands is another mystery I cannot begin to solve.

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In the safety of my room, my hands tremble as I pull out the comb, studying it as if it might have changed during the hours spent inside the darkness of the velvet bag.

But no. It is just the same.

The same comb Father brought back from Africa, the same comb I have put in my hair almost every day since, and the very same comb given to me by the girl on the street. I set it aside. Whatever answers I need are not to be found in its soft sheen.

When I reach into the bag again, my hand finds the whispery ribbon and with it the hard thing I felt in my palm in the carriage. I spread the velvet out until the black ribbon snakes across my white nightgown.

It’s a necklace of some sort, I think. The black velvet surrounds a small metal medallion, suspending it between two lengths. I think it a choker, but when I lift it to my neck, I find it is not nearly long enough to go all the way around. My eyes are drawn to the pendant hanging from the ribbon. It is featureless — nothing but a plain, not-very-shiny gold disc. I rub two fingers against the cool surface on either side, feeling a ridge on the back. When I flip it over, there is a dark outline shading the surface of the circle. The darkening room forces me to lean in, the outline slowly coming into focus.

I take the tip of a finger and run it along the edge of the design in the circle, as if this will make real the image I see there. My finger sinks into the etched circle, its surface slightly indented in opposition to the one on my wrist.

And yet it is nearly the same. The only difference is the letter C in the center of the pendant. I turn my wrist over, looking from the cold circle in my hands back to the mark. Now there is something else, something called forth by the medallion in my hand. The smudge inside the circle of my wrist seems to clarify, becoming clearer by the moment until I am sure the unknowable shape inside the circle will soon become the letter C just as on the pendant.

And now I know.

I’m not sure how, but somehow I know what the velvet ribbon is for, where it belongs. Wrapping it around my wrist, I am not surprised that it fits perfectly or that, when I close the clasp, the black ribbon lies snug and flat against my skin. The medallion sits atop the matching circle on the inside of my wrist. I can almost feel the raised skin of my wrist nestle into the engraved circle of the pendant. A wave of terrifying belonging ripples through me.

It is this that most frightens me — the call of my body to the medallion. It is this inexplicable affinity for the thing that feels as if it has always been mine, though I have never seen it before today, that makes me remove the bracelet. I open my bedside drawer and push the coil of velvet to the very back.

I am profoundly tired. Lying back against the pillow, I fall into a sleep that is sudden and complete. The blackness that smothers me is total, and in the moment before everything falls away, I know what it feels like to be dead.

I am flying, up and out over my body. My sleeping form lies below, and a surge of exhilaration takes hold as I move freely away from it and straight through the closed window.

I have always had strange dreams. My earliest memories are not of flesh-and-blood things, not of my mother’s voice or my father’s boot steps in the hall, but of mysterious, unnamable shapes and my own swift escape through wind and trees.

Even still, until Father’s death, I had never had a flying dream that I could clearly remember. But I have had them almost every night since and am not surprised to find myself floating over the house, the hills, and the road leading away from our property. Soon enough I am over the town itself, and I marvel at how different it appears in the haze of my dream, the mystery of night.

Making my way past Wycliffe and the bookstore, past the house where Sonia Sorrensen lives, I leave the town behind for the blackness of sprawling fields. The sky above me, around me, glows. It is not the black sky of night, but a deep and endless blue with the hint of violet somewhere in its depths.

Soon, I am over a larger city. Buildings rise toward the sky, and great factories spit clouds of smoke into the night, though I cannot smell a thing. I come to the edge of the city, and for a split second, an ocean stretches before me as far as the eye can see, and then, gloriously, I am over it.

And this I can smell.

The briny moisture fills my nose, and I laugh aloud at the wonder of it. A humid wind blows my hair, and in this moment I would be content to fly forever, to give myself over to the indigo sky through which I travel.

I move farther and farther out over the water until the city is not even a speck in the distance. As the water rushes below, a small voice cautions me to go back, whispering that I’ve gone too far, but it is only the shadow of a warning. I ignore it, reveling in the utter abandon of my journey, allowing myself to swoop past the waves and fall farther into the mysterious sky.

But the warning grows louder and more insistent until it is more than a whisper, until it is an actual voice I hear. The voice of a girl.

“Go back!” The voice calls to me, muffled and broken. “You’ve gone too far. You must go back!”

Something about it makes me stop, and I am astonished to find myself hovering, not quite flying, but not sinking into the sea of my dream either. And then I feel it. Something ominous roaring behind me, coming at me with a speed that finally prompts me to move.

I push myself through the sky, back toward the area I think is land. The fantastical ability to control my speed and direction has grown stronger during my brief flight, and even through the fear my body hums with this new knowledge, this new power.

But under my elation, terror builds by the second as I speed toward home, the forbidding thing sounding nearer and nearer, swift on my heels. There is still a long way to travel, though it seems I cover the miles as if they are merely feet.

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The thing behind me now has a noise, a shrieking howl that fills me with a panic so debilitating that my pace slows just when I need it the most. I can see the dark outline of town in the not-so-very-far distance. I am close, and yet I’m pulled backward both by my pursuer and my own fear. I might stop altogether, if not for the figure sweeping toward me from the direction of town.

At first, it is a pale glimmer in the distance, but soon she is right in front of me, and it takes only a moment to realize that she is the spiritualist, Sonia Sorrensen.

“Come! Come! There’s no time to waste! Oh, why did you have to go so far?” She no sooner says it than she is waving me forward. “Go! Go back as fast as you can. I’m right behind you!”

I do not stop to wonder how or why Sonia Sorrensen has appeared in my dream. I hear the panic in her voice, and I fly. She follows on my heels until we come to the town.

“I cannot risk going with you. It’s not safe.” She is already drifting away from me. “Become one with your body as quickly as possible. Do not allow yourself to be detained. Not for any reason.”

“What about you?” My voice is distant and small. I cannot feel its vibration in my throat.

Her eyes meet mine. “It’s not chasing me.”

Her words move me forward. I fly over the fields, the road to Birchwood, and up the face of the house. When I reach the window to my room the snarl of the thing behind me grows angry, hissing words I cannot quite understand.

Guard the… Mistress.…

I stop unwittingly, trying to decipher the strange message.

It is a delay I cannot afford.

The dark being snarls and snaps, close enough that I could touch it if I had the courage to reach out a hand. I cannot see anything within the black mass, but I sense thundering hooves and a great many wings, all beating in a timeless rhythm that is at once familiar and terrifying. I have a flash of panic before a peculiar resignation settles into my bones.

I am too late. It is too close. I am frozen, unable to move with the apathy that has seeped into every cell of my body.

And yet it cannot touch me.

It hovers around the periphery of a barrier I cannot see. The whispering that at first was so near, so immediate, now seems muffled and distant. The great wings that were before so close now seem to beat from behind a blanket of thick velvet. The thing howls in anger, but it is a useless show of frustration, for I remain behind an invisible shield of safety.

My lethargy shakes loose, and I push through the window, stopping over my sleeping body for a mere second before dropping into it.

It is a strange sensation, feeling my soul click into place like the piece of a puzzle and knowing for certain it was not a dream.

7

When I come down the stairs, Henry is sitting in his chair by the window in the parlor. Treasure Island lies open in his lap, but he is not reading. Instead, he stares out at the grounds on the other side of the window pane.

I don’t bother trying to silence my footfall as I approach. I know well what it is like to be so deep in thought, and I’ve no wish to startle him. Even still, he takes no notice of me until I speak.

“Good morning, Henry.”

He looks up, blinking as if I’ve woken him from a trance. “Good morning.”

I tip my head, looking deeper into his eyes and trying to define the expression I see in their brown depths. “Are you all right?”

He stares at me a long moment and is opening his mouth to speak when Alice rounds the corner into the room. We both turn to look at her, but when I return my eyes to Henry, his gaze does not leave Alice’s face.

“Henry? Are you all right?” I repeat.

Alice raises her eyebrows as she looks quizzically at our brother. “Yes, Henry. Is everything all right?”

It takes him a moment more to answer, but when he does, his response is given to Alice, not to me. “Yes. I’m only reading.” A note of defensiveness has crept into his voice, but before I can think more about it Aunt Virginia enters the room, stealing our attention.

“Lia?” She stands in the doorway, an odd expression on her face. “Someone is here to see you.”

“To see me? Who is it?”

Her eyes skip nervously from my face to Alice’s and back again before answering. “She says her name is Sonia. Sonia Sorrensen.”

Sonia and I don’t speak on our way up the hill to the cliff overlooking the water. In the vacuum of the words we do not say, I focus on the sky, an endless sapphire that goes on and on. I can almost see the curve of the horizon, and I wonder how anyone could have thought the Earth flat when faced with this kind of sky.

I try not to think of Alice, of her barely concealed fury at the mention of my visitor. I was both relieved and surprised when she left the parlor before Sonia was escorted in by Aunt Virginia. It saved me from having to come up with an explanation, but I am under no illusions; Sonia’s arrival and Aunt Virginia’s presence only bought me a little time with my sister. Alice will not let so curious a caller go unquestioned.

By the time Sonia breaks our silence, my nerves are taut with unspoken words.

“You mustn’t go so far, Lia.” Her gaze remains fixed in the distance as if nothing was said at all.

A swift and forceful anger fills my chest. “Tell me, how does one measure ‘far,’ Sonia? Perhaps you can tell me how to measure distance when I am flying out of my body in the middle of the night.”

She takes a minute to answer, her profile as clear and beautiful as the marble statues we sketch at Wycliffe. “Yes. It must be confusing. If you’ve never done it before, I mean.” Her voice is a murmur.

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“If I’ve never… Well, of course I’ve never done it before!” I stop, tugging on her arm so that she must stop, too. “Wait! Are you saying you have done it before?”

She looks into my eyes, shrugging and pulling her arm away. Turning, she continues to climb the rise leading to the lake. I hurry to catch her and am breathless when I finally reach her side.

“Won’t you answer?”

She sighs, looking over at me as we walk. “Yes, all right? I’ve done it before. I’ve been doing it since I was a child. Some people do it without realizing it, thinking they are dreaming, for example. Others can do it on command. Many, actually. Many people in my world anyway.”

She says this as if we are not walking side by side on the very same ground, as if she occupies some strange corner of the universe, invisible and unreachable to me.

“In your world? Whatever do you mean?”

She laughs a little. “Are we not from different worlds, Lia? You live in a grand house, surrounded by the family and things you hold dear. I live in a small house governed by Mrs. Mill-burn, with only the company of other spiritualists and those who pay us to describe the things they cannot see.”

Her words silence my questions. “I… I’m sorry, Sonia. I suppose I didn’t realize it wasn’t your home, that the woman, Mrs.… uh, Mrs. Millburn was not your… relative.”

Even from her profile, I see the flash of anger in her eyes. “For goodness’ sake! Don’t pity me! I’m quite content with the way things are.”

But she does not sound content. Not really.

We finally reach the rise, that last invigorating moment when we step onto the top of the hill making me feel, as always, that I have stepped into the sky. Despite all that has happened on this ridge, it is impossible not to appreciate the majesty of the view.

“Oh! I didn’t know there was a lake here!” In Sonia’s voice is the awe of a child, and I realize she mustn’t be much older than I. She takes in the view — the lake, shimmering below us, the trees swaying in a breeze too soft for autumn.

“It’s well hidden. Even I don’t come here much, actually.” Because my mother fell from this cliff, I think. Because her broken body lay on the rocks of the lapping lake below. Because I simply cannot bear it.

I gesture to a large rock set back from the edge. “Shall we sit?”

She nods, still unable to remove her eyes from the call of the water below. We settle side by side on the boulder, the hems of our skirts touching over the dusty ground. I have questions. But they are unfathomable things, dark shapes that swim just below the surface of my consciousness.

“I knew you were coming.” She says this simply, as if I should know exactly what she means.

“What? What do you —”

“Yesterday. At the sitting. I knew it would be you.”

I shake my head. “I don’t understand.”

She looks right into my eyes in the way that only Alice ever has. As if she knows me. “Lately, when I try to hold a sitting, I close my eyes and all I see is your face. Your face and… well, many strange things I don’t usually see.”

“But we have never seen each other before yesterday! How could you possibly see my face in your… in your visions?”

She stares toward the lake. “There is only one reason I can think of.… Only one reason why I would see you, why you would come.”

She turns her face from the lake, looking down and avoiding my eyes as she removes the glove covering her left hand.

She lays the glove across her lap, pulling the sleeve of her gown up over her wrist.

“It’s because of this, is it not? Because of the mark?”

It is there. The unmistakable circle, the slithering snake.

Just like mine. Just like the one on the medallion.

Every cell in my body, every thought in my mind, the very blood in my veins, seems to go still. When everything begins moving again, it is in a great rush of shock.

“It cannot be. It… May I?” I reach a hand toward her.

She hesitates before nodding, and I take her small hand in mine. I turn it over, knowing without looking a second longer that the mark is the same. No, not quite the same. Her mark is not red, but one shade lighter than the rest of her skin. It is raised, just as mine is, as if it is an old scar.

But that is not all. That is not the only difference.

The circle is there, and the winding snake, but that is the end of Sonia’s mark. The C does not appear on her wrist, though it is otherwise an exact replica of mine and the one on the medallion.

I return her hand carefully, as a gift. “What is it?”

She chews her lip, before tipping her head toward my hand. “First let me see.”

I thrust my wrist toward her. She takes it, tracing with her finger the outline of the C in the middle of my circle. “Yours is different.”

My face burns with shame, though I’ve no idea why. “Yes, a little, though we might just as well say yours is different. How long have you had it?”

“Forever. Since I was born, I’ve been told.”

“But what does it mean?”

She breathes deeply, fixing her gaze into the trees. “I don’t know. Not really. The only mention of the mark, the only one I know of, comes from a little-known legend told in the circles of spiritualists and others interested in the Watchers. And in the lesser known pieces of their story.”

“The Watchers?”

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“Yes, from the Bible?” She says this as if I should know, as if I should have an intimate understanding of the Bible when our religious upbringing has been haphazard at best. “They were angels, you see, before they fell.”

A tale about angels or… demons, I think.

Cast from the heavens…

She continues, unaware of the recognition firing through my mind. “The most accepted version is that they were cast from heaven when they married and had children with the women of Earth. But that isn’t the only version.” She hesitates, bending to pick up a stone and rubbing it clean with the hem of her skirt before returning her eyes to me. “There is another. One far less told.”

I fold my hands in my lap, trying to calm the rising unease thrumming through my mind. “Go on.”

“It is said the Watchers were tricked into their defiance by Maari.”

I shake my head. “Who?”

“One of the sisters. One of the twins.”

The sisters. The twins.

“I have never heard of a twin by that name in the Bible. Of course, I’m no scholar, but even so…”

Sonia worries the stone, round and flat, between her fingers. “That is because it isn’t found in the Bible. It’s a legend, a myth, told and passed down through the generations. I am not saying it’s true. I’m only telling the story as you asked.”

“All right, then. Tell me the rest. Tell me about the sisters.”

She settles farther back on the rock. “It is said that Maari began the betrayal by seducing Samael, God’s most trusted angel. Samael promised Maari that if she gave birth to an angel-human, she would receive all the knowledge denied to her as a human. And he was right.

“Once the fallen angels, or Watchers, took the humans as wives, they imparted all manner of sorcery to their new partners. In fact, some of the more… enthusiastic members of our society believe that is where the gifts of the spiritualists originate.”

“So then what? What happened after the Watchers took their human wives and shared their knowledge?”

Sonia shrugs. “They were banished, forced to wander the eight Otherworlds for all eternity until the Doom of Gods, or as Christians call it, the Apocalypse. Oh yes, and after that they were not called the Watchers.”

“What were they called?”

“The Lost Souls.” Her voice drops, as if she is afraid to be heard uttering the words aloud. “It is said there is a way for them to return to the physical world. Through the sisters, one the Guardian and one the Gate.”

My head snaps up. “What did you say?”

She shakes her head. “Just that there is a way —”

“No. After that. About the sisters.”

But I know. Of course I do.

A small line forms on the bridge of her nose as she remembers. “Well, the way I’ve heard it told, sisters of a certain line continue the struggle, even today. One remains the Guardian of peace in the physical world, and the other the Gate through which the Souls can pass. If the Souls ever make their way to our world, the Doom of Gods will begin. And the Souls will fight the battle with as many lost souls as they can bring back from the Otherworlds. Only… I’ve heard there is a catch of sorts.”

“What sort of catch?”

Her brow furrows. “Well, it is said the Souls’ Army cannot commence the battle without Samael, their leader. And Samael can only make his way through the Gate if he is summoned by the sister destined to call him forth. It is said the Army accumulates, passing into our world in great numbers through the Gates, waiting…”

“Waiting for what?”

“For Samael. For the Beast, known to some as Satan himself.”

She says it simply, and I realize I am not even surprised.

8

The world goes still. There is no room in my mind for the wind in the trees or the lake lapping the shore below. No room for anything, really, except the tendrils of the prophecy twisting itself into something that is only a seed of reason.

But Sonia isn’t privy to my thoughts, and she continues as if my world is not, at this very moment, turning in on itself. “The only reason I’m telling you the story at all is because of the mark. It is said, you see, that the Souls are symbolized by the Jorgumand.”

I try to keep my face impassive. If I let my resistance fall, if I let her see the depth of my panic, the little reason I have left will surely desert me. “All right, then. We both have the mark. I still don’t understand what part we could play in such a bizarre tale.”

She sighs in resignation, standing and pacing in front of me. “I don’t, either. But I’m tired of fearing it alone. I don’t have a sister. I hoped…” Her voice softens as she stops to look at me. “Well, I suppose I hoped I was right; I hoped that you did have the mark and that we might find the answer together.”

“All right.” I tip my head, challenging her with my eyes. “Then let’s go back to last night. You can start by telling me what I was doing falling through the sky.”

She closes the small distance between us, stopping and grasping my hand with something like a smile. “You were only traveling the Plane, Lia. Wandering. Have you really never done it before?”

I shake my head. “Not that I remember. And whatever is the Plane?”

“It is an amazing place,” she breathes. “A sort of… gateway to the Otherworlds. A place where anything is possible.”

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I remember my exhilaration as the earth passed beneath me, the sky as deep and endless as the sea. And then I remember something else. “But what of the… the thing? The dark thing.”

She grows serious, the light leaving her eyes. “The walls are thin between the physical world and the Otherworlds, Lia. It is the very thing that makes it possible to do such wondrous things and the very thing that makes it so dangerous. What was following you last night… Its strength was like nothing I’ve ever encountered, and I have chanced upon many beings in my travels, both good and evil.”

“Do you think it has something to do with the mark? With the prophecy?”

She chews her lip again. “I don’t know, but the ways of the Otherworlds are complicated. You must learn its nature to safely explore its terrain.”

My anger resurfaces. “And how am I to do that? How am I to learn such an odd thing? Surely Miss Gray and the instructors at Wycliffe would think me mad were I to ask!”

She giggles behind the glove of her hand. “No, it would be ill advised to seek such instruction at Wycliffe. But your strength will grow as you become accustomed to travel, and you already have some form of authority, whether or not you realize it.”

“What do you mean?”

“That… thing. That… being. I think it wanted your soul.”

I cover my alarm with a brittle laugh. “My soul?”

But she isn’t laughing. “Listen, Lia. There is something you should know about traveling the Plane. The soul can be free of the body for only so long before the astral cord, the thread connecting body and soul, is severed. Once that happens, the soul can never return.”

“Do you… do you mean that one’s body would be left empty, as if it were dead?” My voice is shrill as a rising tide of hysteria fills my throat.

She holds up a hand, trying to calm me. “It doesn’t happen often, all right? There are not many in the Otherworlds with strength enough to separate a soul from its living body. But it can happen.” She swallows, and though she tries to hide it, I see her fear. “I… I have heard of a place, an awful place, called the Void. A place where displaced souls are banished. A place between life and death. I think that is where the dark thing meant to take you. To the Void.”

“Do you mean to say that one’s soul would be stranded there forever?” My voice is a squeak.

“Those who are banished to the Void are lost for eternity.” Her eyes are haunted. “Listen, Lia. I don’t know all the ways of the Otherworlds, all right? But the dark thing wanted you, and I have never seen something so powerful fall short of its mark. Yet…

“For some reason, it couldn’t reach you. I’ve no idea what it was that protected you from the full measure of its force, but it would be wise to avoid travel until we find out — or until you can be certain you will have the same protection next time.”

We walk back to the house in silence. When Birchwood comes into view, Sonia puts a hand on my arm, looking upward. I follow her gaze to see Alice watching us from an upstairs window.

“Do be careful, Lia,” Sonia says. “Be careful until we find some understanding.”

My sister is too far away for me to see her expression, but even still, I feel the cold fingers of fear at the sight of her shadowy figure in the window.

Sonia and I continue to the courtyard, and I watch as she leaves in her hired carriage. I wait for it to disappear down the tree-lined path before turning away from the house. I don’t wish to speak to Alice about Sonia. Not yet.

I hear the rush of water before I come to the riverbank. Last week’s rain has filled the river to the brim, causing it to race over the rocky bottom at a furious pace. Stepping off the stone terrace, I head into the sheltered copse of evergreens, maples, and oaks. It is almost lunchtime, and I wonder if James will be waiting.

“James?” My voice would be quiet in any other setting, but here it resonates among the serenity of the riverbank. “Are you here, James?”

Strong arms grab me from behind, lifting me off my feet. A squeal escapes my throat, and I kick my feet in blind instinct to free myself from the steely grip. As I lift my fists, preparing to pummel my unseen assailant, I am turned around to face my captor. Warm lips close on mine, his hands loosening their grip on my shoulders and finding their way into my hair instead.

I lose myself in the kiss, feeling as if the river rushes through me, all the way from the hair on my head to the soles of my feet.

Then I shove and step away.

“Ugh! Goodness, James! You gave me such a fright!” I favor him with a childish and ineffective punch to the shoulder. “Someone might have come upon us!”

He laughs, covering his mouth with a palm as if to compose himself. His face becomes more serious when he sees the expression on my face. “I’m sorry, Lia. Really. But who else would grab you so?”

There is still a trace of amusement in his eyes, and I glare at him in the hopes of removing it.

He comes closer, looking around and pulling me taut against him. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. I’m only happy to see you. It takes such effort to see you in the library in front of my father, to see you on the street with Alice, to see you anywhere at all and not do this.”

He pulls me closer for an instant, and I feel the length of his body against mine. It steals my breath, and for a moment there is no prophecy, no book, no mark.

Only James’s warm body against mine.

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I am embarrassed at the effect of his touch. I don’t want him to feel my heart striking against the bodice of my gown or to hear my catching breath, so I pull away, eyeing him playfully.

“You’ve grown bold,” I tease.

He laughs then, and the birds in the trees above us take flight, frightened by the exuberance of it. “Me? Bold? That’s quite funny coming from one of Wycliffe’s rogue young ladies!”

My cheeks become hot at the mention of our escape yesterday from Wycliffe. There wasn’t time to tell James of our visit to Sonia Sorrensen’s. Not in the chaos that ensued after our return. And I am grateful for the reprieve, if the truth is told. Sonia’s behavior during the sitting so unnerved me that I hadn’t decided how to explain it to James. He knows only what we told Miss Gray — that we fancied a bit of fresh air and took an impromptu stroll. Now, after my discussion with Sonia over the lake, I am quite certain that it is best for all concerned if that remains the story of record.

“Besides,” James continues, oblivious to my turmoil, “I might say you make me bold, and what of it? Why else do we come to our favorite place, to the shelter of the tree and the comfort of our rock?” He sits on the rock then, as if to demonstrate its comfort, grimacing in play at its hard surface. “All right, then. Perhaps the rock isn’t as comfortable as I remember.… Or perhaps it is only more comfortable when you are near.” He lifts his eyebrows, patting the spot next to him and grinning wickedly.

I smile at his attempt to get me closer, making my way to the rock and dropping next to him. “Actually, there’s something I should like to tell you. Something I think may have to do with the book you found in Father’s library.”

His grin fades. If there is one thing that might take James’s mind off the less virtuous reasons for our meetings by the river, it is discussion of a rare book. “What is it?”

Drawing a deep breath, I take the smallest possible step forward. That is how the telling will have to be done. “I believe I understand the reference to the Guardian and the Gate, however much one can understand such a thing.”

“Really? But it sounds like such gibberish!”

I look down at my skirt, smoothing it across my lap while I begin. “Yes, well… I might have agreed only a couple of days ago, but now… well, now I know there is a story… a story about sisters, actually. Twins, like Alice and me.”

He listens mostly in silence, interrupting once or twice to clarify parts of the story he doesn’t understand. But his questions are those designed to further the scholarly pursuit of knowledge. They are not questions in the true sense, not in the sense that he actually believes the story is real. Instead, he listens as if to a fairy tale. I tell him everything save mention of the mark. When I am finished, silence fills the space around us as full as any words.

He finally speaks, his voice gentle, as if not wanting to hurt my feelings. “But… Why have I never heard this tale, Lia? Certainly, as a bookseller, as one who assists serious buyers in the amassing of their collections, I would have heard of it if it had any merit.”

His doubt raises doubt of my own. Doubt that the prophecy might be believable to anyone but those of us with the irrefutable proof of the mark.

I shrug. “I don’t know, James. I wish I could answer you, but I cannot.”

This is the point at which I should show him the mark. It is well hidden beneath the long sleeve of my gown, but I can almost feel it burning, a silent reminder that there is one important detail I have omitted from the story.

But I don’t tell him. I would like to say it is because I’m afraid he won’t believe me, or that it is because I want to keep him from becoming involved in something so dark. But the truth is I feel the mark as a scar. It brands me as damaged, unclean.

And I cannot bear for James to know. Not yet.

Going to bed is not as easy as it once was. I lie there, trying to force my mind to the blank page that will allow me to sleep.

But the words of the prophecy, the shadow of my sister in the upstairs window, the mark naming me as a thing I scarcely understand — they all conspire to keep me from rest. I finally rise and cross the room to my writing table.

How is it that the legend Sonia told me by the lake is the same as the one in Father’s ageless book? And how have I come to share virtually the same mark with someone like Sonia? A spiritualist, no less. I feel the questions trying to make sense of themselves, trying to fit together into something solid, something I can hold with both hands and begin to understand.

Opening the book, I remove James’s translation and read the prophecy, trying to make sense of the senseless. A cold chill runs up the fine bone of my back as I read again about the sisters. But it is after the tale of the twins that the prophecy leaves me behind.

If I am the Guardian and Alice the Gate, what part does Sonia play in this strange story? And what of the Angel? If I am unable to decipher the identity of so central a figure as the Angel, how am I to understand how to fulfill my role as Guardian? How might I foil Alice’s role as Gate?

I bend my head back to the book, reading the prophecy again until I come to the mention of the keys.

Let the Angel’s Gate swing without the Keys, followed by the Seven Plagues and No Return.

I reread the line, willing my mind to find the answer. Even in my current state of ignorance, it is quite simple; without the keys, something terrible will happen. Something that cannot be undone.

If Alice and I are on conflicting sides of the prophecy, the keys would almost certainly be dangerous in her hands, which means I have to find them.