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

Prophecy of the Sisters
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I feel him fading as much as I hear it in his broken voice. The energy that filled the room ever fuller now fades, growing slightly stronger for a few seconds before diminishing even further.

Sonia steps in, more authoritative in the spirit trance than in the real world. “Mr. Milthorpe, we must find the list of keys. Your presence is fading.… We didn’t understand all that you said. Can you repeat it? Can you stay with us, Mr. Milthorpe?”

We wait in silence for his answer, at last hearing a whisper more urgent than before. “Shhh… He is coming. I… go. Lia… You must find the list… they are the keys. Look… Henry is all that is left of the veil. We are… you, Daughter. We… you.”

And then he is gone. I feel it in the absence of his presence. The room that before felt as normal as any other, now feels empty without the heat of my father’s spirit. Sonia’s head falls forward against her chest as if she has fallen fast asleep.

“Sonia? It is over, Sonia. You can —”

But I do not get any further. Her head suddenly snaps up, her blue eyes open, looking directly at me, the strange vibrancy even more clear. The voice that emerges is not hers, nor is it my father’s.

“You play a dangerous game, Mistress.”

A shiver drips like a drop of rain from the back of my neck all the way down my spine. Sonia’s eyes are glassy, and I know that this is not really her.

I sit straighter, frantically considering our options while trying to maintain a look of calm. “You must go. You do not belong here.”

“You are mistaken. Why do you not allow me passage? Why must you seek the keys when it is I who can provide all you desire? Summon me, Mistress, and let chaos reign.”

I am entranced by the eyes, Sonia’s eyes and not Sonia’s eyes. It is both morbid and fascinating to hear the eerie voice coming from Sonia’s delicate face.

“Be gone, Spirit. You are not welcome.” I try to keep my voice steady, but the presence of evil, the knowledge that I am far too close to something I don’t understand, causes me to shake.

“There will be no peace until you open the Gate.” It is a chant, the call of a thousand voices, soft and insidious. “Open the Gate… Open the Gate… Open the —”

I scoot back, breaking the circle as Luisa lunges across its center, grabbing Sonia by the shoulders and shaking… shaking “Sonia! Wake up, Sonia! You must come back!”

Her pleas become more panicked and insistent, and the words of the spirit being warp and garble as Luisa shakes and shakes. “It is time… Time for chaos to reign.”

Sonia’s body goes rigid, her face contorting in a look of sheer terror and pain before she slumps onto the floor. With her release I feel my own. I scramble over to her side, lifting her head from the hard floor onto my lap.

“Oh my goodness! Oh my goodness!” Luisa repeats the refrain over and over.

It takes me a moment to speak over the thudding of my heart. “Sonia! Wake up, Sonia. Come back!” I speak to her harshly, willing her back with the force of my fear.

I don’t realize we have stopped being quiet. Everything worldly has fallen away in the strange seclusion of the room. It is only when the door opens, closing just as quickly, that I realize we have been too loud for the sleeping house.

The footsteps are fast but graceful across the floor. I hardly have time to register her presence when Aunt Virginia bends to the floor, her eyes taking in our broken circle, the panic on our faces, Sonia lying on the floor, eyes still closed, her face a deathly white.

She looks at me, her face filled with anguish. “What are you doing? Oh Lia! Whatever have you done?”

22

“I feel as if my head will split in two.” Sonia lies on the bed nearest the window, her pale hair a shimmering web across the pillow.

I cannot think of a thing to say, for this is surely my fault. If I had not pressed Sonia to try and reach Father, she would not have fallen victim to the horrid spirit-thing.

“Are you… are you all right?” Luisa’s voice is hesitant, and I know she is unsure how much to say in front of Aunt Virginia.

Sonia presses her head to her temples before answering. “Yes. Yes, I’m sure I’ll be fine.” She, too, steps carefully around the issue of what we were doing when Aunt Virginia happened upon us.

But my aunt does no such thing. She stands up, confident now that her charge is in good health or soon will be. “Whatever were you doing? Whatever were you thinking? Do you not know how dangerous the Otherworlds can be?”

There is nothing to do but take the responsibility I know is mine. “It was my fault. I… I wanted to speak to Father. I pressured Sonia to lead a sitting… to try to make contact with him.”

There is no disbelief on her face, only a calm and fearful acceptance. “You, all of you, do not understand the thing with which you play.” She makes eye contact with each of us, even Sonia, who shrinks from the glare of her eyes as if it is a ray of bright sun against her headache.

I move toward her, anger surging in my blood. “Surely I would understand more if only you or Father or Mother or someone had told me when they had the chance! Instead I’ve been forced to skulk about, looking for answers to questions I don’t even understand. We have searched high and low to decipher the riddle of the prophecy. And do you know what? We found the answer! We did! But it is not so neat as that.”

I am aware of a gathering madness, of being pushed so close to the edge of a great precipice that I would rather fling myself from it than continue fearing it. “The keys are the children, Aunt Virginia. Those Father sought and those for whom he was still searching when he died. Except it is only Luisa and Sonia who are here. We need the list to find the other keys, and I thought Father could tell us where he hid it, all right? That is why I asked Sonia to make contact with Father.” I am breathless with fury, breathing heavy as if I have run a long way when I have done nothing but empty my soul of all the bitterness and blame that has hung like a noose around my neck.

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Aunt Virginia drops onto the bed next to Sonia, her voice but a murmur. “It cannot be.”

I sit next to her, my anger reduced to a slow boil. “It is. It must be. We saw someone today, Aunt Virginia. Someone who helped us find the answer.”

I take one of her hands in mine as I tell her of our visit to Madame Berrier’s and then to Mr. Wigan’s, hoping she will be able to fill in the blanks and guide us to the list.

“Do you have any idea, any idea at all, where Father might have hid it?” I ask her when I am finished.

Aunt Virginia’s eyes are still hazy with surprise. I recognize the expression as a kind of stupor, a kind of denial as her soul tries to refute the things her mind knows.

“I’ve no idea, Lia. I told you, he never showed it to me. He was most secretive about it, and now I see why. According to the prophecy, you must have all four keys to bind the Beast. If they are indeed people… if their identities should be revealed…” She looks up at Sonia and Luisa with fearful eyes. “They would be in grave danger.”

I know she is thinking of Alice. The thought of Sonia and Luisa in danger from my sister fills me with dread. “Do you think we should get them away from Birchwood, Aunt Virginia? Should they leave now, before Alice discovers the things we ourselves have discovered?”

It is not my aunt who answers, but Luisa, folding her arms across her chest. “I don’t know about Sonia, but I have no intention of leaving. This battle is mine as well, and I intend to fight it. Besides, Alice may not yet know about the keys. Our leaving suddenly would only serve to draw undue attention to us.”

Sonia steps forward, wincing and touching her head. “Luisa is right. It will cause a great fuss if we leave now when we’re meant to stay until Sunday, and who knows when we will have such time together again to search for the other keys. Besides, there are more fearsome things to face in the Otherworlds. I’ll not be frightened of a girl, even if that girl is Alice.”

They do not know Alice, I think. They do not know of what she is capable.

But this I do not say aloud, for whatever else Alice may be, she is still my sister. And besides, we are all taking risks to see the prophecy brought to an end.

The magnitude of the task at hand, the danger in seeing it through, hits me with sudden force. How are we to find two more keys? Even with the list, Sonia and Luisa are proof that the other keys could be scattered the world over.

“What if we cannot find them, Aunt Virginia? What if we cannot do it?”

She presses her lips together, rising to the bureau between the two beds and removing something from its drawer. When she returns, it is with a small Bible in her hands. Her hands shake as she turns to the back, very near the end.

She reads without further pretext. “ ‘And I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, “Go your ways, and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth.” And the first went, and poured out his vial upon the earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the Beast, and upon them which worshipped his image. And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the sea. And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters; and they became blood. And I heard the angel of the waters say —’ ”

“The Seven Plagues.” Luisa’s voice is a whispered interruption.

Aunt Virginia closes the Bible, looking up at Luisa nodding. “That’s right.”

Luisa turns to me. “The Seven Plagues are a sign of the end in the Bible. A return to the fathomless chaos that existed before the beginning of time.”

A noiseless remnant of the mysterious puzzle clicks into place, and I add my own piece to the rest. “ ‘Death, Famine, Blood, Fire, Darkness, Drought, Ruin.’ ” I have read the words of the prophecy so many times since finding the book that I shall never forget them.

“Yes,” Aunt Virginia confirms. “The Bible presents the plagues as an end that precedes a new beginning, one in which the world will be ruled by God in light. But the Bible is a written history, and like all written histories that are translated into thousands of languages and passed down through thousands of years, it includes things which are perhaps less than true. And omits others that are perhaps even truer.”

“So what does it mean, then?” I ask.

Aunt Virginia reaches over, taking my hand in hers. “The plagues are simply the sign of an end. An end to the world we know and the beginning of a world ruled by the Beast forever-more. If you cannot find the four keys and close the circle, Samael will find his way through you and it will be too late. The Seven Plagues will begin, causing great torment and destruction before an end that is nothing more than that. The end.”

I shake my head furiously, thinking of Henry, of Luisa and Sonia and Aunt Virginia. “But I am the Angel. Everyone says so. I have a choice. If I refuse him passage, he cannot come.” I sound a child, even to myself.

Virginia looks into my eyes. “I wish it were so, Lia. But Samael will exploit your weakness. He will lie in wait for you while you sleep. He will send his Army to find you, those that wait in the Otherworlds and those that have already crossed into ours. He will use those you most love against you.

“You may fight him for a time, but I fear you will not be able to do so for very long. The Army has been gathering for centuries waiting for their King. Waiting for the Gate that will bring him forward to begin their reign of terror. Waiting for you, Lia. They will not give up so easily. You must find the list. You must find the other keys. And you must do it quickly.”

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I do not want to sleep. Finding the answers I wanted has not offered me the comfort I imagined, and I wonder if Sonia and Luisa are as fitful as I. There is much to do, but the hour is late, and we have resolved to search the library for the list tomorrow in the clear light of day. The book was in the library, and so, too, may be the list.

It is the only place I can think of to begin our search.

We did not discuss what we will do once we find it, how we will go about locating the two remaining keys. What has been left unsaid, but is understood nonetheless, is that we must take one small step at a time or else we shall all go mad.

I sit with my back against the tall wooden headboard, trying to remain alert. I have knotted ribbons around my wrist. Even if the medallion finds its way to my wrist, it will not be able to line up to the mark unless the ribbons are removed, though this may well be possible, for all I do and do not know. The medallion found its way to me in the most improbable way imaginable and, even more unlikely, found its way back from the depths of the river. What is there to do but accept that it is mine?

And try not to wear it, not to open the Gate.

23

The field in which I stand is barren. There is a vague familiarity in its rolling hills and shallow valleys, and I think I recognize it as one of the many fields bordering Birchwood Manor. But the tall grass and enormous oak trees at the edge are where any sense of comfort or recognition ends.

The sky is a forbidding gray, mirrored by the ashen fields that look nothing like the rich, golden grass that sways around Birchwood much of the year. The tree line at the edge of the field is so black it is almost purple. It is a wasteland, at once recognizable and foreign in its bleakness. The cold bites through the thin fabric of my nightgown, and my feet are wet with dew as I stand on the dead grass.

The ribbons are still wrapped around my wrists. The medallion is not there. The Beast will not come through me this night, but relief does not find me as it should. It is clear that I have been summoned. By whom and for what purpose I shall no doubt discover.

Turning in a circle, I peer into the distance, trying to get my bearings. I cannot know for certain, but something about the rise to my left is familiar. I am trying to decide what to do next, when something catches my eye. Something small and moving toward me. I squint into the distance, and as I watch, the thing becomes clearer, its slow and graceful gait marking it as a person.

A regular person heading my way.

There is no point standing and staring. Whoever it is will reach me soon enough. I begin walking, making my way toward the figure, now considerably closer. At first I think it is Sonia. She is the only recognizable person I have seen in my travels, unless one counts the Souls. But as the figure draws nearer, first close enough that I can make out her gown and then even nearer so that I can see her face, I realize it is Alice.

I stop walking, not eager to speed along whatever has brought us both to this dead place. She makes her way toward me until she stands directly in front of me. A smile plays at the corners of her mouth, and I have no doubt who is in charge, who has called me to this meeting place.

“Surprised?”

“Not really.” I shrug. “Who else would I meet here?”

Her smiles spreads, and for a moment she looks just like the excited girl who used to clap her hands when Father brought us presents from his many trips. “Why, it is possible to meet all kinds of people… all kinds of things here, Lia!”

“Why have you called me here, Alice?”

Her smile fades as she notices the ribbons on my wrist. Gone is the soft voice from the stairs. Her face takes on the stony edge to which I have become accustomed. “Why will you not use the medallion for its intended purpose, Lia? Why do you fight the will of the prophecy, the honored role that is meant to be yours?”

A slightly insane laugh escapes from my throat. “Why? Why, indeed, Alice? Shall I throw caution to the wind, then, and let whatever wants to come back with me, through me, come back?”

Her voice rises. “Why not? Why must you make everything so difficult? I’ve already told you that you shall be protected. Do you think the Souls will harm the champion of their King? What do you have to fear?”

“My fear is not for myself, Alice. What of the world that is left when the Beast reigns? What good is our safety if those we love are left to live in a world of darkness?”

“Samael has been stranded in the Otherworlds for centuries. He will richly reward the one that brings him forth at last. Anything you want will be yours. You will be treated as a queen. It is the purpose for which you were born.” The pools of her eyes shimmer with the murky depth of the river.

“Perhaps you have it wrong, Alice. Perhaps it is your purpose to act as Guardian, as you were born to do. Perhaps it is our purpose to work in concert. Working together, we might secure a peaceful world. We might find an end to the prophecy once and for all. Wouldn’t you rather be party to the good in it?”

By my words do not have the intended effect. Her face only hardens further as she continues. “Is that what you want, Lia? To be party to an ideal of good that no one shall ever even know? To risk your life for it? Do you think it is enough? Because it is not. It is not enough. Not for me. We can have authority no one in this world has ever had, not since Maari, the last sister who was wise enough to take her power when she had the chance.”

I cannot hide my surprise.

“What? Didn’t you think I knew? Didn’t you think I knew the story that belongs to us, to our mother?”

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“I wasn’t sure how much you knew. The book…”

She laughs again, pacing in front of me, although her footsteps make no tracks through the long grass. “The book!” she mocks, stepping closer. “Do you think that is the only way of knowing the story? Because it is not, Lia. I have other ways of knowing things.”

She walks around me so that her voice comes from behind. It is a ploy, a way to unnerve me. I remain facing forward, willing myself not to whirl and face her.

“Samael and his Souls summoned me long ago, Lia. They whispered to me in the cradle as they whisper to me still. It is not our mother’s voice I first heard, nor even yours, my twin. It is the call of the Souls that I first remember. Perhaps they knew of your… weakness. Perhaps they anticipated the confused loyalty brought on by the mistake of our birth. Or perhaps they simply wanted to be certain, certain that one sister would work to their end.” She has made her way back to my face, but she turns and faces the empty field in front of us, opening her arms as if to encompass it all. “They taught me everything, Lia. How to travel, how *****mmon others into travel…” She turns to face me once again, and I swear that it is love I hear in her voice. “Everything.”

While I have been taught nothing, I think.

I remember Sonia’s words, her assertion that those in the Otherworlds cannot intervene in ours. And then I realize that the Souls have not broken this ancient law. By teaching Alice how to use her gifts, the gifts with which she was born, her destiny has still been her own. The choice has still been hers. That she has made it, that she has chosen so easily the way of evil, can be blamed on no one but my sister.

Not even the Souls.

Alice takes advantage of my silence, trying to affect the soft and gentle voice of my sister. “You only make things more difficult for yourself, Lia. Samael will have his way in the end. He will have his way as you open your arms, or he will force his way through them, but you are no match for such power. Will you not take the easier road? It will all end the same, so what does it matter?”

What does it matter? The words echo through the fields of stiff, brown grass.

I see my mother, letting go of all that she loved to be free of the legacy that was hers. I see the sisters after us, my daughters or Alice’s. And then I see Aunt Virginia, raising Alice and me, watching all these years. Watching to see who would be the Guardian, who the Gate. These things come to me in a flash, until I am left with nothing but the lamenting wind.

“No.” I can barely hear the words myself, they are uttered so softly, and Alice leans toward me, her faltering smile proof that she has heard me after all.

“What did you say, Lia?” She is giving me a chance, a chance to pretend I did not say it, to say something different.

I clear my throat to be sure there is no mistaking my answer. “I said no. The choice is mine to make, and I am making it. I will put an end to it for good.”

She glares at me, unmoving, before the sneaky smile returns to her lips. “And how do you propose to do that, Lia? Even if you sacrifice yourself like our dear mother did, it will only continue, on and on, mother to daughter and sister to sister. No, the only way out for you is to give in to the Souls. They are quite patient, you know.”

I hear Aunt Virginia’s words once more — He will find your weakness. He will lie in wait for you while you sleep. He will use those you love most against you.

I shake my head. “I would rather die.” And I am surprised at my conviction. Surprised to find I actually mean it.

Alice leans even closer, so close I can feel her breath, warm on my face. “There are worse things than death, Lia. I thought you understood that.”

She leans back, staring me down. And then I hear them coming.

They beat a path across the sky, at first sounding like the distant crack of thunder but soon growing to the terrifying crescendo of a thousand hooves, all racing toward the place where Alice and I stand. When I look upward, the sky has blackened. The wind, before an eerie groan, is now a roaring monster, whipping our hair around our faces so that we have to pull the strands away in order to see.

“You see, Lia, you may be the Angel, but I can summon the Souls at will. They know the sister who remains loyal to the prophecy. They come to me because I am the rightful Gate.” Her voice rises triumphant over the howling wind. “We will work together, the Souls and I, for as long as it takes. I wish it were not so, Lia. But you have made your choice, and now I must make mine.”

Even as the Souls converge in the sky above, a faraway part of me thinks it is not possible, that I will be protected as I was the last time after my sea flight. But my helplessness cannot be denied. I am powerless to move. The strand connecting me to my body, so present during my other travels, feels as if it has been severed, leaving me adrift in the bleak Otherworld.

This is what it must feel like to be detained. To be separated from one’s body. To be taken to the Void. The thought comes to me from a last remnant of my rational mind.

The sky darkens further over my head, swirling until I feel I will be sucked into its blackness. The last strands of strength seep from my body. I want to slump to the ground and sleep, only sleep, as I slip into beguiling apathy.

“Lia!” A voice calls to me from the fields in the distance. I lift my head, trying to place the familiar voice. “Li-a!”

In the distance, another figure flies toward us, calling my name. Alice looks as puzzled as I, staring at the approaching figure with curiosity and annoyance. Even the darkness above us seems to waver.

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The figure approaches faster than would be possible in any other place, traveling the fields so quickly the face is a blur. It is only moments before she slams into me, shoving me with a force so tremendous that it knocks the breath out of me, that I see Aunt Virginia’s face.

I do not have time to speak, to thank her or worry for her safety. I try to reach out, to grab her by the hand, to take her back with me, but it is no use. The moment she touches me there is a painful tug on the strand, and I am suddenly pulled, back and back. Alice and Aunt Virginia and the darkness above them become smaller and smaller as I return the way I came, over the dead landscape below.

24

“Lia?” The knock is soft. “Are you awake?”

I pull myself upright in bed, relieved to hear Aunt Virginia outside my door. Whatever happened in the Otherworlds, she has survived it.

“Yes, come in.”

She steps hesitantly into the room, closing the door behind her and coming to sit on the edge of the bed. She doesn’t say anything right away, choosing her words before finally speaking. “You must learn the ways of the Otherworlds before you travel, Lia.”

I nod. “I know. I’m sorry. I… I didn’t mean to go. Sometimes, no matter how hard I try, I find myself there through no will of my own.”

“They summon you, Lia. They know they must get to you now, before you become surer, before you establish more control over your powers, before you find all the keys.” Her face is grave. “In time, you shall have more control over the circumstance of your travel, though you may always be vulnerable to the will of the Souls.”

I nod. Her face is haggard, the fine wrinkles about her eyes deeper than they were only a day ago. “Are you all right? Were you hurt?”

She smiles faintly, the story of her exhaustion written in her eyes. “I’m all right. I am not as young as I once was, nor as powerful. There is more than one reason each new generation must assume responsibility for the prophecy.”

“How did you… how did you make them stop?”

She shrugs. “I didn’t. Not really. I shocked your soul into reconnecting with the strand, with the astral chord, and then held them at bay with the little power I have, just long enough for you to escape their grasp. I was once the Guardian, you know.” She says this with a trace of pride.

“So that is how it is, then? Once the next Guardian and Gate have been dispatched, their predecessors hold little dominion over the Otherworlds?”

She looks up, trying to find a way to explain. “In a manner of speaking, yes, though we all retain some measure of our gifts even after our time has passed. Some hold more power than others, but I cannot say why it is true. Your Great-Aunt Abigail, my mother’s sister, was one of the most powerful Guardians in history. She was able to do things… to battle the Souls with strength that is still discussed today among those in the Otherworlds.”

“What happened to her?”

“She left.” Her voice is faint. “When your grandmother… when her sister passed, Aunt Abigail simply vanished.”

I’m not sure what to say *****ch an odd piece of family history, so I turn to things more immediate. “I’m sorry you had to come, Aunt Virginia… that you had to put yourself in danger. I thought I was safe… the last time…”

A look of alarm settles onto her face. “The last time?”

I chew my lip, feeling guilty that I have not shared everything with Aunt Virginia sooner. That I have not trusted her as I should.

“The last time they came for me they stopped.”

She shakes her head. “Whatever do you mean?”

“I didn’t know I was traveling then. I thought they were giving chase through the skies of my dream. Sonia was the one who warned me. If not for her, I would not have stood a chance. Even so, they were near enough to detain me, but something stopped them at the last moment. It was as if they couldn’t touch me, however much they desired it. I thought it might be the same this time. That’s why I didn’t make my way home with more urgency.” I shrug. “By the time I realized my mistake, it was too late.”

Her face goes very still. “You must be mistaken. What you have described… well, it could only be so through a show of forbidden magic.”

“Forbidden magic?” The words make my skin grow cold. “I know no magic.”

Her breath comes so fast I can see the rise and fall of it in her chest as she stares at the wall behind my bed. She stands suddenly, looking at me with stark fear.

“Lia. Get up and help me.”

“Will you not tell me why we are doing this, Aunt Virginia?”

We have moved the small night tables aside to give us room and are on either side of my heavy bed, preparing to slide it off the rug.

Aunt Virginia meets my eyes over the bed cover, her hair falling loose around her green dressing gown.

“Not yet. I don’t know if I’m right. Besides, we needn’t move it all the way. Just a little. Just enough so that we can pull back the rug a bit.”

“All right. Just enough. Let’s go, then. You push and I’ll pull.”

It is not very heavy, not as heavy as I expect it to be with its great carved posts and headboard. We move it off the rug at a slant, giving us access to the corner. Aunt Virginia bends to it, reaching for the corner quickly, before she pulls her hand back as if reconsidering.

“What is it?”

She raises her face to meet my gaze. “I don’t want to be right. Not about this.”

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She takes one audible breath, as if gathering her strength. And then she pulls back the rug, gasping when she sees the thing hidden there. I do not understand the symbol under the rug, the thing carved into the wood of the floor, but even still, the site of it brings goose bumps to the skin of my arms and the back of my neck.

“What is it?” I whisper.

Aunt Virginia does not take her eyes off the mark on the floor. “It is… it was a spell. A spell cast to provide a cloak of protection around you while you sleep.” She looks up at me. “The circle is an ancient symbol of protection, Lia. If one is powerful enough, one can cast a spell that will ensure the protection of any within the circle’s bounds or keep out those one wishes to exclude.”

Her words ring in my ears. I have a sudden recollection of Alice, sitting within the circle of the Dark Room in the dead of night. I remember my own helplessness in the face of it, my inability to cross the line of the circle’s edge. And then I hear Aunt Virginia’s words when talking about my mother: She was a Spellcaster.

I tip my head to get a better look at the symbol. Even with only a portion of it exposed, it does not look like a circle to me. I say as much to Aunt Virginia, and she rises from the floor. She is trembling, shivering as if she is very cold, though the fire was stoked by Ivy less than an hour ago, and the room is warm.

“That is because it is not a circle, Lia. Not anymore. Someone has reversed the spell. Someone has scratched through the circle and broken the spell of protection with which it was cast. Someone who wanted to leave you vulnerable while traveling the Otherworlds.”

I feel her eyes on my face, but I dare not look at her for fear I will either weep or scream. The remnants of the circle itself are faded, carved by someone’s hand long ago. But the gouges that cross it — the scratch marks that defile it — they are recent, as fresh as the circle carved on the floor of the Dark Room.

Aunt Virginia does not need to name the one who has done this, who has exposed me to so much danger. I focus my thoughts instead on the person who tried to protect me, on the one who would go *****ch trouble to ensure my safety.

“Could my mother really have cast such a spell?”

“She is the only one who had both the power to do it and nothing left to lose.” Aunt Virginia pulls something from a pocket in her dressing gown, holding it toward me. “I have long held this for you. She wrote it before… before she died. Perhaps I should have given it to you sooner. Perhaps I should have taught you the ways of the prophecy sooner. I only wanted you to be old enough, wise enough, to let the truth make you strong instead of letting it ruin you as it did her.”

A cynical laugh escapes my throat. “I feel anything but wise, Aunt Virginia. Anything but strong.”

She reaches out and pulls me into an embrace. “You are wiser than you believe, dear heart. And stronger than you know.” She looks back to the circle. “I am not a Spellcaster, Lia. And even if I were, I would not be permitted to reinstate the spell of protection.”

“Then how did my mother… Wait.” I stop, remembering something. “You said the spell was forbidden.”

Aunt Virginia nods, her face solemn in the half-light of the fire.

“Who would forbid her to use the power that was hers when it seems I am prompted day by day to use the power I wish wasn’t mine at all?”

She lowers herself to the bed, perching on its edge as she explains. “The Otherworlds have a system of justice, of checks and balances, just as ours does. Its rules might seem strange to those not accustomed to the unique aspects of that world, but they are rules nonetheless. Rules set by the Grigori.”

“The Grigori?” The name rings familiar, but I cannot place the reference.

“The Grigori is a council made up of angels from Maari and Katla’s time who did not fall. Now they preside over the Otherworlds, ensuring that each creature and soul there follows a set of guidelines established long ago. Using the magic of the Otherworlds anywhere else is cause for punishment, but I do believe your mother felt she had nothing left to lose when she cast the spell of protection around your bed.”

“But if Mother would have been punished for casting the spell, can we not bring Alice to justice for breaking it?”

Aunt Virginia sighs. “I’m afraid not. As with our world, there are ways to work within the confines of the rules.”

“I don’t… I don’t understand.”

Aunt Virginia meets my eyes. “Alice did not cast a spell of her own, Lia. She simply negated the effects of the spell your mother cast long ago — a spell that in and of itself was forbidden from the beginning.”

I stand up suddenly, my frustration getting the better of me as my voice rises into the room. “So there is nothing? Nothing we can do to stop her? To hold her accountable for placing me in danger?”

She shakes her head. “I’m afraid not. Not this time. It seems Alice has somehow learned the full force of her magic and is well versed in using it within the Grigori’s boundaries. For now, we shall have to hope she slips along the way.” She shrugs helplessly. “There is nothing else to do.”

I stare into the fire, my mind abuzz with this new, unwanted knowledge:

Alice has all the cards.

Alice has power I do not.

And worst of all, Alice knows how to use her power to her aid and my detriment without consequence.

“I am sorry, Lia, but we shall work through this together, I promise. Let us take one step at a time.” She stands to leave. “Luisa and Sonia are at the breakfast table. I have arranged a trip into town with Alice so that you may search for the list without fear of interruption.”

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I look up at her, feeling the weight of the tasks in front of me. “And then what? Even if we locate the list, we must still find the two remaining keys. And even if we find them, we do not know what to do with them or how to end the prophecy.”

She presses her lips together before answering. “I don’t know. Perhaps we can locate Aunt Abigail. And then… well, there are always the sisters.…”

This mention of the sisters gets my attention, for it is the same term used by Madame Berrier. “The sisters?”

She sighs. “Let us just say that there are those in the world with knowledge of the prophecy. Those with gifts that might be useful. Some are sisters of previous generations, and others… well, others simply seek to use their gifts for the good of us all. But we shall have to leave that for now, Lia. All right? Let us find the list. Let us find the keys. You shall have to trust me — if you call on them when the time comes, there are those who will help you.”

I suppose I am a coward, for I am glad to allow the details of this new revelation to wait for later. “I trust you, Aunt Virginia. But…”

“What is it?”

“What of my night travel? How do I prevent myself from falling unprotected into the Plane while I sleep?”

Her face darkens. “I don’t know, Lia. I wish I could give you an answer — some sure way to avoid travel. But with the power of the Souls so determined to call you to the Plane, it is all I can do to say you must try to resist.”

I nod as she rises and makes her way out of the room, leaving me alone with my mother’s letter. My hands tremble as I break the wax seal on the envelope. I unfold the paper to the slender, curving script that was my mother’s, knowing that I may well hold in my hands the long-sought answers to her death — and her life.

25

My dear Lia,

It is difficult to know where to begin. The beginning of this tale stretches back centuries, but I suppose I shall begin at my beginning, as my mother did for me.

My beginning was with the medallion, found in Mother’s bureau long after her death. It called to me even before I knew it existed. It must sound strange, but perhaps as you read this you are familiar with its temptation and the manner in which it insinuates itself into your thoughts, your dreams, your very breath.

At first I wore it only on occasion, as I would any other trinket from my dresser box. It was not until I woke to find the forbidding symbol etched upon my wrist that things began to change. I began to feel the power of the medallion seeping through me.

It spoke to me, Daughter, called to me. It whispered my name even when stuffed under the mattress of my bed, even when I found myself away at school or calling on friends.

Of course, I wore it. More and more, I am ashamed to say, I wore it over the mark. The Souls called me in my sleep, summoning me to the Otherworlds. At first I resisted, but it was not so for very long. I did not yet know the story of the prophecy or the stakes that lay in my continued resistance. I knew only that I felt most free, most alive, most myself, when traveling the Plane.

As I grew in the knowledge of my gifts — traveling at will while my body slept, speaking to those that had passed, casting all manner of spells — my life marched forward. I met your father and thought if ever there was a man who could love me even with the burdens of the prophecy it would be Thomas Milthorpe. And yet I did not tell him. How could I? He looked at me with such admiration, and as time passed the secret grew bigger and bigger between us until the thing I would have told him would not have been the truth as I had planned, but the lie I had kept for so long.

It was just before you and your sister were born that the sirens’ call of the Souls became more insistent. As you and your sister grew in the darkness of my womb, the Souls brought to me my own darkness. They lured me to sleep in the middle of the day. They tormented me in my dreams with images… horrible images. Images that made me ponder doing terrible things to myself even as I knew it would mean an end to you and your sister as well.

The medallion found its way to my wrist even after I locked it away in the bureau. Even after I buried it in the ground near the stables. Soon, I woke with it encircling my wrist even when I had not put it on before retiring. I felt sure I was losing my tenuous hold on sanity.

Looking back on that time, I know not how I managed *****rvive it, though I feel quite sure it was due in large part to the careful attentions of your father and Virginia. They rarely let me out of view.

Once you were born, you and your sister, the softness of your heads, the rose blush of your cheeks, the deepening green of your eyes… they all served to make me believe that perhaps there was something worth fighting for in this world even if it meant holding the evil at bay. I thought perhaps I could manage, if only to stay and be your mother.

And for a time it seemed to work just that way. I still felt the pull of the Souls. I still traveled in my dreams, though not as often. But nothing very terrible happened. You and your sister grew, crawled, walked, and spoke. My family remained safe, and if I brought anything, anyone, back from my night travels it seemed no one was the wiser.

I know now, of course, that it was a kind of fairy tale, those years when the medallion, the prophecy, and all of us, lived peacefully together. And then I found out about Henry. I discovered that I would have another child, though the doctor had cautioned against it after the difficult birth of you and your sister. Still, what was there to do but be proud that I might finally offer your father a son?

And proud I was — for a while. But as Henry grew in the darkest part of me, another kind of darkness gripped me so completely that I became truly frightened. I wanted to escape, Daughter. I wanted to visit the Otherworlds every hour of every day, and I wanted to bring the Army back with me, as many Souls as I was able, though I knew it was for no good purpose. Their howl became a song I never wanted to stop hearing.

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But even this was not the thing that frightened me most, that made me realize how far I had slipped into evil, how close to madness. No. It was the greed with which I began to view my travels, so that soon I was forcing myself to lie still on my bed at all hours of the day and night in order to will myself into traveling, forgoing food and sometimes company to sleep,only sleep, for never did I feel as complete as when I traveled. It was this that finally made me afraid.

When Henry was born… well, it was another difficult birth as I was told to expect. The doctor could not do another operation, and Henry’s feet were down instead of his head. His legs… I do not have to tell you, Daughter. You know what happened to his legs. The doctors pulled as gently as they could, but he would have died had they not gotten him out when they did.

I was very sick after he was born. Not just tired and weak, but sad and angry and hateful, as if all the good had seeped out of me during Henry’s birth only to be replaced by everything mean and evil that the medallion embodied. I would have flashes of love for you, for your sister and brother, for your father, but they were all too brief, settling on me like a butterfly and gone a moment later.

I slept more than ever, and when I awoke I knew with a certainty both sick and joyous that I had brought the Souls back with me. It is this streak of satisfaction that has made me realize that I do not have the strength to fight the legacy that is mine.

I am weak. I know you shall think me a coward, but how am I to stop a circle that was begun at the beginning of time? How am I, alone, to fight a thing that has won battle after battle through the ages? And most of all, how am I to pass this legacy, this curse, on to you? How am I to look you in those clear green eyes and tell you what awaits?

Virginia is wise — wise and clearheaded. She will surely give you better counsel than I, in my current state of despair, can offer. I cannot bear the thought of passing this burden, of all things, on to you, my beautiful Lia.

So along with it, I shall bequeath you every last drop of my protection. The Souls will come for you, of this I am sure, but I shall use every ounce of power, every spell that would see me banished from the Sisterhood, to see you safe while you sleep. It is all I can do.

Please know at this moment, as I put this letter in a safe place and make my way to the lake, I am thinking of you with love. I wish I had sage advice, but all I can offer you is my love, and the hope — no, the belief — that you are somehow stronger and braver than I, that you will take this battle to its end once and for all. And win it for all the sisters before you, and those yet to come.

There is nothing else. No answer. No guidance.

She knew it was I. That much is a revelation. Aunt Virginia may not have known at first, may not have pieced together the confusion of our birth, Alice’s and mine, and the consequences it would have. But our mother somehow knew that there was no escaping fate, no matter how chaotic and random it sometimes seems.

It was she who carved the circle of protection into the floor around my bed. Though I was only a girl, I remember moving from the nursery, from the small room I shared with Alice, not long before our mother died. Now the separation seems less a random rite of passage than a calculated move on the part of our mother.

A move to protect me from my sister.

That Alice’s rage and greed have led her to a place where she would sacrifice me to the Souls… it is beyond imagining. I cannot even reconcile that my sister could see her way to send me to my death, to something worse than death, by way of the Void.

My fury, my disbelief, is an itch I long to scratch. But it will only do harm to our quest for answers. The smart thing, the wise thing, is to let Alice think me still ignorant.

And to let her believe that she holds all the power.

26

It is later than usual when I finally emerge from my room.

The door to the guest room is open, Luisa’s and Sonia’s beds already neatly made, as I make my way down the hall. I have every intention of joining them, feeling badly that I have slept late and left them to their own devices.

But that is before I see the half-open door to Alice’s room.

Though I can see only a small portion of her chamber from my vantage point, her room emanates an aura of emptiness. I know, even from the hallway, that Alice is not there.

Looking quickly down the hall to be sure no one is coming, I step into the room and close the door quietly behind me. I stand for a moment, surveying Alice’s room. It has been years since I have spent any time in it. It is different. Older. I stop to remember the years when toy animals and fine porcelain dolls sat atop the bureau and writing desk. But remembrances are a luxury I cannot afford, and I move farther into the room with careful footsteps.

I don’t know where the list might be, but the possibility that Alice has somehow found it ahead of me cannot be ignored. I begin with the bedside table, opening the small drawer identical to the one in my own room. In it are some of Alice’s stationery, a quill and ink pot, and a jar of rose-scented hand cream. I continue searching, resisting the pull of disappointment as I search the wardrobe, the desk, and even under the bed.

The bureau is the only place left, the only remaining hope for finding the list in Alice’s room. I begin with the top drawers, working my way down to the larger, deeper drawers at the bottom. My fingers slide between nightgowns and capes, feeling for a slip of paper that might have the names of the keys. Instead, my hand closes on something heavier, wrapped in cloth at the back of the largest bottom drawer.

I pull the bundle from the drawer, surprised at its weight, and rest it atop the bureau for a better look. The object gives me pause, for surely it is not the list. But curiosity gets the better of me, and I lift the edges of cloth one by one until a knife is revealed in its center. I draw in my breath at the sight of it. It is no ordinary knife, but a rather large one with many-colored jewels inset into its hilt. I reach toward it, pulling my hand back when I come into contact with the ornate handle. I touch it again, feeling the tremor of raw power that pulses through the handle and up into my arm.

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I look at the door over my shoulder, knowing I must hurry. I grab the knife with authority, my body humming with new energy as I lift it off the bureau for a better look. What I see on its blade freezes the blood in my veins.

Wood shavings cling to the shimmering silver. They are small, but I know them for what they are, and now I know the knife for what it is: the knife used to reverse Mother’s spell of protection. The knife used to defile the circle on the floor of my room.

Rage surges through my body. It is far more powerful than the energy that courses through the knife, and I carefully wrap the sharp blade in the cloth, putting it in my drawstring bag and closing the drawer to Alice’s bureau. I do not feel guilty taking such a thing from Alice. A thing used for so dangerous and evil a purpose.

I make my way from the room without a backward glance, leaving the door wide open. Perhaps it is reckless, but the battle lines have been clearly drawn. There is no longer cause for pretense between my sister and me.

“You’ve been keeping secrets.” Henry’s voice comes to me from the parlor as I step off the staircase.

I take a couple of steps back to locate his voice. He sits near the window in the parlor, already bundled in his winter coat and scarf for the ride to town with Alice and Virginia.

Assembling a smile on my face, I move into the room. “Whatever do you mean, Henry?”

His face is somber. “You know.”

My own smile falters. “I’m afraid I don’t.”

He lowers his voice to a whisper. “You’re the bad one, Lia. Aren’t you?”

I shrug. “I don’t know, Henry. I don’t feel bad.”

His nod is solemn, as if this makes perfect sense. “Only time will tell, Lia.”

“Only time will tell? And who told you that, Henry?”

“Aunt Virginia,” he says simply. “She said there is no sure way to know who the bad one is, even with the mark. She said that only time will tell.”

I am surprised by his knowledge, but there is not much to say in the face of such wisdom. “I do believe she is right, Henry. I suppose we must wait and see.” I turn to leave.

“I love you anyway, Lia,” he calls after me. “Until time tells, I mean.”

I turn to him and smile, loving him more in this moment than any other. “Until time tells then, Henry, and beyond. I love you as well.”

“However are we supposed to find anything here, Lia? I’ve never seen so many books, not even at Wycliffe!” Luisa turns from the bookshelf, leaning against it and putting a hand to her forehead in exasperation.

I look up from Father’s desk, sitting back in the leather chair. “Well, I don’t know where else to search. If Father were to hide something, I feel sure it would be here. The library is where he spent his time. Everything that is dearest to him is in this room.”

“And yet, we have searched every conceivable location here!” Luisa says.

Sonia stands suddenly. “Here. We’ve searched every conceivable location here.”

Luisa shrugs impatiently. “Yes. That’s what I said.”

But I think I understand to what Sonia alludes. “Wait a minute… what do you mean, Sonia?”

“We haven’t searched his chambers,” she says.

I wave away the implication. “Yes, but the library was Father’s sanctuary. And it’s where the book was found.”

Sonia nods. “Exactly. Is that not more reason why the list could be hidden elsewhere?”

I chew my lip, contemplating her words. I do not want to admit that it is a possibility, not because it isn’t, but because violating my father’s privacy by searching his room gives me pause, even now that he is gone. Still, I cannot ignore the merit of the idea.

“You’re right, of course. If the list is not to be found here, his chamber is the next logical place.”

Luisa levels her gaze at me. “So,” she says. “What are we waiting for?”

Without the fire to keep it warm, Father’s room is cold as a tomb.

Luisa and Sonia enter without hesitation, but I close the door behind me and stand with my back to it for a moment. I survey the room, realizing it is unfamiliar to me because I so rarely had occasion to enter it when Father was alive. He slept here, that is all. All of his living was done in the library and the rest of the house with me, Alice, and Henry.

And yet, when I finally move into the room, I cannot help but feel that an important part of father did reside in this room. Perhaps it was a secret part of himself. A part that he kept hidden away from the rest of us. But as my eyes light on the picture of my mother on the night table, the books stacked neatly next to it, I begin to realize it was no less important for its secrecy.

“Lia?” Sonia is looking at me from the center of the room, palms up in question. “Where shall we begin?”

It takes me moment to come back to the reason for our visit to Father’s room, and when I do, I find I have no more idea where to begin than Sonia.

I shrug. “I don’t know. The bureau, I suppose. Under the mattress?”

Luisa steps to the bed, kneeling before it and slipping a hand between the two mattresses. “I’ll begin here. Lia, why don’t you search the more private of your father’s things?”

“I’m going to feel behind the wardrobe,” Sonia says, moving toward the armoire in the corner of the room.

I stand in the center of the room for a moment, trying to overcome my feelings of guilt at invading my father’s privacy, even for a reason as important as this one. Finally, I remind myself that the list will not present itself to me, and I set to work.