I awoke blinking into a bright flame floating above me, a face haloed by light. But it wasn’t my dark-winged boy. It was a tall girl in a white dress holding a lantern, her long hair falling loosely around her shoulders.
“Avaline Hall, if you would be one of us, arise now and come with me to join your sisters.”
“What?” I asked groggily. “I thought we already did the initiation at dinner.” Had they discovered I was the one who had made the bell ring? Were they offering me another chance to belong? If that was it, I should be getting up to take their offer but all I wanted to do was close my eyes and go back to my dream, to be carried away by my dark-winged boy.
“Ava!” Helen’s voice hissed. “Wake up! It’s the Blythewood initiation. We have to go!”
I opened my eyes again and saw Helen and Daisy standing in their nightgowns behind the tall girl holding the lantern. “Here.” Helen shoved a pair of slippers at me. “Wear these—my cousin warned me about this, so I’ve got an extra pair.”
She could have told me earlier, I thought crankily as I reluctantly sat up and stuffed my feet into Helen’s too-small slippers. Did I have time to put on clothes? But our escort was already urging us out into the hall, where I saw other bleary-eyed nestlings in nightgowns stumbling behind girls with lanterns. Beatrice and Dolores, their braids hanging down to their knees, were huddled closely together. Cam, her hair sticking up in spikes, looked like a newly hatched chick eager for her first flight, but Daisy, I noticed, looked frightened.
“It’s all right,” I whispered, taking her by the arm. “It’s probably just another silly oath taking. We’ll read some ghastly rhyme, spin around three times, and be back in bed before we know it.”
Daisy gave me a tentative smile, but still looked frightened. I had to admit it was an eerie sight: two dozen girls, all in white nightgowns, following the seven lantern-bearing sentinels. It reminded me of the scene in Mr. Wells’s novel The Time Machine when the peaceful Eloi deliver themselves over to the flesh-eating Morlocks. I became even more worried when we reached the first floor and instead of passing into the Great Hall were led outside into a moonlit world of mist and shadow.
The lantern bearers walked through the fog as if they would know their way blindfolded. I noticed now that they also bore bows and quivers strapped over their shoulders. The Dianas, I realized; ushering the nestlings to initiation must be part of their duty. We followed them, any hesitation quickly replaced by the fear of losing sight of the lanterns, the only light once the fog enveloped us. River fog, I thought, remembering the thick mist that had covered River Road on my journey from the station.
I recalled the story Gillie had told me of the bell maker’s seven daughters and the journey they had made through the fog-ridden woods—a wood much like the one we entered now. Ghostly trees loomed out of the mist, branch tips reaching out like skeletal fingers. We were entering the woods on the north side of the school . . . or were we? Gillie had said that fairies sent a fog like this to lure unwary travelers into fairy land. Perhaps the lights that floated before us were not the lanterns held by the Dianas, but will-o’-the-wisps luring us into bogs to drown. Perhaps the rustling I heard in the underbrush came from the shadow wolves that preyed on the bell maker’s daughters.
“Where are they taking us?” I whispered to Helen, who hung on to Daisy’s other arm.
“To the Rowan Circle,” Helen whispered back. “My cousin told me about it. There’s a clearing there surrounded by rowan trees. Look—” Helen reached out her hand and plucked a branch seemingly from the fog itself. She handed it to me and I could see that the branch was heavy with red berries. My mother had told me something about rowan trees once.
I lifted my eyes from the branch to ask Helen if she knew, but the question died on my lips as I saw what lay in front of us: a clearing ringed round with flames. For a moment I thought the woods were on fire, until I saw that the flames came from torches plunged into the earth. Beside each torch stood a dark, robed figure. As the last girls entered the circle each figure lifted an arm and held aloft something that gleamed in the firelight.
A peal of bells sounded through the fiery circle, playing a tune I hadn’t heard before, a mournful dirge like something medieval church towers would have rung to announce the coming of the plague. The very fog seemed to flee before the sound, creeping out of the circle and into the woods, uncovering as it went a solitary hooded figure standing in the center of the circle. When the bells had ceased the figure lowered her hood.
Dame Beckwith, her silver hair billowing loosely about her face like a swath of fog that had wound itself about her head, turned in a slow circle to look at each of us. In the firelight her pale gray eyes shone yellow, like the eyes of an owl sweeping the forest floor for prey. When she had made a complete circuit, she spoke.
“Girls,” she said, her voice ringing with the same carrying force of the bells, “you have come here tonight to be initiated into the mystery of Blythewood. In a moment I will tell you a story that will change the way you see the world and alter the course of your life. We have tried to ensure that only those who are strong enough to face this moment have made it this far. I believe that every one of you has it in her to be a Blythewood Girl.”
She turned again, resting her eyes on each of us. “But I have been wrong before, and there may be some among us who are not ready to commit to this undertaking. It is not a covenant to enter into lightly. Much will be asked of you. You may find yourself in grave danger. Although we will train you to face the dangers ahead, even the best trained among us have been lost.”
Her voice wavered and I imagined she was thinking about the girl who had disappeared. In the flickering torchlight her face seemed to quiver, as if a gauzy veil had been dragged across her features. But when the flame steadied her face appeared calm and she continued in a sure and measured voice.
“If any of you wish to leave now, you may. You will go home on tomorrow’s train with no reproach from me or from any of us here. Many are called, but few are chosen. To make it easier for those who wish to leave, you may do so under cover of darkness.”
At her signal the torches and lanterns were extinguished and the circle was plunged into darkness. I heard the rustle of one or two girls leaving, accompanied by one of the Dianas, who lit her lantern once they were outside of the circle. As I watched the light of that lantern fade into the fog, I thought of going myself. It would only be a matter of time before it became obvious that I did not belong here. I wasn’t like the other girls with their smooth hands and carefree smiles. I could feel my difference—my wrongness—like an itch on my skin that threatened to spread into an ugly rash for everybody to see. Wouldn’t it be better to skulk off in the dark before anyone could see how different I was?
But then I thought about what Agnes had said to me before I left—that coming to Blythewood would be my only way of finding out what happened to my mother and who my father was. Dame Beckwith had told Nate that my mother had disappeared once while at Blythewood. I burned to know where she had gone, what had transpired, and how she’d returned, as it sounded like the other vanished girls hadn’t. Perhaps if I could find out the truth about my mother’s past, I would understand her life and why it turned out the way it had.
Thinking about my mother gave me the strength to stay. After all, whatever was going to happen to me at Blythewood, she had gone through it once, too.
When the sound of retreating footsteps had faded, the torches were relit and Dame Beckwith began her story.
“This is not a tale told round the fireside to delight and entertain,” she began. “This is a story of the very real dark things that lurk in the shadows and the sacrifices each and every one of us—” She laid her hand over her breast and I thought I heard a slight catch in her voice. What had she sacrificed? I wondered. But when she went on her voice was steady. “Must make to keep those shadows from destroying all that is go
od.
“Our story begins with the tale of the bell maker’s daughters . . .”
Oh good, I thought, as I listened to the story Gillie had told me earlier today, I know this already. But she didn’t stop with Merope’s abduction.
“After their sister was taken from them, the six daughters brought the seven bells to the prince’s tower at the edge of the woods. The shadow wolves followed them.”
She paused, letting that last sentence sink in. I remembered Gillie had said the shadow wolves were made of the bits and scraps of what was left of the dead. Outside the circle, the gray fog billowed like floodwater held back by an invisible dike. One could imagine creatures like the shadow wolves taking shape inside it, but it was just a story. Wasn’t it?
“By the time they reached the prince’s tower they were surrounded by the shadow wolves and other creatures who had come out of the woods, because in those woods lay a door—a door to hell, some might call it, although some of a more fanciful mind might call it Faerie.”
It was obvious what Dame Beckwith thought of those possessed of a fanciful mind. I felt a pang at the thought of my mother and her love of fairy tales. Was this story supposed to cure us of a childish love of stories? If so, I was doubly sure I’d never fit in here. Besides a stray feather and an empty laudanum bottle, the tales my mother had told me were all I had left of her.
“But let me assure you,” Dame Beckwith continued, “that the creatures who came through that door, though they may have looked innocent, were not. They were bloodthirsty scavengers that preyed on humankind. They stole babies from their cribs and wives from their husband’s beds and replaced them with changelings. They assumed pleasing shapes to seduce women and then drained them of their vitality and beauty, leaving dry, withered husks behind. They lured unwary travelers to their deaths and pulled fisherman from their boats down into the bottom of the sea. They waged war on humankind and would have destroyed us all if they were not stopped.
“The sisters found that if they rang the bells correctly they could keep the creatures away. By trial and error—grievous error that cost many lives—the sisters learned how to ring the bells not only to repel these beings but to summon them. You see, it is not enough to merely evade evil. One must seek it out and destroy it. And so the sisters learned how to lure the demons into traps and how to shoot them down with arrows. They founded the Order of the Bells to pass down their skills to the next generation. The good knights who served them were the first knights of the Order and have faithfully served them since. Together the sisters and the knights brought the Order to wherever the evil creatures dwelled and fought them back. They fought so well that the doors to Faerie fell into disuse and closed. The old ways were forgotten by all but a very few. Many thought the war was over and that evil had been defeated. But evil is never entirely vanquished; it just goes underground and emerges somewhere else.”
She held out her arms by her sides, her fingers splayed wide. “It bubbled up here,” she said, raising her arms. The fog outside the circle seemed to rise with the motion. I felt a tingle at the back of my neck and I began to realize that this wasn’t a story that took place once upon a time in a faraway land. This was a story about here and now.
“The remnants of the Order heard of evil rising up on America’s shores. They scoured the country looking for the root of that evil, and when they found it, they knew what they had to do. At great personal cost and danger they brought the bells—and the bell tower that held them—stone by stone to Blythewood. The evil creatures that came through the door were so threatened by the bells that they summoned a storm to destroy the boats carrying them. Many lives were lost battling the dark forces. Sacrifices were made. But the Order prevailed and we established a stronghold here on the banks of the Hudson and on the edges of hell.
“That is the tradition to which you girls are heirs. That is the mystery of Blythewood. Tonight you will be welcomed into the Order of the Bells.”
The chime of bells filled the circle. The peal the hooded figures played was surprisingly sprightly after Dame Beckwith’s frightening speech. Perhaps it was a fairy tale after all, a parable meant to teach us a lesson, and now we’d sing a song to celebrate our union. My body swayed and my feet tapped. On either side of me I felt Daisy and Helen caught up in the tune, too. It made you want to dance, to fling yourself into a circle. But then the hooded figures raised their torches and we saw what ringed our circle.
A multitude of faces peered in at us. My first thought was that they were children—wide-eyed, elfin-faced starvelings. I’d seen faces like this staring out of tenement windows on the Lower East Side, children so malnourished their bones stuck out and their eyes were too big for their faces, but I’d never seen children who had starved until their ears were pointy, or their faces wrinkled like old men, or their feet cloven. Or ones who had grown long rat-like tails.
“What are they?” Daisy whispered, her fingers digging into my arm.
“I don’t know,” I managed, my throat so tight it hurt to speak. “They look like . . .”
“Goblins,” Helen hissed. “Goblins and elves and fairies. It’s true. I’d heard the stories but I didn’t believe them.”
I stared at the creatures, desperately looking for some other explanation. They had to be children in costumes cleverly made up to look like the fairy creatures that decorated the margins of the storybooks my mother had read me. One of the creatures pressed itself up against the edge of the circle, its fox-like face sniffing low to the ground, a ridge of brindled fur raised along its spine, long tail twitching in frustration. Some invisible barrier seemed to be keeping it out of the circle. It lifted its sharp nose, sniffed, and licked its lips with a dark-blue tongue the length of my forearm.
Daisy screamed. The creature arched its back and snarled, baring sharp, pointy teeth. Its delicate pale blue ears quivered.
“Some of them look almost human, don’t they?”
Dame Beckwith’s voice seemed to float over the circle. My eyes were glued to the creature—the goblin, I said to myself, scarcely believing it. I thought of the lines in Miss Rossetti’s poem:
One like a wombat prowled obtuse and furry
One like a ratel tumbled hurry-scurry . . .
This one cringed and skulked along the perimeter of the circle, its sharp claws scrabbling over the ground, its tail lashing like a snake.
“Or like some harmless animal,” Dame Beckwith said.
I didn’t think the creature looked particularly human or harmless. I had gone past the point of doubting the evidence of my eyes. These creatures—at least two dozen of them now ringed the glade—were not of this world. I had always wondered how my mother had made her stories so vivid, and now I knew. She had seen these creatures firsthand.
“Some even look quite lovely.” Dame Beckwith held out her hand and whistled a long trilling note. One of the lights outside the circle detached itself from the fog and floated toward her outstretched hand. “Don’t be alarmed,” Dame Beckwith said. “Only the ones I summon can breach the circle.” When the blur of light alighted on Dame Beckwith’s hand I saw it was a diminutive winged person—a sprite clothed in blue and green flames.
“Oooh,” Daisy cooed beside me. “She’s so pretty!”
“Yes, isn’t it,” Dame Beckwith said, turning her hand so that the creature revolved slowly, like a ballerina pirouetting on a spot-lit stage. “Genus: Fatae; species: lychnobia; subspecies: ignis fatuus. Commonly known as a will-o’-the-wisp, Jenny-burnt-tail, Kit-in-the-Candlestick, or lampsprite. Collectively known as a conflagration of lampsprites. Their favorite trick is leading unwary travelers into bogs and marshes and then laughing while they drown.”
The lampsprite tilted its head and blinked its wide yellow-green eyes innocently at Dame Beckwith. “And if that was all they did we might leave them be, but they also have another nasty trick up their sleeves.”
Dame Beckwith brought her hand closer to her face, pursed her lips, and blew as if she were extinguishing a candle. The flames surrounding the lampsprite eddied in the gust and shrunk around the tiny figure like scraps of crumpled silk. Then a high-pitched whine, like the buzz of a mosquito magnified a thousand times, filled the circle and the tiny delicate creature exploded into a living, breathing fireball. Enormous wings veined with lightning stretched over our heads. The pretty face was transformed into a snarling mask of rage, pointed teeth and long, sharp talons poised to tear Dame Beckwith apart. It hissed and dove, but before it could reach Dame Beckwith, one of the cloaked figures stepped forward, lifted a bow, and shot an arrow into the creature’s breast. The creature crumbled to the ground at Dame Beckwith’s feet.
“Look at it,” Dame Beckwith commanded. “This is its true face.”
Drawn by her voice—and a horrible curiosity—we all gathered round the wounded creature—all except the robed figures and the seven Dianas, who stood guard around us, bows drawn. Blue flames still flickered over its body, but the figure was no longer the pretty thing that we’d seen a minute ago. Its face was seamed with blue veins, its ears pointed and tufted with coarse fur, its eyes bloodshot and bulging. A hideous monster.
“Like all creatures of Faerie the lampsprite assumes a pleasing mien to lure you astray. And that is exactly what they will do: lead you astray. Members of our own Order have been led astray by the most beautiful of these creatures—the Darklings.
“They were so beautiful some among us forgot they were not human, that they were demons. There have even been those foolish enough to enter into an alliance with them, but their trust has always been rewarded with betrayal and destruction. You must never forget that these creatures are monsters. It is our duty to protect the world against them. That is what you have come to Blythewood to do. You will learn here the secrets of these monsters. How to recognize their wiles and disguises and—”