“He mesmerized you,” Dame Beckwith said, her voice trembling. “That monster!”
“You know who he is?” I asked.
“I know what he is,” she said. Her face looked stricken, the firm smooth flesh sagging around her jaw and making her look, for the first time since I’d been here, old. “I-I can’t . . . explain,” she stuttered, the first time I’d ever heard her voice falter. “But I can show you. Come.”
We followed Dame Beckwith through the winding halls of the North Wing to the library, barely able to keep up with her. Was she going to show us something in a book? She swept past the floor-to-ceiling shelves with the same intensity of purpose until she reached the enormous fireplace at the end of the room. I’d spent many a class staring at the intricate carving on the stone mantelpiece, following the pattern of interlocking spirals and strange creatures. Did the identity of the man in the Inverness cape lie in the pattern’s labyrinthine maze? But Dame Beckwith didn’t pause to examine the design. She placed her index and middle fingers in the eyes of a particularly frightful gargoyle and her thumb in its mouth. A horrible groan emanated from the stone, as if the gargoyle had indeed just had his eyes poked out, and the floor beneath my feet trembled. The great hearthstone in the fireplace was sinking as if the foundations of Blythewood were crumbling. A cloud of soot and ash rose into the room. When it settled, a great gaping hole had opened up inside the fireplace. Dame Beckwith took a lantern from the mantel and held it above the hole, lighting up a curve of spiral steps carved out of stone. Miss Corey was handing out lanterns to each of us.
“Oh my!” cried Daisy. “It’s like something out of one of Mr. Poe’s stories.”
“Yes, the one in which the madman walls up his enemy in a dungeon,” Helen said, shaking soot off her skirt, only the tremble in her voice giving away that she was afraid.
“Is that where we’re going?” Daisy asked. “To the dungeons?”
“In a manner of speaking,” Miss Sharp explained. “We’re going to see something in the Special Collections, which happen to be in the dungeons. Watch your step. It’s a long way down.”
We descended single file down the narrow, spiraling steps. I had the feeling that we were drilling our way into the ground. The walls on either side of the stairs were damp and, in the flickering lantern light, mottled with mold and crawling things. It felt like the well in my vision when the crow had dug its claws into me. Perhaps I was still in the well. The Darkling had never come to save me. My friends had never come to save me. Perhaps this was a punishment for asking who the man in the Inverness cape was. I wanted to shout that I didn’t need to know anymore. Whatever it was that Dame Beckwith was going to show us down here in the bowels of the earth, I didn’t need to see it. Daisy and Helen were behind me on the stairs, but I could push past them and run back up. I stopped, ready to turn, but before I could, Nathan looked over his shoulder at me, his eyes flashing silver in the lantern light.
“It’s all right,” he said, as if he knew what I was planning. And suddenly it was—not because of his reassuring tone, but because of the look in his eyes. He was afraid, too—maybe more afraid than I was—but he was ready to brave his fears to see what lay below. If he could do it, his look told me, so could I.
I nodded and followed him, wondering, as he turned, what he was so afraid of.
At the bottom of the stairs we passed through a corridor lined with filing cabinets and glass cases. Holding my lantern up, I saw that some of the shelves contained books while others held mysterious objects—shells, bones with runic inscriptions on them, clay figurines, bronze bells coated with a green crust-like algae, and long tattered tapestries embroidered with enigmatic figures. The Special Collections wasn’t just a library; it was a museum of the Order’s history. Dame Beckwith must want to show us some object from the collection. But she passed by the cases without a glance to either side. At the end of the corridor she asked Miss Corey to hold her lantern so she could remove a ring of keys from her pocket and unlock a door.
“Leave your lanterns in the hall,” she told us. “You won’t need them in here.”
One by one we left our lanterns on a ledge beside the door and passed into a room so dark it was as if we’d been swallowed by the earth. Then a light flared, a blinding pinpoint like an exploding star. It ignited other stars—a galaxy. When my eyes adjusted to the glare I saw that Dame Beckwith was lighting the candles of an enormous crystal chandelier hanging from a high domed ceiling. I’d seen chandeliers in the houses where my mother and I delivered hats, but I’d never seen one like this. It was crafted of concentric brass rings of candles and crystal bells, each bell carved with intricate designs that sprung to life as the candlelight touched them and cast shimmering patterns over the walls and domed ceiling. By the candlelight I could now see we were in a circular room, empty save for a round table directly beneath the chandelier.
“How beautiful!” Daisy cried.
“Yes,” Helen agreed. “It’s bigger than the chandelier in the Vanderbilt’s Hyde Park mansion.”
“It’s a candelabellum,” Miss Sharp told us, her voice hushed in awe. “One of only three that the six bell maker’s daughters made. This is the only one that’s survived.”
“And even this one is missing some of the original bells,” Dame Beckwith said. “But it’s intact enough to tell its story.”
“Its story?” I asked, staring at the glittering crystal. It was dazzling to look at, but the patterns carved into the crystal bells were abstract and enigmatic. I couldn’t see how anyone could read a story in those patterns.
“Yes, a story!” Mr. Bellows cried, leaning so close to the candles that I thought he was going to singe his eyebrows. “The candelabellum was designed so that the vibrations of the bells would move the rings in such a way that the light refracting through the crystal bells would cast a picture on a darkened wall. That’s why the candelabella were always kept in underground vaults like this chamber. The room must be completely dark except for the candles, and have exactly the correct acoustics to control the vibrations of the bells. But one must know which bell to strike first.”
“I know which bell to strike first, Mr. Bellows,” Dame Beckwith said. “If you will all sit down I will proceed.”
Cowed by Dame Beckwith’s command, we all pulled out the heavy chairs and sat at the round table. I noticed that the chair back was shaped like a long bell—and was not particularly comfortable. When we were all seated Dame Beckwith lifted a slender metal rod and held it poised over the candelabellum.
“Before I begin, I must ask that none of you speak of what you see here. I only show this to you so that you know what evil you brushed against today and you do everything in your power to fight it.”
As she spoke she looked at each of us in turn as was her wont while giving speeches, but her gaze came to rest on Nathan the longest. We all nodded our heads in agreement, even Nathan, and then Dame Beckwith raised the metal rod and struck one of the crystal bells.
The sound was pure and sweet and reverberated through the domed cavern, which was itself, I noticed now, shaped like an enormous bell. I could feel the vibrations in the floor traveling up my legs and spine to the top of my scalp. The bells in the candelabellum began to vibrate, and the rings began to spin. The bells played a mournful tune, and the crystal cast shards of light on the wall that grew into images of birds flitting across the walls like a great wheeling flock of starlings. Then they were swooping through a snowy woods and more images evolved: a wagon and horses and then, slipping out of the shadows as if they had been lurking all along in the recesses of the room, wolves running beside the wagon, which went faster and faster, around and around the room, until, in a great jangle of bells, it crashed, throwing into our startled faces sprays of snow so lifelike that I could have sworn I felt their icy kiss on my cheeks.
As one lone figure picked herself up from the broken wagon I understood that we w
ere watching the story of the bell maker’s daughters. Seven figures rang seven bells to scare off the shadow wolves that seemed so real I could swear I smelled the musk of them in the air. And why not? The wolves that stalked the girls were made up of shadows, and what were we watching but a shadow play like the shadow puppet shows I’d seen in Chinatown? Only in reverse—we were watching shapes made out of light moving on a ground of shadow. The more I watched, though, the more the shadows seemed to encroach on the figures carved out of light. The prince and his brave knights who rode to the girls’ rescue, their horses’ bridles jangling with the song of the crystal bells, seemed thin and insubstantial against the shadowy woods that surrounded them. Out of that blackness came an enormous winged creature that swooped over the youngest bell maker’s daughter and plucked her up. Her flickering light was absorbed into the blackness. Then the blackness spread and formed into a gruesome shapes—goblins and trolls stalked the margins of the room, their high-pitched chittering echoing in the high bell-shaped dome.
It’s just a shadow play, I told myself, but I knew that the combination of reflected light and chiming bells could not produce the images I was seeing and the sounds I was hearing. As it spun, the candelabellum used some magic to recreate the story that the bell maker’s daughters had wanted to tell. Of their sister’s abduction. Of their rescue. Of the flight back to the castle pursued by the shadow creatures. Of the knights’ desperate attempts to fight back the shadow creatures.
When they drove their swords into the shadow wolves, the creatures exploded into black shards that floated up to the ceiling like the flakes of ash that rose from the fire at the Triangle factory. But these ash flakes grew as they rose. They sprouted wings and dove back down to attack the knights, who fought them off with shield and sword, keeping the bell maker’s daughters safe until they reached the castle.
As the castle’s gates opened to let them in, the mass of shadow crows swarmed toward it. The prince turned to keep them back while the others rode through. He stood on the drawbridge, battling each crow as it swooped toward him, swinging his sword in a pattern that looked familiar to me. It was the same pattern that Miss Sharp had used to mesmerize the crows, and the runic inscriptions on the sword were the same ones I had seen on the sword that Mr. Bellows had brandished. And just as Miss Sharp had been able to mesmerize the crows while we ran to Blythewood, so the prince saved his brother knights and the bell maker’s daughters. But when he turned to join them, a terrible thing happened. A great winged creature appeared in the sky. A man with wings. A Darkling.
At the sight of him I felt my heart contract. Even in this shadow play I felt that this creature was real. And I didn’t want to see what came next. I wanted to close my eyes. But when I did, I discovered the power of the candelabellum. Even with my eyes closed I saw the story unfold. The Darkling did not attack the prince. Instead it broke into a million pieces and each piece became a shrieking crow. They swarmed over the prince, sharp beaks pecking at the soft places between the seams of his armor, picking at each chain-mail link, rending flesh, shredding skin. The prince went down in a clamor of armor that rang so loud I thought the crystal bells of the candelabellum would shatter. I thought my own eardrums would shatter. It felt like the sound was inside me, as the ravening crows were inside the prince.
Because that’s where they were. As the prince fell to the snowy ground the crows picked his body apart, opening it up and climbing inside. They burrowed into sinew and soul, eating what was left of him until he was a hollow carcass filled with the shadow carrion. And then, when they’d eaten their fill, the prince rose to his feet. Bristling with feathers, his movements jerky as if pulled by a puppeteer’s hand. . . . I’d seen that jerky motion before when Tillie snagged the coat of the man in the Inverness cape and he juddered to a halt like a piece of machinery poorly oiled. That was how this creature moved until he shook himself once, feathers rustling and then smoothing into a familiar shape. A man with a cape where arms should be and a bowl shaped helmet where a head should be. The man in the Inverness cape. Only he wasn’t a man at all. He was a bit of that darkness that grew and grew until darkness swept over everything in its path as the darkness swallowed us now, leaving us in an empty black pit.
22
IT TOOK ME a moment to realize that the candles in the candelabellum had burnt down. That’s why we were in the dark. After a few moments of silence—we were all, I believe, stunned by the show we had seen—there was a rustling and the strike of a match. Miss Sharp and Miss Corey had fetched two lanterns from the doorway and set them on the table. The light shining up on our faces turned us all into frightful ghouls, Dame Beckwith most of all.
“But I don’t understand.” Daisy was the first to speak. “I thought the prince went on to found the Order.” She sounded aggrieved, like a child whose favorite bedtime story has been changed.
“That is the story the sisters and knights passed down,” Dame Beckwith said. “The real story was considered too frightening, but the sisters preserved the truth in the candelabellum so a select few would know of the danger that has always haunted our Order.” She turned to Nathan. “The man you saw today is not a man at all. He’s a creature made up of shadow that can control the shadows. He’s the Shadow Master.”
“Was he ever a man?” Nathan asked hoarsely. If I didn’t know better I would think he’d been crying. “I mean, the prince in the story was a man before the crows got at him.”
“Yes,” Dame Beckwith admitted reluctantly. “The creature you met today and who’s been following Ava was likely once a man, but he must have been taken over by the shadows long ago. When he wishes he can dissolve himself back into the shadows—into the crows that attacked you today or into a giant winged creature—a Darkling.”
“You’re saying that the Darklings are made up of shadows, too?” I asked.
Dame Beckwith stared at me. “Weren’t you watching, Avaline? Didn’t you see the Darkling break into the shadow crows? It’s one of the shapes they can take. That’s what makes them so dangerous. The boy you saw at the Triangle who you thought saved you—how else could he appear to you without wings but by changing his shape?”
“But he saved me!” I cried.
“Did he?” Dame Beckwith asked. “Or did he bring you to the hospital where you were held captive and tortured?”
Her question—one I had asked myself many times—silenced me. Taking my silence as acquiescence, she nodded once at me and then addressed the group.
“I have shown you this so you know what evil you encountered today and how fortunate you were to escape it. You must avoid any contact with that man.” Here she looked at Nathan, but then she switched her gaze to me. “Or with the Darklings. They are both creatures of the shadows, deceptive and seductive. They want to get inside us and destroy our power. If the shadows infiltrate the Order, then there will be no one to stop the creatures of Faerie from coming out of the woods and swarming over the whole world. That’s what the shadow creatures want: evil and chaos and despair. That’s what they feed on. We must reinforce the magic of the bells that protects Blythewood and continue our war against the creatures in the wood. But you must avoid the shadow creatures.”
“Avoid them?” Nathan cried. “Is that all you’re going to do? Those demons might have taken Louisa—”
“Yes.” Dame Beckwith cut Nathan off with a fierce look. “They most likely did. And that’s why we have to avoid them. That’s what they do when we get too close to them—they steal what’s most precious to us.” Nathan’s eyes flashed and Dame Beckwith’s tone softened. “All we can do is protect what we have left.”
“But why not try to get her back?” Nathan demanded.
“Because she won’t be the same,” Dame Beckwith answered. “You saw what happened to the prince in the story. Do you really want to see your sister if that’s what happened to her?”
Nathan looked pale in the lantern light, but h
e persisted. “Then why don’t we destroy the lot of them!”
“We’ve tried,” Dame Beckwith said. “We’ve sent in the Hunt to destroy them, but whenever we have we’ve lost more of our people than we’ve killed of theirs. And always there are the girls who vanish in the battle and are never seen again. I’d rather see a girl dead than taken by those creatures! Still, if these attacks persist we may have to prepare for a Hunt if it’s our only option left. And if that’s the case . . . may the Bells save our souls.” She rose to her feet, but Nathan wasn’t finished.
“Isn’t there something in all those books and gewgaws out there”—he waved his hand to the corridor of glass cases we’d come through—“that could tell us how to destroy them? Couldn’t this . . . hoo-ha”—he tapped one of the crystal bells and the candelabellum shivered with a sound that made my skin prickle—“tell us anything more?”
“We’ve looked through the books,” Dame Beckwith replied. “And we’ve fiddled with the gewgaws, as you called them. Some of them are quite dangerous. Three of my classmates were killed fiddling with them. And as for the candelabellum . . .” She cast her eye on the glass and metal contraption. “It may once have told more than one story, but now this is the only story we know how to make it tell. Others have tried to tinker with it and coax knowledge from it, but they have come to ruin by doing so. You must never enter the candelabellum chamber alone. We believe the candelabellum is calibrated to pick up on minute vibrations of breath, heartbeat, even electrical pulses within the brain, and respond to individuals. There are stories of those who have entered the candelabellum chamber alone coming out mad. Even in a group, it is not . . . healthy to spend too much time down here watching the play of light and shadow. We’ve tarried too long already. It’s time to go.”
She picked up one of the lanterns and strode to the door. One by one we followed her. She waited at the door until we’d all passed through and then she locked the door behind her and pocketed the key.