Sarah’s eyes shone. “Your secret is safe with me,” she said solemnly, pressing my hand in hers over her left breast.
“Secret . . .” Miss Frost’s voice blearily echoed Sarah’s words.
Sarah rolled her eyes and, giving my hand one more squeeze, let it go. “We’re almost back at school,” she said loudly to Miss Frost. “Shall I help you to your room? I have a new dose of your physic.” Sarah held up a parcel from her bag and shook it. The sloshing sound seemed to revive Miss Frost.
“Be careful with that,” she snapped, reaching across me for the parcel. As she leaned over me I was nearly overwhelmed by her odor—the familiar scent of tea rose, gin, and formaldehyde, now overlaid by something new. The stench of something burnt.
30
I WALKED UPSTAIRS trying to sort through all that had happened today—van Drood’s appearance in Rhinebeck, what I’d done with the bells, Raven showing up as a boarder at Violet House, Miss Emmy’s gift of the magical repeater pocket watch that seemed to have the power of raising a concealing mist, and confirmation that Miss Frost was the spy. The last revelation was the one that most worried me. Shouldn’t I go to Dame Beckwith and tell her? But would she believe me? All I’d seen was a wisp of smoke as van Drood whispered in Miss Frost’s ear. I’d need more proof than that to convince Dame Beckwith that her old friend was a spy. Better that I watch her as Raven had told me to.
In spite of all the tumult of the day, I smiled when I thought of Raven at Violet House. Because he’s safer there than in the woods, I told myself, pausing on the fourth-floor landing to look out at the frozen woods. It had been horrible to think of him out there with the ice giants. Far better to think of him taking tea with the Misses Sharp and tinkering with clocks with Uncle Taddie at Violet House . . . where I could visit.
That was the real reason I was happier with Raven at Violet House, I admitted as I turned away from the window and continued to my room. Now I knew where to find him. It would be easy to send a message with Sarah, or go into town to visit the Sharps, perhaps even visit the shop where he worked. It would be not unlike the little story I’d made up for Sarah. And why shouldn’t a story like that come true for me? I might not be rich like Helen van Beek, but a clockmaker wouldn’t require a huge dowry. . . .
“You certainly look pleased with yourself.”
Helen’s voice startled me out of my daydream. I’d walked right by her without seeing her at her desk, where she was huddled over some papers. “Where were you? In the woods again?”
“No,” I said sharply. “I went into town to post a letter . . . and then ran into Emmaline Sharp, who invited me to tea. Then I took a cab back with Sarah and Miss Frost.” With the subtraction of van Drood and Raven, my afternoon sounded innocent enough for me to meet Helen’s gaze with only the slightest of blushes. And boring enough to allay even her curiosity. It would never occur to Helen that I might meet an interesting male at the Sharps’. It probably wouldn’t occur to her that I’d meet an interesting male anywhere.
“Oh,” she said, looking back down at the papers spread out on her desk. “You might have told me you were going to the post office. I have some very important letters to mail.”
In other words, more important than anything I would be sending.
“I’m not your maid, Helen,” I said, my voice shaking. I turned to hang up my coat and fur hat and muff in the wardrobe so she wouldn’t see the color flare in my cheeks. “I know you’re used to having servants at your beck and call, but you’re going to have to learn to do for yourself while you’re here at Blythewood. You can’t always lean on Daisy and me.”
“I wasn’t aware I was leaning on you,” Helen said, her voice cold and haughty. I turned to see that she was gathering up the papers on her desk and getting to her feet. “Or on Daisy, whom I barely see anymore. But I will endeavor not to be a burden.”
“I didn’t mean—” I began, sorry I’d spoken so sharply to her.
“No, you said exactly what you meant,” Helen interrupted. “And you’re right. I have to learn to ‘do for myself.’ So that’s what I’m doing—going to be by myself.” With that she turned and swept out of the room before I could say anything else.
And what could I say? Helen and I came from two different worlds. She couldn’t understand mine and I couldn’t begin to understand hers. Perhaps it was better if we spent less time together.
As I hung up my coat my hand lingered on its fur collar, the silk plush of it reminding of the touch of Raven’s wings. But when I brushed my cheek against it I smelled smoke and ashes.
The castle had lots of unused rooms, and it was big enough that everyone who wanted to be alone could find a place of their own—which more and more seemed to be what everyone wanted. I assumed Helen had found some little nook to study and write her letters in. Daisy was always off on some unspecified mission, only stopping by meals long enough to stuff her pockets with rolls and apples like a squirrel hoarding nuts for the winter. Even gregarious Cam would often vanish to an indoor target practice that she said some of the Dianas had set up on the sly—“strictly against the rules,” she announced in a loud stage whisper, “so I can’t tell you where it is.” Dolores and Beatrice were doing research “for Papa” in the labs.
Between classes and meals, all the girls of Blythewood scattered into their separate nooks and crannies like beetles scurrying into the woodwork. Sometimes walking the deserted hallways I felt like they had all vanished and I was the last person left in the castle.
Except for Sarah. I was always running into her on her errands for Miss Frost. No matter how busy she was, she would take time to chat with me and ask if I had a message to send to my “beau” at Violet House. The problem was that I had nothing to report to Raven. After our encounter outside the Wing & Clover, Miss Frost had taken to her room on the third floor of the North Wing with a bout of ague.
I made it a point to walk with Sarah when she brought up meals and her medicine to check that she was really bedridden. When Sarah unlocked the door (“She has a horror of being disturbed,” Sarah confided), I was nearly overwhelmed by a wave of hot, camphor-laden air. “She likes to keep it warm,” Sarah whispered as I followed her in. “And the camphor fumes are good for her lungs.”
At first I could barely see. Heavy drapes were pulled over the windows. The only light came from a low fire in the hearth and the flickering flames of spirit lamps, on which small copper basins of liquid bubbled and steamed up a brew of camphor and strong-smelling herbs. A heavy fog hung in the air. Miss Frost lay in the center of it like a beached whale on her four-poster bed.
“Have you brought me my medicine, girl?” she asked querulously as Sarah approached the bed.
“Yes, Miss Frost, and a visitor. Avaline Hall has come to say hello.”
“Ah,” Miss Frost said, struggling to sit upright and find her lorgnette on her nightstand. “Is she still here? I’d have thought she would have vanished like her mother by now.”
“I’m still here,” I said, my nose prickling at the rank odor of the bedclothes as I stepped closer. “I’m not going anywhere.”
She regarded me through her lorgnette, her eyes magnified into grotesque bloodshot orbs, and sniffed. “Well then, you might as well make yourself useful. I’m afraid your friend Miss Muffat—”
“Moffat,” I corrected.
Miss Frost waived her hand dismissively at my correction. “I’m afraid she’s making a mess of my specimens while I’m indisposed. Go down and check for me—”
“I can do that, Miss Frost,” Sarah interrupted, giving me an apologetic smile.
Miss Frost shifted her gaze from me to Sarah. As her eyes moved I noticed that there was a film over them and that a vein twitched at her temple. She stared at Sarah as if she didn’t recognize her. Was she going blind? I wondered. But then she blinked and the film cleared. “You do too much,” she rasped hoarsely. “Yo
u . . .” A coughing fit kept her from finishing.
“Not at all, Miss Frost,” Sarah said, pouring a teaspoonful of the medicine she’d brought. “I’m happy to be of service. Here. Drink this. It will help your cough.”
Sarah leaned over and deftly inserted the spoon into Miss Frost’s mouth. The coughing slowly subsided, leaving Miss Frost exhausted. “There, that’s better,” Sarah said soothingly, pulling up the counterpane. Then to me she mouthed, “We’d better go.”
We tiptoed out of the room. Before we left, though, I heard Miss Frost murmuring something. It sounded like “Miles.”
I wrote a message to Raven that evening. “E.F. looks too ill to do anything dangerous, but I plan to keep an eye on her tonight.” I sealed the note, borrowing a bit of Helen’s sealing wax because that was something the girls in Mrs. Moore’s books did when they sent secret notes. I smiled to myself at the memory of the girl who used to read girls’-school adventures at the Seward Park library. She seemed a much more innocent person than the girl who was spying on her teacher.
While I was putting back the sealing wax a slip of paper fell out of one of the desk’s pigeonholes. Putting it back, I couldn’t help notice that it was a bill from a dress shop. I tucked it back in with several other bills. I recognized Miss Janeway’s letterhead and the trademarks of several of the stores I’d gone to on Ladies’ Mile. As I’d suspected, Helen’s correspondence was mainly to do with clothing orders. Nothing as weighty as my note to Raven.
I slipped the note to Sarah at dinner. I needn’t have worried about being so secretive. Cam had left early for her clandestine archery practice, Bea and Dolores had their heads together over a textbook, Helen was reading a letter, and Daisy was intent on cutting up her beefsteak into tiny pieces.
“I’m going in the morning to pick up a new physic for Miss Frost,” Sarah whispered. “I’ll deliver it then.”
After dinner I waited until everyone had gone off to their separate hideouts and then crept up the back stairs in the North Wing to the third floor. I didn’t have much hope of catching Miss Frost doing any spying, but I wanted to be able to tell Raven that I’d at least tried, and if I did see anything important I’d go myself to Violet House to tell him. I’d wear the new dress my grandmother had sent me from Paris. It was a lovely forest green that brought out the red in my hair, which I thought would remind Raven of his treetop nest.
I was so engrossed imagining myself in the dress—and Raven’s reaction to it—that I didn’t notice the two people coming down the stairs until they were almost upon me. I ducked behind a tall highboy on the third-floor landing just before Miss Corey and Miss Sharp reached it. Luckily they were too deeply engaged in an argument to overhear my hurried retreat.
“I don’t know what you’re so upset about, Lil,” Miss Sharp was saying as they walked by. “I was merely agreeing with Rupert that there needed to be certain changes. I know you think so, too. I’ve seen how you look at Miss Frost’s specimens.”
“Of course it’s horrible what she does to those poor sprites,” Miss Corey cried out, “but the question is how best to bring about change. I just don’t see where Rupert Bellows comes off storming in and demanding that we make changes.”
“Because he’s a man?” Miss Sharp inquired archly.
“Well, yes, since you mention it. Why can’t the men run Hawthorn and let us run Blythewood?”
“You know that’s not how it works, Lil. We must all work together as the knights and sisters did.”
“In the old ways? Really, Vi, not you, too! And what if they tell you to marry some decrepit old man?”
“They won’t,” Miss Sharp answered, her voice bitter.
Miss Corey lowered her voice and whispered something, her voice warbling, as though she were fighting some deep emotion, but they were too far below me on the stairs for me to hear them. I thought I knew where this argument was going anyway. It sounded like the one that Agnes had had with Miss Janeway. At the time, I’d thought it was to do with the women’s vote, but now I realized it was about the Order. It seemed as if everyone wanted to change the way things were done but they were afraid of making things worse—the way the girls at the factory were afraid that if they spoke out against the bosses they would lose their jobs. And look what happened to them. I felt a great pang then, missing Tillie. She would put the Order to rights if she were here.
A floorboard creaked. I pushed myself deeper into the space between the highboy and the wall and waited. I heard the sound again, coming from the third-floor hall. Someone was approaching, perhaps Sarah coming from Miss Frost’s room . . . but these footsteps were softer and more erratic than Sarah’s purposeful, boot-heeled stride. An odor of gin and camphor soon announced who it was. I peeked out and saw Miss Frost, barefoot in her nightgown, her long gray hair hanging loose and tangled down her back, careen onto the landing.
“Must check on my specimens,” she muttered as she passed me. “Can’t trust that girl.”
She stumbled on the stairs going down and I thought she was going to plunge headlong to her death, but she grasped the banister and righted herself and kept going, muttering as she went.
I followed her, staying far enough back so she wouldn’t hear me, although I don’t think she would have noticed a scurry of goblins or a berg of ice giants thundering down the steps in her condition—nor did I have much trouble following her. Even without Miss Swift’s tracking classes I could have tracked her by her scent.
On the ground floor, she veered down the hallway into her classroom. I crept carefully to the doorway and peered in. She was standing in a patch of moonlight, in front of the glass specimen cases, looking down at a square of glass.
“I will never forget what they did to you, never!” I thought she was talking to one of the specimen trays until she hung the object back on the wall and I saw it was the silver-framed photograph of Sir Miles Malmsbury. She touched her fingertips to her lips and then pressed them to the photograph. Sighing heavily, she turned back to the specimen case, lifted her hand to a brass handle, and turned it. Instead of the glass door opening, the whole bookcase swung inward on silent, well-oiled hinges and Miss Frost disappeared inside it, leaving the case slightly ajar.
A secret passageway! The answer of what she was doing for van Drood—and proof of her duplicity—might lie inside. I crept into the classroom and looked through the secret doorway. Moonlight illuminated stone steps leading steeply down into the dark. Pitch dark. Looking into it was like looking into the well I’d fallen into during the crow attack. What if van Drood was down there? I didn’t know if I could face him and summon the bells in the dark. I stood uncertain on the threshold, remembering the eerie feeling of being down in the dungeon near the candelabellum. I could wait until tomorrow, tell Raven about the passageway, and ask him to come with me—but what if tonight’s meeting was important? What if they were making plans to do something awful to Blythewood—or to the Darklings? I had to know what Miss Frost was doing down there.
I turned back to the room and snatched up one of the spirit lamps. Lighting it with the matches she kept in her desk and shielding the flame with my hand, I followed her into the dark.
31
EVEN WITH MY little lamp, I felt as though I were being swallowed by the dark. It had a texture like the heavy crepe my mother used to trim mourning hats and a smell like cold ashes. I could taste it in my throat, growing thicker as I went farther into the bowels of the castle. I wanted desperately to flee back up into the light, but I kept going, determined to find out what Miss Frost was doing.
At the bottom of the stairs a stone-paved corridor sloped even farther down. Water dripped down the walls and splashed under my feet. The more I walked, the more I wondered if the corridor was really a tunnel that led down to the river. A squeaking sound made me fear it was a passageway for rats—or worse. Miss Swift had said that the lampsprites tunneled through the snow and in
to the castle. Might other creatures from the Blythe Wood also use this underground passage?
A loud creaking noise startled me so badly I nearly dropped my lamp. I pressed myself into a niche in the stone wall and listened. It sounded like metal grating on metal, rusted hinges groaning, a gate being opened . . . and then a low murmurous voice like ghosts whispering. I inched closer, the hair on the back of my neck standing on end, skin prickling. The only reason I wasn’t running back in the other direction was that I didn’t hear the bell in my head. So there must not be any real danger. Besides, I had Miss Emmy’s repeater. I could use it to raise a concealing mist to hide from Miss Frost if I had to.
The murmurous voice came from behind the door. I carefully peered around it.
I was more surprised than if I’d come upon a room full of ghosts. The low-ceilinged chamber was paneled in dark wood and lined with glass-fronted bookcases. A small leather-upholstered campaign desk was fitted into one corner, a cast-iron stove into the other. Miss Frost had opened one of the cases and was moving small white objects around on a shelf, dusting them with the hem of her nightgown. At first I thought they were seashells, but then she held one up to the light and I saw that it was a tiny skull. A human-looking skull.
I let out an involuntary gasp. Miss Frost wheeled on me, her eyes wide and glassy in the lamplight.
“There you are!” she cried, holding out the tiny skull. She had spied me before I had a chance to conceal myself. “You’ve let them get dusty! I told you they have to be kept in order for Sir Malmsbury when he returns. This is his life’s work!”
I looked around the room at the thick ledgers, wicker baskets, butterfly nets, glass bell jars, microscopes, paraffin lamps, hanging diagrams of skeletons, brass microscopes, shelves of skulls and other bone fragments—and one embroidered reticule. It was a naturalist’s study perfectly preserved as a shrine to Miss Frost’s lost mentor, Sir Miles Malmsbury. But what did it have to do with van Drood?