“But what can we do?” Miss Harriet asked, wringing her hands.
“We must search for Rue,” Omar answered. “I am sure she will find a way to contact us when she knows what the pishaca is planning. Mr. Marvel and I think it possible that she will try to contact Ruth or Etta, so you must be on the lookout.”
“I can tell my people to look for where the Hellgate girls have been moved,” Raven said. “We’ll patrol the East River and the Hudson.”
“The lampsprites can help,” Etta said. “They can go anywhere.”
“And Gillie,” I added. “If anyone knows how to find a lost girl, it’s Gillie. He can send his falcons.”
“Good,” Omar said, unfolding himself from his cushion on the floor and rising to his feet. “Let us not take this as a setback, but as an opportunity. The pishaca would not have moved the club unless he felt threatened by us. He is afraid of us banding together, but that is exactly what is happening. Mr. Corbin here”—he bowed to Raven—“has generously pledged to aid in the recovery of Miss Rue. Etta and Daisy have formed a bond with the fairies that will improve the Order’s relationship with them. If we all continue to act as our best selves, then, united, we will defeat the dark forces.”
He bowed to each of us in turn, giving his deepest bow of the day, nearly touching his forehead to the floor, to the Misses Sharp, who both beamed at him and Kid Marvel as they pinned violet boutonnières to their jackets. Omar was right, I thought. Miss Emmie and Miss Hattie were the best of us, giving of themselves generously without petty rivalry or mean-spiritedness. I tried as we took our farewells to give them all, including Ruth, my best wishes.
It helped that when I took Raven’s hand he slipped a note in mine, giving my hand an extra squeeze before he let it go. At the touch of his hand, all the memories of our nights together on the ridge came flying back to me. That was real. No doubt his note contained an explanation and a request to meet again soon.
I couldn’t read it right away, though, because Helen stayed glued to my side the whole way back, at first a glaring presence and then, once Daisy and Etta were far enough ahead of us on the road, a vociferous one.
“You never mentioned that your Darkling boyfriend was the boarder at Violet House,” she accused.
“I didn’t think it was of any interest to you, Helen. You saw him last year and didn’t even recognize him.”
“Well, I recognized him today, and I saw the way he looked at you. You’ve been meeting him secretly, haven’t you?”
“That’s none of your business,” I snapped, all my resolutions to be my best self evaporating under Helen’s scrutiny. It was hard to be one’s best self when other people weren’t theirs. “I don’t demand to meet the many suitors whom your mother puts forward for you.”
Helen stared at me. For a moment I felt bad, because I knew that Helen dreaded the arrival of her mother’s candidates for her husband. But that wasn’t why Helen was staring. “You’re comparing marriageable men in society to that—that . . .” Helen looked around as if afraid of being overheard, but Etta and Daisy had already rounded the last curve of the road before Blythewood. Satisfied they wouldn’t hear, she hissed, “That monster!”
“If he’s a monster, then so am I!” I shouted back at her, my wings throbbing beneath my corset. Why not? I thought. But before my wings broke free, Daisy was suddenly between us.
“Would you two please stop it! Didn’t you listen to anything Mr. Omar said? If we fight amongst ourselves we’re lost. And yet you two . . .” Daisy was turning bright pink. “You act as though you’re the only human beings on the planet with problems. I’m sorry, Helen, that you lost your father and your mother is trying to marry you off, but that doesn’t mean that no one else should have a beau or maybe want to get engaged.
“And you, Ava,” she continued, turning on me. “It’s perfectly obvious that your head has been elsewhere since we got back to school and you’ve been sneaking off to meet your Darkling boyfriend, but do you think you’re the only person who’s ever had to keep a secret?”
Helen and I both stared at Daisy as if she were the one who was growing wings. “Daisy,” I said, “is there something you haven’t told us?”
“Yes!” she cried. Then, looking around her, she worriedly added, “But where’s Etta got to? She feels terrible about Rue. She’s talked of nothing else during the whole walk back.”
“Well then,” Helen said, “we’ve all been terribly selfish standing here arguing. Let’s go tell Etta we’re sorry.”
She marched off down the road, Daisy and I at her heels. I wanted to tell Daisy that I was sorry I’d been too preoccupied with my own concerns to notice that she, too, had a secret burden. What could it be? The last time she’d had a secret, she’d been hiding a lampsprite in the dungeons. Was she hiding a troll under her bed? But she was walking ahead too fast, and when we rounded the curve of the road I saw we had another problem. Etta was gone.
17
“MAYBE SHE JUST went on to the house without us,” Helen said.
“Then why is the gate still closed?” Daisy asked, wringing her hands and looking up and down the road anxiously.
I looked at the gate. Not only was it closed but a vine with blood-red bell-shaped flowers was coiled around the bars over the lock, sealing it shut.
“That’s strange,” I said, prodding the vine. “This wasn’t here when we left—ouch!”
When I tried to pry the vine away from the gate, it lashed out at my hand, its flowers chiming like alarm bells.
“It’s a clavicula,” Daisy said, her eyes going wide. “A locking vine. It’s used to seal in a castle under siege. I read about it in Sieges and Campaigns of the Dark Ages, Volume II.”
“That’s not assigned until next semester,” Helen said.
“Some of us read ahead,” Daisy replied.
“Some of us have a life,” Helen quipped.
“Please, you two, not now!” I cried. “Is there a way to let the vine know that we’re not the enemy so it will let us in?”
“There’s a secret code that’s only entrusted to the Dianas . . .”
Helen groaned.
“But that I luckily overheard Georgiana mentioning to Wallis Rutherford,” Daisy concluded with an unusually smug smile. It occurred to me that sunny, cheerful Daisy actually had a talent for espionage. “But what about Etta? If the castle has gone into a siege lockdown, there must be a threat. We can’t leave her out here.”
“Maybe Etta knew how to get past the vine,” I said doubtfully. “We have to get to the castle and see if she’s there.” I didn’t say what we would do if she wasn’t. If Etta wasn’t in the castle, there was only one place she’d be: the Blythe Wood. No doubt she’d taken Omar’s speech to heart and gone to rally the fairies to find Rue. But she couldn’t have picked a more dangerous night. I could tell from Helen’s and Daisy’s grim looks they were thinking the same thing.
Daisy turned to the vine and recited a long string of Latin words that I couldn’t imagine consigning to memory. Perhaps Daisy had a future in codebreaking as well as espionage.
The vine coiled back, its blood-red blossoms chiming a peal that sounded like a doorbell. We quickly opened the gates and squeezed through. As soon as we were on the other side, the gates clanged closed behind us, the flower bells chiming another distinctive peal. We hurried up the drive between the rows of tall, stately sycamores. Glancing from side to side, I noticed flashes of red among the golden leaves. The clavicula had twined itself around the trees, its flowers clattering as we made our way to the castle.
“It seems to know we’re here,” Helen said anxiously.
“It does,” Daisy said. “The clavicula puts out feelers over the entire defensive area. It can sense intruders and send alarms back to its roots. Whoever is commanding it will be able to sense that we’re coming.”
“Well, that’s not c
reepy at all,” Helen said with a shudder.
“It’s all right, because we belong here,” Daisy reassured her.
But did I belong here? Was the clavicula even now sending a message along its creeping tendrils that I was an intruder? Would I find the castle barred to me? Would the vine strike out and strangle me before I could get to the castle?
The clavicula had formed a thick archway over the door, its bells hanging like a canopy. I didn’t like the idea of passing underneath it. As I reached for the doorknob one of the tendrils detached itself and coiled around my wrist. A needle-thin thorn pierced my skin and bit into my vein. The vine pulsed and turned red. It was drinking my blood.
I screamed.
The door flung open and Nathan appeared. “Where the hell have you been?” he barked, grabbing my wrist. When he saw the vine he shouted at it in the same tone. “Desisto!” The vine lashed back like an angry cat’s tail and retreated.
“We were at Violet House,” Helen began, staring reproachfully at Nathan’s hand on mine. “We didn’t know the place would be overrun by ill-mannered shrubbery in our absence.”
“My mother’s idea,” Nathan said, pulling us into the Great Hall. “She’s heard rumors that tonight will be an especially bad Halloween in the Blythe Wood. Once this infernal vine has finished searching the grounds it will seal us all in. I was afraid you’d be sealed out.”
“Did you see Etta?” I asked.
Nathan shook his head. “No. I’ve been watching the front door for the last hour.”
“Maybe she came in through the back door?” Helen suggested hopefully.
“I don’t think so,” Nathan said. “But we can ask Miss Corey. She’s reading the clavicula. Come on.” Nathan led us through the Great Hall and into the North Wing, toward the classrooms and the library. I supposed it made sense that Miss Corey, the librarian, would be reading the vine in the library. But how did one read a vine? I wondered as we hurried down the darkened hallway.
It wasn’t night yet. But when I looked at the windows I saw that the vine had grown over them, blocking out the late-afternoon light. Tendrils snaked in underneath the windowsills and ran along the walls and ceiling. They seemed to be growing thickest around the door to the library.
“Is your mother sure she knew what she was doing when she summoned this thing?” I asked Nathan.
“That’s what I want to know,” a woman said inside the library. The voice was so icy I almost didn’t recognize it as belonging to Miss Sharp. She was standing beside the central reading table, her blue eyes blazing, one hand on the shoulder of Miss Corey, who was seated at the table. Mr. Bellows stood on the other side of Miss Corey, his face pale and drawn. But not as pale as Miss Corey’s. She was seated at the head of the table, both arms lying on the table with the palms turned up. It was a strange position that reminded me of something.
I moved closer and saw that Miss Corey’s veil was thrown back and her eyes were staring straight ahead of her, but they didn’t seem to see anything. They were covered with a light film as if she was unconscious.
That’s what her pose reminded me of. When I did rounds with Miss Wald at the Henry Street Settlement we sometimes had to bring a patient to the hospital. One woman had lost so much blood when her husband stabbed her that she needed a blood transfusion . . .
I looked down at Miss Corey’s hands. The clavicula snaked around her arms, thorns sunk into her veins at wrist and elbow crook. More tendrils clung to her forehead, dime-sized suckers plastered to her skin.
“It’s draining her!” I cried.
“No,” Miss Sharp said in a cold voice, “it’s feeding her.”
I looked again and saw that fluid was pulsing through the vine and pouring into Miss Corey’s veins.
“But w-why?” I stammered, feeling sick to my stomach.
“Someone has to filter the intelligence gathered by the vine.” Miss Sharp touched Miss Corey’s face, and gently stroked her hair away from the thorny vines. I thought of what Miss Corey had told me about her feelings for Miss Sharp and her fears that they weren’t reciprocated—and knew suddenly that those fears were groundless. But what would that matter if this blood-sucking vine ate her?
“You have to stop it!” I cried, moving forward and reaching to tear away the vine. Before I could, Miss Corey grabbed my wrist. Her blank eyes fixed on me.
“No,” she said in a voice that didn’t sound like hers. “I’m bound until sunrise. I can feel and see everything in the forest, and I see Etta running toward the Rowan Circle. You must go and bring her back before . . .”
Her voice faltered and her grip loosened.
“Before what?” I cried.
But Miss Corey had gone limp, her sightless eyes rolling up in their sockets.
“I should think that would be obvious,” Helen said. “Before she gets eaten by a troll. Come on.”
“You can’t!” Mr. Bellows barked. “No one can leave the castle on All Hallows’ Eve. You’ll be killed.”
“We can’t leave Etta alone out there,” Nathan said.
“He’s right,” Daisy agreed. She was already opening a chest that contained bows and arrows and handbells against fairy spells, all the equipment for a field expedition. “We’ve gone into the wood before.”
“On the winter solstice,” Nathan said, hoisting a dagger from the trunk. “How much worse can Halloween be?”
Mr. Bellows insisted on leading our expedition. Miss Sharp would not leave Miss Corey. Our first problem was getting out the French doors that led from the library to the garden and were covered with vines, but when Miss Sharp whispered something in Miss Corey’s ear, the vines drew away and let us out.
“I hate that thing,” Helen said as the vines snapped behind us and we strode across the lawn, our shadows stretching out long by our sides. Across the river, the sun was setting behind the Catskills. Daisy, still angry, apparently, had gone on ahead with Mr. Bellows.
“I bet that’s her secret,” Helen muttered.
“What?”
“Daisy’s big secret. I bet it’s that she’s in love with Mr. Bellows.”
“That’s hardly a secret,” I pointed out. “I’ve never seen her so angry at us before. Have we really been neglecting her?”
“I haven’t neglected anyone. You are the one who’s been mooning about—”
“I have not been moo—”
“Shh!” Mr. Bellows hissed at us as we caught up to them at the edge of the woods. “The woods have ears. We must pass silently until we get to the Rowan Circle.”
I stared at the trees on the edge of the lawn, half terrified that I would actually see fleshy earlobes budding from their branches. Instead I saw something much more frightening. Every branch, from heavy limb to tiny twiglet, was trembling as though rocked by a great storm. Only there wasn’t a breath of air on the lawn. The trees were quivering on their own, pulsating like the nerve endings of the frog we’d dissected in science class last week. It was as if the entire forest was an organism and the trees its nervous system. I had the distinct feeling that stepping into it would be like being swallowed. Mr. Bellows must have had the same thought.
“Perhaps it would be better if you students went back to the house. I can go in to find Etta.”
“No.” The answer came from Daisy. “Etta’s in there. I was supposed to be keeping an eye on her when she vanished. I’m going to get her back.”
“Me too,” Nathan and I said together.
“Well,” Helen said, “what are we waiting for? An engraved invitation?”
It was meant to be a joke, but as we stepped between the trees I had the distinct impression that we had been invited. The tree trunks creaked and moaned as if making room for us.
Branches brushed against my face like a blind person touching my features to know what I looked like. I heard the same branches snapping behind
me, and when I turned once to look back I saw that they had plaited themselves into a thick thatch preventing us from going back. Even the trees seemed to have stepped closer together to cut out the last lingering light of the sunset and to bar our retreat. There was no way to go but forward, and even that direction had been narrowed to a tight path only wide enough for one of us at a time. We went single file, Mr. Bellows leading, then Daisy, Nathan, Helen, and me.
“Why do I have the feeling that the woods are funneling us to where they want us to go?” Helen asked, batting at a branch and ignoring Mr. Bellows’ direction that we remain silent. I didn’t blame her. The quiet was unnerving.
“Maybe the woods want us to find Etta,” I said. “The fairies all love her. Perhaps the woods do, too.”
“Maybe it’s your boyfriend who’s controlling the woods,” Helen said. “The trees are going to pick us off one by one and then he’ll have you to himself.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Helen. Raven doesn’t control the trees, and even if he did he wouldn’t hurt my friends or make me do anything I didn’t want to do.”
“How do you know?” Helen asked. “He could be mesmerizing you into believing you’re doing what you want. He could be leading you into a life of slavery just like those poor girls at the Hellgate Club.”
“It’s not like that, Helen . . .” I faltered, unable to explain what it was like being with Raven. How could I tell her how it felt to fly with him, without telling her that I could fly? How could I tell her that I knew he wasn’t a monster because I was the same as him? “I just can’t explain,” I finished lamely.
“It’s because you think I’m a silly society girl who only cares about clothes and dances, isn’t it?” she asked in a shaky voice. “That must be why you and Daisy are keeping secrets from me.”