The Darkness Dwellers

  That Saturday afternoon, I needed to speak to the principal face-to-face, but it never occurred to me to pay a visit to her townhouse. When I reached the Atalanta School for Girls, the front doors were locked and the halls were dark. I forged through the boxwood bushes that lined the entrance and made my way to the east side of the building. There, three feet above my head, the principal’s office window cast a warm golden light into the dark, dismal day. Cramming my fingertips and the toes of my sneakers into cracks in the masonry, I managed to climb far enough to sneak a peek through the glass. Before I could get a good look, the office window was thrown open, my fingers slipped, and I landed on the snow-covered ground with a wet thud.

  “Ananka!” Principal Wickham exclaimed. “What are you doing? I thought you were the ghost!”

  “So there really is a ghost?” I asked, thrilled to finally get official confirmation of one of the rumors I’d heard since kindergarten.

  “Yes, but he hasn’t given me a scare like that in ages.”

  I was dying to hear more, but I couldn’t afford to get sidetracked. “Sorry I startled you, Principal Wickham,” I said. “Something happened this morning, and I need your help. May I come in?”

  The principal sighed. “Meet me at the entrance. I’ll unlock the doors.”

  “Don’t bother.” I scaled the wall and tried to slip gracefully through the window, but my foot caught on the sill. I tumbled to the floor and rolled within inches of the principal’s feet.

  “You never cease to amaze me,” she said with a shake of her head. Even on a Saturday she was wearing one of her tailored suits. “Why risk your neck like that when you could have called on the phone?”

  “I have to talk to you about something serious. One of the Irregulars is going to need a good lawyer soon. I was hoping you might be able to recommend one. I don’t know anyone else I can ask.”

  “I’ll look through my contacts and make a suggestion,” the principal said, casting her eyes at the giant old-fashioned Rolodex that sat next to her desk phone. Twice I’d been lucky enough to get a quick glimpse of a card. The first contained the private number of a Supreme Court Justice. The second was the e-mail address of the first lady of France. “But just so you know, I’m going to do it for your friend. I’m not in the mood to be doing you any favors at the moment. Did you happen to hear that Molly Donovan has opened her own academy?”

  I’d almost forgotten all about Molly.

  “Yes, I was planning to drop by her house this afternoon,” I fibbed. “I’ll try my best to talk her into closing the academy before she holds any classes.”

  “You’re too late. I spoke with Theresa Donovan this morning. I hear Molly gathered quite a crowd at her house last night.”

  “But how?” I yelped. “There was an ice storm! The meeting should have been cancelled!”

  “Apparently, it wasn’t. And the mothers of Amelia Beauregard’s students have been sending Theresa Donovan expletive-filled e-mails all morning. They’re furious that Molly seems bent on destroying their daughters’ expensive training. A few are even threatening to picket Mrs. Donovan’s house unless she removes Molly from the institute at once.”

  “Do you think she will?” I asked hopefully.

  “No. Theresa Donovan refuses to alienate her daughter. They’ve had a complicated relationship for years now. And Mrs. Donovan doesn’t know why it’s so important that her daughter keep a distance from the institute.”

  The frustration that had been building inside me finally erupted. “I don’t know either! If Molly is turning all of the zombies back into regular girls, what’s the problem? And if there’s some reason why Molly’s in danger, why won’t you tell me? And why haven’t you told Mrs. Donovan?”

  Principal Wickham’s face was grim. “Because I can’t tell Mrs. Donovan.” This from a woman who always had a solution to any problem. I had never seen her so flummoxed. “I was hoping I wouldn’t need to tell you. I have no evidence to support the suspicion I’m about to share with you, Ananka. Though I suppose proof would be easy to procure. But you’ll soon see that it’s not my place to get involved.”

  “You’re already involved. Whatever the big secret is …”

  “Molly is Amelia’s granddaughter. Great-granddaughter to be exact.”

  “No.” I dropped down into a chair. “It’s not possible.”

  “Oh, I’m afraid it’s very possible,” the principal told me. “I’ve been fascinated by Molly Donovan since the first day she arrived at this school. I couldn’t quite put a finger on it, but the red hair, the boundless energy—it all seemed terribly familiar. It wasn’t until you mentioned Amelia’s interest in Molly that I finally put two and two together. Molly is the mirror image of Amelia as a girl. And her unusual mathematical ability? That, if I’m not mistaken, must be a gift from her great-grandfather.”

  For a moment, I was confused. “Wait—are you talking about Gordon Grant?”

  “Yes.”

  “The traitor?”

  “I doubt we’ll ever know for sure if Gordon really betrayed his country. That’s one of the things that makes this story so tragic.”

  “But I still don’t get it. Even if Molly is Amelia Beauregard’s granddaughter, why are you so desperate to keep them apart?”

  Principal Wickham pulled a framed photo down from the wall. Even from a distance I could tell the picture she had chosen was different from all the others. I rose from my chair to take a closer look. It was a black-and-white photo of a cocky young woman in a 1940s-style evening gown. Amelia Beauregard was standing on the stone railing of one of the bridges that span Central Park Lake. Her knees were bent, her arms formed a triangle above her head. She was preparing to dive into the water.

  “This picture was taken in April of 1944. And yes, she jumped. Amelia was every bit as wild as Molly. Perhaps even more so. But by March of 1945, she had become the person she is today—cold, rigid, and formal. If you think the same can’t be done to Molly, you’re wrong. Amelia’s father—the founder of L’Institut Beauregard—used his own daughter to prove the power of his method. He liked to boast that he had tamed the wildest girl in Manhattan.” The principal tapped the photo with a finger. “You have no idea how much I miss this girl—how much I regret that I wasn’t able to save her. She was my best friend, Ananka, and I won’t allow her granddaughter to be destroyed the same way she was.”

  “But how could someone be destroyed in less than a year? What did her mom and dad do to her?”

  “I don’t know exactly what happened to her, but shortly after Gordon disappeared in France, Amelia’s parents sent her to an asylum upstate to recover. They told everyone that their daughter had experienced a nervous collapse. None of us were allowed to contact her, but I had my suspicions even back then. In those days, there was nothing more scandalous than an unmarried girl with a baby. If you were rich, as Amelia was, you simply vanished for a few months. The girl would have her child, the baby would be put up for adoption, and the young mother would return home with her reputation intact.”

  “What if a girl decided to keep her baby?” I asked.

  Principal Wickham regarded me as if I’d just stepped out of a time machine. “You have no idea how much the world has changed in my lifetime, Ananka. And I can’t tell you how happy I am to hear you ask that question. You’ve grown up believing that choices like that are yours to make. I’ve worked my whole life to ensure that they are.

  “But when Amelia and I were girls, we had far fewer options. Life could be very hard for young women who didn’t play by the rules. Amelia’s family would have refused to support her, and she had no means of supporting herself. She’d have been an outcast at the age of eighteen, and her poor child would have suffered as well. Perhaps with her family’s help, Amelia could have kept the baby. But her parents were obsessed with appearances. And the fact that the child’s father was a suspected traitor. Well …”

  “You’re saying Amelia’s parents forced her to put her baby up f
or adoption so their fancy friends wouldn’t shun them.”

  “All I know is that Amelia didn’t come home with a child. And when she got back, she was different. She was hard in the way only broken people can be.”

  “Why would she want to break Molly the same way? Why would she want to turn her own granddaughter into a prissy little zombie?”

  “I honestly believe that Amelia thinks she would be doing Molly a favor. She doesn’t want her granddaughter to end up suffering the way she did. Amelia’s not being cruel. She’s trying to be kind. She just doesn’t know how anymore. And she will never admit that she and Molly are related. If she did, it would expose her as a hypocrite. Her institute would suffer. It might even be forced to close.”

  “Wow,” I said, trying to absorb everything I’d just heard.

  “Now do you understand, Ananka? Do you see why Molly must be kept away from Amelia?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I do.”

  “Then please. Go see Molly this afternoon.”

  “What should I tell her?” I asked.

  “Anything but the truth,” Principal Wickham said.

  Chapter 36

  What Happened to Amelia

  PARIS: SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 21

  Not far from Prince Albert Hotel lies the glorious Tuileries Garden. Once the site of a magnificent palace that housed France’s kings and emperors, it is now a public park where all of Paris comes to promenade. Betty found Amelia Beauregard sitting on a green garden chair in the middle of a sandy path in the dark and deserted garden. The moon shone down on a white marble statue that appeared to have entranced the old woman. Perseus held the Minotaur by the horns. His right hand grasped a club, and he prepared to deal a fatal blow to the beast. Betty found another chair beside a fountain and set it down softly next to Madame Beauregard.

  “Hello, Madame. I’ve been looking all over for you. Have you been here all this time?”

  The headmistress showed no interest in polite chitchat. “You can destroy me, Miss Bent. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Why would I want to?” Betty asked.

  Amelia Beauregard snorted as though the answer should have been clear. “Because there’s nothing people despise more than a hypocrite. I’ve spent my entire life teaching girls how to avoid scandal and ignominy. And yet I’ve been hiding a terrible secret for all these years.”

  “Thyrza is your daughter, isn’t she?”

  “She was named after the Thyrza elegies by Lord Byron. They were Gordon’s favorite poems. That was the only condition I demanded when I was forced to give her away—that Thyrza keep the name her father wanted her to have.”

  “He knew about her?”

  “Oh yes,” Amelia said. “Before Gordon volunteered for the mission in the catacombs, he was allowed to visit home for a week. While he was in New York, he asked me to marry him. Our engagement was a secret, of course. My parents never would have approved. We planned to elope as soon as the war was over. Thyrza arrived just a little bit early. I wrote to tell Gordon that I was expecting, and he was overjoyed. Somehow he knew that the baby would be a girl, and he called her Thyrza from the very beginning.”

  “Where is she now?” Betty asked.

  “Dead. She died in a car accident many years ago. When my own father passed away, and I came into my inheritance, I paid a detective to find her. I saw her once, but I never dared speak to her. She was such a lovely young woman, and I didn’t want to burden her with my shame.”

  “Your shame? What’s shameful about having a baby?”

  “I suppose there’s no reason for you to understand, Miss Bent. I was eighteen years old in 1944. My father ran an etiquette academy. My mother was a Manhattan socialite. An illegitimate child would have destroyed all of our lives. Not only was I unmarried when the baby was born, but her father was wrongfully believed to be both a traitor and a murderer.”

  “Wrongfully believed? So the rumors aren’t true? You think Gordon was innocent?”

  “I know he was,” Amelia said. “Gordon gave his life to save this beautiful city. I’m certain he’s still here. Three years ago, I was contacted by an author who was writing a book about the liberation of Paris. He had discovered a document that the Army had recently declassified. It was a note Gordon wrote the day he disappeared. The code he’d used had never been broken. The author wanted to know if I had any idea what he might have written. Of course I was horrified that the man had uncovered my connection to Gordon, and I refused to assist him. But the author was very persistent. He mailed a copy of the document to me. I instantly recognized the code Gordon and I had used. It was a good-bye letter to me. When Gordon wrote it, he must have suspected he was going to die.”

  “Why didn’t you tell the author what you had discovered?”

  “Because I was a coward. Because the note spoke of Thyrza and it would have exposed my secret. But I wanted the world to know that Gordon wasn’t a traitor. I owed him that much. So I hired Detective Fitzroy to search for his body in the catacombs.”

  “I see,” Betty said. “And that’s where I came into the story.”

  “Yes,” Amelia confirmed. “But I want you to know something, Miss Bent. I didn’t choose you because I thought you were weak. I’m afraid it was a much more impulsive decision. The day I met you at the cemetery, you were wearing a red wig. You reminded me of my daughter. My hair was that very same shade when I was young. Thyrza was a redhead as well. And so is my great-granddaughter.”

  “You have a great-granddaughter?”

  “I do. And she inherited far more than my red hair. She’s just as reckless and headstrong as I ever was. That’s why I asked your friend to convince Molly to enroll in the institute. I want to keep her from following in my footsteps.”

  “Molly? Molly Donovan?”

  “Yes. Do you know her as well?”

  “Only by reputation,” Betty said. “But Ananka thinks she’s great.”

  “Miss Fishbein is very young. She doesn’t understand that other people will not be amused by Molly’s behavior. My granddaughter needs to learn how to act like a lady if she wants the world to judge her kindly. People can be incredibly cruel, Miss Bent. I want Molly to be as happy as she can be.”

  “Well,” said Betty after a long pause. “It seems to me there are two ways you could try to make sure that your great-granddaughter leads a happy life. You could teach her how to behave like a perfect little lady. Or you could teach her to believe in herself—and tell her she shouldn’t give a hoot what other people think.”

  “That’s very naïve of you, Miss Bent. Unless one intends to live alone in a cabin in the middle of the woods, it matters a great deal what other people think. They can make life terribly difficult for those who don’t toe the line.”

  “Maybe I am naïve,” Betty admitted. “But may I ask you a question? Even if it sounds a little bit rude?”

  Amelia Beauregard sighed. “Oh, why not?”

  “Do you think your life might have been happier if you had kept Thyrza?”

  “That was never a possibility. There would have been a scandal. I would have been shunned, and my father would probably have been forced to close the institute.”

  “I didn’t ask if your life would have been easier. I asked if it would have been happier.”

  Amelia Beauregard didn’t respond, but the answer was written on her face. She gazed off into the distance as if another history were unfolding right before her eyes.

  “And what do you think would make you happier now, Madame—being the headmistress of L’Institut Beauregard, or being a grandmother to Molly Donovan—even if she is a little bit wild?”

  Betty said nothing more. She had asked two questions, and she knew Amelia Beauregard was still contemplating the answers. They sat in silence for almost an hour. Then somewhere in Paris, a clock began to toll.

  “Madame?” Betty asked.

  “Yes, Miss Bent?”

  “I hate to disturb your thoughts, but I was invited to dinner wi
th some friends at eight.”

  “By all means, please go. Don’t let me make you late,” Amelia said. “I will be fine on my own.”

  “I know you will,” Betty told her. “But I was wondering if you’d like to join us. Detective Fitzroy is throwing a little party. And he’s invited two boys who might be able to help us find Gordon.”

  Chapter 37

  Betty Calls the Shots

  NEW YORK CITY: SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 21

  L’Institut Beauregard was my very first stop after my chat with Principal Wickham at the Atalanta School for Girls. It was a quarter to three, and I hoped I might have a chance to catch Molly between classes. Tenth Street already felt like the front line of a skirmish. The north side of the block was held by a bevy of well-groomed, middle-aged women, while the south was patrolled by a battalion of reformed zombies. The girls stationed on the sidewalk outside the institute had left their headbands, pearls, and pumps at home. Molly Donovan’s wealthy troops now wore custom-tailored uniforms in various shades of olive green. Many had accessorized with red berets and aviator sunglasses. Amelia Beauregard’s academy was being invaded by the best-dressed army on earth.

  I never made it as far as the institute’s steps. My path was blocked by a blond girl dressed in chic fatigues. With her hair pulled back in a no-nonsense ponytail, I barely recognized Taylor Lourde, the girl who’d insulted me on my first visit to see Madame Beauregard. “Declare your allegiance and state your business.”