“You were glad to see your brother go?” I asked, confused.
“No, no, mademoiselle, I meant the gentleman who looks like a German spy, begging your pardon. Perhaps he is your uncle?”
“No, he’s no relation. He’s gone?”
“Oui, he and that oily brigand left a few hours ago. I heard him tell Madame Berthelot that he was driving to Liège. So you see, if you have a beloved now is the time for him to come rescue you just like Valancourt comes to rescue Miss Emily in Mrs. Radcliffe’s book. Do you have a Valancourt, miss?”
I smiled at the chambermaid, pleased to find she was an admirer of Mrs. Radcliffe’s novels. “Yes, Manon, my . . . er, Valancourt is coming for me. Perhaps you have seen him—or our friends—in the castle?”
“Mon dieu! Let us hope your Valancourt has not gone to the castle. The Castle of Bouillon is haunted!”
“Haunted?” I asked, thinking that Raven would be unlikely to be frightened away by the spirits of the dead. After all, it was the job of a Darkling to carry the spirits of the dead to the afterworld.
“Oui! Have you not heard the story of the fairy queen of Bouillon?”
“The fairy queen?” I asked, trying hard to follow Manon’s serpentine stories. “No, I thought this story was about a haunting . . .”
“Oui, it is the fairy queen who haunts the castle. You see, a long, long time ago . . .” Manon began, sitting down at the table and settling in for what promised to be a long story, “in the time of the crusades, the knight Godfrey was wandering through these woods and he came across a beautiful woman bathing in the river with her seven handmaids. He instantly fell in love with her—”
“I always find this part rather preposterous,” I interrupted. “People don’t fall in love instantaneously like that.”
“It was not like that with your Valancourt?” Manon asked.
I remembered the first time I saw Raven at the Triangle factory, the little charge I’d felt when he touched my hand. And then I thought about how it felt when he touched me last night in the garret . . . and blushed. Manon grinned. “Ah, you see it is true. You know when it is the right one, n’est pas? And that is how it was for Godfrey when he saw the fairy queen at her bath. He went down on his knees and begged her to marry him. She agreed, but on one condition . . .”
“There’s always a condition in these stories.”
Manon shrugged and tapped her forehead. “Mais oui, one may love with the eyes and heart, but one should marry with the brain. The fairy queen said she would marry Godfrey if he agreed to let her keep her seven handmaids and never disturb her at her bath on the Sabbath. Of course he agreed, and they were married on that very day. When they awoke in the morning, a great castle had risen in the curve of the river where they had met—and that is the castle you see now, the Castle of Bouillon, made by fairy magic. Godfrey was overjoyed and loved his queen, who made him the richest knight in the land.
“They were very happy . . . until their first child was born with the scales of a fish. This was surprising, but since the child was otherwise healthy, Godfrey determined to love it and his lady queen all the same. All was well again until the second child was born with a tail. Such a thing was not unheard of—my cousin Gilbert was born with one, my grand-mère tells me—and Godfrey determined to overlook his son’s tail. But now the people began to whisper that there was something strange about the queen, and Godfrey began to wonder why he must never see her in her Sunday bath. Finally, when their third child was born with wings . . .”
“Wings?” I couldn’t help but ask.
“Small ones, like a bat . . . then did Godfrey decide to risk his wife’s wrath and spy on her in her bath. And there he saw that on Sundays she changed back to her original form, a woman above the waist, a serpent below, with great wings like a bat. Of course, Godfrey was horrified—”
“Why? She gave him a castle! He had to realize she wasn’t an ordinary human. If he really loved her he shouldn’t have minded the wings . . . or the serpent’s tail.”
Manon stared at me. “Perhaps not, mademoiselle, but men are fickle. Godfrey ordered her out of his castle. She flew into a rage and reminded him that it was her castle and ordered him to leave. He did, but he raised an army and came back to lay siege to the castle. The queen and her handmaids were left with only a few knights and squires loyal to them. They withstood the siege as long as they could, but when at last Godfrey’s army charged the outer walls and gained the courtyard, the queen and her handmaids fled to the tallest tower and there the seven handmaids threw themselves to their deaths rather than be taken by Godfrey’s men. As for the queen, she flew off into the night swearing vengeance on the house of Godfrey and all human men.
“Since then anyone who has lived at the castle has met a terrible fate. It is said that the souls of the dead handmaids guard the drawbridges. My grand-mère calls them the Witte Wieven, the white women. They lurk in narrow places—ravines, bridges, fords—and try to dance with anyone who passes by. If you refuse to dance with them, they will throw you from the parapets, but if you do dance with them, they will dance you to your death. Listen—” Manon cocked her head toward the open window. “You can hear the fairy queen wailing now!”
I listened and indeed heard a low, keening moan that raised the hair at the back of my neck. “That’s just the wind,” I said. “And what you’ve told me is just a story. My friends are coming to meet me at the castle. Have you seen any strangers recently?”
“Only an American schoolteacher dressed in tweed knickers and carrying a rucksack.”
“Was his name Rupert Bellows?” I asked excitedly.
“Is that your Valancourt, miss? He looked . . . I beg your pardon . . . a bit old for you.”
“No he’s not my Valancourt, Manon. He’s my teacher. Do you know where he went?”
She shrugged. “He said he was on a walking tour. I warned him to stay away from the castle, but he only laughed. Let us hope your Valancourt did not make the same mistake.”
“I’m afraid they both will have gone to the castle,” I said. “And I must go meet them.”
“But I am to lock the door after I go. If I do not Madame Berthelot will beat me!”
“But if I don’t my friend and I will be lost—just like Emily St. Auburn in The Mysteries of Udolpho.”
Manon looked from Helen’s wan face to mine. I felt guilty exploiting her love of Gothic novels and exposing her to Madame Berthelot’s wrath, but I had to get out and find Mr. Bellows and Raven and Marlin.
“I must lock the door, mademoiselle,” she said gravely. My heart sank. But then Manon dug into her apron pocket and produced a large iron key. “But Madame Berthelot did not say I could not give you the extra key. Go find your Valancourt, mademoiselle, but be wary of the Witte Wieven in the castle and the serpent queen, Aesinor.”
After Manon left I tried to wake Helen up to eat some broth but she moaned and turned away from the light. I covered her up and turned the lights off in the room. Then I waited until the inn was completely quiet. I didn’t want to get Manon in trouble. She had given me the information I needed. Aesinor must be the name of the third guardian. Somehow the story of the serpent queen had grown up around her, perhaps to keep people away from the castle where the third vessel was hidden. I wasn’t afraid of her—or the Witte Wieven, another foolish legend. But then, I wondered, why hadn’t Raven and Marlin come for me if they’d followed me from Paris? And where was Rupert Bellows if he arrived here weeks ago? I had to go look for them in the castle. A half hour before midnight I used Manon’s key to let myself out.
Manon had begrudgingly told me how to get to the castle. I had to follow the river past a shrine to Saint Eleanor, patron saint of chambermaids, abandoned wives, and lost travelers, and climb the stairs to the first drawbridge. As I approached the drawbridge I heard a low moaning that once again made the hair on the back of my neck stand
up. It’s just the wind, I told myself. But when I reached the shrine of Saint Eleanor I was glad to see a candle burning there. I stopped to look into the niche and found myself staring into enormous almond-shaped eyes, all that remained of a medieval painting of the saint’s face. They seemed to look right into my soul.
My mother had not raised me in any religion, but sometimes she took me into one of the city’s beautiful churches to rest, and she often lit a candle to a saint. She would tell me that the saints had once been gods and goddesses. This saint looked like a goddess. Looking into her eyes I felt like she understood everything that had happened to me—from losing my mother to my fear that I was going to lose Helen now. I felt like I could tell her anything. I wasn’t alone in feeling that way. The niche was full of offerings: candle stubs and worn coins, a baby’s knit booty, a photograph of a young man in a uniform, flowers dried to powder and flowers picked this morning. This was where the women of the village came to pray for their children, their husbands, their brothers, and themselves.
“I suppose I’m a lost traveler,” I said hoarsely. “Help me find my way.” I lit a candle from the one already burning, wondering who else was out on this lonely night. “Help Nathan find his way, too, and help me get Helen back,” I added. As I moved my hand away from the candle I noticed something lying amongst the offerings: a monogrammed handkerchief with the initials HvB. Helen van Beek. Marlin must have left it here. So it wasn’t only women who came to pray at the shrine of Saint Eleanor.
I turned up the stairs and climbed to the drawbridge. As I passed over the river I thought I heard whispering. It’s only the river, I told myself. But then why was the river whispering Intruder! Trespasser! Betrayer!? In the Blythe Wood I had felt the presence of spirits and fairies, but I had never felt this sense of animosity. There were spirits here who did not want me to pass, and if they didn’t want me, what would they have done with Mr. Bellows, Marlin, and Raven?
“I’m here to warn your mistress of an attack,” I said out loud. In response I heard a hiss behind me. I whirled around and saw something white flit over the bridge, a gauzy scrap that could have been a wisp of fog, only it was accompanied by a piercing shriek.
“Stop that!” I cried. “We’re on the same side!”
Something wet and clammy brushed across my back. I screamed and whirled around. As I did I felt the wet clammy thing wrap around my waist. I tore at it with my fingernails and shreds of wet tissue fell to the stones with a disgusting plop.
“Is that your plan?” I demanded. “To tissue me to death?”
“Yes,” a voice hissed in my ear.
I whirled to face it and a damp cloth fell over my eyes. I reached up to peel it away but it was tightened from behind.
“So you want to play blind man’s bluff?” I drew my dagger and spun around, slicing through wet cloth. Something screamed. So the thing, whatever it was, could be hurt. I ripped the blindfold from my eyes and found myself staring into black bottomless eyes not two inches away from my face. The creature was wrapped in layers of white gauze that floated around it as if buoyed by watery currents. Its face was as white as its dress and blurry, like a statue that’s been worn down by centuries of wind and rain. Only the black holes of its eyes and gaping mouth stood out distinctly. Its breath smelled like river water. I braced myself to keep from running—if I run it will chase me down and kill me—and spoke to it.
“You’re a Witte Wieven,” I said. “One of the handmaids of Lady Aesinor. I’ve come to speak to your mistress. She’ll want to hear what I have to say. Take me to her, please.”
The Wieven curtseyed, holding up its tattered dress in bony hands, and began to hum.
“That’s right, you like to dance. Very well. I took dancing lessons last year. True, they were with a homicidal maniac who tried to bomb the Woolworth Building, but still he was an excellent dancing teacher.” I curtseyed back to her. The humming grew louder. Fog was rising from the river and spilling over the walls of the bridge. There were white shapes in the fog swaying to the monotonous humming.
“This isn’t much of a dancing tune,” I said. “Perhaps I can provide something better.” I took my repeater out of my pocket and depressed the stem. The tinkling strains of a waltz began. “Oh, I think you’ll like this. It’s about a river, after all. It’s a waltz called the Blue Danube.”
The Wieven tilted her head, listening to the tune, and began to sway to the infectious waltz. She snatched my hands in hers and twirled me around, taking the lead, and sweeping me over the bridge. At the next drawbridge she passed me on to another Wieven. The rest of the Wieven whirled around us, their white gauzy draperies spinning in a dizzy blur. They clearly liked the music, and why not? The waltz had the rush of the river in its lilting strains. Dancing to it felt like being carried by the current. I could almost feel the splash of water on my face—
I did feel something wet. As we danced over the third drawbridge, the Wieven’s dress billowed around me, shedding droplets of cold water. I tried to brush the water away but I couldn’t free my hands from the Wieven’s grip. Perhaps, I thought, as a length of wet cloth wound around my shoulders, this hadn’t been such a good idea.
“It’s been lovely dancing with you,” I said, as I’d been trained in Herr Hofmeister’s class to respond to an awkward dancing partner, “but I really must be going.”
The Wieven grinned, revealing a mouthful of needle-sharp teeth. A wet scarf wound around my waist. Another slipped over my hips. It was getting harder to move my legs, but the Wieven bore me aloft and spun me around the courtyard, holding me closer to its damp bosom—which smelled, I realized, like rotting fish.
I remembered the story Manon had told me. When the castle was besieged, the queen’s ladies-in-waiting had jumped from the tower—and drowned in the river. I looked into the Wieven’s face. It wasn’t just blurry, I saw now, it was bloated. I looked down at the pale, spongy substance winding around my arms. It wasn’t cloth; it was flesh. The flesh of a drowned woman falling off her bones. The Wieven was wrapping her decaying flesh around me so I would suffer the same fate she and her friends had.
“I understand . . .” I began. An awful cackle echoed off the courtyard walls, which were festooned with white swags and ribbons as if decorated for a medieval jousting tourney—only the ribbons and pennants were made of the Wievens’ rotting flesh and fluttered with the Wievens’ voices. How can you understand? You didn’t see . . .
But I could see. I was a Darkling gifted with the ability to share the memories of a dying soul. The Wieven might already be dead but their spirits still hovered between worlds and their flesh now encased me. I closed my eyes and saw a beautiful woman bathing in a forest spring, surrounded by her handmaids and other creatures of the forest—lumignon and lutins, pixies and elves, and even Darklings. They all lived in peace together. They were happy. But then one day a man came, a man on horseback wearing cold steel armor. He saw the beautiful woman and fell in love with her and begged her to marry him. I saw the castle of Bouillon rise from the river bend, a creation of fairy magic and love, carved of stone the color of sun-warmed honey, not the blackened hulk the castle was now. I saw the years of happiness pass, the pageants and festivals, Godfrey’s knights flirting with and wooing Aesinor’s handmaids, and I realized that Aesinor’s tragedy hadn’t been just her own. When Godfrey spied her in the bath and fled the castle he took his knights with him. When he raised an army, his own knights, who had courted the ladies-in-waiting, rode on the castle. It was that betrayal that sent the seven ladies over the tower wall. I saw Aesinor become an angry winged serpent, breathing fire on the castle walls and Godfrey and his knights, destroying all in her path. Then I saw her raising her dead ladies-in-waiting from the river, fog-like wraiths who stood on the drawbridges waiting for human men to pass by. Centuries flew by; hundreds of hapless travelers were seized, wrapped in cocoons and presented as gifts to the Lady Aesinor—including one twe
edy schoolteacher whistling a happy tune as he crossed the drawbridge—
“Mr. Bellows!” I cried out, opening my eyes. “What have you done to Mr. Bellows?” I searched the courtyard. A tented pavilion had been set up at one end, a dais for viewing a joust, with a throne at its center. In front of the throne lay three bundles swaddled in the Wieven’s ghastly white flesh. Protruding from one I spied a tweedy leg. Within the other two I detected the shape of wings.
“You’ve got Raven and Marlin, too! But they’ve all come to help!” I cried out, anger making my wings flex and strain against the fleshy bandages. The wrappings smoldered and smoked. I stoked my anger with the thought of poor kindhearted Mr. Bellows, brave Marlin, and Raven! My own beloved Raven—
My wings burst into flame, searing through the fleshy bindings. The Wieven let go my hands and stumbled backward. I spun around, fanning the flames with my wings into a circle of fire. The other Wieven shrunk and fell back. The fire caught the draped dais and it burst into flames, raining sparks down on my trussed-up friends. I rushed to the three prone shapes and stripped the wrappings off Marlin first, who immediately began to free Mr. Bellows. I ripped the cloth off Raven, my heart pounding with fear and anger. He was so still . . . but then he was coughing and shaking the rest of the wraps off him.
“You’re still alive!” I cried, looking around at Marlin and Mr. Bellows, who was picking the last shreds of Wieven flesh from his tweed walking suit. “You’re all alive!”
“Are we?” Mr. Bellows gasped. “These fish women have been saving us to snack on our bones. Hurry—we have to get out of here before their queen arrives.”
But it was too late. A wind roared through the courtyard, fanning the flames. Lightning hit the tower above our heads and lit up the looming black stones and the sky above. A piteous wailing echoed off the old stones and I thought I could feel the whole castle shake. I looked up to see a winged serpent descending from the sky. Her wings were bat-like, her skin scaled, but her eyes were the eyes of the painted saint in the niche below the drawbridge. I realized now why they had looked familiar. I had met her sister and brother. Aesinor, guardian of the third vessel, had arrived.