"Marius?" I called softly.
I felt something twist, a hesitation, then: You speak the name of our enemy.
Before I could respond, the presence receded, pulling away from me like a fast-moving tide. I could breathe again. I sat for a long time, just Miss Agatha Thompson and I. Then I gathered up my implements and packed them away in my bag, sneaking through the shadowy halls to my room, dogged by the sinister implications that crawled over me, through me, in my mind-echoing in that single, terrible word.
Sister.
Chapter Seven.
After a somber and uneasy week, Miss Sloane-Smith all but ordered the students out of the school, granting rare permission for them to go into the village. No doubt it was her plan that such a diversion would restore the equilibrium after the school"s tragic loss. And I had to admit that the girls were excited at the prospect of the outing. Grief was a fleeting thing for the young, I observed, as they were packed off into carriages and traps for transport. Most of the teachers agreed to go as chaperones, but I elected to stay behind. I had some spying to do.
I felt uneasy in the empty hallways. A few times in recent days I had felt again that alien presence, that sense that something was reaching out to me, hovering just behind me, about to tap me on the shoulder. I was acutely aware of my disadvantage: it knew something about me, although it was clearly unsure of what possible threat I might pose. I, however, was woefully without so much as a clue to its ident.i.ty or whereabouts. Or intention.
As I made my way to the third floor, a p.r.i.c.kle of apprehension raised gooseflesh along my arms as I became keenly aware of my solitude. The girls" dormitory room for the sixth form students was located in the back of the oldest part of the house. I entered the dormitory and began my examination without so much as a hiccough of conscience. All was fair, as they say, in love and war. I rather thought that when one was dealing with the cursed undead, it was always the latter.
I paused at each one of the bedsteads lined against the inside wall, then traversed to those positioned opposite, situated between tall windows. Each girl possessed a standing chest of drawers, the small flat surfaces on top the only opportunity for personalization in this severely regimented environment. Upon some of these were Bibles and miniature paintings, schoolbooks, papers, paste beads, pen nubs, hairpins, and the like. A few were neatly arranged. Most were a heaping mess.
At Vanessa"s bed, flowers wilted in a chipped vase among the usual hodgepodge of items. I bent low so that my head almost touched her pillow and breathed in. I felt the tremor of my blood vibrating in my veins, a sign I had come to know meant the presence of the vampire was here in some detached form. That was nothing I did not already know, however. The oily smudge wrapped around her had told me that upon first meeting. I rifled through the jumbled contents of her belongings, in her drawers and under her bed, but learned nothing more.
Margaret"s area, predictably directly next to Vanessa"s, was extremely orderly. Her quilt was neatly folded at the foot of the bed, her sheets crisply tucked and her pillow fluffed and poised at the head. On the table a candle and a book were placed at precise angles.
Beginning at the bottom of her bed, I held out my hand, moving up. I felt the same slight tingle. It was unpleasant, almost painful, but I could bear it. Margaret"s slyness made it easy to dislike her, and I suspected she was the most cunning of all the girls, so I took extra care with her things. This turned out to be fortuitous, for had I not been attuned to details, I would have missed the name of the book by her bed. I"d a.s.sumed it was a Bible; that was what most of the girls had on hand. But this was not a holy book. Or, at least, not that holy book.
There were no markings on the cover or spine, and the volume was cheaply bound in a thick paper covering. Opening it, I found a small square of brown paper folded over something bulky. On the paper were written these words: Her breath"s the breath of Love, Wherewith he lures the dove Of the fair Cyprian Queen.
My hand tensed. It was Margaret"s handwriting; the bold, impatient hand was identifiable. The citation was attributed to Sappho of Lesbos, which she signed with a flourish at the end of the verse. I knew little of the ancient Greek poetess and champion of woman, but as I pondered this excerpt, I recollected there was significant scholarly speculation on the nature of Sappho"s and her female followers" love for one another. Most believed it had been what most would term "unnatural."
The Cyprian Queen-the same term Old Madge had used. She had said the girls thought she was love. I wondered briefly on the nature of the close friendship among the students. I could imagine such experimentation was not uncommon in schools. But how far did it go?
Inside the paper was a flower, crushed flat but carefully arranged in its delicate shape. The faded colors were still apparent in ghostly traces among the crisp petals.
I turned to the t.i.tle page, and frowned to see the book was an old translation of the Malleus Maleficarum. The print was faded, the paper cheap. I did not need to read it; I was familiar with this work. Written in the fifteenth century by two German Inquisitors, it was the handbook of witch-hunters but later became, in a twist of ironic perverseness, a sort of witchcraft manual for those whose penchants for evil turned toward the heretical.
Witches.
A sound startled me. I turned quickly, dropping the book. The thud of it hitting the floor sounded like an explosion, and made me jump again.
Eustacia stood in the doorway. She must have been pa.s.sing by and seen me in here, rooting about. She was too bright not to comprehend at once what I was doing.
"Oh, I am sorry," she said quickly and disappeared.
I replaced the book on Margaret"s table and sprinted after her. "Eustacia, do not leave." I caught up with her at the doorway to her dormitory, a smaller chamber where the younger girls slept. "I have been meaning to talk to you. I know you are in possession of a quick mind, which is why you take cla.s.ses with the older girls. Yet I notice you hesitate to answer my questions in the cla.s.sroom, when you clearly know the answer."
She flushed. "Oh."
"I realize, of course, your predicament with the older girls. It must be difficult for you to be separated from your friends in the younger cla.s.ses. But I have noticed Margaret and Vanessa, Lilliana and Therese and . . . who is the other girl? Ah, well, that group-you know them-they try to include you."
"Yes, ma"am," she said, casting a longing look inside the dormitory. She wanted to escape me. I wondered why. Was it something the girls had said about me, to make her fear me? It distressed me to think she would not trust me, for I liked her. I wanted to help her.
I also had more mercenary reasons: she had information I needed. I was not about to allow her to slip away. "I was wondering if you"ve ever heard the older girls talking about . . . witches?"
She blinked, unsuccessfully attempting to appear surprised. "Witches, ma"am?"
"I saw Margaret has a book about witches."
"I don"t know anything about that." She turned to go, but I moved quickly to cut her off. There was no mark of the vampire on her, so I knew she was not a part of the group. Not yet. But they had her in their sights. I had seen how Margaret tried to dominate her, draw her in. She might not be able to tell me much, but any detail could be of help to me. And I found I cared deeply about being of help to her, for clearly she was distressed. I even sensed she wanted to confide in me.
"Is there something wrong, Eustacia?" I asked, softening my voice. "I might be able to help, you know."
She shook her head. "No, really, Mrs. Andrews. I"m fine."
"I"m sorry, dear, but I find it difficult to believe that."
She stammered, "No, there"s nothing wrong. I don"t know anything about the book, really. Margaret . . . she gets strange ideas sometimes, that"s all."
"She frightens you," I said.
She opened her mouth but said nothing, and I realized she was too afraid to speak. My chest tightened. I was determined to help her, but how could I get her to tell me what was wrong?
"Please, I have to go," she said and tried to duck past me again.
I put a restraining hand on her shoulder. "Just a minute." I felt cruel pressing her so, but I was doing it as much for her own good as my need to learn what she knew. "I can a.s.sure you, Eustacia, I will tell no one-not a soul-of anything you say to me. No matter what. You would not be tattling to tell me because I am not interested in disciplining them. I want to help them. I want to help you."
I struck the right chord, for uncertainty gathered in her gaze. The poor girl wanted desperately to confide in me.
Therefore, I pressed on. "They are sneaking out. I already know that and I have told no one. They have a group, a club of some sort, and it involves something very . . . very dark. Very dangerous."
"The wicked things they do!" she said in almost a moan, and reached out for me and wrapped her smaller hand in mine. I grasped that desperate hand, moved by her torment, and murmured encouragingly, "It"s all right."
"They like it," she whispered, her mouth trembling. "They want me to be part . . . They say there must be seven. They say I must join them." She stepped back suddenly, pulling her hands free and burying them in her hair.
"Eustacia?" I reached out to comfort her and her eyes snapped up to hold my gaze.
"I shouldn"t have told you!"
"No, it is quite all right, I promise-"
"If they find out, they will murder me."
I must say, the thrust of her terror was like a physical thing, and in the same manner that a blow to the wrist will numb the hand, so too did her fear transfix me for a moment. When she wheeled and fled out of sight, I remained frozen.
Murder her? Surely she was exaggerating, using the term to describe the social torture the girls would put her through, excluding her from their circle, bullying her with taunts and nasty pranks.
But I remembered the bodies Victoria Markam had seen and was uneasy. No, that was absurd. The girls were not murderers, for they were not vampires.
However, they were clearly putting a crushing amount of pressure on her. Why-what did they want with her? They needed seven girls, Eustacia had said. I counted five students. Eustacia would make a sixth. There had to be one more I did not know to make up the septet.
As I exited the dormitory wing, I resolved to keep an eye on Eustacia, perhaps try again to gain her trust. She could be a valuable resource to understand what was happening with the . . . well, the witches was as accurate a term as any.
After luncheon, I thought I might venture out to the frozen garden, as a means to help myself think. I dressed warmly, bringing along a volume of Keats"s poetry. I had found some interesting insights about vampires and other mystical creatures in the work of the Romantic poets. Coleridge"s Christabel contained a line that had saved my life this past spring, once I realized its relevance to the strange happenings in Avebury. Other writers, too, had pondered the subject of the vampires. Polidori"s The Vampyr, Lord Byron"s Manfred-both written during a storm-ravaged summer the two men spent trapped indoors while they were vacationing with Percy Bysshe Sh.e.l.ley and Mary Sh.e.l.ley on the sh.o.r.es of Lake Geneva. The two writers" accounts were ominously acute in describing the vampire sensibility. I had often wondered what transpired that summer, for it was here Mary Sh.e.l.ley had begun her chilling Frankenstein, another story of the dead come to life.
But of all the Romantic poets, Keats, in his tragically short career, had written the most stunning works involving the undead. La Belle Dame sans Merci and Lamia were almost certainly about vampires. I thought I might find some inspiration in his poetry.
And it was Keats my mother had scribbled on the inside leather flap of her torn portmanteau. Thus, I thought he might have something to tell me.
It was colder outside than I"d thought, and the sun was blurry and thin. If I were less stubborn, I would have gone indoors posthaste, but I liked the privacy out here and I"d missed the crisp air of a chill winter"s day. As I began In a Drear-Nighted December, a curiously cheerful poem completely out of character with the poet, a voice cut into the quiet.
"I should have known you would have your nose in a book. Lud, you are helpless, Emma, and freezing to boot. When the woman at the house directed me to find you out here, I thought she was daft." It was a droll tone, infused with humor and mockery, and I caught my breath, recognizing it at once.
Sebastian stood on the gra.s.s with his feet braced apart, arms akimbo, an apple-green cape artfully draped over slight shoulders. Upon his head was a jaunty hat that made him look like Robin Hood. He was laughing at me, his smile as mischievous as that of Eros.
I was up off the bench and in his arms before I drew another breath. "Sebastian!" I shouted.
"Heavens, gel, you"ll muss my hair." But his arms were around me, and although he was a slightly built man, his embrace was tight and sure.
"How I missed you," I said. My voice was m.u.f.fled against the extravagant knot of his cravat. I could not seem to let him go.
"Now, now, what is this?" he said, pulling back so he could look down into my face. I did not realize my cheeks were wet until he touched a finger of his forest-green velvet glove to my skin.
"Nothing. Nothing." My rea.s.surances were hollow.
His smile stiffened and faded, and he appeared stricken. "I knew I should have come sooner."
I shook my head. "No. No, I am fine, really I am."
He did not believe me, and his frown of concern made me twist away. I forced a smile with some effort and he shook his head at me. "Good G.o.d, that is a ghastly excuse for a smile. There is no use for it, I have found you out. You are miserable."
"I am not miserable," I told him. "I just . . ." I sighed, looking out over the lawn to the school. The long row of mullioned windows stretched to my north, the sun glancing off the panes so that nothing could be seen inside. "I fear I have botched this entire thing," I said at last.
"There, there, what are you saying?" He pulled me to the bench and made me sit with him. The wind blew, but it did not trouble me now. Sebastian was here, and his warmth could not be dulled by the winter wind.
I told him the entire tale-Madge"s cryptic warnings, Lord Suddington, the coven girls, Miss Thompson. "I had to shrive her," I said. I brushed the tendrils of hair from my eyes, where the wind had caught them in my eyelashes.
His gloved hands reached for mine. "I am sorry. It must have been dreadful."
I felt as if I was confessing a terrible deficiency, but made myself tell him: "I was afraid."
"Yes." He said it simply.
I shook my head. "It is difficult to see myself as a coward."
"But you are a woman, Emma. That is all."
"I am supposed to be Dhampir," I told him in a sudden rush of heat. "What good has that done me? I"ve accomplished nothing here."
He held up a staying finger. "You expect too much from yourself."
I sulked slightly, lulled into the comfort of having him at my side. "I felt something. Someone." My eyes slid tentatively to his face. "In my head. I could hear him speaking, like thoughts but they were not mine."
Sebastian c.o.c.ked his head. "What do you mean-like when Marius spoke to you in your mind?"
"A little, yes. But this was different. It seemed to call to me. It was curious, questing. It said . . ." I lost courage. Sebastian showed the patience of one who knows silence is the best form of persuasion, and finally, I blurted it out. "It called me sister."
His head snapped back, his body went rigid. "That is hogwash. Do not even begin to credit anything meaningful to that phrase. You know Alyssa is in her confinement now. Her child is due to arrive in a few weeks time. She has nothing to do with this."
"Of course not. I know it holds nothing of merit. It is only that it frightened me. It was so . . . intimate and just wretched."
Sebastian twisted his lips into his most scathing grin. "Well, then, I have made it in time, for we cannot have you wretched. It does not suit you." He wagged a finger at me. "It makes you far too pale. And you"ve got shadows under your eyes. Why, look at your drab clothing. Gray is not for you, my dear. Promise me you will allow me to burn that dress."
I smiled, as he intended me to, and played my part. "Sebastian, I am a schoolteacher."
"Darling, these girls are going to return to wealthy families and shall attend the most prestigious parties in Town. They will know fashion. You must think of the advantages of giving them a proper model to view. And your hair is simply too plain. Ugh."
I laughed. "I do not know what is wrong with me, but here you are insulting me and it cheers me so."
He shrugged. "It is a talent, perhaps my only one. Oh, that and the ability to consume vast amounts of spirits." And then we were smiling at each other again. "Did you think I would not come?"
"You said you would not."
He angled his head in a silent admonition. "I did not mean it. Yes, I suppose I am a rogue, but I am not a cad. There is a difference. A rogue has principles."
I thought he was joking, although I wasn"t certain. Sebastian was so unusual it sometimes seemed he was being ridiculous when he was quite serious. And yet, just when you thought him sincere, his wicked grin would appear and you knew you"d been caught.
"You do not know how happy I am to see you," I said suddenly.
Waving a hand, he pretended to dismiss me. "Oh, bother, that is enough sentiment. I may be an unconventional Englishman but I am an Englishman all the same, and you know how we dread these vulgar displays of sentiment. Decorum, please."
He made a production of straightening his clothing as if I"d mauled him. My spirits seemed to have taken flight, for I was so happy I could barely contain myself. I laughed.
"Are you not at all cross with me for not coming sooner?" he inquired amiably, finally taking a seat, or rather draping himself in it.
"I am beyond cross," I countered pleasantly. "But it seems rather irrelevant now."
"Curious, at least?" He regarded me indolently.
I narrowed my gaze on him, smiling. "You have something to tell me. Why do you not just say it?"
"In that you are mistaken." He surged to his feet and held out his hand to me. When I took it, he pulled me up beside him. "I have something I must show you. Come with me now. We must go into the village."
That was when I saw that behind his merry facade was a vein of dead seriousness. Sebastian was fond of foolery, but he was no fool. Whatever he had to show me was of the utmost importance, I could tell.