The Twelfth Enchantment Part 26

32.

LUCY SAT AT A WRITING TABLE, AND MR. MORRISON SAT NEXT TO her. "I've long suspected, but been unable to prove, that Mr. Buckles defrauded you of your inheritance. Of course, I wondered why he would trouble to do so. He was to inherit the house, and after he married Martha he would receive half of your father's wealth. The amount he could gain through fraud could hardly be worth the risk of discoverya"not when his future was secure and his patronage from Lady Harriett left him without want."

"He wanted the books," said Lucy, who saw it as well.

"Your dealings with your father changed in that last year. That is why he left you what you see around usa"his library. These are your books, Lucy. Mr. Buckles cared nothing of the money he stole from you. Perhaps he took it because he could or because he believed you would be less dangerous if you were even more impoverished, but in the end it was but a distraction. What he wanted was these books."

She could hear Mary's voice in her head. The Mutus Liber is strongest in the hands of the person to whom it belongs.

"It is mine," said Lucy. "The book was mine all along. They took it from me, and they tore it to pieces, but they dared not destroy it."

"They did not take it apart," said Mr. Morrison. "Your father ordered it done, and I believe he gave the task to the only person he trusted to take the book for herself."

Lucy nodded. "Of course. Emily. She went to Cardiff shortly before she died, and you went there looking for the book. It was Emily who disa.s.sembled the book, to keep it safe, and only she knew where the pieces were."

"I believe so," said Mr. Morrison. "But the pages themselves have power. You have discovered that, I think. They contain information for those who know how to read them or are sensitive to them, and so they can be sensed. Some of the pages remain where Emily left them, others have been discovered and changed hands several times."

"All this time, I have been following in my sister's footsteps," said Lucy.

Mr. Morrison nodded. "You see now why Lady Harriett wanted you to marry Mr. Olson. Your property would become his. The book would no longer belong to you. Lady Harriett wanted desperately for you to marry him before all the pages were recovered, because no one wanted the book rea.s.sembled while you still owned it."

"Almost no one," said Lucy very quietly, for Mary dared. She alone dared to urge Lucy to a.s.semble the book that contained the secret of unmaking her.

Mr. Morrison turned away. "Almost no one."

Lucy had to know. She swallowed and forged ahead before she lost the nerve to ask. "If you love her, why does it matter? She left, but she returned, so why are you apart from each other? Why does she not use your name?"

He shook his head. "I will not discuss it."

"I do not mean to cause you pain," she said quietly. "I only wish to understand." It was so odd, she thought as she looked at him. She had spent years hating him, thinking him the most vile of men, but he was never that person. He had only been a kind and loyal man serving Lucy's fathera"and serving Lucy herself.

To distract herself, she decided it was time to find the pages. Lucy turned slowly about the room, like a sluggish child at absent play. She ran her hand along the shelves as she walked, hoping for some kind of spark or warmth or feeling of nearness. Then, in some noiseless way, she heard its cry. Lucy walked toward a shelf and there she found her father's copy of Purchas, his Pilgrimage, just as she had always remembered it, and she opened it up. Inside its pages, folded and neat, were two more sheets from the Mutus Liber.

Lucy looked at them. They were as beautiful and strange and inexplicable as the others. On the pages were trees trans.m.u.ting into vines and into animals, plant and creature alike twirling and twisting upward and down. It was all about transformation and change and melding. It was about the future and the past. It was about insight, Lucy realized, about seeing the truth behind veils of deception and disguise. There was more than that, however. The philosopher's stone was the source of transformation and alteration, and such power required wisdom and judgment and patience, and these too were embedded in these images. Lucy stared for a long time, hoping she might become wise and insightful enough to know what to do next.

And then she did.

She turned to Mr. Morrison and Mrs. Emmett. "I need you to keep my sister away from me. I need you to keep her downstairs no matter what."

"Where do you go?" asked Mr. Morrison.

Lucy swallowed hard, working up the courage to say what would be far more difficult to do. She turned to Mrs. Emmett and straightened herself in a display of determination. "I go to speak to the changeling."

Perhaps she heard someone upon the stairs, for when Lucy reached the baby's room, the wet nursea"a plump and pretty fair-haired woman in her early thirtiesa"emerged. Her eyes were red and heavily bagged, and her posture somewhat slumped. Everything about the woman suggested fatigue and dejection.

"I wish to be alone with thea"the infant," said Lucy. "I am the aunt."

"I don't care who you are, mum," the woman said hurrying down the hall. "If you want to be alone with her, she's yours as long as you'll have her."

Lucy stepped into the room. It was dark, with only a small fire burning. This had once been Lucy's own room, but it was unfamiliar now, with pictures of animals upon the wall, a new rug of plain weave, and entirely different furnis.h.i.+ngs. Near the fireplace rested the baby's crib, but Lucy did not have to approach and peer into it. The creature had already pulled itself up and clutched the railings in its narrow, clawed fingers. Its large, reptilian eyes followed her as she moved into the room, and then, as she drew too close, it hissed in alarm, showing its sharp teeth. Its forked tongue darted out, tasting the air.

Lucy took another step forward. It c.o.c.ked its head and hissed again. So, it was afraid of her. That was interesting.

"Can you speak?" she asked.

"Can you?" it asked, its voice raspy and low.

"Clearly," said Lucy as she took another step forward.

The thing hissed again and swiped at the air with its claws. "No further, witch."

Lucy stopped, but more as an experiment than out of fear. She was surprised to discover she was not afraid of the creature. She found it vile, but not terrifying, perhaps because it was so clearly afraid of her. "Why do you fear me?"

"You would send me back if you knew how," it said.

"And you do not wish to go back? You enjoy tormenting my sister?"

"I am charged to not let you send me back," it said. "For the baby's sake. It is what my mistress has commanded, and I obey her."

"Your mistress is Mary Crawford?"

"Yes," it hissed.

"How do I find my niece?" Lucy asked.

It opened its mouth, and then only hissed again.

"You were going to tell me," Lucy said. "But you did not. Because you were commanded not to tell me?"

"Yes," it said, evidently unhappy.

"But otherwise you seem inclined to answer my questions honestly. Why?"

The creature turned away from her, rubbing its long hands over the rough skin of its head, as if trying to puzzle something out. It mumbled something Lucy could not understand.

"Speak so I might hear you," Lucy said.

It turned to her and flashed its teeth. "It is the pages of the book. They compel me to tell the truth."

Lucy smiled and approached closer. "Is there anything you can tell me to help me get my niece back?"

"No, you cannot force me to speak of that."

Lucy took a moment to think of what she might ask next. She could not stay here forever. The men downstairs might awaken, or Martha might come in to discover what Lucy did. She needed to hurry. "What must Mary Crawford do to banish you?"

"Even she cannot banish me now, not until certain conditions are fulfilled. Not until your niece is safe."

There must be something it could tell her, Lucy thought. Some truth she could extract that did not directly involve the rescue of her niece but would help effect that rescue. She made another attempt. "Then what of the pages yet missing? Mr. Morrison said that Mary Crawford knew the location of pages. Though why would she not tell me?"

"All she does, she believes is right," the changeling said.

Lucy realized it had answered part of her question, but not all of it, so she tried again, asking more precisely this time. "Do you know where I will find the last pages of the book?"

The creature backed up in the crib. It looked this way and that and appeared so desperate that Lucy almost felt sorry for it. But she pressed her case and pointed at the changeling. "Tell me."

And it did.

Downstairs Mr. Morrison rushed toward her, evidently concerned. "Is all well?"

"No," said Lucy. "It seems you were right about Mary. She did deceive me. She had pages hidden away all along, and now, unfortunately, I know where."

"Why is that unfortunate?" he demanded.

Lucy turned to study his face carefully, hoping for some clues, some explanations. "Because it seems we were all along deceived, Mr. Morrison. The remaining pages are to be found where we first looked. They are within Newstead Abbey."

They found Martha sitting near the fire in the sitting room. She held some sewing, but did not appear to have done much of anything with it.

Lucy approached her and took her hands. "I am sorry, Martha, but we must go at once."

"What shall I tell my husband when he returns?" asked Martha, now sounding alarmed.

"Tell him the truth," said Mr. Morrison. "With any luck, it shall not matter."

Lucy gathered at once that Martha feared Mr. Buckles. "I would take you with me if I could, Martha, but where I go is far more dangerous than here. When a when all this is finished, I shall take you then, if you like. I shall save you."

Martha laughed. It was a bitter, barking sound. "Save me. How shall you do so? You have no money, Lucy."

"I have other resources."

"If you want shelter," said Mr. Morrison, "or if you want money to go where none may find you, then you need but ask. I shall never again neglect to be a friend of your family."

Martha stared at them. "You have set yourself against Mr. Buckles, haven't you?"

"Lady Harriett has made herself my enemy," answered Lucy. "She has, in ways I cannot begin to explain, inflicted terrible harm upon both of us, and she has used Mr. Buckles as her instrument. I am sorry to say this. I do not wish to speak ill of your husband, but it is so. I have not set myself against him, but he has chosen to follow a mistress who has declared me her enemy. I hope you will recollect that I act not against him, but to defend myself. To defend all of us."

Martha shook her head. "I wish you would say what you mean, what you really mean, instead of speaking in riddles all the time."

Lucy smiled. "When there is more time, I shall tell you all."

Martha turned away. "I have this terrible idea in my head that Mr. Buckles will not survive what is coming. Am I all but a widow?"

"Is the wife of the condemned man a widow before he hangs?" asked Mrs. Emmett.

Martha let out a gasp.

Lucy gave a harsh glance at Mrs. Emmett, who only smiled in return. She turned back to her sister. "I do not know what is going to happen. I know only that everything I've done, everything I will do, is for you and your child. I beg you to believe that."

Martha rose and hugged Lucy. "I am afraid."

Lucy returned the hug and stepped back. "For yourself, you have nothing to fear." She did not know that it was true. But it would all be over soon. Lucy would find those final pages, and then all would be set right.

"You sound so sure of yourself," Martha said. "What do you have to fear?"

Lucy forced a smile. "Everything."

It was to be a long and awkward ride to Nottinghams.h.i.+re. They would necessarily have to travel slowly once it grew dark, and so be vulnerable to highwaymen, but they dared not stop until morning. There was too much at risk. Both Mr. Morrison and the coachman primed pistols, and they began their long and slow trek that would probably not bring them to their destination until after dark the next day.

They were silent for some time. As was her habit in the coach, Mrs. Emmett fell into a deep sleep at once, snoring in a loud, rasping manner. Lucy did not believe she would be able to sleep so easily. She lay awake and still and frightened she knew not how long. She had presumed Mr. Morrison to be asleep when he, at last, spoke.

"They change," he said.

"I beg your pardon." It came out too clipped and formal, for he had surprised her.

"The revenants. They are not what they once were. They are not the people they were before their alteration. It is why I cannot love her, nor she love me. That part of us is lost."

"I am sorry," Lucy said. She recalled what Mary had told her about the revenantsa"that mortality is a fundamental part of humanity. Lucy had no notion at the time that Mary had been speaking of herself.

"What is she like now?" asked Mr. Morrison. The strange flatness of his voice betrayed a pain Lucy could not contemplate.

"She was lovely to mea"kind and patient and understanding. She always said what I most needed to hear. Even now, when I consider all I have seen and done, the places I have gone, the enemies and dangers I have encountered, I know that I could have done none of it had she not prepared me."

"Then you trusted her? You trust her yet, though you know she deceived you?"

"I do not know," said Lucy. "Perhaps she had her reasons, but I have come to see that, for all her goodness to me, she is cold and calculating and ruthless. She is, in some ways, unknowable."

"I understand you," he said. "We spoke once, you know. After she returned."

"Mr. Morrison, you do not need to tell me these things. I can hear in your voice that it is painful for you. I thank you for your consideration, but you owe me no candor in this manner."

He laughed. "You are a sweet girl. I cannot imagine how you have come so far and remained so innocent. I do not tell you these things because I wish to unburden my heart. I tell you what you may need to know if you are to survive what comes. You can have no illusions about Mary Crawford, as she now styles herself. It may come to pa.s.s that we must destroy her."

"I will not destroy her," said Lucy. "Though she lied to me, she is my friend."

"She has been good to you, and she may even, in her own way, care for you, but she will not be your friend if it is not in her interest. She knows better than all of us that death is not the end, and she will not hesitate to send you on your journey should she believe the situation requires it. Some part of her hates you for your mortality, that you can move on and she cannot."

"I don't know that I believe you."

"I think you had better learn to believe me," he said. "I cannot go in with you if you are not willing to destroy her if you must."

For a long time, he said nothing more. In the dark she heard him stir, as if trying to grow more comfortable. He coughed softly, the sound m.u.f.fled by a handkerchief. Somewhere outside the cart they heard the lonely howl of a dog.

"You cannot know how I loved her," he said. "At first what I felt for her was more moderate. It was time for me to marry, and she was suitable in so many ways, and I suppose what I felt for her was love, after a species. She loved me, and I hoped that would be enough."

"She told me of her husband, though she was certainly vague. But she said that he'd been in love with someone else."

Mr. Morrison said nothing for a moment. "When I met her, I thought I would never love again. I was heartbroken, but I came to love her more than I can say. She was clever and witty, and she understood me better than anyone I had known. And she loved me. Only someone utterly coldhearted could be so adored and unmoved by it. And, of course, she was beautiful. Now she is even more beautiful than she was. Her hair, her eyes, her complexiona"they are different, as I am told sometimes happens. Her new nature fairly radiates something so compelling that when we were reunited I was all but lost in an instant, but she did not want me to be lost. When she spoke to mea"I know not how to describe it. For all that she resembled my Mary, for all she retained her beauty, and that beauty had grown, it was as though I spoke to the dead. She is not soulless, but the soul is no longer human. I saw in her eyes that she felt nothing for me, that she could hardly remember having felt anything for me. And I knew that my feelings were for someone who was gone forever."