Music Box (The Dollhouse Books, #4) (12 page)

Dr. Verena had been right about one thing. The castle held something I desperately wanted and would have risked anything to find. The castle had gripped my soul in its dark fist.

Pushing tangled hair back from my face, anger surged through me—my sister was being kept here in an existence infinitely worse than death. “Did Henry bring you here to the tower?”

“Yes. Straight after I tried to commit suicide in the dollhouse, he had me taken here through the shadow. At first, I was taken to the cave below the castle. But the dampness there caused my skin to begin to rot. A fungus disease grew upon me, and they needed to move me somewhere completely dry.”

I stared down at my hands, showing her the small spots between my fingers. “Like this?”

She nodded sadly. “Yes. Just like that. I’d give anything for that not to be happening to you.”

I thought of all the girls in Balthazar’s cabinet—they had been made to live in the underground of his chambers. They had been unable to wash properly and dry themselves properly, and they had been kept in a place where a thick, briny wetness hung in the air. And once they had been quarantined in the cabinet, things would have only grown worse for them. Etiennette was the only one to discover the ocean cave—perhaps she had bathed in the salty water and kept her skin clean. And then she had been taken to live in the castle, where the air was far better and drier. And my skin had begun healing after I had begun venturing down into the water of the ocean cave. There was no witchcraft. The affliction had just been caused by the terrible conditions of the underground. My spirit ached to think what those girls had endured. Just as I had ached at what the girls of the dollhouse had endured—especially Prudence.

As if she’d sensed my thoughts, she smiled grimly. “I can’t imagine being taken down to live in Balthazar’s chambers. I’ve overheard... things. About all his previous wives being kept down there. Is it true?”

I nodded. “He keeps them all in a cabinet, encased in wooden marionettes.”

She shivered. “I’m so sorry that you’re there too....” For a moment she didn’t speak, as though it pained her too much. “Be careful. If there is one thing I know about Balthazar is that he doesn’t like people leaving the castle—ever. Even if you die. He bound the spirits of prisoners in the dungeons and I have heard that he bound the spirits of his past wives.”

I gazed at her in horror. Could he have forced their spirits to remain inside the cabinets, for centuries? His words crushed into my mind—he had threatened I could not leave, that he would bind me.

“Cassie, I must go now,” she said gently.

I wanted to stay there with her and never go back to Balthazar. I wanted to tell her what I had learned about Etiennette and Reed—our ancestors.

A deep sorrow visited her eyes. “My heart aches for you, Cassie.” Her voice faltered. “It’s the last night... of summer. Yesterday I watched the people of the castle mark the day with a celebration. But for you, I know what this day means....” Her hand reached for mine, tears glistening on her cheeks.

“Don’t cry for me,” I told her. “I’ll be okay. And I’ll come back for you. I promise I will.”

I silently swore that I would get Prudence away from here. Whatever happened to me at the hands of Balthazar, I would endure. But I would keep the secret of the tower close to my heart, plotting for the day I could release my sister.

Tiring, she leaned against the sill of the window, her forehead against the window’s frame. Her face was drained, pallid—perspiration beading on her skin. Her breaths were shallow and rapid.

I wiped the wetness from my eyes. My mouth opened in a silent scream as I saw the thin trail of blood from the center of the floor to the window, saw the drips of blood running down Prudence’s arms.

All the time she’d been talking with me, she’d been bleeding, struggling against the loss of blood from her body.

“Prudence!” I cried.

She lifted her head to me, but her eyes were glazed and opaque. She drifted from me, rising through the dark air. Her head and arms fell back and her body grew limp. Her gaze moved to the crystal and stayed fixed to it. Her body began turning in time with the crystal, like an endlessly spinning ballerina in a music box.

I fell to my knees, staring in mute horror.

Outside the window, the glow of dawn spread its fingers along the horizon. A faint, dusty pink painted itself upon the dark sky.

C
ASSIE

I raced away down the stairwell of the tower—the tower that had haunted and terrified me since that first day I’d seen it. Now I understood what the tower contained. A wish. A memory. Pain and loss. Things I’d buried long ago.

But how could I have not known all this time that Prudence was my sister? I’d blinded myself, seeing her only as the dead and not for who she was.

I would count down the days until I could make my way back to her.

The wind and rain had dropped—the world eerily calm. As I ran into the passageway, the clipping sound of my shoes echoed around the walls. I had no time to change into a dry dress. I hauled myself up on the chain as dawn broke on the horizon. Light shone into my face. From the ocean passage, I stopped and stared into the rising sun. It was intensely, insanely beautiful. The beauty cut me with the sharpest of knives.

I’m not ready. I’m not ready for Balthazar.

I will never be ready for Balthazar.

The wooden door at the end of the ocean passage slammed open.

Men strode in. I stood stunned at the sight of so many people after months spent almost completely alone. Zach’s father, Parker’s father, other men of the castle gave me stiff bows. Wide-eyed chamber maids followed after them.

Zach’s father moved forward and grabbed my arm. “Lady Batiste, what are you doing in the ocean passage, past dawn?”

My breaths quickened. “I fell asleep out here.” My teeth gritted. “But Batiste is not my name.”

“That is your name now,” he said tersely.

One of Parker’s uncles laughed harshly. “At least she won’t need cleaning. Looks like she’s already had a good shower.” He held up a white, filmy dress. “This is your wedding night gown. You will put it on, in readiness for your consummation.”

I struggled as they moved me into an antechamber.

Two chamber maids bustled in—one of them setting two flasks of red wine on the table.

“The wine is for Monseigneur Balthazar,” whispered one of them quickly. “But you should drink some and get yourself drunk, and pass out on the bed. That’s the best way to get through this night.” An expression of horror passed through her round eyes.

The maids took my wet dress from me and sponged me down. I stared numbly through a high window out to the clear sky as they fussed around me, applying cosmetics to my face and stringing beads through my hair. Satisfied, they pulled the gown over my head. It clung like spider web to my body.

The maids curtsied and left.

Zach’s father brought me back out to the ocean passage.

A young man dressed in medieval soldier’s clothing walked up to me. His face was the same as the man who had stood beside me in the chapel. Balthazar. Only this was a younger version of him, not more than twenty. But his eyes held the same cold glare—that of black volcanic glass. This was a man who would have one day impaled live people for pleasure and watched them die in agony, had he remained in his own world.

He circled me. “This be my bride?”

“Yes, Balthazar,” Zach’s father told him. “This is she.”

A sneering smile inched across the man’s face. “She doth not look happy to see me.”

The people laughed.

“She is yours.” Zach’s father opened his palms out, as though giving me to this Balthazar.

Balthazar stared at me intently, arching an eyebrow.

“And as per our agreement,” continued Zach’s father, “once your body becomes one with the spirit Balthazar of the chateau here, everything will be yours. You will be as king, with riches beyond compare—riches that are soon for the taking. Do you understand?”

He nodded. “Thy speech and thy times are strange indeed, but I hath understood and I wilt do this. I wilt sacrifice myself for the glory and greatness.”

Zach’s father exhaled slowly. “We are relieved. For if you are willing, your spirit will keep your body alive. Last time we brought a Balthazar of a different world, and we did not explain anything to him—we did not prepare him. And therefore his body did not last.”

“But this time,” the young man said, “my body wilt live forever. Is that not the truth of it?”

Behind him, the men glanced warily at each other.

“That is the truth.” Zach’s father gave a solemn nod.

I knew they had lied to him. Balthazar’s ghost had told me the new body would live long enough to impregnate me and not much longer. I knew that without the knowledge of the second book, the castle people could not bring a healthy body through the centuries. The young man standing before me would soon turn to dust and ruin.

Parker’s father caught the look in my eyes. He turned to Balthazar. “Remember, you must not listen to anything this girl says to you.”

The man shrugged in my direction. “She is but a female. I hast no time for their fanciful chatter.”

“You will accompany this young man into Balthazar’s chambers,” said Zach’s father to me. “He will become one with Balthazar and then you will consummate your marriage—which is an honor and a privilege for you.”

I stared at him rigidly. “You are not even half the man your son is.”

His expression faltered. “Zachary allowed himself to be swayed by a pretty face. But he understands that his loyalties lie with his family, and he will grow into his destiny.”

“There is no destiny,” I spat. “Only fools believe in such things. No one is born to rule.”

The young double of Balthazar closed his fist around my arm. “This one hath the mouth of a man.” He brought his face close to mine. “Thou wilt do as thou art asked,
fille
. Shut thy mouth before I shut it for thee.”

The speech of the younger Balthazar was not as slow and calculated as the elder, but the same icy hardness lay underneath.

He took the casks of wine offered to him by Francoeur in one hand and pushed me roughly toward the other end of the ocean passage, turning his head back to the others. “I wilt see thou all on the other side.”

Nodding, they bowed at him and left the passage. I heard the click of the door being bolted from the other side.

I was alone here with this man. My body was made of sawdust and glue as I stepped from the sunlight into the darkness of the passages. He strode behind me impatiently. When we reached the chambers, he moved past me, gazing about the grimy quarters both in horror and in raw anticipation.

He set the casks of wine down on the children’s drawers, fingering the set of metal toy soldiers that stood there. “These soldiers be mine, when I be a boy.”

He startled as his gaze fell upon the sleeping Balthazar.

The ghost-Balthazar’s eyes snapped open.

I felt a sword of ice twist inside me. After months of slumber, he was about to rise.

Balthazar’s ghost disappeared from the bed and appeared before us. A grin slithered across his charred, deformed head. “Yes,” he hissed. “I am to live again.”

The young man took a quick step back, taken aback by the sight of the ghost. “You art
me
?”

Balthazar’s ghost nodded. “I am what you would have become.”

The man’s mouth twitched. “The villagers did this to thee?”

“Yes.” Balthazar’s ghost raised his eyebrow-less forehead. “I see revulsion in thine eyes. Thou art young and think thee art king of the world and nothing canst harm thee. But the villagers struck back. They brought fire to my room and burned me whilst I slept.”

“Prithee tell what crime caused such outrage?”

“No greater crimes than thee hast committed.”

“I hast committed no crimes.”

Thou canst not say you hast committed no crimes yet. I see in your eyes you hast already wrought foul deeds upon your fellow humans.”

The young man pushed his chest out. “I am bound by the laws of no country. My deeds hath done nothing if not rid my own world of some of the unworthy.”

Sighing, Balthazar’s ghost moved closer. “Ye wouldst hath stopped lying to thyself about thine supposed noble quest one day, had thee stayed in thine own world, and ye wouldst hath stepped fully into thine darkest desires. How I appear to thee now is nothing but a reflection of the darkness inside thee.”

“Ye art an old man whom traveled thy own path. Be it that our paths were the same to a point, the paths I wouldst hath taken be not written in blood.”

“Ah, but the seeds be planted. The sapling becometh the tree. An apple tree doth not become a peach tree.” He smiled cruelly. “Ye hast been to the tree—the
Speculum Nemus
—upon which the castle be built, and there ye hath committed deeds thou durst not speak to thy mother. I say to thee that thy path be hammered out in Satan’s own forge. Ye hast just come to thy end route sooner.”

A thin streak of sweat traveled along the side of the man’s face. “I was assured by Seigneurs Batiste and Baldcott that if I doth not desire to go forward with the exchange, then I art free to return to my world.”

The eyes of Balthazar’s ghost bulged with a yellow patina as he stared into the eyes of his younger self. “But I art thou,” he crooned. “What I desire be what thou desires. The exchange wilt take place. Thou canst not run from me—I wilt take thee and I wilt use thy body. When your body crumbles from me, they shalt bring me a replacement. Do not concern thyself. Thee shalt surely live long enough for me to delight myself in this girl and put my child inside her.”

The man’s trembling hands tightened into fists. “
Non
! That be not the promise.” He backed away. “I am promised eternal life, not to be used and cast aside.”

“Ye made a deal with thine own self, for I am thee. And ye must know, more than any soul in the universes, that thy words are not to be held in good faith.”

Balthazar’s ghost advanced on him, his mouth cavity growing and widening horribly, like a snake. He swallowed the yelling and horrified man’s head, and then his body.