Music Box (The Dollhouse Books, #4) (26 page)

The grinding noise of the planetarium opening travels through the air. Blood charges through my head. The museum might as well give an open invitation. I race around to the front of the museum, shouting at the guards to close the damned entry. But the Order steps from the planetarium onto the snow, flanked by armed guards.

“What are you doing?” I roar. “Don’t you know what’s coming? Those men are from the castle. You’re just going to let them in without a fight?”

Sister Bettina swivels her thin neck my way, her lips pursed so tightly they’re almost white. “The Order of Sister Celia does not fight. We prevail.”

My mind closes in. “I don’t see you prevailing now. How did they get past your block?”

“We do as must in the gravest of circumstances, as we have done since our inception.”

Her words make no sense to me. No sense. No reason. “If you want to be sitting ducks, that’s your call. I’m going to secure the museum.”

Calhoun and Rogers point shotguns at my head.

I back up a step. “What the hell? What’s going on?”

Calhoun fixes an intent stare on me. “Just something the Order should have done a long time ago.”

I spin around to face the Order and march toward them. “What did you do?” I yell the words but my voice is weak, uncomprehending.

Sister Bettina piously clasps her hands. “Ethan McAllister, you have always been a danger to us, but that danger has reached a point we can no longer tolerate. Those demon snake creatures were gone, yet as soon as you return, so do the demons. And now you insist upon bringing us a daughter of the castle—Balthazar’s bride no less. The castle’s attempts to break through our barrier is exhausting our energies.”

My legs buckle at the mention of Cassie. “She’s no bride of Balthazar’s.” Blood flashes through my brain. “You’ve agreed to hand her over to them. Haven’t you?
Haven’t you
?”

She tilts her head upward, stretching her scrawny neck. “You left us with no choice.”

“You don’t know what you’ve done. You cannot make deals with these people. They will destroy you. All of you.”

Brother Hudson steps forward. “You may not speak to Sister Bettina in that way. It was a consensus. We stopped blocking the castle long enough to allow a quick exchange of words between us. They will return Balthazar’s bride to the castle, and in exchange, they’ll call off the snake beasts.”

I stare at him as the horror of his words dawn on me.

Calhoun and Rogers grab each of my arms.

“We’re giving them you in the bargain too.” Calhoun nods, a smirk twitching at the sides of his mouth. “Package deal.”

I try to wrench myself away, but their hold is too tight.

“Cassie! Cassie!” I roar at the museum.

The men are mere meters away. They stop, side-by-side. It’s Henry, Armand, Zach and Parker’s fathers and two others I don’t recognize.

Zach’s father fixes his gaze on me, his mouth twisting. “You didn’t die.”

I struggle against the hold on my arms. “Sorry to disappoint.”

“We’ve come for the wives of the castle,” Zach’s father tells me. “Cassandra, Molly and Aisha. They belong to us.”

All the breath in my lungs hisses between my teeth. “The hell they do.”

Sister Bettina stares at him curiously. “We only have the monseigneur’s wife. I’m afraid there are no others here.”

Henry taps his knuckles together impatiently. “Come now, Sister, I sent them here myself—and they did not return. I know you have been blocking the shadow from bringing them back to us.”

“We are doing no such thing,” she insists.

“Then somehow, they are hiding here of their own accord. I’m sure you will help us find them.” Henry gives a short, bowing nod of his head.

“We will assist you all we can,” she said. “We do not wish to keep those here who flit between worlds. The world must keep its order, Mr. Batiste. If we see them, we will contact you.”

Henry eyes her with suspicion. “You won’t mind if we search the museum for ourselves?”

“I would indeed mind,” says Sister Bettina. “Entering the museum was not in our agreement.”

“You do know who I am speaking of?” Henry tells her. “They have been here before. Both tall—a brunette and a redhead.”

She gives him a deep, single nod. “Of course. The doubles of the poor souls in the basement.”

Henry straightens. “Doubles?”

She nods. “On life support. Or they were—they had a miraculous recovery just days ago. It is all in God’s hands, Mr. Batiste. If he chooses us for a miracle, then we are indeed blessed.”

Pausing, Henry strokes his chin. I can almost see wheels turning in his head. “Where are they now—these miracles of God?”

She pulls her bottom lip in. “They have been undertaking a recovery from their comas, and have been resting together for the past few days. Cassandra Claiborne took ill and has also been resting with them—when one traipses about in a wet negligee out in freezing temperatures, there is a good chance that one will fall ill.”

Henry gazes down at the medicine box in my hands. “Ah, the concerned suitor fetches medicine for his sweetheart. How utterly tragic.”

“It’s your fault she’s ill.” Hate is a coiled snake in my stomach. “You monsters almost killed her, forcing her to live underground with Balthazar.”

Sister Bettina shakes her head at me. “Cassandra belongs with her husband. We recognize that a marriage has taken place, and we respect that union.”

“We would have appreciated communication from you earlier, seeing as Lady Batiste was ill,” said Zach’s father to Sister Bettina. “As you said, she belongs to her husband now, and she must remain in good health.”

She stares at him down her pinched nose. “Nabaasa has been taking good care of her, as she has the other two girls. She is well-qualified in that regard. She is a trained nurse.”

She turned as Nabaasa walked from the museum, flanked by a guard.

Nabaasa faces down the men of the castle, her gaze so staunch it could level mountains. “They’re no longer here. The girls have gone.”

Sister Bettina gasps. “You’re telling an untruth.”

Nabaasa shakes her head. “Sister, lying isn’t something I do.”

Gone.
The word filters through the chaos. Cassie and Molly and Aisha are gone. Why didn’t Cassie tell me she was leaving?

“Where did they go?” Zach’s father clenches his fist on the pistol.

“I don’t know that,” says Nabaasa. “I woke this morning and went straight to their quarters to see how they are all doing. Their beds were empty, and they are nowhere to be found.”

“You promised us Lady Balthazar Batiste,” Parker’s father tells Sister Bettina. “Bring her to us or we’ll tear this place apart until we find her ourselves.”

Alarm rises in her pale blue eyes. “You must not cross our thresh hold.” She glanced left to right at the other members of the council, as though to convince herself that she had a large circle of support and protection around her. “We could not predict the girls leaving. As you can see, even Ethan was not aware of this occurrence. We will let you know the moment they return.”

A humorless smile inches across Henry’s face. “I’m afraid things are no longer in your hands, Sister Bettina.”

She steps back, into the fold of the order. “Then we will be forced to block your entry.”

The Order joins hands, closing their eyes.

Henry raises an eyebrow. “You allowed us entry into this part of the world. That was your fatal mistake. There is nothing you can do now. I propose you step aside.”

The Order stands firm, tightly clutching each other’s hands like frightened children. Shrugging, Henry strides past them.

Calhoun drops his hold on me and levels his shotgun at Henry. The other guards follow Calhoun’s lead.

Henry and Armand raise their arms and thrust the guards backward—toppling them—the guards shooting their guns aimlessly in the air. Sister Bettina and the order are flung into the snow.

I take a run at the museum, but two of the castle men jump me and throw me to the ground.

Nabaasa lies prone on the snow, but her dark eyes remain watchful. A story Nabaasa once told me flashes through my head—a story in which she’d had to play dead in a village of the massacred in Uganda, just to survive.

No one but me and Nabaasa see Calhoun crawl toward his gun—which lies half-buried in the snow. With a cold determination in his eyes, Calhoun reaches for the weapon. Slowly his fingers curl around it, and I hope he can take at least two of the men out. He notices me watching him, and he stares back with a glazed expression I can’t read. Whipping the shotgun up, he pushes the barrel into his mouth. A shot explodes. Calhoun’s blood sprays the snow.

One of the men bring down something hard on my temple.

Drumbeats bang in my head—in a fast warning rhythm. I try to rise but my mind blackens. In a dark void, all I hear are shouts and screams and glass shattering... and gunfire.

––––––––

J
ESSAMINE

Hours pass while I keep my eyes from the letter. I could destroy it with the merest flicker of energy. The letter burns on the shelf—it poisons the air, it cuts like a blade. I cannot remember love, but everyone I have ever loved has left me.

I take up the letter. And read it. I try to push the words out and away from me, but they are heavy—each word weighted and deliberate.

“Why, Grandfather?” I cry. “Why have you punished me with this? Have I not suffered enough?”

Behind me, the clock begins ticking.

An aged man shuffles into the ballroom—a man bent and sorrowful. He grasps the back of a chair to steady himself, his eyes rimmed red and his white hair grown wild like grasses.

He gives a slow, sorrowful shake of his head. “My sweet Jessamine. What have I done?”

My mind closes tight. My mind escapes into the locket and binds itself. My fingers try to reach for the locket at my neck, but the locket is gone.

There is but one thing I know. He is not a ghost like me.

“How did I let a century pass through my fingers?” He breathes in a long, sorrowful gasp.

I do not know what I expected upon Grandfather’s return. If I expected my heart to be filled at last, then I am sorely disappointed. My heart went away long ago. Everything... everything has been fixed upon his coming back to me. But I never thought about what might happen afterwards. I didn’t want to think that far. And now I see Grandfather’s face—the face I haven’t seen for so long. And I know that there is nothing beyond this moment. His eyes are full of dread and regret. I sense his horror at seeing me like this—revulsion even. I am no longer his granddaughter. I am a thing without blood and flesh.

I stare at him mutely.

He shakes his head. “I see you, Jessamine. You no longer have the mind of a small child. I see the decades of pain that I’ve put you through. I cannot excuse myself. I spent but a year in the other worlds, but here so much time passed. So much time....”

A sob wracks his body—all the more terrible for its silence. “I brought destruction on the world. I searched for something bright and wonderful, but instead I headed into darkness. I can never repay my debt to this world, or my debt to you.” Lines etch deep into his forehead. “And when I tried to return, I could not. Something blocked me every which way I tried. Finally, I knew. It was you, Jessamine. You blocked my return....”

Something broke away inside me, like a sheet of ice on a lake. “No....”

“Yes, it was you. You kept me away. Look inside, little one.”

I wring my hands together to stop an outburst, but I remember my life before—and it renders me powerless. “I hated you. I hated you for leaving me. I hated you for leaving me with Henry and Audette.”

He flinches as though a force has struck him in the chest. “I deserve all your anger. All of it. I lost myself in a fantasy. I found a world to take you to. Your father... is there. And your grandmother. I took the place of myself in that world. I paraded about like the deceiver I was. But my mind was tortured every day over what I’d done, tortured by what I knew. I was plagued by memories of your father dying on this earth—and so I forbid him from performing anything remotely dangerous. I even fired Mister Magnificent the knife thrower and burned the Wheel of Death. Simon hated me for it. He lived for the thrill and the danger—the excitement and the roar of the crowd. He’d been brought up in the circus— and I took it all away. I threatened to write him out of his inheritance if he disobeyed me.”

Memories of Daddy sink into me with teeth. A warmth that has been gone from me a long time. Eyes that crinkled when he smiled. A big, generous laugh that made you feel like everything was okay.

“You see,” said Grandfather, “that is the great problem with knowing the future—you cannot live. Your life becomes all about how to beat the ticking clock of death. Although of course, it is all a macabre lottery when it comes to a parallel earth. Some things that came to pass on the one you knew may not come to pass on the other. Your father might or might not die on the wheel. Your grandmother, Dora, might or might not already house the cancer that would kill her. The children of my good friend Zeke might or might not die in a terrible fire. The First World War might or might not end in 1918. But with everything exactly the same on this earth at the time I entered it, the possibility that these things would happen seemed to be almost one hundred percent.”

I stare at him with a question burning bright inside me. “Yet, you didn’t return.”

“No, I did not. My plan was to take you there, to have you take the place of the Jessamine of that world. In that world, she is still ten. But I would have lost you—you would have become
her
. I couldn’t bear the thought of that.”

“But you didn’t become the other Tobias.” My words sound petulant in my ears.

“I am not proud of what happened. I followed the circus around for days, always in disguise—hoping to catch a glimpse of Simon and Dora. The Tobias of that world caught me one night, and tore off my hat and glasses. He’d seen me skulking around in the shadows and was determined to see my face. Had his hand touched my skin, I would have been absorbed by him, but it did not. But when he looked into the face that was identical to his own, he fell to the ground, clutching his heart. He died knowing what none of us should ever know—that there are doubles of us out there in the universes.” He inclines his grizzled head. “A terrible thought came to me. And instead of doing what I knew was right, I paid someone to take his body down to the river and weight it so it would sink to the bottom. No one of course, ever looked for him, because to them, he was never gone. I took his place.”