Music Box (The Dollhouse Books, #4) (33 page)

Shaking her head, Sister Bettina took a step backward. “Spirits are not God’s work. Traveling the universes is an abomination in God’s eye. It is a sin, a travesty. If He did not send you, then you are cursed by darkness.”

Madame Celia’s green eyes centered on Sister Bettina. “You speak of God as though you know his very thoughts. I do not claim to know such things.
Mon Dieu
! I am just a fortune teller who saw further into the future than was good for her and has tasked herself to do everything in her power to prevent the worst of it. Oh yes, for the worst of it has not yet arrived.”

One of the spirits moved out from the group and moved toward Sister Bettina. “Bettina?”

The sister’s eyes grew large and round. “Grandfather Whittingham...?”

“Yes, it is me.” He bowed his grizzled gray head. “I taught you about the Order from the time you were a child. I believed in its purpose. I believed the end of the world as we knew it was coming—and I wanted to teach you how to resist those intent on bringing it. But you have turned the Order into something else entirely. It was never meant to be a cult.”

Sister Bettina’s lips quavered. “People looked up to me. They saw me as a great and noble leader. For the first time in my life, I was looked up to, grandfather. You know that my parents didn’t care much for me, else they wouldn’t have sent me to live with you. I led my flock of followers in the best way I knew how.”

He shook his head. “So you made it all about you. I’m disappointed in you, Bettina.”

Her mouth snapped shut, her chin tensing. “You never told me that Madame Celia was a...
fortune teller
! I just thought she was called Madame because she was
French!
”

“Oh dear,” he said. “Why does it even matter?”

She backed away from him. “The Bible warns against soothsayers and charlatans. I—I built this arm of the Order on a falsehood, on an abomination!”

Shrieking as though the devil himself had jumped onto her back, Sister Bettina fled from the room. Her footsteps echoed hollowly on the steps and in the corridor. Her scream bled through the wide expanse outside in the snow and ice and darkness.

Around the room, our strained breaths formed a chorus in the air. We heard nothing more from Sister Bettina.

Jumping to my feet, I approached Madame Celia. “Please, I need to speak to you. I’ve seen you before, in Tobias’s house across the bay. You stopped me from seeing where he placed the book....”

“
Ma chérie
, I had to stop you,” she told me. “You were seeking the book.”

“I only sought it to keep the castle from ever having it.”

Her gaze grew calm. “Humans cannot trust themselves with knowledge such as this. It almost drove Tobias Batiste insane. He had to destroy his translations and hide the book, and then go into another earth. He could no longer allow himself to possess such knowledge.”

My limbs trembled—from cold and fatigue and fear. “Please. Your Order can keep possession of the book. You can help us learn how to overpower the castle—and the serpents.”

“Ah...” her eyes saddened. “I feel your want. But once the castle knows the book has been found, they will find a way to it. Evil seeks evil. No matter where we hide it.”

“Knowledge is not evil.” Sophronia stood by the door, her expression desperate.

“Perhaps not, Chérie, but there is no other source of knowledge on the earth like the books of the
Speculum Nemus
.”

The sound of static electricity shot through the air. Henry Batiste strode into the room, his cape flying behind him and his boots stomping the floor.

“Madame Celia....” His eyes were cold and hard and intent. “I sensed you in the spirit plane. But why are you here, in the museum, of all places?”

She stared back at him directly. “You and I have tracked each other for almost a century, Monsieur Batiste, across spirit planes and worlds. Perhaps it is time to bring this dance to end....”

He shot her a confused glance, then turned his head toward me. “And you, Cassandra Claiborne, could have run anywhere, yet you ran here, too....” Suspicion tinged the lines of his face.

I held my breath as he noticed the table in the center of the room. His face grew slack as his gaze came to rest on the book. In a flash, he vanished and reappeared alongside the book, his hands reaching to take the box.

A silent scream tore loose inside, but no sound fled my frozen jaw.

Henry grasped the box in both hands, staring fixedly at the insignia of the mirrored tree, his eyes like those of a wild animal guarding its prey.

As though in slow motion, Madame Celia and her Order appeared in a circle around the table. Henry tried to leave, but he seemed trapped by the Order, unable to move.

“You know we cannot allow you to take this book, Henry!” With a sweeping gesture, Madame Celia cast a flame over the book. On the book’s cover, the lines of the barely discernible etching of the mirrored tree glowed red. I cried out as the flame grew and engulfed the second book of the Speculum Nemus—its pages turning to ash.

Madame Celia and her ghostly followers bowed their heads briefly to us, and faded away, until they were gone.

Henry stood with the crumbling ashes falling through his fingers. Anger and grief boiled through him. He raised tortured eyes to us. “I will return, with the might of the chateau, and we will take you—every last one of you—and discover what you have seen in that tome. We will scour your memory banks, even if we have to scrape every other memory of your life from your minds.”

Henry vanished.

The smell of ash and burnt leather thickened in the air, scalding my nostrils and leaving an acrid taste at the back of my throat. I was aware of the vastness outside this small basement, of the howling snow storm in the distance, of the darkness and space and the reaches of the universes.

We stared at each other—all of us lost—Sister Bettina’s followers as much as any of us. Molly held her head in her hands, her eyes glazed with terror. I looked away—I didn’t want to see my own state of mind reflected in her face. Raif and Ben helped Sophronia and Lacey to their feet. The two scientists stared at the ashen pages on the floor.

Lacey pulled stringy white hair from her eyes and forehead. “They’ll be here soon.”

Dr. Blakeney removed his glasses, wiping sweat from his pallid face. “I don’t understand what just happened here—trickery, magic tricks....” His voice trailed away as his jaw trembled uncontrollably.

“Perhaps,” said Dr. Sharma, “we’re having trouble accepting an age where events and discoveries have run far, far past a point where science can make sense of it all. At this moment, we must face the situation at hand, and not try to understand what we cannot.”

Thoughts blazed through my mind—things connecting like the crisscrossing lines between the stars and planets in the book. My heart began hammering against my ribs. I was on the outside of the kaleidoscope, looking in. I could see pieces rearranging themselves, fitting together in a new pattern.

I swallowed the bitter ash of the
Speculum Nemus
that coated my tongue. “There still might be a way.”

Frozen faces turned toward me.

“Cassie—how?” Molly’s voice was tense, urgent.

“What if, that illustration on the last page of the book was put there as an instruction?” Words rushed from my lungs. “That picture of the snakes and the mountains and the iron mirror—maybe it’s a clue—a last-ditch instruction on what to do if everything goes wrong and humans lose control of the serpents... What if... it’s even a way of killing the serpents?”

“I’m not following your logic.” Dr. Blakeney crossed his arms, his voice tight and shaken, and almost petulant. “We’re talking about highly intelligent creatures here—and you’re going to show them a mirror?”

My throat constricted. “The crystal planet is our iron mirror.”

“What do you mean?” said Dr. Sharma. “How can we possibly tell them about this planet?”

My lungs tightened. In the glow of the lamplight, the faces that had turned to me were as though they were paintings, each person hushed and waiting.

“Prudence can. She can find this planet and show it to the empress through the crystal eye.”

C
ASSIE

We stepped from the refraction into the space beside the castle chapel. There was an eeriness in the late afternoon light–a deepest orange, almost funereal light. The sun hung like a fading light bulb on a chain, soon to flicker out. Wind stole in and whipped the fall leaves into a frenzy–the wind a messenger of the storm churning in the mountainous gray clouds. Everything had an air of unreality. We stood as actors on a stage, waiting to be given our cues. But there was no one to give any cues, or any direction. There was the remotest of chances that we could do what we’d come here to do.

My hair whipped across my face as I turned to the others. All of us who had the serpent shadows inside us had come to the castle. To have us come here would be the last thing the castle would expect, but our element of surprise wouldn’t last long.

We’d sent everyone else from the museum to the other earth through the refraction near the frozen bay. With Sister Bettina dead—we’d found her serpent-chewed bones out on the ice—her hold over the refraction was gone. Frances had protested leaving Molly, but Molly had assured her she would come back. I prayed she could keep that promise.

We hadn’t had time to plan any real strategy. Our only plan was to draw the people and spirits of the castle out long enough for Nabaasa and me to get into the tower where Prudence was and then down into the ocean cave. It was a desperate plan, but it was all we had left. The army jacket I wore felt heavy on my back, but it had secure compartments in which to carry the crystal eye—if I even got that far with our plan.

Ben swallowed numbly, his eyes almost glazed as he stared up at the castle walls. Raif seemed lost, unable to comprehend where he was. Aisha, Molly and Lacey stood with slack limbs and open mouths—I had to remind myself that they had never been here. The loss of their otherworld counterparts remained raw at the back of my mind, a wound that would never truly heal.

Nabaasa stood firm, holding the medical kit tightly against herself. Ethan’s grandfather steadied himself on his walking stick, the wind blowing fiercely at his white hair and beard. I sensed they all felt what I did—the evil that penetrated everything, even the landscape itself. The taste of salt thickened in my mouth. The wind carried the briny water of the fountain through the air, all the way from the darkness of the serpent cave.

“We’re ready.” Nabaasa’s voice was firm and solid. She was ready for whatever came next and she was not cowed by this place. It was a voice I needed to hear right now.

“What a monstrosity.” Ethan’s grandfather shielded his eyes from the late afternoon sun that glinted across the battlement.  Silhouetted figures walked the battlement, their long coats flying back in the strong wind. Panic shot through me—we were sure to be seen. But then I saw him—a boy that they were taking to the edge of the battlement, to the edge of the cliff. The people could only be taking him to the edge for one thing. They meant to kill him.

My mouth went dry. The boy strode forward with a fierceness that I knew well.

“It’s Ethan... isn’t it? We need to get up there....” Ben’s voice cut thinly in the wind, a voice without hope.

Terror tumbled in my mind like a threshing machine. There was no way of reaching him in time.

Balthazar held Ethan in his grasp, and sent him violently up into the air and over the wall. Ethan was thrown out into the wide sky, his body back lit by the sun. My heart thudded against my ribs, keeping time for each second while Ethan fell to the rocks far below the cliff.

––––––––

E
THAN

The Batistes and the Baldcotts hold me in their iron grip. A single thought pierces my mind—a thought of Cassie and all I promised her. I told her we’d win, that we’d save her sister—but I didn’t predict the treachery of Sister Bettina and the Order. The only thing I have is that Cassie isn’t here to see this.

The men push me onward. Hours of their questions and their torture has left my mind gray. I told them nothing and now Balthazar has ordered my death. He cannot bear the one who took Cassie away from him to live.

I don’t struggle as Balthazar lifts me up. There is no way out of this. Without hesitation, he hurls me far over the edge of the battlement. I’m free-falling, hurtling. The rocks below will tear me apart within seconds. I try to find peace before my end, but it doesn’t come. Cassie’s out there, still living this torment. Wind whistles around my ears, mocking my human panic. Whether those who inherit the earth are alien or human, the earth will remain—it will endure all of us.

My eyes close against the scene below.

I slide into an airless darkness. I feel no impact, no splintering of bones into the ground. The smell of camphor and wax and dead flowers fills my head.
Is this death?

I’m aware of my body still. I can think and reason. But my vision is obstructed, like I’m looking through a narrow tunnel.

My limbs tumble onto a hard surface. Hands help me to my feet. Blue eyes are before me—crinkled and hooded blue eyes that I know so well. White hair falls across his creased forehead.

His eyes grow wet. “Ethan my boy, I thought this old body would give out without ever seeing you again.”

His hand grasps my arm and I know in that instant he’s real. He drops his walking stick to hug me, and I’m half-holding him up. I smell wood fire—-and my mind is taken back to the cottage. But this isn’t the cottage.

“Granddad....” I can barely trust myself to speak. For almost two years I haven’t known whether he was alive or dead.

He draws back, and someone hands him his walking stick.

I see others now. Ben and Raif step up to me.

A grin cracks across Ben’s face. “Hey, Bud.”

My eyes focus now. I’m no longer in a tunnel. Beyond Ben and Raif stand Nabaasa, Soph, Aisha, Molly and Lacey. I’m in a church—the chapel of the castle. Old, moldering roses still decorate the altar and pews. The stink of wax drifts from the wooden floor.