Vienna (35 page)

Away from the restaurant, she closed her eyes. A deep breath and she could see the route back to the hotel. It was okay. All she had to do was follow the map.

She'd covered less than a block before the clouds sank through the stone buildings. Vienna imagined herself walking along the bottom of an ocean trench. Down below the fish, in the darkness where nothing lived. Where everything was peaceful. A few steps more brought the first raindrops.

She sought shelter in an entryway identified as the Gemäldegalerie of the Kunsthistorisches. She remembered the last word as meaning “museum.” No chance to buy a ticket before she was carried into the main gallery by a swarm of British tourists anxious to stay dry. It would be too embarrassing to return to the tellers and admit what happened and they would never believe her anyway.

She found herself in a circular atrium, set off by a ring of marble pillars. Shops around the circumference sold expensive coffee and cheap mementoes. The space was too big and it didn't fit right and if she didn't make it work now, it would never go away. She bought an English language pamphlet that had a map of where everything was, as well as an overview of the museum's history. Back to a small plastic table, conspicuously cheap among the beautiful pillars.

But she was still thinking of Mr. Hargrave and the cylinders of metal she'd found in Iceland.
How many of the gold cylinders would fit in a pillar?
And just like that, the nearest pillar went transparent in Vienna's thoughts. It began filling with slugs of gold.

Vienna recognized the dangerous pattern, but she was tired and the demon in her mind raced through the pillars, mesmerized by a recursive stream of geometry. They were not all the same size. This one fits inside this one, just like the manikins. Which was the smallest?

The pillars twisted and shifted together, warping the room like smoothly folding fabric. The shops unhinged and flowed around her in dizzying circles, still attached to the pillars. She compared slight differences in radii as the pillars overlapped in the origami room. Then there were only circles within circles.

The appearance of the wheels and their work was like unto the color of a beryl.

Wheels within wheels. A prophet's vision of heaven.

Her heart was racing. It was all numbers and it didn't fit inside her and it tasted like blood in her mouth and acid in her throat and it slithered through her stomach like a nightmare except there was never any waking up because it was real and no one ever really understood that.

Vienna didn't feel the rain on her face, didn't know she was outside. Didn't see the man standing behind her in the crowd; sunglasses in the rain. There was only a starburst of thoughts, cutting and terrible.

It's a love letter.

Start with the Sun and in the order of the planets and always as the planets move. One to measure distance one to measure time.

Circles within circles.

Her foot caught with a familiar tug.

My shoe is untied. I'll trip.

She kneeled down to tie it.

Let all be made level.

Seven planets. The alchemists' celestial guide. Quicksilver for Mercury, copper for Venus, silver for the moon, iron for Mars, tin for Jupiter, lead for Saturn. Gold for the sun. Metal cylinders hidden in manikins.

My shoe is untied.

She kneeled down.

Wheels within wheels. One to measure distance. One to measure time. Orbits arcing through space.

My shoe is untied.

Crouching to tie her shoe she saw the diagrams for Linz's orrery set across wet cobblestones. She followed the dizzying path of gears, spinning in long chains from the motor. She turned the motor and the Earth moved. The planets in an orrery traveled anticlockwise.

The machinery of God.

To have and hold.

“You're supposed to say they're not real.”

I better tie it.

A dusty geography manual from Bath:…
it may have been Ptolemy who gave us north as the zero angle of maps.…

I'll trip.

She took the laces in her hand.

A physics textbook published in 1903:
The Convention du Mètre, establishing the metric system was signed by eighteen countries on May 20, 1875. These were France, Germany, Austria …

My shoe is untied.

A star hidden among the planets.

Untied.

A shirt of endless tunnels. “I couldn't approach while the limo was here. They would have recognized me.”

I'll trip.

“That book is too boring for our little princess. Here is one on knights in shining armor.”

But I want to read about Sisi and the Star of Memphis.

“They would have recognized…”

“Knights in shining…”

“How far to that light?”

My shoe is untied.

“They would have…” More than one. Another man in Justine's limousine back in Brussels. Pointing at Vienna and laughing. “She walks funny.”

Wet pavement under her hands.
I'll trip.

“They used gold to tint the windows red.”

“Au” for aurium. The shining dawn. Enough for a plane ticket home, so far away.

Gold to measure distance.

Metal to measure time.

Start at the sun and walk north to Mercury. Each gram of gold translated into a meter. Then each gram of quicksilver stepped off anticlockwise in an orbital arc. Time recorded in the movement of the planets. Then out to Venus …

My shoe.

“… have recognized…”

The alchemy of the planets.

My shoe is untied.

She bent down to tie her shoe. “Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee, or abide by thy crib?”

“You never saw a unicorn.”

My shoe

My

My Little Storm Cloud

Justine?

You're just like her.

And the forest was full of ghosts; acolytes of a forgotten goddess, drowning in the lake by the Cart House. She felt water on her face.

Know ye not this parable? And how then will ye know all parables?

help me help me help me

Justine smiled. “You are now rid of my presence and annoyance; be happy in your own way.” Dying under the boughs of the ancient forest. The thick smell of pine. Winter wind through the trees. The dark shadow of the Cart House, warm lights in the windows.

“They were wrong to abandon you, my Lady. But I am forever your knight.” And it sounded like Lord Davy, but his hair was deep brown and there was no scar on his face. All around him were walls covered in pictures and diagrams and riding crops and medals. And there was blood dripping all over her and she cried and cried.

It's the rain that made you this way.

And that had to be true because the blood became cold rain, reaching her even though she was under all the pillars filled with gold.

A small crowd gathered around the girl in the courtyard. Her torso twisted as she rocked back and forth, her fingers clawing at the air. But no one was a doctor and no one felt safe touching the girl. It was obviously a seizure of some sort. Moving her might hurt her, and then who knew what the lawyers might do? The museum's eaves were keeping her dry, and she didn't seem to be in immediate danger.

A man tried to calm her with a reassuring stream of words. His companion thought he recognized her. “Wien.”

 

27

The museum courtyard was a gloomy mine shaft sunk in a massive outcrop of stone buildings. Vienna sat on the far side, a marionette slumped over tangled strings. Her hands jerked over cobblestones, working an impotent spell against whatever ripsaw vision had severed her from reality. A museum guidebook beside her, drinking rainwater and pissing a dark smear of ink. Meaning slipping to entropy.

The police held the crowd back. No one approached the girl. Her mouth half-open, torso rocking over collapsed legs. Her fingers grabbing at nothing.

Justine was escorted by the same officers who'd snatched her from the Belvedere and given her a heart attack ride through the Innere Stadt. Their car's two-tone siren a screeching echo of Vienna's ancestry, reaching out to protect the girl.

Then why leave her here, pinned to the wall by gawkers? It didn't make sense.
Unless this was a shadow of her ancestry as well?
Prince Rudolph had been caught in the woods with no witnesses to record his fate. No worry of that here. Cameras clicking at the girl, images flashing to Facebook and Flickr. Had the danger become so great that shame was her only shelter?

Would the same protection have been extended to me?

The wind shifted, kicking rain over Vienna.

Justine went to her, kneeled down. “Vienna?” It came to her that Vienna was tying shoelaces. Fingers winding together and pulling a bow tight, despite wearing flats. Justine cupped her hands over the girl's frantically working fingers. “Vienna?” It wasn't the textbook way to handle such a case. It wasn't what she would have tried back in the wards of Felton Gables.

Vienna slowly looked up. Through the rain, Justine could see tears filling her eyes. Her gaze held nothing of the place around her; pupils searching for a reset button she couldn't find.

“Vienna. It's time to go home.” Justine tightened her grip, stopping Vienna's fingers. The best thing would be to let Vienna lie down, but the pavement was sinking under a growing lattice of puddles.

“I'm a good girl,” she whispered. Justine remembered the words from their lovemaking. Fought back her own tears.

“You're a beautiful girl.”

“My head hurts.”

“I know.” Justine moved her right hand to Vienna's head, brushing back wet hair. “Can you stand?”

“The sky is spinning. Circles in circles. The machinery of God. Day into night into years. Prince Rudolph couldn't stop it and it ate him up.”

“We can sit longer, if you need to.”

“Did you know that carbon tetrachloride was first synthesized by Henri Regnault in 1839?”

“I didn't.”

“It's raining.”

“It is.”

“Petrichor.”

“Vienna?”

“The smell of water on soil. It's what makes everything seem fresh when it rains.” She was back, making eye contact for a heartbeat. “Do you think it made me the way I am? The rain?”

Justine tried to smile, knew it came out wrong. “Then let it rain.”

Vienna gathered her feet under herself and slowly rose, Justine holding her arm. “Vienna? Are you okay?”

“It's cold.” She threw her arms around Justine and held her with trembling strength. “I dreamed you were dead.”

“It's okay. I'm here.” Justine held her tightly for several seconds and then gently pried her loose so they could walk.

They made their way to the crowd. Hushed applause, as if Vienna had made a difficult chip at Augusta. People stepped forward, holding umbrellas over them. Justine thanked them with a half smile. She heard, among the strings of Austrian words, both her name and Vienna's.

But not everyone was helping. Justine saw Mr. Sunglasses from Emily's photographs, barely glimpsed as people stepped closer. Her world turned sickeningly, ugly thoughts pivoting on growing realization. Shift a little and new reflections appear.

Lord Davy still had access to the Cart House and all its noble, dusty history. He wouldn't have had to deal with Andries to uncover the estate's secrets, much less kill him. Even so, that didn't erase Grant's phone number from Davy's phone. Was there no one left to trust?

Justine quickened the pace as much as Vienna could handle. Protecting her head as she sank into the backseat of the police car.

In front of the Hotel Sacher, Justine assured the officers that Vienna would be fine. Once in their suite, she stripped Vienna down, held her in a warm shower, and toweled her dry. “Off to bed with you,” she finished.

“I'm not sleepy.”

“Doctor's orders.”

Vienna crawled under the covers, propping herself up on a stack of king-sized pillows. Justine went to the kitchen. The dissected remains of her Sony laptop were spread across the counter. Straight rows of tiny screws arranged by size. Letters popped off the keyboard and laid out alphabetically. Circuit boards evenly spaced over wet spots.
She held the components under water.
The hard drive had been taken from its spindle and bent almost in two.
She must have stomped it against a floor board.

“Vienna? What happened to my computer?”

“I wanted to see how it worked.”

Two weeks ago, it would have fit expectations.
She thinks I'll write it off to her condition.
Not a chance.

“I see.” Justine looked at the twisted hard drive. Something stored on the computer's disk.

“Are you mad?” Vienna asked.

All those pictures of the manikins changing. No proof of it left.
At least I have none.
What had Vienna discovered?

“No.” Too scared to be mad. Justine poured a glass of cold water and returned to Vienna. “Drink if you can.”

“It doesn't matter.”

“What do you mean?”

“We're at the last statue. They'll kill us.”

“Who?”

“Lord Davy. Or one of his friends.”

“Not going to happen. I promise.”

Vienna shifted. Her voice slow and careful. “We should open the last statue and tell everyone what's inside.” She paused, lips moving over the next words.

Getting more lies straight.

“It might save the woman who owns it, maybe,” Vienna continued. As if guessing that was the right thing to say.

She knows!
She has the answer to the coded riddle. The Star of Memphis. She only needs to see the cylinders inside the last manikin. But how?
The BlackBerry
.