Worlds of Ink and Shadow (14 page)

She smiled at the memory, idly wiping her hands on her apron. Emily had to practically bite her own tongue to keep from hurrying her. There were beets on the sideboard, and Emily hated peeling those.

Tabby took a jar of flour from a high shelf. “Well, I'll tell you what happened exactly as me ma told it to me.” She opened the jar and began to scatter flour onto the table. “She and her sister were coming home one night, all alone. They were going
along that path in the valley that goes along Bridgehouse Beck, and they'd just reached that place where the water turns toward Stanbury—you knows it.” Emily nodded. “The beck wasn't like it is now, of course—stinking o' mutton and rotten fish. 'Twere once quite a bonny place—had a sort of magic to it, if you can imagine, especially on a summer night, such as this was, with the moon glinting off t' water.” Emily stopped her potato peeling and leaned forward.

“Now, they had some very good reason for going without a chaperone, I expects,” Tabby said. This was as close as she ever came to suggesting Papa was lax on this point. “Only I never asked what. At any rate, there he was, Old Tom, sitting on a rock in the middle of the beck. He lifted his hat and greeted them very pleasant-like, me ma said, though he seemed to be paying most of his attentions to her sister Tabitha. I never did meet the woman, though I was named for her—beautiful and wild, by all accounts. Aye, Old Tom took a fancy to her.”

“But who is Old Tom, exactly?” Emily asked. “Or what?”

Tabby shrugged and took a bowl of risen dough from the sideboard and turned it out onto the table. “Some folk say he's a devil, a sly old devil that somebody missed when they were all getting swept down to . . .” She nodded to the floor. “Others say he's Robin Goodfeller, the fairy, but he's no Puck like in your Shakespeare. I even once heard someone say that his name is Janus, and that the Romans brung him over in their boats, but I figure he was playing tricks on Yorkshire folk long afore that.”

She pushed her sleeves above her elbows and began to work her dough. “So this Old Tom says to me Aunt Tabitha, ‘What is your pleasure, my dear? A girl such as you is too beautiful for this little village. I expect you've a mind to see Paris or Venice or Rome.'” Tabby was kneading vigorously as she spoke. “Old Tom, he's standing on a rock in the middle of the river, and me ma can see right away there's sommat wrong about him. He's nobbutt Charlotte's height, and he's got yellow eyes and he's dressed all in furs, though the night were warm. Are you going to peel those tayters or not?”

“Yes, yes,” Emily said, taking up her knife again.

“Well, me Aunt Tabitha was a vain thing, according to Mother, and so instead of ignoring him, she replied . . .” Tabby stopped kneading, put a hand on her chest, and batted her eyelashes. “‘And will you take me to these places, sir?'” Emily laughed at the imitation.

“Old Tom grins like a fox and says”—Tabby lowered her voice to a growl—“‘For a price, my dear. For a price.' But me Aunt Tabitha only tosses her pretty hair and says: ‘I will marry a rich man, and he will take me to Paris and Venice and Rome, old man. You will get no price from me.'

“Now this was a foolish notion, o' course. The chances of a Haworth girl finding a rich feller to take her away was even less likely then than they are now. Still, Old Tom says: ‘True that may be, true that may be. But could he take you here?'

“Then Old Tom give a sweep of his hand, and what does me
ma see but a strange scene just 'cross the beck. Folk are dancing on the grass—the strangest, most beautiful folk she's ever seen. Some have animal faces, and some have insect wings, and some have long blue hair the color of sky, and they're all dressed for a grand party. ‘Come dance with the fairies,' Old Tom says. ‘The price is the blue o' your eye. The blue o' your eye for a night o' dancing.'

“Well, it took a moment for them to understand what he was saying, but the long and short of it was, he was asking for Tabitha to give up one of her God-given gifts. Not her sight, mind, but the beauty of her eyes. Would you bargain that for one night o' frolic?”

Emily shook her head.

“Nay. Nor would me mother, but Tabitha had so many gifts, and she'd always loved tales of the fey folk, so she were sorely tempted. Luckily Mother had more sense. She picked up a rock and threw it at Old Tom. ‘Gerraway, old devil!' she cried, and she hurried her sister away as the man in fur yelled blasphemies after 'em.”

Tabby wiped her brow, leaving a smear of flour on her forehead. “And that's all,” she said, beginning to knead again. “Me mother said she often dreamed o' those beautiful folk, but she never saw them nor Old Tom again.”

Emily sighed at the potato in her hand, looking at the large pile she had still to skin. It was an interesting story, but she wasn't sure it had been worth the price. Old Tom might have something
to do with Verdopolis and crossing over—or he might not. “I must have been very small when I heard this story,” she said.

“Branwell used to love that one,” Tabby said. “Once I caught him near t' wall out back, holding out a bonny shell someone had given him.” She mimicked a high, little boy's voice: “‘Old Tom, Old Tom, show me Paris, show me Rome. I'll give you this shell!'” Tabby laughed. “I gave him a swat, I don't mind saying—not that I think Old Tom is a danger in Haworth now.”

Emily stared. Tabby had acted out the little scene, and when she'd gotten to the part where Branwell had offered up the shell, she had held out her empty hand, palm upward, just as Charlotte and Branwell did whenever they crossed over.

CHARLOTTE

L
OOKING AT HERSELF IN THE MIRROR WASN'T
usually something Charlotte did any more than was necessary, but now she forced herself to stare. She had finished her drawing of Anne and was sitting at the dressing table in the bedroom she shared with Emily. There was nothing more starkly real than her own pinched features in the glass; examining them kept her mind from wandering back to Verdopolis.

There were many things she could be doing—starting another drawing, planning tomorrow's lessons, helping Tabby in the kitchen—but a heaviness in the air and in her heart kept her from acting. She got up and opened the window, but there was no breeze. Emily was in the backyard. She was gazing out across the moor, where storm clouds were gathering. As
Charlotte watched, Emily climbed the low stone wall and set out toward the darkening horizon. Foolish girl. She was sure to get caught in the rain and miss her tea, but Charlotte found she didn't have the will to call her back.

“I seem to be made of sorrow,” said a voice. Mary Henrietta's voice.

“No,” Charlotte said out loud.

There would be no more hearing the voices of her characters, no more writing down their words. Writing would keep them alive for her somehow, and if they lived she would eventually cross over to them. It was inevitable. She must turn away from her beautiful people forever.

She sat back down in front of the mirror and sighed. Her hair was particularly limp this afternoon, and there was an angry red blemish in the center of her forehead, but there was something strangely steadying in the plainness of her own face. Nothing so ill-favored could ever exist in Verdopolis. From the mirror came an answering sigh.

Charlotte's stomach tightened. The sound hadn't been in her head; she'd actually heard it. She looked around, thinking something might have fooled her senses—a piece of paper falling to the floor, perhaps, or a bird fluttering past the window.

“Why does tragedy hang around me like a shroud?” said Mary Henrietta. “It is the truest thing about me.”

This time Charlotte knew what she heard was real. The voice had come from the mirror, she was sure of it. She leaned
forward. There, in the mirror's depths, was an image. It was blurred and dark at first, but it soon began to coalesce. An elegant jaw. Rose-petal lips. A sadness around the eyes. Mary Henrietta, the beautiful duchess, turned her head this way and that, oblivious to Charlotte, examining her perfect complexion.

“All Zamorna's wives and lovers end this way,” she said. “In sighing.”

Mina Laury was behind her, working through the duchess's chestnut curls with a silver comb. Though less refined, the maid was almost as pretty as the mistress, with her bright blue eyes and buxom charm, but now those eyes were dimmed and her brow was creased with worry. “Do not trouble yourself with such unwholesome thoughts, milady. I pray you.”

Charlotte blinked, expecting this vision to disappear at any moment, but everything was perfectly clear now. Beyond the two women, a lady's dressing room was visible, ornate with lace and frills and dainty furnishings. It was not the dressing room of Wellesley House, but of course it wouldn't be, Charlotte thought with a pang of regret. Wellesley House had burned.

“I feel that I have been all Zamorna's loves,” Mary Henrietta said. “Lady Helen Victorine, poor Rosamund, Marion Hume—they are all me. We are all the same idea, and we all die.”

“Die! Sweet lady, do not speak the ugly word! I cannot bear it.”

Charlotte had no sense that she was creating this conversation, and yet Mary Henrietta was voicing a truth that sometimes troubled her. All her heroines died, though she never intended it
when she created them. Each time, she believed that Zamorna and his new love would live happily ever after—but this never came to pass. Now it seemed to Charlotte that all his lovers had been doomed from the start, that their deaths had always been there, overshadowing them—and she found she didn't want this for Mary Henrietta. Branwell had been right when he said that there was something luminous about her.

A thought sprang to her mind. Not only did Zamorna's lovers die, but there was often some loyal friend or servant who followed her mistress to the grave. With a sickening feeling in the pit of her stomach, Charlotte realized that Mina Laury might be doomed as well. Branwell was right about that, too: Charlotte's stories did repeat themselves.

“Why, Mina,” Mary Henrietta said, “you're crying.”

“I'm not.” The maid bent to the mirror, blotting her eyes with a handkerchief. “It's only . . . I'm sure I would not wish to live without you, milady.”

“Oh, my dear, sweet girl. You must not take my foolish talk so seriously. I have had such horrible dreams of late—I'm certain they are to blame for my dark mood.”

Mina sniffed. “You have told me nothing about your dreams.”

“I did not wish to trouble you—and you have no right to scold, my dear. I hear you calling out at night, and yet you do not confide in me.” She patted her maid's hand. “Our nightmares are not so remarkable, I suppose, considering the upheavals in our lives. Let us blame my wicked father. I know that Zamorna
blames him for all our woes. How strange that Rogue has set the whole city buzzing about the Genii. Do they exist or don't they? Is he mad or isn't he?”

Mina laughed through her tears and picked up the comb again. “He is a fool, I say.”

Mary Henrietta smiled up at her. “Get my other comb, will you, my dear? This one pulls my hair.”

As soon as Mina turned away, Mary Henrietta's smile fell, and sorrow returned to her face. “I wish the Genii did exist,” she said softly. “I would ask them why death pulls at me so.”

“And I wish I could save you,” Charlotte whispered to the glass, but she somehow felt it was beyond her power. Her story was progressing without her now—but perhaps that's what stories always did. Perhaps the control she'd always thought she'd had was an illusion. She and Branwell created characters with needs and desires and flaws and then set them on their paths. Everything that happened afterward, all the collisions and disasters, were inevitable as clockwork, and even the Genii couldn't stop them.

“Oh, strange gods,” Mary Henrietta said, “if this mirror were a portal to your world, I would smash through and make you answer me.” There was a hint of anger in her voice that surprised Charlotte.

Mary Henrietta leaned toward the mirror, her brow furrowed, and Charlotte thought she must have found some minuscule blemish, but then a look of dread struck her face. “Oh, Mina,
come look! There is something in the glass. Something hideous.”

Charlotte put her hands over her mouth in surprise, afraid that they could see her, afraid that her own face might seem hideous to such perfect people.

Mina reappeared, bending over her mistress's shoulder. “But there is nothing, milady.”

“You do not see it?” Mary Henrietta's eyes widened. “Oh, heavens. Am I going mad?” She touched her cheeks, her hair.

“See what?”

“It is . . . myself,” Mary Henrietta said, peering close. “But I am so changed. Oh, Mina. Is this some harbinger?”

“There is nothing. Come away. Come away now.” Mina put her arm around her mistress and tried to get her to rise from her chair.

“Oh, tell me this face is not my own.”

“You are becoming overwrought. I beg you, come away!”

Charlotte stared into the glass, and for a moment she seemed to catch her heroine's eye. Then all at once Mary Henrietta began to transform, the perfect symmetry of her face twisting to irregularity and ugliness. Her cheeks grew gaunt and hollow, her lovely hair matted and uncared for.

“I have nightmares of this face,” said Mary Henrietta's voice, but it was faint and fading, and the words didn't match the lips of the woman who now grinned at Charlotte from the mirror.

“Who are you?” Charlotte breathed. She felt sure that this new person could see her, could see
into
her. “What are you?”

The woman only smiled wider, showing a blackened bottom tooth. There was something terribly unnerving about her expression, something wrong and broken in her eyes, and yet there was something familiar about her, too.