Another Faust (47 page)

“I don’t care,” she sobbed. “I don’t care”’hiccup — “how ugly I get. Bicé hates me. I’ve lost my sister” — hiccup — “forever. I” — hiccup — “sold” — hiccup — “her out.”

“Ah, Belle, don’t cry. Maybe she’ll forgive you. Now, can you just tell me where Christian is?”

Belle calmed down a bit and gave Valentin a strange look. “I don’t know. What’s wrong with you? Can’t you see everything’s falling apart?”

“OK, but when was the last time you saw him? Did he say where he was?”

Belle got up from her seat by the window.

“Where are you going?” Valentin asked.

“To find Bicé.”

Belle wiped the tears off her face as she ran toward Bicé’s room. On her way over, she caught a glimpse of herself in a candlelit window. Her heart gave a lurch. When Belle finally made it all the way down Bicé’s hall, she stopped abruptly. She had expected to have to knock, to have to beg for Bicé to open the door. But the door was ajar. It had been left open carelessly — so unlike Bicé. The silence gave her an eerie feeling, as if something was wrong. She felt the way she used to feel when she was little and something bad had happened to Bicé. Like the way her knees hurt when Bicé got a scrape or the way she got a lump in her throat when their mother yelled at Bicé.

She reached for the door and pushed it open. She opened her mouth to say something, but suddenly all the air was knocked out of her body. There, staring silently into a tiny hand mirror, was Bicé. But it wasn’t Bicé. Her hair was longer, her body shapelier, her face thinner, like their mother’s. Belle gave a silent gasp. Her twin sister was at least twenty-five years old.

Belle wanted to rush over to her sister, to find out what had happened, but her legs wouldn’t move. “Bicé — Bicé, is that you?”

Bicé’s hands were still shaking, but she managed to motion her sister over. Suddenly something inside Belle felt absolutely, utterly, irreversibly sorry. Through her tear-blurred eyes, the twenty-five-year-old Bicé looked exactly like their mother. Belle ran over and buried her ruined face in Bicé’s lap.

“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, Bicé. Please forgive me.”

Bicé stroked Belle’s dull mousy hair lovingly. She hadn’t expected her anger to melt away so quickly. But Belle was sorry, and these were extreme circumstances. Belle could feel Bicé’s hands still trembling. She lifted her head.

“What happened to you? Why?”

“I’m old, Belle.”

“What do you mean?”

“I wasted my life, sitting alone, reading my books.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Remember when Nicola gave us these gifts? When she told me that I could hide anytime I wanted?”

Hearing Bicé call Madame Vileroy by her first name was jarring to Belle. “Yeah,” she said. “It was just five years ago, when we all got our gifts. I’m so sorry she’s made you think you’ve been here all your life. It was just five years . . . not fifteen.”

“No. I
have
been here all my life. She tricked me, Belle.”

“But . . .”

“It’s been so many years. At first, it was great. I could read all the books I wanted. She gave me tons of them. I could learn languages. She pushed me to keep going. How long do you think it takes to learn so many?”

“I . . . I don’t know.”

“Not days . . . not months. It takes
years. Years.
Do you understand?”

“But if you stopped time, then it doesn’t matter how long —”

“She didn’t tell me that my body would keep growing old. Everyone else stopped, but I kept going.”

Belle’s eyes grew round with understanding. “Oh, no,” she whispered.

“She’s been keeping me the same age as the rest of you with a serum that she gave me every night — a serum that erases the time that I spend hiding, as long as I keep taking it for the rest of my life. At first, when I didn’t know that I was still growing, she told me it was medicine . . . for my headaches. But then, after I had done it way too much, she finally told me. But by then, I couldn’t stop. Without the serum, I would die.”

“Die?”

“I’m past death, Belle. The time I spent hiding, it’s been more than a hundred years.”

Belle felt a wave of nausea. Bicé let out a small laugh and went on.

“I was already in my twenties when we got here. Remember when we went to that school play? I turned thirty in the library. I spent a big chunk of my seventies at some golf game. Without the serum, I’ll grow to my natural age and die.”

Belle looked confused. “But you’ve already taken the serum, right? So it’s done its work. Those years didn’t count.”

“That’s not how it works. Maybe
erase
is the wrong word. The serum doesn’t erase those years. It masks them. It hides the years that I spent hidden. See? And it only works if I keep taking it. She designed it like that on purpose. Nicola wants me to be dependent on her.” Then Bicé looked down, ashamed. “That’s how she’s been keeping me here. I need her.”

“I . . . I don’t understand. Why would she . . . ?”

“It wasn’t really clear to me either until tonight. I always wondered why she would give me such a big gift, with no strings attached. But then again, before that night when you brought Thomas over, I didn’t really know who she was, and I thought she gave me the gift for the same reason she gave it to all of you. That she was some sort of witch and she had adopted us. But then, when I found out what you guys did, I wondered why she would give me the ability to hide. Did I sell my soul, too? Did I sell something else? Tonight, I finally realized what happened. She kidnapped me at first because that was the only way she could have you.”

“I’m so sorry . . .”

Bicé put up her hand to silence her. “But then, at some point after that, she started to want my soul, too.”

Belle gasped.

“But I wouldn’t give it to her. I guess that’s why I didn’t have that mark on my chest. I just wasn’t willing. And she never actually asked me flat out, since I didn’t know who she was, and my memory was gone. So she gave me the gift, because she knew that I was confused and scared, that I would find it attractive — the chance to hide away, to be alone with my books. She knew that I would become addicted to hiding, use it too much, and then become dependent on her forever — even be willing to barter for my soul. She didn’t tell me about the aging until I was already too old. Up until then, I thought the serum was for my headaches and to keep me awake while I hid.”

Belle hiccuped, remembering the time when she had shared her sister’s loneliness.

Bicé went on. “Then, after I found out about who she was, she gave me some time to decide, to choose between my soul and the serum. My soul or my life. And so I began to hide more and more, to prolong my life, and also because . . .” Bicé stopped, reconsidering her words. “My time has run out, Belle.”

“What happens now?”

Bicé’s voice broke. “She didn’t leave me any for tonight. She doesn’t need me anymore. She knows she can’t have me. And she can’t trust me.” Belle looked confused, and Bicé went on. “A little while ago, even before I knew about the trick she had played on me, I started to reach a goal she never thought I would reach. It all went wrong for her and her plan, and so she started trying to stop me from hiding. I was learning too much. She would do things to scare me, send Victoria to spy, torture me in my dreams, come to me while I was hiding . . .”

Belle didn’t want to know any more of this horrible story, this curse that she had inflicted on her sister, but she asked anyway. “What were you trying to do?”

“You’ll know in time,” said Bicé.

Bicé’s resolve made Belle feel two inches tall. The only reason Bicé had been worth keeping was that she was the key to keeping Belle. But now it seemed that Madame Vileroy didn’t want Belle anymore — and so she didn’t need Bicé. A fresh surge of guilt washed over her.

“I’m sorry, Bicé. It’s my fault you got into this.” Belle began to sob again on Bicé’s lap. “You don’t deserve this.”

“Yeah, I do. You wanted to be pretty, but I accepted her gift too. I drank her serum. I was arrogant enough to think I could know everything there was to know in one lifetime. I can’t believe it . . . I spent my whole life in a cave.” Bicé gave an ironic laugh.

Belle knew now why her sister had been so fidgety, so scared of the world she spent so little time in, always looking for a place to hide away.

“I wish I’d just waited,” Belle said, her head still in Bicé’s lap.

“What do you mean?” Bicé asked.

“You look beautiful.
We
would have been beautiful. Now, because of me, neither of us gets a chance.”

Belle couldn’t stop the tears from racing down her rough, blotchy cheeks. Inside, she felt a torrential regret. At twenty-five, her twin sister was something out of a 1920s postcard — so classic, her eyes like an oasis, pools so blue you’d think they were a mirage in the pale desert, even in a black-and-white card. She could almost see Bicé, the traveler, a true beauty with her gorgeous raven hair and long olive legs, how she would have been in another life, standing in a train station with a fashionable hat, hair like feathers, posing for a picture, looking so timeless you’d think she might not be real. But it was too late. Bicé looked older now, the fresh-faced beauty hurtling slowly toward middle age, and the unthinkable beyond. She was changing by the minute, and Belle felt her heart jump up in her throat.

“Bicé, we have to find the rest of that serum.”

“And what about you?” asked Bicé.

“We don’t have time for that. I’m OK with myself now. I’ve been addicted to that stuff long enough. I just want to leave. I’ll live with what I have.”

Bicé smiled at her sister. She could smell her stench stronger than ever now, like a rotting corpse turned inside out. As sorry as she felt for her sister, and for herself, Bicé knew that Belle had given up on her obsession. And that made her want to forgive, to live the last few hours of her life in peace with her sister.

Just then, Christian burst into the room. At the sight of Bicé, he stopped.

“I’m growing old.” Bicé looked back at him.

Christian just stood there, looking stupid.

“Christian. It’s me,” said Bicé, trying to snap him out of it.

He stopped staring and said, “What?”

“Let’s get out of here.”

“You didn’t want to leave before.”

“I had to think about some things.”

“But now?”

“Now I want to leave.”

Belle, Bicé, and Christian ran out of the room with a new determination. Along the way, Belle told Christian the story. Finally, after all this time, Christian understood why Bicé had been reluctant to leave — that it was a life-and-death decision for her.

Had a sister ever made such a sacrifice, or even fathomed doing what Bicé was willing to do just then? She had forgiven all that they had done to her and decided to leave, knowing that if she took them away from there, away from any chance of finding her green bottles, she’d die before they even made it downtown. Christian realized that whenever he pressured her to leave, he had been telling her to lay down her life for them. They were halfway to the front door when Christian stopped.

“We can’t go.”

“I’m not spending my last hours here,” Bicé said, pulling his arm.

“No, we’re not just going to let you die. What happens if we get back that serum? Will you be able to go back to normal?”

Bicé shrugged. She wasn’t sure of anything now.

“No matter what we do, we have to hurry,” said Belle, watching the two moths circling their heads. “If those things are around, it’s only a matter of time before Vileroy finds out.”

Christian said, “I have a plan.”

Victoria had spent the better part of the night trying to revive her dying hive. She picked them up, one by one, to see if they were dead or just stunned. Finally she had lain down and fallen asleep with the creatures covering her, some dead, some moving like a fitful blanket. When she awoke, what seemed like hours later, several of them had begun to fly around on their own and the floor full of carcasses began to clear, giving way to a new gray buzzing cloud. Victoria stood to one side, watching. They weren’t as strong as they used to be. They were slow, weak, disoriented. Sometimes, a few of them would knock into each other. She stepped into the middle of the cloud. She caught a word here, a phrase there. She was about to stomp away when she saw two giant hornets fly in through the door, past her head, and into the dwindling, emaciated hive. Her mind began to soak up what the hornets had seen, what some of their brothers were seeing now — Buddy running down the hall, looking back at the bugs while they chased him.
Stupid droid.
He kept looking back, as if expecting that they would catch up with him. Then Victoria saw him enter Christian’s room, sit by Christian’s side, and pick up a colored pencil.

Christian looked at Buddy and said, “Maybe it’s worth it.”

Buddy sat with his notebook on his lap as if he was trying to entice Christian into teaching him some more.

“You think she’ll take me back?”

Buddy nodded, keeping his head bowed, his sad eyes fixed on the floor.

Victoria’s heart was beating faster and faster. Was Christian changing his mind again? When he had come into the house all those years ago as a ten-year-old, he had taken one look at all of them, and it seemed like he knew immediately what Vileroy was. He had changed his mind, didn’t want her deal anymore, and tried to run away. Of course, by then it was too late. And now, Victoria laughed at the inconsistency of his decisions. So typical. So weak. Now he was back to grabbing for the prize.