Blythewood (35 page)

EVEN WITH MY little lamp, I felt as though I were being
swallowed by the dark. It had a texture like the heavy crepe my
mother used to trim mourning hats and a smell like cold ashes.
I could taste it in my throat, growing thicker as I went farther
into the bowels of the castle. I wanted desperately to flee back
up into the light, but I kept going, determined to find out what
Miss Frost was doing.

At the bottom of the stairs a stone-paved corridor sloped
even farther down. Water dripped down the walls and splashed
under my feet. The more I walked, the more I wondered if the
corridor was really a tunnel that led down to the river. A squeaking sound made me fear it was a passageway for rats—or worse.
Miss Swift had said that the lampsprites tunneled through the
snow and into the castle. Might other creatures from the Blythe
Wood also use this underground passage?

A loud creaking noise startled me so badly I nearly dropped
my lamp. I pressed myself into a niche in the stone wall and
listened. It sounded like metal grating on metal, rusted hinges groaning, a gate being opened . . . and then a low murmurous voice like ghosts whispering. I inched closer, the hair on
the back of my neck standing on end, skin prickling. The only
reason I wasn’t running back in the other direction was that I
didn’t hear the bell in my head. So there must not be any real
danger. Besides, I had Miss Emmy’s repeater. I could use it to
raise a concealing mist to hide from Miss Frost if I had to.

The murmurous voice came from behind the door. I carefully peered around it.
I was more surprised than if I’d come upon a room full of
ghosts. The low-ceilinged chamber was paneled in dark wood
and lined with glass-fronted bookcases. A small leather-upholstered campaign desk was fitted into one corner, a cast-iron
stove into the other. Miss Frost had opened one of the cases
and was moving small white objects around on a shelf, dusting them with the hem of her nightgown. At first I thought they
were seashells, but then she held one up to the light and I saw
that it was a tiny skull. A human-looking skull.
I let out an involuntary gasp. Miss Frost wheeled on me, her
eyes wide and glassy in the lamplight.
“There you are!” she cried, holding out the tiny skull. She
had spied me before I had a chance to conceal myself. “You’ve
let them get dusty! I told you they have to be kept in order for Sir
Malmsbury when he returns. This is his life’s work!”
I looked around the room at the thick ledgers, wicker baskets, butterfly nets, glass bell jars, microscopes, paraffin lamps,
hanging diagrams of skeletons, brass microscopes, shelves of
skulls and other bone fragments—and one embroidered reticule. It was a naturalist’s study perfectly preserved as a shrine
to Miss Frost’s lost mentor, Sir Miles Malmsbury. But what did
it have to do with van Drood?
“Well, don’t stand there gawking, girl! There’s cataloguing

to be done!” She pointed to the desk on which lay a large leather-bound ledger, next to a lit gas lamp and a box of matches.
Clearly Miss Frost thought in her confusion that I was Sarah.
Since I didn’t want to disabuse her of the notion, I sat down and
took up the fountain pen beside the ledger. As I pulled up my
chair I felt something stir against my feet beneath the desk and
heard the squeaking I’d noticed before.

I looked up to see if Miss Frost had noticed it, but she only
handed me a tray of bone fragments, each one labeled with a
small Roman numeral. “You can start with these,” she said.
Then, with a wistful glance around the study—as loving as if
the grisly assortment of bones had been love tokens—she left. I
sat for a moment wondering if I should go after her, but another
squeak from beneath the desk decided me. I crouched down,
lamp in hand. Two pairs of frightened eyes stared back at me.

“She’s gone now, Daisy,” I said. “You can come out.”
“How did you know it was me?” Daisy asked, crawling
awkwardly out of her hiding spot and cradling something in
the crook of her elbow.
“Your reticule,” I said, helping Daisy to her feet and staring at the creature nestled in the crook of her elbow. It was a
lampsprite, with white wings tipped with silver, covered in a
fine white down that formed a sort of dress on her slim body.
As she shook her wings free of the dust, I saw that one of her
wings was broken.
“It’s the sprite Blodeuwedd caught in Miss Swift’s class,”
I said. “The one you were supposed to bring to the specimen
room.”
“I told Miss Frost she escaped. I couldn’t let her be killed . . .
she’s a
person
.”
The little sprite hopped onto Daisy’s shoulder and brushed
her wings over Daisy’s cheeks, leaving a light silvery powder,
then trilled at Daisy in a high, squeaky voice.
“And you’re keeping her
here
? Weren’t you afraid Miss
Frost would find her?”
“Featherbell wanted to be close to her departed sisters.”
“
Featherbell
?” I asked.
The sprite whistled a long fluty tune and Daisy giggled.
“Well, actually that tune you just heard is her real name. In her
language it means ‘feathered-one-whose-voice-rings-like-abell,’ but I can’t pronounce
that
, so we agreed on Featherbell as
the closest translation.”
“You can understand her?” The sprite’s whistles and trills
sounded like the sounds the hawks made in their mews.
“Oh yes, you can, too, if you let her brush her wings on
your face. The sprites communicate with a combination of the
powder on their wings and sound waves directly to your brain.
They call it
powdering
—or actually ‘the-speech-which-usespowder-instead-of-voice,’ but I—”
“Couldn’t pronounce that. Got it. Okay, I’ll try it.”
The sprite looked from Daisy to me, tilting her head and
blinking her large blue eyes. She chirped uncertainly. “She’s really okay,” Daisy assured her.
The sprite still looked uncertain but she hopped from Daisy’s shoulder to mine, landing light as a butterfly. Her wings
brushing against my cheek felt like cobwebs. When she sang I
felt a vibration inside my brain that resolved into words.
“Greetings, friend of She-whose-name-means-a-flowerand-brings-food. Please do not blame your friend for hiding
me and keeping secrets from you. I would not like any harm to
come to her for rescuing me. She has been kind and good.”
I looked at Daisy, who was smiling proudly at the little
sprite, and felt as though I hadn’t really looked at her properly
for months. She’d subjected herself to Miss Frost’s temper and
forced herself to handle specimens that were repugnant to her
so she could take care of this wounded creature—which wasn’t
a creature at all, but a person with thoughts and feelings. I had
been as blind about their nature as I had been about Daisy’s.
“I know,” I said to the sprite, but smiling at Daisy. “She
is
kind and good. I won’t let any harm come to either of you. In
fact . . .” I held out my hand for her to hop on and studied her
wing. “I think I know someone who can fix your wing.”

The lamp I’d brought with me was nearly out of oil, but we didn’t
need it. With a flick of her unbroken wing, Featherbell emitted
a strong steady glow that lit up the stone corridor in more detail
than I cared to see. The walls were covered with a slimy green
mold, the floors running with black oily water from which rose
noxious vapors that twined around our ankles. When the vapors touched me I heard the bass bell toll in my head. I clasped
the repeater in my pocket and pressed its stem. A tinkling
chime played and the vapors retreated.

“How can you stand to be down here?” I asked Daisy.
“It wasn’t this bad at first. I think it’s been worse since the
snow’s been melting and seeping down through the stones.
The vapors started a couple of weeks ago—and it always seems
worse after Miss Frost has been down here.”

“A couple of weeks ago?” That would have been when I’d
seen Judicus van Drood breathe smoke into Miss Frost’s ear.
Could these noxious vapors be
tenebrae
? The thought made my
skin crawl. With Featherbell’s light I saw now that there were
other passages that turned off this main one. From one of them
I thought I heard the tinkling of bells. The candelabellum must
be that way, I thought, recalling that Miss Frost had come out
of the candelabellum chamber the night Nathan and I saw her
in the Special Collections Room. She must have used the candelabellum chamber as a shortcut to get into the Special Collections.

I hurried past the passage, the thought of the shadows moving in the bell-shaped chamber somehow even more unnerving
than the creeping vapors, and sprinted up the stairs. I checked
to make sure that Miss Frost’s classroom was empty and then
signaled Daisy and Featherbell to come through. Daisy closed
the bookcase behind us. As it swung shut I thought I saw a
wisp of smoke creep through the gap at the bottom, but then it
seemed to evaporate. I was relieved until Featherbell hopped on
my shoulder and swept her wings across my face.

Tenebrae
. The word rang in my head. I didn’t say anything
out loud, though, because I didn’t want to alarm Daisy, who
was nervous enough as it was.

“Remember how sorry he looked when he gave Featherbell
over to you? I’m sure he’ll help us.”
I wasn’t really as sure as I sounded, but I didn’t know what
else to do. It wasn’t healthy for Daisy to be spending so much
time down in the dungeons with the
tenebrae
, and she wouldn’t
abandon the sprite until she was well enough to fly back to the
woods on her own. I couldn’t be sure that Gillie wouldn’t turn
us all in, but I was hoping that his compassion for wounded
creatures would overcome his loyalty to Blythewood regulations. I just hoped we could find him. I’d never gone looking for
him at night.
I knew that Gillie had a room in the south tower, near the
mews. To get there we had to go across the Great Hall, up to
the fourth-floor landing of the South Wing, climb out onto
the catwalk, up a ladder to the roof, past the mews, and into
the tower. As we passed the mews I heard an excited fluttering
from the hawks inside and an answering thump from inside
Daisy’s reticule.
“I think she’s afraid of the falcons,” Daisy said.
We continued on past the mews to the tower. There was a
low door barely high as my head, with a brass knocker shaped
like a stag’s head. Daisy and I exchanged a worried look, and I
lifted my hand to the knocker. Before I could lower it the door
opened. Gillie stood, framed in lamplight, in a long-sleeved red
wool undershirt, loose corduroy trousers, black hair standing
on end. He gripped either side of the door with his hands, barring both our entry and view of the room beyond. In the low
doorway Gillie suddenly looked taller than he was—and more
imposing.
“What are ye girls doing here?” he growled. “Haven’t I said
often enough that my quarters are off limits?”
“Y-yes,” Daisy stammered, already backing away. I grabbed
her arm to keep her from fleeing.
“We’re very sorry to bother you, Gillie, but someone’s hurt
who needs your help.”
“Who’s hurt ye, lass?” he demanded. “I’ll have the bastard’s
head—”
“It’s not me,” I said quickly, surprised at the fervor of Gillie’s response. “It’s . . . well . . . a
smaller
someone. You might as
well show him, Daisy.”
Daisy stuck her hand in her reticule and lifted Featherbell
into the light. She sat cross-legged on her hand, arms crossed
over her tiny chest, glaring up at Gillie.
“We know it’s against the rules . . . ” I began.
“But I couldn’t let Miss Frost kill her,” Daisy broke in.
“She’s a person with thoughts and feelings and a family back in
the woods. And she doesn’t mean us any harm.”
Gillie reached for the sprite. Daisy started to pull back her
hand, afraid, as I was, that Gillie meant to capture Featherbell.
But he only held his hand out palm up, the way you’d hold an apple out to a nervous horse. Featherbell sniffed cautiously, stood
up, swept her uninjured wing over Gillie’s hand, and trilled off
a long musical tune that I only half understood—my powder
must have been wearing off. It seemed to be some complicated
formal greeting involving bloodlines, clan obligations, and an
ancient treaty. At the end of it, Gillie bowed his head. When he
lifted it his eyes were shining.
“Aye, little one, I havena forgotten. You are welcome here.
You two as well.” He looked at us. “Ye might as well come in,
but ye have to promise not to breathe a word of what ye see
here. Keep my secrets and I’ll keep yours.”
“We promise,” Daisy and I said at the same time.
Gillie stepped aside to let us in. As we stepped into the
small, low-ceilinged room I thought we’d entered an aviary. A
dozen brightly colored winged creatures fluttered around the
room or perched on roof beams over our head.
But they weren’t birds. They were lampsprites.
Featherbell let out an excited trill and hopped from Daisy’s
hand to the back of a tufted chintz settee where a young male
sprite covered in brown feathers embraced her. All the other
sprites in the room were soon crowding around her, trilling and
brushing their wings together until a cloud of multihued glitter
rose around them—or at least I thought it was glitter until it
floated back down and burned tiny holes in the upholstery and
rugs. Gillie quickly beat out the sparks with his bare hands and
let loose a stream of Scottish that I suspected included expletives, from the way he blushed when he saw us staring at him.
“The wee things have near set my house on fire a dozen
times,” he complained. “They don’t call them a conflagration
of sprites for naught.”
“Does Dame Beckwith know about this?” Daisy asked, goggle-eyed as three sprites landed on her shoulders and brushed
their wings along her cheeks.
“Are ye daft, lass? The mistress would boot me out on my
ar—articles if she knew. She and I dinna see eye to eye on the
wee sprites. They’re harmless, as long as ye keep them from
setting the place on fire. And the puir things are having a
hard winter, what with the Jotuns in the woods. I try to leave
out food for them, but I found this whole conflagration near
starved to death, so I brought them here. It’s only until next
week when spring begins. Now, let’s see what we can do for
your wee friend . . .”
“Featherbell.” Daisy gave her name as the sprite jumped
into Gillie’s hand.
“Pleased to meet you, Miss Featherbell,” Gillie said, his lips
twitching into a crooked smile. “Let’s see what ye’ve done to
your wing.”
He gently stretched out Featherbell’s injured wing and inspected the broken feathers. “Ah, this won’t be hard to imp, but
I’ll need replacement feathers.”
“Could we use ones from Miss Frost’s specimens?” Daisy
asked.
At Miss Frost’s name the sprites trilled and fluttered agitatedly, raising a cloud of angry sparks. The sparks landed in
my hair and I made out—while extinguishing them—the word
murderer
.
“Can ye do it without attracting Miss . . . er . . . the lady’s
attention?” Gillie asked.
“She’s staying mostly to her room,” I said. “Except for wandering down to the dungeons at night. I could keep an eye on
her while Daisy steals the spec—I mean, the departed sprite.”
“I’d have to watch for Sarah, too,” Daisy said. “She tells
everything to Miss . . .
her
.”
“She’s just afraid of losing her job,” I explained to Daisy.
“But I have an idea to distract her as well. We’ll do it first thing
in the morning, just after breakfast when Sarah brings up her
tray. I’ll go with Sarah and you can get the feathers for Gillie.”
“I’ll have Miss Featherbell fixed in a trice, then,” Gillie said.
“She should be able to fly back to the woods with her conflagration on the first day of spring  .  .  . which can’t come soon
enough,” Gillie added in a gruff voice. “I’ll be glad to have the
nuisances out of my hair.”
One of the sprites flew past me, grazing my cheeks with her
wingtips, and landed on Gillie’s shoulder. “We nuisances are
grateful for your shelter, Ghillie Dhu, protector of all the injured and lost,” she trilled. “You have cared for the creatures of
the woods and all who stray into it from time immemorial. If
you ever tire of serving your human mistress, you will have an
honored place among us.”
Gillie’s moss-green eyes grew wide and bright, then he
scowled, wiped the fairy dust off his face, and nodded curtly
to the sprite. Looking up he caught my eye. He must have seen
the streak of dust on my cheek and realized I’d heard what the
sprite had said.
Gillie wasn’t human. He was a Ghillie Dhu, an ancient
guardian of the woods and all who got lost in it. But how had
he managed to come to live within the walls of Blythewood?
And who of the Order knew what he was? It was a mystery I
couldn’t unravel, but if I tried I knew I might bring harm to Gillie—and as I watched him tending to the sprites I knew that I
would never be able to do that.