Guardian of the Gate (27 page)

Luisa smiles in reassurance and joins us near the bench. Dimitri, ever the gentleman, sits on one of the large stones bordering the fountain. We sit for a few uncomfortable moments, none of us sure where to begin. Once, only once, Sonia’s gaze drops to my wrist. I draw my hand farther inside my sleeve in an effort to keep the medallion hidden. When I meet her eyes, she looks quickly away.

Finally Dimitri looks around the garden. “I had forgotten how lovely it is here. Have you been well treated?” he asks Sonia.

“Oh, yes. The Sisters have been very kind under the… under the circumstances.” Her fair skin flushes in shame, and we grow silent once again.

Dimitri stands up, drying his hands on his trousers. “Have you been out of doors?” He looks up. “I mean well and truly out of doors, without the walls of this courtyard to confine you?”

“Once,” Sonia says. “Yesterday.”

“Once is not enough. It is too beautiful to see it only once. Let’s go for a stroll, shall we?”

We step through the glass door at the end of the hall, and in an instant, the sea is spread before us. It glistens in the sunlight, and though it is far below us, the smell of it is stronger and more powerful than at any other time on Altus. Dimitri leans down, placing his lips very near my ear.

“What do you think?”

It takes my breath away. I find I cannot do it justice with words, and so I simply smile in answer.

He reaches to touch my hair, and even now it seems his eyes darken with something like desire. I am surprised when his hand comes away with the ivory comb Father gave me long ago.

“It was slipping,” he says simply, handing it to me before turning to the others. “It’s a fine day for a walk. I suggest we make use of it.”

He promptly hurries ahead, leaving us alone, and I marvel at his ability to do and say exactly the thing that is most needed at any given time.

Luisa, Sonia, and I walk without speaking, the wind whipping our hair and fluttering our robes. I rub the comb between my fingers as we walk. Its smooth surface does nothing to calm the anger that bubbles once again below the surface of my thoughts.

Sonia finally breaks the silence with a soft sigh.

“Lia, I am… I am so sorry. I can hardly remember those last days in the wood.” She looks away as if gathering her strength from the water below. “I know I did terrible things. Said terrible things. I was… not myself. Can you forgive me?”

It takes me a moment to answer. “It is not a matter of forgiveness.” I hurry ahead of Sonia and Luisa, hoping to stem the rush of bitterness I hear in my voice and feel in my heart.

“Then… what?” Despair is evident in Sonia’s voice.

I stop walking, turning to look at the water. I do not hear the sound of feet on gravel and know Sonia and Luisa have stopped behind me. There are so many words, so many questions, so many accusations… They are as numerous as the grains of sand on the beach below. But there is only one that matters now.

I turn back to Sonia. “How could you?”

Her shoulders sag in defeat. Her complacency, her
weakness
, evokes not sympathy, not compassion, but the building fury I have reined in since the night when I awoke to find her
pressing the medallion to my wrist. For one terrible moment I scramble for something to use to unleash my frustration.

“I trusted you. I trusted you with
everything
!” I scream it, throwing the comb at her with every ounce of anger coiled inside my body. “How will we trust you now? How will we trust you ever again?”

Sonia flinches, though the comb is an ineffectual weapon. And I suppose that is the point, for even now, I love her. I am loath to hurt her even as I cannot seem to stop myself.

Luisa steps forward as if to shield Sonia from me. From
me.
“Lia, stop.”

“Why, Luisa?” I ask. “Why must I stop asking the questions that must be asked, however much they frighten us?”

There is nothing to say in the silence that follows. I speak the truth, and we all know it. I
have
missed Sonia. I
do
love and care for her. But we cannot ignore those things which might cost us dearly — might cost our very lives — in the name of sentiment.

Luisa steps toward me, bending to pick up a few stones. She inches closer to the edge of the cliff before tossing them into the sea, and I watch them sail through the air. It is a futile diversion. We are too far up to see them drop into the roiling water below.

“Lia is right.” I turn to meet Sonia’s voice and see that she has retrieved my comb. She studies it as if it holds the answers to all our questions. “I have breached your trust, and there is no sure way to know that I will be stronger the next time
the Souls attempt to use me, though I do hope there won’t be a next time. They…” She hesitates, and when she begins speaking again her voice comes as if from far away, and I know she is remembering.

“They did not appear to me as the Souls. They appeared as my… as my mother.” She turns to me, and there is naked pain in her eyes. “I met her on the Plane. She was sorry for sending me to live with Mrs. Millburn. She said that she didn’t know what to do, that she thought Mrs. Millburn would be able to help me understand my power. It was nice to have a mother again, if only in a world other than this one.”

“And then?” My voice is nearly a whisper.

“Then she began worrying for my safety. Saying that I was putting myself in danger by keeping the medallion. That we were all in danger because of your refusal to open the gate. At first, I didn’t listen. But after a while, well… I don’t know how to explain it except to say that it began to make a strange sort of sense. Of course, I realize now that I was not in my right mind, but it…” She looks into my eyes and even now I see the power the Souls had over her. Even now I see the power in an offer to replace something dear and once lost. “It happened so slowly that I cannot even say when it began.”

Her words rise and fall on the breeze off the ocean, echoing through my mind until there is nothing but silence. Finally she reaches toward me, the comb in her hand.

I take it from her. “I’m sorry.” I say it because throwing the comb was not kind, but in the deepest parts of myself, I am not sure I mean it.

She turns her palms to the sky as if in surrender to our judgment. “No,
I
am sorry, Lia. But all I can do is beg your forgiveness and swear an oath that I would rather die than betray you again.”

Luisa brushes off her hands and goes to Sonia, placing her hands on Sonia’s shoulders. “It is enough, Sonia. It is enough for me.”

It is not easy, but I cross the uneven ground, placing an arm around each of them so that we are embracing as we did when the prophecy was still just a riddle and not the thing that would both change and possibly end our lives.

For a moment on the hill overlooking the sea, I believe it is as it once was when the three of us could do anything together. But it
does
only last a moment. Because deep down we all know nothing will ever be the same again.

We are halfway up the path to the Sanctuary when we see the person running toward us.

We have said our goodbyes to Sonia, and though nothing is certain, I believe she wants to be well. Wants to be true to our cause. Now there is nothing to do but wait until the Sisters deem her strong enough to return to London.

Dimitri shields his eyes against the sun, gazing at the figure in the distance. “It is a Sister.”

The Sister’s robe billows in the breeze as she runs, and I catch sight of golden hair streaming behind her, reflecting like glass in the sunlight. When she finally reaches us, I do not
recognize her. She is young, perhaps Astrid’s age, and she does not speak right away. She is so out of breath that she bends at the waist, gasping for air. A minute or so later, she finally straightens, her breath still coming in short bursts, her cheeks still flushed with exertion.

“I am… sorry to tell you that Lady Abigail has… passed.” It does not immediately register what she has said. My mind is as blank as the unused canvases that line the art room at Wycliffe. But what the young Sister says next breaks through my numbness. “They have sent me for you and bid that you come, my Lady.”

My Lady.
My Lady.

All I can think is,
No.

And then I run.

“It is not your fault that you were not here, Lia.” Una places a hot cup of tea on the table. “It would not have made a difference if you were. She never regained consciousness.”

Una has repeated this detail more than once since I rushed in, bedraggled and distraught, from our visit with Sonia and the news of Aunt Abigail’s passing. It does nothing to ease my guilt. I should have stayed with her. I should have stayed by her side every moment. I tell myself she would have known I was there, conscious or not.

“Lia.” Una sits next to me, taking my hand in hers. “Lady Abigail lived a long and fruitful life. She lived it in peace here on Altus, the way she wanted to live it.” She smiles. “And she
saw you before she passed. I think that’s what she was waiting for all this time.”

I bow my head and the tears drip from my eyes straight onto the table. I do not know how to tell Una the many ways and reasons I mourn Aunt Abigail. Aunt Virginia is helpful in matters of support but has acknowledged the weakness of her power and has already told me all she knows.

It was Aunt Abigail on whom I hoped to rely for guidance. When I thought of the prophecy, it was she who stood strong and wise against it. It was she who seemed my closest ally, even across the miles. Now I am as alone as I have ever been.

Now it is just Alice and me.

Dimitri and I stand alone on the shore of the ocean, staring across the empty expanse of water. The barge carrying Aunt Abigail’s body has long since been pushed into the sea. She is gone, as is everyone else who stood on the beach while my aunt’s body was given to the sea surrounding Altus.

It is very quick by modern standards, putting someone to rest the very day they pass, but Dimitri tells me it is the custom on the island. I have no reason to repudiate it other than customs of my own that would seem just as strange to the people of Altus. Besides, Aunt Abigail was a Sister and their Lady. If this is how they say goodbye, I imagine this is how she would have wanted to say goodbye as well.

Dimitri turns from the ocean and begins walking, slipping his hand around mine. “I will see you safely back to the
Sanctuary, and then I must go before the Grigori to address some business.”

I look up at him in surprise. Even my grief cannot suppress the curiosity that has always been mine. “What sort of business?”

“There is much to discuss, especially now that Lady Abigail has passed.” He looks straight ahead as we walk, and I cannot help but feel that he is avoiding my eyes.

“Yes, but we leave tomorrow. Can’t it wait?”

He nods. “That is what I have requested, in a manner of speaking. I still must answer for my interference with the kelpie, but I have asked to defer appearance before the Council until after the missing pages are in hand.”

I shrug. “That seems reasonable.”

“Yes,” Dimitri says. “The Council will send word of their decision before morning. But there is another point of contention. It concerns you.”

“Me?” I stop walking as we near the path that will take us to the Sanctuary. The walkway is more populated now, and we pass several Sisters as we near the main compound.

Dimitri takes both my hands in his. “Lia, you are the rightful Lady of Altus.”

I shake my head. “But I already told you; I don’t want it. Not right now. I cannot…” I look away. “I cannot think about it now with all that is ahead of me still.”

“I understand. I do. But in the meantime, Altus is without a leader, and the role is yours to either renounce or accept.”

Annoyance ignites my simmering frustration. “And why
doesn’t the Grigori speak directly to me? Surely for all of Altus’s forward thinking, they are not above addressing a woman?”

I hear the weariness in his sigh. “It is simply not done. Not because you are a woman, Lia, but because the Grigori’s Elders keep to themselves except when absolutely necessary for order or discipline. It is a sort of… segregation much like that of the monks in your world. That is why the Grigori occupies quarters on the other side of the island. They rely on emissaries such as myself to provide communication with the Sisters. And trust me, Lia, if you are ever called to an audience with the Grigori it can mean nothing good.”