Prophecy of the Sisters (12 page)

Luisa leans back on the wall, arms folded in front of her. “I think you’re right, Sonia. We must identify the Angel and find
the keys. Perhaps they will lead us to an understanding of the rest.”

“Yes, only…” Sonia’s voice trails off as she bites her lip.

“Only what?” Luisa asks.

Sonia’s eyes flicker to the shadowed corners of the stable. “What if Alice finds them first? Assuming they unlock the riddle
of the prophecy, won’t she be looking for them as fervently as us?”

Sonia’s mention of Alice makes my breath feel tight in my chest. I cannot say aloud the thing I feel — that Alice’s strange
behavior has made me fear my own sister. That I fear not only her finding the keys before we do, but the things she might
do in the meantime.

I push the thoughts aside. “I have the book. Without it, Alice may not know the breadth of the prophecy. She may well be as
confused in her role as I am in mine. If I can keep the book from her, perhaps it will buy us enough time to find the keys
and figure out how to use them.”

Sonia nods thoughtfully. “Perhaps…”

The heavy silence of shared secrets fills the stable. I think about the endless questions before us, the seeming impossibility
of finding their answers, and it brings me to a thought entirely new.

“Luisa?”

She is leaning against the stable wall, chewing the end of the straw she has been twisting in her fingers. “Hmmm?”

“Do you travel as well? At night, I mean? Do you have the strange traveling dreams?”

She hesitates, shifting nervously on her feet before answering. “Well, everyone has dreams, Lia.…”

Sonia rises, idly inspecting the saddles and bridles that line the walls. “There is no need to be afraid, Luisa. I’ve been
traveling for years. Lia has only just begun. It would be expected that you would have the gift as well, given that we all
share the mark.”

Luisa shakes her head. “But they are only dreams! Only strange dreams in which I can fly. Surely many people fly in their
dreams!” The words come out in a tumble, as if she has wanted to say them for a very long time.

Sonia smiles. I already recognize it as the soft smile Sonia wears when she must say something not easily understood or accepted.
“Actually, it
is
possible for the soul to travel without the body, and it is not so very difficult to explain, nor difficult to become accustomed
to once you understand it.”

Luisa leans against one of the stalls as if for support, her face a pale sheet of shock. She is well past the protestations
and denial, for Sonia has too carefully and thoroughly described the sensations of travel. Travel we have all experienced
and must now accept as a part of the prophecy and its mark.

Luisa stands up straighter, her face flushed with fright. “I don’t want to travel any longer! Surely it must be dangerous
— flying about without one’s body! Suppose someone should happen upon us while we travel? We would be thought dead!”

Sonia’s eyes meet mine across the darkening stable, and I know she is thinking of our conversation on the hill. Of the Void.
The shake of her head is almost imperceptible, but I see it and know that she means to keep any mention of the Void from Luisa.
She is terrified enough as it is.

Sonia smiles gently at her. “That would be unlikely, for the soul and the body to which it belongs share a powerful connection.
There is no reason to believe you are in any danger, Luisa.”

I hear the words Sonia has left unspoken:
It is Lia they are after.

Luisa rubs her arms as if just feeling the cold that has seeped into the darkening building. The motion seems to wake her
from some form of reverie, and she suddenly stands straighter. “Goodness! It’s getting dark! It must be quite late! Miss Gray
will be angry!”

I move toward the doors. “Aunt Virginia will write a note of apology, insisting that it was we who kept you so late. Even
Miss Gray cannot be angry with Aunt Virginia, you’ll see.”

Closing the stable doors behind us, I fold my arms across my chest in a vain attempt to stay warm as we make our way back
toward the house. It was easy to lose track of the time in the quiet of the stables, but now I see that it is almost entirely
dark. The lamps in the house are already on, blazing a welcome to us across the cold, shadowy grounds.

We stop walking as we near the patio off the conservatory. It has not been said aloud, but we are likely thinking the same
thing; whatever else is spoken between us must be said before we re-enter the house.

“What shall we do, Lia?” Despair creeps into Sonia’s voice. “We must find the keys, and we are no closer to understanding
the passage in the book than we were before.”

I touch their arms. “I shall find a way to meet you both again. In the meantime, we mustn’t tell anyone about the book, the
prophecy, the mark… any of it. Though there is no clear reason why we should keep it a secret, I feel sure we must.”

Luisa gives a snort. “Why, surely there
is
a reason! Anyone would think us half-mad, would they not?”

I cannot help laughing, and I pull her into a quick embrace, followed by one for Sonia. “Oh, do take care. I wish I didn’t
have to bring you into this dreadful thing.”

Sonia smiles. “Whatever brought us into the prophecy did so long ago, Lia. You are no more responsible than we are. Whatever
comes, we will face it together.”

Taking off my gown and changing into the soft folds of my nightdress is like shedding an old skin, and I sigh aloud as I unpin
my hair and sit at the desk. I start at the beginning and reread the prophecy, sticking again after the part about the Guardian
and the Gate, the part I already know and understand.

I read it again and again, but it does me no good. I cannot make sense of it, no matter how hard I try. James’s notes are
fanned across the desk, mixed up now with all my shuffling. I line them up neatly, if only to give my hands something to do,
and rest my head on the tips of my fingers. I have a bizarre desire to run into the fields and scream, to let loose my frustration
and anger at the thing I don’t understand.

I reach for the back cover of the book, ready to close it for the night, to fall without struggle into whatever dreams are
waiting, when I feel the smooth lip of endpaper peeling in the corner. I smooth it down, the old habits as much a part of
me as Father himself. I shall have to have the endpaper glued into place so the book doesn’t further deteriorate.

But the corner does not want to smooth. The more I press it, the more it comes loose farther down, as if something is pressing
against it, determined to force its way up from one place or another. Something is not right.

Smoothing my palm across the inside back cover, it is obvious that something is there. Something that doesn’t belong. I don’t
stop to think, though tearing the endpaper off a book of this age would be reason for banishment from the library were my
father still alive. Still, I pull as gently as I can and am surprised at how easily the endpaper separates from the back cover
of the book. I am even more surprised, however, by what has been waiting, folded very thinly inside the book, all this time.

I pull a square of paper from the book, carefully unfolding the small package. This is no ordinary paper. Not the thick, luxurious
stationery used for coveted invitations and pretentious social notices. This is as thin as onion skin, as the pages of a Bible.
When the tiny bundle is at last laid flat, the drawings there take my breath away.

The first picture is a serpent eating its own tail. Underneath it is the word
Jorgumand.

Behind it is a drawing labeled
The Lost Souls,
an army of demons riding astride white horses, blood-drenched swords raised high above their heads. This one frightens me,
but not as much as the one that come next: a snake forming a circle and eating its own tail, a
C
at its center.

I pull it slowly from the pile, its entirety revealed an inch at a time as it emerges from the other pages of feathery drawings.
When at last it is laid bare, I can only stare, my heart thudding wildly in my chest.

There is no mistaking the medallion. It is as familiar to me now as the mark on my wrist. The gold disc hangs in the center,
the ribbon coiling around it. Seeing it in such vibrant detail floods me not with the fear I would expect but with a longing
that is far more terrifying.

But it is the words underneath the picture that make the tiny hairs on my arms stand on end.

Medallion of Chaos, Mark of the One True Gate.

I shake my head at the empty room, looking down at my wrist, at the medallion lying next to the book. It is the same.

The same. The same. The same.

Medallion of Chaos, Mark of the One True Gate.

It cannot be. Logic refuses it entrance. Alice is the Gate. I
know
it. She
must
be.

But there is something primal and even welcoming that tells me it isn’t true. The strange longing beating within me, answering
the silent call of the medallion, of the Souls perched on the forbidding horses. It is both comforting and horrifying.

Yet it is undeniably present.

The medallion is the mark of the Gate.
The One True Gate,
though I don’t know what that means. It fits my wrist perfectly.

It was given to me. It matches my mark, the mark that is different from all the others. And so, it can only be that I have
been wrong all this time.

I am weary of the book and its secrets. The time has come to go to the other sister.

I wait until the house is silent, until the footsteps of the servants cease their movement across the floors. Then I wait
awhile longer. When I am certain no one is about, I open the door and pad down the hall on bare feet. Even slippers make noise
when the house is so quiet.

I knock softly on Aunt Virginia’s door. For a moment, nothing happens. The house continues on its silent journey into morning.
I lift my hand, ready to knock again, and the door opens, Aunt Virginia standing expectantly in its frame as if she knew it
would be me all along.

“Come in, Lia.” Her voice is an urgent whisper. “Quickly.” She reaches out and tugs my arm, pulling me into the warmth of
the room and closing the door.

“I’m sorry. I… I didn’t think you were expecting me.”

Her back is to me as she crosses the room, taking a chair by the fire and gesturing for me to take the one opposite. “On the
contrary, Lia. I’ve been expecting you for quite some time.”

I lower myself into the high-backed chair, sneaking a curious glance at my aunt. She looks different, her hair long and loose
over her nightdress instead of pulled into the severe knot at the back of her neck. Now that I’m here, I am suddenly unsure
how to begin. I’m grateful when Aunt Virginia saves me the trouble.

“Have you found the book, then?”

I nod, studying my hands to avoid her eyes.

She smiles sadly. “Good. He wanted you to find it, you know.”

I look up from my hands. “Father?”

“Yes, of course. You don’t think it was an accident that it was found, do you? That the Douglases are here cataloging the
books?”