A Bitter Magic (18 page)

Leave me alone
.

Someone's pulling at me. Interfering. And here I was sinking so nicely. The blackness of blackness, darkest velvet.

Stop it!

I feel lighter suddenly. A great weight off me. Oh, that's better!

Someone's arm under my shoulder, then under my knees. I'm being lifted.

“Cisley, wake up!”

Nice voice.

“Cis! Come on. I can't lose you.”

Lose me? I'm right here
.

“Cisley!”

I force my eyes open a sliver. Cole! I try to say something, but my throat is clogged.

“Stay with me, Cis!”

Sure, I'll stay with you. I love you, Cole Havens. Do you know that?

Bang!
I jump at the noise. A slice of glass sticks in the counter next to us and quivers like a thrown knife. Another shard hurtles down nearby, spattering bright splinters.

“Gotta get out!” Cole shouts, heading toward the door, or where it used to be. Half the wall is missing.

As he steps out, I glance behind me.

“Don't look!”
he says, swiveling so I can't see.

But I do.

Oh God, I see! A lump of a woman facedown on the floor, daggers of glass jutting from her flowered dress, her back oozing.

“Is that…?” My voice sounds like gargling. I twist around as Cole carries me.

“Never mind!” he says.

“No! Stop!” I croak. The sight of my old tutor focuses my mind. “Let me down!”

“There's nothing you can do,” he says, but eases me onto my feet.

A breeze coming through the broken panes carries away the fumes, and with a steadier head, I see Miss Porlock clearly. I work my way toward her, leaning for support on the worktable while glass continues shattering all around us.

I hadn't noticed till now a man's body sprawled nearby at an unnatural angle.
Asa!
His face is a mangle of glass and blood, eyes staring sightlessly. My own eyes can't meet his for long. I know he's gone. I'm not sure about Miss Porlock.

Those horrible shards of glass! I don't know whether to pull them out or…?

As I kneel beside her, more glass drops from the ceiling and shatters.

“We can't stay, Cisley.”

“Wait! No!” I place my hands carefully on Miss Porlock's back and try to concentrate. I can usually feel a person's life—how much of it there is—through my hands. All I feel is the unnatural coolness of her body.

I lift her wrist and feel for a pulse. Nothing.

A gasp from Cole. He's holding his upper arm.

“What is it?
Are you cut?
”

He nods, wincing.

“Oh, Cole!” I'm up on my feet and stumbling out to the patio, Cole beside me.

Stopping by the turret, I have him show me the cut. Not as bad as I feared. He rolls his sleeve to his shoulder, and I grasp the wound tightly, bending my head in concentration.

“Cis, we don't have time.”

“Don't speak.” I close my eyes tight, and before long feel the familiar warmth building in my hands. But there's something else. I can't tell if he's trembling or if I am. It's the merest vibration, but it quickly gets stronger.
I open my eyes. He's looking at the laboratory, what's left of it, and there's fear in his eyes. I follow his gaze as one of the larger panes crashes to the ground.

“This whole place could come down!” he cries. “Can you walk?”

“I think so.” At least his arm looks better, bleeding just slightly.

Another crash sends us running for the staircase. The next floor down, a chambermaid calls to the young valet. I can't make out the words. All I hear is her panic.

Someone flies past us along the corridor. Then others. I hear a deep groaning sound, like the sound a ship might make in heavy seas. A tremendous
boom
jolts me, and I hold tightly to Cole's waist. We're in a stumbling run, making for the main staircase. Not far ahead, a chandelier plummets to the floor, exploding like a bomb.

“Hurry!” I shout.

We pass my rooms and arrive at the curving staircase. The valet is already halfway down, gripping the hand of the terrified chambermaid. As we start to follow, a deep rumbling rises from below, and suddenly a whole section of the staircase separates from the wall. Desperate, the man grapples for the railing, but it isn't attached to anything!

Near the top, the stairs swing to the side, and Cole loses his balance, his arms flailing. I catch hold of his belt as he starts to fall, but I'm still weak and am nearly pulled after him.

“No!”
I snarl through gritted teeth, my arms trembling,
feet braced against the side of the staircase.
“No, sir! Not today!”

I don't know how I manage to drag him back to the landing just as the whole staircase crashes to the atrium below with a force that shakes the building. A great cloud rises toward us, glinting with silica.

Cole sits on the landing, dazed, his feet dangling over nothingness.

Below us, I hear an old man's cough, and then, through the confusion of debris, I catch sight of Mr. Strunk stumbling through the atrium.

“Run, Mr. Strunk!”

He doesn't hear me.

“How can we get down?” Cole struggles to his feet and backs away from the edge.

I'm not used to seeing fear in his eyes. It disturbs me. “I know a way.”

“Another staircase?”

“Mother's room.” I tug his shirt. “Quick!”

Not that I can do anything quickly. With my arm around his shoulder, we hobble in the direction of the Mirror Maze. There it lies just ahead, glittering and deadly.

“Wait!”
The image of Miss Porlock's bloody body flashes through my mind. “It's too dangerous.”

“There's no way around,” says Cole.

A pounding of heavy feet makes us turn. It's Janko, bleeding from his cheek, his eyes wide.

“Don't go through there, Janko!”

He shoves me aside with a force that knocks me off my feet, and then plunges into the maze. Cole holds me against his chest to keep me from seeing, but I can't help myself. Three, then seven Jankos, having no clue where to go, slam into mirrors, jarring the already shaky structure. Twelve Jankos flail their bleeding arms and roar as the Mirror Maze turns into an avalanche of knives.

Then begins a dreadful subtraction. With mirrors falling, fewer Jankos remain. They stagger helplessly.

Eight Jankos.

Five.

Four Jankos clutch their necks as glass stilettos slice at them. They thrash about, knocking into remaining mirrors.

Two Jankos hold a stunned pose, arms raised. Then, together, they topple facedown in a pile of glass.

My stomach churns. I grip Cole's hand.

Gingerly, no word spoken, we step into the maze, no longer a maze. Avoiding Janko's torn body, we pick our way along, shards crunching under our feet.

Soon we're in front of Mother's door.

I push it open.

Relief! The rooms have been spared, their silence intact. Even the white rose, shriveled as it is, stands on the mantel. My shoulders relax. The velvet coverlet purrs, and I want to crawl under it.

A faint tinkling makes me glance up, where a trickle of ground glass sifts from the ceiling and flitters through the bed's canopy.

Cole and I stare at each other. A small bottle of perfume chatters across the vanity. Mother's silver-backed hairbrush dances off the edge and bumps to the floor. Slowly, a ceiling crack widens, and soon chunks of plaster and glass begin to tumble through. One jagged piece, the size of a scimitar, slashes diagonally across the portrait of Mother, leaving a wide flap, like skin, hanging down.

“Oh!”
I cry out.

“Let's go!” Cole shouts above the rising clamor. “Where are those stairs you talked about?”

I'm frozen in front of the painting.

“Cisley!
Come on!
”

I hear the roar out in the corridor, behind the walls, under my feet.

“Mother!” I call hopelessly.

“What? Where? You mean the painting?”

I lost her in the laboratory—that terrible scream still echoes—and now this!

Cole tugs my arm. “Come now!”

A tear works down my cheek.

Cole holds my shoulders and makes me look at him. I take a shaky breath. “Yes. This way.” I lead him to the closet.

Once inside, there's hostility in the air. The dresses are hissing! So different from the seductive murmurings of my earlier visits.
Hissing!
They hate me. They blame me!

I stumble on until we reach the full-length mirror
at the back of the closet. A crack runs crazily down its whole length. I place my hand over the split heart of my reflection, and the mirror slides aside.

The light's dimmer here, but we keep moving, feeling our way. Before long, the floor tilts sharply downward.

“Sit down,” I tell Cole.

He looks at me strangely but does what I say. I sit behind him, holding on tight, and we begin to slide, slowly at first, then faster, streaking through the darkness. We bump to a stop, and I struggle up, feeling for the door I know is in front of me. I find it and push.

Blinding daylight.
Deafening
daylight, for immediately a great roaring engulfs us. At first, I think it's the ocean, then realize it's coming from behind us, loud as a speeding train.

“Run!” I yell.

We scramble down the rocks and reach the beach, Cole helping me along when I stumble. “Keep going!” he shouts over the increasing racket.

Up ahead, the fishing boats float at anchor, as if this were just another summer day. But the men, a crowd of them, stand silently by their skiffs, staring at the castle.

I stop and look back, shocked at the sight of crumbling turrets, great blocks of glass smashing through the roof and what remains of the laboratory. It flashes through my mind that my uncle's up there and Miss Porlock—and somewhere, in some unknown form, Mother! Guilt almost knocks me to my knees; but there's no time for it. The castle's west face is trembling.

“It's coming down!”
Cole shouts.

It doesn't. Everything gets quiet. Breathless. I'm barely breathing myself.

Then a terrible groan rises from the depths, as girders twist in on themselves, and the great castle, glittering like the sun itself in the afternoon light, tilts toward the sea. Tilts farther. Hesitates. At last, in a slow-motion explosion of brilliance, it topples, thundering to the rocks below, sending fiery splinters slashing through the air.

Cole and I hold on to each other, stunned. We watch as a huge cloud of debris billows upward, higher than the cliffs, then gradually subsides, settling over the dunes, over the rocks, over the vast, indifferent sea.

The next minutes are chaos—people running past, some bleeding, some covered in sand and dust. A housemaid I recognize—a woman in her fifties—stumbles into the open, her dress in shreds, and collapses.

I feel Cole grip my arm, but I twist free and run to her. Blood is leaking from the woman's mouth and from deep gouges in her back and hips. Too late! But still, I kneel and position my hands around the worst of the wounds. No response. My abilities do not include raising the dead. I let Cole pull me to my feet.

“It's my fault.”

“What?” he says. “What do you mean?”

Windblown dirt sends me into a fit of coughing. “My fault. All of this.”

He takes me by my shoulders. “Cisley, this is
not
your
fault
.”

I look down at the dead woman. “What did she know about roses?”

“Cis, it was your
uncle
.”

Cole can say that, but this person would be alive if it weren't for me. I made the rose possible. Look at my hands. Red and sticky.

Repulsed, I run into the water and wash them, rubbing hard as if to reverse it all.

A familiar figure staggers past. “Mr. Strunk!” I call out.

He doesn't hear.

“Mr. Strunk! Wait!” I run over and stop him. He stares as if he's never seen me before. There are nasty-looking cuts on his shoulder and upper leg. “Mr. Strunk, sit down! Let me look at you!”

He always told me exactly what to do and not to do; but now he looks like a bewildered child. He sits.

Where to begin? Start with the worst. I lay my hands on his leg, where the pants have been slashed and a gash bleeds freely. Amid the tumult of shouts and the thudding of running feet, I close my eyes and sink into myself. Soon, warmth builds in my palms. Strunk twitches.

“Easy,” I murmur. “It's going to be all right.”

My hands grow hot. Strunk moans.

I give it another full minute, then a few seconds more, ignoring the madness around us. Carefully, I lift my hands. A red line zigzags across his upper thigh. The wound is almost closed.

Cole is coughing and trying to speak at the same time. His face wavers above me.

“Are you okay?” he says. “Because you're swaying.”

I do feel dizzy, but the gash on Strunk's shoulder is as bad as the other was. Gently, I lay my hands over it.

It takes all my concentration. Again, my hands grow warm, then hot, and the bleeding slows. I'm so drained I can't think straight. When Cole helps me to my feet, I lean heavily against him.

“I can't leave yet.”

“You've done enough.”

I look down the beach. “Wait! Who's that?”

A dark-skinned boy, shirtless and bleeding, sits cross-legged on the sand. A foot-long length of wood, part of a shattered pole, protrudes from his chest, just below the shoulder.

Cole shouts: “Nicolae!”

The boy doesn't look up.

Cole kneels. “Nicolae, look at me!”

The Gypsy boy lifts his head lazily, his eyes vague.

I shake myself alert. “Cole,” I say, “sit behind him. Let him lean into your lap.”

He looks at me. Nods. Gently pulls his friend back onto his lap.

“Good. Hold his head. I can't have him moving around when I do this.”

Cole holds the boy's head.

I don't give myself time to think. Kneeling beside the
boy, I grab hold of the stake and—gritting my teeth—yank it out of him and fling it aside.

Nicolae stares at me, his mouth open in an amazement of pain.

I immediately press my hand, then both hands, against the wound. It's pulsing, but I won't let it bleed.

Now
, I tell myself, closing my eyes.
Let's heal this boy
.

It's bad. I won't think how bad, or how weak I feel.
We can do this, Nicolae. I'm not going to lose you. I'm not!

I sink deep, deeper, until Cisley and Nicolae are no longer anywhere, just give and take, warm and warm, a flow. Don't release him yet! The bleeding is deep. Muscle and nerve. He needs more time.

But how can I…?

I know I've fainted when I feel hands lifting me up. I open a bleary eye. It's Anna! I smile weakly. Lifting my head, I see she's here with her little brother, Hanzi. Nicolae lies unconscious, his wound oozing.

“Not finished,” I say, struggling to get up.

“Is all right,” says Anna. “We take him now.”

Cole helps me to my feet, but has to catch me as my knees give way.

He hoists me onto his shoulder and starts along the beach. But he's just a boy, and, after a dozen steps, has to put me down.

“I'll take her.” A different voice. Male. Older. I'm being lifted. I rest my head against the man's shoulder.

Oil paint.

Then blackness.