The Violet Hour (22 page)

My flush deepens; so hot it’s as if my face has been scalded.

“Oh, but Miss Teagarden.” Silas begins to pace, smooth and silky like a predatory cat. “THAT is not your most precious commodity, is it?”

Fear tightens my throat like a slip-knot.

Brighton’s eyes dart between us, confused.

“Miss Teagarden. I have had word from that particular soldier. Your name is not Teagarden. It is
Manners.
Katherine Manners, not only of minor nobility, but much, much more…a musical prodigy, who has toured all of The Continent, led and leashed by a proud, proud Papa.” Silas smiles widely.

His eyes flick to Brighton and register his perplexed expression
. I should’ve told him everything, why did I not tell him everything last night?

“As I suspected. Even you…you do not know her worth, do you?”

Brighton’s gaze is wary and angry
.

“Avoir l’orielle absolue.”

“Allegra?” Brighton prompts.

“Perfect Pitch. You can play anything you’ve ever heard. You…are
Miss Mary Marvel.
”

He knew I was a runaway, from a titled gentleman…but not that I was a minor celebrity. Making our situation infinitely more precarious.

I watch the recognition spread across Brighton’s face, as he tries to work out the accusation. The posters littered Charleston—father’s endless advertising campaign always preceded our arrival—like any great Carnival. And I was the freak, to be paraded across every continent, to replace all the coin my father frittered away with his bad investments and my brothers propensity for gambling.

I am the Golden Goose—only in my case, the Golden, freakish Songbird.

I press my lips tight to stop the tremble. “I have no idea what you’re on about. You’re mad.”

But Brighton sees. He knows. But he recovers in a blink. “Stop detaining us, we apparently have a new symphony and show to create to relaunch your flaming boat of Hades, don’t we?’

The amusement drains from Silas’s face. “I shall
prove
you are Mary Marvel. And when I do, the two of you shall become permanent employees of Charleston’s Fancy. Unless you’d rather me to send word to Lord Manners?”

Brighton stalks toward me, hauling me toward the door by the elbow. “You know where to find us. We shall be composing.”

“And do not forget our sparkling accompaniments in the sky.” His fingers twiddle like mock fire bursts around his head. “Be very careful with my investment, Brighton, she’s merely on loan to you.”

Brighton’s hand shakes where it grasps my elbow, but he makes no reply.

He holds it with a mere two fingers but its force is like an iron caliper. He leads me, stomping through the halls, past the quizzical gaze of servants, his eyes ever forward.

“Brighton. Brighton, I. I wanted to tell you. You knew I had that ability, photographic memory for music—I told you—”

“But…Mary Marvel. Perfect pitch.
You
are the infamous Mary Marvel. How could you fail to tell me that? After last night…” A flicker of pain crosses his face, and is like a knife to my gut.

His expression hardens. “It’s
astounding
you remained hidden. You’ve lost twenty pounds from the poster. And your idea for the masquerade…quite brilliant, really, to hide yourself.” I hear the bitter tinge lining his words. “I cannot believe I did not recognize…did not conceive…”

“I’m sorry. I realize this puts you at a much greater risk. I should’ve told you. But you still haven’t told me everything about George, even after last night. We’re even. I heard you arguing with your father, and Lucy told me. I’ve changed since…the element. I can do even
more
than before. That night you found me in the tent…I can play every instrument. Every one with perfect pitch now.”

“Be quiet, Allegra,” he chastises, looking left and right for eavesdroppers.

I rip my elbow from his grasp and rub it to dull the ache. In his agitation, he has forgotten to curb his grip. It will no doubt bruise.

“Answer me, Brighton!”

“I am sorry Allegra. Katherine? Mary? Whatever I am to call you. Whoever you are. I detest deception.”

“I am not moving till you explain,” I huff and halt in place.

Several guests eye us curiously. He stalks back, grasping my arm again, too hard. I whimper.

His eyes dampen from fire to fear as he quickly releases my arm. “My strength is difficult to gauge, especially when I am…upset. This is neither the proper place nor time. Later, Allegra.
Please.
”

The placation in his tone punctures my anger and it whistles out, like a downed hot air balloon. “I am sorry too.” I lean closer to him, feeling the waves of heat that radiate from his skin. “I am frightened,” I whisper.

His eyebrows rise, but he offers no comfort. He says nothing.

Nothing on the ferry, nothing as we step onto the isle.

My stomach is churning with worry and doubt by the time we head into the ferns.

He starts down the path for the hot spring and retorts over his shoulder, “Please, do check on Lucy.”

He whirls to head into the forest. I huff and stomp behind him, unwilling to be dismissed.

I am panting to keep up with his break-neck pace as he weaves through the Live Oaks, not looking back.

I stare up at the fading light. Lucy returned this morn to collect her effects and Jones will be here at any minute to take Lucy to the mainland.

Thunder rumbles and my breath quickens. It seems all the elements are in place as when I was with Lucy.

Will George appear?

The fireflies descend; swooping, floating sparkles of light against the inky black-backdrop of the tree canopy. I no longer fear them—I thrust out my arm and they descend, wrapping about my arm like a full-length, illuminated glove.

The back of my spine tingles and for a brief moment our heats combine to a pulsing, breathing being and I shiver.

They are blinking and speaking again. I don’t have time to discern their message. I wave a flurry away from my ear and the horde takes flight from my arm as I approach Brighton.

Brighton stands, his back to me, facing the bubbling spring. His chest heaves—I cannot discern whether it be anger or sadness. My chest tightens to think of such a powerful man, crippled by this magnitude of pain.

I yank his arm, spinning him to face me. My eyes scan his face, trying to reach him again, to melt the hard mask dulling his eyes.

“
Tell me
. Tell me everything this time. You must. If we are to have any chance together—there can be no more secrets.”

Brighton’s eyes flick from the lightning to the rods to my face and back like a pendulum.

My mind registers the dot-dot-dashes and a word appears in my mind.

“Them,” I prompt, pointing up to the lights. “They are saying, Stay. Stay.” I bark a laugh. “That’s amusing. They told me to go, before.”

I startle as heat and fur assault my legs, a winding and purring whirlwind beneath my skirts.

Brighton’s chest is heaving as his eyes jump across the water. The words pour out, rushed and fast. “Injured animals. I began with injured animals. Feeding them the element. They improved, miraculously. I was astounded; limbs regrew, old grew younger.” His eyes tighten, “But it seemed, wrong.”

I feel the burn of the element racing beneath my skin.

“It
altered
them. Increasing their intelligence far and away from any normal animal I had ever seen.”

The cat’s stalk the pool and meet my gaze. A decidedly shrewd expression on their furry faces. I could not place what was odd about them before.

I swallow. They
understand
our conversation.

Brighton walks the pool’s circumference, shaking each rod, checking its stability, eyes never leaving the sky.

“It is not up to man to tamper with the hourglass of life.” His voice sounds ancient.

I freeze as images flit across the pond, so quickly they could be mistaken as ripples.

Brighton begins to pace back and forth, like the cats.

“The fireflies?”

“More casualties to my madness. They merely landed on the pond’s surface…”

I stare up as they perform a whizzing, sparking performance overheard; like tiny lighted acrobats contrasted against the black sky like an outdoor big top.

“After the animals off behavior, I had my suspicions. Lodged in the center of my chest was a niggling doubt that refused to die. I found my father’s journal. He had been feeding
large
amounts of the element to my brother. My brother who’s wits had been addled since a childhood accident. He was like a child.”

He stops. His shoulders slump and his face collapses as if the words have broken through the shell protecting his heart.

His eyes shine with wetness and he blinks furiously. “He was all that was good. Always happy, always giving. And. He…”

I walk quickly to him, whisking past the poles to wrap my arms about him, pressing my face to his back. I feel the rumble of his voice against my cheek.

“He…was better at first. Speaking and reasoning more normally, in a way we had not witnessed since childhood…but looking steadily less happy as his comprehension improved. Then, one night, he
disappeared
. Then my father began to disappear for long periods, with no explanation on his return.”

I squeeze him tighter and feel his warm hand slide overtop my forearm.

Lightning strikes an arm length from my boot, hissing the ground; the fireflies alight and the cats bound for cover.

His chest catches and he issues a tiny groan. His words spill out, like a dam broken and rushing. “He refused to tell me what happened. So I left. George and Lucy were the only reason I ever stayed on at Morelands, to protect them. The Elementi doesn’t just heal. If you ingest enough, you begin…
to become light
.”

I loosen my grasp to slip around to face him. “I don’t understand.”

His eyes are wide with wonder and fright. “Another plane. Another place. Many other places. It is not heaven, more of a sideways shift in time. Have you ever heard of a doppelganger?”

I shake my head. “No.”

“Neither had I. It means, one
the same
as you. It is you. Only in another dimension.”

My brain seems to squeeze, trying to fathom his words. “Another me? What is this..dimension?”

“My father mastered these…gateways. Some bodies of water are rife with the element—and are passages to future times, with more science. Father learned they propose that parallel places exist—alternate selves that may have chosen courses completely opposite to our own. An alternate reality of our choices. Or unforeseen occurrences.”

My head rebelled against the idea. “This seems quite impossible.”

Then a revelation hits so hard I almost double over.

“Brighton. My mother—the windows and doors. She
knew.
She somehow knew about them. She was trying to tell me, some were windows and others were doors…but to where? But the poles? I have seen the images without them?”

“Yes. It is all about the concentration of the element in the water. One needs the right concentration, the right current. If the pond has enough, no rods are needed. But for me, it happened during storms, the electricity in the air. I have managed to see the windows, but open no doors.”

The lightning strikes again a breath from my boot and the suffocating smell of weather and sparks and sea-salt permeates the pond.

“Allegra you must go. It is not safe. You now
attract
the lightning. It is drawn to the element within your skin.”

“No not till you finish,” but my legs begin to shake as the angry sky rumbles in warning once again.

“The element—my father believes it to be the one used by the Pharaohs in Egypt, before the knowledge was lost, or
removed
from them.”

“That’s what you meant by cheating.”

He nods and swallows. “One cannot attain indefinite life, whether here or There—” his hand sweeps across the pond, “by this means. This knowledge was meant to be hidden.”

“It still seems mad.”

“Many realities are mad. The fact you can play anything you hear just once, even without the element.
That
is mad.”

I nod and step closer. “It is.”

He bows his head and his lips graze mine, softly at first. A desperate kiss, longing for hope. I inch backward and my heart falls to my stomach.

The world alters; shifts and drops. I whip my head in time to register my boot slide off the bank.

I plunge into the pond with a tremendous splash.

Brighton lunges forward, hauling me out the water as the first bolt collides with the rod. We stand, clutching one another, slowly backing away.

His eyes rove over me, searching for injuries as he gently wrings the water from my hair.

“The Element changes people. If one consumes
too
much, it drives you mad…like my father. Perhaps a fail-safe, to stop mankind from using it.”

The flickering in the pond continues, but the images are muddled, like a half-forgotten dream.