Unhonored (21 page)

“I said it was a wonderful dream.” Ellis spoke softly. “But it is only a dream and we cannot live here.”

“Why not?” Jenny was on the verge of tears.

“Because I've been to the world, Jenny,” Ellis said as gently as she could. “Because I've brought the world with me. It's part of me, part of my memories and part of who I am. We have to go back because neither of us can really hope to have joy without understanding despair, or appreciate health without sickness or feel pleasure without knowing pain, too. We cannot hide from it any longer, Jenny. We have to choose.”

“Choose?” Jenny said. “But you said that we didn't have to choose—that we could stay here and be content forever.”

“I was … I was wrong, Jenny.” Ellis looked into Jenny's eyes, hoping she would understand. “I didn't understand that one cannot have contentment without knowing restlessness or anxiety. Life is more than just breath. We do not just choose to live … we live because we choose.”

“I don't understand,” Jenny said, tears welling from her eyes.

“But I do understand, Jenny,” Ellis said as she stood up, eyeing the gate. “Because I remember what happened at the Gate.”

*   *   *

The old gate is high and heavy and hidden

Till you choose to be chosen it is forbidden

The toll for passage is the age of a man

You cannot go back the way you began.

What am I?

She had found the Gate at last. Her rage against Merrick was such that she had determined to flee as far from him as she could go but she was surprised to find just how far she had come. The Day was changing, this time to Merrick's Day, and she had been angry at having lost the Day to him, no matter how briefly. Now they were in the twilight of the Day, shifting from one to the next, and everything had lost any semblance of form or nature until the Day took on the shape of Merrick's will.

Only the Gate remained.

She was suddenly filled with curiosity. The bothersome Messengers had spoken of what awaited them beyond the Gate—a place she had laughingly called the “Garden of Wonders.” But now she wanted to know just what it was that lay beyond the Gate.

But how?

That was the question in her mind. To pass the Gate was to choose and once chosen the Gate would close, forever barring their return. Yet she had no intention of choosing; she only wished to satisfy her curiosity as to what lay beyond the Gate.

She might not be able to choose, she realized, but perhaps she did not have to do so.

She would open the Gate but not pass fully through it. She would keep one foot in Gamin and the other just barely within the Garden of Wonders.

She would cheat the Gate.

She knew that she needed to hurry. Alicia had been following her and she did not wish for her to interfere. She stepped up to the Gate, pushed it open and leaned through its casement.

It was filled with light but in the light she discerned two beings. One stood watch on the other side of the Gate, a glorious, magnificent Guardian. The other sat nearby and stood at once at the opening of the Gate.

To her astonishment, she knew him.

He had waited for her on the distant side of the Gate.

He rushed toward her.

She wanted to speak with him, curious as to why he had remained there.

She wanted to stay in the Tween.

The Gate closed on her indecision.

It severed her soul in twain, tearing one desire from the other. She saw the Gate close on what remained of her frightened self, her hands caught in the Gate as they reached for her curious self.

Her half-soul collapsed in the Garden of Wonders. She was barely aware of the voices speaking over her.

“She cannot stay.” It was the One Who Waited by the Gate.

“She cannot go back.” It was the Guardian by the Gate.

“I will take her then.”

“Where will you take her?”

“Where she can become strong again.”

“And what of you?”

“I will go, too.”

*   *   *

“I came back for you, Jenny,” Ellis said. “You're the reason I returned. Neither of us will ever be whole without the other.”

Jenny stared at Ellis, struggling to comprehend. “If … if what you say is true, then where do we go from here?”

“We go back,” Ellis said.

“Through the Gate?” Jenny's voice quivered as she spoke.

“Yes, I believe so.”

“And if we do … where will it take us?”

“I don't know, Jenny,” Ellis said. “But wherever it leads us, I believe we'll be whole … you and I. Wherever that is, it will be home.”

Jenny bowed her head, offering her withered hand to Ellis.

“Then take us home,” she said.

Jenny began to weep, her tears striking the watercolored paper, causing the colors to blossom and smear. In answer, a gentle rain of teardrops started to fall around them, further blurring the colors and washing them away. The garden and the gate faded away as did the blur of color, too, as the paper world around them grew whiter, clearer and cleaner.

*   *   *

Ellis stood, staring at the blank page of the scrapbook in front of her. She held up the book on the right side while a smaller, withered hand in gloves struggled to hold up the left.

Ellis and Jenny stood side by side before one of the bookcases of Lucian's library.

Ellis sighed with relief. “Jonas! We've got to hurry and—”

“Oh, there's no hurry, your ladyship.”

Ellis spun around toward the voice.

“That which was lost is now found.”

Mrs. Crow smiled back at her.

As did Merrick.

 

21

MARGARET'S DAY

Ellis pulled Jenny with her back against the bookshelves, her eyes searching desperately about the library. It had grown suddenly darker, shadows filling the upper reaches of the stacks along the octagonal perimeter of the room and extending up into the dome overhead, blocking out all light from above. The Shades shifted, thick and palpable overhead in the vague shapes of long-limbed creatures with talons for fingers and embers for eyes.

Yet it was Mrs. Crow that Ellis found the most terrifying of all. The glint in the elderly woman's eyes had turned decidedly wicked. The curl playing at the edge of her narrow smile reminded her of a little girl she once knew who took pleasure in tearing the wings off of butterflies. And more than all of that was one observation that truly chilled her to the bone.

Merrick was sweating.

He feared Mrs. Crow.

As, apparently, did both Margaret and Alicia. Margaret stood to one side of the room, her back pressed against one of the bookcases, trying hard not to be noticed. Alicia stood just slightly behind Merrick, peering around his jacket back at Ellis and Jenny.

Dr. Carmichael lay in his devilish form, his boney arms raised protectively in front of his face as he cowered against the polished stone floor in front of Ellis.

Jonas was nowhere in sight.

“I am most grateful to you, your ladyship,” Mrs. Crow said. She took deliberate, calculated steps across the floor, the hard soles of her shoes clacking against the stone with each step. “Even I, a person of great faith, began to doubt that I would ever manage success in this place.”

“Faith?” Ellis drew in a breath. “What kind of church professes your faith?”

“Surely someone of your upbringing and high station in life knows that faith has nothing to do with a church,” Mrs. Crow sneered. “One can have faith in order and punishment. One can have faith in cloaking darkness. One can certainly—oh most certainly—have faith in vengeance.”

“So you found us,” Ellis replied.

“Thanks in no small part to Alicia's help,” Mrs. Crow said with a nod toward the girl cowering at Merrick's back. “To your credit, Lady Ellis, the price of her betrayal was a good deal steeper than the traditional—what do you call it—thirty pieces of silver, but nevertheless a bargain.”

Ellis shot an accusing glance at Alicia, then glared at the malevolent housekeeper. “I suppose this means you've won the Day.”

Mrs. Crow stopped and chuckled.

“You find me amusing?” Ellis demanded as she struggled to remain calm.

“Oh, I couldn't care less about the Day.” Mrs. Crow shrugged with a dismissive wave of her hand.

“Then why look for us at all?”

“You?” Mrs. Crow chortled. “I wasn't looking for
you
at all!”

Her gaze fell on the red-brick form of Dr. Carmichael, whimpering on the floor.

“Him?”

“Oh, yes, him: Dr. Lucian Carmichael.” Mrs. Crow spat the name through clenched teeth. “You had a service to perform, didn't you, Lucian? A calling from the Prince in Exile to garner more souls to his rightful cause. You came here at his bidding because he
believed
in you. And how did you repay that trust?”

“No,” Carmichael pleaded, his cloven hooves scraping against the floor as he tried to push himself away. “You don't understand what it's like here … what I've had to do!”

“Oh, I believe I understand perfectly,” Mrs. Crow continued, baring her teeth. “You saw the pretty shadows of mortality, the children playing at life. You got a taste for, if you'll pardon the expression, well, the idea of taste … and smell and sight and touch. You found it easy to forget why you had come here, what was expected of you by the Prince in Exile and your duty. You were meant to be a powerful seduction for our cause, and what did you become? A demon with a daiquiri? Beelzebub in a boater hat?”

Ellis noticed the Shades lurking around the edge of the dome began slowly to descend. The air became palpably colder as they approached.

She pushed Jenny gently behind her, glancing about the room. The exit was on the opposite side from where they stood. Margaret stood pressed against the bookcase to one side. Alicia, Merrick, Mrs. Crow and all the Shades were between her and the door.

“There's got to be another way out,” Ellis muttered to herself. “Think! Think of another way out!”

“Please, don't make me go back. Not now,” Carmichael begged. The horns of his head were nearly at Ellis's feet. “I … I've seen too much. Learned too much! Just leave me behind, say you never found me. It's for your own sake, you know. I'd be a terrible, infecting presence in the Prince's realm!”

“No, I don't think so.” Mrs. Crow stood over him, the Shades closing in around them. Ellis could feel not just cold but the complete absence of warmth. “In fact, I don't think you'll be anything at all.”

Ellis tried to draw in a breath.

In an instant, the glass of the overhead dome shattered to dust with a crash.

The Shades' screams pierced Ellis, running through her head with painful intensity.

Light exploded into the library from above. Ellis was momentarily blinded by its intensity. The rush of flapping wings filled the air. Ellis instinctively raised her arms in front of her face, hoping it would shield her against whatever new horror was raining down around her. She turned, pressing against Jenny, trying to shield her as well.

“Ellis!”

Jonas. Jonas's voice.

She turned and opened her eyes. Jonas was rushing toward her around the edge of the library floor. He was just passing Margaret as Ellis looked up.

The air was still glittering with the glass particles whirling about the rotunda, driven into the air by the flapping of enormous wings of brilliant white.

“Angels,” Ellis breathed. “My angels.”

The bright, winged forms of beauty swung, bounded and soared about the rotunda, their brilliance muted and shuttered by the figures of the Shades that were devoid of light. They pursued each other about the open space, light crashing into darkness and darkness tearing at the light in turn. Each fought desperately to contain the other, bind it against its will and prevent its dominance in the room. One of the Shades was successfully bound only to be released by another.

Beneath the raging battle overhead, Mrs. Crow uttered an anguished, angry cry. Leathery wings erupted from her back, tearing the cloth of the dress as they unfolded. Her plump, rosy cheeks grew sunken and sallow. The white hair of her head tore loose from its restraint, writhing about her head in snaky tendrils. The fingers of her hands elongated into talons as she turned again to face Carmichael.

“Now!” Jonas shouted, pulling at Ellis's arm. “Come on!”

Ellis grasped Jenny's thin arm in turn, following Jonas's lead around the edge of the room. Margaret watched them from the opposite side, her gaze untroubled and somehow knowing. Ellis did not pause, but continued around the library rotunda, the door now only a few steps away.

Merrick shoved Alicia to the side as he stepped back into the doorway, rage quivering his body as he suddenly blocked their way.

“NO!” he shouted.

The angels and the Shades suddenly slowed in their flight, coming to a stop in midair. Ellis's Soldiers were still bright with light but she could see now that they still wore the uniforms she had pictured them in when she had encountered them in the hospital. Their beautiful, feathered wings of white were outstretched as they hung suspended in the air. So, too, it was with the Shades, parts of whom she could now see more clearly than she had before. The hands were identical to the transformed Mrs. Crow—long with talons—and each head was covered in a distinctive cowl trimmed in intricate ornamentation. Though the faces remained uncomfortably out of focus the eyes were shining pinpricks of blackness visible only when they looked directly at the observer. The particles of glass were suspended in the air, glinting at Ellis as she haltingly stopped. Even Mrs. Crow's gargoyle form and the demonically transformed Dr. Carmichael were fixed as though time no longer moved forward.

“You!” Merrick shouted, his hand extended toward Jonas.