David Liss - The Twelfth Enchantment - A Novel

When she walked through the door, however, she understood something was wrong. Mr. Gilley, Mrs. Gilley, and Norah all stared at her as she entered the house. Only Mrs. Emmett appeared happy. Beneath her low bonnet and curling hair, her obscured eyes were wide with pleasure. “Welcome back, my dear,” she said. “Oh, there has been a fuss.”

“Miss Derrick,” boomed Mr. Gilley. “Where have you been?”

“I was knocked down in the street,” she said. “It is not so bad as it appears.”

“Where have you been these two days?” demanded Mr. Gilley.

Lucy could think of nothing to say. She looked at the tall case clock in the corner, and it confirmed her suspicions. It was not yet four. So how could it be that they had discovered her absence? Lucy thought over the charm she had constructed, racking her brain to recall some misstep or error. Understanding her mistake would not help her now, but she was numb with surprise and fear, and it was all she could think to do.

Then she heard a familiar, high-pitched voice speak her name. Lucy turned to see Mrs. Quince walk into the parlor. She held in her hand a piece of paper, torn in two, and from across the room, Lucy had no trouble recognizing it. It was her talisman.

“Miss Derrick, our mutual friend Lady Harriett asked me to look in upon you and make certain all was well. She will be quite disappointed to discover you have shamed yourself and your family.” She walked over to Lucy and handed her the ripped talisman. “Some trash of yours, I believe. I found it upon the floor.”

“I am sorry your visit could not have been more pleasant,” said Mr.

Gilley.

“No fault of yours, I am sure,” answered Mrs. Quince. She folded her arms across her breasts and smiled.

Lucy locked eyes with Mrs. Quince, making an effort to keep her own expression cold and dangerous. “There will come a reckoning,” she said.

“No doubt,” answered Mrs. Quince. She curtsied and moved toward the door. “As I said, I cannot stay, Mr. Gilley, but I thank you for listening to me.”

“I am grateful for your intelligence,” he answered, and then turned to Lucy. “An excellent woman.”

Lucy said nothing, though Mr. Gilley’s expression suggested he anticipated she would have much to say, perhaps on the topic of Mrs. Quince’s excellence. When she did not speak, he coughed theatrically and straightened his posture.

“This is very serious, Miss Derrick,” he said. “I cannot expose myself to this sort of chaos. It shall render me vulnerable to a cold, and I do not wish a cold. I hate a cold above everything. For that reason, I shall write to your uncle at once. You have three days to vacate my house.”

29

L UCY WAS AWAKE HALF THE NIGHT CONTEMPLATING HER NEW state. There were spells of control, spells of forgetting. There were options, but thinking of these only led to more crying. She could not hope to control the minds and memories of so many people, and even if she could do it successfully, there was a time when the influencing of people and their minds became more than a strategy, it became evil. This moral position was a luxury she could afford only because she knew that the secret was surely out already. No doubt the servants had told their friends, and the news had spread by now to dozens of houses in London. By this time tomorrow, that number would be tenfold.

“It doesn’t matter,” she told herself. Over and over again she said it. It did not matter, because an advantageous match and balls and operas and tea gardens—these were not for her. Her task was to rescue her niece, and now she understood she could do so only by destroying an immortal, evil being, though destroying this being meant obliterating its soul, perhaps the most terrible thing she could imagine. That was not hers to consider, however. Hers was to retrieve the pages, and she had begun that endeavor, and she had kept her success hidden from everyone. That was some consolation for her disgrace.

Her disgrace. Best not to dwell on it, she decided. Best not to dwell on her shame or her challenge or any of the difficulties that lay ahead of her. There was but one thing that mattered, and that was the next piece of the Mutus Liber . She would have to attempt to discover how to find the next piece, and for that she would have to speak to Mary. She’d said she was returning to Nottinghamshire, and now, apparently, so was Lucy.

In the meantime, she examined the pages she had already. Upon them were chaotic images—bearded men in flowing robes who stood upon cliffs or raised books to the moon. A naked woman lay upon a bed of branches, holding a chalice to her breast. A child flew in the air, soon to land in the arms of a strange creature—part woman, part spider.

It looked like nonsense, and yet, she knew it was not. The pages felt alive to her, vibrant and warm in her hands. If she held one between her thumb and finger, she could feel the thrum of a pulse, and she heard something, a faint whisper of distant words. She thought of how the pages had called to her in Lady Harriett’s library in a way the pages had not when Mary had shown her the book with so many false pages. Did the possession of some pages make the discovering and understanding of the rest easier? Would she know how to interpret the pages when she had them all? Would the possession of the entire book give her the terrible knowledge of how to bestow and destroy eternal life?

She had rushed through these pages before, but she knew there was more to be gleaned, more to learn about the mechanisms of persuasion, and given the difficulties in which she now found herself, she would need what advantages she might find. And she found much. When she quieted herself, when she allowed herself to follow the patterns and folds and flow of the images, she saw things in her mind, made connections with the world, opened doors locked within her. She felt as though the pages were hers, that they told her secrets once known but long forgotten, and the secrets were wonderful indeed. What she had, what she believed she could do, would give her new strength, new advantages. Whatever happened, she would be equal to it. She felt near certain.

In the morning she found Mrs. Emmett busy making preparations for their departure. She smiled as she packed, as though she understood nothing of her mistress’s disgrace. Lucy said nothing, asked her nothing. Instead, she went down to breakfast, going late that she might avoid the discomfort of sitting with Mr. and Mrs. Gilley. Norah, however, came in to sit with her, and her long, thin mouth was twisted into the most ironic of smiles.

“What a disaster,” she said excitedly. “But it is a delicious disaster, you must acknowledge. People are talking everywhere, Lucy. I have taken a stroll about the park this morning, and you would not credit how many inquiries I’ve received. They say it is Lord Byron. Did you know he has a new book of poetry out this week? It is said to be the most charmingly scandalous thing in the world, and everyone talks of it. They say you ran off with Lord Byron and secretly married him.” She leaned in closer. “Or not.”

The first volume of his new poem, the book of which he was so proud, was to be put out that week, and yet he had made the time to take Lucy upon her mission. Despite her humiliation, and her fury with Norah, Lucy felt the warm tug of something deeper, something warmer. Byron had done those things for her, placed her quest above his vanity, rescued her from ruin. Oh, he was a terrible man, it was true, but such a good one at the same time. He lived by his own law, and it made her blush to think of it, but in matters other than love, it was clear there was no doubting his honor.

“The rumors could not be more mistaken,” Lucy told Norah.