David Liss - The Twelfth Enchantment - A Novel

“Then we shall go fetch them,” he said.

“There is something else.” Lucy looked out the window as she spoke, unwilling to gaze upon his expression when he heard what she had to say. “Was my father, like you, a Rosicrucian? I would know, if you do not mind, the story of my own life.”

Mr. Morrison sat across from her, slumped forward, his hands dangling between his knees. He appeared utterly defeated by her request. He glanced over at Mr. Blake, and observed that the old engraver sat with the book on his lap, his mouth open, conveniently asleep.

Mr. Morrison spoke in quiet tones. “Your father wished it all kept from you, and after everything that happened, it never seemed the proper moment to reveal those secrets. I suppose it is the right moment now. Yes, your father was a member of the order. He led the order when I joined. He and I were very close. I thought of him as a father.”

Lucy hardly knew how to understand this. “But you chose to corrupt his daughter?”

Mr. Morrison looked away, and then rose, walked to the window, where he adjusted the curtains, and then returned to his seat. “Your father always knew you were special. There were certain card and crystal readings around the time of your birth that alarmed him, and he believed you needed to be sheltered from your own natural talents, which he believed would be too conspicuous. This moment of transition we live in has been long coming, and your father suspected if you were to practice, dark forces would seek you out. That is why he kept you at a distance before Emily died—not because he did not love you, but because he wished to protect you. He wanted that you might live a life free of danger.”

“Then why did you attempt to convince me to run off with you?”

Mr. Morrison let out a long sigh. He shook his head and looked away, and then down. “Your father and I had a disagreement. We received intelligence that there would be an attempt upon your life, but he did not believe it, or he did not believe it was something from which he could not protect you. He was not careless with his daughters—you must never think that—but just the opposite. He was so careful, he believed such wards and spells and precautions that he had taken were impregnable. I was less optimistic. I believed there was danger, particularly to you, for Emily could take care of herself.”

“What do you mean?” asked Lucy, hearing her voice catch.

“You must know what I mean. Emily practiced. She was very skillful. Your father taught her everything he knew, and she was widely regarded as something of a prodigy, though she lacked the raw talent he believed you to possess.”

Lucy could not think of what there was to say. Her father had been a hermeticist, a Rosicrucian, and her sister his apprentice. They had studied magic together, the two of them, locked in his study, as Lucy was later to do—or begin to do. All those books he had her read, the philosophers, the languages, the botany. He had been laying the groundwork for what Lucy would later become. It was all so clear now.

“As the time drew closer,” Mr. Morrison continued, “as the hour of danger approached, I became convinced that you would die if you did not leave. I had to get you away, if only for a little while, until the danger passed.”

Lucy looked at him. His eyes were cast down, his face was red.

“And so you pretended to love me?”

“I needed you to go with me,” he said. “If I told you a tale of magic and spells and curses, you would have laughed at me. I needed you to want to go.”

“Then, what you did—you were not being cruel. All this time I have spent hating you, thinking you horrible, and you said nothing. Why did you say nothing?” Lucy felt herself growing angry again. He had let her hate him when she should have regarded him as her friend. She hardly knew where her anger belonged, but it balled up inside her, threatening to explode.

“Your father never forgave himself for being wrong, but he was, and your sister paid the price for it. The curse meant for you found her, and it killed her.”

Lucy sat still and silent, hearing nothing but the rushing of blood in her ears. It came on her, wave after wave, grief and rage and anger and loathing for herself. “Emily died, when it should have been me.”

“No!” Mr. Morrison jumped to his feet. “No, damn it. Can you not understand? Your father did not want you to know, not because he feared you would blame him. He blamed himself sufficiently that he needed no aid. He never wanted you to know because he feared you would blame yourself. He feared you would see it in that absurd way. You did not know, and you could have done nothing. It should not have been you. It should not have been either of you. She was murdered and it is no one’s fault but the murderer’s.” When Lucy said nothing, he sat down again and took her hands in both of his. “Can you not see that?”

She nodded. “Who was it? Who killed my sister?”

“The leader of the revenants.”

It was Lucy’s turn to rise to her feet. “Lady Harriett killed my sister, and you struck a deal with her?”

He shook his head. “Lady Harriett was not then leader. She took that post after the death of her husband, Sir Reginald. He had led them for centuries before he died. Before I killed him.”

“You?” said Lucy, sitting slowly.

“Out of love for your father, I did what needed doing. They had done the unpardonable, and a message had to be sent. I destroyed him.”

“Then you know how to kill them.”

“My order has known for a long time, and that knowledge had led to our truce.”

“You must tell me,” whispered Lucy.

“I cannot. I have taken an oath to guard the secret. It is a simple thing, a mixture of common elements, but the nature of these elements is something I cannot reveal.”

Lucy’s understanding came into such sharp focus, it was like a slap across her face. “Gold, mercury, and sulfur,” she said.

Mr. Morrison’s eyes went wide. He said nothing, but he did not have to. His closely guarded secret was now Lucy’s.

Lucy kept moving her hands, not quite sure what to do with them, putting them on her knees, winding them together, stroking her chin. There was so much to think about. Mr. Morrison had not been an unrepentant rake all those years ago. He had tried to help her, the only way he could think of. Her father had not suddenly decided he loved her, but he had loved her all along, wanting only to protect her from the terrible dangers posed by her own nature. He had made an error, a terrible, catastrophic error, and Emily had paid the price. So much had gone wrong, and now it was Lucy’s lot to set it right. Everything that she had ever done, or that had been done to her, had happened along the path—the crooked, winding, back-turning path—to her destiny.

“And what of Mary Crawford?” asked Lucy, with some trepidation. She did not wish to alarm Mr. Morrison by again mentioning her name, but she had to know. “Is she my friend? Can I depend upon her?”

“No,” Mr. Morrison said, his face utterly without expression, his voice entirely flat. “She is dead, and she is no one’s friend. She lies. Her kind always lies, Lucy. Never forget it.”

“And what has she lied to me about?”

Mr. Morrison sighed. “I hardly know what she told you, so I cannot inventory it all, but if she sent you to look for the pages of the Mutus Liber , I suspect she neglected to mention that she, herself, knows the location of two of the remaining pages.”

Lucy was on her feet. “What? That cannot be. She would have told me.”

“Only if she wished you to know. You think she is helping you? She is using you. No more.”