David Liss - The Twelfth Enchantment - A Novel

“No,” said Mrs. Emmett. “Not a bit of it. Run along now, girl.”

Martha stood with her mouth open.

“She is odd,” said Lucy softly, “but harmless. We will keep her here.”

Martha nodded and left the library, closing the door behind her.

They were alone. Lucy turned to Mr. Morrison. “How did you do those things—make your cudgels and chalk appear out of nothingness, and that symbol you drew upon the floor? I must know.”

He gestured vaguely. “The cudgels and chalk were but a bit of theater, nothing more than the same sort of misdirection I use to pull eggs out of ears or make coins vanish. I have found that combining my technique with a bit of spectacle gives me but one more advantage in combat. And as for the symbol, well, that’s very dark magic, soul-blackening stuff. I don’t recommend using it, and I only trifle with that sort of thing when the stakes are unusually high.”

“And what is at stake here?” asked Lucy.

Mr. Morrison looked at her directly. “You are.”

She could not bear to hold his gaze, so she began to walk the room, bright and well lit, looking at the tall shelves of books—thick folios, tiny sixteenmos, and everything in between. She ran her fingers along the spines, thinking that this one or that had been a book she had seen in the hands of her father as he sat in that red velvet chair by the window, his glasses perched on his nose, reading away the long afternoon, oblivious to the commotion in the house around him.

Lucy closed her eyes and quieted herself, trying to feel if there were pages in the room, and at once she felt their closeness. Indeed, they were in the library, she had no doubt of it, but she could not tell where, and she did not know how to sort through all the books to find them.

“Mrs. Emmett,” Lucy asked, “can you, by any chance, detect the pages?”

“Me? They are yours, not mine.” She continued her strange humming.

Lucy looked at Mr. Morrison. “Were you ever with my father here in this library?”

“Yes, of course. Many times.”

“Then you must see what I see,” said Lucy. “I did not come in here again after I moved away. When I visited, I avoided the room, for it reminded me too much of him, but here, all around us, is the evidence.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Morrison, as he walked about the room, looking at the various books. “It was said that he had to sell his library to pay his debts, but here is the library, right before us. Either Mr. Buckles bought it himself or bought it back or …” He did not choose to finish.

“He never sold it nor paid for any of it,” said Lucy.

“Of course,” said Mr. Morrison. “He is in possession of your father’s books, but they do not belong to him. This explains why everything comes back to you. Mrs. Emmett—she said as much just a moment ago. I almost didn’t hear it, but now I understand why you are at the center of everything.”

32

L UCY SAT AT A WRITING TABLE, AND MR. MORRISON SAT NEXT TO her. “I’ve long suspected, but been unable to prove, that Mr. Buckles defrauded you of your inheritance. Of course, I wondered why he would trouble to do so. He was to inherit the house, and after he married Martha he would receive half of your father’s wealth. The amount he could gain through fraud could hardly be worth the risk of discovery—not when his future was secure and his patronage from Lady Harriett left him without want.”

“He wanted the books,” said Lucy, who saw it as well.

“Your dealings with your father changed in that last year. That is why he left you what you see around us—his library. These are your books, Lucy. Mr. Buckles cared nothing of the money he stole from you. Perhaps he took it because he could or because he believed you would be less dangerous if you were even more impoverished, but in the end it was but a distraction. What he wanted was these books.”

She could hear Mary’s voice in her head. The Mutus Liber is strongest in the hands of the person to whom it belongs .

“It is mine,” said Lucy. “The book was mine all along. They took it from me, and they tore it to pieces, but they dared not destroy it.”

“They did not take it apart,” said Mr. Morrison. “Your father ordered it done, and I believe he gave the task to the only person he trusted to take the book for herself.”

Lucy nodded. “Of course. Emily. She went to Cardiff shortly before she died, and you went there looking for the book. It was Emily who disassembled the book, to keep it safe, and only she knew where the pieces were.”

“I believe so,” said Mr. Morrison. “But the pages themselves have power. You have discovered that, I think. They contain information for those who know how to read them or are sensitive to them, and so they can be sensed. Some of the pages remain where Emily left them, others have been discovered and changed hands several times.”

“All this time, I have been following in my sister’s footsteps,” said Lucy.

Mr. Morrison nodded. “You see now why Lady Harriett wanted you to marry Mr. Olson. Your property would become his. The book would no longer belong to you. Lady Harriett wanted desperately for you to marry him before all the pages were recovered, because no one wanted the book reassembled while you still owned it.”

“Almost no one,” said Lucy very quietly, for Mary dared. She alone dared to urge Lucy to assemble the book that contained the secret of unmaking her.

Mr. Morrison turned away. “Almost no one.”

Lucy had to know. She swallowed and forged ahead before she lost the nerve to ask. “If you love her, why does it matter? She left, but she returned, so why are you apart from each other? Why does she not use your name?”

He shook his head. “I will not discuss it.”

“I do not mean to cause you pain,” she said quietly. “I only wish to understand.” It was so odd, she thought as she looked at him. She had spent years hating him, thinking him the most vile of men, but he was never that person. He had only been a kind and loyal man serving Lucy’s father—and serving Lucy herself.

To distract herself, she decided it was time to find the pages. Lucy turned slowly about the room, like a sluggish child at absent play. She ran her hand along the shelves as she walked, hoping for some kind of spark or warmth or feeling of nearness. Then, in some noiseless way, she heard its cry. Lucy walked toward a shelf and there she found her father’s copy of Purchas, his Pilgrimage , just as she had always remembered it, and she opened it up. Inside its pages, folded and neat, were two more sheets from the Mutus Liber .

Lucy looked at them. They were as beautiful and strange and inexplicable as the others. On the pages were trees transmuting into vines and into animals, plant and creature alike twirling and twisting upward and down. It was all about transformation and change and melding. It was about the future and the past. It was about insight, Lucy realized, about seeing the truth behind veils of deception and disguise. There was more than that, however. The philosopher’s stone was the source of transformation and alteration, and such power required wisdom and judgment and patience, and these too were embedded in these images. Lucy stared for a long time, hoping she might become wise and insightful enough to know what to do next.

And then she did.

She turned to Mr. Morrison and Mrs. Emmett. “I need you to keep my sister away from me. I need you to keep her downstairs no matter what.”

“Where do you go?” asked Mr. Morrison.

Lucy swallowed hard, working up the courage to say what would be far more difficult to do. She turned to Mrs. Emmett and straightened herself in a display of determination. “I go to speak to the changeling.”