Gordon Dahlquist - The Dark Volume

But the second book changed all of this. It had colored Miss Temple's thoughts to the same extreme degree as the first—or recolored them, overlaying every vivid impulse ash grey. The Contessa's book had been compiled from countless lives, while the book on the grass contained the memories of a single man—but his memories had been harvested at the very moment of death, infecting each instant of his captured experience with a toxic, corrupting, nauseating dread. It was not unlike the pageants one saw carved on medieval churches— lines of people, from princesses to peasants to popes, trailing hand in hand after Death, the trappings of their lives exposed as vanity. Scenes of lust—and what scenes they were!—became disgusting charades of rotting meat, sumptuous banquets became fashioned whole from human filth, every strain of sweet, sweet music became re-strung to the coarse calling of blood-fed crows. Miss Temple had never imagined such despair, such utter hopelessness, such bottomless bankruptcy. The first book's bright empire of sensation, its unstable riot beneath her skin, had been mirrored by bitter futility, with the acrid dust that was every person's inheritance.

But Miss Temple understood why Francis Xonck had chosen this book to keep. How quick his thoughts must have flown just to see the possibility, to seize an empty glass book. He had preserved in its unfeeling depths—the freezing glass no doubt pressed to the dying man's face—all the alchemical knowledge of the Comte d'Orkancz.

She shoved her body onto one elbow, pursing her lips with a twinge of irritation that hinted at recovery, and looked over her shoulder at the book, whose surface had taken on a satisfied glow. Miss Temple doubted there was any person—even Xonck, even Chang—strong enough to actually immerse themselves in its contents without being utterly overwhelmed. Mrs. Marchmoor's hand had passed into it without harm… but what did that mean? The glass woman may have learned the book contained the Comte—why else would she have gone to Harschmort?—but if she had been able to absorb the actual contents of the Comte's mind, then she would have had no need for Miss Temple and no reason to seek the Comte's tools and machines. Miss Temple recalled the three glass women ransacking the minds of everyone in the Harschmort ballroom—invisibly passing everything they saw to the Comte… it only made sense that he had forbidden them to enter his own mind. Could that taboo extend to his mind when encased in the book? Mrs. Marchmoor had come to Harschmort to insert the book into another body—one the glass woman believed she could control. But that must mean she had no idea of the taint, the corruption coloring all of its contents.

And what of Francis Xonck? He had rescued the book from the sinking airship, his own body a sickening ruin, in hopes to reverse his condition. Had he looked into it? Miss Temple did not think so. Had not Xonck come to Harschmort—just like Mrs. Marchmoor—to find the necessary machines to open the book and thus save his life?

Again Miss Temple wondered who had set the fires, foiling them both.

SHE CURLED her legs beneath her and peeked over the wall. The actual clearing where Xonck and Mrs. Marchmoor had struggled was far beyond view, but there were no signs of anyone searching in the garden. With a fretful grimace—as if she were managing an especially wicked-looking cane spider—Miss Temple carefully scooped the glass book back into the canvas sack. Harschmort was surrounded by miles of fen country. She was alone, hungry, and her appearance would have dismayed a fishwife. Miss Temple wound the top of the sack around her palm and pushed her way through the high grass. She had no idea of cross-country escapes and pursuing soldiers, but what she knew quite well were large houses run by servants, riddled with ways to pass unseen.

Near the stone wall's end lay a collection of low sheds. She saw no one, and this was strange, for even with the family not present, routine upkeep of Harschmort's house and grounds ought to necessitate all manner of effort, and Miss Temple was confident—unless she had discovered an epidemic of shirking—that these sheds were a hive of everyday activity. Yet now they seemed to be abandoned.

She scampered quickly between the sheds to the nearest glass double doors of the house. The lock had been broken. This must be where Francis Xonck had forced his way in. Miss Temple slipped into the ballroom. She had last seen it full of the Cabal's minions, dressed in finery and wearing masks, cheering their masters off to Macklenburg. Now the great wooden floor and the line of bright windows were coated with dust from the fire. She crossed quickly and found herself in the very same ante-room where the Contessa had licked the port stains from her eyes. Miss Temple shivered, stopping where she was. The memory of the Contessa's tongue led directly to the freight car, the woman's lips on her own… and to Miss Temple's spiraling shame, she could not stop her mind from plowing on. At once those kisses bloomed like a gushing artery into a hundred more, kisses of all kinds between too many different people to separate, erupting from the Contessa's book. Miss Temple stuffed one hand in her mouth, the tips of her body ablaze, aghast at how quickly she had been so overwhelmed. On desperate impulse, she opened her reeling senses to the second book, to the bilious tang of the Comte's despair. As it collided with her pleasure, Miss Temple lurched into the cover of a decorative philodendron, where she crouched and rocked helplessly, hugging her knees.

In time, both waves ebbed away. She heard shouting in another part of the house. Miss Temple staggered up. In the corridor lay the older servant, toppled by Mrs. Marchmoor, his face still dark with blood. The voices were far away and the hallways too conducive to echo for her to place them. She crept past the fallen man to what looked like a painted wall panel and found the inset hook to pull it open, revealing a narrow maid's staircase. She climbed past two landings before leaving it to enter a thickly carpeted corridor with a low ceiling, almost as if she had boarded an especially luxurious ship—though she knew this to be an architectural remnant of Harschmort Prison. With a spark of anticipation Miss Temple padded toward Lydia Vandaariff's suite of rooms.

SHE PASSED quietly through the Lady of Harschmort's private parlor, attiring room, bedchamber, and finally to her astonishingly spacious closet. The walls were lined with hanging garments and tight-stuffed shelving—enough clothing for a regiment of ladies. Satisfied no one was there—she had feared a lingering maid—Miss Temple lifted the chair from the heiress' writing desk, and, recalling Chang's precautions at the Boniface, wedged it fast under the doorknob.

She returned to the closet, plucking at her dress—not intending any commentary on the late Mrs. Jorgens but more than sick of it, the smell of her own sweat having permeated the fabric. Miss Temple dislodged the final buttons with impatience and pulled it over her head and then balled the thing up to throw across the room.

She stopped. As she wadded the fabric… on the side of the bodice, along the seam… she stepped closer to the light and removed a scrap of parchment paper torn to a neat square and folded over. She wondered if it was from Mrs. Jorgens—a shopping list or love note— for the writing first struck her as an unschooled scrawl. But that was wrong… not so much a scrawl as its author was utterly careless of how it appeared. As she thought back to the littered ruin of the suite at the St. Royale, such an intemperate script for the Contessa di Lacquer-Sforza made perfect sense.

My Dear Celeste,

Forgive my Departure. Were I to stay I must eat you to the Bones.