Laura Schlitz - Splendors and Glooms

Parsefall’s mouth was dry. He thought back to the night when Grisini crouched on top of him. He couldn’t find the words. Ruby squeezed out from Lizzie Rose’s embrace and leaped into his chair. Uninvited and unwelcome, she set about making herself at home in Parsefall’s lap.

Parsefall moistened his lips. “He come in the middle of the night. The night before Christmas Eve, it were. He ’eld me down — wiv his ’and on me mouf — and told me I ’ad to steal that fire opal from Madama. He wants it. But he daren’t steal it for ’imself.”

“Why not?” breathed Lizzie Rose.

“’Cos it’s dangerous,” Parsefall answered. “It’s magic — powerful — but it’s bad for the one that steals it. Clara told me so. She — she comes to me in my sleep.” He saw the shocked look on her face. “Almost every night, I dream about Clara. She says Madama’s a witch and the stone’s cursed, like the Bottle Imp — and summink bad’ll ’appen if I take it. But if I don’t, Grisini’ll come after me. And I don’t know ’ow long I can ’old out.” He stopped, clenching his teeth. “I know you don’t believe me.”

Lizzie Rose had gone pale. “I do believe you,” she said breathlessly. “I dream about Clara, too. She comes and stands at the foot of my bed, and I know she wants to tell me something, but she never speaks.”

“She’s tryin’ to help,” Parsefall said in a low voice. “That night, after Grisini came, I wanted to find a place where ’e couldn’t get me. I woke up with a picklock in me hand, right outside the Tower Room door. I think Clara tol’ me to go in there. After I went in —”

“You went in the Tower Room?”

“I needed a place to ’ide, didn’t I? The locks in this ’ouse are no good — a baby could pick ’em. But the Tower Room has a bolt on the inside of the door. Grisini can’t get in.” He dumped Ruby off his lap and got up. “Come on. I’ll show you.”

Lizzie Rose followed him to the door, but she looked worried. “But the tower’s unstable,” she protested. “Mrs. Fettle says so. She says —”

Parsefall snorted, dismissing her fears. He led Lizzie Rose down the passage and held open the tower door. Once they were inside, he shot the bolt. “See?” he whispered. “It ain’t so bad.”

Lizzie Rose did not seem to share his opinion. She gazed around the tower, noting the tent shelter he had built. Then her eyes traveled to the mirrors and the panels of black lacquer on the walls. She circled the room, examining the red lines of the maze, the spell books in the bookcase, the Tarot Cards that Parsefall had swept off the table onto the floor. “Oh, Parsefall,” she whispered, “the smell . . .”

Parsefall sniffed obligingly. His shoulders lifted in a faint shrug.

“This is . . . a witch’s tower,” Lizzie Rose said. “It’s true what Clara says to you. Madama’s a witch, and Grisini’s a bad magician, and I don’t know what they want from us, but it can’t be anything good.” She opened one of the drawers in the cabinet, glanced inside, and shivered. “We must go away.”

She turned slightly. Against the dark wood of the cabinet, her red hair seemed to blaze, and her face was very pale. For the first time, Parsefall realized that she was beautiful. He thought of posing a puppet like that, motionless against a dark backdrop. Cinderella, perhaps, when the stepsisters left her alone and desolate on the night of the ball.

Then the meaning of her words sank in. “Where?” he cried. “Where’ll we go? We can’t go to London.”

Lizzie Rose considered. “We’ll go to Carlisle.”

“Wot’s Carlisle?”

“It’s north,” Lizzie Rose said hesitantly. “It’s on the rail line. When we were in the second-class carriage, I heard one of the gentlemen say he was staying on until Carlisle.”

“Why’ll we go there?”

“Because they’ll expect us to go south. Madama and Grisini. They don’t know that the police in London are looking for you because of the photograph you stole. They’ll take it for granted that we’ll go back to Mrs. Pinchbeck’s. So we’ll trick them and go north, to Carlisle.”

“’Ow?” demanded Parsefall. He remembered their last journey by rail. It had been endless and unnerving, but at least they had known where they were going. He thought of the acres of empty land around them — to Parsefall, it was a wilderness — and wondered if they would even be able to find the train station.

“It won’t be easy,” admitted Lizzie Rose, “but there must be a village nearby. I’ve heard church bells. So we’ll try to find the village, and if we see anyone on the road, we’ll ask where the train station is. We’ll buy third-class tickets — I have the rest of the ten quid from the pawnbroker.”

Parsefall brightened. “We ’ave Madama’s gewgaws,” he reminded her.

“No. I think we’d better leave Madama’s things behind. They’re too rich for us. Think, Parsefall! If she decided to send after us, she could say we’d stolen those things. Nobody’d believe she gave them to us.”

“Wot about the puppets?”

“We’ll need them,” Lizzie Rose said after a moment’s reckoning. “Once we get to Carlisle, we’ll have to find work as soon as we can. You must do your best with the theatre, and I’ll help you — or I’ll look for a place as a maid-of-all-work.” She bit her lip, and Parsefall realized that she, too, was appalled by the journey ahead. “Only we mustn’t take the wicker trunk, because it takes two of us to carry it. It may be miles to the train station.”

“’Ow’ll we carry the puppets?”

Lizzie Rose thought. “I’ll sew the muslin bags to our coats,” she said, after a moment. “We’ll look dreadfully queer — though I can put my shawl over the lumps — but we must have our hands free. I’ll sew as much as I can today, so we’ll be ready to leave tonight —”

“Tonight?” repeated Parsefall, and his voice came out in a squeak.

“Tonight,” Lizzie Rose said, so gravely that he understood that she had no intention of losing time. “We’re in danger here, Parsefall. We shan’t stay here another night.”

At eleven o’clock that night, they stole from the house, unlatching the kitchen door and creeping out into the garden. Both children were heavily laden and wore several layers of clothes. It was snowing, which made Parsefall curse under his breath. “Don’t worry,” Lizzie Rose assured him in a whisper. “It’ll stop soon; it’s only flurries,” but the flurries were as large as halfpennies, weighing heavy on the children’s eyelashes, and drenching their cheeks.

They passed through the kitchen garden and started down the hill. Ruby pranced against her leash, overjoyed that they were taking a walk in the middle of the night. Parsefall muttered, “Bloody ’orrible dog,” but he was uneasy. Why was Lizzie Rose leading them toward the lake? Perhaps she knew of a shortcut that would bypass the gatehouse. It was only when they reached the two stone urns that he confronted her. “Why’d we come ’ere?”

Lizzie Rose gave a little jump. “How queer! I don’t know why. I suppose I wasn’t attending.”

“Well, ’adn’t you better attend ?” said Parsefall. He knew she hated sarcasm, but he was too frightened to be careful of her feelings. She was in charge of getting them away from Strachan’s Ghyll. He needed her not to make mistakes.

Lizzie Rose glared at him. Then she spun on her heel and started up the path, taking such long strides that he had to trot to keep up with her. He said, “We show up too much against all this bloomin’ snow.”