Shana Abe - The Deepest Night

I had no intention of mucking about in slums any longer, not in Scotland or anywhere else. If Westcliffe wasn’t having me back next year anyway, there was no point in doing what the government or any of the adults ordered me to do.

I would take my money from Armand, purchase some decent traveling gear and a ticket to Someplace Else. I would empty my chest of gold into my suitcase, board a train, and not look back. Never mind Westcliffe and Armand and Jesse and the Splintered Sisters of the Holy Whatever. Not only was I magical, I now had means. If I desired to disappear, no one would ever find me.

After I was settled somewhere, I would think about—think about—rescuing Aubrey.

If Jesse truly expected me to risk my life for a stranger, he could damned well come to me in a dream and tell me so himself.

This is what I remember from the momentous 1915 Observance of Graduation at the Iverson School for Girls, Wessex, England:

Westcliffe taking the stage for her welcome speech, which was about—surprise!—the virtues of modesty and faith, and how this was unquestionably one of the most promising classes of young ladies she’d ever had the pleasure to host.

(Sophia, hiding her mouth behind her hand: “She says that every year.”)

Malinda playing the upright piano that had been rolled into place beyond the podium; she’d recovered enough by then to destroy only a few bars of Stella and Beatrice’s treacly duet.

My head beginning to ache.

Chloe Pemington walking up the stairs to the stage, enveloped in a cloud of overripe perfume. She’d won some sort of award from the professors for perfect deportment.

(Sophia, snorting.)

Chloe accepting her engraved silver chalice with a condescending nod, floating like a sylph across the stage. Men in the audience transfixed.

Sophia after that, reciting her book passage with a familiar crisp yet singsong elocution that had the headmistress beaming, because apparently she couldn’t tell when she was being mocked.

My head, throbbing.

Another speech from one of the front-row gentlemen, who mumbled so severely I couldn’t make out a single word besides wives. Although I suppose it might have been knives.

The hot broken bits of sunlight on my arms and lap, blinding.

Lillian, Mittie, and Caroline and their poem, entitled “An Ode to Good Old Iverson, My Home of Homes!”

Demons with machetes inside my skull, hacking to come out.

And then Lord Armand Louis, striding past me without a glance to take the podium, about to give the speech that would change everything.

“I hope you will forgive the Duke of Idylling’s absence on this important day,” he began, his voice smooth and commanding, the very opposite of Mr. Mumbler. “My father sends his best wishes to each of you, and most especially to each of the young women graduating from this fine school, of which he is quite justly proud. I realize I am not so eloquent nor so fluent in public discourse as His Grace, but I shall do my best to be an adequate speaker in his stead.”

Armand paused to flash a smile at the audience. Four of my classmates released audible, smitten sighs.

“I believe I echo my father’s sentiments when I state that it is imperative, even in turbulent times, to celebrate the importance of learning and perseverance. Indeed, in times such as these, recognition of such achievements becomes even more significant. What else do we truly fight for? We fight for the glory of our country, of course. For our king. But also for our way of life. Our way of thinking. Of being.”

Was this some emerging drákon skill? I’d never heard him speak like this before. He was cool and calm and mesmerizing. He had all of us, including me, leaning forward in our seats, hanging on his words.

Armand removed his hat and let the sun illuminate him entirely. Shining dark hair, intense blue eyes. The harsh light along his white shirt and skin cast him almost aglow.

“Iverson is an ideal illustration of who and what we are. Of what we must defend. The welfare of your daughters is dear to every fighting man out there, I promise you. They risk their lives for them, for us. Such a sacrifice is overwhelming.

“I was reminded of this recently by a student from this very school. A tenderhearted girl who came to me with an idea, one I hope you will all embrace as fervently as I did. Miss Jones? Miss Eleanore Jones? Where are you?”

Oh, God. I shrank back in my chair. What was he doing?

Armand pretended to search the crowd for a few seconds before spotting me cowering under my parasol. He gestured emphatically in my direction.

“Ladies and gentlemen, it is due to this girl that a plan has been set into motion that I hope will benefit the lives of a good number of soldiers and their families. As many of you know, my home, Tranquility at Idylling, is large—and largely empty. With my father’s blessing, I intend to fill those empty rooms with heartbeats, with souls. I am going to transform Tranquility into a convalescent hospital for our own wounded soldiers.”

Another pause, and a gradual, rumbling, swelling resonance from the crowd that I read as part approval, part disbelief. Armand spoke again, louder, before the sound could grow beyond him.

“And I am delighted to inform you that this same kind girl, as true an example of the Iverson spirit of generosity and service as ever was, has volunteered to spend her summer there as our very first nurse!”

Armand took a half step back from the podium, smiling again, allowing the swell of sound to crest into happy applause. Then he walked straight to me, bowing before me and lifting a hand in an invitation to take mine.

What else could I do? I placed my fingers over his and he lowered his head to press a kiss upon my knuckles. The applause grew even louder.

“Voilà,” he murmured, a word that only I could hear.

Well, forget about my piano performance. There was no way I was going to try to follow that.

One hour later, at the al fresco reception, beneath some anemic clouds and that unrelenting sun:

“A moment, Miss Jones.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You are certainly full of surprises. Why did you not mention to me your conversation with Lord Armand regarding the hospital?”

“Uh … I beg your pardon, ma’am. I assure you, I was as amazed as you when he spoke of it today.”

“Had you bothered to tell me you’d volunteered as a nurse for the summer, you might have saved many of us a good deal of trouble. It is not an uncomplicated task to arrange a future, Eleanore. A good many people went to some effort on your behalf to secure your place at the Callander orphanage.”

“I beg your pardon, ma’am.”

“Indeed. Had I any inkling of your interest in nursing, I might have arranged to send you to one of the many worthy hospitals already in existence.”

“It—it was a very sudden interest, ma’am.”

“Plainly. Is that champagne I smell on your breath?”

“No, ma’am. I wouldn’t dream of—”

“Good day to you, Miss Jones.”

“Good day. Ma’am.”

The next day was Saturday. Technically, only Sundays were marked as Visitors’ Day at Iverson, but since the school year had officially ended, it seemed that rule was done as well. The castle was filled with sounds of girls laughing and crying their goodbyes, of doors slamming and the heavy, plodding footsteps of the menservants carrying trunk after trunk down the main stairs to be loaded up in the line of automobiles along the drive.

Mrs. Westcliffe had arranged for tea service in the front parlor, and that’s where most of the parents lingered, quenching their thirst and girding their loins for the coming months. Girls out of uniform—at last, out of uniform!—darted every which way, eager not to miss a single departure of a classmate they’d probably despised only yesterday.

I, too, walked the halls out of uniform. Which meant that instead of wearing black or white, I was in brown: plain brown blouse, brown twill skirt, scuffed brown boots. Every single child at Blisshaven had worn this color. I wondered sometimes if it was to make us even more invisible than we already were.

The ends of my sleeves cut short just above the bones of my wrist. Only three months ago, they’d been the right length. My boots pinched smaller, too, and the top buttons of my skirt strained to pop free. The only thing that fit well at all any longer was the cuff of golden flowers I wore.

The cuff that Jesse had made for me out of real, living flowers transformed into gold.

I might have sold it, instead of the pinecone. But I was as likely do that as to chop off my arm.

I was approaching the open doorway of the parlor, trying to ignore the inviting aromas of spice cake and tea and cucumber sandwiches wafting through, when voices reached me. A cluster of people, stationed near the door.

“Mamá, I told you—she’s a very little nobody from nowhere. She has no money, no family, and no friends.”

Aha. Lady Chloe, sounding petulant.

“Excuse me,” countered a new someone. “But I am her friend.”

Sophia! My feet slowed.

“Very charitable of you, my pet, very charitable.” A man this time. Lord Pemington, perhaps? “I have always admired your generous nature.”

“Thank you, Papa.”

“Yes, yes.” A woman now, impatient. “But how did this scholarship girl manage to wrangle an invitation to Tranquility for the entire summer?”

“Armand is in love with her,” said Sophia.

“He certainly is not,” hissed Chloe. “She’s connived her way in, that’s all. She’s a scheming little chit! Anyone can see that!”

“Anyone but Lord Armand, it would appear,” said the woman. “And no wonder, what with this unfortunate business about his father! The poor boy, his head must be muddled. This won’t do. This won’t do in the least.”

I whipped past the open doorway, but no one was looking at me, anyway.

Invisible, remember?

The castle kept any number of secrets locked within its stony heart. Among my favorites—and the most useful—were the hidden passageways that tunneled behind the walls, connecting different floors and chambers from the rooftop all the way down past the dungeons. Some of them had been sealed up or filled in with rubble; those that were left intact seemed to have been forgotten, lost to generations of memories gone to dust.

Certainly Westcliffe didn’t know about the tunnels, nor did the other students or staff. But Jesse had. And now I did.

I stood alone on the cold, flat slab that was the floor of another fine secret: Iverson’s grotto. It was a cavern, really, a natural bubble in the bedrock of the island that had been reinforced with man-made pillars and this smooth embankment of limestone. Seawater lapped at the edges of the embankment, making the softest, softest of sounds. It entered and exited through another significant hole in the rock at the far end of the cavern. The only way in or out of this place was through that hole—or else the secret tunnel that had led me here.

The grotto had been designed as a refuge for the medieval castle folk. As a place of escape should invaders come and Iverson fall. The tide came in, and rowboats could steal away out the hole. The tide went out, and all other boats would be stranded, unable to pursue.

It was a place of refuge for me, too. It was here that Jesse had first explained to me about who I was. What my Gifts would mean.

Where we had broken bread together and kissed, and wrapped ourselves in blankets and laughed at fate.

I crossed my arms over my chest, warding off the chill; it was always much cooler here than anywhere else. I gazed down at the seawater, a strange silvery radiance at my feet, dancing its subtle silvery dance.

His hair had been blond. His eyes had been green. If I closed my own I could still see them, the summer storms behind them when he looked at me, and I wondered how much longer they’d remain so clear in my memory. It was already getting harder to summon the exact pitch of his voice.

I squatted down and touched my fingertips to the water, then brought them to my lips. The salt water tasted like tears.

“I miss you,” I said. The grotto took my words and bounced them back at me: you-you-you …

No one else answered.

“I have to go soon,” I said.

 … soon-soon-soon …