Looking Glass E-Book

Christina Henry

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

Collection of four dark novellas set in the Alice series universe. Lovely Creature In the New City lives a girl with a secret: Elizabeth can do magic. But someone knows her secret--someone who has a secret of his own. That secret is a butterfly that lives in a jar, a butterfly that was supposed to be gone forever, a butterfly that used to be called the Jabberwock... Girl in Amber Alice and Hatcher are just looking for a place to rest. Alice has been dreaming of a cottage by a lake and a field of wildflowers, but while walking blind in a snowstorm she stumbles into a house that only seems empty and abandoned... When I First Came to Town Hatcher wasn't always Hatcher. Once, he was a boy called Nicholas, and Nicholas fancied himself the best fighter in the Old City. No matter who fought him he always won. Then his boss tells him he's going to battle the fearsome Grinder, a man who never leaves his opponents alive... The Mercy Seat There is a place hidden in the mountains, where all the people hate and fear magic and Magicians. It is the Village of the Pure, and though Alice and Hatcher would do anything to avoid it, it lies directly in their path...

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Also by Christina Henry and available from Titan Books

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

LOVELY CREATURE

GIRL IN AMBER

WHEN I FIRST CAME TO TOWN

THE MERCY SEAT

About the Author

LOOKING GLASS

These are uncorrected advance proofs bound for review purposes only. All cover art, trim sizes, page counts, months of publication and prices should be considered tentative and subject to change without notice. Please check publication information and any quotations against the bound copy of the book. We urge this for the sake of editorial accuracy as well as for your legal protection and ours.

Also by Christina Henry and available from Titan Books

ALICE

RED QUEEN

LOST BOY

THE MERMAID

THE GIRL IN RED

THE GHOST TREE (SEPTEMBER 2020)

LOOKING GLASS

Christina Henry

TITAN BOOKS

Looking Glass

Print edition ISBN: 9781789092868

E-book edition ISBN: 9781789092875

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd.

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

www.titanbooks.com

First Titan edition: April 2020

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Copyright © 2020 Tina Raffaele. All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

For all the girls who save themselves and all the girls still learning how

Lovely Creature

Lovely Creature

Elizabeth Violet Hargreaves trotted down the stairs in her new blue dress, her blond hair neatly done up in curls and ribbons. She couldn’t wait to show Mama and Papa how pretty she looked. Elizabeth had spent several moments admiring her appearance from all angles in her looking glass, until her maid Dinah had told her enough was enough and that she should get downstairs else she would miss breakfast.

Elizabeth did not want to miss breakfast. She was a hearty eater, somewhat to her mother’s dismay, and breakfast was her favorite meal. There were always pots of jam with breakfast, and a sugar bowl for the tea, and Elizabeth never missed a chance to add an extra dollop of jam to her toast or sneak another lump of sugar.

If her mother caught her she would make that hissing snake noise between her teeth and tell Elizabeth if she kept eating like that she would become rounder than she was already. Elizabeth didn’t mind much that she was round. She thought it made her look soft and sweet, and she’d rather be soft and sweet than hard and clipped, like her mother.

Of course, Elizabeth thought Mama was beautiful—or rather, she was beautiful underneath all her planes and angles. She had the same blond hair as Elizabeth, long and thick. When she took it down at night it would fall in rippling waves to her waist. Some of those waves had turned silvery grey, though Elizabeth didn’t think Mama was that old, really, and the silver was sort of pretty when it caught the light.

Elizabeth had her mother’s eyes, too, clear and blue. But Mama used to laugh more, and her eyes used to crinkle up in the corners when she did. Now there was always a furrow between her brows, and Elizabeth couldn’t remember the last time she laughed.

No, that isn’t true, she thought to herself. She could remember the last time Mama laughed. It was before That Day.

“That Day” was how Elizabeth always referred to it in her mind, the day that she came downstairs for breakfast to find her father at the table looking like he’d aged twenty years in a minute, his face the color of old ash in the fireplace. In front of him was the morning newspaper, freshly ironed.

“Papa?” she’d asked, but he hadn’t heard her.

Elizabeth had crept closer, and seen the paper’s headline.

FIRE IN CITY ASYLUM

No SURVIVORS—TALES FROM TERRIFIED ONLOOKERS

Underneath these interesting bits was a photograph that showed the asylum before and after the fire. Elizabeth stared at the “before” picture. The building seemed like it was staring back at her, like something was rippling under the walls, something that wanted to reach out and grab her and drag her inside.

“Elizabeth,” Papa had said, and folded the paper hurriedly, pushing it to one side. “What is it, my darling?”

She indicated the food spread out on the table before him. “It’s breakfast. Did Mama eat already?”

“N-no,” Papa said. “Mama isn’t feeling well. She’s still asleep.”

That was strange, because Elizabeth was certain she’d heard Mama’s voice downstairs earlier. But Papa seemed to have something on his mind at the moment (that was what Mama always said, that Papa had Something on His Mind and Elizabeth Wasn’t to Bother Him) so perhaps he’d forgotten that Mama had been here already.

Elizabeth climbed into her seat and laid her napkin on her lap as she was supposed to do and waited for Hobson to serve.

The butler came forward and Elizabeth said, “Eggs and toast, please, Hobson.”

He nodded, and lifted the cover off the eggs, and Elizabeth noticed his hand trembled as he scooped the eggs onto her plate with a large silver spoon. He plucked two pieces off the toast rack with tongs and placed them next to the eggs.

“Jam, Miss Alice?” Hobson said, offering Elizabeth the jam pot.

“Not Alice,” Papa hissed through his teeth, and his voice was so harsh it made Elizabeth jump in her seat. “Elizabeth.”

Hobson brought one of his shaking hands to his face, and Elizabeth saw with surprise that he wiped away a tear.

“Hobson, are you all right?” she asked. She liked the old butler quite a bit. He always saved extra sugar lumps for her in a handkerchief and passed them illicitly at dinner.

“Yes, Miss Al—Elizabeth,” he said firmly. “I’m quite all right.”

He placed the jam pot near Elizabeth’s teacup and went to stand against the wall behind Papa. Elizabeth watched him, frowning.

“Papa, who’s Alice?” she asked.

“No one,” Papa said in his No Arguments voice. “I think Hobson must have been thinking of something else.”

Elizabeth ignored the No Arguments warning. “But then why did you get so angry when he said ‘Alice’?”

Papa’s face looked strange then, a kind of cross between chalky and mottled, and he seemed to be swallowing words trying to escape out of his mouth.

“It’s nothing for you to worry about, Elizabeth,” Papa said finally. “Enjoy your breakfast. You can have extra jam if you like.”

Elizabeth returned her attention to her breakfast plate, pleased to have permission for all the jam she liked but not so silly that she didn’t realize Papa was trying to distract her. Still, she supposed she could let herself be distracted for the moment.

And in truth, she had nearly forgotten the Incident at Breakfast until later, when she climbed the stairs to get a book and heard Mama making muffled noises in her bedroom. Elizabeth had put her ear close to the keyhole and listened.

“Alice, Alice,” Mama said, and it sounded like she was sobbing.

“Alice,” Elizabeth said to herself, and tucked the name away. It meant something. No one wanted her to know what it meant, but it certainly meant something.

Elizabeth didn’t know why she was now thinking of That Day as she tripped down the stairs in her lovely dress. That Day had been strange and confusing, all the adults in the house speaking in hushed voices.

Her older sister Margaret had even come from across the City in a carriage to confer with their parents in the parlor and Elizabeth had been told in no uncertain terms to go to her room and stay there while this interesting conference occurred.

Margaret was quite a lot older than Elizabeth—twenty years older, in fact, and had two little girls of her own. These girls were ten and nine years old to Elizabeth’s eight but had to call her “Aunt Elizabeth” and she did rather enjoy exerting the authority that came with being the aunt. It meant that when she said that they had to play a certain game they had to listen or else she could tell them off without getting in trouble for it.

They would see Margaret and her husband Daniel (who always called her “Sister Elizabeth” and made her laugh by tickling her cheeks with his mustache) and the girls today at Giving Day. All of the families of the City gathered in the Great Square for their children to receive their gifts from the City Fathers.

Elizabeth had noticed last year that some families—her own papa, even—also gave something to the City Fathers in return. She couldn’t tell what it was, though, because it was a sealed envelope.

She paused outside the door of the breakfast room, to make certain that Papa and Mama were both in there so she could make her grand entrance and hear both of them ooh and aah at how pretty she looked. The two of them were murmuring quietly to each other as they passed the jam and the butter.

Elizabeth swept into the room and paused just inside the door, holding the hem of her new dress in both hands. Mama hadn’t even seen the dress because Dinah had gone with her to the shop to choose it. Elizabeth wanted it to be a surprise for everyone, and of course her hair had never looked quite so nice as it did just then. Dinah had taken extra care on it that morning.

“Ta-da!” Elizabeth said, and waited for the applause.

Instead her mother gasped and said, “Alice!”

Papa’s face went from ruddy to white in a moment, and he looked at Mama and said, in a warning voice, “Althea!”

Mama covered her mouth with her hand, and Elizabeth heard little coughing sobs leaking out from behind her fingers.

Alice again, Elizabeth thought. This time she was not curious about the name so much as annoyed. Who was this Alice to steal Elizabeth’s thunder? Where were her “oohs” and “aahs”?

“What’s the matter, Mama?” Elizabeth asked. “Don’t you think I’m pretty in my new dress?”

Papa took a very long draught from his teacup and put the cup back on the saucer with a clatter. Then he held his arms out to Elizabeth, who went to her father and climbed into his lap.

“Of course you look pretty, my sweetheart. I’ve never seen a creature so lovely as you.” He winked at her. “Except your mother, of course. And you are just the image of her.”

Elizabeth smiled proudly across the table at Mama, who seemed to be struggling to get herself under control. She stared at Elizabeth as if she were a ghost instead of her own daughter.

“You look very pretty, too, Mama,” Elizabeth offered.

Mama did look pretty in her white gown, the same one that she always wore to Giving Day. It was her nicest one and it never was taken out except for this special day once a year. Mama usually wore it with a pink sash around her waist but that sash had been replaced by a blue one that was a little darker than the blue of Elizabeth’s dress. Elizabeth wondered what happened to the other sash.

“Elizabeth said you look pretty, Althea,” Papa said.

The way he said it was like he was talking to a child that needed to be reminded of her manners. Elizabeth had never heard Papa talk to Mama this way before.

Mama closed her eyes, gave a shuddering breath and then opened them again. When she did the ghost hadn’t left her face entirely but she looked more like Mama again.

“Thank you very much, Elizabeth,” Mama said. “You look charming in that dress.”

If Mama had said this the way that she usually said it Elizabeth would have wriggled with pride but it didn’t sound the way Mama usually said it. It was stiff and hard and Mama didn’t mean it. Elizabeth could tell.

“Why don’t you have some breakfast?” Papa asked, kissing the top of her head. This was the signal for her to hop off his lap and go to her own chair.

She did, though a lot of the joy of the day had been drained out already. Well, perhaps Daniel and Margaret would compliment her dress when they arrived.

Still, Elizabeth thought as she put an extra-generous dollop of marmalade on her toast, I must discover who this Alice is.

Elizabeth was tired of Alice spoiling her days.

After breakfast Elizabeth went into the garden to wait for Margaret and Daniel and her nieces to arrive.

“Mind you don’t get your dress dirty,” Mama said. She sounded almost normal when she said that.

The roses were in the fullest bloom, all of them fat and red and giving off thick perfume that made Elizabeth feel dreamy and drowsy. Mama loved her roses, never let the gardener go near them but insisted on tending them herself.

And of course the roses were the crown jewels of the garden, more luscious than any of the other flowers. The dahlias and tulips always looked like sad little broken soldiers next to Mama’s roses.

Elizabeth found her favorite place in the garden, a little nook underneath one of the rosebushes with just enough room for her to sit without anyone spotting her from the house. It was the perfect place because there was space between her hair and the catching thorns of the roses. In fact, she was so well hidden that if you didn’t know she was there you would walk right by the rosebush and never see her.

Though if she got any taller she likely wouldn’t fit anymore, Elizabeth reflected. She’d grown a little in the last year—not much, but she was hoping to be very tall like Papa. Her mama was slender and delicate and not too tall, but taller than the average neighbor who called for afternoon tea.

Elizabeth wanted long legs and long arms, though she suspected that if she got tall she’d lose some of her roundness.

Well, she thought, it would be a small price to pay for being tall. And of course, if she ate enough cake she could make herself as round as she liked again. At least, Mama seemed to think it was Elizabeth’s love of cake that made her so. Maybe it wasn’t true. Maybe Elizabeth was just naturally that way.

Elizabeth wanted very much to be taller than almost all the boys on the street. She wished to stare down at them imperiously and make them cower. Then maybe they wouldn’t say rude things about her face and her soft arms and her round thighs. It didn’t bother her to be this way until they said something about it. Though it only bothered her because she felt she ought to be bothered, not because they made her feel bad, really.

Not really.

Besides, it was only poor people in the Old City who should be very thin. Elizabeth had seen some of them pushing up against the bars whenever they drove past the border. They always appeared so pale and spindly and desperate that Elizabeth wanted to stop the coach and hand out all of her pocket money.

She said this to her parents once and her father had scoffed. “Charity is all very well, Elizabeth, but any money you gave those creatures would end up in a bottle. Don’t let your sympathy be misplaced.”

Elizabeth hadn’t understood what Papa meant by “in a bottle” so she’d asked Dinah later and Dinah told her that it was someone who drank a lot of spirits.

“And those Old City folks, they’re nothing but shiftless drunkards and murderers, your father is right about that,” Dinah had said as she brushed out Elizabeth’s hair. “No need to worry yourself about them.”

This had seemed very hard-hearted to Elizabeth, but all the adults in her life said it so it must be true.

A little orange butterfly flew into Elizabeth’s secret nook and landed on her knee. It flapped its wings at her for a moment, as if giving her a friendly greeting, and then flew away.

A red rose petal floated down from the bush and landed on her knee in the exact place that the butterfly had landed.

I wish that rose was a butterfly, too, a beautiful red butterfly with wings like rubies.

And of course because she wished it, it was so.

The petal seemed to swell, then split, and a moment later there was a lovely butterfly with wings the size of Elizabeth’s palm waving its antennae at her.

Elizabeth wasn’t surprised by this. Her wishes tended to come true, though she needed to really mean them. If she said idly that she wished for ice cream then ice cream would not appear just because she said it.

Her wishes also came true more often when she dreamed under the roses, though she did not know why this should be. Perhaps because Mama tended them and put her love into them, instead of the gardeners who always seemed to be having their elevenses even when it wasn’t the proper time.

She carefully picked up the butterfly from her knee and let it rest on the flat of her hand. It showed no inclination to fly away.

“But butterflies must fly away,” Elizabeth said. “They aren’t for keeping.”

Unless their wings are broken.

She looked all around, startled. That was not her own voice she’d heard. It was someone else’s.

Someone terrible, she thought. Who would break the wings of a butterfly?

A jealous Caterpillar who can never fly, the voice said.

“Are you the jealous Caterpillar?” Elizabeth asked.

She wasn’t certain where the voice was coming from, but it was definitely not inside her head, as she first thought. That was a comfort, because she was old enough to know that only mad people heard voices that were not their own.

Me? The voice was richly amused by this question. Elizabeth heard the laughter in that single syllable. Oh no, not me, never me. I am jealous of nothing and no one for I am the one who keeps all the stories and stories are more valuable than rubies. All the knowledge of the world is in stories.

“So who is this Caterpillar who breaks butterflies, then?” Elizabeth said.

She thought the voice sounded like a know-all and since Elizabeth had an older sister she didn’t need to associate with any more know-alls. Still, if he told her a story it might make the time pass until the carriage came around to take them to the Giving Day ceremonies.

He was very naughty. Very, very naughty indeed, but Alice made him pay for his sins.

“Alice?” Elizabeth asked, her eyes widening and her heart leaping at the sound of the name. “Do you know Alice?”

Perhaps now she could discover the identity of this troublesome Alice, this spectre who left her mother’s eyes haunted and her father’s face white.

Of course I know Alice. Once she was the Rabbit’s Alice. The voice had gone all singsong croony. Pretty little Alice with a pretty axe murderer at her side. Pretty Alice who cut the Caterpillar’s throat and made it all fall down.

“But who is Alice?” Elizabeth asked impatiently. And why does no one want me to know?

Alice swam in a river of tears and waded through streets that ran with blood and found a cottage covered in roses. Alice walked the forest at night and danced with the goblin and took the queen’s crown.

“No, I don’t want riddles. If you’re not going to tell me properly then I don’t want to talk to you at all,” Elizabeth said impatiently, and crawled out from under the roses.

The butterfly in her palm flew away and landed on an open flower. Its wings were same red velvet as the rose, matched so closely that you wouldn’t know it was a butterfly at all except for the antennae waving in the breeze.

She dusted the grass and flower petals from her blue dress, feeling that the day was not going at all according to her plan. Everyone was supposed to love her new dress and instead she’d had to drag a compliment from her parents. This annoying voice had come to intrude on her dreaming time under the roses and instead of telling her what she wanted to know it only left more questions in its wake.

And always, always, there was Alice.

“Who is Alice?” she asked, though she didn’t expect an answer. She just wanted a chance to show the strange voice that he hadn’t distracted her.

* * *

Why, Alice is your sister, of course.

Elizabeth was squashed up against the door of the carriage because her nieces Polly and Edith had demanded she ride with them and Margaret and Daniel instead of in her parents’ carriage.

Normally she would have been well pleased to play with them instead of straining to listen to her parents’ murmured conversation, but she wanted to think quietly about what the voice had told her and it was impossible to think with Polly squealing because Edith kept tickling her.

“Edith, stop that this instant,” Margaret said, frowning at her younger daughter.

Edith obligingly folded her hands in her lap, but everyone in the carriage knew that as soon as Margaret’s attention turned to something else she would start in on Polly again. Polly was astoundingly ticklish—if you even brushed her cheek with your fingers she would start giggling uncontrollably.

“What’s the matter, Elizabeth?” Margaret asked, turning her frown on her sister. “Are you feeling poorly? You’re not usually this quiet.”

“Yes, I thought some cat had come to steal your tongue away in the night,” Daniel said, and winked at her.

Elizabeth dredged up a half smile for him, because she really did like her brother-in-law very much. “I think perhaps I am just a little tired. I didn’t sleep very much last night, thinking about today. I was so excited.”

Of course this excuse was patently ridiculous. Elizabeth was an exceptionally good sleeper. She could fall asleep in any circumstance, in any position and surrounded by any kind of cacophony. Even if she was overly excited about Giving Day she still would have slept straight through the night and woken up refreshed.

Margaret, however, accepted this reason without considering it for a moment. Daniel gave Elizabeth a sideways glance that told her he wasn’t certain she was telling the truth, but was too polite to say so.

Her sister’s carriage joined the line of vehicles inching toward the Great Square. Of course they would have to leave the carriage behind and walk part of the way, though their higher status would allow them to park closer to the ceremonies.

There were soldiers everywhere, strictly enforcing this policy. No amount of wheedling or unsubtle offerings of notes would affect one’s placement among the vehicles. Elizabeth had once asked Papa how the soldiers knew where every person belonged.

“It’s because of our seal,” Papa said. “There is a very tiny mark on the carriage, one that every owner is required to have when they purchase a vehicle of any kind. The soldiers use them to rank each family accordingly.”

And the next time Elizabeth was in the stables she’d asked Phelps, the groom, to show her the mark. It was indeed very small, placed in the bottom right corner of the door, and raised like the surface of the seal that Papa used to mark wax on envelopes.

Once their carriage was parked—a few minutes’ extra distance farther than Papa’s carriage, for although Daniel was connected by marriage to an old family his own family was less prominent than Papa’s. His wedding to Margaret had raised his standing, but his own name limited how far he could rise without some significant contribution to the City.

Elizabeth did not believe Daniel ever would rise very much higher. It wasn’t that he lacked intelligence—he had plenty of it—but he did seem to lack drive. Elizabeth had often heard Margaret remark that he ought to spend less time laughing and more time working. This reprimand never seemed to affect Daniel, though—he’d only grab Margaret around the waist and spin her until she was flushed and giggling like a girl.

When Elizabeth saw them like that she understood a little better why Daniel had married Margaret in the first place, because her sister often seemed too dour for Daniel’s happy nature. Margaret kept her joy tightly wrapped and hidden like a secret present, and only Daniel knew how to find it.

Mama and Papa lingered near their carriage until the rest of the family caught up with them and then they all proceeded together in the direction of the Great Square.

In a proper city the Great Square would have been the geographical center, but the New City wasn’t like other cities that Elizabeth had read of in books. The New City had been built when the grandfathers of the City Fathers wished to escape the crime and degeneracy (this was Papa’s word; Elizabeth wasn’t entirely sure what degeneracy was but Papa’s tone indicated that it was a Bad Thing) that was spreading ever outward from the heart of the City. It had been decided that the heart of the City would be walled off and a fresh New City built around it like a ring. Only families of wealth and breeding were permitted to reside in the New City, and all the thieves and murderers were left inside “away from decent folk,” as Papa said.

Elizabeth thought that probably there were more than just thieves and murderers left in the Old City, that there were decent folk who just didn’t have enough money to make it out. This was a Very Controversial Opinion, for when she expressed it she was immediately shouted down by any grown-ups in the vicinity who assured her that “only filth lives in the Old City.”

The ring of the New City accomplished its purpose—the crime-ridden streets no longer spread outward from the center. But dark things grow even in the absence of sunlight, and the denizens of the Old City began stacking floors on top of other floors, and buildings on top of other buildings, until the whole thing looked like a tottering child’s toy ready to fall at the touch of a well-placed kick.

The rooftops of the Old City were now higher than the tallest building in the New City—the six-story Home

Government building, a gleaming beacon of shining white marble that was meant to be visible from anywhere in the New City. Now, owing to the increased height of the Old City, those residents who lived directly across the ring from the Home Government building could not see the glimmering edifice—only the crooked towers and plumes of dank smoke that emitted from the Old City.

The Home Government building was set at the northern side of the Great Square. The other three sides were residence buildings for the City Fathers, twelve identical three-story brick buildings set four to each side.

The cobblestones that paved the rest of the City were not present in the Great Square. Instead, the ground was composed of large pieces of marble that matched the Home Government building. This marble was cleaned every day, three times a day, by twenty-four servants who scrubbed on their hands and knees at even the most minute scuff in the field of white. There were to be no imperfections in the Great Square.

The twelve City Fathers, descendants of those original forward-thinking men who had stopped the swelling pustule of crime (this was another phrase Elizabeth had overheard, though it wasn’t one of Papa’s—Papa didn’t state things in such a poetic manner), waited on a dais in front of the Home Government building to greet the families of the New City. Beside each Father was a servant holding a bag that contained coins for the children.

Every family lined up according to their housing parish number—there being one Father for each parish. Strictly speaking each Father was a sort of governor for his parish, although as far as Elizabeth could tell all the actual work was done by the Father’s representative in the parish.

In Elizabeth’s parish that was Beadle Kinley, a horrid old man who smelled of mothballs and always insisted that Elizabeth sit on his lap when he came to visit her papa. She’d tried very hard to avoid this task on his last visit, arguing that she was far too grown-up for lap-sitting. But the Beadle had given Papa a look with his piercing blue eyes, a look that Elizabeth could not read but that her father understood.

He’d swallowed visibly and said, with the tiniest of tremors in his voice, “Go on, Elizabeth. You’re not so grown-up yet.”

Mama had looked away as the Beadle slid his damp hand down Elizabeth’s curls and onto her back. Elizabeth had wanted to wriggle away from his foul touch, but she had learned that he seemed to enjoy this (he always chuckled wheezily in a way that passed for happiness, anyhow) and since she wanted it over with as soon as possible she sat very still and hoped he’d have his fill of her company soon.

Elizabeth shook away the memory of the Beadle as she and her family joined their line. Polly and Edith tried to jostle in front of her in order to receive their coins first, but Margaret reprimanded them sharply and they fell into line behind. Elizabeth was so preoccupied with thoughts of Alice and the mysterious voice (and the creeping memory of the Beadle that seemed to hover like an infected thing in the back of her mind) that she hardly noticed. Of course it was only right that she go first—she was the girls’ aunt, after all, and her father was more important than Daniel—but at the moment she couldn’t say that she cared.

She only wondered about Alice.