Darkwater

eight

Azrael drew a black curtain around the dome and pushed it into a small wall safe, which he locked with a key on his watch-chain. Then he came over and leaned against the bench, arms folded. His face was grave, and still pale. She couldn’t tell how angry he was. She clasped her hands behind her back, stopping herself from bursting out with ridiculous excuses.

“Well,” he said finally. “Perhaps Mother Hubbard was right. You are a troublemaker after all.”

“Changed your mind?” she murmured.

He smiled. “Once I set my sights on someone, Sarah, I never change my mind. But there ought to be some rules, don’t you think? The first can be that you never enter this particular room without me.” He picked up a smooth egg-shaped stone and rubbed it with acid-scarred fingers, as if self-conscious. She almost felt disappointed. So she said, “What was in that thing?”

He looked up, sly. “What do you think?”

“I saw . . . two boys. Twins. They were real, like live people. How can you keep them in there? Won’t they suffocate?”

He smiled again, shaking his head. “Oh, Sarah. Your education has been neglected. How we’ll change all that.” He put the stone down and limped down the bench, putting things back in their places. Then he took his topcoat off, tied a white apron on, and began to stir and examine the retorts. “What you saw was best described as an image. Real, but not real.”

“I saw it,” she said, stubborn.

“A vision. Beings that might exist elsewhere.”

“Spirits?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

The cat had come in. It picked its way along the bench delicately, over shells and carved wood and models of insects. Then it looked at her and mewed.

“Yes,” Azrael said absently. “Quite right. Mephisto says it’s time you started work.”

She stared at him. “Sorting the books?”

“Indeed.”

“Where do I start?”

He shrugged. “Wherever you wish. You’ll find everything you need out in the rhino room. Take your time. Enjoy yourself.” He stroked his dark faint beard and lifted an eyebrow. “After all, this isn’t Mrs. Hubbard’s academy. This is another world, Sarah.”

And it was. It was heaven. She could hardly believe she had fallen into it. There were books of history, Greek plays and Roman battles, atlases and prints of beautiful paintings; there were poems and novels and scattered pages of strange music and hundreds of sepia photographs of Egyptian mummy cases, their painted eyes wide. Above all, there were the mysterious and magical books of alchemy, bound in calf and leather, their stiff pages closely covered with the dark letters of unknown languages, of spells and philosophic musings and recipes and diagrams.

The quest for gold fascinated her. What process could transmute dull metal into a shining beauty? What sort of power would that be?

For hours she just browsed and read, turning strange, wonderful pages. Scrab shuffled up with a tray at some time but she barely noticed him; later, when she realized she was hungry, the food had long gone cold, the afternoon dark. She hadn’t eaten a thing, caught up in the enchantment and glory of the books.

Her head felt muzzy, her eyes tired. Picking up some meat and stiffened bread, she chewed it in delight, then crossed to the casement and opened it, letting a cold sea wind straight in.

Far out over the fishing fleet, the gulls and terns made screeching clouds; the lobsterpots were being lifted. Below, Lord Azrael was coming up the track on a pale horse. She hadn’t even heard him go out. Scrab came down to meet him, greasy coat gleaming.

Azrael waved up at her. “Don’t strain your eyes,” he laughed, the wind flapping his collar.

She shrugged. “I haven’t even started yet,” she whispered to herself.

It was easy to forget, in the library. All week she lived in its warm cocoon. The books were a spell; once she touched them, their stories and knowledge held her tight. Gradually she worked out a careful plan; to get them all down, room by room, shelf by shelf, and sort them into categories—history, science, religion—and then to number them, making accurate lists. There were thousands, and it would take years to do, even if she could stop herself reading them, but the idea exhilarated her. Already she had discovered a whole cupboard full of chained Bibles in unknown alphabets; the unknowable squiggles of their letters fascinating her. She had to force herself to get out and get some air, walking between the heavy October showers to the beach, where the hard sand was pitted with rain marks. She ate her meals alone and she slept deeply, as if all the worries of the world had been wiped away. Twice, sleepily, she thought she heard the distant unbolting of a door, and sometimes through her dreams ran the deep thunder of a hidden river, far below her pillow, echoing in the foundations and walls and vast chimneys of the old house.

And she didn’t go home. She didn’t even think of the cottage until Azrael mentioned it. Late on the night before Hallowe’en, she helped him open the great casements in the laboratory and wheel out the brass telescope. Scrab was there too, muttering in disgust at the oil on his hands.

“What you want with this contraption,” he said sourly, “I don’t know.” He ran a dark eye around the room. “Nor yet the rest of the junk I ’ave to clean.”

Azrael smiled. “All knowledge is in the heavens, Scrab.”

“And in ’ell, more like.” He shuffled out, wiping his palms on his sleeves.

“Why do you put up with him?” Sarah asked.

Azrael looked surprised. “He’s an old family retainer. I’d miss him, if he went. He’s devoted to me, of course.”

“It doesn’t look like it.”

He smiled, sitting at the eyepiece, and turned the scope to face the moon, adjusting the focus carefully. “And as for you, well, tomorrow is Sunday. Your day off. You must go to church, and then home.”

“There’s too much to read,” she said evasively.

“It will wait. You’ll have a lifetime to read it all. Maybe more.”

She stared at him, but he was taking notes in the moonlight. So she said, “What if I don’t want to go?”

“You must. Otherwise my name will be further blackened in parish gossip. Sarah Trevelyan kidnapped and held against her will!”

He swiveled around, his face lit with mischief. “Or they’ll say we play cards eternally for the soul of your grandfather!”

The idea seemed to amuse him. He got up, took a pack from a drawer, and slapped it down in front of her. “Shall we, Sarah?”

“Don’t make a joke of it.”

“I’m not! I mean it. Cut the pack.”

Alarmed, she said, “Why?”

“Do it! For a wager. It will help you understand how he felt—the recklessness, the madness! I tell you what—I’ll wager all the books of my library. They could all be yours!”

She didn’t trust him in this mood. He jumped up and leaned over the bench, his lean face transformed with feverish excitement. “There’s nothing like it! The thrill of knowing you could lose everything.”

“I haven’t got anything to lose.”

“Of course you have!” He smiled, sidelong. “You have what we all have. You have your soul.”

Sarah went cold.

The feeling she had had once before swept over her, of being balanced on the edge of a dark bottomless pit of terror, wobbling, unsteady.

“My soul?” she whispered.

“Yes.” Azrael looked eager. “The most secret part of you. The real you. The spirit that will live for all eternity.”

He was joking, of course. And yet pictures from the old Bibles of the library began to haunt her, the terrible screaming torments of the damned, who had chosen evil, burning, lost in unimaginable suffering. She turned to the table. “That’s not funny.”

“Indeed no. But consider. Does a person’s soul even exist?”

“You should know. You’re the alchemist.”

He smiled. “I am. And science needs experiment. Why not find out? Go on, Sarah. Turn the card.”

Slowly, she put her hand out. She looked down at the pack, their backs patterned with tiny chevrons that almost mesmerized her. The room was quiet. Outside the open window, a few bats flitted under the eaves. The stars were bright and frosty.

She touched the cards.

The cat hunkered down, eyes wide. Far off in the stable, a horse whinnied. And she lifted her hand back and closed it tight.

“Maybe I should go to church,” she said.

Azrael smiled again.