The Twelfth Enchantment

nothing more of your business with me?”

“I cannot because I know nothing of it,” he answered. “I have no doubt we shall know in time. But the green is darkening, is it not? The mills come, belching smoke and ash, grinding men to dust, and nature prepares to decay. You know it too, I think.”

“Lucy,” Martha said again, the urgency evident in her voice.

Lucy was about to respond, but she suddenly heard weeping, and she observed that Mr. Blake heard it too. It was a soft sound—a delicate, feminine sobbing—nothing menacing, and yet Lucy understood that the afternoon had turned. The air grew cool, and the hair on the back of her neck bristled. Everything around her refined and sharpened into vivid colors. She heard every twig and leaf crunch under their feet.

They traveled some fifty feet down the path and found, sitting under a tree, a young woman in a dingy white dress, rustic by the look of it. They could not determine her age, for she had her back to them, but she wore her coppery hair loose and unruly under her bonnet, and by her size—tall and very thin—Lucy imagined her to be in her late teens. There was something about her look, about her misery and the way she held her head in her hands, that reminded her of herself weeping after the death of her sister. She remembered one afternoon, some weeks after the day her father had admitted her to his study, when she had been walking behind the house, and Emily’s death had struck her fresh, like a blow. She had understood, as if for the first time, that her sister was gone, that she would never see her again, and the emptiness of this realization overwhelmed her. She had fallen to the ground and wept, unable to stop herself, unable to find the will to try.

She knew not how long she lay there—hours perhaps—lost in her own misery, until she’d felt hands upon her shoulders. She’d shrugged them off, but they were insistent, and when at last she looked up, Lucy saw that it was her father, out of his study, pulling her to her feet. He was not used to being an affectionate man, and he did not love to touch even his children, but he took her into his embrace and let her weep against his shoulder for long minutes, until she felt smothered by the scent of wet wool. She did not know if there was ever a moment when she’d loved her father so well, or needed him more, or was so glad to have his guidance.

Now she looked upon this strange girl as she sat hunched over, a mournful, almost bovine sound escaping her lips, and Lucy wanted to comfort her, wanted to offer her some small portion of what only another person can provide in such moments of grief. As they approached, the girl did not regard them at all, and they saw she was bent over a book. The text must be passing melancholy, Lucy thought, to elicit such a response.

Martha hung back, but Lucy circled around, and Mr. Blake walked by her side, a look of pure concern upon his wrinkled face. When they could see the girl’s face, they noted that she was pretty, with a fair countenance, somewhat marred by freckles and a nose broad and flat at the bridge, but with large, very beautiful hazel eyes—red and moist with tears though they might have been.

As Lucy and Mr. Blake approached her from the side, the girl suddenly started and scrambled to her feet in a terrified scurry, more animal-like than human. Once she rose, however, she appeared somewhat calmed by the sight of the two young ladies and the kindly older man, who anyone could see posed no threat. There was, however, a marked look of incomprehension on the girl’s face. Her mouth hung slightly open, her eyes squinted as though willing the world to form into some intelligible shape.

Curiously, the girl wore a slate around her neck, held on by a piece of thick cord, and in her hand she held a piece of chalk. The book she’d been reading lay on the ground, and Lucy read the spine. It was Byron’s Poems on Various Occasions.

“Hello,” Lucy said cautiously. “We are sorry to have startled you.”

Martha had now come around to face the girl, who had begun to mark up her slate with furious speed. I am Sophie Hyatt. I am deaf.

Lucy gestured that she would like the slate so she might respond, but the girl shook her head and gestured toward her lips. Lucy had read of deaf people who could understand words by watching a speaker’s lips, though she had never seen the thing done herself. Overwhelmed by the wonder of it, Lucy said, speaking slowly and moving her mouth in exaggerated gestures, “I am Lucy, and this is Martha and Mr. Blake.”

The deaf girl laughed, and in her laughter, she appeared remarkably beautiful. Speak as you are used, she wrote on the slate, and held up the sign with her eyes twinkling. Not so slow.

“I am sorry,” Lucy said. “I did not mean to offend you. Or to startle you. We heard you weeping, and wished only to make sure you were not in distress.”

“Not in distress,” said Mr. Blake. “In love.”

She wiped at her eyes with her fingers and wrote, Yes.

Unable to help herself, Lucy said, “Not with Byron, I hope.”

Sophie took a step backwards. Do you know him? she wrote after a moment’s reflection.

“Only a little,” said Lucy, not wishing to set herself up as a rival to this deaf girl, though she was pretty, and a certain kind of man liked a vulnerable woman. Was Byron such a man? Would he prefer this poor creature to Lucy? She hated herself that such thoughts occurred to her, and she summoned the will to set them aside. In this she was very near successful. “I do not know him well enough to be invited to Newstead. I come merely to look at the grounds with my sister, and we met Mr. Blake along the way.”

Do you love him?

Lucy and Martha exchanged looks. Lucy liked him, certainly, but she was almost entirely confident that she did not love him. Martha took the uncertain look upon Lucy’s face as amusement, and began to laugh, and Lucy laughed too. She did not wish to mock the deaf girl, and tried to stop herself, but to her surprise the girl laughed with them.

I am very jealous, she wrote. It is silly, for he does not love me. She paused for a moment, studying Lucy, her head cocked like a bird’s. I think you are like me.

“What does she mean, Lucy?” asked Martha.

Sophie smiled. Three years ago they came. They showed me the wordless book. Very powerful, but I pretended not to know the good pages from the bad.

Lucy felt a sudden pang of paralyzing fear. These phenomena were unavoidable. These people were ubiquitous. It seemed as though she had been living in a fantastical world her whole life, one that willfully ignored the magic all around. She had been too blind to see it, but now that her eyes were open, it was everywhere.

“Who came to you?” asked Lucy.

A lady, very proud, all in black, as if mourning. A simpering man. A curate.

Lucy put a hand to her mouth. It had been Lady Harriet and Mr. Buckles. It could be no one else, and they too were interested in the Mutus Liber, the book with the false pages. They wanted it for themselves. It could only be that Lady Harriet wanted the power of eternal life. She wanted to become one of those revenants of which Mary had spoken—a broken, inhuman thing. It seemed to Lucy that Lady Harriet was already upon her way.

Martha took her hand. “You look so pale, Lucy. And I cannot understand a word the two of you exchange. This is more curious even than Mr. Blake, if you will forgive me for saying so. What is all this?”

Lucy forced a smile. “Just local lore, too tedious to explain.” She looked at Sophie and gave another easy smile. “Have you been in the house?”

No, said Sophie. When I go, it will be with you.

Martha stepped closer, looking concerned. “Do you want anything? Food? A ride somewhere? We have a coach just at the roadway.”

The girl shook her head. I live close. I am done here. She gathered up her things and wandered into the woods without looking back.

Mr. Blake watched her go and then rubbed his hands together. “What a remarkable day! But now I have a long journey back to London. May I see you ladies off?”

He escorted them back to their coach, and waved kindly as they rode off, as though he were an uncle or an old friend. Several times Martha turned to Lucy to ask questions, but each time she stopped herself. It soon became evident that, whatever she might wish to ask, she was not certain she would want to hear the answer.