Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

uncomfortable frisson up the back of his neck that this was the only hair on her body—had been burned above her left temple…the operating theatre…the paraffin…he was looking at Miss Poole. Her body was both beautiful and inhuman—the splendid tension of its surface, glassy yet somehow soft—Svenson’s skin crawled to look at it, yet he could not turn away, and, appalled, felt his lust begin to stir. And the third woman—it was hard to read their features, but it could only be Mrs. Marchmoor.

The Comte tugged lightly on Miss Poole’s leash, and she advanced toward the woman in black. Suddenly that woman’s head lolled to the side and she staggered, her eyes dulled. What had happened? Miss Poole turned toward Svenson’s side of the crowd. He inched away from her strange eyes, for it was as if they could see to his bones. At once his knees trembled and for a terrible moment the entire room fell away. Svenson was on a settee in a darkened parlor…his hand—a delicate woman’s hand—was stroking Mrs. Stearne’s unbound hair as, on that lady’s other side, a masked man in a cloak leaned over to kiss her mouth. The gaze of Miss Poole (the vision was from her experience, like the blue glass cards, or like the books…she was a living book!) turned slightly as, with her other hand, she reached for a glass of wine—her arm in a white robe like Miss Temple’s, in fact, both women wore the same silk robes of initiation!—but then the parlor snapped away and Svenson was back in the ballroom, fighting the first stirrings of nausea in his throat. All around him, the other guests were shaking their heads, dazed. What violation was this—the effect of the glass cards projected across the audience at large—into every mind!

Doctor Svenson desperately groped to make sense of it—the cards, the Process, the books, and now these women, like three demonic Graces—there was no time! He thought he understood the rest, the Process and the books, for blackmail and influence were standard things, even on such an evil scale, but this—this was alchemy, and he could not comprehend it any more than he could imagine why anyone would give themselves over to such—such—abomination!

The Comte was saying something else to Mrs. Stearne—and to the Contessa, and the Contessa was replying—but he could not follow their words, the insistent vision still muddied his brain. Svenson stumbled into the equally disoriented people behind him, then turned to force his way through the crowd, away from his enemies, away from Miss Temple. He did not get seven steps before his mind reeled with another vision…a vision of himself!

He was back at Tarr Manor, facing Miss Poole on the quarry steps, Crabbe scuttling free, the men racing at him, beating aside his feeble blows and snatching him bodily up—and then hurling him over the rail. Again, he was plunged into Miss Poole’s experience—of watching his own defeat!—and so immediate that he felt in his nerves the ethereal glide of Miss Poole’s amusement at his pathetic efforts.

Svenson gasped aloud, coming back to his senses, on his hands and knees on the parquet floor. People were backing away from him, making room. This is what had happened to Chang. She had sensed him somehow in the crowd. He scrambled wildly to rise, but was rebuffed by the hands around him and propelled against his will toward the center of the room.

He slipped again and fell, flailing with the satchel. It was over. Yet—something…he fought to think—ignoring everything—there were shouts, steps…but Doctor Svenson shook his head, holding on—to—to what he had just seen! In Miss Poole’s first vision—of Mrs. Stearne—the man on the settee had been Arthur Trapping, his face marked with the fresh scars of the Process. The memory was of the evening he had died—the very half hour before his murder…and as Miss Poole turned her head to collect her wine, Svenson had seen on the far wall a mirror…and in that mirror, watching from the shadow of a half-open doorway…the unmistakable figure of Roger Bascombe.

He could not help it. He turned his desperate face to Miss Temple, his heart breaking anew to meet her flat indifferent gaze. Aspiche ripped the satchel from his hand and Dragoons took fierce hold of his arms. The Colonel’s truncheon swept savagely down and Doctor Svenson was dragged without ceremony to his doom.

TEN Inheritrix

The Comte d’Orkancz had led them all—Miss Temple, Miss Vandaariff, Mrs. Stearne, and the two soldiers—up the darkened rampway into the theatre. It was as desolate of good feeling as Miss Temple had remembered and her gaze fell upon the empty table with its dangling straps and the stack of wooden boxes beneath it, some pried open, spilling sheets of orange felt, with a dread that nearly buckled her knees. The Comte’s iron hand had kept hold of Miss Temple’s shoulder and he looked behind to confirm they had all arrived before he passed her off with a nod to Mrs. Stearne, who stepped forward between the two white-robed women, taking a hand from each and squeezing. Despite her deeply rooted anger, Miss Temple found herself squeezing back, for she was finally very frightened, though she prevented herself from actually glancing at the woman. The Comte set his monstrous brass helmet onto one of the table’s rust-stained cotton pads (or was that dried blood?) and crossed to the giant blackboard. With swift broad strokes he inscribed the words in bold capital letters: “AND SO SHALL BE REBORN”. The writing struck Miss Temple as strangely familiar, as if she recognized it from some place other than this same blackboard on her previous visit. She bit her lip, for the matter seemed somehow important, but she could not call up the memory. The Comte dropped the chalk into the tray and turned to face them.

“Miss Vandaariff shall be first,” he announced, his voice again sounding crafted of rough minerals, “for she must take her place in the celebration, and to do so must be sufficiently recovered from her initiation. I promise you, my dear, it is but the first of many pleasures on your card for this gala evening.”

Miss Vandaariff swallowed and did her best to smile. Where a few moments ago her spirits had been gay, the combination of the room and the Comte’s dark manner had obviously rekindled her worry. Miss Temple thought they would have kindled worry in the iron statue of a saint.

“I did not know this room was here,” Lydia Vandaariff said, her voice quite small. “Of course there are so many rooms, and my father…my father…is most occupied—”

“I’m sure he did not think you’d an interest in science, Lydia.” Mrs. Stearne smiled. “Surely there are storerooms and workrooms you’ve never seen as well!”

“I suppose there must be.” Miss Vandaariff nodded. She looked out beyond the lights to the empty gallery, hiccuped unpleasantly and covered her mouth with one hand. “But will there be people watching?”

“Of course,” said the Comte. “You are an example. You have been such all your life, my dear, in the service of your father. Tonight you serve as one for our work and for your future husband, but most importantly, Miss Vandaariff, for your self. Do you understand me?”

She shook her head meekly that she did not.

“Then this is still more advantageous,” he rasped, “for I do assure you…you will.”

The Comte reached under his leather apron and removed a silver pocket watch on a chain. He narrowed his eyes and tucked the timepiece away.

“Mrs. Stearne, will you stand away with Miss Vandaariff?”

Miss Temple took a breath for courage as Caroline released her hand and ushered Lydia to the table. The Comte looked past them to nod at the two Macklenburg soldiers.

Before Miss Temple could move the men shot forward and held her fast, raising her up so she stood on the very tips of her toes. The Comte removed his leather gauntlets, tossing them one after the other into the upturned brass helmet. His voice was as deliberate and menacing as the steady strop of a barber’s razor.

“As for you, Miss Temple, you will wait until Miss Vandaariff has undergone her trial. You will watch her, and this sight will increase your fear, for you have utterly, utterly lost your very self in this business. Your self will belong to me. And worse than this, and I tell you now so you may contemplate it fully, this gift, of your autonomy to my keeping, will be made willingly, happily…gratefully…by you. You will look back with whatever memories you keep at the willful gestures of these last days and they will seem the poor antics of a child—or not even, the actions of a disobedient lap-dog. You will be ashamed. Trust this, Miss Temple, you will be reborn in this room, contrite and wise…or not at all.”

He stared at her. Miss Temple did not—could not—reply.