Alice whisked from the room, and tumbled her few possessions into the locked box that she had brought with her from England. Carrying it, she set off down the sweeping carriageway to the high road, and embarked on the long walk across the city to the tall old house near St Stephen’s Cathedral.
It was a much greater distance than she remembered. By the time she had walked through the sprawling suburbs with the great houses and the parks, and had entered the city proper, Vienna had emerged from its sinister night-persona to become a bustling place of bright daylight, and of workers bound for their daily employment, and milk-carts and street-sweepers, and alleycats foraging for scraps after their night’s adventuring. Sunlight trickled over the stones and the walls, and the scents of good coffee and freshly baked croissants drifted from the houses and the cafés. The servants’ breakfast would be being served about now; if Alice had not left she would have been in her usual place at the long table. But what’s done is done, my girl, and you’ll survive a few hours without breakfast. In any case, he would give her breakfast. She visualized steaming coffee that he would have brewed himself, and warm rolls stuffed with ham and thin cheese, or buttered eggs. And his eyes regarding her across the small table that had stood in the window of the piano-room…
Using the cathedral spire as guide, she entered the maze of little streets and cobbled alleyways surrounding it, and began to look for the tall old house. It was then that the nightmare began.
Last night she had been too far gone in longing to take note of exactly where they were, and she had certainly not looked at street names. But surely she would recognize the place again. She began to walk around the streets, eagerly looking at the houses, craning her neck to find a familiar corbel on a window ledge or a stonework carving above the entrance to an alleyway.
The morning wore on, and the sun began to be high and hot. People came out of their workplaces and bought rolls and paté and fruit to eat in the little squares. Alice began to feel hungry and thirsty; her feet were starting to blister and her arms ached from carrying the box with all her possessions. She had only a few schillings, but there was enough to buy some coffee and a wedge of rye bread with cheese. She ate it sitting on a bench in the cathedral’s shadow.
After that she renewed her search. But by late afternoon the shadows were creeping back over Vienna, and the dark underside of the old city was stirring. The lamps were lit in the streets, and when she passed a tavern or a wine cellar laughter and voices and food-scents gusted out. Alice, dizzy with exhaustion, began to have the feeling that she had somehow stumbled into an entirely different city without realizing it. For the first time she began to feel frightened, and for the first time she faced the possibility that she would not find the tall old house.
CHAPTER TEN
Once Lucy had reached her teens she almost forgot about Alraune. There were far more interesting things in life than all that gothic romance stuff about a slightly sinister ghost-child, and in any case who cared about things that had happened all those years ago? demanded Lucy’s rebellious fourteen-year-old self. Alraune had never existed. And yet…