It can’t be, thought Alice, watching it in fear. Surely not.
The next day she left the keywrasse locked in the front parlor and went out into the fog, alone. Though it was yet early, the mists had deepened, the streets were darker now but for the corona of lanterns, the blur of figures hurrying past. She came back with two small barrow wheels, of hooped iron and with stout oak spokes, and a small black case of woodworking tools. And she upended one of the contraptions stacked in the back bedroom and set about sawing and measuring and hammering. It was clean work and it gave her something to do. Her strong wrists were sore and scabbed where Coulton had attacked her but the pain didn’t bother her. She was remembering something from her childhood at Bent Knee Hollow. There had been a woman there, very old, no longer able to walk, who had been put into an old wooden wheelbarrow, surrounded with cushions and blankets, and wheeled out to the bonfires every Sunday to be with the others. She was remembering that, and thinking of poor Mrs. Harrogate, a cripple now, and it felt good to be doing simple work again, work that had an end.
And when she’d built the axle and reinforced the under seat and attached the wheels at the right height she turned the cane chair upright and built an extended push bar for herself to use. Then she padded the seat and seat back with cushions and stood back and looked at her work.
A chair on wheels.
* * *
Mrs. Harrogate, for her part, had no interest in pity. She awoke angry in soiled blankets and Alice had to change her and wash her down and all the while the older woman was glowering and fighting back a disgust in her face. She wanted to know what had happened with the keywrasse (nothing), and what had happened with Jacob and the drughr (nothing), and whether Alice had made arrangements to notify Cairndale of what they’d been through (she had not). She had no interest in what the Irish doctor had diagnosed. She already knew.
“We must act at once, before Jacob and that creature can,” she said, while Alice was rolling her to change her bedding. “I have remembered something, in my dreams. The glyphic. Jacob’s deduction. I fear he is not wrong; and if the glyphic is indeed dying, then the orsine itself will tear apart. The drughr will come through.”
Alice shuddered.
“Don’t stand there gawping. Fetch me a pencil and a paper,” Mrs. Harrogate said curtly. She grappled with the bedpost, dragged herself into a sitting position. “I will write out a message, and you must take it to the attic. There you will find a roost with my … messenger birds. Bonebirds, Miss Quicke. Like the one you saw at Cairndale. One will take my warning to Dr. Berghast.”
When Alice still didn’t move, the older woman paused and looked at her. Really looked. She put a hand to the marks on her face. “Ah,” she murmured. “What is this? You have lost hope?”
Alice said nothing, ashamed. Whenever she closed her eyes she saw that thing, that drughr, huge and dark and screaming.
“Miss Quicke,” said Mrs. Harrogate. “Let us be clear. Nothing worth the doing ever was easy. We shall prevail, but not if we give up now. You do not mean to give up, do you?”
“And what if I do?” said Alice suddenly, bitterly. She didn’t mean it, not really, but all the anger and disappointment and guilt at having failed rose up to the surface, surprising even her with its vitriol. “Look at us, Margaret. What can we do to stop Marber now? He’ll be nearly at Cairndale. You said it yourself, the glyphic is dying. Which means the drughr will…” She faltered, shuddering. “Meanwhile you can’t even use a fucking bedpan.”
Harrogate’s eyes flashed. “And is Cairndale already overrun, then?”
“Maybe it is. Maybe Marber crawled through that fucking hole in the air and right into Berghast’s water closet.”
“He did not.”
“Says you.”
“He was injured, Miss Quicke. He will need time to recover, to gather his strength. As will the drughr. It will have taken much from it, opening that portal.”
“You talk like you have a fucking clue. You don’t.”
“Ah,” said Harrogate. “Here it is.”
And it was true, Alice couldn’t stop herself. “You have no idea what that thing even is,” she exclaimed, “never mind what it can and can’t do.”
Mrs. Harrogate watched Alice a long moment. “I’d have thought you were made of stronger stuff,” she said softly. “Mr. Coulton certainly thought so.”
Alice blushed. The fury was seeping out of her, leaving her feeling embarrassed, petulant, tired. “Yeah, well, look where that got him,” she muttered.
“Sit,” said Mrs. Harrogate.
Alice, reluctant, sat.
“It is not finished, Miss Quicke. Despite what Jacob believes, Mr. Thorpe is not dead yet. And he is rather more resilient than most. It seems Dr. Berghast has known of his condition; I expect he will have some sort of plan in place, should the worst come to pass.” She fixed a steely eye on Alice. “Your Marlowe can still be saved, and young Charles Ovid. Unless we decide, now, not to act. Then it is indeed finished; then we will indeed have failed.”
“But they’re too powerful. What can we do?”
“We shall think of something,” said Harrogate. “That is what we shall do.” Her eyes alighted on the wheeled cane chair Alice had constructed, sitting in a corner under the window. “We shall begin by putting me in that contraption. You will pack a traveling case for the two of us. We shall go north, together, on the express.”
Alice looked at the shadows on the wallpaper, looked back. It all seemed pointless. Even if they could get there in time … Just then the keywrasse slipped through the open door and padded over to the bed and leaped, lightly, onto the bedclothes. It curled up and began to wash itself.
“We will bring the creature,” Mrs. Harrogate said.
Alice grimaced. “It … spoke to me. Last night. It showed me that it … it’s trapped by the keys, hurt by them. It deserves to be freed, Margaret. It’s in pain.”
“It spoke to you?” Mrs. Harrogate pursed her lips. “The weir-bents are the only things that keep it in check, Miss Quicke, and keep us safe. Make no mistake. They are the bars on its cage, true. But would you have a wild beast walking free? The longer it remains among us, not locked away, the less our hold on it lasts.”
The keywrasse lifted its face, flicked an ear. Yawned.
“It is listening, of course. Aren’t you?” Then Mrs. Harrogate met Alice’s eye with a dark and troubled look. “You saw what it is capable of. We must recover that key.”
“Or?”
But Mrs. Harrogate left Alice’s question hanging and did not answer it. She didn’t need to; Alice knew only too well the older woman’s meaning. Or it must be destroyed. It felt wrong to her though. When she looked at the keywrasse she saw not savagery but dignity. Did it not deserve to meet its own nature, to return to its own rightful place?
But the older woman was not finished. “We have another problem. If Jacob holds the other weir-bent, then the keywrasse will not be able to attack him. He is safe.”
Alice absorbed this. It seemed it couldn’t get much worse.
Last of all Mrs. Harrogate added, in a low voice, “Jacob is not going to wait for Mr. Thorpe to die. He intends to hasten his demise, Miss Quicke. He means to kill the glyphic.”
“But he can’t get into Cairndale, not while the glyphic is—”
“He will use Walter.”
Alice blinked. “The litch? How?”
“He’s already there. At Cairndale.”
Alice rubbed at her face, trying to make sense of it all. “Walter’s dead, Margaret. He died on the train—”
“He did not, unfortunately. Dr. Berghast has him at Cairndale. He was found unconscious off the railway line after the attack and taken north by Dr. Berghast’s manservant. He was to be … interrogated.” Mrs. Harrogate’s eyes were black with disgust. “We thought we were being clever. But we were not clever. Walter is there by design. Jacob wants him there. And if Walter gets loose, and kills the glyphic—”
Alice wet her lips. “Then that monster can get in.”