“And yet for those touched by God,” she would also say, “anything is possible.”
Alice’s mother took to saying that too, under her breath, over and over, when she thought she was alone. Then one Sunday Alice saw her mother deep in conversation with Adra Norn; and soon the tall woman was descending upon their apartment in the evenings. Two months later, when Norn prepared to depart, Rachel too packed up their few belongings and set out with Alice for the holy community of Bent Knee Hollow.
That journey, her first, Alice would remember all her life to come: the crows rising as one out of the stubble fields, quick and crackling like thought, exactly like what she imagined thinking was like; the low red sun sinking over the tree line; the dusty roads, deserted, filling with an ancient light; and always the leafy green oaks and willows lining the cool rivers. Five days they rode, Adra Norn’s old Conestoga wagon creaking like a great landship over the rutted crossings, Rachel hunched next to Adra on the hard bench up front, lost in conversation. Alice was left to herself in the rear, sprawled among crates of seeds, grain, bolts of cloth, hatchets and spades and shovels and their like; and because it was summer she slept each night in the open, at the smoldering fire, Norn first blessing their food and their fate and the very fire itself before laying down her own steely head.
They arrived at Bent Knee Hollow at sunset; all around lay fields of gold, burnished red in the bloody light. Alice got down out of the back of the wagon and stood with her mother, uncertain, in the eye of a storm of women, all of whom had poured out of the buildings as they approached, some in aprons, some still clutching carving knives or hatchets or bundles of wool, their faces weathered but happy, their eyes clear. Adra went among them, embracing all. The women, suddenly shy, would stare at their feet as she passed.
There was a calmness, a gentleness in that place. It took Alice weeks to recognize the feeling that was in her, there: peace.
Seasons passed. Rachel began to change, imperceptibly at first, then noticeably. She cut her hair short, like Adra’s; she dressed in the same gray burlap dress as Adra; she rarely left the older woman’s side. Her anger, if it was still there, went underground; Alice no longer saw the same tense straining expression in her forehead, in her jaw. But Alice saw entirely less of her too—her own days were filled with the tasks of communal life, plucking and chopping and peeling for the great vats of soup, stacking firewood, mending clothes, beating blankets with sticks, stitching boots. At harvest they traded their labor to the local farmers in exchange for food and stores. The women worked in a monastic silence, and there were no other children at all. On Sundays the community gathered at dusk to light a great bonfire and to sing hymns and roast potatoes in their jackets. The fire was holy, Adra Norn taught, the fire would cleanse the world entire, when at last the end times came.
Only the pure, she warned them, would walk through the fires and be saved.
* * *
Margaret Harrogate knew about all of that, of course.
Or the greater part of it, at least. She’d heard tell of Bent Knee Hollow, and of Adra Norn’s foolishness, and she’d read the reports written by Rachel Quicke’s doctors, about what the madwoman had done to all those poor souls in that commune, and also a long letter by Coulton about Alice herself and the state of her mind. Oh, she knew. If secrets were currency at Cairndale, then Margaret’s pocketbook was full.
But none of that concerned her.
What did concern her was Dr. Berghast—Henry—the Henry she had left at Cairndale.
He was not the man she had known all these years. That much was ominously clear. He’d changed, she could see it now, surely anyone could. He was becoming consumed by his obsession. Never mind grief or fear, sorrow or hope. The drughr was all. Did he sleep? She had her doubts. Did he dream? Only of the drughr. He blamed himself for its horrible deeds; he carried the guilt of it inside him, like a cancer. Oh, he sounded reasonable and calm in the day-to-day, yes. But shame and fury had slowly mangled his heart into a shape that no longer resembled anything good and which would justify anything, any act, if it led to the obliteration of the drughr. She was frightened for him.
As she sat in the small train compartment, heading south, the spattered windows rattling in their frames, Margaret watched her companion sleep. Miss Quicke had proved herself brave, beyond a doubt; and she had proved herself loyal, to the children at least. Mr. Coulton had always sworn she was capable, trustworthy. Margaret sighed. Well, she’d know soon enough.
They were passing now through the north of England. They’d changed trains twice, and each time Margaret had scanned the gloomy railway platforms, watching for any sign of Marber or his litches. She’d seen nothing, no one. The ticket booths, the reading stalls, the solitary men in their drab black suits and hats, clutching their cases close—none of it made her easy.
She cast her mind forward, to London. The first thing she’d need to do would be to let Miss Quicke rest, to let her gather her strength. Then she’d need to find Mr. Fang, her contact in the exile community. He’d be the way to finding what she wanted: the weapon that could kill Jacob Marber.
It was the same weapon Walter had been searching for, all those weeks ago. It would have been no use to him, or to Margaret. Neither could have wielded it. The keywrasse would respond only to a dustworker’s touch. But if Margaret was correct—and she was nearly certain that she was—then Miss Quicke, because of the wound from Marber, because of the traces of dust that were now inside her, would be able to wield the weapon. She would be able to control it.
Margaret watched the younger woman’s face, pale and drawn, watched her shoulders shudder in time to the railway carriage. Shadows and daylight flickered over her. Miss Quicke slept on.
I only hope she is strong enough, thought Margaret.
* * *
But Alice wasn’t sleeping.
She knew Mrs. Harrogate was watching her. Knew it, and didn’t care.
Her ribs ached; her head ached; she was tired and sore and angry that she’d left the boys alone in that strange manor. Meeting with Dr. Berghast had not reassured her. She could tell there was something wrong with the man, something off—a kind of buried hunger, a fury he’d tried to conceal. She didn’t know its source, nor what it meant. If he was really Marlowe’s guardian, it disturbed her that he’d not mentioned the child in affection, not even once. She thought of the boy as he was in that circus, with Brynt, how hopeful and how afraid he’d been, and she thought of the life she’d dangled in front of him, the promise of a family, and she hated herself for it.
But all that could wait, she reminded herself. She kept her eyes closed, her head down, in part because she didn’t want to have to talk to Mrs. Harrogate, not just now. It wasn’t only that she was tired. She needed to think.
The first thing was to avenge Coulton. He was a good man, a kind man underneath it all, and an honorable one. He hadn’t deserved his death. And what Harrogate had said was true: if she really feared for Marlowe’s and Charlie’s safety, she’d have to kill Jacob Marber, once and for all.
Well so be it, then. It’s not like she hadn’t killed before.
* * *
Alice was eleven when Adra Norn, at Bent Knee Hollow, had disrobed and walked naked into the fire. All the women, astonished, stopped their singing and cried out; some ran for buckets of water; others held hands and wept; but after only a few minutes Adra walked back out, unscathed, her hair steaming, her eyes bright, and she stood naked in the firelight with her triangle of hair and her heavy breasts and she held out her arms in triumph.