Beneath a Bethel Page 9

  I let out a sigh, my shoulders relaxing as my worries were dispelled. My grip on my face lessened, a wry smile slipping onto my mouth. It was fine, Barnaby was entertaining late and there was nothing for me to worry about. Now, instead of being scared, I felt embarrassed that I was eavesdropping on a private disagreement. I began to turn, but as I did so, the person he had been talking to turned too, moving before the door. I barely had time to cover my mouth, to trap the scream that fought to burst forth, my body falling back from the door. Neither occupants noticed however, my sudden movements masked by their words.

  “You intend to tell him everything? Can you be serious?”

  “Perhaps it is for the best; that way he will be bound by secrets as much as any of us are.” Barnaby sighed, rubbing his temple.

  “He should be dead, not under your tutelage!”

  “Yes, and whose fault is it that he still lives!” Barnaby snapped, moving from the fire towards the door.

  “It was not my doing, I was disturbed by the brigades! Every night they grow closer to finding us, sneaking and spying. If they only knew what secret they are attempting to uncover, the magnitude of it…”

  “I have told you before, do not fear the brigades. They are merely hounds to the government and have barely any credibility. Do you seriously think that those in power will expose us and lose everything? It will all be hushed and become a secret once more, just with far more people keeping it than beforehand.” Barnaby laughed, though there was no real humour in it, the sound hollow.

  “For you perhaps, but I doubt that gatherers such as myself will be so easily forgiven.”

  “Enough of this, leave my house and do your job. Stop fretting and dismantling my living room like an angry child. I’m expecting a large commission and will need new supplies. Leave Angora to me; I will deal with his fate.”

  With mounting horror, I realised he intended to leave the room, my stunned body barely able to pull itself up from where it had slumped against the wall. I was unable to stop my legs quaking as I fled to the stairs. I heard the door opening behind me as I dragged myself up them, barely turning the corner before Barnaby entered the hallway. I ran, heedless to if I was making noise, bursting into my room with my hands still clasping my mouth and tears streaming down my cheeks. I had the presence of mind to shut the door quietly, sliding the lock into place before collapsing against it, my legs a tangle under me.

  Sobs shook my chest, my back hunched forward as I cried, tears making the room before me swim as I fought the barrage of emotions within. Fear, shame and, most of all, disbelief fought inside my head as I tried to understand what I had witnessed.

  Disbelief that Barnaby would let Gillis into this house, that he knew him.

  10

  The realisation that Barnaby had been lying to me cut deep, opening wounds that had scarcely had time to form a scab from my family’s betrayal. That night and the ones since then, I lay atop the covers of my bed, staring into the white canopy above me, trying to find the strength to confront him. For that was what stopped me from demanding answers, forcing explanations from his lips. I was weak, my new-found confidence dashed to the floor like a glass teacup, shattering all the self-worth I had. I had thought Barnaby cared for me, that he saw me as a valued colleague, perhaps even a son. I had known he had secrets as all mentors do, but I had thought them trivial things that he would reveal to me in time. Now it seemed those secrets might be my doom.

  Still, I found myself trying to excuse him, to convince myself that he had not known. I had never used Gillis’s name save for the evening outside Hendrik's; he could have been completely ignorant of our connection until then. Perhaps it had been a misunderstanding, Barnaby calling him here once he had learned of our past and the argument had in fact been him trying to protect me. While these thoughts gave me hollow comfort, they didn't explain the rest of the conversation, the brigades that I realised now had been the distraction that had saved my life, and the secret they wished to uncover. The supply that Barnaby demanded from Gillis and his insistence that he would seal my fate.

  No matter how I tried to understand, no matter what answers I gave to soothe my aching heart, the fact remained that Barnaby had known Gillis had sought to kill me and was covering his mistake, wishing to enlist me in their dark deeds in order to keep my silence. How they knew each other and what deeds they might have done, I had no knowledge of, but I couldn’t pretend I had not heard, no matter how I longed to.

  Oh, I was so weak, so broken and numbed by it all that all I wished to do was close my eyes and fade away. Fade away until I was nothing, like a stone at the bottom of the Eldwen, the tide smoothing my edges. I hadn't the strength to do it again, to pull myself back from the edge of ruin, to drag myself up until I stood tall and proud. What pride could I salvage from this? Once one lie had been discovered, it cast doubt on everything he had ever told me. Had his praise been real? Had he truly seen talent within me, or had all his talk of me becoming a master been a way to cover Gillis’s mishap? Had he ever seen me as more than a mistake, something to be bundled inside, not to keep it warm but to prevent others from seeing it? All that talk of the spectres being visions from my mind, the soft, comforting conversations and trays of tea. The smiles and shared stories before the fire. I had not realised it for what it was before: a dream. Merely a dream fabricated by him.

  Had he ever felt any love for me? Had I simply been forming yet another relationship unknowingly based on lies and falsehoods? I had thought him an equal, a mentor and father, but what had I truly been to him?

  When he brought me breakfast in the morning, I turned my face from him, hiding beneath the duvet so that he would not see my grief-stricken expression. I held back my sorrow while he pottered around the room, placing the tray down and pulling back the draping of my bed.

  “I know you are scared, Angora, but there is nothing to fear here; you are safe, you are home.” He tried to reassure me as he stood beside the bed, his hand briefly touching my hidden form. “Take as many days as you need, and when you feel you can continue with your work, we shall. We have much to discuss.”

  Each time he returned to my room, I tried to summon the strength to confront him but the words remained trapped within my mind, screams and accusations echoing within it as he cared for me, taking tray after tray of uneaten food away. Days passed like this, my body weakening as I fought a battle within myself, haunted by memories of that night, the feel of my bare gums upon my tongue making me shudder and shake. At night, I was besieged by another entity, the sound of its call waking me.

  The humming claimed the dark, at times seeming to come from every corner of the room and others right beside my ear. There was no pause in its attack, steadily growing throughout the night until, when dawn finally crept over the roofs of Elbridge, it stopped so suddenly that I felt as if I had lost my hearing, driven insane rather than it truly having paused. I got no peace however as once the humming had fled, other sounds took its place.

  The tread of feet in the hall, the harsh scatter of teeth upon the floor, the sobs of a lost soul, their cries creating a sonnet with my own. I tried to cling to the thought that these sounds came from within me, my fears made tactile, because the only other explanation was too terrible to entertain.

  The spectres were real.

  One night, with hunger and grief making me reckless, I could bear it no longer, slipping from my bed and stumbling to the door on unsteady legs. The hum followed me, the unseen owner of the high voice falling instep behind me. The sound was right at my ear, shivers running through me as I forced myself forward, scared that if I was only to glance back, I would be faced with a set of eyes and a grinning, toothless mouth.

  The corridor was pitch black, my fingers running along the walls and the frames upon them, using them to lead me towards the stairs. Though I couldn't see them, I felt the eyes of the photographs following me, their beaming mouths of coloured teeth mocking me.

  For days now, I had lamented as I l
istened to Barnaby in the workshop, but it was the ground floor and the withdrawing rooms that called to me now, the source of the disturbances.

  As I made my way down the stairs, I began to see a light banishing the shadows, the gold-tinted floor of the ground hallway illuminated softly. My fatigue made it difficult for me to tread lightly, my fingers gripping the banister tightly even as my feet stumbled on the last step, but thankfully, no one awaited me in the hallway.

  Or at least no one that was living.

  At some point, the humming had stopped, the silence settling around me, and the presence I had felt mirroring me as I had walked was now in front of me. Like the others before, it began as a pale wisp, growing steadily in size and shape until it was clearly a person lingering there at the end of the corridor. The difference this time was that I felt no fear, having finally realised that its intent was to warn me, not to harm me. If only I had listened sooner.

  The spectre was a young woman, her arms hanging uselessly at her sides, clearly broken, the snapped bone of the left protruding at her elbow. Her head was tilted forward against her chest, her long hair hanging lank against the embroidered front of her Floris smock so that her expression was hidden.

  “Hello,” I whispered, stepping closer to her slowly, my voice soothing as if I was speaking to a frightened creature that might bolt at the slightest movement. “I understand now. You were never trying to hurt me; none of you were. Please, tell me what you must.”

  As if in answer, her arm slowly rose, the snapped bones crunching, her movements stilted and jerking. One finger pointed to a door I had never noticed when I had been assisting Barnaby with clients down here. It was set flush into the wall and papered so that it would not be immediately apparent that there was an entrance there. Only the door knob, smooth and cream, and the crack of light shining through it gave away its position for those seeking it.

  Taking a deep breath, I walked forward, knowing not what I went to but knowing I must, for I had spent too many hours already hiding within my room. Though I still felt weak, and a part of me was still desperate to cling to the false life Barnaby had created for me, I knew I could not. I had to seek the answers to my questions, whether I was strong enough for it or not.

  As I came closer, the spectre’s head rose, her eyes unlike the others that had tried to warn me. Instead of being wide with fear or hatred, they were peaceful as they watched me closely, and when I stopped before her, she smiled, a wide grin full of bare, bleeding gums.

  As gently as I could, I pulled the door open, thankful that the hinges weren’t stiff with age, before slipping through to the stairs beyond. Strange noises greeted me, the echo of metal hitting wood and the crackle of flames, but it was the stench which overwhelmed me, making me cover my nose and mouth with my hand and gagging into my palm.

  Stairs curled down into the light, simple, plain wood that seemed so out of character for this grand, old house. They turned sharply, preventing me from seeing the room they were leading me to, so I tiptoed down slowly, disgust and trepidation rolling in my stomach.

  Suddenly, a sound began, one that brought tears to my eyes as I leaned against the wall heavily.

  Humming.

  In direct contrast with the low humming of the spectres, this was familiar and gentle. The same soft tune coming unbidden from his mouth whenever he concentrated in the workshop was now filling this hidden room.

  Even now, standing on the threshold of truth, I had not wanted to believe it of him, painting him as blameless in my mind. The wet splattering and ripping sounds were so at odds with the cheerful tune. If only it was just Gillis, fooling him as he had me. But had I not learned? Life did not grant you graces like that; it was intent destroying your every last hope.

  The stairs creaked as I stepped upon the last one, Barnaby's head snapping up from his work, his eyes widening when they fell upon me. I had thought that he might run but he merely dropped the axe he was gripping, instead holding his hands out in supplication.

  My eyes roamed over the scene before me, my breathing coming in heavy gasps as I struggled to equate the kind man I knew with the horror that stood before me. The room was hardly a room at all, the walls of compressed dirt held up by wooden boards, just like those in the room that haunted me in my nightmares. When the stairs had moved underground, I hadn’t been sure, but now I had no doubt that if I walked through the door in the far corner of the room, I would be in the winding tunnels beneath Elbridge. A dominating furnace roared, the flames visible through the grate and the heat radiating into the air as smoke funnelled up a worn, iron chimney. Barnaby stood in only his shirt and breeches, his sleeves rolled up and the fur on his arms slick with blood and sweat, twinkling droplets dripping from his claws. His clothing was saturated with it, brilliant ruby and shimmering wet.

  In front of him on a wooden table, was a body. As soon as I saw it, my mind reeled and I stumbled back towards the stairs. It was as if I was gazing into a mirror, the youthful face pale with death, its jaw hanging open to reveal its toothless gums. The eyes were wide and dull, the brows fixed in an expression of terror. I couldn't tell whether it was male or female as the body was too young and too mutilated by Barnaby's axe. The arms and legs had been hacked off, the discarded limbs shoved into a stained bucket beside his bare feet. The neck was open, muscles and tendons glistening, my discovery having caught Barnaby in the act of removing the head.

  Behind him, thrown against the wall and wrapped in stained sheets, were even more bodies, their limp hands escaping their confines, and faces pressing against the fabric as if even in death, they struggled to be free. Hastily scrawled tags were pinned to each corpse, and on another table beside the furnace waited bundles of their teeth with matching tags tied on with string. These I could make out, my hands shaking as the importance of what I was seeing finally sank through my shock.

  Innocence; beauty; wealth; happiness. Each one an attribute for crafted teeth.

  Barnaby had promised to finally tell me how the magic worked, what bound the attributes to the teeth, how they were so unlike our natural, childhood teeth, and this was it, the truth too heinous to even utter.

  “Angora, listen to me,” he spoke softly, moving towards me even as I stumbled and fell, colliding with the stairs, unable to tear my gaze from the teeth. “I intended to tell you, did I not say? Did I not promise that soon, your curiosity would be sated and you would finally understand the true task of a master…?”

  I shook my head violently, clawing my way to my feet and pushing his blood-soaked hands away as a wail rose in my throat. No, this couldn’t be the truth. The teeth were beautiful; the wishes they created were treasured and pure. This couldn't be their source, these smuggled bodies and blood.

  “H—How?” I wept as his hands grabbed the tops of my arms, restraining me. He pulled me to him and I relented, my face pressed against his chest, my hands grasping at him as if he could still be my lifeline to sanity in all this madness.

  “Their souls, it is their souls bound within the teeth that creates the magic we wield for wishes. Every adult in Elbridge carries a soul within their mouth; many have rooms full of them, boxes overflowing with them. By your admission, this house is full of them.” He sighed, stroking my back, heedless of the blood now covering us both, or stench of burning flesh surrounding us. “I burn the bodies until only the bones are left, before grinding them and their teeth into a powder, and it is this that I make slip from. Not animal bones, but those of our own people.”

  “Gillis…” I groaned, closing my eyes against the pain that speaking his name brought to me.

  “Men like Gillis find people with the attributes we Floris Masters desire, luring them beneath Elbridge with whatever means they can and taking their lives so that others may have their wishes. The violence is unfortunate, but it is what binds the soul to the bones, the violation of their Floris rooting them,” he explained, tilting my head back so that he could read my expression as his hands held my cheeks, forcing me t
o look at him. “Don't you see, Angora? This was to be your fate, your sweet innocence drawing him towards you. But chance saved you that night and brought you to me instead. Don't you see how perfect you are for a Floris Master now, one that has seen both sides of the coin?”

  “Your Floris was not the same?” I asked remembering his previous words, a stupid question when faced with the shattering truth, but one that came nonetheless.

  “No, no it was not, but I wanted you to feel that I understood you, which I do, but I could not be honest with how, so I lied.” He shook his head, looking regretful for the first time since I had discovered his secret. “My Floris was akin to Lady Bethany’s, with the master I apprenticed under bringing me here shortly after, choosing me for my skill with painting as I did you. We are not so different, Angora. Both of us are consumed with passion for our work, work that without these tiny misfortunes would not be possible. Is it not a worthy price to pay?”

  “The clothing in the wardrobe; you didn’t really take in those Pariahs to help them, did you?” I asked, though the answer was already clear before he even shook his head. All the lies he had told, the layers to his deceit unravelling before me.

  “I’m nothing like you…” I whispered, my voice shaking, my hands that had previously been clutching him now balling into fists at my sides. “I would never…”

  “You will, you will.” He nodded, brushing my curls from my face, gazing at me with the same certainty my father had once, when he believed that I would follow in his footsteps. The same certainty that had died within his eyes when I took my own path.