Camille Read online

  I closed my eyes and rested my forehead on the tops of my knees. Footsteps prompted me to lift my head. Strider stood in the room, and I wanted to run to him. I looked at him for a long time before returning my gaze to Dr. Bennett. “Emily had just shot our father. She didn’t know what she was doing. She reached for a knife on the table and carved a crescent shape into her forearm. She told me she wanted the moon to be a permanent sliver, never to be full again. Then she grabbed the wrist of my uninjured arm and carved a crescent on my arm.” I pushed up my sleeve and touched the puckered scar. “I was so numb, I didn’t even feel it.”

  “Did you exchange blood with your sister?” Dr. Bennett asked.

  I nodded. “We pressed our arms together to seal away the horrible secret we shared.” I released the hold I had on my legs and dropped my feet to the ground. A laugh spurted from my lips. “Although, it’s hardly a secret anymore. It’s been peeled open like all the other layers of my life.”

  Strider pulled a chair up to the table and smiled at me as he sat. It was a simple gesture, yet it was all the fortification I required to make it through another day.

  “It can’t be possible,” Dr. Bennett mumbled, “and yet it must be so.”

  I watched him for a minute. Deep thoughts were flashing across his face as he obviously tried to reason something out. “John, will you be having this conversation with yourself for long, or will we be involved soon?”

  “Soon,” he said and stood to leave. “You will both be involved very soon.”

  “What was that about?” Strider asked as he came to sit near me.

  “I’m not quite sure, but it has something to do with the night of my father’s death and Emily’s crazy desire to carve our skin that night.” I lifted my sleeve, and he winced at the scar.

  “Emily did that to you?”

  “Yes, ‘tis a quarter moon. I’m afraid she’s more talented with folding paper than cutting skin. She has a matching one. Remember when she scratched her arm on our visit?”

  “It was like she had a spider crawling under her sleeve.”

  “Not a spider. Just a scar that becomes irritated every time…” My words fell off. “Emily’s blood! Why did I not see it? The natural immunity pulses through her veins. All this time searching for a cure when my dear, sweet, beautiful sister held the answer.”

  Strider looked at me. “So you think your sister’s blood should be mixed with mine?” His face paled at the idea. “Do you think it might work?”

  “It worked for me. I had been bitten just as you have. Yet I never showed signs of transmutation.”

  “Maybe it’s because you’re a girl.” Flirtatiously, he traced his fingers along my arm.

  I lifted my brow and stared at him. “We are the same species, Nathaniel. Aside from the obvious differences, males and females share most traits.”

  “Aye, it is those obvious differences that make the girls so appealing.” He smiled.

  “Does your mind ever wander past the subjects of girls and food?”

  “I’m sorry, what did you say? I could not actually hear you over the din of my empty stomach.”

  I jumped up and threw my arms around Strider’s neck. “Let’s go feed that cavernous hollow you call a stomach.”

  Dr. Bennett hired a cab, and the three of us climbed in for the trip to Bethlem Hospital. As was always the case, we had no idea in what state of mind we would find Emily. With all three of us descending upon her at once, her reaction could go in many directions, so it was decided Strider would stay in the lobby, making Sarah’s day and keeping my sister from scratching a self-made hole in her arm. Dr. Bennett had a lancet for that. Momentarily, I‘d thought of leaving Strider home, but I worried he might leave.

  We’d barely turned onto Lambeth Road, and the small hairs on my arms stood at attention. I leaned forward to look out the small window. The hospital stood in its usual state of elegant composure. There was nothing untoward occurring out front, yet I sensed something was terribly wrong.

  Dr. Bennett scooted forward on his seat. “Camille, what is wrong?”

  “I don’t know,” I said more to myself than to him.

  We climbed the stairs and stepped inside. Sarah was not at her station. In fact it was eerily quiet until two hospital workers raced past us from the men’s ward to the garden exit.

  “What’s happening?” Dr. Bennett rushed to ask them as they flew past, but they waved us off.

  By the time the door shut behind them, my insides were churning. I ran down the corridor to Emily’s room. The door was ajar. I pushed it open just as Dr. Bennett and Strider pulled up behind me. A gasp caught in my throat. The wires which normally held Emily’s forest of paper creatures lined the walls in utilitarian fashion. The kingdom of sprites was gone, along with its creator.

  “Oh my God,” Dr. Bennett muttered. “Where could she be?”

  “There’s a group of people staring out the window at the end of the hall,” Strider said.

  We ran to the window. I stood on my tiptoes to get a view over the heads of the onlookers. Before I could catch a glimpse, Strider grabbed my waist and lifted me. “There, in the tree,” he said.

  In the center of the courtyard stood the majestic plane tree nearly devoid of all leaves but thick with spiraling branches, and perched on the end of one of those branches was my fair-haired twin with a basket of paper fairies clutched in her arms. Dr. Bennett was already halfway to the exit before my feet were back on the floor. Strider grabbed my hand, and we raced after him.

  A crowd of onlookers circled the tall tree. Hospital staff shuffled beneath Emily’s branch anxiously calling to her to hold on tightly. Several patients seemed completely amused at the entertaining break in their otherwise monotonous existence, and several others looked on in horror, shaking their heads and wringing their hands. Samuel, the man Emily had befriended, stood directly below her staring up with his large arms outstretched.

  I spotted my sister’s nurse in the crowd and grabbed her arm. “Virginia, how did this happen? Did she take her tonic this morning?” Dr. Bennett stood behind me now. Virginia’s face paled as she looked at him.

  The nurse fished in her apron pocket for a bottle. “Aye, she took her tonic.” She pulled out a blue glass bottle. “I have it right here. She was in fine spirits all morning. Even ate two biscuits for breakfast.”

  Dr. Bennett’s long arm reached past my face, and he seized the bottle from her hand. He pried out the cork and covered his pinky with the liquid before tasting it. “This is laudanum.”

  Virginia’s face blanched further. “That can’t be.” She grabbed the bottle back and ran her finger around the top before putting the contents on her bottom lip. Amazingly, her face blanched even whiter until all the ruddiness on her round cheeks faded to pink cream. “Tis not my fault.”

  I grabbed Dr. Bennett’s arm. “It’s of no matter now, John. Besides, I’m glad her irrational behavior was caused by laudanum and not her own mind.” Before he could respond, I ran to where Samuel stood and turned my face up. Emily’s petite feet, clad only in bedroom slippers, dangled over the branch like that of a small child in a high chair.

  “Em, what are you doing up there?”

  Her small face peered over the edge of the branch, and my head spun as if I were the one staring down from the height. “Hello down there, baby sister. You’ve come to watch them go free.” The delight in her voice was something I’d not heard in years.

  “Who are you setting free, Emily?”

  Emily leaned back and the branch bobbed slightly, shifting her weight dangerously to one side. Dead leaves rained down drowning out the simultaneous gasps from the onlookers. My sister, completely undeterred by the fact that she dangled a good four meters in the air on what appeared to be a rather rotted branch, lithely righted herself on her narrow perch. Emily’s slight build had always allowed her to be agile and light on her feet. My father would often insist that her feet never touched the ground when she ran across the room. He
would tease her, telling her only a fairy changeling could fly across a wood floor without touching it. His needling was surely what prompted her to fall in love with fairies.

  “You know, Emily, I think they would much prefer to stay with you. You know they don’t all get along. Without you, they are sure to get into trouble.”

  Emily dug her hand into the basket and came up with a palm full of paper sprites. “Nonsense, they have promised me they’d behave. They’re so bored stuck on their wires.” Emily threw her head back and giggled. Samuel’s arm rose up anticipating her fall. But she did not. Her long blonde hair flowed in the breeze like gold silk. If she had her own wings, she might have resembled a forest creature herself.

  I glanced back at Dr. Bennett. He stood right behind me with an expression that seemed to shift between terror and helplessness. Movement behind the wide trunk of the tree caught my eye. It was Strider. Without a sound, he climbed the tree and maneuvered to the branch where my sister sat humming and smiling down at the crowd.

  My heart raced. If she spotted him, it might frighten her off the branch. Samuel looked strong enough to catch her, but it was a long drop and even though she weighed little, the impact might injure her.

  All eyes focused on the lad in the tree. I stepped back next to Dr. Bennett. “Do you think the branch looks strong enough to hold him?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Especially not a tree limb that has been dried out by cold and wind.”

  Strider scooted onto the branch, but the movement was slight enough to not cause a stir or catch Emily’s attention. Strider seemed to be assessing the situation himself. He moved a tiny bit, and the tree emitted a small creaking sound.

  I ran closer. “Be careful, Nathaniel!”

  Emily looked back over her shoulder. “Hello. You’re that fine-looking boy my sister loves.”

  My cheeks burned. I turned to Dr. Bennett. “She’s fortunate that she is out of my reach.”

  Strider scooted a bit closer and smiled. That was all he needed to do. He stretched a strong arm to her. “Why don’t you take my hand, Emily, and I’ll carry you down on my back.”

  Emily glanced at the basket balanced in front of her. “First, I need to set them free.” He stretched his hand to her again. “May I help?”

  “Of course!” Emily looked down at me and winked before returning her attention to Strider. “But first you must promise that you will never, never, never break my dear sister’s heart.”

  Strider’s brown gaze drifted my direction for a moment. I shyly looked down at my feet deciding that when Emily was safely down from the tree, I would strangle her.

  “I promise,” he nearly whispered it, but I heard every syllable. I looked back up at the branch. He was staring at me, and I wanted to kiss him.

  Suddenly a loud crack ripped through the air. Strider’s eyes widened as the branch beneath him started to give way. He lunged for Emily and pulled her against his chest. The breaking branch jarred them and the basket flew from my sister’s hands, the papery contents floated in all directions, like a rainbow of fluttering butterflies. Or in this case, fairies.

  Emily smiled at them and laughed as Strider lowered her closer to Samuel’s arms and then dropped her. Samuel dashed out from under the branch with Emily still giggling in his arms as it snapped clean off. The spectators drew in a collective breath as Strider fell to the ground with it. But the gasp was cut short and silence befell the group as he landed on his feet without incident. He shot me a look of worry. I glanced around the faces. While they seemed astonished at what they’d witnessed, they seemed to easily dismiss it as youthful agility and strength. They applauded his bravery. The lad had, after all, climbed the tree and saved Emily without incident.

  Dr. Bennett raced over to Emily while I hurried to pick up the scattered pieces of her paper collection. I knew my sister well enough to deduce that once free of her laudanum stupor, she would be distraught about the loss of her fairies. Strider crouched down next to me to with the basket to help.

  “Thank you,” I said without looking at him. Energy seemed to pulse around him.

  “Tis an easy enough task.” He dropped two fairies into the basket.

  “Not this. I mean, Thank you for getting Emily down safely.”

  He held up a paper sculpture. Its wings were smashed. “This one didn’t make the jump.” I grabbed it from him and shoved it my pocket. “Elgar was always weak.”

  Strider’s fingers brushed the back of my hand. “The strength I feel,” he said, “I never imagined it would be like this. If only there were a way--“

  “To tame it? There isn’t.” I grabbed his arm. It was solid like rock under my grasp. “When this—this transformation takes hold you will not be able to contain it. It will drive you to murder anything in your path.” I released my hold on him and I could feel the muscle in his arm relax. “Even me.”

  He dropped a handful of fairies in the basket, stood, and walked away. I glanced up to see Samuel carrying Emily into the hospital, Dr. Bennett close at his heels. I finished sweeping the rest of the forest creatures into the basket and headed inside. With the state my sister was in, I calculated I had an hour or two to return them to their wires before she noticed anything was amiss.

  Chapter 21

  Dr. Bennett handed me the fairies one at a time as I stood on a chair to hang them. Occasionally, I would steal a glance out the window to the yard below. Strider was leaning against the tree he’d just climbed smoking a cigar, a reward from Dr. Bennett.

  “Your sister has been through much today. I don’t think it right to draw blood from her in this state.”

  “We must.” I waved my arm around the room nearly toppling off the edge of the chair with my theatrics. “She lives in a bloody asylum. I hardly think having her blood drawn is a unique event.” I jumped off the chair and stood in front of him. “I think your theory is a good one. Let’s test it.”

  “I agree.” He glanced at my sister who slept like an angel under her heavy blankets. “But I’ll draw your blood instead.”

  “Mine?” A seed of jealousy sprouted in my chest. Was he trying to protect Emily because she belonged to him? After all I was no relation.

  He grabbed both my hands. I tugged them out of his grasp and stared up at him.

  “Cami, don’t you see? Where is your scientist’s logic? If you showed no signs of infection after being bit, then you must have immunity. Whether it came from your sister’s blood or not, you were the one who fought off the transformation. Your blood will be our surest bet.”

  I looked out the window. Less than a month ago, he was merely a specimen. Now just having a pane of glass and an expanse of yard between us made me miss him. I would risk anything to save him. Suddenly, how right it seemed that my blood be used for the task. I picked up the basket and stepped onto the chair. “Let me hang the rest of these before you bore holes in me.”

  ****

  “That is all? That’s all you intend to take?” I stomped after Dr. Bennett pressing a bandage against the slit in my arm.

  He stopped and twisted around so abruptly I smacked in to his chest. The traitorous dimples appeared beneath his beard as he smiled down at me. “You and your sister exchanged only a small amount of blood that night, and it was enough to save your life.”

  He turned and walked away and I continued my march behind him. “But we had days before the next full moon. There was plenty of time. Now time is short. Surely, you know enough people at the hospital that you can borrow an instrument for transfusion.”

  He stopped again, but this time I was ready for it. When he turned there was no smile. His blue eyes darkened. “It’s too risky. Besides, I know nothing of the technique. I will not experiment on you.”

  Dr. Bennett lit a lamp in the dark kitchen. “Let’s put some water on to boil. I could use some hot tea. It’s been a long day.”

  “But you were willing to experiment on him.” I pointed up the stairs.

  Dr. Bennett’s gaze
shot to the stairwell. “Cami, lower your voice. He’ll hear you.”

  “I believe it’s too late for that. Nathaniel knows he’s your specimen.” I leaned closer now because the rest I truly didn’t want Strider to hear. “You could care less about him. In your mind, he’s already your prey.” His face blanched in the wavering light. “Well, do not bother to shine your silver bullets, John Bennett, because this hunt is over. Boil your own water.” I headed to the stairs. I was sure he’d call after me but only silence followed me up the stairs.

  Strider was sitting upon the work table browsing through an anatomy book when I returned to the lab. The tension in my shoulders eased as he glanced up at me with those extraordinary brown eyes.

  “Why are you sitting up there?” I asked.

  Strider motioned toward the cot with his head. My gaze followed. In the shadow of the rickety bed, Dutch crouched with fur standing up so straight, the stripes had vanished. Apparently, the cat had decided to take the matter into its own hands, or in this case paws. Normally, the animal never ventured into the lab. I walked over to the cot and gave it a shake. Dutch skittered past snarling and slicing the air with his claws before dashing from the room.

  “You’d better get down from there. If Dr. Bennett sees you on his table, you’ll wish you’d taken your chances with the cat.”

  He hopped down and scratched the skin surrounding the incision. “Now I know what your sister must go through.”

  I grabbed his hand and held it out to get a better look at his forearm. The skin was red and swollen. “It couldn’t be infection this soon. Besides, Dr. Bennett took every precaution to avoid it.” I could not organize the thoughts flashing through my mind. Was my blood already producing immunity in his system, or was he having a terrible reaction to it? Perhaps we were wholly incompatible. “I’ll get Dr. Bennett.”

  I turned to leaved, but he held fast to my hand. I faced him again. He stepped closer. Strider picked up my hand and laced his large fingers through mine. My gaze lifted to his face. His incredibly handsome features seemed more vivid than before, and the air around him seemed to pulsate. Any girl with a clear thought in her head would have been terrified, but my thoughts had not been clear since the moment I’d first met Nathaniel Strider.