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Victoria straightened up. Sandra let out a little startled sound, and even Iris leaned forward, looking at him curiously. “What do you mean by that?” she asked.
“I told you that my goal was to discover a way to change Harrow’s traditions and spare our daughters. I believe I have found it,” Caleb said. He nodded toward me. “Helen here is the result of our failures, but she is also our salvation. Nicholas Vaughan’s problem was that he was too afraid of the Other and too uncertainof his own control. He thought that if he allowed its mind to heal enough to have conscious thought and individuality, it would break free, but we’ve proven that isn’t the case. Assuming that our efforts tonight succeed—and I have done the research, I am certain that they will—we don’t need human girls to bind to the Other. We just need the Other to create a vessel foritself. A girl like Helen. We will scatter Helen. And then, when the time comes, we will induce the Other to create her again. When she is strong enough, we can repeat the process. Our daughters will never again die for that thing.”
His triumph made his voice boom. I shrank back in my seat, heart hammering, mouth dry.
It would spare them, I thought. There would be no more Harrow girls. Only me, caught in my endless dreaming. Would that be so bad? No one else would have to die.
Except for me. Over and over and over again.
I could see each of them turning the idea over. Celia startled; Desmond darkly thoughtful; Victoria relieved. Sandra’s face was blank. Broken.If they had only waited, her daughter would still be alive, I thought.
“Now, there are a few words that must be spoken,” Caleb said. Tradition again. “We have gathered here in Harrowstone Hall, the home of our forefathers...”
I tuned him out. What he was saying didn’t matter. It wasn’t for me. I might as well have been a stick of wood propped up in this chair through all of that. I wasn’t a person to him. Or to Victoria, avoiding my eyes, or Iris, who never looked away from me.
I would not die for their sake. Not today. Not ever again.
“It’s time,” Iris said, standing. The bell was ringing. Harrow was calling for blood, and it had to be obeyed. “Victoria, Sandra. Escort the children to their rooms. Victoria, you’ll join us outside. Sandra...”
“I’ll make sure she stays put,” Sandra said, arms folded. For a moment I couldn’t imagine who she was talking about, and then it hit me—my mother. They were worried she would interfere. That’s why she wasn’t here.
My heart leaped. Maybe there was still a chance she truly cared about me.
Caleb took my upper arm. He held on tight, like he expected me to try to run, but he needn’t have bothered. I followed along dutifully as he led me out of the house, Eli and Iris behind us.
It wasn’t hard to guess where we were heading. After enough plodding through the woods to muddy the hem of my gown, we reached the rock face that hid the entrance to the spiral. Victoria arrived moments later, out of breath. Desmond and Celia were safely locked in their rooms, then.
“The master leads. The offering follows,” Iris said. Caleb got out a flashlight and squeezed in through the hole. I swallowed down my fear and maneuvered my way into the dark.
The others filed through behind me. Caleb set off, and our procession followed, grim in our silence. Whispers filled the winding hallway, but I couldn’t make them out. The voices of other girls, other masters, other witnesses. My steps grew steadier as the grip of the spiral tightened around me, and I felt myself on the verge of slipping again. It would be easier, I thought. Surrender, and drift, and feel nothing.
But I fought. I held on to myself and my senses, and when we came to the stone door, I was still myself, and every step forward had been my own choice.
Bryony stood before the door, her lantern in hand. She caught my eye, and a shiver of relief went through me. Caleb drew himself up, his hand resting ostentatiously on the strap of the rifle still slung over his back.
“I know I can’t stop you,” Bryony said. “Please, just let me be there for her.”
Caleb glanced between us, a humorless kind of amusement on his face. “The Harrow Witch in love with the Other. It has a certain poetry to it.”
“I see her truly,” Bryony said, drawing herself up. “And yes, I love her.”
“The witch is a tool to control the creature. Not its ally, you little idiot,” Iris said, but Bryony only looked at her flatly.
“Let her in,” Eli said, his thin voice slipping into the conversation like an uninvited guest. “The witch is traditionally present during the Investiture. Perhaps her absence last time was a sign you ought to have heeded.”
Caleb looked at Iris; she nodded. He might be ready to declare himself Master of Harrow, I thought, but she was the one in charge here. Bryony stepped aside, and Caleb opened the door.
The chamber was as I remembered it. Even the night sky was the same, though it was broad daylight outside, and it occurred to me to wonder what sky it was if it wasn’t ours. Bryony took up a place near the wall, and Caleb guided me to the stone. The scapula still sat at its base. It was like Dr.Raymond had written—anobject belonging to the offering placed at the heart of Harrow to draw me in.
Panic nipped at the nape of my neck. What if I was wrong? What if I hadn’t really come here under my own will? No. It had been my choice. I was sure of it.
Caleb turned me around so that my back was to the stone. He took a small knife from his belt. He rolled up his sleeve. There was a bandage on his upper arm. From his pocket he took a bloody handkerchief folded over something small. He unfolded it with a grimace and tossed it onto the dirt at the base of the standing stone. It was skin—a circle of skin, cut from his arm. “I have made an offering of my own flesh,” he intoned.
Then he made a cut on his forearm and pressed two fingers to it, getting them good and bloody. He dragged his fingers down my cheek. I wrinkled my nose in disgust but held still. “I have marked your face with my blood, and so we are bound,” he said.
“If you say so,” I drawled, nerves making me punchy.
“I can make this painful if you want,” he hissed. I shut my mouth.
