Walking the Labyrinth (29 page)

One date with him and her future would fissure off into unguessed directions. Maybe she would even join the family on tour, become part of the act. She shook her head. It was just a date, after all. And it was no good thinking about it until all the mysteries were solved.

She headed east on the lower deck of the Bay Bridge, then turned off toward downtown Oakland. It was noon when she pulled up in front of the Paramount Theatre. There had been fog by the ocean but here, farther inland, the sun was shining.

The Paramount was closed. A notice on the door said that tours were available on alternate Saturdays. She studied the hundreds of light bulbs shooting out from under the marquee, the green and pink and black tiled floor.

A man came up to the front door and began to unlock it. “Excuse me,” Molly said. “My—my uncle Joseph Ottig worked here as a tour guide.”

“Joseph, of course!” the man said. Molly felt triumphant.
John Stow should see me now.
“Whatever happened to him? We’ve been calling and calling.”

“I’m afraid it’s bad news,” Molly said. “He’s dead.”

“Dead! How?”

“Someone shot him. In England.”

“England? We didn’t even know he was away. Well, come in, come in. Do they know who did it?”

“Not yet. I’d like to pick up his mail, if that’s possible.”

“Of course.” The man led her through the great front lobby and under the high black staircase, then unlocked a small office. “It’s funny, a letter did come for him. We were going to send it on to his house but we never got around to it. We did think it was odd he got mail at this address, instead of at home.” He looked a question at Molly, but she said nothing.
Because he was afraid his house would be searched,
she thought.
And it was
.

The man rummaged through the piles of paper on his desk. “Wait a minute, wait a minute … Yes, here it is.”

She took the envelope from him. It had a British stamp and was just big enough to hold three or four sheets of paper. “Thanks,” she said. “Thanks a lot.”

“Sure. If there’s anything I can do, any help we can offer the family …”

“I’ll let you know,” Molly said, fighting the urge to run from the theater, to tear open the letter right there. “Thanks.”

She walked as slowly as she could out the lobby and toward her car. She sat in the driver’s seat and opened the envelope. Then, her fingers trembling a little, she took out four pages ripped down one side.

“Of course Harrison and I did make love to each other again, many times,” Emily had written in her round clear hand. “(‘To make love,’ when I was young, meant to pay court to, to favour with attention. I have more than once been brought up short by this expression when it is used in the modern sense, as I use it now.) While Lydia was away we managed to meet several times, and after she returned I used my Gift to make certain that she remained unaware of our trysts.

“I became pregnant. Harrison felt strong guilt, even embarrassment. In those days, as I have said, pregnancy was never discussed; it was too obvious a reminder of lust and pleasure, both of which were kept discreetly hidden. But he was also proud, and delighted that the barrenness in his marriage was not his fault.

“When the child, which proved to be a boy, was born, I named him Henry. The name was far enough from Harrison not to arouse suspicion, but close enough to remind us both of his origins. Harrison hired a nanny to look after him, and she continued on with us after Florence was born.

“You are no doubt wondering, my old friend, what Lydia thought of this arrangement. And I owe you that explanation too, as I owe you so many other things. The truth is that Lydia was no longer part of our little group. She had gone to live with her sister. No one in the Order ever alluded directly to our situation, Harrison’s and mine, but of course they were aware of it and I know that there was gossip when we were not present. And more than one person, as you know, resigned from the Order in disgust.

“Well. That is a part of the truth, and it is accurate as far as it goes. That is the truth you know, or suspect: that Lydia left us, that she and Harrison were estranged. Oh, why am I finding it so hard to come to the point? I am deeply ashamed, more ashamed about this one thing than I am over all the money I ever took from you. Because I did do you some good, Dorothy—you know I did.

“I enchanted Lydia to do my bidding. There, I have said it. I turned her into a dull creature, someone with little wit or will or understanding of her own. I told her to leave Harrison and to go live with her sister. I told her never to attempt to see Harrison again.

“Why did I do it? I disliked her, of course, had done ever since I first met her and she dismissed me so peremptorily. And I love Harrison and he loves me, far more than he had ever loved Lydia. And this was the only way I could have him, and it seemed so
unfair
that she had become his wife only by an accident of birth.

“I laid my plans after she had finally angered me past bearing. I encountered her in the upstairs hallway, a day after a meeting of the Order. By this time she recognised me, of course, knew that I was both servant and adept, though I don’t think she suspected all that had passed between Harrison and me. She was carrying a pot of ink and several pens and a sheaf of paper; she was on her way to her morning room to answer her correspondence.

“She brushed against me and spilled her ink all over the newly cleaned bedding I was carrying. ‘You stupid, clumsy girl,’ she said. You’ll have to wash that all over again, won’t you?’

“I saw that she had ruined the sheets on purpose. Anger overcame me; I wanted to kill her, to end the life that she knew. But I was not strong enough. I could enchant her while she remained in my presence, but the moment she left me she would return to what she was.

“I bided my time, waiting until we went up to Tantilly. At the manor house I whispered to her to come with me to the Labyrinth, told her that it was time for her to reach another grade in the Order. She suspected nothing, though I was only a servant; she had seen evidence of my Gift.

“She followed me willingly enough. I traced the passages of the Labyrinth I knew so well. We passed rooms of jewels and flowers and animals, came to a vast blue lake holding a pale drowned moon. Lydia slowed; I urged her on. Corridors twisted like rivers, walls grew up like briars.

“And all the while I felt my power grow at every turning. Finally I found myself at the top of a ring of mountains, looking down on a great forest far below me. Wind shook the trees, tossed our clothing.

“I knew that now I was strong enough to do what I wanted. I saw Lydia’s thoughts as I always had, saw her hatred for me. I saw her life whole, and then I saw how I could end that life. It was as simple as that.

“When we returned to Dorothy’s parlour, Lydia was silent, docile. That night she repeated to Harrison what I had suggested to her, that she wanted to go live with her sister. I never saw her again.

“Would she still be Harrison’s wife and the mistress of his house if she had been better to me? If she had shown me kindness instead of spite that day? But there is no excusing what I did. I give you my word, Dorothy, that I will free her before we leave.”

Molly sat a moment in the car, thinking of what she had read. So Lila had been correct; Emily had enchanted Lydia Sanderson, and had explained in the journal how she had done it. The labyrinth had been the key. But who else had read the journal?

Molly put the pages in her purse and drove slowly back to Callan’s house.

She pushed open the door, Callan’s front door which was never locked. She was about to call for the family, wanting to tell them what she had learned, when someone stepped out from the shadows in the corner. Peter. A pale man came with him, hunched in his jacket as if against chill weather.

“Hello, Molly,” Peter said.

“Peter!” Molly said. “What the hell are you doing here?”

The other man looked a little familiar, but out of context somehow. Was he a friend of Peter’s? But Molly had never met any of Peter’s friends; he had always been careful to keep the different parts of his life separate.

“Visiting you,” Peter said, smiling.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” Molly said. “I know all about you now. You’re writing a book about the Allalies, aren’t you? Andrew Dodd told me.”

“I’ve learned some interesting stuff about the Order of the Labyrinth,” Peter said. “I thought you might want to hear it.”

“Oh, please,” Molly said. Where was everybody, the rest of the family? “Don’t lie to me. You’ve got a contract for a book, don’t you? You promised me you wouldn’t do this.”

“I’m interested in your family, that’s all. Look, Molly, can’t we talk this over? I’ll tell you what I learned and you can show me Emily’s journal.”

“Emily’s journal? What do you know about that?”

“You told me about it, after you came back from England. I’d like to see it.”

“Why?”

Peter sighed. “Because it’s interesting, that’s why. Because, all right, because I might want to write a book about the Allalies. There’s no law against it. In fact the First Amendment—”

“Don’t talk to me about the First Amendment! I’ve read your books—I’ve even typed some of them for you. You turn everything you write about into some kind of sleaze, you make everything sound much worse than it is. Well, you’re not going to do it to my family.”

“You sound as if your family has something to hide.”

“Of course we don’t! It’s just that—”

“Then why don’t you show me the journal? That way I can judge for myself. And the pages that were torn out, too. You’ve got them, don’t you?”

“The—pages?”

“We saw you going to the Paramount,” the pale man said, speaking for the first time. “We knew Ottig worked there, but he never told us why.”

“Did Ottig tell you he’d mailed the pages there?” Peter asked.

“I figured it out for myself.” Even now, Molly thought, Peter couldn’t believe that she had a mind of her own, that she could be a player in the game.

“All right,” Peter said. “Enough of this. Just show me the pages and we’ll go.”

“Absolutely not,” Molly said. “I’m not going to help you hurt my family.”

The front door opened again. Molly and Peter turned quickly to look at the newcomer, a sharp-faced man in a leather jacket. He took a gun out of his jacket pocket and pointed it at Molly. “Give me the journal,” he said. He had a British accent.

Suddenly Molly recognized him, and the pale man as well. “I know you, don’t I? John and I met you in England, in Applebury. You wanted the book, Emily’s journal. You threatened to go to the police unless we gave it to you. And you—” She turned to the other man, studied his blue eyes and milk-white skin. “You were the clerk at Tangled Tales Bookstore. You were wearing a turban the last time I saw you. What is all this? How do you all know each other?”

“They’re members of the Order of the Labyrinth,” Peter said.

“It still exists?” Molly asked. “It’s been—what?—a hundred years.”

“Eighty-five since Emily disappeared,” the sharp-faced man said. “He’s lying, though—these two are no more a part of the Order than you are. I’m from the true Order—we’ve held to the faith while these pretenders in America went whoring after false gods.”

“Liar!” the pale man shouted. The other man’s gun turned toward him. “You were deluded, you never understood the real purpose of the Order. You thought Arton would return and lead you to wisdom, but there never was an Arton, don’t you see? It was all lies invented by Emily, lies to cover up her true purpose …”

“What would you know about it?” the sharp-faced man said. “I’m the great-great-grandson of one of the original members, Jack Frederick. And I’ve read Dorothy’s pamphlet—”

“So what? We’ve all read the pamphlet. Poor Dorothy was deluded too, she believed everything Emily told her … Emily’s journal is the important thing. I’ll bet you haven’t read that.”

“No, have you?”

“No, but—”

“And you never will, either. I’ll take it and be gone. Where is it?”

They were making enough noise to rouse the entire family. Would someone come and help her, or was this something they thought she should do by herself? Surely they couldn’t all be sleeping through this mad theological argument.

“I don’t have it,” Molly said.

“I don’t believe you,” the sharp-faced man said. “I heard you talking before I came inside. Where is it? In your purse?”

He moved toward her, toward the purse hanging from her shoulder. The pale man stepped in front of him.

“Don’t,” Molly said. “He’s already killed at least one person.”

The sharp-faced man scowled. “What would you know about that?” he asked. He sidestepped the pale man, lunged toward her purse. The other man reached for the gun. There was a loud bang. Someone shouted. Molly hit the floor. When she looked up the pale man was clutching his shoulder.

“Keep away from me,” the man with the gun said. “And you, Molly, whatever the hell your name is—hand it over.”

Corrig came down the stairs.
Great,
Molly thought. Of all the people in the family, he was the one least likely to be of any practical use. The sharp-faced man looked up at him and then dismissed him and turned back to Molly. “Give me the book.”

Corrig reached into his baggy overcoat and handed the man a brick.

“I said book, not brick!” the man said angrily. “The bloody journal. Where is it?”

Corrig dropped the brick and drew out a large bird mask.

“What the fuck?” the man said.

“Beak,” Molly said. “Corrig, please—”

“Give me the book, you stupid—”

Corrig reached out. His hands were empty and back at his sides by the time Molly realized that he had slipped the bird mask over the man’s face. “What the hell!” the man said, struggling with the mask. “I can’t get the damn thing off!”

Suddenly Corrig held the gun. He studied it, turned it over, closed one eye, and looked into the barrel. Then he twirled it around his index finger, faster and faster, until it blurred to almost nothing. He stopped, spread his hands. The gun was gone.

“Great,” Molly said. “Let’s call the police.”