Midnight's Song (30 page)

Although I held onto it for several
weeks, Sister Marie-Katherine secretly understood what I was going
through and kept silent about the matter. However, this nun would
surprise me. Everywhere I looked, the Sister was dropping small
hints about the truth of the monster I would soon be
facing.

“Celeste, you must remember
something,” she told me out of the blue one day. It was a full
month after my birthday, and now the days were growing shorter.
Soon it would truly be time. “The Magistrate has always been a
powerful man capable of mighty things. There are many things he has
tried to do – but just remember that when you go before him the
things he can do are not important. You must remember that you do
not answer to him, but to God. All other things will
follow.”

I looked up from my heavy history book
and found myself caught in a dumbfounded stare. These words seemed
so unnatural for a nun of the Magistrate’s Holy Church to be
saying! Yet, I had always known that Sister Marie-Katherine had
something that went deeper than that beneath it all.

“What are you trying to say?” I
begged, though deep down I knew the answer. The Sister shot me a
look, trying to form an answer. She opened her mouth to give me a
plain answer, but soon she caught a glimpse of the pearls I was
wearing around my neck. She let out a slight smile.

“I see the pearls around your neck.
You wear them every day, do you not?” She began, eyeing me. Without
thinking, I clutched the pearls protectively and nodded. “I see
that they must be very precious to you. Jesus spoke of pearls, did
you know that?”

“I think so,” I murmured in reply.
What could she be getting at?

“Jesus said not
to
cast our pearls to the swine.”
At her words, I gave her an uncertain nod. I’d
heard this before, but only somewhat. Still, I didn’t know what
this parable had to do with my situation. “He was telling us not to
give our treasures in life to those who will not care for them. Now
let me tell you something important,” she leaned in extremely close
to me and whispered. “
You
are considered a treasure to the Father. Through
all of your sufferings, I can see his face in yours. Even if you
cannot, I can. And since you are a pearl to the Father, he will not
allow you to be cast to the pigs. No matter what happens the Father
is greater and will protect you.” She paused for a moment. “You are
much more greatly loved than you know.”

She retracted from me, and in that
second my heart knew what she was talking about. I still wondered
about many things, but I knew that whatever curious experiences I
was having were trying to tell me something. This surely had to be
one of them, as earthly and human as it presently was. All I could
do now was whisper to her in return.

“Is it true?” I meekly asked. “Is it
true that there are things that we know in our hearts that the
Magistrate wants us to forget?”

Sister Marie-Katherine shot me a
piercing stare and quickly ran to the door of the study, slamming
it shut. She made the sign of the cross, perhaps not only because
of her prayerful nature but also to let anyone looking in on us at
that moment believe that we were closing ourselves off for a time
of meditation and prayer. After that, she swiftly pulled the
curtains over the windows closed and pulled the cord hanging from
the wall so that she could clasp the blinds shut.

“I am telling you this because I care
for you. I can see that you are set apart by the Father. What I am
about to say may not leave this room. You mustn’t repeat it. It
mustn’t be heard by another living soul.” She quietly told me. I
couldn’t help but remember a similar scene that had taken place in
this very room many months ago. The Sister continued
speaking.

“I love the Father
more than I will ever care for the Magistrate. The Church is under
the Magistrate’s control, and there are very few of us that will
ever agree with that. We have been under his thumb for many years,
yet the Lord has still preserved us. The reason for that is simple
– because the Lord doesn’t abide by the rule of man. He will
preserve his word through those who have given him their hearts. As
long as we have been under his rule…he has tried to change us. In
some respects, he has succeeded. But, the Father will not let him
win.” She paused for a moment. “So…the answer to your question
is
yes.”

I sat back in my seat, realizing this
dire truth that I knew was going to become a heavy burden in these
next few days. The Sister opened the blinds again and pushed open
the door, and we said nothing more of it. Her words filled me with
a reassurance, but it wasn’t so much a peaceful reassurance as it
was a realization of the seriousness of this all. Now I knew that
the Father was on my side, yet I was still uneasy. We moved on, and
before I knew it there was only two days left until my
meeting.

Emily came into my room unexpectedly
that night. Her face read absolute panic. This time, her newfound
hard look had disappeared. It had made way for one of tender but
frighteningly pale concern. I knew the moment she came that this
was not something of anger, but of urgent necessity. She shouted at
the top of her lungs: “ELISSA!”

“What is it?” I exclaimed.

“You must come quickly. In just these
last few minutes your grandmum has fallen terribly ill…she’s
shakin’ in bed, seizing all over the place. The entire quarter is
trying to keep her stable and the clergy that were visiting today
are praying over her as we speak. You must come see her
now!”

It was so shockingly sudden that I
thought I was going to throw up as I ran behind her. Grandmamma had
been growing feeble – but in the last few weeks she had remained so
strong in spirit that I assumed she’d be alright. Now, I couldn’t
be sure. I ran with Emily at top speed, but every step seemed to be
too slow. I wished I could teleport myself into the room so that I
could be at my grandmother’s side.

If this was the last – I couldn’t miss
it. Not for the Magistrate. Not for Winston. Not even for myself.
She loved me profoundly, and I loved her. If I was too late, I had
already made up my mind that I’d probably not be able to forgive
myself. We stopped at her bedroom door, and to my slight comfort
the entire scene was extremely quiet. There wasn’t a hint of
turmoil or weeping, so I thought that must have been a sign that
she was still in there.

“Be very calm,”
Emily instructed me as we stood before her door. “If she’s still…”
Emily searched her mind for the right word, “
present;
you can’t startle her. It
might be the end of her.”

We both exchanged nods of
understanding and cracked open the door to find a large group of
people, servants and family members as well as Sister
Marie-Katherine and a few clergy from the Church; gathered around
Grandmamma’s bedside. I looked at the place where she was laying
and had to bite down on my lip to keep from screaming. Her eyes
were closed, but her chest was rising and falling. It wasn’t to my
avail, for I could see a pale deterioration encompassing her whole
body that I had failed to recognize before. My teeth wouldn’t ease,
and soon I tasted the blood of my nervous habit.

“Celeste,” Sister
Marie-Katherine quietly uttered. She picked up a tissue and came
toward me. “Your lip is bloodied. You mustn’t do that right now.
When your grandmum wakes, the sight of blood could frighten
her.”

The nun took the tissue and gently
dabbed it over my lip to soak up the blood, and I didn’t know
whether I was about to begin laughing or crying. The whole room
murmured in shock. I remained silent and tuned my ears to a
conversation going on beside me. At first I heard a few words that
intrigued me, and when I listened once more I could hear the
concerned muttering of Aunt Beeti.

“If she passes now, what will happen
to the inheritance?” She whispered to one of the clergy.

“I am not entirely sure how that
should work,” the clergy replied. “But I assume that it will
naturally go to the next in line. That is how it always has
been.”

For a moment I held my breath and
turned my head in the other direction. I felt a sense that this
conversation was going somewhere that I had thought about but
wasn’t quite ready to handle, and I was sure Beeti shared those
feelings as well. Aware that I still might be listening, she became
more hushed as the conversation continued on.

“But what if…the
next person in line hasn’t been
decided?
” She asked again,
attempting to keep her concerns hushed despite the fact that they
were as intense as ever before.

“Then whatever would legally be
keeping it from being set in stone would be undone. Families in the
Imperial Realm must have an heir. Money and power can never float
freely. The Magistrate would never allow for that,” the clergy
quickly replied. “What about the girl? She’s the daughter of your
eldest, is she not? Isn’t she next in line?”

“Not yet.”

“But she is 17!”

“She’s…a special case,” Beeti
stammered. “You do not know of it? I thought it was widely known
that she was taken here under special conditions.”

“No, I’m afraid I don’t keep up with
much worldly gossip. But, I can tell you that if she is here under
special circumstances that would mean that your situation would be
quite unresolved if Lady Abilene should pass away very soon. In
that case, the child’s acceptance of her position would come into
effect immediately regardless of her situation.”

Beeti fell silent, muttering something
quite dark and dastardly. I purposefully tuned my ears away from
their conversation, feeling a chill crawl up and down my spine. A
small pang shot through my bones at the thought. In those few
moments, Grandmamma began to open her eyes and I quickly came to
her side. I clasped her hand in mine. It was still warm, and her
chest was still rising and falling with each involuntary breath.
She weakly turned her head a few degrees so that she could meet
eyes with me and it immediately filled me with sorrow.

Her eyes spoke confusion and a growing
dissociation with the world around her. From behind her hollow face
and trembling hands, her soul was beginning to ready itself for
departure. She was ready to drift from us, but she wasn’t going
yet. She would lie in that bed sleeping through the next day,
seldom waking up and always terrifying us to the point that we took
turns sitting at her bedside to make sure that she continued
breathing. That night I slept at her side, completely forgetting
about everything else in the world but my love for her.

Now it was the eve of my meeting with
the Magistrate, but I couldn’t reverse what was happening. It
didn’t seem to matter much compared to the life of my sacred,
life-giving grandmother. Yet, I still felt the weight of the world
on my shoulders the entire day. Now I had everything on the entire
earth to worry about, it seemed. Grandmamma was dying, and with her
death would come the loss of all the great secrets and knowledge
which she had used to protect me for so many years with her
undying, profound love.

It was also bring another, dreaded
choice. When she died, the Devereaux clan would be left with not
only a loss of their matriarch – but with the absence of an heir.
My choice would be rushed, and they all knew that if I chose the
fortune right now their entire world would change. But, no one
could be as concerned about all of this as Beeti. This was
something that had caused Beeti to resent me from the very
beginning.

It was what she had feared all along –
for I was the only thing standing between her and her daughter
becoming the heirs.

It was something
that caused Beeti so much grief that she was willing to go to any
length to find a way to keep me from it. She felt that it was hers,
and so did her daughter. They had never said so – but that was the
true reason for what Stella had done to me. Even though Beeti’s
entire being had been focused on running me off, her conscience
still caused her to regret having seen me so beaten. Her intuition
also told her to remain quiet, for the Magistrate would soon be
watching us all. But now, her greed would overtake her. I was more
than a petty threat to them now…much more. I was considered
an
enemy.

On the eve of my great
task, Beeti would be struggling to find a means to stop me. She
would be driven to her wits end to find something – anything she
could use against me. So, she would creep up the hallway while she
believed that I was fast asleep at Grandmamma’s side. She unlocked
the door to my room and flickered on the gas lights.

“Now…what on earth
could she be hiding…” she muttered out loud in an insane jumble.
“She must be hiding something…I
know
it! Now, where could that
little ruffian be hiding her secrets?”

She tiptoed across the carpet and ran
her hands over the crisp linens on top of my bed. When she couldn’t
find anything of note there, she moved her feet from the rug onto
the hardwood floor and begun to beat her hand down on my pillow to
see if anything was inside. She took the ones in the front closest
to her and dismantled them first, digging her hand into the
pillowcase for a few seconds before something caught her eye that
was sticking out of a pillow on the other side. A smirk rolled
across her face as she slid her hand underneath the pillow and
placed her hand on top of the object’s hard, green
cover.