She felt the same eagerness and only wished she knew what to look for or where to begin. “What does
Fiat Lux
mean?” she asked, turning back to the window and pointing to where she knew the words to be. They were barely visible in the darkness.
“‘Let there be light.’ ”
“Is that from the Bible?”
“You truly are a godless creature, aren’t you? It’s from Genesis. Chapter one, third verse. It’s about the creation of the world.”
“Oh,” she said, embarrassed. She avoided his gaze and looked at the mirror. She was still leery of it, but curiosity made her gingerly lay her fingertip on its surface, ready to jerk back her hand at the least sign of a menacing shadow.
Nothing happened. The silver was cool and smooth under her touch. In fact, not only was there no shadow, but there was no reflection of her fingertip in the silver at all. Confused, Caitlyn once again leaned over the shining square, seeking her own gaze in a reflection.
There was nothing there but silver.
As a cold flush of shock ran over her skin, remembered advice surfaced in her mind:
“There are tests you can do in your dream, like looking at your face in a mirror: if your reflection is not normal, you’re dreaming.”
Caitlyn’s mind suddenly sharpened, as if shaking off the last traces of sleep. She was dreaming. None of this was real. She slowly turned and looked at Raphael, and felt her heart contract in pain. Did this mean that
he
was a figment of her imagination?
She shook her head. She wanted him to be real. No, she
needed
him to be real. He was her Knight of Cups. Wasn’t he?
“Jump up and down,” she ordered through a tight throat. She would see if the figment obeyed her commands.
“ Why?”
That’s exactly what she would have expected him to say. She hated testing him, but she had to; she had to know if this was all a fantasy constructed out of her own loneliness.
Caitlyn closed her eyes and let an image come to mind from the secret depths of her heart: to have Raphael enfold her in his arms, one of his hands on the back of her head, the other around her waist. She imagined the warmth of his body, the pressure of his velvet-clad shoulder against her cheek. And then she waited, eyes closed, to see if it would happen.
“Caitlyn? What’s wrong?”
She opened her eyes as he approached, her heart beating painfully fast. What would he do? Hold her, as she had so deliberately imagined?
Please don’t. Please don’t be a figment of my imagination, who does only what I want him to do.
“You look scared.” He lifted his hand and reached toward her, then hesitated, uncertainty in his expression. With great care he brushed a wisp of hair away from her face, his touch so light she could barely feel his fingertips. “Are you all right?”
“I don’t know.” He was doing what she truly wanted, acting as if he existed independently from her mind. “Are you real?” she asked hoarsely.
He let his hand rest against the side of her neck, apparently seeing nothing strange in her question. “Yes.”
She closed her eyes, feeling the warmth of his touch. “You have no idea how much I want to believe you.”
“Do I truly need to convince you?”
She felt him move toward her, every nerve in her skin aware of his closeness. One hand rested on her hip, then slid to the small of her back. The other moved from her neck to the back of her head, his long fingers sliding up into her hair.
He was doing exactly as she had imagined he would. She opened her eyes, her vision blurred with tears of disappointment.
“Shh,”
he whispered. “Don’t cry.” With gentle lips he kissed her brow, her temple, the top of her cheek.
“I want to believe in you,” she said, leaning against the hard planes of his chest and torso, her head coming up only to his chin. He felt warm and strong and
solid
. She could feel his soft breath against her face, and the beating of his heart.
“Caitlyn,”
he said, yearning in his voice. He bent his head down, pressing his cheek to hers, his lips tenderly kissing the edge of her jaw, the lobe of her ear. His hands on her back and head tightened, pulling her more closely to him. He turned his head slightly, his mouth brushing over her skin to find her lips. “You cannot doubt me,” he said, his mouth hovering above hers, “when it is you who may not be real.”
His words sent a bolt of shock through her.
The next moment, Caitlyn opened her eyes to the Grand Salon. She was lying on the leather couch, her blanket twisted tightly around her like the enfolding arms of a lover, and the alarm clock sourly beeping notice that it was morning.
CHAPTER
Nineteen
MARCH 9
That afternoon, Caitlyn watched the slow progression of a rectangle of light across the white, featureless expanse of the library ceiling. It was cast by the mirror she’d laid on top of the tarnished silver square in the windowsill, and she’d been watching it for over an hour. She had missed the first half of her French class, but her body refused to rise out of the chair. She was too tired, too wrung out, and too full of self-doubt to feel curiosity about the sundial.
She’d gone to her algebra and history classes that morning, but as soon as she was free for lunch, she’d found her way down into the lower levels of the castle, seeking the storeroom where Raphael had hidden the crystal chest. She’d searched for half an hour, but found only unfamiliar hallways, pipes, boilers, garbage, laundry, and storage rooms full of ratty furniture. Nothing looked familiar, and she quickly lost her orientation in the low-ceilinged corridors. Bianca’s heart may have been three feet from her, or on the other side of the castle entirely.
Defeated, she’d come to the library, set the mirror on the sill, and collapsed into a chair to watch the reflection of light upon the ceiling. She was desperate to prove something—anything—about her dreams to have a concrete reality.
She was haunted by the words that Raphael had spoken, when his lips were about to kiss her own:
You cannot doubt me, when it is you who may not be real.
Did he think that
she
was a figment of
his
imagination?
She remembered her earlier theory, about she and Raphael being avatars in a dream world; so maybe Raphael really was a boy somewhere nearby, dreaming dreams of her just as she dreamed dreams of him.
Or maybe she was nuts, and the dreams were dreams, nothing more.
Naomi had left her a note in the Grand Salon, weighted down by the mirror:
Breathing: 5 times/min.
Pulse: 30 beats/min.
Diagnosis: hibernation. You’re a bear, not a human.
So Amalia had been right: there was something physical happening that could be causing her nightmares. That should make her happy. It gave her something fixable, something a doctor could diagnose and write a prescription for, and then she’d sleep as peacefully as everyone else.
She’d be normal.
Down deep in her secret heart, though, she
liked
feeling different. And the dreams made her feel closer to her mother, with her tarot cards and predictions of the future.
Maybe the dreams were not just dreams. Something preternatural could be going on. Supernatural. Paranormal. Something not of the world as they were supposed to know it.
If so, what was the purpose?
Was
there a purpose?
And Bianca—was she a ghost that still haunted Château de la Fortune as the Woman in Black? If she was, what did she want from Caitlyn?
Or—and Caitlyn shuddered to think it—might Caitlyn herself be the reincarnation of Bianca de’ Medici? She had, after all, appeared in Bianca’s dress in her dreams, and she had felt that she was the one who was burned at the stake.
She shook her head, not believing it. She could
not
be that coldfaced woman in the portrait.
Caitlyn’s conclusion was that she’d have to wait to see what else Bianca—or whatever force was behind this—wanted to show her. The dreams were a story unfolding, and she had the sense that the tale was only half told. If the dreams served a purely psychological function, so be it. She’d wait them out and see what they told her about her screwed-up self.
And if a strange form of sleep apnea lay at the heart of things, maybe someday she’d never wake up, and she could disappear into her dreams forever.
Caitlyn looked up as someone approached her, and swore under her breath. It was the librarian. She must know Caitlyn was skipping class.
“M’mselle Monahan, Madame Snowe would like to see you in her office.”
Caitlyn felt her stomach sink. A flush of panic washed over her, and she quickly gathered up her things as a cold sweat broke out over her body. She was skipping class, a clear violation of the rules, and if Madame Snowe threatened her with expulsion …
She couldn’t let Madame Snowe send her back to Oregon. She’d do anything,
anything
, to prevent it. She belonged here; she knew it in her bones. And leaving the castle would mean leaving Raphael.
Caitlyn dashed down the hallways and staircases to Madame Snowe’s office, silently bargaining with the headmistress the whole way to prevent her expulsion. She’d study harder, she’d do an extra paper for each class, she’d redo every assignment …
Madame Snowe’s office door was ajar when Caitlyn reached it. She paused outside it to straighten her clothes and catch her breath, and as she did she heard Madame Snowe and Greta speaking French. The words flowed in a smooth river far beyond Caitlyn’s ability to understand, but as she tugged up her socks and retucked her shirt, the meaning of the conversation seemed to come clear, as it did in her dreams, the meaning forming itself in her mind without effort. A dizzying sense of unreality swept over her, and she was suddenly certain they were talking about her.
“You’ve seen no signs yourself?” Madame Snowe asked.
“Nothing,” Greta replied. “But then, we do not know exactly what we’re looking for, or what she may be hiding.”
Madame Snowe sighed. “We know she’s part of the tree, but perhaps she’s no more than a rotten side branch. Her blood may be too polluted.”
“And if so?”
“We’ll have to cut her off, for the good of the Sisterhood. We cannot waste our resources on one whose gifts may never develop.”
There were murmurs and movement, and Caitlyn backed up. Greta opened the door and tucked in her chin in surprise when she saw her, then smiled warmly. “
Bonjour
, Caitlyn. You are well, I hope?”
“Yes, thank you,” she gurgled.
“Good, good.” She nodded and left.
Caitlyn watched her go, feeling light-headed. She hadn’t understood their conversation; she couldn’t have. She could barely conjugate
être
. Her brain must have made up its own meaning.
What would it mean that she was a rotten branch, anyway? It made no sense. “Cut her off” was clear enough, however. It must be her fear of being sent home making her hallucinate.
She took a deep breath and went to the door, rapping softly on the thick oak.
“Entrez!”
Caitlyn entered, keeping her eyes averted from the portrait of Bianca de’ Medici. She didn’t need another nightmare like that last one.
Madame Snowe’s hair was down today, flat-ironed to a sheet of polished auburn. It made her even more starkly beautiful, and more intimidating. She wore a black skirt suit and spike heels, and Caitlyn thought that she could be the spokesmodel for an international witchcraft association.
Madame Snowe gestured at the chair in front of her desk, and Caitlyn sat, sneaking peeks around the room to confirm that it was the same one she’d seen in her dream, where the men had been playing cards.
“I understand I am not interrupting your French class to speak with you,” Madame Snowe said, her face as unreadable as stone.
“No,” Caitlyn admitted quietly.
“Are you unwell? Shall I call a doctor?”
“No, Madame.”
“Then would you care to explain why you are skipping a class in which your last score on a quiz was sixty-eight percent?”
Caitlyn cringed. “I haven’t been sleeping well,” she said.
“You’ve been staying up late and falling asleep on the couch in the Grand Salon. Perhaps going to sleep at a decent hour in your own bed would be a suitable remedy to the problem.”
“It wouldn’t,” Caitlyn said tightly.
Madame Snowe’s right brow rose half a centimeter. “Oh?”
Caitlyn squeezed her hands together, silently debating how much to tell the headmistress. If she wanted to stay at the school, she might have to share more than she wished. “You know about the cryptomnesia type of dreams I have, but I didn’t tell you that I also have nightmares.”