The moment she did, the sound hit her: screeching screams of terror, ripped from an abyss of the soul. This time they came from a thin girl as transparent as smoke. Her hair hung in wet tangles around her pale face, her mouth stretched wide as she screamed. She clawed at Caitlyn, her fingers bent like talons, her scrawny arms moving with fierce, desperate speed.
Caitlyn screamed.
The sound of her own voice broke through her sleep, knocking her abruptly into the waking world. She could feel the tail end of her scream in her throat even as she sat up and fumbled for the switch on her lamp.
Amalia was already out of bed and halfway across the room toward her. “Are you okay?
Mein Gott
, you gave me a fright!”
“Sorry! I’m so sorry! I was having a nightmare.” She steadied herself and tried to calm her rapid breathing.
“I should think so! Are you all right?”
“Yes, yes, I’m fine. I’m sorry I woke you.”
Amalia waved away the thought. “We cannot control our dreams.”
Caitlyn rubbed her face with her shaking hands, feeling the cold slick sweat of fear.
Amalia went back to her bed. “Do you want to talk about it? What was it about?”
Caitlyn bunched up her pillow and held it to her chest for comfort. “It wasn’t really about anything. It never is.”
“You have these nightmares often?”
Caitlyn shrugged one shoulder. “I had hoped not to have any here,” she evaded. “Maybe I’ll need to buy you earplugs?” she joked.
Amalia settled back into her pillow. “If it becomes a problem, you can take sleeping pills, yes?” she said, and again Caitlyn was not sure whether she was serious or joking.
“It shouldn’t be a problem,” she said, hoping it would become the truth. “I’m just tense. New place, new people. You know.”
“I sometimes dream that I have an exam for which I’m not prepared, and once I even dreamed that a tiger was trying to eat me, but I don’t think I’ve ever had such a bad dream that I woke up screaming. What is it that scares you so badly?”
“Things … that want to hurt me.”
“What things?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know what they are, really.”
Amalia’s eyebrows rose. “But you suspect?”
“They
look
like some type of … well, some type of ghost, or evil spirit. Just in my dreams, of course. I know they aren’t real,” she fibbed. She wasn’t sure of that, at all.
“It’s good they aren’t real. You’d be in trouble, if they were.” Amalia smiled. “Castles are always full of ghosts.”
“Then thank heavens these exist only in my imagination,” Caitlyn said faintly. She turned off her light and lay back down, staring into the dark, trying to shove the Screechers out of her mind and think instead of the fragment of dream she remembered from
before
that screeching, clawing girl had made her appearance.
Raphael.
It was the second time she’d dreamed of him in the space of a day, and each time she’d thought of the Knight of Cups. For a moment she could hear the rich timbre of his voice, and see his hazel eyes staring intently into her own. She could feel the heat of his palm pressed against her forehead, his touch softening to a caress along her cheek.
Who was he? And was he real?
And how could he possibly be her Knight of Cups if he existed only in her dreams?
A tear trickled out the corner of her eye. It didn’t matter.
The Screechers had followed her. An ocean hadn’t stopped them. Nothing ever would.
CHAPTER
Seven
JANUARY 22
“
Entrez!
”
Caitlyn put a restraining hand over the twitch in her eyelid, willing it to stop, then pushed open the heavy oak door to Madame Snowe’s office. It was nine A.M., and she was right on time for her appointment. She stepped into a space whose warm coziness was at odds with the icy composure of the headmistress.
Oriental carpets in deep reds and blues covered the stone floor. One long wall was composed of leaded-glass windows looking out over the castle grounds and, beyond, the valley of the Dordogne. Two of the other walls were paneled in dark wood, like Caitlyn’s bedroom.
The remaining wall was taken up by an immense fireplace, in which flames burned merrily. On the tall stone overmantel hung a gold-framed portrait of a woman in historical dress: a strawberry-blond noblewoman, her braided hair pinned up in a coronet, pearl drop earrings dangling from her lobes. Her face was a perfect oval, her dark eyes filled with knowledge, a hint of a smile playing on her lips. She wore a rose satin dress with puffed sleeves, a ruby-and-gold necklace, and on her lap a book lay open, one of her long-fingered hands holding her place.
Caitlyn was drawn to the portrait, her feet taking her toward it in complete and inadvertent disregard for Madame Snowe, who was waiting behind her desk. The portrait was obviously an original and must have been several hundred years old. Something about it teased at her memory: a feeling of a dream forgotten, or a place she had been.
“You like the painting?” Madame Snowe asked, getting up from her desk and coming to join Caitlyn at the fire.
“It reminds me of something. I can’t think what.” Caitlyn cocked her head, and then suddenly the answer came to her. “I know!”
Madame Snowe studied her face. “You do?”
“I have a poster in my room at home, of a painting hanging in a museum in Italy. It’s a portrait of a girl in white, named Bia. It was painted by someone called Bronzino, and it’s called
The Pearl
.”
“
La Perla
,” Madame Snowe said, her expression as coolly composed as that of the woman in the painting above the fire, but intense interest was dancing in her eyes.
“Yes!”
“This painting was done by Agnolo Bronzino as well, in 1559.”
Caitlyn felt a bubble of delight and was pleased with herself. She wasn’t such a hick, after all! “Really? I must have recognized something about the style.”
“Or perhaps it was the sitter you recognized.
La Perla
is a portrait of Bianca de’ Medici as a girl. This, too, is a portrait of Bianca de’ Medici, as a woman.”
Caitlyn stared at the portrait. It was kind of a dramatic coincidence.
Hey, Bia. Are you following me?
“Who was she?”
“Art historians know
La Perla
as a courtesan in sixteenth-century Florence. She was more than that, though: she was an illegitimate child of Cosimo the Great, the man who was once head of the de’ Medici family of Italy. She was burned at the stake for heresy in 1572.”
Caitlyn’s eyelid twitched. “Heresy?”
“In her case, it meant witchcraft. Her wealth and high-powered connections could not save her from Pope Pius V. He was the one who ordered her burning.”
Caitlyn remembered the image she’d drawn in her journal on the day she found out she’d been accepted to the Fortune School: a wise woman, being burned at the stake. A shiver ran up her spine, and she broke her gaze from that of the painting and looked at Madame Snowe. “What did Bianca do that made him think she was a witch?”
Madame Snowe’s lips twisted wryly. “Bianca had become the mistress of Cardinal Rebiba, Grand Inquisitor of the Roman Inquisition.”
Caitlyn’s eyes went round. “She was sleeping with a
cardinal
?! I thought they were supposed to be celibate.”
“They were, but even some popes were known to have mistresses and children. People looked the other way; at least, until Pope Pius came into power. He was a different breed, much more strict, and unfortunately for Bianca, Pius believed that only a witch could turn a man such as Cardinal Rebiba away from his vows to God. He was, after all, a Grand Inquisitor. He was supposed to be above tawdry scandals.” Madame Snowe paused thoughtfully, then asked, “Do you believe in witches, Caitlyn?”
“If you mean pointy black hats and flying on broomsticks, and cursing the neighbor’s cow so it won’t give milk, no,” Caitlyn said, still lost in shock over the idea of cardinals and popes having mistresses. “If you mean women who might have intuitive abilities that go beyond the understanding of most men, then yes.”
“Do you think that
you
have any such abilities?”
Caitlyn frowned and shook her head, surprised by the question. “Not that I know of.”
“Oh.” The single sound held a world of disappointment. “
Tant pis
. Too bad. I’ve always thought it would be useful to have such gifts, haven’t you?”
Caitlyn murmured a noncommittal sound, thinking of her mother. Being able to tell the future hadn’t seemed to do her very much good.
Caitlyn turned back to the painting, admiring Bianca de’ Medici’s luminous skin and utter self-possession. She glanced at Madame Snowe. “You look a little like her.”
Madame Snowe flashed a smile, the first genuine one Caitlyn had seen on her. “I do, don’t I?”
“Is she an ancestor?”
“Everyone in Europe is related to one another; we’re all just an extended family,” she said lightly. “I’ve heard that at least half of us can claim descent from Charlemagne! So Bianca could be as closely related to me as she is to you. But enough of this. Come, sit down.”
Madame Snowe returned to her broad, ebonized desk with ornate gilt legs. Its surface held a flat-screen computer monitor, a sleek phone, and nothing else. It was as perfectly elegant as Madame Snowe herself. Today she wore a dark green tweed skirt suit and ivory blouse, with long strands of amber and coral beads falling in cascades around her neck. She gestured to an ebony chair in front of the desk.
Caitlyn sat on the edge of the chair’s gold satin cushion, her back straight. She’d woken at six this morning to study the rules and general information of the Fortune School. She’d even memorized the offenses that would result in immediate expulsion from the school, certain that Madame Snowe would test her.
“I trust you have settled in?” Madame Snowe asked.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good.” She pressed her fingertips together, almost as if praying, and tapped the points lightly against her chin as she studied Caitlyn for a long moment. “You are an exceptionally fortunate young woman, Caitlyn, in being chosen to be the first scholarship student this school has accepted.”
Caitlyn’s lips parted in surprise. “The first?”
Madame Snowe dropped her hands. “We—and by ‘we’ I mean the Sisterhood of Fortuna, who are the regents of the school—see a unique potential in you, a potential that seemed unlikely to emerge under the tutelage of your public high school teachers in Oregon. It will be your responsibility to prove us correct, and not to make us regret our choice. We have high expectations of you.”
“Er, exactly what type of potential do you see in me?” Caitlyn asked, both confused and flattered. She’d never shown the least flash of brilliance at anything.
“It is not easily quantifiable. It is a combination of character traits and aptitudes that we feel is uniquely suited to the goals of the Fortune School.”
“Really? My parents think I’m maladjusted and antisocial.”
Madame Snowe chuckled. “I suppose they’d prefer you to try out for the basketball team and run for student council?”
Caitlyn nodded. “They’d be thrilled.”
“The students who enjoy such things will find their own way in the world. But those who are fundamentally different in their outlook—like you—are the ones who can bring unique talents into play, if given the proper opportunities. There is a price to these opportunities, however.” Madame Snowe met and held Caitlyn’s gaze for an uncomfortably long moment.
“What is it?” Caitlyn asked nervously, her voice quavering.
Madame Snowe smiled slightly. “The price is a loss of choice about your future. You will take the courses that the Sisterhood has chosen for you, and when you leave us you will attend the university of our choice—at our expense—where you will also study what we choose for you.”
“But why would you want to do that?” Caitlyn asked, bewildered.
“We don’t want to see our investment in you wasted.”
“You don’t think I can choose for myself what my future should be?”
“We will not make choices that are antithetical to your nature. As likely as not, they will be the same choices you would make for yourself.”
“But if they’re not?” Caitlyn asked, growing alarmed. She was feeling the bars of restriction closing around her.
Madame Snowe folded her hands on top of the desk. “I am asking you to make an adult decision right now, Caitlyn. You can take the free, superior education we offer, and with it our guidance, or you can return to Oregon and make your own way.”
Caitlyn’s stomach dropped. She couldn’t go back to Spring Creek. “Why didn’t you tell me this before I came? I don’t remember seeing anything about this in all that paperwork.”