Winterly (Dark Creatures Book 1), стр. 32
“Well, I’m very sorry to hear it,” said her aunt.
“And I,” said Milli, patting her aunt’s hand, “for she shall miss Mr. Braham singing Faithless Emma!”
Emma ignored the remark and continued poring over Milton.
“Really, Emma, I cannot comprehend your fixation for those moldy old books. They very likely shan’t even be printed in English, for heaven’s sake!”
“You, my dear,” said their uncle, extricating himself from his chair, “might well benefit from such moldy old books as might advance your organon. Perhaps then your wit might improve with your sense.”
Milli waited until he had repaired to his library before leaning forward to stick her tongue out at Emma. “I daresay my uncle would not think you nearly so witty if he perceived the volumes of grotesqueries you read at night!”
But Milli was not able to bring her sister to any proper sense of shame, leastwise none that Emma cared to betray upon her countenance. Emma closed her book with deliberate care and stood to her full height, which was considerably greater than Milli’s. “Then it is a good thing I don’t care sixpence what anyone thinks of me.” That said, she quit the room as calmly as she had delivered her lie.
Would that her assertion was supported upon firmer rectitude, but it was not. She did care what others thought of her, but she knew that what they saw was not who she truly was. She herself did not even know who she was; she durst never look too deeply for fear she would see something that frightened and appalled her. It was why she avoided mirrors, though, thankfully she had caught her reflection this morning or she might not have seen the mark. She couldn’t even have a wicked dream without it being broadcasted on her flesh!
If what she had said to Winterly last night was true, that one could tell a lot about someone by examining their taste in literature, what sort of character did her most private book collection reveal about her heart and mind? Who was Emma Rose really? A lover of grotesqueries? An unwholesome woman of unsavory tastes and peculiar ideas? A relisher of all things dark?
Emma always strove—or at least endeavored to appear—to be a more expurgated version of her true self, and to conform to the straitened template to which she was resigned by her family and society. Lately, however, it seemed the corruption within had gone so far as too manifest in dreams. Dreams that induced strange wanderings in the night and spawned incubi to ravish her.
They bedeviled even her flesh, leaving insidious, fragmentary suspicions in their wake—that Winterly’s presence had been no dream at all but, in truth, a living memory! Most alarming of all was that she, in the most shadowy and forbidden corner of her heart, desired that it was true, that he had come to her in the night! Faithless Emma indeed. She had precious little faith in herself of late. The thought was an unwelcome one and she shut the door to her bedchamber none too gently in hopes that evil thoughts would be trapped on the other side of it.
The sound of her aunt’s voice was a welcome reprieve from her thoughts. “And tell your sister,” Aunt Sophie was saying to Milli, “that her uncle wishes to see her in the library, I believe The Times is missing again.”
Rolling her eyes, Emma swiftly threw the door open and stuck her head out. “I don’t have the—” But the hallway was empty. That’s odd. She could have sworn her aunt had spoken right outside her door. Emma was still wearing a look of befuddlement when her sister appeared at the stairhead.
“Our uncle,” said Milli, “wishes to see you about—”
“The Times, I heard. I don’t have it.”
Milli threw a disconcerted glance behind her. “You heard us? All the way from the breakfast room? That’s not possible.”
“You…you were in the breakfast room? Are you sure?”
“Quite sure.”
“Milli,” said Emma, frightened, “I think I’m going mad.”
“Yes, I’ve wondered that for some time.”
“I am in earnest, sister! Peculiar things are happening to me.”
“That’s all right”—Milli lifted her shoulders and turned to head back downstairs—“you would not be you if you weren’t a little peculiar. Make sure you wear something pretty to tea tomorrow.”
Chapter Seventeen
Library Of Occultsim
My Dear Emma,—I shouldn’t worry too much about the sleepwalking. Last week I found Sister Margret arguing with a teapot in her sleep. You are to understand she is quite rational when awake; a little potty in her sleep, however. Nothing to fret about. God bless you and your dreams,
Mary.
Postscript:—In somnis veritas—in dreams there is truth.
The building that occupied 28 Great Castle Street was wedged so tightly between its neighbors that it appeared to stoop inward so that the eave above the door was bent like a frown. All was in shadow save that forbidding door, which was lit only by a cheerless lamp. Nothing moved below, within that glare of light, except the gathering heft of unfallen rain clinging darkly to the red bricks and vacant stairhead.
“Must be the wrong address, miss.” The coachman raised a wary gaze to the laden sky. “We ought to head back.”
“Nonsense,” said Emma, climbing the stairs, “we ought to at least knock on the door before giving up.” This was done with a determined knock. Somehow, she felt sure she was in the right place.
Almost immediately, the door swung open, the force of which released a warning gust, throwing Emma’s mantle into a welter. A fine-boned woman of uncommon beauty stood barring the entrance