"I know," said Christopher, and raised his flute to his lips, and began to play.
There was no sound, not that the living could hear: there was only the idea of sound, the sudden, overwhelming sensation that something was being overlooked, something small and subtle and hidden between the molecules of silence. Jack opened the wardrobe and took out a cravat, listening as hard as she could as she removed her bow tie. She heard her own breathing. She heard Christopher's fingers brushing across bone. She heard a splash.
She turned around.
Christopher was still playing, and Loriel was sitting up, a polished bone sculpture. Her scapulae were delicate wings; her skull was a psalm to the elegant dancer waiting beneath the flesh of all who walked the earth. There was a pearlescent sheen to her, like opal, and Jack wondered idly whether that was the acid or the magic of Christopher's flute at work. It was a pity she would probably never know. The school, pleasant as it was, didn't exactly go out of its way to provide her with bodies to examine.
Slowly, gingerly, Loriel's bones stood, wobbling slightly, and climbed out of the tub. A single drop of acid rolled from her elbow and fell to the floor, where it hissed as it ate a pit in the stone. She stopped, rocking from side to side, her empty eye sockets fixed on Christopher.
"That's amazing," said Jack, taking a step forward. "Can she see you? Is she aware? Or is this just magic animating her bones? Does it work on any skeleton, or just those who died violently? Can you-you can't answer any of my questions unless you stop playing, can you?"
Christopher shook his head and gestured with an elbow toward the stairs that would lead to the old servant's door. Jack nodded.
"I'll get them open," she said, and trotted off, tying the cravat as she went. Her fingers, while not as nimble as Sumi's, were quick, and the knot was a familiar one; by the time she reached the door and shoved it open, she was once more impeccably dressed. Of all the skills she'd learned from Dr. Bleak, the ability to groom herself while running for her life seemed the most likely to continue to serve her well in this strange, often confusing world she presently called "home."
Christopher followed her more sedately, playing his silent flute all the way. Loriel trailed after him, her toes tapping on the stairs, making a sound that was virtually indistinguishable from the clatter of dried branches on a windowpane. Jack stood and watched as the pair walked outside, and then she followed, closing the door.
"Are we looking for a place to bury her where she won't be found?" she asked. Christopher nodded. "Follow me, then."
Together, they walked across the property, the girl, the boy, and the dancing skeleton wrapped in rainbows. Neither of those who still possessed tissue and tongue spoke. This was the closest thing Loriel would have to a funeral; it would have been inappropriate to make light of it. They walked until they came to the place where the landscaping dropped away, replaced by tangle and weed, and the hard stretch of stony earth that had never been farmed or claimed as anything other than wilderness. Eleanor West owned it all, of course: her family had owned the countryside for miles around, and now that she was the last, every inch of it belonged to her. She had simply refused to sell or allow development on any of the lots surrounding her school. The local conservationists considered her a hero. The local capitalists considered her an enemy. Some of her greatest detractors said she acted like a woman with something to hide, and they were right, in their way; she was a woman with something to protect. That made her more dangerous than they could ever have suspected.
"Wait," said Jack, when they reached the waste. She turned to Loriel, and said, "If you can hear me, if you can understand me, nod. Please. I know you didn't like me when you were alive, and I didn't like you either, but there are lives on the line. Save them. Answer me."
Christopher kept playing. Slowly, Loriel's skull dipped toward her sternum, moving in the absence of muscles or tendons to command it. Jack blew out a breath.
"See, this could be a Ouija situation, where any answers I get from you are just the things Christopher wants me to hear, but I don't think that's the case," she said. "Maybe it would have been a week ago, but Nancy's at the school now, and ghosts want to be near her. I think you're still Loriel, on some level, deep down. So please, if you can, tell me. Who killed you?"
Loriel was still for several seconds. Then, slowly, as if every move were an impossible effort, she raised her right arm and pointed her index finger at the space next to Jack. Jack turned to look at the empty air. Then she sighed.
"I suppose that was too much to ask," she said. "Christopher?"
He nodded, and moved his fingers on the flute. Loriel's skeleton walked down the short hill into the waste-and kept walking downward, her steps carrying her into and through the ground, as if she were walking on an unseen stairway. In less than a minute, she was gone, the crown of her head vanishing below the soil. Christopher lowered his flute.
"She was so beautiful," he said.
"I'd find that less creepy if I thought you were talking about her with the skin on," said Jack. "Come on. Let's get back to the others. It's not safe to be alone." She turned, and Christopher followed her, and they trudged together across the wide green lawn.
9
THE BROKEN BIRDS OF AVALON
LUNCH WAS A STILTED affair, with no one talking and few students actually eating. For once, Nancy's preference for sipping fruit juice and pushing the solid food around her plate without tasting it didn't come across as strange; if anything, the strange part was her willingness to ingest anything at all. She found herself scanning the other students, trying to guess at their stories, their hidden worlds, to figure out what, if anything, would drive them to kill. Maybe if she had been there longer, if they hadn't been such strangers to her, she would have been able to find the answers she needed. As it was, it felt like she wasn't able to find anything but questions.
After lunch there was an assembly in the library, where Miss Eleanor praised everyone for their calm and their compassion, and thanked Jack, Nancy, and the others for disposing of Loriel's body. Nancy reddened and sank lower in her seat, trying to avoid the eyes that were turning toward her. She was a stranger, as far as they were concerned, and as such, her willingness to be intimate with the dead had to be suspicious.
Eleanor took a deep breath and looked out upon the room-her students, her charges-with a somber expression on her face. "As you all know, my door is still open," she said. "My world is a Nonsense world, with high Virtue and moderate Rhyme as its crosswise directions. Many of you wouldn't be able to survive there. The lack of logic and reason would destroy you. But for those of you who thrive in Nonsense, I am willing to open the door and let you go through. You can hide there, for a time."
A gasp ran through the room, accompanied by a few quick, choked-off sobs. A girl with bright blue hair bent double, burying her face against her knees and starting to rock back and forth, like she could soothe her distress away. One of the boys got up and went to the corner, turning his back on everyone. Worse were the ones who simply sat and wept, tears running down their faces, hands folded tightly in their laps.
Nancy looked blankly at Kade. He sighed and leaned closer to her.
"Miss Eleanor is very protective of her door. Doors can be fickle, and she's waited so long to go back that every time she lets someone through, she risks being replaced. Now she's offering to put all the students who can thrive in Nonsense through. That means she's scared, and she's doing what she can to take care of us." He kept his voice low. The students around them didn't seem to notice. Most were too busy crying. On the other side of the room, even Jill was weeping, propped against her sister for support. Only Jack's eyes were dry. "Trouble is, Nonsense is one of the two big directions-she can save half the students, at best, and not everyone who's been to a Nonsense world is suited for every Nonsense world. They're all so different. Maybe a quarter of the kids she's just offered to save will be able to go through."
"Oh," said Nancy softly. She understood a few things about false hope, however well-intentioned the offer might have been. Eleanor was trying to save her beloved charges in the only way she knew. She was hurting them in the process.
At the head of the room, Eleanor took a shaky breath. "As always, my darlings, attendance at this school is purely voluntary. If any of you want to call your parents and ask them to take you home, I will refund the rest of the fees for the semester, and I won't try to stop you. I only ask that, for the sake of the students who remain, you don't tell them why you want to withdraw. We'll find a way to fix this."
"Oh, yeah?" asked Angela bitterly. "Can you fix it for Loriel?"