“That’s right.”
“I don’t understand. How can it help you? Why the passageways to nowhere that dead-end? The hanging panels of cloth? The empty rooms? What’s the purpose?”
“To make them feel safe,” Isidore said.
Magda blinked in surprise. “To make the . . . spirits feel safe?”
“That’s right. The dead ends make them feel a sense of safety, feel that others can’t sneak up on them. The cloth gives them the comforting sense of being shrouded. Did you notice that the cloth panels have protection spells either painted on them or woven into the fabric? Most of it is very faint, but spirits can see them, or maybe they are aware of the spells in their own way.”
“I guess I hadn’t noticed,” Magda said.
“Some of those spells on the hanging fabric are my own creation, born of my work as a spiritist. They’re powerful and significant.” Isidore leaned toward Magda a bit. “The dead must heed them.”
“And the empty rooms?”
“The rooms are refuges that give the dead a sense of place. It has to be hard for them, not knowing where they belong. The rooms are empty so that the spirits don’t feel like they are intruding into someone else’s place. You see, the whole maze is a sanctuary for the spirits who find themselves trapped in this world.
“That day in my room, standing over the papers, Merritt said that he knew the right place to build such a sanctuary. He said that it would be down in the lower reaches of the Keep, below the crypts, where there were countless dead laid to rest. The crypts, he said, were a place of such specific energy that spirits trapped in this world would already tend to haunt that area. He said that the refuge he would build below would then draw them in to me.
“He said, then, that he would personally oversee the construction.” Isidore swallowed. “I knew what he meant. He meant that it was time for him to first take my sight.”
“I don’t see how you could allow a wizard to alter you in such a way,” Magda said, unable to contain her emotion any longer.
“Sometimes, it is necessary to step beyond what you have known and to reach for something more.”
Magda had intended not to bring her own views into the conversation—after all, what was done was done—but she couldn’t help herself. “I’m sorry, Isidore, but I can’t see how you could allow it. How could you stand to give up so much? How could you allow a wizard to alter you from the way you were born?”
Isidore smiled then. “It’s not that way at all, Magda. You were born unable to speak a language. Without people changing you from that natural, unaltered state, you would to this day not understand the spoken word, or be able to communicate.”
“That’s different,” Magda said. “A person is born with that potential.”
“A person is born with the potential to change, to learn, to grow. It’s not always an easy step to take. You were changed by being taught to read and write. Reading and writing aren’t natural abilities. They were instilled in you. Aren’t you happy that people cared enough to change you so that you would be better than you were born and thus have a better life? Aren’t you better for it? Didn’t the struggle make you stronger?”
Magda swiped back her short hair. “But Isidore, he took your sight. How could you stand to lose—”
“No,” Isidore said, holding up a finger to cut Magda off. “It’s not that way at all. Yes, I lost something, but I gained something truly remarkable. I gained far more than I lost. Do you know that I’ve never again bothered to hold those scarves with the knots?”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t need them. That memory is the past. I can see so much more now.”
Magda frowned. “What do you mean? See what?”
Isidore lifted an arm, slowly sweeping it around the room. “Well, I can see . . .”
The cat hissed as she suddenly jumped to her feet and rose up onto her toes.
Isidore’s arm halted in place.
The cat arched her back high. Her black hair stood on end as her mouth opened wide. Her muzzle drew back, exposing her teeth as she hissed.
Magda blinked at the cat. “Shadow . . . what’s the matter with you?”
“You should run,” Isidore whispered.
Magda looked up. “What?”
“Run.”
Chapter 37
Magda sprang to her feet, following Isidore up. Shadow’s black fur stood out straight, making her look bigger than she really was. Her tail puffed out to twice as fat as normal. Hissing with her fangs bared, she looked ferocious.
Isidore swept her arm out, pushing Magda behind her. “It’s too late to run. It’s in the hallway.”
Magda thought that her own hair might stand on end along with the cat’s.
“What’s in the hall?”
A gust of wind swept in low along the floor and then up through the room, swirling around the wall, extinguishing all the candles. The air turned icy, as if someone had opened the door into the dead of winter.
The cat growled in a way that Magda had never before heard a cat growl. It was a ferocious, feral sound.
The frigid, whirling breeze died away, leaving the room to settle into murky stillness. Fortunately, the shield door on Magda’s lantern had been closed. The flame hadn’t been blown out by the strange gust of wind, so it was still providing some light. But sitting off to the side as it was, and with the shield door closed, it wasn’t much help at lighting the uncomfortably dark room.
Magda squinted, trying her best to see in the dim light, looking for any sign of movement, something out of place, something that didn’t belong. She didn’t see anything that would have Isidore and the cat in such a state of alarm, but it was so difficult to see in the near darkness that she couldn’t be sure there wasn’t something she might be missing.
Using an outstretched arm, Isidore began backing Magda through the room, following the curve of the circular wall. The blind woman was obviously able to tell quite well where she was in the darkness. Now it was Magda who was at the disadvantage.
Magda pulled her knife. With her other hand she clutched Isidore’s arm so if she had to she could pull the spiritist back out of harm’s way. Even though Magda knew how to use the weapon to defend herself, with the unseen nature of the threat the knife offered less comfort than she would have hoped.
Not seeing anything, Magda leaned close and whispered, “Maybe we should go into the back room.”
Isidore had both arms out, crouched a bit, as if she, too, was readying herself to fight the invisible opponent.
“No,” Isidore said. “If we go back there we’ll be even farther from the way out. We would be trapped.”
“Trapped by what?” Magda asked, holding her knife out as she scanned the room to both sides. “I don’t see anything.”
Isidore came to a slow, fluid stop as she crossed her lips with a finger, urging silence.
Slowly, quietly, each step taken with care, Isidore began ushering Magda closer to the side of the room, all the while facing the entrance.
For the first time, Magda heard something coming from the entry hall. The strange sound sent goose bumps tingling up her arms. It sounded like fingernails dragging along stone.
The cat, facing the black maw of the entrance hall, hissed and growled even louder. Magda didn’t know if Shadow intended on making an escape or attacking whatever it was that she and Isidore had first sensed in the entry.
With a sudden roar that made Magda gasp, a dark shape burst out of the blackness of the hall and into the room. In the dim light, Magda could see that it was a man. As Magda brought her knife up, Isidore ignited a bolt of power between her palms that lit the room in blinding flash of light.
In that flash, Magda saw that the man didn’t look the way she had expected. The folds of skin on his face seemed dry and stretched. It was difficult to see clearly in the crackling flashes of light, so she couldn’t be sure exactly what she had seen. His scraps of clothes were dark and clung tightly, as if stuck to him.