“Are you certain this is where it is?”

Luisa hands me the photo of my mother after retrieving it from Father’s room. I have been forced to stay on the sofa, as Sonia has informed me that weak limbs are one of the unfortunate side effects of an especially long and difficult journey on the Plane. As if that is not enough, my head is pounding, giving me new sympathy for the trials of Sonia’s life as a spiritualist. Though it has not been said aloud, the darkness beyond the windowpanes tells us that our time alone runs short. Aunt Virginia will return with Alice and Henry at any moment.

“Not entirely, but as certain as I can be under the circumstances.”

I stare at the image of my mother. Her eyes are no less intense for the black-and-white photo, and I remember their vibrancy during our brief visit on the Plane.

“Would you like me to do it?” Sonia asks softly.

I shake my head. “No. I’ll do it.”

I turn the photo over in my hand, laying it facedown on my lap. The thin metal clips at the back slide easily out of the way, allowing me to lift the thin piece of wood from the frame. At first I think there is nothing there. I can see the back of the photo, and am preparing to lift it, too, from the frame, when something catches my eye in the corner of the frame between the glass and the ornate metal.

As I lift the frame closer to my face, Luisa breaks in. “What is it? Is there something there?”

“I’m not sure….” But it does not take long to realize that there is, indeed, something there. I pluck it from the corner of the frame with shaking fingers, though whether they tremble from excitement, fear, or my recent visit to the Plane I cannot say.

“But… it’s so small,” Sonia says. “Surely that cannot be the list!”

It is just a scrap, a minute piece of paper that has clearly been torn from the corner of a larger page, but I am not as disappointed as I might have imagined. It is the closest we’ve come yet to the list. Although it is no longer hidden in the frame where my father left it, of one thing I am certain; it once was.

Sonia and Luisa are as quiet as I. The disappointment is audible in the silence of our breathing, the lack of words spoken between us. It is I who finally speaks, who finally breaks with one word the heavy quiet in the library.

“Alice.”

I pace the floor in my bedroom, trying to gather my thoughts before confronting Alice. I could not do so amid the flurry of activity as Aunt Virginia and Henry shared their purchases and recounted the tales of their day. I had time only to meet Alice’s gaze in a searing glance before she retired to her room. Dinner followed, a tense though grand affair with guests still in the house, though Thanksgiving proper has passed.

Luisa and Sonia offered to accompany me when I confront my sister. But this part of the prophecy, this part of the battle, is mine. I have waited through the evening with growing fury.

Alice, working in concert with the Souls who would see me dead.

Alice, exposing me to harm by undoing Mother’s spell.

Alice, taking the list.

By the time the house settles into sleep I am more than prepared to retrieve the list from Alice, and I leave my chambers with a purposeful step that is not as silent as it should be given the hour. I knock when I reach her door but open it before she can answer. She will not have the choice to deny me entry.

On her face is a look of true surprise that I have never seen before. Her hand flies to her bosom, her mouth forming an O of bewilderment. “Lia! Whatever—”

I march toward her, and for the first time in all the years we have been sisters, in all the years we have been friends and confidantes, my sister looks afraid of me. She takes a step back as I come within a foot of her face.

“Give it to me, Alice.” I hold out my hand, wanting her to understand that I will not leave without the list of names that is my passage to freedom.

She shakes her head, making a good show of false confusion. “I don’t… I don’t know what you mean.”

I narrow my eyes. “Yes… you… do, Alice. You have it. You stole it from Father’s room.”

She pulls herself up straighter, eyes blazing, the look of fear receding behind her own indignation. “I tell you, Lia, whatever it is that you think I have, I don’t. Though from the look of things, it is must be very important to you. I quite wish I had it now, whatever it may be.” Her eyes take on the wicked shine that always makes me fear what she will do or say next. When she continues, I understand why. “Especially since you have something of mine.”

We stare at each other for a moment, our breath shallow and audible in the quiet room. I do not intend to confirm my possession of the knife, nor do I intend to return it to her. Instead, I force a calm into my voice that I do not feel. “Give it back, Alice.”

She tips her head, meeting my eyes without flinching. “I still don’t know what you mean.”

Frustration threatens to boil over. She knows to what I refer. I am sure of it. But I have no choice but to spell it out further unless I should like to stand in Alice’s room playing word games all night.

“The list. Father’s list of names. It was on his night table behind the photo of Mother. And now it’s gone.”

She turns, wandering casually back toward her dresser, pulling pins from her hair as she looks at me in the mirror over her bureau. “Ah… Now I see. You have finally become wise enough to realize the importance of the keys.” She turns around then, clapping her hands together in applause as if she is at the theater. The sound erupts into the quiet room. “Well, good for you, Lia. You must be so proud. Nevertheless. I don’t have the list. Oh, I wanted it. I even went into Father’s chamber to retrieve it. I looked behind the picture of Mother, but the list was not there even then.”

I cannot hide the confusion I feel spreading across my face. “But how did you know? How did you know where it was when I’ve been looking all this time?”

She laughs aloud, and there is genuine amusement in it. “Oh Lia! You still don’t understand, do you?” She spins to face me once again, her long hair spilling onto her shoulders in a riot of curls. “I don’t need Father to tell me things. I never have. I learned early on that I was of no interest to him. Not when he had his precious Lia. No, I didn’t need him in this world, and I don’t need him now that he is in the next. I don’t need Virginia. And I don’t need you. I have my own ways of finding things. I’m only sorry I didn’t find the list in time.”

“What do you mean? You found it too late?”

She sighs as if having to explain something very simple to a small child. “The frame was empty save for our dear mother’s picture.” Sarcasm drips from her words. “I knew it was there at one time, so I assumed you’d simply found it and had hidden it elsewhere.”

Facing her, I cannot think of a single thing to say. My anger has been replaced with a deep and unsettling confusion. If I don’t have the list… if Alice truly doesn’t have it…

Who else would have use for such a dark and dangerous thing?

The Angel, guarded only by the gossamer veil of protection, fragile and worldly, easily torn.

I open my eyes to the words, whispered in some lost recess of consciousness. I have slept fitfully, full of dreams that I sense are, for once, only that. Dreams. When I wake, it is not with the answer I need, but with the familiar words echoing in my mind.

The Angel, guarded only by the gossamer veil of protection.

Guarded only by the gossamer veil of protection.

Guarded only by…

Veil of protection…

… of protection.

… of protection.

The words repeat as if there is a scratch on one of Father’s Gramophone disks.

As if someone is trying to tell me something.

And then there are Father’s broken words, spoken across the Worlds, Henry is all that is left of the veil….

And all at once, I know what it means.