The Seeker - Isobelle Carmody [47]
“She behaves as if she were defective, but that is something that can be made to seem so, rather than being so. And even true dreams may be a pretense.” She said the last word with a coy, almost teasing smile that invited me to share the joke.
“I do not think she is pretending,” I said stolidly, determined to make her think of me as a dullard.
“Very well,” she said with sudden impatience. “I am going to take you to the doctor’s chamber now. Get up,” she added, coming toward me, her satin dress whispering to the rug. I rose, and she came to stand behind me. She stood so close that I felt her breath stir my hair. A moment of blind terror made me want to turn where I could see her, but I forced myself to be still.
“Come,” she said at last, but she seemed to be gesturing to the fireplace. I went closer, only then seeing that one of the panels alongside the fireplace was an ornate door, so intricately worked in carving to match the panels on either side of it that I had not even noticed it was there. Opened, it led into a narrow hall, which smelled of damp. There was another door at the end of the short hall, and when Madam Vega opened it, a great wave of heat rushed out.
“The doctor’s chamber,” Madam Vega murmured, though she seemed to say this more to herself than to me. Despite its secretive entrance, it was an enormous circular room. There were no windows, but light flooded in from a huge skylight in the center of the ceiling. A fireplace almost as big as the one in the kitchen provided the nearly unbearable heat, but I paid less attention to this than I might have done, for there were books everywhere, not only those of recent origin—easily recognizable by their coarse workmanship and the purple Council stamp of approval—but also hundreds of smaller, beautifully made books that could only have been made in the Beforetime. Forbidden books, I thought, gazing around with amazement at walls lined with bookshelves, each full to overflowing. There were tables everywhere, and these, too, were piled with books as well as loose papers and maps.
“Doctor Seraphim?” called Madam Vega.
I was trying to understand what this name could mean, for surely Seraphim was the name of the Master of Obernewtyn, when there was a flurry of movement, and a rotund man emerged smiling from a dim corner. If this was the mysterious and sinister doctor responsible for what had happened to Selmar, his appearance was utterly unexpected. He greeted Madam Vega and drew up two chairs to the sweltering mouth of the fire. He bid us sit, and Madame Vega gestured to me to obey, but she remained standing. The doctor sat in the other chair and beamed at me.
“Another Misfit,” he sighed, leaning over to peer nearsightedly into my face. Then he giggled suddenly and slapped his leg as if I had made a joke. It was a high-pitched, almost hysterical laugh, and I thought again that this could not really be the terrible and powerful doctor I had been so frightened of meeting.
“You are a cool one,” he gurgled coyly, wagging his finger at me. I did not know what to say, and I glanced helplessly at Madam Vega, but she was gazing around the room with a distracted air. Without warning, she moved away purposefully between the shelves, leaving me alone with the doctor.
“You don’t look like a Misfit,” he said, peering at me closely again. “Vega tells me you are a dreamer and that tainted water caused your dreams, but the reports that came with you make me suspect that your exposure to tainted water only served to rouse latent Misfit tendencies. I am interested in the idea that such exposure could be used to increase certain Misfit traits so that they could be more easily studied.”
I said nothing, and indeed he seemed to be speaking to himself rather than to me. He sighed and shrugged. “Unfortunately, I do not have the time right now to begin a new research project. I have several important experiments to complete, and they will require all of my attention. However, I am going to