“Ah,” said Dr. Berghast, observing. “I call it a bonebird. A curious creation, hm?”
Alice, still staring, nodded.
“They were made for us by a bone witch, many years ago. We use them for messages. More efficient and reliable than the Royal Mail.” He glanced sidelong at the creature on his shoulder. It clicked, tested its grip. “The lady who made them has, sadly, passed. But these wondrous things just keep on going. They are ninety-six years old, now. Older than the revolution in France.”
Its eyeless sockets seemed to peer directly at Alice. She suppressed a shudder.
“Mrs. Harrogate informs me,” said Dr. Berghast, “that you wish to know about Adra Norn. You should know, I have not heard from her in a long time. I do not know even if she is still alive. We are of an age, she and I; and that would make her very old indeed. But I will tell you what I can.”
“How did you know her?”
“It is a small community of scholars, Miss Quicke, who share my … interests. Everyone knows everyone else. Adra and I wrote to each other for years, sharing theories and research. We did not discuss personal matters. It has been many, many years since last I saw her. That was in Marseilles, at a gathering of scholars interested in the intersections between science and religion. I, of course, approached the subject biased by science. Adra thought otherwise. But there was nevertheless much common ground between us. We both of us, for instance, believed in the invisible world.”
“What is that?”
“It is not a thing, Miss Quicke. Merely an acknowledgment that what we see is not all that there is.” Dr. Berghast scooped out a hollow in the black soil of the pot, pressed a seed in with his thumb, like a raisin into dough. “Adra believed holiness involved separating herself from the corruptions of the world. She believed if she could receive true grace, she could perform miracles.”
“Like walking out of a fire.”
He nodded. “Not, you understand, a very reasonable supposition, from a scientific point of view.”
Alice gestured at the bonebird. “I’ve seen a few unscientific things myself, now.”
“But not miracles, Miss Quicke, never miracles. Miracles are monstrous by their very nature, they are contrary to the laws of this world. The talents are entirely natural. Marlowe and Charlie are no more evidence of God’s hand in the world than you are, or I am.”
“For some, that’s enough.”
“For some.”
Alice studied the man’s unlined face. He could have been forty, despite his white hair. But she knew he was much older than that. “You’re telling me Adra Norn never walked out of that fire?”
“I find it unlikely. Do you not?”
“I was there. I saw it.”
“You were a child. You know what you think you saw.” His eyelashes were long, and dark, and beautiful. “Adra was not like our residents here. She was never a part of our world. You understand that Bent Knee Hollow was not the only such community she founded?” He watched her closely and Alice felt—despite the gentleness of his voice—the concentrated and dizzying power of his attention. “Adra gathered around herself those she thought most … susceptible. Such as your mother. Ah, you are surprised. Of course I have heard about you. Is it not the reason Mrs. Harrogate believed you would be suitable?”
But Alice wasn’t surprised. She’d assumed Dr. Berghast knew all about her; would have been surprised, in fact, if he hadn’t.
“You must understand, Adra was always looking for something particular in her followers,” Dr. Berghast continued. “A particular kind of faith. She wished to know where the essence of a thing resided, in the cause or the effect. Is it a miracle because it happened, or because it is believed to have happened?”
“You mean, the Hollow was all just some sort of … experiment?”
“Miss Quicke, even the most saintly among us still burn when touched by fire.”
“People died.”
He nodded, said nothing.
Alice bit back her anger. She saw now she’d been hoping Adra Norn had been a talent, that there’d been some truth in what she and her mother had seen that night, when Adra walked through fire, something real to account for what her mother had done. But there was nothing.
“My mother believed it,” she said softly. “She believed it so much it made her crazy. She believed everything Adra told her. Adra used to say: ‘A strong faith makes its own change.’”
“We cannot change what we are. Only what we do.”