Then she reached the last door. As she stood before it, she reacted to the scratching and whimpering. So desperate.
Coming from the other side of the door.
“You silly dog,” she chided, but there was a quaver in her voice. She was fighting to stay brave. “How did you get locked out?”
She reached her hand around the knob and pulled—
—as, behind her, the little dog barked. She startled, then turned to see it—
—and behind the door, a linen closet, not a room; and crowded in, something, something, something crimson—
—whimpered; it whimpered and scratched incessantly.
Of course it saw; of course it knew what it was:
Rolling eyes, a clacking jaw, scarlet fear, a ruby-red woman shape, scratching with fingers of bone. A trail of brilliant, fresh blood floated up toward the top of the closet, defying space just as the monstrous apparition defied time.
But it wanted, needed to be seen; it was wild for her to turn her head back from the dog. However, she did not turn. She did not see.
But the door slammed shut!
That got the bride’s attention. She stared at the door and for a moment, it seemed certain that she would run back into her room and dive beneath the covers. Others would.
Others had.
But she took a deep breath, building up her courage. Excellent adversary!
Then she finally yanked it open.
The linen closet was bare of bed sheets and pillowcases—for how many did two people need when linens from Allerdale Hall could be sold for enough pence for a few buckets of coal—but it did contain a box. How it had wound up there was quite a story in itself—one best told on another night.
The bride examined the objects in the box and murmured, “Wax cylinders.” She was a child of the new world; no doubt she knew that they contained recordings. Perhaps of music.
Perhaps of something else.
Her back straightened as she heard the sobbing again. Leaving the cylinders in the closet, she turned back into the hall, facing the way she had come.
It watched as she watched.
From the floor, pulling itself out, a specter of purest scarlet, a grotesque revenant, emerged painfully, struggling, sucking its essence through the floor: the spine first, like taffy, then the back of the head while an arm withdrew as from a viscous, sticky sludge. Bright red bones stretched in unnatural shapes, weirdly, wrongly jointed; the hand slapped down as if for leverage, purchase. Every part of it red; the second arm raising upward, digging itself out. And as the bride stared, paralyzed in horror, it began to crawl toward her. Faceless, scuttling. Implacable, coming to her, at her, for her.
Closer.
She bolted. The little dog that should be dead darted into the elevator and she flew in after it. With shaking hands she twisted the key and pushed the lever.
The thing was coming.
It watched.
The elevator did not move.
“Down, damn it, down!” the bride ordered the lift. Did not plead: it took note.
The elevator remained where it was as if complicit in her destruction. She was trapped now.
The crimson horror dragged itself toward her, hand over hand over hand. It was nearly there.
And then the cage jerked, swayed, and started a slow descent.
She gathered the dog in her arms; it thrashed, practically strangling in her grip. Down past the second story, then the first; down into darkness past the basement and then the cavernous walls. There was a gentle bump as the elevator stopped about two feet off the ground.
The bride set down the frantic dog and tried the lever with shaking hands, but the elevator would not budge another inch.
The things in this house had minds of their own.
At least, in some cases.
As the bride fought for breath, and sanity, it could easily read her face: Would that thing come down here? What had it been? What had she seen?
Blood trickling upward, like the materialization in the linen closet. Because the phantom existed in time out of mind. It was a haunter of the dark, from a place where angles did not meet and natural laws did not work.
* * *
As Edith forced herself to continue to act, the sound of dripping water echoed in the blackness. She groped through the bars and found a switch. A twist of the knob, and a clutch of sepia-colored bulbs threw off dim light. Gazing fearfully up, she climbed down from the lift onto the earthen floor.
Did I see that? Did I?
Mine car rail tracks climbed upward into a tunnel. She felt a draft. Blood-red clay had seeped in through the walls, coating large portions of the cavernous space. Six enormous vats sat on the tile floor, three on each side of a trough puddled with scarlet clay. Beyond it lay a jumble of luggage and a mountain of women’s shoes and clothes, boxes of papers, and a sturdy steamer trunk.
She gave the profusion of clothing a cursory inspection, then went over to the trunk. The brass plate on the lock said ENOLA. The initials on the trunk read E.S.
Her initials.
She tried the lock. It required a key, which of course she did not have. Beneath her feet, several stones moved loose; she lifted one up and found gold trinkets such as a lady would possess—chains, a brooch, a lady’s watch—and another stone revealed bones of small animals—rabbits? dogs?
What did it mean? She had almost reached her capacity to take in information. She kept looking up at the ceiling, and then the elevator. Trembling from head to toe, she—
Tap, tap, tap.
Edith jerked at the sound. It had followed her down! It was here!
Tap, tap, tap.
It was in the cavern. Shaking, she scanned, listening, the little dog skittering around on its toenails, snuffling. Edith’s racing mind was split down the middle, one half obsessively replaying what had happened upstairs, the other focused on the noise. Trying to make sense of it, fighting to understand. She was a dervish of confusion and fear.
Who was here? What was happening? Why had that horror—
And then she froze. She had pinpointed where the tapping was coming from.
Inside one of the vats.
A sealed vat.
Something was in there, trying to get out.
Terrorized, Edith fled.
* * *
As it watched.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
WHY DID I agree to do this?
The knot in Alan’s chest tightened into a fist as stalwart workers loaded another crate onto the dray cart outside Cushing Manor. Books, engineering instruments, even Edith’s beloved childhood library were being put up for auction. It was as if she had wished to blot out her entire existence here in Buffalo. To be sure, much of it was tragic—the terrible deaths of both her parents—but while his hopes that they would one day marry had dissipated, surely she had some fond memories of their years as confidants and playmates. Was it so easy to put him from her mind as well? He would never forget her, ever.
He walked over to the cartons of her books and shook his head. He picked up a piece of stationery, wrote out an IOU for a considerable amount, and on a second piece of paper wrote SOLD TO DR. ALAN MCMICHAEL. DO NOT LOAD. In time, Edith would be sorry that she had let these books go. God willing, she would have children of her own. He could imagine her seated in a nursery—the one at Allerdale Hall must be charming—reading her fairy-tale books to a rapt little girl, a daydreaming boy.
He wished with all his heart that those children could be his, but as his own mother might say, If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
Mr. Ferguson, the Cushing family lawyer, regarded him with somber interest. He spotted the sold sign and gave Alan an approving nod. It was natural that the man had been put in charge of shutting down the house. He had been the executor of Carter Cushing’s will as well. Edith was his sole heir, now quite wealthy. Alan had offered to help him go through all the Cushings’ possessions; thanks to his long, intimate history with the family, he could ass
ist with the cataloging and pricing.
“I spent a good part of my childhood in this house,” Alan said, turning to him. “Our families were so close back then.”
Ferguson sighed, just as heavy-hearted. “It’s a pity. To liquidate all this. So quickly. So soon.”
Alan cocked his head. “Too soon, don’t you think?”
But Ferguson was ever the discreet retainer. He said neutrally, “It’s all a matter of opinion, really.”
Alan wandered over to Cushing’s desk and began transferring the contents of the drawers into a carton. There he discovered Cushing’s book of checks.
And saw in the register that the very last check Cushing had written before his death had been made out to Sir Thomas Sharpe for a very substantial sum. With a chill, he verified the date on which the check had been written: October 11th.
The day before Cushing had died.
Or been killed, he thought, a terrible suspicion blooming in his mind.
Making his apologies to Ferguson, he left Cushing Manor and drove his motorcar to Cushing’s club. It was a simple matter to gain entry to the locker room—he was known to the club secretary. He examined the scene of Cushing’s death. A new basin had been installed. He studied it, and then the floor, trying to reconstruct exactly how such grievous injuries could have been caused by a mere fall. And even if Edith’s father had hit the porcelain full on, the angle was all wrong. Alan had tried to explain that to the coroner, but the man had been affronted… and defensive. And it is very difficult to get a man to listen to reason if he is defensive.
I should have tried harder to get Edith to listen to me, he chided himself. I did not want to pressure her. Sharpe had turned her head… and captured her heart. In grief, she’d been so vulnerable. At the cemetery, she had trembled beneath Sharpe’s arm—more like a dying butterfly pinned to a board than a bereaved woman shielded by her beloved.
This is all wrong, he thought. All of it.
Dismayed, he left the club.
* * *
A piano.
A lullaby.
And for those drifting moments between sleeping and waking, Edith imagined herself back in her nursery, her beautiful mother playing to soothe her busy-brained child to sleep. Sleep, my child, and peace attend thee, all through the night.
Then she opened her eyes to find Thomas’s head on the pillow beside her. Her first impulse was to wake him up and tell him about what had happened… but what had happened? He had brushed off her insistence that she had seen a woman in the elevator. What would he say if she told him that a deformed, blood-coated skeleton had emerged from the floor of the second story of his house? She had no proof… but she could show him the trunk in the clay pit.
Except that he probably already knew it was there. But what of the tapping in the vat?
Again… she had no proof.
Maybe I was dreaming. Maybe I am going mad. Perhaps she had a fever; she felt her forehead. Her skin was clammy. And she didn’t feel very well. Perhaps dinner had not agreed with her. She knew that Lucille had not been raised to cook her own meals, and they were stretching every penny when it came to food expenditures. Perhaps the meat had gone bad. Yet the Sharpes seemed well.
I am a Sharpe. I am Lady Sharpe.
Perhaps too much wine, then; they had opened two bottles to celebrate their marriage followed by some brandy. Edith was not used to spirits; her father had been conservative in that regard and as his hostess, she had followed his lead.
Thomas lay so peacefully; she didn’t want to disturb him with her strangeness. He had been reading her novel and professed that it had given him the shivers; it would follow, then, that the authoress of the piece would be equally affected. By the light of the early morning, she began to doubt herself. In all the wild rush of events, she never had sent her manuscript to The Atlantic Monthly, and now she was glad. There was more to the story.
More than I imagined, she told herself firmly. Lack of sleep, nerves, the shifting shadows of the house—she could not have seen what she thought she’d seen. A horror… that tapping.
The piano played on. Bright light filtered through the windows, casting sunbeams, speaking of a morning spent in slumber. Surely it was afternoon. Her stomach growled; she felt a cramp and decided she should get up. She put on her dressing gown and left the room. The little dog stayed behind with Thomas.
She followed the notes, going downstairs, until she wandered into an enormous room lined with books and glass curio cases. In the center, Lucille sat playing an antique grand piano. Oil portraits stared down from the walls. Beneath the Sharpe coat of arms over a fireplace, a Latin inscription spelled out Ad montes oculos levavi.
“To the hills we raise our eyes,” Lucille said, still playing.
Edith made a moue of apology. “Oh, I am so sorry. I interrupted you. I—”
“Quite the opposite,” Lucille replied. “Did I wake you?”
Rubbing her temples, Edith confessed, “I slept very little. I…”
“You did?” Lucille asked. “Why?”
She made the same decision to keep last night’s visions from Lucille—if visions she had truly had.
Maybe my mother tapped inside her coffin. Perhaps the mirrors in this house were not hung with black crepe when the dead expired.
The thoughts came unbidden, and they threw her. They were evidence of a fevered imagination. Perspiration beaded on her forehead and upper lip.
Lucille was still waiting for an answer.
“I’m still exhausted.” Which made little sense, really. Someone who was exhausted would fall asleep easily, would they not? She determined to change the subject. “That piece of music. What is it?”
“An old lullaby,” Edith replied. “I used to sing it to Thomas when we were little.”
A much more welcome topic of discussion.
“I can imagine the two of you in here as children. You playing, Thomas coming up with his inventions.”
Lucille’s eyelids became hooded as she raised her chin. Her expression grew faraway. “We were not allowed in here as children. We were confined to the nursery. In the attic.” She spent a moment in that other place, seeing things that Edith could not, and Edith had the sense that Lucille was holding tightly to precious memories that she did not wish to share. Edith had imagined that the two of them would giggle together over stories of Thomas as a young mischievous boy, forging bonds of family and history. But so far, Lucille had maintained firm possession of all her reminiscences as tightly as the household keys, and Edith felt rather locked out.
Lucille went on. “Mother had this piano brought from Leipzig. She played it sometimes. We’d hear her through the floor.” She swallowed down another emotion. “That was how we knew she was back in the country.”
That seemed so sad. Wouldn’t a mother rush to their children, throw open her arms, and gather them in? Perhaps playing was her special way of announcing her return, like a secret code between the three of them. Her own mother’s playing had been a sort of code: Do not fear. I am near.
Edith had compassion for Lucille then. Of course she would be possessive of Thomas. They had only had each other to turn to. It must be difficult for Lucille to stand aside. Edith was expecting too much too soon.
Lucille motioned toward a large painting of an unsmiling, elderly woman with leathery skin stretched over a narrow, skull-like face. She had the coldest eyes Edith had ever seen, and her mouth was set in an angry, stern line. Lucille seemed to falter as the two gazed at it, and then she collected herself.
“Mother,” she said.
Edith was shocked. The woman seemed more like a grandmother or a maiden aunt. Thomas had told her that their mother had passed when he was but twelve, nearly the same age she had been when her own mother had died. And her mother had been young and beautiful.
Until the black cholera. I know what she looked like now. I saw her.
And I saw something last night, as well.
There. She had said it. Adm
itted it. A pall fell over her.
“She looks…” Edith ventured, and had no idea how to courteously proceed.
“Horrible?” Lucille asked bitterly. “Yes. It’s an excellent likeness.”
Edith approached the painting and read a small brass label set into the frame: LADY BEATRICE SHARPE. Then she noticed the huge garnet ring on the ring finger of the withered left hand. It was the engagement ring Thomas had given her. It was on her hand now. She glanced down at it. Yes. The identical ring. It unsettled her.
“Thomas wanted us to take it down. But I didn’t want to,” Lucille said. “I like to think she can see us from up there. I don’t want her to miss anything we do.”
Was that a smirk? Lucille smiled at the painting as if she and that evil-looking woman were sharing a private joke.
“This is, I think, my favorite room in the house,” Edith said, both to change the subject and because it happened to be true.
“Mine, too.” Lucille smiled briefly, but it was a warmer smile than she had favored her mother’s portrait with. “I read every book I could find. Specifically entomology.”
“Insects,” Edith filled in.
“Insects, yes. Jean-Henri Fabre. There’s nothing random about insects. And I admire that. They do what needs to be done to assure their survival. Even their beauty and grace are only means to ensure their species—”
“Are these all your books?” Edith asked quickly. Anything to stop her talking about how moths eat butterflies, she thought.
“Mother selected most of these. Had them brought from afar. She was not very mobile, you see. So the world needed to come to her.”
Thomas hadn’t mentioned anything like that, but then, he had been quite circumspect when discussing their parents. She had assumed at the time that he didn’t wish to bring up an indelicate subject so soon after her father’s death. The English were far more indirect than Americans. One had to listen for subtleties. Edith didn’t mind. She could listen to Thomas talk all day. Perhaps she could find a more discreet way to bring up her experiences in the house. If she could get him to talk about the house’s legends and ghost stories, perhaps, or its past. Who had died here, and how… and why.