“How he departs is no concern of ours,” she said. We paused, and I watched Lee drag himself up the stairs. Mary had already come in from the grounds, and appeared from the kitchens with a laden tea tray in hand, following the guests up. “The master told me of his crime, but we did not believe him dangerous to anyone but his own family. He would never have gone alone with you two if we did.”
I nodded once. “I’m not sorry he’s gone.”
“Indeed?” I heard the surprise in her voice, and the not-so-subtle interest. She wore a prim white shawl over a blue dress and apron, her silvery hair braided and looped under a cap. “Indeed.”
She didn’t press me for more, and I wouldn’t have elaborated if she had. “I need sleep. Desperately. In the morning I have something to show Mr. Morningside.”
“That sounded suspiciously like a command,” Mrs. Haylam drawled. Her milky eye sparkled. “But I suppose I can inquire after his schedule. Rest now, child, and fear no men. The Residents will be watchful at your door this night.”
“Cold comfort,” I mumbled. But I had not energy to argue. I pulled myself just as heavily as Lee had up the stairs and to my room at the end of the hall. As soon as I closed the door, I heard the scratching of footsteps on the other side. Peering through the crack, I saw nothing but a hazy black form. Sure enough, a Resident had come to stand guard. The healing bruise under the wrap on my wrist throbbed as if in recognition, as if in greeting.
I had no idea how that made me feel. Perhaps I was simply too tired to think clearly on the subject. But rather than fear, I felt only a cold numbness. A distance. The Residents had tried to keep me from the book in the attic; they had caused me no more harm. But a man of flesh and blood had tried to kill me, and I’d seen the aftermath of true violence; when I closed my eyes I saw a dangling skeleton, the mouth of its skull twisted open in agony.
Maybe I wanted that shadow creature between me and the rest of the world. At least for a little while. At least while I slept. I vented a dry laugh and undressed, pinned up my hair, and carefully hid the scrap of paper I had taken from the cottage fireplace under my pillow. Someone, and I could guess who, had left Mr. Morningside’s book on that same pillow. When I looked closer, I noticed it was not my same water-stained copy I’d left behind in the barn, but a fresh one.
I cracked the cover, finding a new inscription there, too.
Louisa,
You have questions. There are answers. They wait for you in here if only you dare to seek them out.
I crawled into bed, sighing, curling up under the welcome comfort of the blankets with the book tucked against the pillow. Someone had left a candle burning on the table beside the bed, and I decided to let it burn a little longer, scanning the index of the book and leafing through the pages until I landed on the chapter he had suggested on more than one occasion.
“Practical Applications: Techniques for Identifying Changelings.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
In the early morning I dressed and performed my toilette as usual, then found my way to the kitchen. The house felt vast and empty, as it should, with two of its already few occupants gone for good. In the foyer, Chijioke was handing off instructions to Foster, who stood next to a pile of luggage monogrammed R. M.
Rory Merriman. I wondered briefly what any acquaintances of his might hear. The doctor had gone away to the north of England to take the healing waters and never returned. Did he have any unlucky family that would receive his things or learn of where he was buried? I watched Foster heave the bags into his arms and trundle out the door, the door that seemed to me now more like a mouth: guests arrived, knowing nothing, and were promptly swallowed whole.
“There’s breakfast,” Chijioke told me brightly, closing the door after Foster. “Bacon,” he added with a beaming smile, “and some mutton for the morning hash from the neighboring shepherd.”
“Kind of him,” I remarked. Chijioke led the way into the kitchen, where, as promised, a modest spread of food waited. Poppy sat at the tall table, swinging her legs under her skirts, chatting with her hound as she ground some kind of small fruit pit with a mortar and pestle.
“Don’t grind that so close to the food, girl!” Mrs. Haylam cried, sweeping in and pushing the tray to the other side of the table.
“Sorry, sorry,” she said with a laugh. Then she noticed me and waved, flinging everywhere bits of the fruit pit that Mrs. Haylam swiftly tried to sweep up. “Good day, Miss Louisa. Do have some breakfast! I’m making poisons.”
“How nice for you,” I replied, sitting across from her and making sure my plate was free of any mysterious brown flakes before serving up a bit of food.
“Help her put that away and then roast the yams for luncheon, Louisa. Mr. Morningside will see you after.”
And like that, I was a servant of Coldthistle again. It felt disconcertingly normal, like combing one’s hair with an old brush or slipping on a worn pair of shoes. I knew how to put up a bit of ground pit and I knew how to roast a yam, and the knowing and the simplicity made the horror of the day before feel like a distant memory. This was what life was supposed to be like—routine, average, with no dead bodies or rituals or monsters lurking in the shadows.
The ease of it frightened me, too; I was not cleaning up a mess or cooking in a reputable boardinghouse. These people had protected me, but they had put me in danger, too, and no amount of breezy yam-baking would make me forget it.
The morning skipped by quickly, and soon the cooking was done and Poppy was chasing her hound out the door, trying to recover a piece of yam skin he’d absconded with. Her giggles flew out the door into the yard and I followed, wiping my hands on my apron and leaning against the jamb, closing my eyes against the unexpected warmth of the day and the mild breeze that wound through it. My fingers closed over the spoon in my apron pocket and I frowned, thinking of Lee and what he must be doing. Maybe his uncle was forcing him to drink some of that odious sulfurous water the widow had gone on and on about. While baking, I had watched Mrs. Haylam put together a tray for him; he was not, it seemed, stirring out of his room at all.
Still, he had searched me out so many times, perhaps it was time I did the same. I at last visited the healing waters, leaving the kitchen and winding west around the house. The gardens and barn were visible from the house, but the path between them was covered in a canopy of thick trees that leaned into one another, creating a tangled roof that shadowed the way to the water. I had thought only Bath was blessed with such a natural feature, but this was apparently a well-kept secret. It was sure to make any guests who discovered the feature even more keen to stay.
The smelly water mingled on the breeze as I plunged beneath the tree branches and took the cool walk to the water. I could hear a soft bubbling like a normal spring, but the path soon curved to the right and then dipped downward, revealing a shallow pool contained by sandy brown stones. The stones looked ancient, and they were carved with odd markings and pictures. In the wild grass lay a little tin cup and a matching dipper.
I stopped abruptly; I had not expected to actually find Lee there. His back was to me, and the occasional plop-plop broke the air as he chucked stones listlessly into the pool.
“I believe you’re supposed to drink the water, not fight it,” I said softly.
Lee paused midthrow, turning toward me with a gasp. He looked rattled and sleepless, and maybe a touch unhinged. Some of the old Lee returned as he dropped the pebble and beckoned me forward.
“Please say you came looking for me,” he murmured. “I could so use the flattery.”
“I did, and I hope it cheers you.”
“It would go a lot further if you smiled as you said it,” he teased.
“You first.”
The tiniest smirk banished some of the weariness on his face. “Even when the world is crashing down around my ears, you find a way to make it easier.”
I joined him near the water, staring down into it, liking the way the shifting reflections threw
dancing white strands of light all around the grotto. “Imagine that; Mrs. Eames was actually right about this place. Bit smelly, but it really does feel like it could cure all ails.”
“Some,” Lee replied darkly. “Certainly not all.”
For a long moment I had no idea what to say—what would help him or lift some of the terrible burden from his shoulders. First his beloved guardian and now his mother. I had felt loss in my life, but to experience both blows so close together?
“It isn’t at all fair,” I ventured, feeling an odd, girlish compulsion to take his hand. He saved me the trouble, reaching over to take mine. It burned almost as brightly as when I touched that accursed book, but it was not pain this time but comfort, a kind of paralyzing kindness that had so long been absent from my life. I didn’t know what to do with the feeling, so I did nothing at all. “You’re the only good person in the entire house and somehow misfortune still finds you.”
“Misfortune finds us all,” Lee said. He sounded older, suddenly. Wiser. “The only difference is in when and how you resolve to face it.”
“And how will you face this?” I asked, growing accustomed to the shy warmth of his hand against mine.
Lee looked over at me and let his smile broaden the littlest bit. “Not alone, and for now that will have to be enough.”
“Yes, but I should know what to do. I shouldn’t have let you follow your uncle. Then you would have never seen . . . You wouldn’t have to live with those images forever.”
His grip on my hand loosened. “It isn’t your doing, although I can’t help thinking . . . This house, the terrible things that happen in it, doesn’t it all feel connected to what we saw? To how she died? There is an evil that surrounds this place. I fear it leaks out in every direction.”
I couldn’t argue with that. He wasn’t looking at me anymore, and he felt, disastrously, a hundred miles away. How could I blame him for associating me with her death and this bedeviled place?
My senses prickled. Pitney had taught me to know when I was being watched. We were no longer alone. I let go of his hand and turned, finding Mrs. Haylam there, watching us with inscrutably dark eyes.
“Excuse the intrusion, Mr. Brimble, but Mr. Morningside would like to see Louisa.”
She was not turning to leave us, and I glanced at Lee helplessly, mouthing, “I’ll find you later.”
That seemed to be what he needed to hear, and he nodded, padding into the grass and picking up the tin cup that lay there. He lifted it to us both and said with a shrug, “Couldn’t hurt, could it?”
Mrs. Haylam held her silence until we were just a few steps from the kitchen door. I went ahead and tried to shake off her words, though they managed to diminish the surprising lightness in my heart that had come from seeing Lee again.
“I told you not to mingle with that boy,” she warned.
“I wouldn’t have to if your lot would leave him well enough alone,” I spat back. “I’m sure he hates me anyway, given I work with a pack of wolves.”
Her response was cut short by her employer sauntering around the tall table in the kitchen and joining us in the sunshine.
“Shall we convene in my offices?” Mr. Morningside came dressed in his usual sleek suit, a tailcoat with a square cut away and well-fitted tawny trousers. His ivory cravat matched his shirt. It made me feel shabby but honest. I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if offered a silk dress and slippers.
“I would rather not,” I said. “Your birds are . . . I don’t want to be around them.”
“Ah. Yes. I heard you sat in on a ferrying. Incredible, isn’t it?”
“That’s one word for it.” I dropped my apron and stepped out into the daylight, narrowly avoiding the pup that tore around the yard, nimbly avoiding his owner with a piece of yam flapping against his jaws. “A walk would suit me better.”
“A compromise, then—the west salon. There are no birds there, to my knowledge.”
I had barely stepped foot into the grand room on the first floor of the house. The guests took meals and tea there sometimes, but it was not a place the servants congregated. We crossed back through the kitchen and foyer and into the tall, overcrowded salon with its myriad green velvet couches and walls heaped with dusty paintings. It felt huge and small at once, a large space stuffed with far too many antiques and furnishings, the aged wallpaper almost unseen behind so many paintings.
Mr. Morningside shuttered the massive doors behind us while I floated listlessly in the middle of the room. I had no idea where to sit, faced with so many couches and chairs and settees. But he walked confidently to a dark wood table with curlicue legs near the side window. Two chairs were positioned at a jaunty angle and he took one, sliding into it elegantly and sitting with his legs stretched out in front of him. His feet, fortunately, were facing forward.
I took the chair opposite him, feeling awkward and out of place, like a dandelion stuck into a bouquet of roses.
“To business,” he said with a clearing of his throat. “Mary tells me there was a bit of nastiness last night in Derridon. First Dr. Merriman and then a woman murdered in some cottage up the hill.”
“I was nearly killed, and a woman was torn to pieces and her skeleton was strung up over the hearth,” I corrected him hotly. “So, yes, a bit of nastiness did indeed occur.”
“There’s no need for sarcasm, Louisa, although I do apologize for the doctor. He was not your responsibility. Quite honestly I underestimated the fellow, never thought he would be so sloppy.” He sighed and flicked his brows up. “You’re recovering?”
“I will, yes.” I didn’t want to talk about Merriman. He was dead and the world was better for it, though I didn’t want Mr. Morningside to have the satisfaction of knowing I thought as much. “There was something strange about the woman,”I said, taking the little scrap of paper out of my apron pocket and pushing it across the table. “George Bremerton says it was Lee’s mother. We saw him going up to the cottages and followed, but there is no way he had time to do . . . I believe it would take a very long time to completely remove someone’s flesh and disperse it all through a house.”
“You would be surprised,” he said thoughtfully, taking the paper and studying it closely. Sniffing it. Licking it.
“That . . . was in a fireplace.”
“Obviously.” He brought it away from his face and twirled it between his fingers. “But you saw Bremerton there?”
“Yes, but only after we discovered the body. He didn’t have much of a lead on us, perhaps five or ten minutes.” I searched the room for a moment, finding a writing desk with quill and ink on the other side of the many carpets. Quickly, I retrieved the writing implements, then took the paper back from him, flipping it to the blank side. “There was a symbol in blood behind her. I made certain to memorize it.”
“Enterprising of you,” he said with a chuckle. “I knew I was right to send you.”
“After what I saw, I wish you hadn’t,” I replied, finishing the drawing and returning the paper. “A sort of lamb or sheep devouring itself with a sun behind it.”
The smile fled from his face.
“You recognize it?”
Mr. Morningside shook his head, though he wouldn’t tear his eyes away from the rudimentary drawing. “A lamb,” he whispered, tapping his teeth with the nail of one thumb. “What does a lamb symbolize. . . . Youth or naïveté, though for the God-fearing it can be purity and peace, even the son of God himself. One only ever sees an Ouroboros of the serpent. A snake eating its own tail. But to exchange that for a lamb . . . What could it mean?”
“And the sunburst?” I asked. “A lamb and a sun seem awfully cheerful for a message written in blood.”
“I told you, Louisa, beauty can be deceptive.”
“What do you make of that writing? It looks like a masculine hand to me. Only the headmaster at Pitney had penmanship that bold.” Poppy and Bartholomew passed by the window, the pup still leading her on a winding chase.
“There we
agree, certainly a man’s pen,” he said, flipping over the paper. “Bremerton’s?”
“It’s possible,” I conceded, “but unlikely. I took him to be genuinely horrified when he realized Lee had found his mother murdered and displayed so. And in the carriage, too, he expressed regret.”
He studied me over the tiny scrap of paper, squinting his golden eyes and cocking his head. “The widow. Merriman. You know now these people are here for a reason. George Bremerton is a known thief and has killed over money and debts before. Do not be blinded to his faults because of his nephew.”
“You didn’t see her, sir. You . . . I cannot believe he would do such a thing to Lee’s mother and then turn around and embrace the boy. And besides, whoever did the killing would be covered head to foot in blood, and he had not a speck upon him.”
“That is a sensible conclusion,” he admitted. Sighing, he let the paper float back to the table and pushed both hands through his wavy black hair. “This is vexing. We have far more questions than answers. This symbol, the writing you found, Bremerton, the woman . . . All of it must be related.”
I was not so sure. Lee’s uncle had indeed found us in that cottage, but his story made sense. Hiding Lee’s mother’s questionable choices seemed like the loving thing to do. Her interest in the occult, in dark things, might have gotten her mixed up with the wrong sorts of people.
The sunshine through the window next to us looked inviting, and for a while I let my mind wander, simply taking in the birds that flitted through the garden and the way the wind bent the bushes and made them ripple.
“Or it could all be a coincidence,” I murmured, resting my chin on my palm. “Lee’s mother made an unfortunate connection, or several, and we were there to see the inevitable conclusion of that.”
“Is that what you truly think happened or what you want to believe happened?” Mr. Morningside joined me in gazing out the window, tapping his teeth again. “If I’m right, then George Bremerton is involved in this murder, indirectly or otherwise. It would mean he’s not acting alone. It would mean he conspired to visit horrible suffering upon his nephew’s mother. I know it sounds intolerably evil, Louisa, but we both know the world is a harsh place and unfair.”