House of Furies

  “Danger?” His brows shot up, and he leaned in close. “Your wrist; did someone harm you deliberately?”

  “No, no,” I assured him, and technically it was the truth. After all, something had harmed me. “Mr. Morningside said some terrible things about Mrs. Eames—that she’s only a widower because she killed her late husband. He claims that she murdered her son, too. I think he means to . . . to exact revenge. Severe revenge.”

  Lee’s brows continued to rise, reaching their absolute zenith as I drew out the last two words.

  “Good heavens.”

  “I think he fancies himself some sort of vigilante. A force for justice above the law. If he knows you’ve done something vile, he punishes you for it.”

  “How extraordinary,” Lee whispered. He unfolded his arms and rubbed his chin, but he was starting to look pale. Guilty. “What do you make of such claims? Can he be believed?”

  Here I was less certain, yet a pit in my gut persisted, a nasty, guilty pit. For some reason I could not get the image of her huge green ring out of my mind. Such a flourish of excess, such decadence, when she was supposed to be the grieving widow. . . . And if she was to inherit a fortune, why come to the dumpy, drafty Coldthistle House?

  Why come here at all, unless, of course, she had been summoned.

  “She does come across a bit . . .”

  “Strange,” he said in agreement. “So you think she’s capable of murder? Of killing her own child?”

  “I really can’t say. The only thing I know for sure is that Mr. Morningside does not have kind intentions toward her,” I said. My gaze snapped to the open door, where I could have sworn a dark shape lingered and then vanished. Palms sweating, I took Lee by the wrist and dragged him deeper into the library and behind a bookcase, concealing us in one of the room’s dusty nooks.

  “This is going to sound upsetting,” I whispered. “But you might consider taking one of your uncle’s weapons and keeping it about your person. Just . . . Just in case. I think the proprietor is quite mad, you see, and I don’t know if any of us are safe. We must be careful, quick, and quiet, and you must promise me not to say anything about this to your uncle yet.”

  “But if we are all in danger—”

  “Promise.”

  “O-Of course, Louisa, you have my word,” he said. Then he broke into a nervous smile, glancing shyly to the side. “Lord, I did make you swear to tell me the secrets of this place, didn’t I? This is all rather more than I bargained for.”

  Oh, my dear boy, you don’t know the half of it.

  “Precisely,” I replied. I had no idea if I was protecting him or damning him by telling him only the partial truth, but I could always reveal more later if it seemed prudent. “But what’s most important now is that you tell me something, Lee. You must be honest, yes? Hold nothing back. . . .”

  “What?” he asked, searching my face. “What are you asking of me?”

  “You must tell me,” I said, still holding his wrist tightly. “Are there any unspeakable secrets from your past? Have you greatly sinned?” I demanded. “Have you killed?”

  Chapter Sixteen

  One of the most dangerous things of all is a secret hope.

  A secret hope is always buried deep within you, like a disease, one you have no idea lies in wait. It’s always there, ready to wound you, and even if you have some vague conception of its existence, some instinct or inkling, it is ever surprising. The worst secret hope I can remember came from my mother. Her name was Alice. Alice Ditton. She kept my father’s surname out of spite, because in the end they hated each other so much that she stole me away from him in the night.

  Actually, I’m not certain the word stole is quite right. Can you really steal something that isn’t wanted in the first place?

  It is not a nice thing to admit, but I always knew, even as a child, that my mother was not a balanced person. There was too much of Ireland in her, old Ireland, the superstitious, fairy-believing wild Irish that my city-dweller father and grandparents despised. Once, after we had moved from Waterford to Dublin, a neighbor boy was bitten by a rabid dog. My mother convinced him that the only cure for it was to be touched on the hand by a seventh son.

  She meant it. So, unbalanced. And I think that’s being kind.

  I can remember her eyes flaring wide as she loomed over poor, sick Danny Burton, saying, “Oh, and if that seventh son be born of a seventh son? Well then, boy, he’ll bring you more than just good health, but good luck for the rest of your years!”

  Danny Burton died that week; no telling if he ever found that seventh son.

  The point being, I was always keen to the strangeness of my mother. Even if I only ever spoke of it to my imaginary friend Maggie, and only then in guilty whispers, I felt in my heart that my mother was odd. And by association and blood, I was odd, too. Folk rarely warmed to my mam. Tolerance was about the best she ever got. That curse passed to me, too. Excepting Lee and the curious servants of Coldthistle House, most people decided upon meeting me that I was not worth knowing. I swear sometimes I could see them recoil, even if unintentionally, as if there was some invisible black brand upon me that said: BEWARE.

  It was the worst and cruelest joke of the world, and I was not in on it.

  But my secret desire, always, even in the depths of my hard knowing, was that one day my mother would be different. She would change. The old-country parts of her would fall away, and like a tree shaking off winter’s chill, she would bud and blossom and emerge a fine, sensible woman with a laugh that made you thrill instead of wince. I kept that secret hope locked away tight, so tight and so deep down that it wasn’t until she was really out of my life for good that I recognized that wish.

  Here, in the library, I recognized another secret wish even as it, too, became impossible, and this time I knew how the longing would hurt.

  “Oh God.” Lee was crumbling before my very eyes. He slid down against the window until he was huddled on the floor. Then he hid his face in his hands. I could tell from the tension in his shoulders that he was holding back a sob. “I killed my guardian. I’m one of the bad people, too. I did a vile thing. I killed him.”

  “What?”

  There it was, the secret hope soaring up from the bottom of my gut to wallop me. Lee would be one of the good ones. He would be different. This time, a someone—a boy—would like me and want to be around me, and there would be no trick to it. I would finally be in on a joke. A good, wholesome human would desire my company, and it would mean that the black mark upon me had all been a lie. The whole rest of the world would be wrong, and Lee would be right.

  But no, he could not remove the mark. He was ruined inside, too.

  Birds of a feather . . .

  “Louisa, please, I swear—you mustn’t think harshly of me. It was an accident. I swear on my life, it . . .” He sighed, scrubbing his face with his hands. “He had this ghastly reaction to nuts. Any kind of nut in his food would make him ill almost to the point of death. I know I told the crofters no nuts, but I delivered this bread from them as a gift, and he ate it, and . . .”

  He couldn’t go on.

  “Lee.” Well, perhaps my secret hope could return to its undisclosed location in my heart and linger a while longer. “That is the very definition of an accident. It isn’t your fault.”

  “But it is, don’t you see? I should have checked the bread. It was so foolish of me, just reckless. Clumsy. The kindest and best man I’ve ever known slain by walnuts.”

  “He might have checked, too,” I pointed out, sitting next to him on a stack of immense map books. “Being a fully grown man and all.”

  “As you say, but I feel responsible all the same,” Lee murmured. His face had gone red and splotchy, but he no longer looked in danger of weeping. He looked at me, a small smile spreading across his lips. “You asked if I had killed. Other than a few does and fish and rabbits, that’s the worst I’ve managed. I confessed, you know, to a priest. God never gave me much comfort in times o
f misery, but I thought maybe it would make me feel less guilty. Only it made the guilt more real somehow.”

  “You didn’t kill him, Lee. If you could speak to him right now, you know he would say the same.”

  “Because he’s generous and forgiving,” he replied, glancing away. “Like you.”

  I shook my head, rejecting outright the praise. “You don’t know me, Lee. I’m not good like you are. I haven’t lived the kind of life that allows for being good.”

  “Which is why it’s all the more impressive.” We were both silent for a moment, the dust drifting around us and settling gradually at our feet. “Do you really think I need a weapon? Should we try to protect Mrs. Eames, or, God, at least try to warn her?”

  I was not generous or forgiving, as he theorized, and now he would learn it in earnest. “As cold as this sounds, I think perhaps we should stay out of it. If what Mr. Morningside said is true, she hardly deserves our help.”

  “But what if he’s wrong? We can’t very well stand aside while an innocent woman is hurt.” He paused and bit his bottom lip. “My uncle has become close with her. They spend most of their time sipping that disgusting water at the spa. Perhaps he might find some proof for us that she is indeed a murderess.”

  “That’s much too dangerous,” I cautioned. “We have nothing to do with her, Lee. We shouldn’t get mixed up in her affairs.”

  Fetching the rag, I swished it in the murky water and began washing the window behind Lee. It was easier to lie to him without having to see his face. “And if your uncle is with her all the time, then maybe she’s already safer in a way. You said yourself that he is armed. It could be enough to protect her.”

  “But should I not warn him? He could become a target, too.”

  My hand stilled, the tepid, disgusting water in the rag gathering in my palm and then trickling down my sleeve. Warning the widow, we agreed, was out of the question, but what about warning his uncle? These were lives we were discussing, actual lives, and the weight of it felt too far outside my realm of experience. I had no affection for George Bremerton, but that did not mean I wanted him dead. Lee was watching me expectantly, I could feel it, and so I made my decision. If Lee could be here innocently, with no evil past to doom him, then so too could his uncle be a good man worth saving.

  “Warn him,” I said softly. “But be general about it. I feel mad just telling you these things. It sounds like so much nonsense spilling out of my mouth.”

  “Well, I believe you.” And there it was again, his belief. It felt just as good as the first time, so much so that it made me smile. “I’ll simply tell him the proprietor seems a bit strange and mentioned having it out for the widow. My uncle’s natural chivalrous tendencies will do the rest, I think.”

  Nodding, I dropped the rag back in the bucket and watched Lee fidget his way back toward the door. There was more he wanted to say, obviously, and I sat silently through his hesitation, trying to look the picture of patience and understanding. It was a miracle he had believed a single word I’d said, and even more impressive that he confessed to accidentally poisoning his guardian. The least I could do now was listen.

  He stopped at the end of the bookcase blocking us from the door. His bright turquoise eyes were sad but clear, and it took him a moment to screw up his courage and stand tall. “Only . . . Thank you. You did not need to tell me these things. I might have gone on in blissful ignorance here. Well, not that knowing all of this is blissful, but I think the alternative is rather worse, isn’t it? You trusted me and you didn’t have to, and after I behaved so rudely . . . This all seems very big and frightening, but I’m glad we can at least rely upon one another.”

  Lee managed a small, brave smile and bowed from the waist politely. “Did . . . Did any of that make sense?”

  “All of it,” I said. “Thank you, too, for believing me.”

  He chuckled and scruffed the back of his curly head and then backed away. “I should go, then, before we stand around thanking each other all day long. Good-bye for the moment, Louisa. I shall seek you out again soon, and that’s a promise.”

  “Good-bye.”

  After Lee ducked out of view and his footsteps retreated to the door, I fell back against the window and sighed. I hated to be alone. I hadn’t realized how comforting it was to have the company of someone “normal” like me.

  I had done almost all I could about cleaning the library and searching it for treasures, so I abandoned the rag and did my best to straighten more of the toppled piles of books. Lee would be on the lookout for himself, and for his uncle, and maybe even for me, and his uncle would be warned, and it felt like maybe I had done a bit of good. For now, I could do nothing but plot the details of my escape, foremost being the destruction or disruption of that book in the attic and then the careful sale of the rare books I had found.

  The corner farthest from the door remained to be cleaned, and I wiped at the dusty sweat that had sprung up on my brow from the effort of rearranging so many giant, heavy books. Kneeling, I spread out the books from one messy pile, tutting at the bad treatment of so many old bindings. This was a fortune in paper and leather treated like garbage. Most of the spines were still in good condition, however, and I picked the sturdiest book of the lot to use as the base of the pyramid. If my new luck held, perhaps there would be a book in this library that acted as some kind of antidote to the book in the attic. After all, if one book caused the problem, then another might be the solution. Now was the time to keep a weather eye out for any strange or arcane-looking tomes.

  I swept up the last book from the heap, the littlest one, and was about to put it on top when the title, obscured by a thick layer of dust, caught my eye.

  No, not the title, the author. With my sleeve, I wiped away the dirt, feeling a pang of fear and a spike of excitement war painfully in my throat. This tiny, forgotten thing, more like a journal than a proper book, had been hiding in this far corner of the library, just waiting for me to find it.

  Was it fortune or something else? Something like luck but sinister. . . . And it could be, now that I knew such things as doors and men and books had the power to lure and trap. But I picked it up all the same and held it close to me, hoping against hope that it would tell me what I needed to know.

  That it would be my salvation.

  “Rare Myths and Legends,” I whispered aloud. Well, that sounded both arcane and strange. “The Collected Findings of H. I. Morningside.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  As soon as I stepped foot outside the library, I saw it. Watching. Waiting for me.

  It moved like an ink spill suspended in the air, slithering back and forth, bobbing side to side as it observed me. The shadow creature took a step toward me, unnaturally long legs blurred at the edges, as if its body were somehow always on the periphery of my vision. I could see it but not see it, its boundaries constantly shifting and rearranging even as we stared at one another.

  What it had for eyes were tiny, just pinpricks of light, a stark contrast to its enormous mouth, the shape of which looked permanently fixed in a delighted grin.

  Closer. Prowling. The creature looked far more menacing in the daylight because it so obviously did not belong in this world. I had sincerely hoped that these monsters couldn’t operate outside the darkness. I had hoped in vain. I felt its strength, its odd fluctuating temperature, as it moved around to trap me in the doorway. Had it listened in while Lee and I spoke? Did it know what lay hidden in the folds of my apron?

  The shadow, still smiling that awful smile, drew up its too-long arms, tapping its fingers together thoughtfully as it looked me over. Yes, it was looking for something, searching me. . . . It must have known that I had not one, not two, but three books hiding under my apron. Closer it came, until I felt its icy breath on my face. I shivered and drew back, the cold so intense, so concentrated, it might burn my skin.

  “Do not hide from me,” it growled, each word drawn out like the creak of a rusty door hinge, setting my te
eth on edge.

  The cold was unbearable. My wrist began to throb, pulsing as if in response to the creature that had nearly broken it. The spindly fingers on one hand reached for me, and I cringed, shaking, silent, managing one tiny whimper of protest as I prepared for it to shake out my skirts and find the hidden book. If I ran, it would catch me; if I tried to dodge around it, its arms would be too long to avoid.

  I closed my eyes tightly, and the searing cold descended on me.

  And then, in a flash, it was gone. I heard the heavy footfalls in the same moment I felt the creature vanish. Peeling one eye open, I found myself staring at nothing. But I could not be alone; someone or something had frightened it away. That someone was barreling down the hall toward me, a stout man in his later years, a bushy, bristly mustachio covering half his face, as if two doves had settled in to roost on his upper lip. In my fright I could not recall his name, though Mrs. Haylam had mentioned this guest briefly. A military man of some kind; it had to be him, for he was wearing a uniform-like coat that may have looked smart before he’d grown too large for it. A navy-blue turban slid down his forehead, and he jammed it back into place as he hurried toward me.

  Mrs. Eames followed, emerging like a bride all in black, her hands floating gracefully to her sides. She wore a fashionable day dress with an empire waist and sleeves as puffed and beautiful as paper lanterns. That same giant green emerald glittered on her hand, a single spot of color, a winking eye of envy on an otherwise austere body.

  Whoever the man in front was, I was more than glad to see him.

  “I say, is this place utterly abandoned? It’s a disgrace. I must have rung that bloody bell for a quarter of an hour, and now I find you loitering out here, dirty and agape. I am not, young miss, paying good English coin to be ignored!” He bustled his way down the corridor, red-faced and furious, stopping in the exact, unnervingly close place the shadow creature had just been.