House of Furies Read online

  A pair of strong hands closed around my shoulders and helped lift me back to my feet.

  “Easy now.” It was Chijioke, steadying me until I had the ability to stand on my own. I wrenched out of his grip, taking a huge step away from the fence. The pain in my head and body dulled at once. “Ach, come now,” he added, frowning. “I’ve no designs on ye. I won’t hurt you, only you looked in distress.”

  “I was,” I whispered. “I am.”

  After lurching away from the fence, I had stuck my foot in one of the hundreds of holes in the yard. Muttering, I shifted onto more solid ground. Chijioke leaned against the fence, apparently unaffected by it the way I had been. He rested a large shovel against the barrier and ran his hand over his face. Despite the cold, he perspired, the front of his white shirt damp with sweat. He otherwise wore simple workman’s attire: black braces and sturdy breeches tucked into mud-flecked boots.

  “Poppy’s mutt is a damned menace. I try to fill in the holes as best I can, but the little blighter digs six for each one I patch.”

  “Perhaps you should be digging a grave instead,” I said darkly. “Won’t there soon be a body to bury?”

  His expression hardly changed, but I saw a tension in his jaw that hadn’t been there before. “So you’ve heard. I thought as much. Mrs. Haylam mentioned you suffered quite the fright last night. You’re taking it surprisingly well. First time I met a Resident, I ran out of the house screaming like a banshee.”

  Taking it well? I didn’t think I was. “So why do you stay?”

  It was an earnest question. Chijioke had been nothing but kind toward me, and with his sweet, friendly eyes staring back at me, it was nigh impossible to imagine him participating in the crimes of Coldthistle. I felt edgy and crazed, as if I had wandered out of reality and through some veil, stepping into another world altogether, one where up was down and bad was good.

  “It just fits for some,” he replied with a shrug of his huge shoulders. “I’ve no big speech for ye. I came and didn’t want to leave. I didn’t think the guests here could be as bad as Mr. Morningside said; then I met a few and had my mind changed right quick. All I know is, life isn’t fair for some of us, and he makes it fairer, mm?”

  I shook my head, turning to look out across the fields beyond the fence. White blobs moved on the horizon, coming closer. Sheep. If there were sheep, then a shepherd couldn’t be far behind. Even so, who would believe my story? What country shepherd would hear the madness spilling out of my mouth and move a finger to help?

  “I think it would be better if I left,” I said softly. After I lift a few choice shiny objects to sell. “If that’s even possible.”

  Chijioke studied me, then turned and faced the fields. He dangled his forearms over the wooden beam and rested one foot on a lower slat. “Do you know your Bible?”

  I snorted. “I’m Irish.”

  Laughing, he said, “Then you know Leviticus. ‘And he that killeth any man shall surely be put to death.’ It’s that ‘surely’ in there that’s the rub. How many men really get what they deserve in this life? Particularly the nasty ones. . . .”

  “And what about Romans?” I asked. “‘Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men.’”

  He sighed, glancing down at the grass and then up at the clouds. “I should know better than to talk the Bible with an Irish girl,” he said. “But I’ll give you one more, also Romans: Leave room for the wrath of God, aye? Vengeance is mine, I will repay and all that?”

  It was close enough. I nodded, convinced he had simply made my own point for me.

  “I will repay,” he repeated in a whisper, squinting toward the blob of sheep. “But when, I ask you? When?”

  “I suppose that’s not for us to know. It’s not your job to do God’s work for him, is it?” I replied slowly. We were both quiet for a moment, the wind picking up, making the grass of the fields shiver and sway, as if an immense hand had dragged fingers over a piece of green velvet. The sheep ambled closer, but they and their shepherd remained a long way off. Was it futile to wait for help?

  “One of the girls at Pitney liked to steal my breakfast. She was older, bigger, had these giant teeth like a horse’s. When I told on her, she waited until nobody was looking and slammed my head into a desk. I plotted for months to get back at her, and then I managed to pour ink in her tea one morning. Catherine’s teeth were black for a fortnight.”

  Chijioke laughed heartily, slamming his hand down on the fence. It wobbled, looking about ready to splinter. “You see? How can doing the right thing be evil?”

  “There has to be a better way,” I replied. “I only put ink in her tea.”

  “Aye, and she only stole your breakfast now and then.” He paused, taking the shovel handle and running his thumb thoughtfully along the grain. “You should stay. If only for a wee while, just to see if you don’t change your mind.”

  I heard soft footsteps rushing across the grass and glanced over my shoulder, watching Mary scurry across the pitted lawn toward us. She dodged the holes with tiny, endearing hops and a flail of the arms.

  How can they all seem so normal?

  “What if you get things wrong?” I asked, making a note to come back here sometime and check again for the shepherd. In fact, my window faced this side of the fence. I might be able to dash out if I was ever idle on that side of the house.

  “No, the master is never wrong,” Chijioke replied solemnly. “Never.”

  I thought of Lee, of his hand grazing mine as he rescued my fallen spoon. “We shall see.”

  Mary reached us in a swirl of clean skirts that smelled of fresh bread. Her hands and wrists were dusted with flour, a smudge of it on her nose and cheek, too. “There you are! Chi, shame on you for tarrying with her here. There’s but five of us to see to this great beast of a house!” She took a deep breath, leaning back and putting her hands on her waist. Chijioke slinked away, sheepish, giving me a helpless shrug and a grin as he went.

  “Mrs. Haylam wants you in the library,” she said. “It needs dusting. I was going to do it but it’s one of the easier tasks, and I thought you mightn’t be ready for anything more daunting.”

  She was having trouble meeting my eye, and it was no secret why.

  “I don’t know if I want to dust the library,” I said. My fingers and head still crackled occasionally with the pain of having pushed beyond the borders of the property. “I’m really not keen to stay here.”

  Mary nodded, wiping her floury hands on her apron. “Was fretting, worried you might say as much. Do as you will, then, Louisa. I’m just the messenger. But if you’re going to stay, you’ll have to work like the rest of us.” She clapped a hand over her mouth and hurried to add, “Not the . . . that kind of work, oh, bugger it!”

  The curse sounded ridiculous coming from her. She seemed the type to blush after even thinking such a word. The wind changed directions, coming now from behind me, from where the sheep grazed out farther in the pasture. I smelled the sweet grass and the scent of bread from her aprons and drank deeply of the air. I knew now that the master was not lying. He or that infernal book did have some power over me.

  I needed more time. And the library might have a few rare books. Books that would see me out of this place and on a boat to America.

  “I’ll see to the library,” I said, holding back a sigh. “Lead on.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  It was less a library and more snowdrifts of books and dust heaped against sagging shelves, cramped and labyrinthine. I had to wonder at Lee’s inability to find anything worth reading when I had never in my life seen so many books piled in one place.

  On a better day, the room might have enjoyed clean, pure sunlight through its third-floor windows, but a troubling layer of grime darkened the place.

  I stood dumbfounded and overwhelmed in the doorway, while Mary fidgeted like a guilty thief behind me. I felt that if anyone should be twitching, it ought to be me.

  “Th
e easier task,” I murmured.

  “I . . . may have forgotten the state of things in here,” she said. “I can stay to help if you like, but only until Mrs. Haylam needs me again.”

  “No, that’s all right.” The time alone would be welcome. Crucial. There were no shadow creatures in here to notice whether anything went missing. “It’s straightforward enough, I think.”

  “Don’t put yourself out tidying the books. Mr. Morningside just keeps chucking them in here despite Mrs. Haylam’s protests. Once, she sent a few of the dog-eared copies to a school for charity and Mr. Morningside was furious with her. He raised his voice. It was terrible stuff, just awful.”

  “He raised his voice?” I said. She looked horrified all over again by the memory. “One shudders to imagine it.”

  “But you must not judge him because of that. It really was not her place to dispose of his property that way.” Mary began wringing her hands, puffing out her cheeks as she surveyed the messy room ahead of me. “I can stay. . . .”

  I ignored the offer. “Does Mr. Morningside often leave the cellar?”

  Her eyes flamed wide. “Oh. Oh no, no, that’s very rare indeed. I haven’t seen it with my own eyes, in fact. He says the air up here bothers him. The pollen, or some such.”

  “I see.” I didn’t, of course, but it was just another little puzzle piece to file away. I would need information and luck to get away from Coldthistle permanently. “Well, I had best get started. Idle hands, and all that.”

  God, now I was quoting him. But Mary was soothed, and she averted her green eyes just for a second, then glanced at me again from under her lashes. “If you do fancy help, please come and fetch me. It . . . You must be in such a state! So confused, I mean. Only . . . don’t think too harshly on me, on us, before you know all, please.”

  I looked away from her, feeling ill. The way she spoke, her mannerisms, it was exactly like my imaginary friend, and it was too affecting. “I haven’t decided what I’m going to do.”

  “You should stay,” Mary said quietly, backing away. “I want you to, but only if you want to. What I mean is, I’m hoping real hard that you stay.”

  She was gone, flitting down the corridor, leaving me in the dense silence of the dust and gloom. Eerie shafts of light pierced the dirty windows in places, those rare spears of silver and yellow mottled with dust motes. I almost had to laugh at the idea that I could clean all of this with just a feather duster and a washcloth. Within moments of wiping the cloth across the floor and rinsing it out in the bucket, the water turned murky brown. I pressed on, trying to scrub and dust without ruining the splint on my wrist.

  The library room was situated in the east wing of the house, positioned in the turretlike corner of the building. It was subsequently round and fairly large, and some mischievous carpenter had fashioned the bookcases so that they spiraled toward the back of the room, almost like spokes on a wheel. This created a series of private reading nooks, each furnished with a divan upholstered in heavy brocade. In its cleaner, better days, the library had probably been a lovely place, a peaceful retreat, but now, with books piled and spilling and going to ruin, it felt more like a refuse heap.

  And it proved impossible to tidy around all these piles of encyclopedias, novels, and histories. I made short stacks at the end of each bookcase, then cleaned what I found underneath. It was time to see what hidden treasures Coldthistle House had to offer. If I could find a way to get beyond the barrier made by the book, then I would need a few valuable items for trading. Most of the books I recognized from the library at Pitney. They were common enough collections of poetry, history, and popular stories. At last I came across a compact book of Cowper’s poetry. It was in good condition despite the general neglect of the library, and when I peered inside the cover I found a faded signature on the title page.

  This would fetch a pretty penny. My luck had changed for the better, at least a little; the collection was small enough to hide easily under the waist of my skirts and the apron that covered them.

  The floors and shelves grew neater as a result of my meticulous searching, and after also pocketing a naturalist’s field guide apparently owned and signed by Lord Byron, I moved on to the windows, scrubbing so vigorously at the hardened grime that my teeth clacked. Of course the meager staff here could not keep up the amount of work necessary to maintain a house like this, but I was beginning to suspect that this was by design. It was no doubt easier to keep the dark secret of the place with just a handful of servants. I leaned down and dipped the rag into the water, then squeezed it out. In this position I could see a handful of books scattered under a shelf, and I reached for them, greedily hoping for another good find. Sighing and then freezing, I knew as my fingers closed around the nearest book that I was being watched by a shape in the corner.

  Oh Lord. The shadows had returned for me.

  “Hello again!”

  “Jesus, Mary, and all the hallowed saints,” I swore. The rag flew out of my hand and missed the bucket, and I leaned back against the wall, clasping a hand to my chest with relief. It was only Lee. The books lay lost and forgotten where I had seen them.

  Lee. Lee, who had to be tainted by some awful past or predilection or else he would not be at Coldthistle. Lee, who might still escape the clutches of the house and deliver me safely, too, or else send someone back to collect me.

  My first instinct, obnoxiously, was to embrace him. Considering I had not so long ago rejected his offer of friendship, embracing was even more impossible. He was middling rich and I didn’t have a single penny to my name, and we could very well be dead in days or even minutes. Those shadow beasts might be watching us. Observing. Catching us in the act of conspiracy.

  I straightened, wiping my soiled hands on my apron and gesturing for him to come forward. Urge to embrace quashed, I found my voice but kept it low. There was no telling who listened in. Were there peepholes everywhere in the house? Did those shadows have ears? Did they need them?

  “Just the person I wanted to see.”

  “Oh!” He brightened an already bright smile and sauntered into the library. “I do like the sound of that. I began to worry when we didn’t see you at tea this morning, so I thought I might seek you out. Uncle was being a real bore and I was plum certain that Italian woman was going to knock him senseless with her—wait a moment, your wrist. What the devil happened to it? Are you quite all right?”

  He rushed toward me, curls bobbing, all worry and care as he made to reach for my wrist, then thought better of it, his hands poised in the air awkwardly like a puppeteer’s.

  “Just an accident,” I lied smoothly. “A slip. It doesn’t even hurt anymore.”

  “I never knew scullery work was so treacherous.”

  I guffawed. That, like my clumsy fall down the stairs, was an accident. Generally I was not the guffawing type, and Lee noticed at once the violent way the sound ripped out of my throat.

  “Coughing”—and this lie was far more artless than the last—“there’s so much dust in here. It should be a crime to treat books in such a manner.”

  And a crime to murder, a crime to have backward feet, to employ shadow monsters, to hoard dark, magical books . . .

  “No,” Lee said softly, pursing his lips. “Something really is the matter. Forgive my saying so, Louisa, but you look . . . Rather, I am a gentleman, and being a gentleman I do not think I can properly express—”

  “I look horrid,” I finished for him. “I am aware of it.”

  “Actually I was going to say ‘peaked,’ but all right.” That only tightened his expression. He moved to lean against the library wall next to me, crossing his arms and ducking his head slightly. “Well, I am here, you know, if you would like to discuss it.”

  “My looking horrid?”

  “Louisa . . .”

  I had to phrase this perfectly or risk alienating a potential ally. But the weight of what I needed to communicate was abruptly crushing. How did I tell him all that I had seen? Or even
some of it? No sane person would believe me. I hardly believed me. And yet the fact remained that I needed him, his resources, his help, his driver, his carriage, perhaps even the sabers I had glimpsed under the passenger seats. I had not escaped Pitney without help from Jenny, and my chances of getting out of Coldthistle House would increase greatly with some assistance.

  And standing there next to him, I confess I felt safer. Here at least was a neutral element. I was marked to stay, he was marked for death, but while we yet lived I would struggle against such destinies.

  So. How to tell him. . . .

  “I did go through my uncle’s things,” he said. When I did not interrupt—for I welcomed the chance to puzzle out my approach—he drew in a long breath to explain. “He had some very odd items in his luggage. An unusual number of knives, and a pistol! I always knew he was a bit anxious, but still, it seems excessive. There were normal things as well: a comb, some gloves and quills and so on. It’s the damnedest thing. I truly thought he would have more information about my so-called mother, beyond just a single note—an address, I think. How astonishing to make this long journey based on so little.”

  “Perhaps he keeps those other papers on him,” I murmured. “If they are valuable or confidential, he may not wish to keep them just anywhere.”

  Lee nodded, regarding me still with his head bowed. “That was what I came to tell you, which means it’s now your turn.”

  Wonderful. My hands had grown pruney from the damp washrag, and I wiped them anxiously down the front of my apron, careful not to dislodge the pilfered books hidden there. There was no rubbing away the scars on my fingertips, and I kept the marks out of his sight, pressing my palms flat to my skirt.

  “I think we are in danger,” I said in a whisper. “But do not raise your voice or show any signs of alarm. If I am right, we must maintain the utmost secrecy.”