“Oh, yes.” She waved a hand dismissively, her attention returning from wherever it had been. “Such as it is. We’ve a retainer who comes in once a week to help with the cooking and cleaning, and one of the local farmers keeps the fences standing. There’s a young fellow, too, Mrs. Bird’s nephew from the village, who mows the lawn and attempts to keep the weeds in check. He does an adequate job, though a strong work ethic seems to be a thing of the past.” She smiled briefly. “The rest of the time we’re left to our own devices.”
I returned her smile as she gestured towards the narrow service staircase and said, “You mentioned that you’re a bibliophile?”
“My mother says I was born with a book in my hand.”
“I expect, then, that you’ll be wanting to see our library.”
IREMEMBEREDreading that fire had consumed the Milderhurst library, the same fire that had killed the twins’ mother, so although I’m not sure what I expected to see behind the black door at the end of the somber corridor, I do know that a well-stocked library was not it. That, however, is precisely what lay before me when I followed Percy Blythe through the doorway. Shelves spanned all four walls, floor to ceiling, and although it was shadowy inside—the windows were cloaked by thick, draping curtains that brushed the ground—I could see they were lined with very old books, the sort with marbled endpapers, gold-dipped edges, and black cloth binding. My fingers positively itched to drift at length along their spines, to arrive at one whose lure I could not pass, to pluck it down, to inch it open, then to close my eyes and inhale the soul-sparking scent of old and literate dust.
Percy Blythe noticed the focus of my attention and seemed to read my mind. “Replacements, of course,” she said. “Most of the original Blythe family library went up in flames. There was very little salvageable; those that weren’t burned were tortured by smoke and water.”
“All those books,” I said, the notion a physical pain.
“Quite. My father took it very badly indeed. He dedicated much of his later life to resurrecting the collection. Letters flew hither and yon. Rare-book dealers were our most frequent callers; visitors weren’t otherwise encouraged. Daddy never used this room, though, not after Mother.”
It might have been merely the product of an overactive imagination, but as she spoke I became certain that I could smell old fire, seeping from beneath the new walls, the fresh paint, issuing from deep within the original mortar. There was a noise, too, that I couldn’t place; a tapping sound, unremarkable under normal circumstances but noteworthy in this strange and silent house. I glanced at Percy, who had wandered to stand behind a leather chair with deep-set buttons, but if she heard it at all, she didn’t show it. “My father was a great one for letters,” she said, gazing fixedly at a writing desk within a nook by the window. “My sister Saffy, too.”
“Not you?”
A tight smile. “I’ve written very few in my life and those only when absolutely necessary.”
Her answer struck me as unusual and perhaps it showed on my face, for she went on to explain.
“The written word was never my métier. In a family of writers it seemed as well to recognize one’s shortcomings. Lesser attempts were not celebrated. Father and his two surviving brothers used to exchange great essays when we were young, and he would read them aloud in the evenings. He expected amusement and exercised no restraint in passing judgment on those who failed to meet his standards. He was devastated by the invention of the telephone. Blamed it for many of the world’s ills.”
The tapping came again, louder this time, suggestive of movement. A little like the wind sneaking through cracks, blowing grit along surfaces, only heavier somehow. And, I felt certain, coming from above.
I scanned the ceiling, the dull electric light hanging from a graying rose, a lightning-bolt fissure in the plaster. It struck me then that the noise I heard might well be the only warning we were to get that the ceiling’s collapse was forthcoming. “That noise—”
“Oh, you mustn’t mind that,” said Percy Blythe, waving a thin hand. “That’s just the caretakers, playing in the veins.”
I suspect I looked confused; I certainly felt it.
“They’re the best-kept secret in a house as old as this one.”
“The caretakers?”
“The veins.” She frowned, looking up, followed the line of the cornice as if tracing the progress of something I couldn’t see. When she spoke again, her voice was slightly changed. A hairline crack had appeared in her composure, and for a moment I felt that I could see and hear her more clearly. “In a cupboard in a room at the very top of the castle there lies a secret doorway. Behind the doorway is the entrance to an entire scheme of hidden passages. It’s possible to crawl along them, room to room, attic to vault, just like a little mouse. If one goes quietly enough, it’s possible to hear all manner of whispered things, to get lost inside if one isn’t careful. They’re the castle’s veins.”
I shivered, overcome by a sudden and pressing image of the castle as a giant, crouching creature. A dark and nameless beast, holding its breath; the big, old toad of a fairy tale, waiting to trick a maiden into kissing him. I was thinking of the Mud Man, of course, the Stygian, slippery figure emerging from the lake to claim the girl in the attic window.
“When we were girls, Saffy and I liked to play pretend. We imagined that a family of previous owners inhabited the passages and refused to move on. We called them the caretakers, and whenever we heard a noise we couldn’t explain, we knew it must be them.”
“Really?” Barely a whisper.
She laughed at the expression on my face, a strangely humorlessack-ackthat stopped as suddenly as it had started. “Oh, but they weren’treal. Certainly not. Those noises you hear are mice. Lord knows we’ve enough of them.” A twitch at the corner of her eye as she considered me. “I wonder. Would you like to see the cupboard in the nursery that holds the secret door?”
I believe I actually squeaked. “I’d love to.”
“Come along then. It’s quite a climb.”
THEEMPTYATTIC AND THEDISTANTHOURS
SHEwas not exaggerating. The staircase turned in upon itself, doubling back again and again, narrowing and darkening with each flight. Just when I thought I was going to be plunged into a state of utter blindness, Percy Blythe flicked a switch and a bare lightbulb fired dully, swinging on a cord suspended from the ceiling high above. I could see then that at some point in the past a rail had been attached to the wall to assist with the final steep assault. Sometime in the 1950s, I guessed; the metal cylinder had a dull utility feel about it. Whomever and whenever, I saluted. The stairs were perilously worn, all the more so now that I could see them and it was a relief to have something onto which I could clutch. Less happily, the light meant I could also see the webs. No one had been up those stairs in a long time and the castle spiders had noticed.
“Our nurse used to carry a tallow candle when she took us to bed at night,” said Percy, starting up the final flight. “The glow would glance against the stones as we went and she’d sing that song about oranges and lemons. You know it, I’m sure:Here comes a candle to light you to bed.”
Here comes a chopper to chop off your head:yes, I knew it. A gray beard brushed my shoulder, sparking a wave of affection for my plain little shoebox bedroom at Mum and Dad’s. No webs there: just Mum’s biweekly dusting schedule and the reassuring whiff of disinfectant.
