I pause to listen, my breath rasping hollowly. There’s no response, but on the opposite side of the room, I sense movement and hear a faint rustling and scratching—the same sounds I heard last night. “Hello?”
I take two tentative steps forward and stop, my heart stuttering with shock as my eyes adjust. A man is sitting there, at a rolltop desk tucked against the wall. At first, I think Beckett somehow got past me and into the attic, but he couldn’t have without my knowing. This man is taller, broad shouldered. Older than Beckett. He’s writing, his pen flying across the surface of the paper, his silhouette limned with light. I wonder whether he’s one of the household servants I’ve yet to meet. If so, we’ll need to have a conversation about my privacy. I glance over at my unmade bed, my silk slip hung carelessly over the iron frame. This attic is my room now. He shouldn’t be up here.
“Hello. I’m looking for Marguerite,” I say crisply. “Have you seen her?”
The man turns, a slow smile forming on his face. “You must be the new hire. I saw you arrive yesterday.”
“I’m ... I’m not the help. I’m Marguerite’s grandniece. She’s gone missing. Have you seen her?”
“Marguerite goes missing often. You’ll have to get used to that.” His eyes glimmer in the half-lit room, flashing a devious, dark gray. “You might check the west turret. She likes to go there to read. There are hidden stairs behind one of the shelves in the library. Look for the red edition of Joyce’sUlysses, facing out.”
His manner is haughty, bordering on arrogant, yet I find myself riveted to the spot. There’s something strangely familiar about him—as if we met at some point in the past. He holds my gaze for a moment, then turns back to his writing. “Run along. Find her quickly now, before they all go into a panic.”
His dismissive tone rankles me, but I do just that, rushing back down the stairs and toward the long hallway to the back of the house, where the two-story library sits, its tall windows framing expansive views of the valley below. It’s one of the few rooms I remember well from the games of hide-and-seek I played here as a child. There are so many places to hide in this room, with its shadowed alcoves and heavy furniture, but I never knew about any secret stairs. I scan the shelves for the book the man mentioned—Ulysses—and find it, the leatherbinding a brilliant carmine red. I take it off the shelf and see a brass lever in the shape of a beckoning hand behind it. When I push down on the lever, the entire shelf swings open with a tired groan, revealing a twisting staircase leading up. A single set of footprints marks the dust on the treads. Marguerite’s, I hope. I pause before going up, the stale air heavy in my lungs.
When I reach the top, my eyes widen in awe. Fractured light rains down on the floor from above, where a ceiling of steeply pitched glass catches the sunlight. The heat is fierce in this small space. Stifling. Marguerite stands before an arched picture window, looking out at the landscape below. The room is lined with bookshelves, but sparsely furnished otherwise, with only a cushioned, low bench under the window and a wingback chair. A covered easel stands at the center of the room. I resist the urge to lift the cloth covering it, and quietly cross the room to stand behind Marguerite, clearing my throat.
Marguerite turns, blinking slowly. “Hello,” she says. “Who are you?”
“I’m Sadie, remember? We had breakfast together, just this morning.”
“Sadie,” Marguerite says, testing out my name. “I thought it was Sybil.”
“You’ve given us all a fright. We’d no idea where to find you.”
Marguerite frowns. “Find me? Why? I’m not lost. This is my home.”
I smile, start again. “Yes, but ... we all still worry about you. The man in the attic told me about this room. He said I might find you here.”
Marguerite’s eyes flash. “What man?”
“I didn’t catch his name. Dark hair. Handsome. He was at the desk upstairs, writing. Is he one of your staff?”
Marguerite suddenly grasps my wrists, her bony fingers digging into my skin. I try to pull away, but she holds me fast. “You’ve seen him. Thatbeast. I knew you would. Listen here, girl, stay far, far away from that man. Do you hear me? He’s worse than any devil.”
Chapter 6
My nerves are still a mess when I go out to meet Beckett that evening. Between the search for Marguerite and her strange admonition about the man in the attic, I’m feeling fretful and out of sorts. When I went upstairs to dress for dinner, the unsettling sensation of being watched persisted, although the man was gone. The rolltop desk he’d been seated at was covered with cloth and there wasn’t a thing out of place indicating anyone else had intruded. Still, I’d unfolded the screen in the corner and undressed behind it for my own peace of mind.
As Melva cleared the table after dinner, I asked her if she knew anything about the man I saw.
“Yes. That man. The other maids talked about him,” Melva said, brushing breadcrumbs from the tablecloth. “They said he’s so real you’d likely feel flesh if you touched him.”
“He seemed real enough to me. We had a whole conversation. Is he a neighbor? Another servant?”
“No. He’s neither.” Melva looked away, her eyes hooded. “Miss Thorne says there are spirits here, though I’ve never seen anything myself. I suppose he must be one of them.”
A shiver ran through me like cold spring water. “You’re saying he’s a ghost?”
“Yes, miss.”
Now, as I cross the lawn, I willfully turn my mind from ghosts to temporal matters. Haunted or not, this is my home now, and I’m eagerto meet with Beckett and survey the entirety of the property and get a sense of what any future inheritance might entail.
The fountain plays merrily, water streaming forth with a musical sound—proof that Beckett succeeded at his morning chore. Being near the fountain feels pleasant, a cooling respite from the heat. I perch on the edge of the basin and wait, watching the sun slide behind the house. My grandmother would have frowned at my meeting with a man—much less a servant—unchaperoned. But times are changing. Girls much younger than I go out alone with men now. Petting parties are all the rage, Victorian morals having swiftly fallen by the wayside after the war. Besides, I’m hardly a blushing maid, and there’s no risk of anything romantic happening with Beckett.
I lift my wrist, eyeing my watch. Nearly seven thirty. I rise and pace around the fountain, trailing a finger idly in the water. I’m making my third circuit around the fountain when I glimpse Beckett in the distance. I note his change of clothing immediately. He’s no longer in his workaday clothes but a freshly pressed pair of linen trousers and a striped oxford with a crisp collar, a tie knotted at his neck. As he closes the distance between us, I see he’s even combed his hair and oiled it, the sheen of pomade catching the warm evening light. From the cut of his clothes, my aunt must pay him a healthy wage, indeed. Once more, my suspicions rise.
“Have I kept you waiting too long, Miss Halloran?”
