At the top of the page, the artist had writtenIt’s Rose’s birthday! Can’t believe it’s been another year already.
I sat down cross-legged in front of the chest, possum forgotten, and paged through the sketchbook. Mrs. Kent again, with her husband this time, both of them shown laughing together, faces detailed, framed by quick lines that suggested arms around each other’s shoulders. I’d never seen Mrs. Kent laugh like that in person.
The artist had captured Halder as well, in a dozen poses, mostly at his desk. The lines in his face were as deep as ever, and none of his expressions looked terribly pleased. The artist didn’t seem pleased either, because they had crossed out several of the drawings and hadn’t painted in any of them. Nor had they written anything next to the drawings, which struck me as odd, because the rest of the sketchbook was full of dashed-off comments, the sort that the artist never expects anyone else to read. Some of them were dated, most were not.
Wet today, stuck inside.
March 14th— Trillium up!
Went to town today. Horses outside general store.
Church very, very long today, saw these flowers outside, couldn’t wait to draw them.
Ugh, can’t draw at all today.(That last accompanied a handful of crossed-out sketches, and made me sigh with recognition. We all have those days.)
I turned pages slowly. Trees were interspersed with drawings of faces, sketches of hands, horses, wagons, even a remarkably detailed painting of an apple. Exactly the sort of thing that’s in my sketchbooks, honestly. It felt familiar and slightly intimidating all at once. My predecessor was just so damngood. I took some small comfort that her drawing of trillium was not as good as one of mine would be, but her humans were a good deal better.
The last half of the book seemed to be full of sketches that could only be Smiley as a kitten. I turned back to the beginning, to the very first page.
Property of Louisa Halder
Halder House, Chatham
If found, I beg you, of Christian charity, to return this volume.
1893
I stared at the name blankly.Louisa Halder? As in Dr. Halder?
Was I here to replace a daughter? A sister? A maiden aunt?
In my mind, I heard Mrs. Kent, the first night. “He won’t marry you.”
My god. Did he hire me to replace his wife?
“Miss Wilson?” Jackson’s voice was muffled through the door. “Rose sent me up to deal with a possum?”
“Yes! Sorry!” I scrambled to my feet and opened the door for him. He glanced around the room with mild interest, including the stack of sketchbooks beside the trunk, but didn’t comment. I was glad to see that he was wearing heavy leather gloves.
“It’s on the balcony.” I showed him the broken pane and then the pitiful body beside it.
“Lord have mercy.” He squatted down and studied the smear of blood and hair on the window. “Never heard of a possum doing this. If it was stuck inside, maybe, trying to get out, but from this side…”
“Seemed more like it was trying to get in,” I said, and then immediately wished I hadn’t said that out loud at all.
“Yeah,” he said, shoving his hat back from his forehead. “Yeah, it… yeah.” He shook his head. “Right. Well, I’ll take it away and then fix that window up for you. Rose said the body ought to be burned?”
“In case it has some disease,” I said firmly. “And be careful handling it yourself, please.”
“Right. I’ll go get some burlap.” He shook his head. “Poor devil. Wonder if it was trying to bash the wolf worm out.”
I froze halfway over the threshold to the studio. “What did you say?”
“It had wolf worm.” Jackson glanced up at me. “Three of ’em, looks like.”
I did not want to spend any more time looking at that poor, bloodied rag of a body, but if there was an explanation for the creature’s behavior, I had to have it. I stepped back out onto the balcony. “Wolf worm?” Why did that sound familiar?
“Here.” He pointed to the deflated tumor on the side of the creature’s face. The wound gaped like a small red mouth. “It was all curled up inside here, then it must have hatched out. And there’s another one back here, right on the back of its head.” The possum flopped loosely as he turned it over with his boot. “You see ’em on the squirrels around here sometimes. Doesn’t usuallykill ’em, but they’re not usually right on the head like this.” He scratched his head. “Might’ve been pressing on its brain or something.”
