He stopped in his tracks just a foot away and pushed out a small laugh.
It was then when Jane supposed she must have resembled some sort of bog-pixie with her wind-tossed, short hair and face freckled with mud. Her nose wrinkled with a scowl.
“That’s enough—” she grumbled as she scrubbed at her cheek with the back of her hand and flicked the dirt in his direction.
Like pouring water on a fire, his laughter died, but he failed to hide a restrained grin as he held up his coat. “In case you require further warmth. And—” his eyes traced the splattering of dirt and earth that painted the length of her body “—I can have another bath drawn for you if you’d like.”
She didn’t stop him from draping the coat across her shoulders, and her cheeks flushed when he brushed mud from her hair.
“Thank you,” she mumbled, wrapping herself tightly in it.It smelled like him, with his scent of rain, bergamot, and lemon oil. She found herself leaning into it with a grateful sigh. “I didn’t anticipate it being so cold. I may be a midwestern girl at heart but I’m not bred well enough to withstand such… dreary conditions.”
“It must be that midwest blood of yours that drew you to the woods, then? Is it true that your part of America has deep, vast woodland? I’ve heard of the timber industry there, in the north, but was unsure of how true the stories were.”
“Not as much now as a century ago, but yes, there are much and many trees. They say that before Europeans came, a squirrel could traverse from one side of the state to the other without ever touching the ground,” Jane said, allowing his conversation to distract her from the bone-shaped thing she’d seen in the woods—the horrible paw prints along the water, the depressions between the graves, the claw marks on her door. “I must say, though, I’ve never been too enthused by your English forests. They always seem so… grim. Cold. Back home, I felt like I had company in the woods. Here, I only feel like I’m being watched. We certainly don’t have creatures that leave paw prints likethat.” Using the toe of her boot, she gestured to the tracks circling the cemetery.
Beside her, shefeltTerence go utterly still.
“Jane…” he started.
“I found more along the water, and I think whatever did this clawed up the guest room door something fierce. I was hoping you could tell me—”
“Y-Your door, Jane?” Terence’s voice adopted a croaking shudder as a sallow pallor crept into his cheeks. He looked as though he would vomit.
She nodded. “I was afraid whatever it was—whether it be some dog or a fox—would break in and—”
“Your door—show it to me, please.”
When Jane brought him to the guest room door, her stomach dropped as Terence appeared even paler, more sick, with his mouth drawn into a tight line and eyes narrowed in a way that hinted at fighting down tears. He was as still as he was silent, save for his throat bobbing with a harsh swallow.
It was not the composure she wanted him to have. Despite the timidness of his nature, he was a big man who seemed like he was supposed to be unafraid of anything. To see him slack-jawed and shivering at splintered wood curdled something in her otherwise hollowed gut. How was she supposed to fling herself into his arms for protection if he seemed more frightened than she was?
“I wasn’t sure as to what may have caused this,” Jane cleared her throat. “I was thinking that an animal must’ve broken in, to shelter from the rain. A raccoon, maybe, or perhaps some sort of fox—”
His hand shook as he held it up to the fissures carved into the floorboards, his fingers curling into the shapes of claws seemingly out of instinct before he pulled back with a seething whimper. The same hand raked through his hair and he released a ragged breath.
In that moment, Jane decided she didn’t like seeing his hair rumpled, and she refrained from reaching forward to rearrange the dark-and-silver strands that’d fallen into his face.
Instead, she tentatively cleared her throat and she started again, “See, I was just wondering if you or the staff had a dog because—”
He suddenly seized her by the shoulders, rousing a yelp out of her. “Jane, I… I am sorry.”
The distress in his eyes bordered on insanity.
She winced. When she tried to shake from his grip, it failed to yield. “What for? This isn’tmydoor—”
He continued with another gasp that rattled between his teeth, “I have tried my hardest to keep you safe from it, but there is an evil in this house I’ve no control over, and now it seeks to haunt us both.”
CHAPTER
Seven
Jane didn’t know what to make of what Terence had said, but she knew it left her ill at ease. So much so that she struggled to focus on—well, anything, as she already identified Terence’s fossils to the best of her abilities. Her mind was but a slurry of thoughts and indistinguishable emotions as she worried a thumb over her trilobite locket.
She didn’t have a chance to ask him what he meant because before she could even open her mouth to form words he released her and retreated to some other part of the house, leaving her to stand alone in the hallway, mouth hanging open, until Mrs. Foster came to insist that she bathe away the crusted mud.
After her bath and another change in wardrobe (which was another faded dress with a tail of pleated fabric running down herbackside), and after Terence finally emerged from his hiding spot an hour or so later, they joined one another in the sitting room.
Jane tried to keep busy at the desk, mindlessly tapping at the fossils with the tip of a pen while the other hand pressed its thumb against the trilobite, memorizing the ridges of its ancient exoskeleton.
