Terence held her gaze for a moment, something abstruse burbling in his eyes’ dark depths, before murmuring a gentle, “I do not know. I’d rather not think of it.”
The carriage rocked as it continued down the road, kicking up thick mud beneath its wheels. The road was long and thin, being only wide enough to fit a single carriage, as it wound its way through the marshes to what the locals had christened, according to Terence, “the Drowning House.”
Jane had wondered why they would’ve called it that, but then she saw the approaching hill that arose from the water before them. Atop it was a house jutting upward from the earth with the lopsidedness of a cracked incisor. The closer they got, the more sparse the crosses became, as if whoever had been planting them was too afraid to dare take a step closer to the house. Jane gripped the knife even tighter as they passed the final cross, a rather primitive one made of sticks and twine. What had made the house so horrible in the first place that not even some vandal armed with crucifixes felt safe enough to approach?
And why areweapproaching?
Rain pattered against the carriage as it rolled to a stop before a set of stone steps, and Jane stared up at the house with a seedling of disappointment planted in her belly. It looked painfully ordinary, with what appeared to be rot gnawing away at the brick siding, darkening the exterior with some blank, moldering infection.
The house was two stories high and geometric in shape, with four windows on the first floor, four on the second, and a modest turret extended upward from its eastern wing. On its backside were arched, protruding windows that hinted at a conservatory, or even a greenhouse. Also behind the house was a wilted garden and a small bundle of trees that Jane supposed was a forest. Too many ravens roosted in the bare branches in cawing bundles of night-colored feathers.
“Welcome to the Drowning House,” Terence said, offering her an apologetic smile. He must’ve caught the instinctual curl of her lip because he sighed. “I wish I were able to present you with something more grand. But I can assure you that it isn’t so terrible once you’re inside.”
He stepped from the carriage, hunched his shoulders to shield himself from the rain, and held out a hand to Jane.
Very softly, he whispered, “Watch your step,” as she hopped down to join him on the wet, hungry earth. She resisted a wince as mud stained the pastel pink of her skirts. The dampness from the mud was already seeping through her boots, her stockings, deep into her flesh.
“The place is huge,” she remarked, allowing Terence to usher her toward it. They left Ruben to bring the mare (who he had introduced as “Mistletoe” when Jane asked) and carriage to the stables on a corner of the property. “Has it always been in your family?”
Terence opened the door and stepped aside so she may enter first once she finished cleaning the mud from her boots with the iron scraper just outside the threshold.
“I do not know, unfortunately. It has just always…beenhere, from a time before even my father was a boy, I think,” he said. “A phantom that rose from the marshes’ depths, is what the locals say.That is why they call it the Drowning House: it is a house that is, or at least once was, perpetually drowning in the swamp.”
Jane only nodded to his words as she looked around the entrance hall. The place was immaculate in its cleanliness, with floors so newly washed that the smell of vinegar and lemon juice lingered in the air, and was illuminated by frosted glass sconces. She hated the wallpaper, which was a sad shade of periwinkle-blue. She never really liked blue as a color, it reminded her too much of the isolation of oceans and lakes—it was a color that inspired only feelings of loneliness. That was how she would describe the Drowning House thus far: lonely, and perhaps even artificial in how clean it was.
She grimaced whilst running a finger along the paper’s flowering, leafy pattern, and instead found herself tracing what felt like a deep groove beneath the paper. Too deep, too long, too parallel with the trimming to be a simple rotting of the wood, especially when she splayed her fingers against the wall and each of her four fingers found themselves almost perfectly nestled in more of the marks. Jane couldn’t help but speculate that they had been clawed in by an animal.
An opossum or a raccoon in the walls, perhaps? Did England even have such critters?
She retracted, then, and eyed the faint indentations in the wallpaper, camouflaged by its pattern.
“I would’ve half-expected this place to be positively riddled with damp and mold,” she said.That is to say, it already isn’t so underneath all that pretty paper.
Terence laughed a bit, more to ease tension rather than out of genuine merriment, when he offered to take her coat. “Oh, believe me, Jane, this house isn’t impervious to damp. I am just particular about cleanliness.”
The jangling of metal and many keys announced her arrival long before a woman with a hawkish demeanor and pale gray hair tucked beneath a bonnet joined them in the hall. The smile she offered Jane was tight and showed little of her teeth, but her brown eyes held a kind warmth that unraveled the tension knotted between Jane’s shoulders. A chatelaine jangled chunkily at her hip with every step she took, and when she stopped she clasped her hands before her. An overabundance of lace frills frothed from the woman’s sleeves, hiding all but her fingertips.
“And such wouldn’t be so if it weren’t for the marvelous work of our own Mrs. Foster,” Terence said warmly as he at last shucked off his coat.
“You flatter me, Mr. Hayes,” the woman said, eyes shining as she then turned to Jane. She briefly squinted when she must’ve noticed Jane’s shortly-cropped hair, but her friendliness did not falter. “We were informed that you were to be visiting for the day so we have everything all prepared for you in the sitting room. Ms. Hudson should have tea ready if you’re at all in need of a refreshment, Miss Sterling.”
“Thank you, that is very kind of you,” Jane said.
Jane didn’t know what to expect with the staff of this house, whether they’d be cold like the villagers or some bent-back hags birthed by the marshes with fungus sprouting from between their teeth, but it certainly wasn’t this. It was welcoming and embraced her like a hug as Mrs. Foster led her down the hall behind the main stair and into a sitting room pleasantly heated by kindling in the fireplace. In one corner was a harpsichord, sitting opposite a set of armchairs, walls lined with neat bookshelves, and tall, latticed windows that opened to the yawning expanse of the marshes.
By the windows, Mrs. Foster and Terence presented Jane with a small desk, and atop that desk was an assortment of rocksset in as straight of a line as the organizer could muster.
However, Jane was instead drawn to the fireplace, and the little artifact situated atop it. Right in its center was a small statue, cast in gold to be in the shape of an erect humanoid with a veil draped over a misshapen, oblong head. She thought it to be an ugly little thing to have as a sole piece of decor.
Wishing to get a better look, she reached to grab it, but a hand on her shoulder pulled her away just as her fingertips grazed the statue. A spark coursed through her fingers, up her arm, and into her chest when she turned to see Terence behind her.
“The fossils, Jane,” he said and nodded to the desk.
“The fossils?” Jane asked but then remembered one of the reasons why she begged to be here. She realized that probably made her appear even less of a professional, and she coughed out a haughty, “Oh, yes, of course—the fossils!” to stifle the blush that rose into her ears.
She crossed the room while shaking the tingling from her fingers and thoughts of the idol from her mind.
Terence hummed as he approached the desk beside her, lightly unfolding a crumpled corner of the cloth the rocks laid on.
