Grabbing hold of the broom, since there was little question she’d need to use it in the near future, Drusilla strode for the castle as well, having to resort to shoving her shoulder against a heavy door that still needed oil, but one that led to a mudroom she’d made use of often of late.
After taking a second to wipe her feet, since she’d recently learned how time-consuming mopping a floor was, Drusilla moved into a hallway, passing a music room that had a piano still draped with a linen sheet. Resisting the urge to take a moment to uncover the piano and indulge in playing for an hour or ten, something that always relaxed her, she continued forward, barely glancing at the rooms she passed, having already investigated the library, receiving parlor, sitting room, and morning room.
Stepping into the great hall, she set her sights on Mrs. O’Sullivan and Mr. Grimsby, who were standing beside the enormous fireplace, a ladder propped up against the brick wall of the flue. She made it all of three feet toward them before shecaught sight of Pippin scampering across the room, carrying what seemed to be a large rat in her mouth.
At any other time in her life, a rat-carrying ferret would have seemed rather peculiar, but given the way her life was unfolding of late, it didn’t seem peculiar at all.
Before she could decide if she should address the ferret-carrying-a-rat situation, or pretend she hadn’t seen it and hope she didn’t stumble over a dead rat in the middle of the night, Annaliese came barreling into the room.
“Did you see ...?” was all Annaliese managed to get out of her mouth as she stopped and bent over, trying to catch her breath.
“Pippin’s heading up the stairs.”
“Probably to take that as a present to Mother, since my little darling seems to think Mother’s shrieks are signs of affection,” Annaliese muttered before she gulped a breath of air and took off, yelling for Pippin to stop at the top of her lungs as she took the steps two at a time.
“Mrs. Merriweather will never come out of that room if she realizes there truly are rats in here,” Mrs. O’Sullivan said with a sad shake of her head, drawing Drusilla’s attention.
“I’m sure she won’t, but that’ll be a problem for another day as it appears that you and Mr. Grimsby were inspecting that fireplace without me.”
“We’re not inspecting, simply pondering the situation,” Mr. Grimsby said, who’d been the Merriweather butler for well over twenty years. “We got the damper fully opened, but it does seem as if something’s blocking the flue because no light is getting through.”
“What do you think it is?” Drusilla asked.
“Hard to say, but I’ll know better once I get up the ladder.”
“We’ve already been over this. I’m doing the inspection because you have a bad hip and Mrs. O’Sullivan is afraid of heights.”
Ignoring that Mr. Grimsby had taken to muttering something about how it wasn’t right that a proper lady was being forced to take on the role of chimney sweep because of his rather advanced age and bad hip, Drusilla set her sights on what turned out to be a very tall ladder and began climbing up the flue.
After reaching the top of the ladder, Drusilla stretched her arms above her head and poked what appeared to be a collection of twigs that had gotten lodged in the chimney.
“Did you find anything?” Mr. Grimsby called.
“I think it’s some type of nest, but watch out below because I’m going to attempt to dislodge it,” she called as she gave the twigs another poke, stilling when a rustle of wings captured her attention.
Less than a heartbeat later, a chorus ofkraasbegan echoing eerily around the flue, right before something fluttered directly above her head and then landed on it, the unexpectedness of that leaving Drusilla losing her grip on the ladder and plummeting toward the ground.
Fifteen
A sense of self-preservation had Drusilla snagging hold of the ladder during her rapid downward descent, the velocity of which bounced her off one side of the flue and then the other. Thankfully, the bouncing didn’t continue for long, but her shoulder felt ready to pull straight from its socket as she dangled for what seemed like forever until she finally got a foot on one of the rungs.
Before she could do more than appreciate that she’d managed to avoid a fall that could have seen her suffering a broken limb or worse, something began pecking at her head, eliciting a shriek from her, which spoke volumes regarding her current situation since she’d never resorted to shrieking before, not even when Anthony Sternman had put a frog down the back of her dress when she was all of ten years old.
Abandoning all thoughts of past frog misdeeds when the pecking began intensifying, Drusilla scrambled down the ladder, releasing her hold on it and dropping the remaining few feet to the fireplace floor when the pecking turned downright painful.
As far as descents went,gracefulwas not a word that sprang to mind, especially when she landed in a crumpled heap of what had been pristine ivory muslin at the beginning of the day, the pristineness disappearing the moment she hit the fireplace floor, her impact causing soot to billow up around her.
Any concern for her gown disappeared when she turned her head to the right and discovered a large raven peering back at her with eyes that seemed to be glittering with a great deal of malice. The malice observation was proven a second later when the bird darted forward, pecked her head, released a croak, then launched itself out of the fireplace with a flutter of black wings. Before she could breathe a sigh of relief over that fortunate situation, additional fluttering noises began reverberating down the chimney right before an entire unkindness of ravens whooshed down the flue and over her head.
It was quickly becoming clear why someone at some point in time had aptly named a group of ravens exactly that.
“Run!” she heard Mrs. O’Sullivan yell, but knowing it would hardly be a prudent move to stand when that would probably have numerous ravens flying into her, Drusilla crawled her way over the stones of the fireplace, then across the hearth, edging downward onto the cold, hard floor of the great hall as ravens continued to swirl over her.
“Keep down, Miss Drusilla,” Mrs. O’Sullivan called. “I’ll be right back with a broom and...”
Whatever else Mrs. O’Sullivan was saying got lost when the ravens began swooping directly over Drusilla, a few of them getting in pecks as they swooped, quite as if they’d figured out she was the one responsible for disturbing their nest and were keen to seek a bit of retribution.
Wincing when a raven landed on her back and sunk its beak into her neck, she rolled to her side in an attempt to dislodge it, stilling when a loud “Shoo” scared the bird away right before someone scooped her up from the floor.
