The silence closed over whatever she had been about to say. There was a protectiveness in her posture that made me reluctant to push at it.
She finished helping me unpack quickly after that, filling the silence with practical information about meal times and household routines—avoiding any further mention of Dr. Ambrose’s late wife, and steering our conversation firmly away from his personal life.
“I’ll leave you to settle in properly,” Agnes said, moving toward the door. “When you’re ready, you’ll find Dr. Ambrose in the greenhouse—the one attached to the study. There’s a door just beyond the shelves on the right. I’m sure he's expecting you.”
“Thank you, Agnes.”
She smiled, the gesture reaching her steely eyes. It made my chest ache, and I wondered whether kindness left adifferent shape in the body after death, whether a gentle woman’s heart would look softer in the hand than a cruel one.
“You’re very welcome, dear,” she replied, closing the door behind her.
After she left, I returned to the window and looked out at the greenhouses once more. Glass tombs, I thought, shielding life from an almost certain death.
I touched the velvet at my throat, feeling the phantom pulse beneath it that I had grown accustomed to. At times, I might have sworn something moved there, pressing against the inside of my skin, though I knew such a thing was ridiculous.
It was only my imagination.
The sadness arrived without warning, stronger this time, cresting over me before I could brace for it. It was a deep grief that held no face attached to it, no name, no memory I could hold up to the light and examine. There was only the emotion itself, vast and sourceless, pulling at my chest until it hurt.
I pressed my hand flat against my sternum and held it there until the ache eased enough to carry.
Weeping won’t help us,the voice said, clipped with impatience.
“I know,” I said aloud, to no one in particular.
Forcing myself to turn from the window, I moved to the washstand and freshened up before leaving the room.
The corridor was silent as I made my way toward the stairs, pausing briefly as I passed the door with the brass rose-handle. Did it belong to the late Mrs. Ambrose? Was thisher room, left exactly as she had last occupied it, a shrine to a love that refused to acknowledge death’s finality?
I shook the thought away and continued down the hall. It did not matter. I was here to work, not to pry into my employer’s private grief, nor to disturb whatever things he had hidden behind intriguing doors.
But as I descended the stairs and made my way toward the study and the greenhouse beyond, a low, mournful creak echoed somewhere above.
I paused and glanced back up the darkened stairwell.
There was nothing except the walls settling around me, old timber contracting in the cold—the ordinary sounds of an ancient house.
I continued downward, pushing away the unease that gathered beneath my skin, and tried very hard not to think about doors that opened on their own or about the way dead things sometimes refused to stay buried.
I knew that from experience.
Chapter 4
Ifound my way back to the study easily enough, retracing the path Dr. Ambrose had taken me the previous afternoon.
I ran my fingers along the spines of countless volumes as I followed the line of bookshelves around the room. The door Agnes had mentioned was partially hidden behind a shelf, just as she had described.
I tilted my head at it, wondering how I had missed it the day before. If I was honest with myself, I supposed I had been too overwhelmed by everything else—the pull of the house, the strange familiarity of its rooms, the man who had descended the stairs toward me and seemed to drag half my forgotten past in his wake.
Through the glass, a sea of green nearly burst from the confines of the structure, lit by golden rays of sun.
I pushed the door open and stepped inside, struck at once by the sheer magnitude of flora covering every available inch of the space.
Warmth enveloped me, humid and thick, pressing against my cool skin. The structure was enormous, stretching back deeper than I had expected, its glass ceiling archingoverhead like the nave of a verdant cathedral. Long wooden tables lined the space, crowded with pots and specimens in various stages of growth. The air carried the rich scent of petrichor and flower-sweetness, threaded through with a medicinal note that tugged at the locked places in my memory.
I breathed in deeply, trying to place it, but the hollow spaces in my mind refused to yield their secrets—releasing just enough to torment, never enough to illuminate.
At the far end of the greenhouse, Dr. Ambrose stood with his back to me.
