“Indeed.” She buttered a slice of bread and handed it to me. “As I’m sure you know, there are some that cause unusual effects even without ingestion. He handles themsafely enough, mind you, but it still makes me nervous having such things so close to where we live.”
I thought of the beautiful specimens I had cataloged that afternoon. The casual proximity to danger had never bothered me, but I understood why it might worry someone who lacked the familiarity.
We ate in comfortable silence for a while after that. The soup gave way to roasted chicken with potatoes and winter vegetables, expertly prepared. Agnes clearly took pride in her cooking, and it showed in every perfectly seasoned bite.
“This is delicious,” I said sincerely. “Thank you for going to such trouble.”
“Oh, it’s no trouble at all. It’s nice to have someone to cook for besides Dr. Ambrose. He barely tastes his food half the time, too busy thinking.” She refilled my water glass. “And it’s lovely to have another woman in the house. It gets lonely around here, to be honest. He’s not much for conversation when he’s deep in his work, and Hawthorne—well.”
“How long have you worked here?” I asked, genuinely curious.
“Oh, it must be nearly six years now.” She sat back in her chair with a thoughtful expression, her eyes growing distant as she tapped her chin with one finger. “I came about a year after Dr. Ambrose moved into this house. It was in quite a state when I arrived, I can tell you—dust everywhere, and dishes piled along every surface. He may be a brilliantman, but that intelligence doesn’t extend to keeping himself fed or his floors swept.”
“He was not married then?”
Agnes frowned, her lips pressing into a thin line, and I regretted the question immediately.
“No,” she answered, her voice softer now. “His wife came about two years later.”
“I am sorry, I did not mean to bring up such a delicate subject.”
Agnes shrugged, though the gesture was thin. “You’re curious. It's understandable.”
She rose then to clear our plates, and the conversation folded away with the meal.
“You should get some rest. Tomorrow will be another long day, I expect.”
She strode toward the kitchen, then paused at the door. “And don’t let him overwork you tomorrow. You come find me if he does, and I’ll sort him out properly.”
I smiled at the image of Agnes bearing down on Dr. Ambrose like a governess reclaiming a wayward student from his laboratory, prepared to be entirely unmoved by his objections.
“Thank you, Agnes. For dinner and for being so kind to me.”
“Oh it’s nothing special, just basic human decency.” She waved the gratitude away, though her cheeks went pleasantly pink with it.
I contemplated how long it would take for that color to leave her face if she were to stop breathing. My fingersitched to find out, inching toward the knife resting beside my plate.
I blinked and dragged my twitching hand into my lap.
My companion laughed, then withdrew just as smoothly as it had emerged.
I glanced once more at Hawthorne as I rose. He was still watching me, tracking my movement toward the door—perhaps cataloging information about me for a purpose I could not yet fathom.
Just before I crossed the threshold, I might have sworn recognition moved through that blank stare, as though he knew something about me that I did not.
The thought followed me out of the room.
I climbed the stairs, then paused at the landing.
The corridor was dimly lit by a single oil lamp at the far end, its uncertain flame sending shadows across wallpaper patterned with climbing vines that seemed to shift in the flickering light. The house had good bones, as my father would have said, but it carried the atmosphere of a place that had absorbed both joy and grief, and grown accustomed to holding them simultaneously.
I was nearly past the rose door when I heard a noise.
A gentle susurrus echoed through the hall, barely audible over the house’s settling—like fabric shifting, or a breath drawn very close to the other side of the door.
I froze, listening.
It came again, barely there. It was possibly nothing at all… or possibly exactly what it sounded like.
