House of Salt and Sorrows

by Erin A. Craig

  I opened my mouth, willing anything to come out, but words failed me.

  He stepped in closer as a pair of fishermen barreled down the pier, a heavy crate balanced between them. “Actually, perhaps you could be of some assistance?”

  My guard shot up. Papa always cautioned us to be on the lookout for pickpockets and thieves when outside Highmoor. Perhaps returning my coin was merely a ruse to swindle me out of greater sums.

  “I’m new here and was looking for the captain.”

  I squinted, keeping a wary eye on his hands. Papa said many were so skilled in the art of thievery, they could steal the rings from your fingers without you being the wiser.

  “It’s a large wharf,” I stated, gesturing to the dozens of boats around us. “With many captains.”

  He smiled guilelessly, his cheeks betraying a trace of his chagrin, and I thought perhaps his intentions were pure. “Yes, of course. I’m looking for Captain Corum. Captain Walter Corum.”

  I shrugged, wishing the light in his eyes didn’t fluster me. After so many years of being locked away at Highmoor, I had almost no experience with men. Even speaking with Papa’s valet, Roland, for more than a question or two left me a rosy, stammering mess.

  I pointed toward the marketplace farther down the harbor. “Someone there will know.”

  The stranger’s eyes dimmed a touch, his disappointment evident. “But not you?”

  “I’m not from Selkirk.”

  He turned to go.

  “Are you to sail for him?” The question burst out too loudly. “For Captain Corum?”

  He shook his head. “He’s sick. With scarlet fever. I’ve come to take care of him.”

  “Is he very ill, then?”

  He shrugged. “I suppose I’ll find out soon enough.”

  I remembered how everyone gathered at Ava’s sickbed when she fell ill. The room was kept dark, the curtains shut tight against the light. The healers said to heat the plague out of her body, and it grew unbearably stuffy with the fires stoked as high as Papa dared. Even so, Ava’s teeth chattered so loudly, I feared they’d crack apart, falling from her bloodied lips like hailstones raining down.

  But the stranger didn’t look like a healer. He was made to be on a ship, high above the sea in the crow’s nest, halfway to the stars. I could picture the wind tugging at his dark curls as he scanned the horizon for adventures.

  “I hope he’s soon on the mend,” I offered, my hands fumbling, unsure of what they were supposed to be doing. “I’ll say a prayer to Pontus tonight for a swift recovery.”

  “That’s very kind of you…” He trailed off, clearly seeking my name.

  “Annaleigh.”

  His mouth curved into a smile, and my breath caught as a bundle of nerves fluttered deep within me.

  “Annaleigh,” he repeated, and on his tongue my name sounded full and lush, like a line of poetry or a hymn.

  “Thaumas,” I added, though he didn’t ask. I sounded like a staggering simpleton and wanted to sink into the waves.

  His eyes lit up, as if he recognized my surname, and I wondered if he knew Papa. “Annaleigh. Thaumas.” His grin deepened. “Beautiful.” He swept into a deep bow, holding his arm out like a gallant courtier. “I hope our paths soon cross again.”

  Before I could voice my surprise, he’d left and was halfway down the busy pier, ducking around another approaching crate.

  “Wait!” I cried out, and he paused, turning back.

  His face was painted in unexpected pleasure as he waited for me to continue.

  Though my cheeks warmed, I stepped closer. “I can show you the way to the marketplace…if you like.”

  He glanced toward the covered stalls several docks down from where we stood. “That marketplace over there?”

  His light tone suggested he was teasing, but my stomach writhed in its foolishness. I forced myself to smile. “Yes, well, I’m sure you’ll be able to find your way.” I nodded once. “Good day…” I didn’t know his name, and the farewell felt open-ended. “Sir,” I added, two seconds too late.

  As I retreated toward my dinghy, my face burned scarlet. Suddenly I felt a hand slip loosely around my wrist, twirling me to face the handsome stranger once more. I grabbed his forearm to steady myself. He seemed taller somehow, and I noticed a thin, crescent-shaped scar on his temple. I knew I was staring and quickly took two steps backward, allowing for the proper amount of space between us.

  “Cassius,” he supplied. “My name is Cassius.”

  “Oh.”

  He offered the crook of his elbow. “I’d be very grateful for your assistance in finding the marketplace. It’s my first time on Selkirk, and I’d hate to get lost.”

  “It is an awfully large wharf,” I said, peering about the marina as if it had tripled in size.

  “Will you help me, then, Miss Thaumas?” His eyes danced, his face about to break into another grin.

  “I suppose I ought to.”

  He led us down another dock, taking a left, then a right, then a left again, drawing out the short walk.

  “So you’re a healer?” I asked, skirting a coil of rope. The wharves were quickly filling up with fishermen hauling out for the day. “You said you were here to take care of your friend?”

  “My father,” he clarified. “And no. I’ve no special training. Just familial devotion…familial obligation, really.” His smile turned stiff. “This will be our first time meeting, I’m afraid.” He ducked toward me to avoid a catch of lobster traps that had been hoisted onto the dock from a nearby boat. Leaning in, he whispered conspiratorially, “You see, Miss Thaumas, I’m a bastard.”

  He said this with a devil-may-care recklessness, intending to shock me.

  “That doesn’t matter,” I responded honestly. “It shouldn’t matter what your parents did, just what you do as a person.”

  “Very generous of you. I wish more shared your opinion.”

  We took a final turn, coming directly off the pier and into the marketplace. Tables and booths were set up under makeshift canopies, shielding the fresh catches from the unforgiving rays of the sun. A light breeze kept the worst of the smells at bay, but there was a sharp underlying tang of gutted fish that no amount of wind could clear.

  “Well”—I gestured to the stalls—“this is it. I’m sure any of the fishmongers can show you where he lives. It’s a small community. Everyone knows everyone.”

  After the words left my mouth, I saw how true they were. As we wandered into the crowd, eyes fell on us, instantly recognizing me as the Duke’s daughter. Though most of the merchants had the decency to murmur behind discreetly raised hands, I could still hear their whispered accusations.

  “That’s that Thaumas girl.”

  “Such a shame about…”

  “…not even dead a month…”

  “…cursed…”

  The hairs on the back of my neck bristled at the mention of the curse. It was a foolish rumor, but rumors had a way of morphing into something big and ugly. I didn’t know if Cassius noticed I was too embarrassed to meet his gaze.

  “What’s she wearing? It’s not even gray….”

  “…make her leave…”

  “…she’ll bring their bad luck to us…”

  “Hey! You there!” a voice rang out over the murmured buzz. “You shouldn’t be here!”

  “I have to go,” I said, releasing my hold on his arm. The urge to run from the whispers overpowered any desire I had to stay with him. “I hope you find your father and he gets well soon!”

  “But—Annaleigh!”

  Before he could stop me, I turned on my heel and sprinted back to the safety of my dinghy. I needed to be out on the water, out among the waves. I needed the sea breezes to push the building panic from me, needed the rhythmic pull of the ocean swells to set my mind ri
ght again.

  We weren’t cursed.

  Hopping down into my boat, I tried to cast the crowd’s whispers from me. But they lingered in my mind, echoing and growing until the handful of fishmongers became a jeering crowd, then a mob, with torches and knives.

  I stood on tiptoes, peering over the planks of the dock to see if anyone had followed me. A small part of me hoped Cassius had, but this end of the marina was quiet. He was back in the marketplace, probably receiving an earful on the Thaumas sisters. My heart sank low as I pictured his golden smile fading away when he learned of the ghoulish passings at Highmoor.

  Though the only one to see my foolishness was a little fiddler crab skittering along the planks, my face flushed. I didn’t know Cassius, but I couldn’t bear the thought he might be thinking ill of me.

  “Don’t be absurd.” I hastily untied my rope from the dock and pushed off. “He was nothing more than a skilled flirt, and you have bigger things to worry about.”

  Out of the harbor, I paused to splash a handful of water over my heated face. There were bigger things to worry about.

  What had the inscription in the locket meant? Eulalie, a blushing bride?

  It didn’t make any sense. Though she’d had many suitors, none of them had ever proposed.

  Had they?

  Frowning, I set the oars against the waves. There were only two reasons Eulalie wouldn’t have told us about a fiancé.

  It was either someone Papa would never have approved of…

  Or someone Eulalie didn’t.

  My imagination pounced then, conjuring up Eulalie’s fateful last night. She must have been meeting this would-be suitor, rebuffing his advances, telling him they could never be together. They quarreled and tempers rose, flaring to a feverish pitch, until he shoved her from the cliffs. Had he thrown the locket after her to erase the evidence of his unrequited desire? I pictured her falling through the air, the look of confusion on her face turning to horror as she realized there was no escaping this, no way to go back and make it right. Had she screamed before smashing into the rocks?

  A wave struck the side of my dinghy, slapping me back to the present with a gasp. Though it was all conjecture, I felt I was on the right path.

  My sister’s death had not been an accident. It had not been part of some dark curse.

  She was murdered.

  And I was going to prove it.

  Creak.

  Creak.

  Creeeeeeeak.

  My fingers were on the handle of Eulalie’s desk drawer when I heard the floorboard in the hallway and froze, my heart high in my throat, certain I was about to be caught. While there was no actual rule about not entering our departed sisters’ rooms, it didn’t feel like the kind of thing I wanted anyone to know about. A flood of possible excuses crashed into my head like a tidal wave to the shore, each sounding weak and unbelievable.

  When no one raced into the room and accused me of trespassing, I tiptoed to the door and peered out into the hallway.

  It was empty.

  With a sigh of relief, I quietly shut the door and studied Eulalie’s room, wondering where to look next.

  When I returned from Selkirk, I found a nearly empty house. Morella had taken the triplets to Astrea again, and the Graces were still at their lessons with Berta. A series of erroneous notes clunked loudly from the Blue Room’s piano as Camille practiced a new solo. With everyone preoccupied, it was the perfect time to slip into Eulalie’s room and search for something to prove my theory of a scorned lover.

  In her absence, everything had straightened into an orderly neatness she would have hated in life. Books were stacked into tidy towers on her writing desk, not strewn about at the end of her chaise. The floor was remarkably free of clothes, and white drop cloths covered most of the furniture.

  I wandered around the room, unsure what to look for until I spotted the tall pedestal near the window. A maidenhair fern, now wilting and in desperate need of attention, languished on it, concealing a hidden drawer I remembered Ava once mentioning. Eulalie kept her most beloved treasures within it.

  After several moments of poking and prodding, I discovered a lever and released it to reveal a cache of objects. I pulled out three slim volumes, hoping they were diaries filled with accounts of her days and secrets. Skimming the first few pages, I saw they were novels Papa had forbidden her to read, citing passages too graphic for young ladies’ eyes. I set the books aside, oddly pleased she had read them anyway.

  At the bottom of the drawer was an assortment of hair ribbons, jewelry, and a pretty little pocket watch. I opened it and found a lock of hair tied together with a bit of copper wire. Twisting it between my fingers, I wondered at its color. When Mama and our sisters died, we all received snips of their hair to keep in memory books or braid into mourning jewelry, but this lock was a pale blond, almost white, far too light to have come from a Thaumas head. I slipped it into my pocket to mull over later.

  There was also a vial of perfume and a handkerchief too devoid of embroidery and lace to have come from Eulalie’s collection. It singed my nostrils, reeking of a particularly strong pipe smoke.

  “What are you doing?” a voice called out, startling me.

  I jumped, dropping the handkerchief. It fluttered to the floor like a butterfly at first frost. Heart pounding, I snapped my head toward the doorway, where Verity stood, sketchbook in hand. Her short chestnut curls were swept back with a large bow, and her pinafore was already dusty with pastels. I let out a sigh of relief, grateful I’d not been caught by Papa.

  “Nothing. Aren’t you supposed to be in the classroom?”

  She shrugged. “Honor and Mercy are helping Cook with petits fours for the ball. Berta didn’t want to teach just me.” She nodded toward the triplets’ room across the hall. “I wanted to see if Lenore would sit for a portrait.”

  “They’re out with Morella. Final fittings on their dresses.” I shifted, letting my back close the pedestal’s door.

  Her mouth pursed into a rosebud as she studied me. “I don’t think Eulalie will like you being in there.”

  “Eulalie isn’t here anymore, Verity.”

  She blinked once.

  “Why don’t you go see if Cook needs more help?” I suggested. “I bet she’ll let you taste the icing.”

  “Are you borrowing something?”

  “Not exactly.” I stood up, letting my skirts cover the handkerchief.

  “Did you come in here to cry?”

  “What?”

  She shrugged. “Papa does sometimes. In Ava’s. He thinks no one knows about it, but I hear him at night.”

  Ava’s room was on the fourth floor, directly above Verity’s.

  She leaned in, peering about the room with curiosity but unwilling to actually enter it. “I won’t tell if you are.”

  “I’m not crying.”

  She reached out, beckoning me over to her. I left the handkerchief on the floor, hoping she wouldn’t see it. Verity traced one fingertip across my cheek and looked disappointed when it came away dry. “I still miss her.”

  “Of course you do.”

  “But no one else does. No one remembers her anymore. All they talk about is the ball.”

  I squeezed her shoulders. “We haven’t forgotten her. We need to move on, but that doesn’t mean they don’t miss and love her.”

  “She doesn’t think so.”

  I frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “She thinks everyone is too busy with their lives to remember her.” She glanced back out into the hall as if worried our conversation was being overheard. “Elizabeth says so too. She says we all look different now. But she doesn’t.”

  “You mean when you remember her?”

  She shook her head. “When I see her.”

  “In your memories,” I pressed.

>   After a moment, she held out the sketchbook, offering it to me.

  Before I could take it, Rosalie and Ligeia rushed down the hall, carrying a tower of boxes marked with the names of several Astrean shops.

  “Oh good, you’re both here!” Rosalie said, struggling to throw open their bedroom door. “We need to go downstairs, all of us, right now!”

  “Why?” Verity asked, her shoulders suddenly tense, worry evident on her face. “Did someone else die?”

  I winced. What other six-year-old worried an announcement meant someone had died?

  “Of course not!” Ligeia said, depositing her treasures at the foot of her bed. “They’re here! The fairy shoes! We stopped by the cobbler’s shop, and he was sewing on the last set of ribbons!”

  Verity’s eyes brightened, and the sketchbook was instantly forgotten. “They’re here now?”

  “Come and see!” Rosalie tore down the corridor, shouting upstairs for Camille to come quick. She must have retreated to her room after her practice session. Ligeia raced after Rosalie, their footsteps heavy on the back stairs.

  “We should go,” I said.

  “Don’t forget about Eulalie’s handkerchief,” Verity said, skipping down the hall before I could stop her.

  I blinked once before turning to snatch it up. When I left, the door slammed shut after me, as if pushed by unseen hands.

  * * *

  It was raining again, a cold downpour that chilled the air no matter how many fireplaces were lit. Raindrops raced down the windows, blurring the view of the cliffs and waves below. The Blue Room smelled damp, with a faint trace of mildew.

  Morella sat on the sofa nearest the fireplace, rubbing her back, an uncomfortable grimace drawn on her face. My heart went out to her. Planning and hosting such a large affair was trying even under the best circumstances. Doing so while pregnant must be exhausting. And the triplets had clearly run her ragged.

  “Lenore, do you think you could find your father? I’m sure he’d enjoy seeing the shoes. My ankles have swollen something fierce with this storm.”