House of Salt and Sorrows

by Erin A. Craig

  “Verity?” Tears of my own streamed down my face. What had happened to my little sister?

  Cassius turned the gas knob fully on. Just before the sconces flared to life, the Verity-thing whipped around, glaring at him, but as the room lit up, the Weeping Woman’s face was gone, and it was just my little sister once more.

  She collapsed to the floor like a marionette with slashed strings, up one moment and in a tangle of limbs and tulle the next.

  “Verity!” I howled, racing to her. I cradled her small body against mine, choking on my tears as her eyes flickered open. They were green, not black, and I brought her up to me, embracing her as tightly as I dared with a sob of relief.

  “What are you doing in here, Annaleigh?” she asked, her voice thick and raspy.

  Just as mine had been when Cassius woke me….

  “Are you okay? Are you all right?” I asked, stroking her curls, needing to reassure myself it truly was her.

  “I want to go back to sleep,” she muttered drowsily, her eyelids fluttering shut.

  “No!” I patted her cheeks, trying to keep her awake, but she nuzzled against my neck and drifted off once more.

  “What is happening?” I asked, turning to Cassius. “What’s wrong with my sisters?”

  “I think it might be—” He paused, ducking back out into the hallway. “Do you hear that?”

  I cocked my head toward the door, listening. I seemed to hear a series of knocks, but they were muffled, too far away to properly discern. “The front foyer?” I guessed.

  “I’ll be right back,” he said, leaving us.

  I sat in the middle of Verity’s room, clutching her to my chest. I was terrified to let her go, certain she’d rise up and start dancing again. I wanted to keep her safe and snuggled next to me, but as the minutes passed by, she grew heavy, pressing uncomfortably into my hip bones and fidgeting in her sleep. I staggered up, hoisting her prostrate body to the bed.

  I brought the quilt up to her chin and watched the rise and fall of her chest. Her eyes danced beneath her lids. She looked so content, it was difficult to imagine she’d been waltzing about the room, with that thing using her face, moments before.

  The knocks turned into indistinct shouts, and I heard footsteps race up the stairs. Someone must have been going for Papa.

  I drifted toward the doorway, wanting to keep an eye on Verity but also hating to miss what the commotion was. I heard Papa’s muttered curses mingled with the thud of his feet in the stairwell.

  “Papa?” I called down the long hallway. “What’s going on?”

  “And you’ve woken everyone in the house!” he chided Roland. They were both still dressed in bedclothes. “Go back to sleep, child. It’s only a messenger.”

  A messenger in the dead of night?

  I threw a glance over my shoulder to Verity, still peacefully slumbering. Dimming the sconces—I didn’t want her to wake in total darkness—I dashed out of the room, bolting past my sisters’ doors. If they were still twisting and twirling with their phantom partners, I did not want to know.

  By the time I arrived in the foyer, a crowd of cooks and footmen, maids and groomsmen, had gathered. They circled around a ragged-looking sailor. He was soaked to the bone, with a wool blanket thrown over his shoulders. Still, he shook, nearly frozen from the cold night. He frantically searched the room until he spotted my father.

  “My lord!” the sailor cried. “I bring awful news. There’s been a shipwreck just off the northern coast of Hesperus. Many have died. They’re trying to salvage the cargo, but the clipper is taking on water fast. We need help.”

  Papa stepped forward as those gathered gasped at the news. “Why have you wasted all this time coming here? Silas needs to light the distress beacon. Men from Selkirk and Astrea will come to your aid.”

  “We tried Hesperus first, my lord, but something is wrong there. That’s why the clipper ran aground. The light was out. Old Maude has gone dark!”

  “Our first priority is getting to the wreck,” Papa said, pacing in front of the large fireplace in his study. Above the mantel hung our family crest. The eyes of the Thaumas octopus glittered in the candlelight, as if it were amused by our predicament.

  Cassius, Roland, the sailor, and I perched on chairs scattered about the room. Large maps and ocean charts, held in place at the corners with anchor-shaped paperweights, covered Papa’s desk.

  “We need to save whatever lives—and cargo—we can.” Papa nodded to Roland. “Wake every able-bodied man we have, and set sail for the Rusalka immediately.” He peered out the window behind the desk, studying the weather vane attached to the lower gable. “The winds are in our favor, at least.” He tapped the map where the sailor said the ship had struck rocks. “If they hold up, you should be able to reach it in two hours’ time.”

  Roland was gone with a click of his heels, taking the sailor with him.

  “Papa, what about Old Maude?” I asked. “Shouldn’t we send someone to check on Silas? I can’t remember the light ever going out before.”

  He sank into his chair, staring into the crackling flames as he rubbed at the circles under his eyes. “I just don’t understand what is happening. First Eulalie, then the girls. Now this. It’s almost as if…” He shook his head, clearing away his dark thoughts. He looked at me in confusion, as if truly seeing me for the first time that night. “What are you wearing, Annaleigh?”

  “I…” I trailed off, unable to truly answer.

  He waved it aside. “It doesn’t matter. Old Maude needs to be relit. I’ll wake Fisher. He needs to return and get the light back up and running.”

  My mind wandered upstairs to my sisters’ rooms. Fisher had been at the ball with us. Would we find him dancing about his room as well?

  “Papa—there’s something else I need to tell you,” I began, but Cassius shifted his head, warning me to stop.

  “You have so much on your plate right now, sir,” Cassius said. “Let me go and wake him.”

  “That would be very kind of you. I really ought to check on Morella. She was in such a tizzy when Roland woke us. Thank you both.”

  I watched him head toward the foyer, his shoulders hunched with too much weight.

  “Where’s Fisher’s room?” Cassius asked, drawing me to the task at hand.

  “On the second floor, just above the kitchens on the servants’ side.”

  We hurried up the stairs, moving aside as Roland clattered down the steps past us, a group of sleepy-eyed footmen following after him.

  “You said he was at the ball with you?”

  I nodded, leading him down the dimly lit hall. The walls were stark white, the doors plain with brass handles. I’d been to Fisher’s room once, when we were children. Hanna had boxed his ears when she found out. “Is he going to be like Camille and the others?”

  “I don’t know,” Cassius answered. “I honestly don’t know what to expect from this night.”

  “Was I like…that?” I asked, stopping outside Fisher’s room. I did not want to imagine myself spinning about and contorting into the poses I’d seen my sisters perform. That the Weeping Woman might have somehow forced me to made me want to cry.

  “You were,” he confirmed quietly. “I thought it was some horrible prank, but you went through a beam of moonlight and I saw your face….”

  “Were my eyes all black?” I asked. My voice felt impossibly small and tight.

  “It might have been a trick of the shadows…but it was awful, Annaleigh. It was like you were just…gone. I was so scared I’d lost you somehow.”

  I grasped his hand, bringing it to my lips. “I’m here. I’m still yours.”

  His mouth curved up in the shade of a smile. “Mine? Truly?”

  “All yours,” I promised, and kissed his fingers again.

  He drew me in, pressing a kiss to th
e top of my head. I wanted to stay there, wrapped in the warmth and security of his embrace, but we couldn’t linger. Old Maude needed to be lit again.

  Blowing out a shaky breath, I stepped away from Cassius’s side. “I’m so scared to open this door.”

  “I’ll do it,” he said, twisting the knob and pushing. After a second’s hesitation, he went in.

  “Cassius?” I called out when the silence grew loud enough to be deafening. I ducked my head in, squinting in the dark. I could make out a low, narrow bed with a quilt neatly tucked around it and a small desk and chair. Fisher’s clothes hung on a series of pegs on the wall. But no Fisher.

  “He’s not in here.”

  “Maybe Roland woke him?”

  “We would have seen him go down the stairs with the other men,” Cassius said, poking out into the corridor.

  “He could have heard the commotion and come down earlier,” I tried, thinking out loud.

  I pushed back strands of hair that had come loose from my twisted updo. It just didn’t make any sense. When had I gone from being awake to dreaming such horrific nightmares?

  “Do you think he’s in the Grotto? Maybe he went down for the ball and—”

  “There was no ball,” Cassius repeated firmly. “He’s not in the Grotto. I checked there when you never came down. It was empty. No people, no parties, no magic door.” He let out a sigh. “There are a hundred places he could be right now, but we don’t have the time to look. The beacon needs to be relit. As soon as possible.”

  “I might be able to light it.”

  Cassius looked surprised. “You?”

  “Papa took me to visit Old Maude often when I was a little girl. I think I remember everything Silas showed me.”

  “Get dressed in warmer clothes and meet me in the garden, out from under all the trees. Hurry.”

  I raised my eyebrows. He’d said the same thing the night we traveled to the House of Seven Moons.

  “We’re going to Hesperus.”

  I heard the crashing waves before I even knew we’d left Salten.

  Unused to the speed at which Cassius could travel, I clung to him for a moment, regaining my sense of equilibrium. Opening my eyes, I spotted Old Maude, her cheerful white-and-black spiral muted with a sheet of ice and jagged with hundreds of icicles hanging from her rails. In the dark starlight, they were like frozen teeth.

  She looked so strange without her beacon to light up the night sky, a silent husk staring down over Salann with unseeing, dead eyes. I’d never seen the island so dark before. The moon hung low overhead, but dark wisps of clouds raced by. A storm was coming.

  We’d landed at the east end of the island, far from Old Maude and Silas’s little house. I took off down the narrow path, keeping a watchful eye out for Silas. He would never have let the light go out. Something was terribly wrong.

  Far below us was the shoreline, black sand crusted with white swirls of snow. Having spent so many hours here as a child, I knew this island like the back of my hand. Despite the anxieties and exhaustion weighing upon my chest, my heart rose at seeing the familiar rocks and crags.

  We rounded a bend, coming out near the lighthouse’s cliff.

  “Oh my,” Cassius murmured, seeing the vast ocean before us.

  I smiled, pleased it impressed him. Waves pounded the base of Maude’s cliff, and the air was alive with crashes and a salty tang. Whitecaps dotted the water as far as we could see, and out at sea, a thick wall of clouds was building. Lightning danced through them—this promised to be a monster of a storm. We’d have more snow on Salten before the night was out.

  Cassius spun in a slow circle, taking in the layout of the island and looking up at the enormous structure before us. “What’s that?”

  I followed his gaze to the top of the lighthouse. “It’s a lightning rod. It draws bolts to it to protect the rest of the structure.”

  “I’m sure it’ll get plenty of use tonight. It’s strange to see so much lightning with a snowstorm, isn’t it?” He squinted against the howling winds.

  Down the hill from us stood Silas’s house. All the windows, narrow and thickly paned to withstand the winds off the Kaleic, were dark.

  “The key should be inside,” I said, unable to tear my gaze away from the windows. It felt as if something stared back at us. I burrowed deeper into my scarf. “Silas keeps it on a hook in the kitchen.”

  We entered the cottage through the side door and stood in the mudroom. Tall waders hung upside down off long pegs above a drip mat, and a heavy ulster, once black but now stained with salt, rested on the top hook of a coatrack.

  “He wouldn’t have left the house without this,” I murmured, fingering the heavy overcoat’s worn wool. “Silas?” I called out, raising my voice. “It’s Annaleigh Thaumas. Are you here?”

  We paused but heard only the wind building outside. It raced past the house, growing into a low howl.

  “You said the key is in the kitchen?” Cassius asked, prompting me to step deeper into the house.

  On the table in the center of the small parlor was a hurricane lamp, and I fumbled to find a box of matches. I tried picturing Fisher and Silas in the threadbare armchairs, huddled around the fireplace as they took turns checking on the beacon’s light. Did they play cards to pass the time? Sing songs or tell outlandish tales? The wick flickered to life, its warm glow casting off some of the night’s eeriness.

  Armed with the light, we quickly found the ring of iron keys hanging by the back door. As I picked it off the hook, there was a creak above us, as if someone had stepped on an uneven floorboard.

  “Silas?” I called out. “Is that you?” I turned to Cassius. “We should go up and check. What if he’s sick?”

  “I’ll go,” he volunteered, his eyes finding the rickety stairs leading to the second floor. “You stay here.”

  I shook my head as another squeak sounded. “Silas knows me. I should go too.”

  Cassius handed me the lantern and picked up a poker from near the fireplace. He swung it low to the ground, testing its weight. “Stay behind me, at least. Just in case.”

  “In case of what?” I asked as we crept up the stairs.

  “In case it’s not Silas,” he hissed under his breath.

  I swallowed a surge of fear as we climbed the last steps.

  There were three rooms on the top level. All the doors were closed. Cassius nudged open the one nearest to us. It was Fisher’s empty bedroom.

  The next was Silas’s office, crammed full of books and ledgers. An old globe rested beneath a partially open window. As a gust of wind rushed by, the sphere spun around, creaking as it turned on its rusty axis. I prayed that was the noise we’d heard downstairs.

  The final room was Silas’s bedchamber. It was almost spartanly bare, except for the stacks of books lining the floor. The plain cotton curtains were pushed back, giving a spectacular view of Old Maude. Directly across from the window was a wide brass bed.

  “Oh, Silas,” I whispered, seeing the still form beneath the navy-and-white quilt.

  He lay propped up on a pillow, a book open across his chest. His lined and weathered face looked so peaceful, he could have been dozing. But he didn’t move, and there was a sour scent in the air, wrinkling our noses. He probably crawled into bed a day or so ago, after a long night tending the flame, and never woke up.

  I looked out the window at Old Maude. She seemed to be anxiously peering in, unable to help her old friend. I hoped his beloved lighthouse had been the last thing he saw before shutting his eyes. Tears welled in my own as I remembered his crooked smile and gruff bark of laughter.

  Cassius felt for Silas’s pulse, a cursory gesture, before raising the quilt up over his face. We tiptoed out of the bedroom and carefully shut the door behind us, as though we might wake him.

  “We’ll have to send the High Mar
iner out at first light,” I said once we were downstairs. My voice quavered, thick and sad. “And Fisher too, of course.”

  “I’m sorry he’s gone, Annaleigh,” Cassius said, squeezing my shoulder gently. “But it looked as though he lived a good, long life.”

  “You don’t think he suffered, do you?”

  He wiped the tears from my cheek, pulling me into a hug. “I’m sure he didn’t.”

  “Old Maude must have run out of kerosene, and the beacon went out.” I reached into my pocket, feeling for the keys.

  “You know how to refill it?”

  I nodded. “Silas always had me carry the bucket of oil up the steps. He said young knees could do it in half the time with half the exertion.”

  “We ought to hurry, then. Once the storm hits, I won’t be able to get us back to Highmoor.”

  I drew my scarf up over my head once more, securing the ends so it wouldn’t blow away. “You can’t travel in storms?”

  “Not in lightning. It’s too unpredictable.”

  “Then let’s not waste any time.” I palmed the doorknob, poised to run to the supply shed. Silas kept large drums full of kerosene oil there. “Are you ready?”

  We stepped out into the wind. The air was even colder now, whistling across the island and whipping snowflakes in our eyes. I unlocked the door, found an old tin bucket, and filled it three-quarters of the way up. The sharp aroma of kerosene burned my nostrils.

  “Won’t you need more? I’ll carry it up. Don’t worry about the weight,” Cassius said.

  “The tank won’t hold more than this,” I said, shutting off the kerosene spigot. “This will keep the flame going for a handful of days, at least until Fisher can return. Come on.”

  We made our way out toward Old Maude, careful to avoid patches of ice on the cliff’s steps. I paused at the threshold, brushing a bit of flying grit from my eye. A gust of wind raced past the lighthouse and slammed the door shut with a loud crash. Startled, I dropped the lantern. The globe shattered, flames greedily flickering across the fuel. There was a burst of light, and we were left in utter darkness.