The House of Dead Maids

by Clare B. Dunkle

  “At last we’ve got springtime, thanks to the two of you,” he announced cheerfully. “You’ve made this old land bloom again with your bright young faces: she’s shaking off her age and bad humor. Tomorrow’s May Day, she’ll be young again like you, and then the luck’ll come back to this house.”

  “What luck?” asked Himself, propping his pirate close so the little doll could hear.

  Arnby set his bucket down on top of the low stone wall. “Oh, gambler’s luck, I guess you’d call it, young sir. The master of Seldom House rarely loses a wager. And then there’s the luck of the land, with full harvests and fine weather. We can’t have that for nothing, you know.” He caught my eye and laughed. “But I’d better hush my talk, or the little maidie will call me a superstitious old fool. If you’re wishing to ramble, stay on the slope above the house where you see the sheep grazing. Don’t go downhill or around to the other side, the path’s slick with mud, and all the rain has filled the bogs to bursting.”

  We took his advice and climbed into the pasture, the lambs stopping their play to watch us go by and the birds flying up from the grass at our feet. There I sat and stitched Alma Augusta’s petticoat, with the sun warming me and my hair blowing into my face, while Himself ran and shouted and called me at least a dozen times to help him find his pirate.

  “He’ll be eaten if you don’t take care,” I warned. “Just you wait till a sheep finds him first.”

  “Rogue will run the sheep through with his arrows,” he countered, and I owned that the creature would probably regret the meal.

  At length, Himself grew impatient with my sewing and teased me to join him in his play, and we resolved to climb the ridge to its highest point. “What shall we find there, do you think?” he asked excitedly, running races with himself while I labored up the steep slope.

  “More of what we see already” was my sensible reply when I had breath to spare for it. Then the slope became easier, and then it became level ground, and the wind met us with a great rush.

  On the other side of the ridge, green crests of hills tumbled away into the distance like so many moss-covered cobblestones, mottled here and there with rusty turf or patches of purple heather. Black rain clouds massed in the west, but the morning sun lit the moorland so that it glowed beneath those charcoal clouds as brightly as a jewel. Turning around to look east, we saw a hazy golden sky and the shining disk of the sun shedding its beams over a great tousled counterpane of green and brown. We could see the slate roof of Seldom House down below, but the village and the watercourse at its foot were hidden in shadow.

  “At my other houses,” I said, “they built fences everywhere, until the land looked like it was caught in a net. Here, I can’t see a fence except for the ones by the house. The land here is still free.”

  The wind buffeted us so that I made Himself take my hand to keep him from rolling off the ridge. We walked back a short distance and took shelter at the base of a little white cliff to eat our dinner. The sun slanted down on us, and the wind passed roaring over our heads, a clean, wholesome sound.

  Himself had chased a field mouse into a hole. “First, we’ll cut off your nose, and then your ears,” his pirate Rogue told it. The mouse prudently remained hidden.

  “Let it alone,” I said. “You shouldn’t make sport of God’s creatures. Nose and ears, indeed! Did they crop mice where you lived before?”

  “No, they cropped people.” He set a morsel of bread down on a stone by the mouse’s hole and watched like a cat for it to emerge.

  “What, people with no noses? With their ears cropped? How disgusting! I can’t believe you’ve witnessed such deformities.”

  He looked up at me, surprised, and I saw that he had indeed witnessed these things—witnessed, and very likely cheered. There was a savage innocence in his gaze, an indifference to the very notion of suffering. I felt my blood run cold at it. No little child should look so.

  “Where do you come from?” I wondered.

  He poked a grass stem down the mouse hole. “From hell.”

  “Don’t be a fool! People don’t live in hell.”

  “I did. Look, there’s someone on my roof.”

  Seldom House did not lie directly below us, being on a knob of land that stood out from the slope of the ridge. From our vantage, the distant roof appeared to be a tilted square, forested with pale chimney pipes and broken into many smaller surfaces that rose to ridgelines and met one another at valleys as they accommodated the gables and dormer windows. Against the dark gray roof slates, the tiny figure of a man in a white shirt stood out clearly. As we watched, the figure shortened by degrees and disappeared.

  “Who was he?” asked Himself, shading his eyes with his hand. “He has to come back, doesn’t he? He can’t climb down a chimney.”

  “Let’s take a better look,” I suggested.

  We hurried down the slope, an activity as challenging as its ascent. The closer we came, the more difficulty I had interpreting the pitches and angles of the roof. Surely its center should not be a valley. Surely it should be the highest peak of all. And yet ridgelines and gables rose up before it, and it sank further from view.

  An outcrop of rock afforded us the most advantageous prospect. Himself clambered onto it, and I crept out after him as far as I thought wise. The house was only a few hundred feet below us now, and I could make out faint lines that marked the edges of the slates.

  “I think there’s a courtyard beyond this side of the house,” I said. “It’s hard to be sure, but I think I can just make out a hint of it there; that part’s tiled like the roof, but you can see it’s actually the top of a wall. A little courtyard. It must lie at the back of the topiary garden. I suppose it’s there to bring light into the house, but I can’t recall a single window that opens onto it.”

  “He got off the roof, then,” said Himself, disappointed. “I wanted to catch him crawling down a drainpipe.”

  I made my charge come off the exposed rock before a gust of wind could knock him from his perch, and then we scrambled around its base. A familiar figure waited for us there.

  Sunlight did nothing for the dead maid but reveal the worm holes in her dress. It could not drive out the darkness that filled her empty sockets—the darkness that seemed to fill her. But now I knew her name and her relationship to me. Perverted as she was from her true form, yet perhaps she had a claim to compassion.

  “Who’s the pretty jenny?” asked Himself, and such was my state of mind that I did not think his comment strange.

  “Walk on,” I told him with as much of calm as I could muster. “I’ll follow directly.”

  He trotted along, and I waited until he was out of hearing, struggling with myself all the while. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Was not this dead thing evil?

  “Izzy,” I whispered. The mute form swayed towards me at the sound of her name, and I stepped back, fighting revulsion. “Izzy,” I said again, “why do you walk? What do you wish me to know?”

  The dead maid’s face never changed, but a pallid arm extended, the skin decorated with patches of fuzzy mold. The slender fingers pointed, so close I could see their yellow nails, at some unseen object behind me. Hair prickling on the back of my neck, I turned.

  As still as portraits, they stood in that sunlit pasture, an abomination to all things living: dozens, quite close to me, black dresses rotted and black sockets stark, a company of dead maids. It did not matter that some looked old and others very young, some tiny and others fat. These were differences in disguise, variety of costume, with no connection to the essence of their being. What that essence was could only be felt: a presence not human, not animal—a single mindless, ravenous presence that fed on decay. Only their gray skin, wetly gleaming, shiny as slugs, shielded me from the horror of what lay within them.

  I ran. I flew down that hillside, and if I had fallen along the way, I could not have tumbled faster than I ran. When I reached Himself, I caught him up under one arm and never for an
instant slowed down. I wonder now how I did it, for he was more than half my size, and yet I tell you he felt as light to me then as if I held a feather pillow.

  I took heed of nothing until I reached the low wall of the kitchen garden and the entire household came rushing out to meet us. There I fell and had to be helped to my feet and all but carried indoors. The first thing I noticed upon returning to my senses was Himself limping beside me and cursing with great precision and vehemence, like a hardened old sinner.

  “Wisht!” I gasped, reaching out to catch his coat and shake him.

  “Give over,” he said, dodging me. “You daft chit! I might have dropped my pirate.”

  Then I was in the kitchen, seated on the bench by the hearth, and four somber countenances bent over me: Mr. Ketch, Miss Winter, Mrs. Sexton, and old Arnby, who had fetched me inside.

  “What happened?” demanded Miss Winter in a quavering voice. “An injury? Gash? Broken limb?”

  “Not a bit of it,” said Arnby. “She’s seen the cold ones. You’re a fool if you let her out of the house again.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I spent the day quietly with Mrs. Sexton next to the blazing hearth, working on Alma Augusta. By afternoon, I had finished her petticoat, and Mrs. Sexton had found me a hank of sheep’s wool to stitch together and shape into her hair. Himself abandoned me to visit the stables with Mr. Ketch, but he came back from time to time, sorry to lose my company, and at last brought his pincushion pirate and played at my feet.

  I did not speak of the horrors I had seen. At first, I was too shocked to bring them back to mind, and then I was too worried about what they might mean. And then, I come from the servant class, where the habit of silence is strong. Telling secrets may mean starving in the street.

  Himself once again demanded a real supper in the dining room, and I found the gathering every bit as awkward as the night before. Miss Winter ate daintily, so that I felt a graceless lump beside her, and acted as if she were alone in the room. Her face was perfectly composed, and one might have thought her bored, except that her eyes flitted here and there so strangely.

  Mr. Ketch did not eat. He drank a good deal instead. He acted like a victim of fever, animated to the point of delirium. If he had been under my care, I should have put him to bed and sent for the doctor at once.

  My charge was completely at ease. He did not appear to notice the agitation of his reluctant companions, and as for table manners, he made up his own. They disgusted us all, but I did not correct him, for fear Miss Winter should have occasion to correct me.

  We had finished our simple meal, and Mr. Ketch was telling a pointless story about London when I became aware of a faint noise in the room, like the crackling fur of a cat during a thunderstorm. The odd sound moved past me, and when it drew close to Mr. Ketch, he became even more excited, until I feared he might fall into a fit.

  “Why are you afraid of that little boy?” Himself interrupted.

  Mr. Ketch stopped speaking and gulped down his ale. Then he poured more from a pewter jug.

  “What little boy?” I asked.

  “The boy standing over there.” Himself gestured towards the faint noise. “I’ve watched him tag after Master Jack for days.”

  “How curious,” remarked Mr. Ketch, with an attempt at a laugh. “I don’t see a boy. I see a wizened horror, all teeth and hair and fingernails.”

  “How can a thing be all fingernails?” scoffed Miss Winter. “I see no one. I never see them,” she continued in a low voice. “I feel them instead. I wonder which is harder to bear.”

  “He’s a boy my size, with a brown face,” said Himself. “He acts like he can’t see me. Like the girl Tabby talked to today, the one with yellow hair. She didn’t look at me either.”

  “You spoke with someone?” demanded Miss Winter, her strange eyes searching my face.

  “I spoke with Izzy, miss. And maybe with some—some others; I’m not sure. But I don’t see her yellow hair—not as such, I mean. What I see has been dead for a long time.”

  “She’s pretty,” Himself protested.

  “She was,” remarked Miss Winter. “I suppose I should be grateful I don’t see them.”

  “Why is the brown-faced boy here?” Himself asked.

  “Why is any of them here?” murmured Miss Winter.

  Mr. Ketch drew a deep breath. “If you must know, that boy was fond of me.”

  “Fond of you!”

  There, I knew I shouldn’t have said it. The words had slipped out before I thought. But it seemed wholly improbable that first Izzy and now a little boy should haunt this dreadful house out of love.

  Mr. Ketch glared at me through bloodshot eyes and drank off his ale. “You doubt me,” he snarled. “You doubt my word. You do.”

  “Never mind, Jackie,” warned Miss Winter.

  I said nothing.

  “No, Flora, we see here Christianity at work, and I intend to speak about it.” Mr. Ketch leaned towards her, pronouncing his s’s with great care. “My heathen git isn’t frightened by our ghosts, but this pious little scrap of yours sees them as awful things that send her running home in terror. What are we to make of this, eh?” He favored me with a scowl. “That your churchgoing has spoiled natural innocence.”

  I might have asked why he saw teeth and fingernails in his specter, but I knew not to argue with my betters.

  “So you see, boy,” he went on to Himself, “you’re missing nothing with religion. Let them keep their guilt and their hell.”

  Himself was listening with interest. “I’ve been to hell,” he said. Mr. Ketch laughed at that and poured another glass, and I felt it my duty to speak.

  “Hell is a fact, and so is guilt, when a person misbehaves,” I said. “It’s shame enough to keep this boy in ignorance. He shouldn’t be lied to as well.”

  “What is the truth, pray? That he should waste his life in humble servitude to others, hoping that a benevolent divinity will reward him? You won’t do it, will you, my boy—you’ll live just as you please.” And he nodded his approval at Himself’s enthusiastic reply.

  “You’ll make a heartless villain of him, sir,” I protested, “with no conscience to teach him kindness. What should happen if you stood between him and what he wanted? Should you counsel him to murder you in your bed?”

  “In an instant!” thundered Mr. Ketch, slamming his fist down on the table. “I want no cowards in this house, no, by hell I don’t. And you would murder me, wouldn’t you, young rogue? I’m sure of it, you rascal. I tell you, there’s comfort in that.”

  “That’s quite enough, Jackie,” said Miss Winter, rising from the table. “They can’t tell when you tease.”

  The conversation raised Mr. Ketch to his old place in my charge’s affections. Himself was fairly overcome with hero-worship. He was still chattering away about it as I undressed him for bed that night.

  “How brave he is!” he said while I scrubbed his neck with a cloth. “Doesn’t mind if I murder him. Glad of it, in fact! I hope I may do murder yet, he’ll be let down if I don’t.”

  “Start tonight,” suggested Mrs. Sexton, to my complete surprise. “Tomorrow’s May Day already. Bah!” she grunted as she untied the bed curtains. “I’ve lived too long to wait on the masters and their maids.”

  “Whatever can you mean?” I demanded, but she picked up the warming pan and left without tucking us into bed.

  “Rogue wants to do murder,” announced Himself, wriggling away from my wet cloth. “Rogue says he’ll murder anyone who washes him.”

  “Rogue can stay nasty and full of pins if he likes,” I retorted, “but I’ll have no dirty feet in this bed. Come back here if you don’t want to sleep on the floor.”

  Izzy did not haunt me that night, but other thoughts haunted me instead. I am no quick study; my thoughts take their time. As I lay in the dark, I remembered again the man in the white shirt, and the presence of the unseen courtyard.

  As I lay there, I swear I could feel the house settle in
to its proper place around me. Nearly a week’s exploration had taught me its stairways and passages, and I traveled them now in my mind. They had made no sense then; they had twisted upon themselves without meaning until I had learned their secret. Now I saw plainly that the house was not a whole entity, but rather three long, narrow buildings joined at their corners and shaped around an empty core. The barn made up the fourth side of the puzzle box. Seldom House was hollow.

  As soon as I grasped this, I felt the narrow shaft at the center of the house begin to pull on my spirit like a whirlpool. It did not exist as an afterthought. The house existed to surround it. I could feel that empty well tugging at me through the walls that shielded me from it, the black heart of this evil place, the focus of dread and mystery. I fell asleep aware of its presence, and I awoke determined to find it and learn the truth about the deadly place at last.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The day dawned cool, damp, and windy, with low clouds bucketing across the sky. Mrs. Sexton stood at the kitchen window to watch them after she gave us our breakfast. She had prepared sweet cakes for us with warm butter and berry preserves. Himself had been so delighted that he had made his pirate kiss her wrinkled cheek.

  I had left Alma Augusta in the bedroom. She looked beautiful now in her red chintz, with her fair hair coiled up in a bun; before breakfast, I had warmed her scalp over a candle and fastened on the little wig. Then I had propped her in the chair by the fire rather than bring her on my dangerous quest. Himself and his pirate saw eye to eye, but Alma Augusta and I were different. She was a lady now, and I didn’t want to spoil her pretty dress.

  “Let’s play hide-and-seek,” I told Himself. “You hide first.”

  I did not find him during our first several trials, for he was good at hiding and I was not seeking him. Our game gave me a pretext to roam about the house and look for the way into the courtyard. One by one, I examined the back walls of each wing, wandering the dim passages and holding up a candle to study them closely. But, try as I might, I could find no crack in the stone nor keyhole in the paneling that might indicate the presence of a door.