by Julia Byrd
“Sorry, sir. You might have heard me say your name, but the pianoforte is rather loud.”
“What do you want?” He frowned. My tone was too harsh. I pushed a hand through my hair, longing for an escape from my starchy collar. Then I set aside the candlestick and exhaled. “Perhaps too much society has shortened my temper. Did you require something?”
Mr. Emberton brought his third dance to a close. The dancers saluted their partners and clapped. Branch said something, but I missed his words in the rattling echo of the ballroom. The pianoforte lurched into song again. Someone whooped. My head was beginning to throb.
“I inquired,” Branch repeated at increased volume, “if you would like the punch bowl carried up and set out for refreshments.”
“Oh. Yes, fine, thank you.”
Branch’s lips moved again. I was distracted by Juno. A few bays farther along the wall, she raised the hem of her bronze silk skirt. Then she leaned forwards to plant one knee on the inset bench below the sill. Frowning, she peered out. What had caught her attention? No one should be behind the house.
“Sir.” Branch moved a step closer. “Where would you like the refreshments placed? Given there are no tables or sideboards, I mean.”
I didn’t give a damn about the refreshments. I dismissed the footman with a wave. “On that chaise longue.” Branch was clearly about to object, but I cut him off. Juno had cupped her hands around the sides of her face to see more clearly through the dusty glass. “Or whatever you think best, man, I don’t know.”
Just then a skipping line of dancers snaked around us. Their feet pounded in rhythm and kicked up a low-lying fog of dust. Mrs. Wright and Mrs. Hargreaves were at the front of the line, red-faced and glowing with exertion. Johnston and his wife followed behind them, then Mrs. Toth, Lucy, Sarah, and finally Everett. Candle flames wavered in the draft of their passing.
I waited impatiently for the path to clear. Juno lifted her head and turned to meet my eyes. I started towards her and snagged Everett’s elbow.
“With me,” I said. Sarah would have to finish the dance with a new partner.
Together we walked to join Juno. Then I was reacting to some instinctual rush before I even understood why. My shoulders bowed, my head dropped, and I yanked Everett hard up against my side.
The sound of a scream forced my mind to catch up. Along the cool length of the ballroom, a huge, shimmering noise had brought us all to a standstill.
Chapter 27: Mob Rites
The music stopped, but the reverberation of undamped strings mixed with a foreign sound. Juno and I locked eyes. She was pale but unharmed.
“What was that?” someone cried.
“It was a noise like breaking glass,” Mother said. She raised her chin to stare up at the plaster rosettes on the ceiling. “Glass raining over our heads.”
I tried to recall the moment apart from my flinching panic. She was right. It had sounded like shattering glass coming from above.
I needed to get to the top floor. With one hand still gripping Everett’s arm, I spoke for his ears only. “Come upstairs with me.”
Juno closed the distance between us. “What’s happening?”
I thought of the tree breaking through her kitchen window, then flames licking the eaves. If there were a fire here or, God forbid, some structural failure within the house, the ballroom could become a trap. The room had only one exit, and the stairs were a bottleneck. “I don’t know yet. Juno, I need you to shepherd our guests back to the main floor. Keep everyone together. Work with Branch, he’s steady. Can you do that?”
Despite my worry, I was strangely relieved to be taking action. Anything was better than waiting on strung nerves.
But Juno shook her head. “I’m coming with you.”
Emberton tinkled a few uncertain notes. The partygoers idled, unsure about what to do next. I couldn’t leave them unattended, but I didn’t have time to argue with Juno—and in truth, I wanted her with me, too. Wright, the magistrate, had been hovering just out of earshot. I paced over to him and gestured for Branch to approach.
“Mr. Wright, would you do me the great favor of escorting my guests back to the library? Branch, see that the refreshments are made available there. I’m concerned there may be some disturbance in the attic above.”
I didn’t wait for either one of them to agree. Everett was already on his way to the doors. I picked up a branch of candles and started after him, then realized Juno wasn’t beside me. She had darted back to speak with Sarah Greeley. Wright and Branch, bless their practical souls, began corralling guests.
“Mrs. Stephens!” I bellowed. “Now, if you please.”
It emerged through my usual stuttering consonants, but the room was so noisy and confused that no one even glanced at me. Juno gave Sarah a last nod and rushed back towards me with her hem lifted. Everett was out of sight.
“Come along,” Juno said as if I weren’t stamping in impatience for her. We hurried out of the ballroom and circled around the bannister to access the stairs to the fourth floor.
As we climbed, I wished for my oil lantern. The three candles’ tiny flames did little to illuminate the stairwell. We reunited with Everett at the top of the steps. In the hall of the servants’ quarters, all the doors were closed.
“Anything?” I asked.
Everett nodded grimly. “Yes, I believe so. What’s beyond that last door?” he asked, pointing at the end of the passageway.
“A storage room.” I glanced at Juno, thinking of the hour we’d spent there hiding from the world. “My brother and I played theater in there. Why? Did you hear something?”
“Ben, look,” Juno whispered. “Look at our feet.”
I stared down at my boots. Along the plain, unpolished floorboards, a little river of dust flowed past us in the direction of the stairs. It swirled around our feet in eddies and masked the details of the wood grain.
“Even for a drafty old house,” said Everett, “that’s quite a breeze. And it’s coming from under that door.”
“Stay behind me,” I instructed. Juno and Everett fell back as I crept forwards, but even so, we were all terribly vulnerable. Should I have brought a weapon? I didn’t even own a pistol.
When I cracked open the storage room door, a cold wind whistled through the gap and tried to suck the doorknob from my hand. All the candles blew out. I forced the panel wide and proceeded by touch and memory of the space. Around us, fluttering sheets and disturbed dust made the attic into a breathing beast.
But it was my beast. Nothing about Maida House could frighten me. No new damage to the building could be worse than I had done through eight years of abandonment.
A faint glow led me toward the low dais that had been our stage. Then I saw the entry point of the intrusive gusts. The glass in the huge, round window behind the stage was broken. Jagged edges showed at the curved bottom of the frame.
“How—” Juno gasped. She was flanked by Everett and me, and her hand bunched in the thick wool of my coat. “Did it just…shatter?”
“Is anyone here?” Everett called out sharply. “Hello?”
But I already knew no one was in the room with us. The stage was littered with sparkling shards—all the glass had fallen inside. The window had been destroyed by a projectile thrown from without.
I slipped away from Juno’s restraining hand and strode across the cluttered storage space. In two paces I covered the width of the stage that had seemed of grand proportion to a boy of seven. Then I stood at the circular hole in the wall and stared down.
For one odd moment, in the darkness, I thought the pale-haired person I saw far below was Sarah Greeley. Then the breeze pushed straggling blonde locks away, and the figure resolved as her father.
In the center of the forecourt was Greeley, wearing a scowl and staring at Maida House. But he was not alone. He sat astride a bulky cart horse in the midst of a roiling mob. At least four dozen villagers clustered within the burning brands that necklaced the forecourt. Some ca
rried lanterns, others torches, and a few wielded farm implements. Laid flat across Greeley’s lap, the metallic gleam of a flintlock musket reflected firelight.
“Holy God,” I whispered. We were under siege. I braced a hand on the frame, then withdrew it when a clinging shard pierced my palm. In sheltering the man’s wayward daughter, I had never guessed he would organize a war band to retrieve her.
“Is that a pitchfork?” Everett asked. “Are they planning to poke holes in us? What on earth is happening?”
He came up on my right, centered in the window, and I tugged him aside, lest his silhouette draws attention from below. Juno peered around my left arm. “It appears we’ve been invaded.”
“Why?” Everett demanded. It was the plaintive request of a boy in search of reassurance. “Why are they here? Have we threatened them somehow, to elicit such a mob?”
“People fear what they do not understand,” Juno murmured. Her voice had the affectless, dull tone of shock. “They do not understand me. Ben, I am so sorry to have brought this treachery to your house.”
“No, Juno. I invited him.” I watched Greeley’s face. His eyes were on the front door. What response was he expecting from me? I prayed that Wright and Branch would keep the others safely hidden inside.
“Shall we go down and confront him?” Everett asked.
“No,” I barked. The villagers in Greeley’s mob were restless, a shifting clump of humanity. I could not guess what lies he had used to lure them from their homes. “If I force an encounter, violence will flare.”
A man I didn’t recognize separated himself from the group. He shifted sideways, drew back his right elbow, and heaved a fist-sized rock at Maida House. With a sharp crash, a window broke on the second floor. I flinched at the sound and pressed the back of my hand over my mouth to keep from shouting.
“The violence is already here, Ben,” Everett said. “Now what? Just hope they grow bored of waiting and turn around? Or give him what he wants? Sarah won’t return to him willingly. You would have to drag her out.”
I dropped my hand and raked my gaze over his face. “I am not suggesting we surrender Sarah to him.”
Juno grasped my elbow. “I can talk to him. Try to explain, to reason with the man.”
Gently, I disengaged her hold on my arm. “It must be me, Juno.”
From below, a hollow rumble laced through the muttering of the crowd. Someone was rattling the big front door. I sidled to the edge of the empty window frame to look down. A few men from Greeley’s mob had pushed forwards to test the lock. Fortunately, Branch or somebody else had thought to secure the bolt.
The cart horse was restless and wary of the torches. Greeley fought to hold the beast steady. I inhaled through a long moment and then stepped forward until I was centered in front of the round hole.
I raised one arm and opened my mouth to speak. My tongue and lips felt stiff, and I knew my words, when they emerged, would shuffle and stutter like a drunken dancer. I had no choice. Even so, I fought against the familiar twisting in my guts.
But before I could shout down to Greeley, a commotion at the door rippled through the crowd. The man who had tested the lock stepped back swiftly. No one had yet noticed me standing in the fourth-story window. I dropped my arm, shaking with nerves but shamefully glad that some distraction had delayed the moment of my speaking.
“What’s happening?” Juno asked. “What are they doing?”
She and Everett edged closer. We all leaned gingerly, cautious of the forty-foot drop to the ground, to see the entryway directly below.
The distinctive squawk of heavy hinges ripped through the air. “The door,” I said.
“They’re supposed to stay hidden!” Everett said. “Who is emerging?”
His question was answered when a stream of people flowed out of Maida House and arrayed themselves in front of the door. Everett groaned. Everyone. All the dinner guests had left the relative safety of the library and filed outdoors.
“I say,” boomed Wright in his magisterial voice. “What’s happening here? This is a private party!”
“A revelry of witches,” someone snarled.
Mrs. Johnston, who had so bravely defended Juno’s salad, thrust herself forward. “Be gone, all of you!” she shouted. “You should be tending to your own homes and business, not inserting yourselves—”
“Really, my dear,” Johnston objected. He set his hands on his wife’s shoulders, but her feet were planted. “That’s quite enough now. No need to insult.”
“This is trespassing,” said Wright. “Be gone, all of you.”
“Not without Sarah. Where is my daughter?” Greeley called. “A witch stole her from me, and I have come to rescue her.”
“Send out Miss Greeley!” shouted the rock-thrower. Several others took up his cry.
I hadn’t noticed Sarah, wedged as she was between my mother and Mrs. Hargreaves until she spoke up. Her blonde hair reflected the torchlight, and her chin was set firmly. “You cannot rescue me, Father, because I came willingly. You have no authority over me.”
An outraged gasp rippled over the crowd. Someone jostled Mrs. Wright. She screeched and staggered backward. Wright shouted at the nearest man, but his words sank in a rising tide of anger.
“Ben,” Juno said.
I had been watching the scene unfold with frozen, stricken alarm, but her voice recalled me with a shudder. A shoving match broke out between Branch and a villager. One of the torches along the verge spluttered and faded. Greeley’s horse whinnied and skittered sideways.
And so, amidst the rising chaos, I took in a fresh breath, centered myself in the round frame, and lifted my arms again to display my palms.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” I roared.
I pitched my voice to carry through the blustering gale. Four dozen pairs of eyes searched the night to find me. Someone spotted me and pointed up. Broken glass crackled under my feet as I inched forwards. All four dozen faces lifted and trained on me. They were angry and confused, squinting and suspicious.
And they all waited for me to speak.
My stomach clamped in a hard knot. For a moment, my knees wavered. I considered letting myself pitch through the window frame and plummet to splatter my guts on the drive. It seemed about as pleasant as launching into a soliloquy before half the village and everyone I knew.
A harsh whirlwind rocked my balance. Fingers locked onto my belt from behind, arresting my sway. Everett. I forced my legs to steady and looked almost straight down into the crowd from my high perch. Beneath my boots, beneath the shards, was the same stage where Joe and I had enacted a hundred theatrical shows for our doting parental audience. In those early, fearless days, I had stuttered no more and no less than I did in all the days that followed.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” I repeated.
“What’s that, dove?” a woman shouted. “Can’t quite make you out.”
Some wit in the crowd mocked my stutter, exaggerating the repeated syllables for comic effect, and the woman snorted in coarse laughter. I had seen her in church. I ignored her.
“This grand new opening in the side of Maida House,” I continued dryly, “gives me a fine vantage over my unexpected arrivals. Mr. Greeley, I had not intended your dinner invitation to include such an entourage. To what do we owe the pleasure, friends?”
“You still think you’re so high above us, gravedigger?” Greeley countered. “You harbor witches. Do not play lord of the manor with me. Release my daughter at once.” He shifted his grip on the musket and stared at her.
Sarah shrank back. Mrs. Hargreaves wrapped an arm around her shoulders. Braced behind me, still with a grasp on my belt, Everett was stiff with anger.
“You have already asked, Mr. Greeley, and the young lady has declined. You have no excuse for missing her response. Unlike some of us,” I said with a tight smile, “I do not believe that she stuttered.”
A few of the villagers chortled at my self-deprecating remark.
“I’m n
ot going with you, Father,” said Sarah. “I’m working for Mrs. Stephens, that’s all. You always exaggerate.” She shrugged, and it was the perfect adolescent disparagement.
Some of the mob’s energy bled away. The night was cool, and the group of dinner guests was quite mundane. No spells or arcane symbols provided entertainment. Sarah Greeley looked like a stubborn daughter, not a victim.
“What gives you the right to keep my daughter, Hood? Would you steal another man’s child?”
I shook my head deliberately so our curious audience could follow the gesture. “No one keeps Sarah. She is a guest, and as she just said, under the employ of my…my…”
I turned to Juno. She was my what? The unasked question lay between us. I had verbal agreements for the purchase of part of the Maida Estate. Was it enough? Her eyes were dark pools, and I could not judge her mood.
“Juno,” I whispered, “marry me. Please.”
She recoiled. “Your timing is terrible.”
It was a fair objection. My throat ached, and I swallowed hard. “True. We can sort this out later.”
“Yes,” she said. “No.”
It was unlike her to stumble over her words. My heart thudded painfully, and the crowd below strained to overhear us. “Pardon me?”
Juno leaned in, closing the gap she had opened. “The answer is yes, I will marry you. No, I don’t want to sort it out later. If you’d waited another day, I would have asked you myself.”
The rush of relief loosened my joints and opened my windpipe. I grinned. “Good. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m arguing with a horrible man who’s forty feet below.”
“Go on.”
Greeley was sawing at his reins. The brief interruption had not soothed his temper. The crowd milled and muttered.
“My apologies,” I called down. A gust tried to tear my voice away, so I forced my throat to unaccustomed volume. “What were we saying? Oh, yes. Sarah is a guest and a friend.”
“A guest and a friend of a witch!” Greeley yelled back. “She just admitted as much. I should bring the vicar and burn this house to the ground.”