by A. W. Exley
"We lost the family reverend in the Boer War. Church has been closed except for family weddings and funerals ever since," Seth said as he unbuckled the equipment from his saddle.
I unslung my lantern and we walked through the long grass. Autumn had turned to winter, and fat seed heads nodded and set free more spores as we brushed past. Family and servants alike were buried in this quiet place. Only a plain wooden cross marked some graves. Others had carved, moss-covered gravestones. I read a few as I walked. Some gave only a date of death or a sad detail that highlighted the occasional cruelty of life. Lost, but found too late, one read, the too-close dates indicating a child rested below.
As we walked among the dead I touched stones and wondered about the bones beneath my feet. How did Crowley merge magic and science to create the original pandemic? Other ideas nagged at me. How exactly did one commune with someone who died over three hundred years ago? It's not as though Millicent could send a letter or use the telephone.
The deMage family crypt nestled at the rear of the cemetery with its back to the spreading forest. Built as a replica of the main house, the same warm stone enclosed those permanently cold. A large stone oval over the doorway bore the family crest. Two urns, over four feet high and large enough to hide in, stood at either end of the covered porch. I peered inside one but found only dried leaves at the bottom.
"Frank and I used to hide in those when we were little and jump out at anyone who came to pay their respects." He tested the door, pulling on the large handle, but it held fast.
I stared at the man I loved and wondered what other sort of mischief he and his half brother used to get up to. What sort of mind conjured the idea of leaping out and startling mourners? "Did you wait in here long?"
He gave me that boyish smile that could melt your knees. "We would run ahead when we knew someone was coming. Frank got bored if we hid for longer than a few minutes."
From a pocket he withdrew a large key with the same crest as over the door, cast in metal at the bow end. Seth inserted the key and a heavy thunk came as the barrels engaged and released the lock. With a groan from the hinges, the door swung open.
We lit our hurricane lamps and held them before us as we entered the chilly crypt. Inside was free of dust and spider webs, much like the old wing of the house. Then I remembered that the older duke had been interred just over a year before. The crypt might have been cleaned out for his funeral, but the spiders still hadn't returned.
"Father's coffin is over there." Seth waved the lantern at one wall where coffins were laid out in niches.
None looked disturbed to me. Given the duke had climbed out and returned to Serenity House, I thought one might be knocked over and the door left open. I was thinking of the appropriate way to word my myriad of questions when Seth answered.
"The door can be unlocked from inside, which is how he got out. Warrens cleaned up afterwards," he murmured. "Father's ashes now reside inside the coffin."
One mystery solved, onto another. "Where is Millicent slumbering?"
I shouldn't have picked that word. Millicent was dead. Long dead and probably just dust. Crowley didn't mean it when he said she was slumbering and needed to be awoken. I walked around the room. For a family that stretched back to the reign of Elizabeth the First, there weren't as many occupants as I had expected.
"Is there some rule about who goes in the crypt?" I wiped a hand over a name plate and revealed a date from the Regency era.
"Yes, it is a rather exclusive club. Dukes and their duchesses only. The rest of the family go outside." Seth rubbed at names and dates as we searched for our prey. Or were we her prey? "The crypt was remodelled at the same time as the house, but the interior remains the same."
There was one prominent carved marble sarcophagus that, from the frozen neck ruffle, appeared to be the first duke. But no sign of the first Duchess of Leithfield.
"All alone, without a helpmate by your side," I said as I touched the cool marble.
"Their son did not want Millicent resting by his father." Seth walked to a wall of older coffins. These ones seemed squatter compared to the modern branch of the family.
"Why not?" A shiver ran over my body. My mind said it was simply the low temperature in the crypt, but another voice whispered of rattling family secrets best left undisturbed. These days the skeleton in the closet might very well reach out and lunge for you.
"I wish I had paid more attention to family stories now. Time distorts words and the message becomes garbled. I recollect bad blood between mother and son and some rumour that he believed her culpable of his father's death." Seth peered at each coffin, wiping dust away with his handkerchief to reveal the details of the interred.
"Here she is." At the bottom of a row and at the far side, closest to the wall. The other coffins were bunched up and closer together, as though none wanted to rest too close to Millicent. Seth hauled on the handle and metal squeaked over the stone floor. "She's heavy."
Once he manoeuvred the end of the coffin from its shelf, I grabbed the other side and added my weight to the task. She was heavy, although if the coffin were lead lined, that would explain the extra weight. Perhaps all the spiders were hiding in here, waiting to leap out like young Frank from an urn.
I dropped the handle and stared at Seth. "How much do spiders weigh?"
He glanced up and frowned. "Very little, I would imagine. Why?"
Might keep that particular nightmare to myself. "No reason."
We soon had her hauled out far enough for the next task. Seth moved the lanterns so they sat either side of the casket and cast half circles of light over the sealed lid. Then he took up the crowbar. "Ready?"
I nodded, my throat too dry from either anticipation or dust to answer.
Seth positioned one end of the crowbar under the coffin lid and shoved it toward the floor. Inch by inch, Seth moved the bar and levered a new portion of lid. Centuries-old nails gave way with a crack and pop like a burning pinecone. Whoever interred Millicent certainly used plenty of nails to keep her inside. When he had worked his way around the entire edge, he set down the crowbar. His gaze met mine across the top of the coffin.
"Want to bet on whether she is dead or not?" He meant it as levity, but in the crypt, the joke fell like a stone tossed into an empty well.
But if Crowley spoke true, Millicent was neither. Just like the vermin that spread across the world. Had we finally found the enemy who directed their actions—was Millicent the vermin Pied Piper?
"Perhaps she had more important things to do and left some time ago?" I joked but another stone dropped into the void as my words sat cold and hard in my stomach.
We both leaned on the same side of the heavy wooden top and pushed, sliding the lid off. I jumped back in case the casket really did hold all the missing spiders. You could never be too sure.
Seth picked up the lantern by his feet and waved it over the interior. Blue silk had decayed and started to pull back from the tiny nails holding it in place. A pillow with a linen cover sat at the top end, but no head rested on it. Seth moved the light lower, over the dark shape taking up most of the confined space.
I'm not sure what I expected, apart from spiders. Part of me thought we would find Millicent exactly like her portrait, slumbering and waiting to be awoken by a prince's kiss. Another part of me expected to find dry bones, with any trace of Millicent long since rotted away.
What I didn't expect to find was a lumpy sack. We exchanged curious glances. It looked suspiciously like a chopped up vermin waiting in a bundle to be tossed on a fire. Seth prodded it with the crowbar. Wise move; I wouldn't touch it either, in case it grabbed my hand.
When the bundle didn't respond, Seth handed me the lantern and then he picked up an edge of hessian. He gave it a tug and a rock fell out. Followed by another.
"Rocks?" No wonder Millicent weighed so much; flesh and bones were replaced with stones and rocks.
We upended the sack, to check if Millicent was hiding in th
e very end. Nothing. Next we searched the niche where her coffin resided. Again we found nothing.
"Where is she?" I had enough problems in my life. Now I had a not-dead, possibly evil, mastermind behind everything, three-hundred-year-old witch roaming the countryside. Some days a girl just couldn't catch her breath.
Seth rubbed a hand over the back of his neck and then met my gaze. "I think we are moving beyond our area of expertise. Time to discuss this with someone far more knowledgeable. We need to pay a visit to Reverend Mason."
We replaced the casket in its niche and then retraced our steps. The ride back to the house was quiet, both of us lost in our own thoughts. Each time we thought we made progress in this war, we encountered another obstacle.
Lieutenant Bain waited for us on our return. Hope glinted in his eyes. We advanced on our enemy, only to discover she had slipped through our fingers.
"Millicent was not in residence," Seth said.
"I don't understand," the lieutenant said. A frown pulled his brows together as he glanced from Seth to me.
I let out a sigh. There were days I wished this was all a terrible dream and I would wake up to a land free of the undead and evil machinations. But would that also erase the relationship I had with Seth? What a terrible choice, to save millions of lives or to have the love of my life. "Millicent's coffin was empty. Or rather, empty of the duchess. It did contain a sack of rocks."
The tea tray clattered in Warrens' hands, yet he maintained his stiff upper lip on hearing the news. By the time the tray was placed on the table, he had regained his composure.
Seth took the teacup the butler held out to him. "How go your talks with Mason? We need his expertise now."
Bain cleared his throat and gathered his thoughts, the frown ironing itself out. "He improves. Certainly the pursuit you gave him has brought him back from wherever his mind fled. But his health remains fragile. He is not the man he once was."
Seth shrugged and took a sip of tea. "I don't need him to wield a sword, only to tackle pen and paper."
As the men talked, I stared at the toes of my boots while I sorted through conflicting thoughts in my mind. We needed the reverend's guidance, if he had any to give us. But I hadn't seen Charlotte since I delivered the news that I had dispatched her mother and imprisoned her sister. I was cast in the evil role in her particular fairy tale. Would she ever forgive me?
I stopped my inspection of scuffed leather and looked up. "I'm not sure if me accompanying you to the manse is a good idea."
Before Seth could respond, the lieutenant spoke up.
"I believe you would find your step-sister much changed, Miss Jeffrey. She bakes the most delicious shortbread," Lieutenant Bain said.
Charlotte? Baking? The Charlotte I knew might be able to find her way to the kitchen, but she was in foreign territory once she got there. I doubted she could even boil water. Guilt snaked through me. That was my fault. If not for me she would still be living a pampered life and wouldn't have to boil water or bake biscuits.
"I believe she has found a level of contentment she did not possess in her previous home. We have many and varied conversations while washing the tea things," he said by way of explanation.
I looked up at his warm brown gaze. He seemed to know an awful lot about my step-sister. I did want to extend the olive branch, if she would accept it. I guess there was only one way to find out if she would turn the branch into a switch to beat me with.
"Shall we go after tea, then?"
12
Charlotte
Things lost and found
* * *
Even as the wound on my arm healed, I continued to scratch my skin. The angry red line itched and I worried at it, waiting for my pulse to slow and then stop as I became one of them. In the days that followed finding that horrid thing in the backyard, the scratch it had left… oozed.
Lieutenant Bain—David—came every day to change the dressing. A noxious black substance stuck to the cotton as though my body repelled some poison. He never once showed any revulsion at the task he undertook or the foul odour that clung to the bandage.
David's gentle friendship was so at odds with everything I knew that it did something mother's cruel words used to do. It drove me to tears. At night I sobbed into my pillow, trying to grasp that he might genuinely like me.
From the day I was born, I knew only criticism. It was a constant disappointment to my mother that I wasn't as beautiful, poised, or talented as either her or Louise. Every single day of my life I had been judged and found wanting. Until now.
Just as David's quiet conversation brought Reverend Mason from out of his shell, so it wrought a change over me. I dared to dream. I smiled. When he paid me a compliment, I hugged the words to me and believed. But it was more than his friendship. I found a place for myself, and my work at the manse brought me personal satisfaction. I could achieve things, I had only to try.
Today's challenge was sponge. The delicate cake needed a bit more mastery before I considered it an achievement. The outer edge was overcooked and too hard, but with enough jam and cream the reverend might not notice. I was determined to add to my growing culinary repertoire.
A quiet knock sounded on the back door before it was pushed open and a familiar, uniform-clad figure appeared. The smile flew to my lips of its own accord.
"Afternoon, Charlotte. You have visitors today," David said as he walked into the kitchen.
I stared at the sad sponge and wished the cake would turn into a perfect example that would win a red ribbon at the village fête. But no fairy godmother appeared to wave a wand over the cake. Bother. I rubbed the flour off my hands and onto my green spotted apron.
"Visitors? For Reverend Mason?" I picked up the kettle and carried it to the sink. Mentally I planned out the tea tray. The shortbread supplies were running low. David always ate a number of the flaky squares with his tea. Fortunately he was fit and active, or he would need to let his belt out a hole or two.
The door opened wider and two more figures appeared. One I instantly recognised and my knees bobbed in an automatic curtsey. The Duke of Leithfield using the back door! Mother would have swooned if she saw that. Then my gaze flicked over the young woman who accompanied him. My step-sister, Ella.
A tentative smile crossed her face as my heart pounded faster in my chest and the itch returned to my arm. The mark burned as though a rancher held a red hot brand to my skin. Was this my end, to be delivered by Ella's sword? There was so much I wanted to do. My life might never be grand or important, but I still wanted to live it.
I pulled up the sleeve of my blouse and stuck out my limb.
"The wound is healing and David checks on me every day, I'm not turning into one of them, honest," I blurted all the words out in a garbled rush.
Ella's eyes widened. "Oh, Charlotte."
Would she cut my head off anyway? Hopefully not here in the kitchen, surely, but outside in the yard? The next instant I found myself grabbed in a hug and Ella held me tight.
"I'm so glad," she whispered. "I couldn't stand it if I lost you too."
A sob of relief welled up in my chest and burst forth as a hiccup. "You're not here to dispatch me?"
Sadness tinged her smile when she pulled back, her hands still on my shoulders. "Of course not. We're here to see the reverend. We hoped your battle with the original pandemic would protect you, and I'm elated to see it was true."
Mother set us as enemies, but here was Ella worried about my fate. All those years I had been a coward. I stood by and did nothing while mother took the switch to Ella or Louise deliberately tripped her up. "I'm so sorry for not standing up for you—"
She placed a fingertip over my lips and hushed me. "What's done is done. I would like it if we could move forward as friends."
"Friends." I nodded. One word and it meant the world to me. Forgiveness was a marvellous thing. Like bathing in hot, scented water, it revived your soul. The smile returned to my face and air filled my lungs in a deep
sigh.
"Why don't you two find Mr Mason? I'll give Charlotte a hand and we'll be along shortly," Ella said.
"This way, Captain." David gestured for the duke to follow him through. "The reverend will be ensconced in his office."
The hall door closed behind them. The kettle whistled and I wrapped the apron around my hand to lift the boiling water from the range.
Ella grabbed two wooden trays from their shelf under the bench. "I hear you have some delicious shortbread. Where would I find it?"
With Ella's assistance, we soon had two tea trays set out with enough to keep three grown men from starving until dinner time. As long as David didn't scarf the last of the shortbread. The sponge was covered in cream and looked serviceable, but I worried if it would be acceptable to serve to the duke.
"Stop worrying, it tastes fantastic," Ella said.
We carried the trays into the study and set them on the low table between the two enormous sofas. Ella played mother and poured tea while I quietly headed for the door.
Ella glanced up as I walked toward the door. "Won't you stay, Charlotte?"
"I'm sure you have top secret War Office stuff to discuss. You don't need the housekeeper listening in." I didn't give her a chance to answer, but slipped out into the hall and pulled the door shut behind me. I knew my place—in the kitchen.
Ella
It was odd to watch Charlotte serve tea and then retreat to the kitchen. Our roles had been reversed. I didn't want her to feel excluded, but it wasn't as though we were here to discuss the local fête. How could I include her in War Office business? Even Alice had an official position now, typing and filing reports. The world changed, and Charlotte would have to change with it.
I took a sip of tea and gathered my thoughts while Seth opened the conversation.