The Crimson Shard

by Teresa Flavin

  The two men and Mistress Biggins were having a lively conversation in the kitchen. Sunni wiped her face and crept out of the room, inching along the wall of the corridor till she came to the open doorway.

  “Sleekie and I work for her father,” she heard Fleet say, “not for her.”

  “Little madam,” added Sleek.

  “My word,” said Mistress Biggins. “You do not know the half of it. A more spoiled creature than Miss Livia you have never met.”

  “Impertinent,” said Sleek.

  “Precisely,” said Fleet. “Do you know, she scolded us for appearing in this house today?”

  “But why?” asked the cook. “You come here to do business.”

  “I imagine she didn’t want them dinner guests to see us. We nightsneaks is of such low status, and they is Persons of Quality.” Sunni could hear the sneer in Fleet’s voice. “Though nobody’d ever heard of Mr. Throgmorton and Miss Livia before they turned up.”

  “And they appeared with no warning,” said Mistress Biggins. “I found them at the breakfast table with Mr. Starling one morning. No explanation then, and none since. I do wonder where they came from so suddenly.”

  “And Starling took them in!”

  “’Twas money,” Sleek said.

  “Aye, Sleekie. Throgmorton had ready money. Where from, you and I may both wonder.”

  Mistress Biggins agreed with a long “Mmm.”

  Fleet went on, “Why, if them Persons of Quality had an inkling of our business with the gentlemen in this establishment, they’d never be seen here again.”

  Sunni’s ears pricked up, but Fleet changed the subject, so she sneaked back into her room and blew out the lonely candle by her bed. Desperately hoping that Biggins, Fleet, and Sleek would stay in the kitchen and that she would not bump head-on into Mary, Sunni tiptoed upstairs. The hall was empty. She hurried to the front door and pulled on it, but it was locked. She put her head to the dining parlor door, but when guests began getting up from the table with a scraping of chairs, she sprang away.

  Sunni ran up the stairs just as the dining parlor door opened. She dived out of sight on the landing and darted to the top floor as silently as she could.

  The boys were tidying up and extinguishing candles in the workshop before going to their beds in the next room. Blaise flexed his drawing hand and rubbed his eyes.

  “Blaise.” Sunni hurried in and dragged him to the painted door. “Come on.” She ran her hands over the wall, as he had, and pounded on it in frustration when she could find no way to pry it open.

  “I told you it was closed.” He touched the wall once more just in case.

  Sunni faced the other boys. “You all know how this works, don’t you? You must! And you know we don’t belong here either. Blaise and I have to go back through that door, and you have to help us.”

  “Keep your voice down. They won’t tell you, because they don’t know,” said Blaise. “Besides, they’re scared to talk.”

  “Scared? Of what?” Sunni threw her arms out wide. “Go on, why don’t you run away from the Academy then, if you’re scared?”

  Robert murmured something, and though the other boys shushed him, he kept talking. “We can’t go. Mr. Throgmorton’s paid the parish for us.”

  “He’s put a roof over our heads and food in our bellies,” said Toby, giving Robert a warning look.

  “What’s the parish?” asked Sunni.

  “The poorhouse,” said Samuel. “Where we was all raised from babies. Mr. Throgmorton came looking for boys who was good at drawing, and he chose each of us.”

  “If we is clever at our work, we can stay here,” said Jacob.

  Toby’s eyes flashed. “Instead of rag picking or sifting the Thames mud for lost coins.”

  “But he paid money for you. That’s wrong!” said Sunni. “You’re human beings.”

  The boys said nothing until Toby murmured, “It’s the way of things. You do not understand.”

  “I understand that you all have to draw night and day. You never seem to stop working.”

  They all shrugged.

  “Do you ever leave this house?”

  Silence.

  Sunni wrenched one of her sleeves up to show her tanned arm. “You never feel the sun or the rain? Or run about outdoors?”

  One or two heads shook.

  “We still have much to learn,” Toby insisted. “Mr. Starling has taught me everything, but there is always more to do here.”

  “Copying artwork that Mr. Fleet and Mr. Sleek bring in.” She pointed at the newly arrived painting of the musketeer. “Do you know where they got that from?”

  More silence.

  “How do they get these paintings?” asked Sunni. “Fleet and Sleek seem to be able to supply them with no problem.”

  The boys hung their heads and Blaise said, “Like the Flemish angel painting. It’s famous.”

  Will, who had never spoken up before, raised his head. “I am copying the angel. But Mr. Fleet and Mr. Sleek will take it back where it come from, like all the others. They says so. We just borrows ’em to copy for our learnin’.”

  “Borrow them from where? You don’t just ‘borrow’ well-known artwork,” said Sunni.

  Will shrugged, shrinking away from her furious questions.

  “It’s okay, Will. You’re not to blame,” said Blaise. “We’re just trying to figure out what’s going on here.”

  “Do not ask questions,” said Toby.

  But Sunni ignored him and picked up the copy one of the younger boys was making. “Are you allowed to keep the copies you make? Do they belong to you?”

  “Nay, we do not keep them,” said Will earnestly.

  “Will!” Toby hissed.

  “Let him talk,” said Blaise. “What happens to your copies when you’re done?”

  “There’s nothing wrong in saying it, Toby,” said Will. “Mr. Throgmorton takes the copies. He takes ’em away.” His eyes darted momentarily toward the painted door.

  Toby grabbed his arm. “Are you mad? Say nothing more, Will!”

  “He doesn’t need to.” Sunni tapped the wall. “You all slave away making drawings and Mr. Throgmorton takes them away through this door, doesn’t he?”

  There was rustling behind them, and everyone turned, startled.

  Livia stepped from the shadowy hallway, regal in a deep rose–colored gown. “Jack Sunniver, what are you doing here?”

  Sunni’s lip twisted. “Nothing.”

  “Come away from that wall. Your bed is below, and you are nowhere near it.”

  “I was just going.”

  “That is a lie. I spied you running up the stairs.”

  “I couldn’t sleep.” Sunni stormed past her and ran down the stairs.

  “What were you telling Jack Sunniver, William?” asked Livia, her expression mild.

  “Nothing, Miss Livia.” Will’s eyes were huge in his thin face.

  Livia’s short laugh was like a windowpane shattering. “Never lie, William. Dishonesty always hurts someone in the end.”

  The stale-smelling bed was too short for his lanky frame, and the mattress sagged in the middle, but Blaise fell asleep almost immediately. For a brief, anguished moment, he wondered again about the boy whose bed this had been and if he and Sunni would ever escape, but, with the urge to sleep so great, his questions just drifted away.

  The painted door kept appearing in his dreams, opening and closing for everyone else, but never for him. Just as he thought it was about to allow him through, he felt a hand shake his shoulder.

  “Blaise, it’s midnight,” whispered Jacob, his fair hair shining in the lantern light. “We rise now.”

  Blaise rolled over and looked around the dark room. It smelled of sleep and unwashed bodies. No light came in from the small windows. The night sky was solid black, with no electric street lights to tinge it amber.

  The other boys were already up and filing out of the bedroom. He could hear them beginning work in the Academy on the ot
her side of the wall.

  Jacob lingered by Blaise’s cot. “You are truly allowed to sleep all night where you are from?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Does everyone sleep so much?”

  “No,” said Blaise, thinking of his dad, who got up early to go running every morning, and feeling another twist of sickness in his stomach. He’d hardly thought of his dad with everything that had happened. By now, he would have reported them missing, after having waited for hours on Tottenham Court Road.

  “What is it like where you are from?” Jacob asked as Blaise pulled off his nightshirt and dragged the breeches, shirt, and horrible stockings back on.

  “Oh.” Blaise half smiled. “Where would I start? There’s too much to tell.”

  “Mr. Throgmorton found you there?”

  Blaise tied his hair back into a short ponytail with a bit of string. “Yes, unfortunately.”

  The boy looked around to make sure no one else was listening. “I wonder what he does with our copies after he takes them through the door.”

  “I have no idea. He didn’t have any with him when we met him.”

  Jacob sighed. “We work so hard to make the copies well, and as soon as they are finished, they are taken away.”

  “I know. I would hate that.” Blaise sensed an opportunity. He lowered his voice. “You were the one who said Throgmorton makes the painted door come alive. You’ve seen him do it, haven’t you, Jacob?”

  After a moment’s hesitation, the boy nodded. “Once only.”

  Blaise’s heart jumped. “How did he open the door?”

  “H-he drew on it,” Jacob whispered. “With red.”

  “What did he draw?” Blaise tried to keep his voice calm.

  Jacob drew an arc in the air. “I know not. Just a shape — like this.”

  Blaise remembered the curved scratches in the painted door’s surface. “What did he use to draw? A paintbrush?”

  “A stone knife, I think,” said Jacob, “It was reddish and there was something crimson he dipped it in.”

  Cold spread through Blaise, as if he had been dipped in an icy sea. “Did he say anything while he was drawing?”

  “No.”

  “Where did the red liquid come from? The workshop?”

  “From a vial under his shirt.”

  Blaise’s heart sank. How would they ever get this red substance, whatever it was, from Throgmorton? “Do any of the other boys know more than you do?”

  “No, only what I told you.” Jacob took a backward step toward the door, his face creasing with worry.

  “It’s all right.” Blaise held the boy’s elbow and said earnestly, “I will not tell anyone, especially Toby.”

  Jacob relaxed at this, and they hurried into the workshop together. The boys were lighting lanterns and sitting down to their work.

  “Strewth!” came a familiar curse from a far corner of the room. “Toby, is it midnight already?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Jeremiah lay fully clothed in a corner, half covered by dusty bedding and sprawled across a pile of lumpy-looking sacks.

  “Egad,” he muttered, and sat up. The candlelight seemed to bother him, and he shielded his eyes. “’Tis as if I left Throgmorton’s dinner table only a moment ago.”

  “That’s where he sleeps?” Blaise whispered to Jacob, incredulous.

  Jacob gave a quick nod.

  “But this is his house, isn’t it? Why doesn’t he sleep downstairs in a bedroom?”

  “Do not speak of me behind my back.” Jeremiah got to his feet, looking unsteady. “Yes, this is my house!”

  Blaise backed away from Jacob, so as not to bring Jeremiah’s anger onto him.

  “My father built it thirty-five years ago. It is the only home I have ever known, and the only home I shall ever know. Nothing — no one — shall force me from it.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Blaise. “I didn’t know —”

  “Mr. Throgmorton and his daughter are my, er, lodgers and stay downstairs,” said Jeremiah. “That is all you need know. My living arrangements are no business of yours.”

  “I — I’m sorry. . . .”

  “You remember what I told you. Keep to your work.”

  Blaise sat down at his table and stared at his pile of ink drawings. He sighed. The last thing he wanted to do was pick up that quill pen again.

  “What’s going on?” Sunni appeared in the workshop, late and bleary-eyed, from her own bed in the cellar.

  “Don’t talk right now,” Blaise said through clenched teeth. “Someone’s in a bad mood and taking it out on us.”

  Sunni dipped her quill in the inkpot and started scratching away on the corner of one of her practice sheets. A huge black blob rolled onto the paper and she groaned. “This pen is terrible.”

  “Have you honed the quill, Miss — er, Sunniver?” grunted Jeremiah. “Instruct him, Toby.”

  The Master sat down heavily in his seat and rubbed his bloodshot eyes. “There is no use in a blunt tool. We must have sharpness at all times.”

  With that, he let his eyes close, and his chin fell to his chest.

  A distant church bell rang two o’clock in the morning. Sunni paused from her work to examine the lump on her middle finger. It was so sore from drawing, she could hardly bear anything to touch it.

  Jeremiah snored in his chair. Toby had already warned them not to wake him.

  She studied the boys’ wan faces. All of them worked without complaint, barely stopping to stretch, except for Blaise. For the first time ever, even he seemed to need a break and couldn’t stop fidgeting and yawning.

  So he’s not a perpetual drawing machine, she thought, stifling a yawn herself.

  She couldn’t stop glancing at the painted door, half expecting Throgmorton or Livia to step through it at any moment. But she knew they were both downstairs, having waved off their dinner guests an hour and a half before.

  As she drew yet another sketch, holding her pen so it would not press on her raw finger, she thought of Dean, tucked up in bed at home in Braeside with her dad and Rhona. But would they actually be sleeping or awake, worrying about her? Sunni had managed to disappear — again — and no doubt her stepmother would lock her up and throw away the key after this.

  From down below, slow footsteps climbed the stairs. A lantern cut through the gloom, illuminating Throgmorton’s figure at the workshop door.

  “Blaise. Jack Sunniver,” he said. “Come with me.”

  They followed Throgmorton in silence as he led them into a dark-paneled study on the ground floor. The atmosphere was chilly, with no embers glowing in the hearth or candles on the mantelpiece, and was stagnant with spent tobacco.

  Throgmorton gestured for them to sit and locked the door. He set the lantern on a small table littered with half-empty glasses of port wine and a discarded pipe. The gentlemen must have sat here talking and laughing after dinner, but they had taken everything light and jolly away with them when they went home.

  “How is your instruction progressing?” Throgmorton asked softly.

  Play along, Sunni told herself. She forced her face into a pleasant expression. “I’ve learned about making a quill and drawing with ink.”

  “Me, too” was all Blaise managed before he had to yawn.

  Throgmorton pushed the lantern closer to Sunni and Blaise, lighting their faces and sending his own farther into the darkness. “You are not used to working properly. Life is very easy in your world. And you have great opinions about work, about what is too much or too hard. I am speaking to you, Jack Sunniver.”

  Sunni met Throgmorton’s gaze.

  “You have been especially busy not working this evening. Instead you have been exploring, listening at doors, asking questions, demanding things,” said Throgmorton. “I was not expecting this kind of behavior from my guests.”

  “I’m not your guest — I’m trapped in this house,” she said. “Though it’s more like a sweatshop, isn’t it? With slaves copying artwork that you t
ake away from them.”

  “You have a loose mouth, Jack Sunniver.”

  “That’s not my name.”

  Sunni could sense Blaise tensing and willing her to shut up, but it was too late.

  Throgmorton released a long breath. “It is your name now, Miss Forrest.”

  A sharp shock ran through Sunni at his mention of her surname. She had never told it to him or anyone else there.

  “How do you know my —?”

  “Blackhope Tower,” said Throgmorton, crossing one leg over the other. His shoe buckle glinted sharply in the candlelight. “You know the place.”

  “What?” Sunni gasped. “Who are you?”

  Throgmorton did not answer. “Of course you know Blackhope Tower, the castle built by Sir Innes Blackhope. And all who can read newspapers or see those magnificent devices, the television and the computer, know about you.” He gave them a nod. “You are famous for vanishing there in the Mariner’s Chamber, a room that was already notorious because skeletons would appear from nowhere on the tiled labyrinth in its floor.”

  Sunni knew exactly where the skeletons had come from, but she was not going to tell him.

  “You were only in the Mariner’s Chamber to see Fausto Corvo’s painting, The Mariner’s Return to Arcadia,” said Throgmorton. “But you happened to discover Corvo’s once-secret password, chiaroscuro.” He let the Italian word that meant “light and dark” roll off his tongue in an exaggerated way.

  Sunni cringed at hearing this man say it aloud. Of course she had talked openly about the password that connected the tiled labyrinth with the painting’s hidden world. Since the labyrinth’s power had been closed down, there hadn’t been any reason to hide the password. Not that she, Blaise, or her stepbrother, Dean, had dared to divulge any of the painting’s real secrets; they had sworn to protect them. But now she wished she had kept the password to herself.

  Throgmorton continued. “Then both of you, and the other boy, Dean, vanished from the Mariner’s Chamber with no explanation. People became obsessed with the mystery of the missing children. When you finally reappeared, you told a fantastic story — that you had entered Corvo’s painting by walking the labyrinth and repeating the word chiaroscuro. Some believed you, but many others thought you had invented the tale.”