Veritas

by Quinn Coleridge

  Sim knocks on the door loudly. “Sorry, sir, but the buggy driver outside needs to speak with you.”

  Kelly mutters under his breath. “Fine. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  “Come here, Hester.” He turns me around gently and hugs me, like the true friend he is. There is no ownership in the gesture, just kindness. “We’ll finish our discussion another time.”

  Kelly leaves the house to speak with the driver. As usual, guilt nags, and I worry that the doctor will discover the opium among my luggage out there in the buggy. Really, Hester, you should be ashamed. You steal, lie, utilize drugs. Kiss a man one moment and change your mind the next…

  As Kelly said, I am not the person I once was.

  Self-examination makes me restless, so I use my cane to cross the foyer, skimming along the wall. My left foot crashes into something heavy. I bend down, rub my painful toes, and touch the hard surface of the offending object. Bulging eyes? Flared nostrils? Snake-like tail? It’s Mr. Ming, Mama’s Chinese dragon doorstop—my enamel-covered, heart-of-iron friend from childhood. I run my fingers over him, remembering the last time we bumped into each other. It seems like a hundred years ago—the day Mama died and my life took a very different turn. Patting Ming once more, I feel old and fragile. Strange that he wasn’t sold with the other household things, but maybe no one wanted him. Cook always said Ming was hideous.

  Yet I’m glad he’s here. I’ll put him in a place of honor. My back muscles protest as I lift the ponderous dragon and carry him to a spot by the window. He settles on the floor with a clang.

  Kelly reenters the house. “The driver’s pitching a fit. Apparently he has another appointment that he cannot miss. Where can we take you? To visit Miss Collins?”

  No, I sign. Staying here.

  Expecting Kelly to begin counting to cool his temper, I’m surprised when he doesn’t. “You’re welcome at my house, you know. As my guest, with absolutely no strings attached. Unless you want them to be.”

  I smile and shake my head. Need quiet. Time to myself.

  He walks into the hallway and calls Sim, who joins us promptly. “Have you a room for Miss Grayson to use?”

  Miss Grayson, is it now, Kelly? My legal husband must not want to explain our marriage to the boy and thereby is still using my maiden name in his presence.

  “Yes, sir. I found some furniture upstairs in the servant’s wing.”

  “And you’ll lock up each night? Keep things safe?”

  “I will,” Sim replies. “I promise, Doctor.”

  Kelly puts his hand on my arm and draws me to the door, lowers his head and whispers, “People will gossip if you stay here alone with him. He’s nearly a man.”

  Let them, I sign. Don’t care.

  “Somehow I knew you’d say that.”

  The doctor walks across the porch outside but turns back at the steps. “Since you refuse to live with me, you might give some thought to buying a place of your own. We could tour the local real estate together and find something suitable.”

  My housing options are slim, due to my income, but I try to appear enthusiastic. Wonderful idea.

  And it is wonderful, if one defines the experience as a source of actual wonder, a near miracle. With Kelly’s help, I secure lodgings within twenty-four hours, but I cannot move in until the current inhabitants vacate the premises. Therefore, I’ve been developing some previously non-existent homemaking skills.

  A scullery girl comes to The Revels and works with me for an hour or two each afternoon. Scarcely fifteen, she charges a minimal amount for her services but seems to be a wealth of domestic information. I have learned many things under her tutelage. The operation of the big, frightening wood stove, how to gather eggs from the hens without getting pecked, and baking scones. And I’ve discovered that large kitchen aprons are an excellent invention. Mixing up cornbread and scones can cover even the most skilled homemakers with powdery ingredients.

  Yet I am not even close to skilled—thus the ingredients coat both me and the apron like an early spring snowfall. How glad I am today’s supper is over! I cooked it all on my own, learning far too late that one should never fry bacon in an over-heated cast-iron skillet. As a result, we had no meat for supper, and the kitchen still smells of smoldering pork.

  “Those jacket potatoes were good,” Sim murmurs, bringing his plate to the sink. “Didn’t fancy bacon anyway.”

  He lies. Everyone fancies bacon except the pig.

  I begin washing up. Sim takes the towel off my shoulder and dries the dishes as I clean them. This is a nice surprise. It seems like I’ve been waiting on Sim hand and foot since coming home. Not that I mind, particularly. Having someone else to care for distracts me from my own problems.

  “Do you know if Little Hawk’s left for town yet?” he asks, sliding a dry plate across the counter.

  Willard has been in and out of the house for days at a time, searching the woods for Mary Arden. He mentioned earlier that he needed fresh supplies from Hollister’s before making the next trip. I gave him five dollars and a shopping list of my own.

  Sim adds another dish to the stack. “And the girl is gone? The one who comes in and helps you?”

  Nodding in response, I drop our utensils into a pan of hot water, wisps of steam rising to my face. I scrub and rinse the knives and forks before handing them to Sim.

  “Willard said you leased a place on St. David’s Street. A big old boarding house. When do you move in?”

  I hold up seven soapy fingers.

  “A week? That soon?” He does not speak much after receiving this information and leaves abruptly when the last mug is wiped dry and placed in the cupboard.

  With the kitchen finally tidy, I pick up a large woven basket. It’s dark outside, but that doesn’t matter to me. The sheets on the laundry line won’t un-peg themselves. My back gives me a twinge as I hoist the basket to my hip. Even though the lashes have healed, there are spasms of pain deep in the affected muscles. I injected myself this morning, but it takes more drugs to satisfy me now. I have five bottles left, little more than a dose in each. Just thinking of running dry makes me ill.

  When I leave the house, the night air smells of chives and rosemary from the kitchen garden, and a single cricket cheeps its heart out in the flower bed. A soft, gentle evening, and yet depression nearly smothers me as I unpeg and fold the linen.

  Knowing my way by heart, I count the steps back toward the house, walk across the kitchen, and down the hallway to the formal staircase. I hold the handrail and proceed to the second floor, turning in the direction of my old bedroom. Sim was embarrassed to admit that my father had given it to him. He offered to move out, but I didn’t wish to be a bother. The maid’s dormitory isn’t such a bad spot, and most nights, I’m too tired to care about my sleeping arrangements.

  Sim is packing when I enter my old suite. I hear him drop something on the floor. Is it a shoe? He seems jumpy, like me when the medication wears off. Once he snaps his bag and removes it from the bed, I drape clean linen over the mattress and begin tucking in the corners.

  “Might as well leave,” Sim says. “Can’t stay here forever.”

  Lifting my eyebrows, I turn in his direction, questioning. What has brought on this sudden restlessness?

  He goes downstairs without saying anything more. Sim can’t be serious about leaving now. Where will he stay? I’ve heard nothing about new accomodations and the owner doesn’t take possession of the house for several weeks. Perhaps Sim means to take a trip.

  I finish adjusting the linens and then open the built-in drawers under the window seat, hoping to find an additional quilt inside. It is as desolate as the rest of The Revels. My hand bumps against a slim wooden panel. I had forgotten about the hidden compartment. In our salad days, Cordelia and I surprised one another by leaving treats in this little drawer. Pushing the right corner of the panel, I hear it release and pop out.

  Nostalgic, I reach inside, and my fingers touch something cool. Like link
s of a chain. A necklace? Stomach fluttering, I trace the edge of a small, rectangular stone and recognize it immediately. It’s the topaz—the same one worn by Tom’s ancestors. A surge of happiness runs through me until I remember when I last held the pendant. The day a stranger threw Kelly off Settler’s Ridge and nearly strangled me. Reviewing that memory in my head, I realize it wasn’t a stranger at all.

  But Simmons Harrow.

  I lean against the foot of the bed, feeling like the air’s been knocked out of me. How could I not read him, not know what he was feeling all these years? Even with my supernatural gifts, I never realized the truth. I must have blocked my mind to any clues that brought him under suspicion—the height of the attacker, his build and musculature. Even the smell of beef broth on his skin, now that I think of it—a scent often worn by the oldest children at the orphanage. They earn their keep in the kitchens, separating the boiled meat from the bones and gristle. But I ignored all of this evidence. In fact, it occurs to me that I’ve never once tried to read his emotions with olfaction. Given his tragic youth, I suppose I felt sorry for the boy, extending privacy to him that I gave to no one else.

  A crashing sound on the main floor. I fasten the chain around my neck, hide the topaz locket in my bodice, and step out of the bedroom. Listening carefully, I pinpoint Sim’s location. He’s in a storage room near the kitchen, arguing loudly. The way he talks to himself reminds me of David Thornhill, moments before he killed Maude Lambson. And Marie-Louise Lennox just prior to her suicide.

  As I descend the stairs, another crash comes from the storage room. The sound is painfully close, and I cover my ears. I wish I had a weapon, though I dread the thought of actually using it on Sim. I lift my face and listen. Here he comes, walking toward the front of the house, a container of some kind in his hand. It sloshes back and forth with each step.

  Caught out in the open, just beyond the foyer, I’m unsure which way to turn. Don’t act scared, Hester. Don’t upset him. It’s so strange, we just did the dishes together, and everything seemed fine. I can still smell the burned bacon, hear the cricket cheeping outside in the garden. But now Sim’s trying to kill me.

  He walks my way, the liquid in his bottle splashing against the glass. “Miss Hester—” Sim says. Then he stops and rubs his head. “No! I won’t call you that. I won’t bow or scrape anymore.”

  The front entrance is my only hope. I inch backwards, praying the movement is small enough Sim won’t notice.

  “Do you know what your father did to me?” he asks while opening the bottle. Fluid splatters across my shoulder, the side of my face, coating my hair and stinging my eyes and nose. I wipe at it, using my skirt as a towel, and recognize that sharp, oily smell.

  Kerosene.

  Sim drizzles the remainder of the liquid across the wooden floor. “He sold my family a worthless mine. Took all our life’s savings.”

  He tosses the bottle against the wall, and it shatters. I cover my ears, but I still hear his angry voice. “It killed Pa. Forced Ma to work at the button factory. But one night she comes home and falls asleep next to the fire. Ever hear the story?”

  I have heard it. Everyone knows what happened to the Harrows. How his mother died just months after his father, when a few stray embers popped from the hearth and set her alight.

  “Who do you think revealed your father’s crimes?” Sim asks. “The partners were shocked when I gave them the record books. Greed cost him this house, all his possessions, his good name, and last of all, his child.”

  If only Sim knew how little my father cared, he’d realize that this dramatic gesture won’t have the effect he desires. Sim’s beyond reason. He scrapes a Lucifer tip and the match flares to life. I run back through the foyer to the front door and twist the knob. Please open. Please.

  “No use. Locked it myself.”

  Turning, I face my attacker, but my thoughts are clouded with fear. Again, I don’t know what to do.

  Sim remains still. He keeps his distance, the Lucifer—and my fate—in his hand. He wants to watch me burn without risking his own skin. I hear him blow out the match, and toss the stick over his shoulder. Another is struck. It’s extinguished like the first.

  “Couldn’t kill you when I caused the wagon accident in town,” he says, lighting the next, putting it out. “Or when I had my fingers round your neck up on the ridge.”

  My heart sputters as he plays with me. How soon will he tire of this?

  “Maybe today’s the day.” Sim draws out the process of igniting this one, and it sounds brilliant when it finally catches fire. “Let’s see, shall we?”

  He drops the lit match, and I hear the flame snap against the kerosene. Sim laughs wildly, clapping like a child at a Fourth of July parade. The foyer is a vast octagonal space with hallways branching out to other sections of the house, but I’m cut off from any route of escape. I hear the fire oscillating, forming almost a half-circle as it begins to hem me in. It’s moving so fast with all the wood pillars and floors. How long do I have? I track the progress of the fire, counting in seconds how quickly it’s eating up the room. I give myself two or three minutes until the flames arrive at my section of the foyer. If the smoke doesn’t kill me first, that is. And the roof doesn’t collapse. Coughing, eyes already streaming from the hot air, I take off my apron and cover my nose and mouth with it, tying the strings at the back of my head.

  One and two and three, I remind myself, counting down the seconds until the fire gets here. Four and five and six. The rhythm makes me think of when Cordelia taught me to waltz. I was bloody awful, stepping on her feet the entire time. Cordelia nearly hurt herself from laughing too hard. Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen.

  What do I do? Frozen with panic for a moment, my brain sparks and then returns to full function, pointing out the obvious. The wall behind me has a tall window. Huzzah, thank you brain. I turn around and pound against the glass. Shatter, will you? I don’t want to die like this. Yet it doesn’t cooperate. Stupid, stupid glass. Thirty-eight, thirty-nine, forty.

  My lungs feel dry like the smoky air, and I choke and gag. Losing my balance, I stumble over a hard object. O di immortales. Mr. Ming!

  Fifty-nine, sixty. One minute gone, two remaining before I go to blazes.

  The fire is consuming Mama’s painted wallpaper, popping loudly, and the sound waves beat against my ears. One and two and three, I begin counting time again. I tear at my dress, get the buttons undone enough that I can slip out of the kerosene-soaked garment. The corset feels wet too, so I yank the laces loose and it goes as well. Twenty-nine, thirty.

  Out of range of the fire, Sim still must be able to see me. “Nice little performance. But getting naked won’t save you.”

  Coughing harder, I ignore Sim, and pull on a velvet curtain until it falls. The heavy panel is lined with wool and has cashmere trim around the sides. Fifty-two, fifty-three. I throw the panel over my body and pick up Ming the dragon. Twisting around, I hurl the dragon with all my might.

  Fifty-nine, sixty…

  Glass shatters and falls everywhere, hitting my head, shoulders and feet. Flames explode behind me. Jump, Hester. Do it before you burn like the bacon at supper.

  The curtain panel that I’m wearing as a barrier to the heat smells hot, as though the tail of it is alight. I throw myself out of the window and land on the ground below. Only a four or five foot drop. Then I roll away from the burning velvet panel, kicking at the heat. Still coughing, I push the apron down from my face and untie it. The grass has bits of glass in it but it feels wet. My legs sting like hell, though. Is my petticoat on fire? Well get it off, you dolt! I untie the ribbons at my waist and shimmy out of the smoldering petticoat. Left with only my camisole, drawers, stockings and boots, I take my leave of the rose garden.

  Hide in the maze, I think. No, too far away. Go north… This is getting ridiculous. I am sick of running from villains—it’s all I ever do anymore. Thorns catch at my skin, and I fall over a small topiary bush, landing on one knee. Damn
topiary, never did like it. Scrambling to my feet again, I extend both of my hands and continue forward, hoping to hide in the orchard.

  Cordie refused to go there at night. “Black as sin,” she always said. But I murmur a prayer of thanks. Darkness is what all hunted things desire. In an effort to calm myself, I exhale slowly, trying to form a sound grid in my mind.

  Blast that noise from the fire. Ninety-five feet? Eighty? Who the hell knows?

  Flames growl and scream within the house like an angry creature. The Revels is being destroyed from the inside out. I hear a wall crumble, wood hissing. Another window shatters as Sim jumps through it. His blazing monster has gotten away from him, and he’s fleeing its open maw, just as I am running from him.

  Sixty feet away… Fifty-five… Possibly forty-eight, though I wouldn’t bet on it.

  Finally, I enter the orchard and cover my face as I plunge between the branches. The aisle grows narrow so I drop to my knees and crawl. Careful now. Keep quiet. Yet my throat hurts from inhaling the smoke, and I want to cough so badly.

  A man calls my name. Smooth voice, well-educated. I know him, although we have only met once. “You won’t escape this time,” he says, using Sim as a mouthpiece. “I’ll only lead him to you.”

  My mind veers back to the vision I had in Ironwood—of the strange Venetian masquerade and the person wearing the mask of the horned beast. It was James Scarlett, so polished and beautiful on the outside, but pure evil within. It’s his voice speaking to me now through Sim Harrow’s body. The owner of Griffin House is driving people to commit murder.

  He is the heir of Archimendax.

  The grove of fruit trees comes to an end. I crawl out, extend my hands out of habit, and walk, hoping to make it to the corral before Sim finds me. In the barn, horses stomp at the stall doors, kick at the walls. I recognize Jupiter’s cry. He’s near crazed. Hold on, I’ll set you free, old boy. There’s a smokehouse between us, and I hurry around the east side of the building and collide with an immovable object. It comes to my midsection and has an open shaft in the center. Something tiny—a piece of gravel?—is dislodged by my elbow and falls, hits the bottom seconds later. A twelve-foot drop, perhaps? This must be the old well!