“These verses were written by the same youth,” she said, regarding Ansel with a stern schoolmistress look. She sat with her back straight, her hands folded on her lap and over the open pages of the book of poetry she’d just claimed for the time together. A quick glance at them, however, revealed blank pages—just like the music sheets.
“Like the music earlier?”
“Yes. Like the music.” Miss Peveler paused, her mouth curling into a faint, bemused smile, her gaze fixed on her student. “I’ll need you to listen closely—to the words, to the sentiment behind the words—and tell me your opinion of them.”
Ansel nodded, swallowing, his heart racing at the very thought that he was now being tasked to turn to even more refined stuff. Throughout that session, Miss Peveler’s mood changed subtly as she recited the poems apparently by memory, though she still put on a show of holding the blank book up as if to read from it. Ansel could tell she was deeply affected by—and appeared to cherish—all of the poems. Even though she was listening to Ansel’s clumsy attempts at responding to the verses, her attention remained somewhat divided, and her mood reflected her thoughts.
His answers didn’t vary from what he’d given earlier: if he were the intended recipient, he’d feel nothing less than honor and humility for being loved unequivocally. Miss Peveler heeded and acknowledged, but she showed no signs of a heart warming up beyond their time together. She dismissed the matter when the clock struck nine as though they’d never had sincere and private exchanges twice that day. As he prepared for bed, Ansel decided Miss Peveler was heartbroken and was looking for affirmation and comfort regarding an ill-fated romance.
He tried to understand what the blank music sheets and book pages were about, and while he dared not question her about them, he decided she was just another eccentric but brilliant artist who knew music and poetry by heart. Perhaps she merely used those blank pieces of paper as props. Perhaps she was mad. Ansel balked at the last idea. Surely, he thought, he was being far too harsh with the lady.
“Common sense says that I should keep my eyes open, nevertheless,” he muttered.
Chapter 7
Miss Peveler once again disappeared the following morning, again having gone off to visit a friend.
“Is her friend ailing?” Ansel asked over breakfast, which he was now finding to be a pretty lonely affair.
He was served his meal in the dining room, and since he’d never been advised against eating with the servants, he’d gathered his plate, which was piled high with food, and his cup of coffee. Ignoring Mrs. Finn and Mr. Blacow’s questioning looks, he’d seated himself in their midst, coloring and apologizing for his intrusion.
“No, she isn’t ailing. She’s quite well—as are the rest of Miss Peveler’s friends,” Mrs. Finn replied as she turned her attention back to her meal.
“Does she have a lot of friends?”
“Plenty enough.”
Mr. Blacow, who’d contented himself with simply listening and nodding or shaking his head to emphasize Mrs. Finn’s points, continued eating.
“Would she allow me to accompany her sometime?”
Mrs. Finn chuckled and sipped her coffee. “Oh, child. You have your own path to follow.” Without explaining herself further, she deftly switched subjects to something less intrusive.
So while she and Mr. Blacow livened up the breakfast table with cheerful talk about winter, Ansel could only eat and listen in silence, his mind divided. As before, something Mrs. Finn had just said teased him, toying at the fringes of his mind. How did accompanying one’s benefactress on a social visit have anything to do with a person’s path in life?
She was referring to your desperate need to ape your betters. Do you really believe you belong in their circle? Think, whelp.
Ansel took a deep breath and finished his meal, humbled. His father might haunt him in his mind, but whatever hateful words were thrown at him had some kernel of truth buried in their depths. He needed to remind himself not to overreach; he had his place, and his father had always ensured he knew it and accepted it.
Ansel cleared his throat and caught Mrs. Finn’s attention. “Is—is there anything you need help with around the house today, ma’am?”
“Do what you need to do, young man.”
And that was the end of it.
Maybe everyone in Pryor House was mad. Again a possibility Ansel couldn’t help but entertain; again a possibility he felt was unfair to toy with. As much as he expected to be terrified by the unknown, no one gave him any reason to doubt their intentions, which were all good despite the strangeness of people’s behavior, among other things.
“Maybe I’m the one who’s mad.”
From somewhere in the deepest, darkest recesses of his mind, his father laughed.
* * * *
On his hands and knees, Ansel stared bleakly at the fireplace in the drawing room. It had been thoroughly swept, the ashes gone, a fresh new pile of wood already set, waiting for the match. He was hoping to clean fireplaces that day, but, apparently, Pryor House refused him the privilege. No matter where he turned, everything was in its place, not a speck of dust to be seen. It was infuriating, to say the least. He’d spent a good deal of his time in bed the previous night scheming for this moment. He’d even methodically ticked off item after item till he’d reached what he’d believed to be the kind of work no one in the world, surely, would want to deal with unless there was nothing else left to be done.
A quiet sound startled him out of his dour thoughts, and he sat back on his heels, frowning. Yes, there it was again—softly creaking floorboards, as if someone was carefully walking around, trying his or her best not to be heard. Ansel glanced up and regarded the ceiling.
“Upstairs,” he murmured. “Is Miss Peveler back already? I thought she was going to be away till this afternoon.”
The creaking continued, and Ansel stumbled to his feet.
“If she’s here, I might as well go see her,” he said, hoping against hope that she’d have something for him to do.
Pryor House was silent. He was quite used to that, really, but there was something different in its current stillness that unsettled him somewhat. He wasn’t frightened, to be sure. He didn’t believe in ghosts and hauntings; if anything, he was a great deal more terrified of living, breathing persons than the dead. He had scars and fading bruises to prove it.
He ascended the stairs, and the stillness gradually settled itself in his core. He had a description for it: anticipation. As he walked down the second floor hallway, counting rooms and mentally picturing their location in reference to the drawing room below, he also sensed a quiet, simmering kind of anticipation in the quietness of Pryor House.
He paused before the door of what he believed to be the room directly above the drawing room. His skin prickled. Ansel glanced around, ensuring he was alone, and he was. But he still couldn’t shake off the feeling of being watched by unseen eyes.
“Miss Peveler, ma’am?” he called as he knocked at the door. No one answered. Ansel waited a few more seconds before knocking again, and still no answer. “Funny. I thought I heard…”
He tried the doorknob, and it turned. He pushed the door open, poked his head through, and looked around. Oh, yes, he recognized this room. It was the master’s bedroom, he’d learned, and while it was furnished and maintained by Mrs. Finn, it remained unused. For whatever reason no one seemed keen to share with him, Miss Peveler chose to sleep in another room, which he’d always avoided entering for fear of violating the lady’s privacy, even if she weren’t home.
“Miss Peveler?” he called again. Then he had to laugh at himself. There was no place for the lady to hide. She was obviously not home yet. Perhaps Ansel was just hearing things—not surprising if one was so idle and bored and desperate for activity of any kind.
Ansel was about to withdraw when another sound caught his attention. This time it came from somewhere outside.
“Oh—are we having visitors?”
&
nbsp; Curiosity urged him to shut the door and move toward one of the colorful windows. Turning the metal latch, he swung one of the casements open and leaned out, shivering at the sudden blast of icy breeze against his face.
“Come on, Cedric, you’re dragging your feet again!” a girl’s voice called out. The speaker sounded quite playful in her chiding, and Ansel frowned as he tried to catch a glimpse of her.
The wild collection of leafless trees and snow-covered shrubs surrounding Pryor House yielded nothing. Then Ansel caught movement just off to his left. He looked in time to catch a young girl walking briskly into his line of vision, though he couldn’t tell where she’d just come from. Beyond Pryor House’s garden stretched an open, flat area of about fifty feet. And after that came a more widely scattered collection of trees, the gaps between them promising endless hours spent wandering and exploring in the warmer months. This part of Pryor House was on the back end, and there were no roads visible anywhere—only bare trees as far as the eye could see.
The girl, thickly bundled against the chill, was quite energetic and vocal. Cheeks red and breaths coming out in light puffs, she’d pause in her tracks, turn around, and tease her companion. “What on earth are you thinking about now? Daydreams in the snow this time, dear?”
Cedric appeared, laughing in turn and blushing. He was quite young, Ansel thought, looking to be in his teens, though perhaps older than Ansel. He and the girl—who was probably related to him—were born into privilege. Their warm clothes, despite the simplicity in cut and design, were very fine, and the two certainly carried themselves rather well. From where Ansel stood, some distance from them, he could easily see those details as he watched them, fascinated and amused.
“Why, yes, Becky, I’m always, always lost in daydreams,” Cedric replied, his grin nearly splitting his face into two and almost blinding in its brilliance. “Indoors, outdoors, it doesn’t matter.”
Becky sighed, and Ansel imagined she’d just rolled her eyes. “There’s no hope for you, brother. I tried.”
“Yes, you did.” Cedric walked an idle pace behind his sister, hands buried deeply in his pockets, his grin not at all wavering. “It’ll have to be Jane’s turn now.”
“She’ll try to lose you in a forest, I’m sure. Or drown you. Or lock you away in an abandoned manor somewhere and forget about you.”
“Somehow I doubt any of those measures will cure me of my fancies.”
Becky snorted. She’d paused, waiting for Cedric to catch up, and amused herself by gathering some snow in her gloved hands and forming a ball. Ansel chuckled at what he knew was going to happen next.
“Well, it doesn’t hurt to try. I’ve done my part with adventures on foot, but I’m not averse to taking more extreme measures. Like this.”
And with that, Becky threw her snowball at her brother, proving to be a damned good shot at that. The snowball struck Cedric on the forehead, exploding in his face and knocking his hat off. Becky shrieked her laughter, and Cedric sputtered and coughed, flailing and then blinking his eyes open as he wiped icy wetness off his face.
“That—partly worked, I’ll have to admit,” he stammered. To his great credit, he didn’t appear offended or hurt—just stunned awake. It was rather obvious he’d actually spent the last several moments somehow sunk in some kind of reverie, and his awareness of the present had been tenuous or barely there all that time. Cedric ignored his sister’s laughter as he looked around for his hat, his face and hair now fully exposed to Ansel’s view.
Ansel blinked, his eyes widening. “I know you,” he breathed. Still gripping the window ledge, he pinned his gaze on Cedric, not once looking away. “Yes, I do.”
Cedric spotted his hat, which lay in the snow behind him. Saying something—or perhaps muttering something Ansel couldn’t catch—he stooped to pick up his hat, brush it off with a grimace, and then put it back on. He shook his head at Becky as he trudged onward, joining his sister eventually.
“That was a temporary cure if you call it a cure,” he said, offering his arm to Becky, who looped hers through it.
“And that way points me down a good direction,” she replied cheerfully. The two walked on, still talking, their young voices clear and sharp in the winter landscape. Ansel just watched and waited, and when their voices eventually faded off, he allowed himself to withdraw back into the warmth of Pryor House, his mind racing while he shut the windows and secured them.
“Yes, I know you,” he muttered, retracing his steps through the bedroom and barely noting what he was doing or where he was going.
He eventually—though he couldn’t remember how he managed to get there with his mind elsewhere—found himself back in the library. The book he’d examined before was still on the table, and he flipped through it. It was, he realized, an artist’s sketchbook. A very old one, at that. Pencil drawings of different people—all young like him—filled the pages. Girls, boys, all of whom appeared in different modes of dress from days long gone to the present—were painstakingly and lovingly captured in graphite. Ansel marveled at the images as he went through the book. While many of the portraits were those of individuals, most of them involved those same individuals interacting with others. It didn’t take long for Ansel to realize as well that in those drawings, the subjects were paired off with someone of either the opposite sex or the same sex. Some were playful, some were quiet, but all were very intimate and private—amazingly loving, too.
When Ansel found the page he was looking for, which was the last drawn page, he let out a small breath. Scratching his head in wonder, he took in the smiling image of that young man again, taking note of the similarities with his flesh and blood counterpart.
“Cedric,” he murmured. “What on earth are you doing in this book?”
Chapter 8
Ansel tiptoed to the front door, his head turning left and right as he scanned the immediate vicinity for witnesses. It was silly, he kept telling himself, that he’d feel so horribly for wishing to step outside for a bit, but he couldn’t help it. Shame, guilt, and doubt had long been his reality, and a sudden and unexpected move to Pryor House wasn’t about to change that right away.
He pulled his coat tightly around himself and opened the door. The blast of chill air startled him as usual, but at least it awakened him enough to keep his mind clear and alert. Within moments he was picking his way past Pryor House’s desolate garden. Using the house as his guide, he wove his way past bare trees toward the back, where the master’s bedroom was situated. Ansel stumbled out to stand, quietly marveling, at the environment.
He gazed around, amazed at the serene beauty of the winter landscape. There was a definite gap between Pryor House’s borders and the nearest collection of trees, and Ansel determined this was the same area where Cedric and Becky had come from. The trees in front of him, which looked like a small and rather sparse wood, seemed to beckon to him, challenge him to walk through them. But Ansel shrugged off the urge and turned to walk along the open area, swallowing and listening to the blood rush in his ears while crossing his arms tightly over his chest.
He kept his gaze fixed ahead of him, wide and eagerly searching for two figures in the snow. Once in a while he’d glance to his right, drawing his attention back to Pryor House and gauging his location. He knew where the master’s bedroom was, and before long he was standing across and below it while the garden forced the distance between him and the mysterious house. From where he stood, Pryor House seemed to rise from a small lake of dark, twisted branches generously peppered with snow.
Ansel held his breath and listened. Nothing. The world seemed to have fallen asleep for the rest of the season. He couldn’t even hear distant or muffled little sounds of footsteps or voices. He glanced down at the snow in front of him and noted faint tracks.
“That’s strange,” he muttered, frowning. “How can they be disappearing already? It’s not snowing out here.”
And it wasn’t. At least it hadn’t been.
“No—wait a
minute.”
He blinked, startled, at the sight of those faint tracks slowly disappearing as he stared at them. He raised his head, his eyes following the trail, and he stumbled forward, awkwardly hurrying along and keeping his gaze fixed on the footprints. Ansel saw that they eventually turned left and entered the small wood.
He tried to run, anxiety bubbling as the footprints could barely be spotted on the snow. Once he reached the edge of the wood, there were still some that were visible enough for him to follow. Perhaps because of his speed-hampering clumsiness, however, the footprints vanished completely even before he’d managed to move more than twenty feet deeper among the trees.
“Oh, blast,” he muttered, looking around and trying desperately to catch sight of a mark—any mark—that would alert him as to the direction Cedric and Becky had taken. But the snow remained untouched, and a quick glance behind him showed only his footprints.
He tried to brave a walk through the wood; perhaps the siblings’ home stood beyond, and…
Ansel’s arms tightened as he hugged himself and wondered about his purpose for braving the snow like this. After a few moments of thinking and trudging, he was still at a loss as to why he’d decided to do this. What on earth would he say to brother or sister if he were to cross paths with them either in the wood somewhere or their home? Come to think of it, why should he bother showing up in all his ragged glory at their doorstep?
Ansel didn’t even realize he’d slowed down and eventually stopped, staring in confusion at the scattered collection of trees around him—trees that looked the same, no matter where he turned. And judging from the deep silence and what seemed to be an endless number of silent sentinels surrounding him, it was pretty easy to guess that he wasn’t anywhere near the other side.
He turned around in a circle, his suspicions confirmed. There was nothing but trees and snow-covered ground everywhere. And while the trees stood at a comfortable and unintimidating distance from each other, there was still that faint sense of foreboding Ansel had always associated with forests and woods—an undercurrent of unease, perhaps because of all of those dark fireside tales he’d grown up with.
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