“I’ve missed you too,” she says, voicing my feeling.
We stay like that for a while, before she clears her throat and wipes the tears away.
“Well, that’s enough of that.” She sniffs. “Crying on each other isn’t going to help. I need you to tell me about your hosts or crying’s all we’ll do.”
“I…I…” I’m struggling to speak through the lump in my throat. “I woke up as Bell, then the butler, Donald Davies, Ravencourt, and now—”
“The butler again,” she says thoughtfully. “Third time’s a charm, ain’t it?”
Stroking a lock of disturbed hair from my forehead, she leans closer.
“I take it we haven’t been introduced yet, or at least you haven’t been introduced to me,” she says. “My name’s Anna and you’re Aiden Bishop, or have we done that part already? You keep arriving in the wrong order. I never know where we’re up to.”
“You’ve met my other selves?”
“They pop in and out,” she says, glancing at the door as voices sound somewhere in the house. “Usually with a favor to ask.”
“What about your hosts? Are they—”
“I don’t have other hosts. It’s just me,” she says. “No visits from a Plague Doctor. No other days neither. I won’t remember any of this tomorrow, which seems a bit of luck given how today’s going so far.”
“But you know what’s happening, you know about Evelyn’s suicide?”
“It’s murder, and I woke up knowing,” she says, straightening my sheets. “Couldn’t remember my own name, but I knew yours and I knew there was no escaping until we took the killer’s name, and proof of their guilt, to the lake at 11:00 p.m. They’re rules, I think. Words scraped onto my brain so I don’t forget.”
“I didn’t remember anything when I woke up,” I respond, trying to understand why our torments would be different. “Aside from your name, the Plague Doctor had to tell me everything.”
“’Course he did. You’re his special project,” she says, adjusting my pillow. “Doesn’t give a rat’s fart about what I’m doing. Haven’t heard a peep out of him all day. Won’t leave you alone, though. Surprised he’s not waiting under that bed.”
“He told me only one of us can escape,” I say.
“Yeah, and it’s pretty bloody obvious he wants it to be you,” she says, the anger draining from her voice as quickly as it came. She shakes her head. “Sorry, I shouldn’t be taking any of this out on you, but I can’t shift the feeling he’s up to something, and I don’t like it.”
“I know what you mean,” I say. “But if only one of us can escape—”
“Why are we helping each other?” she interrupts. “Because you’ve got a plan to get us both out.”
“I do?”
“Well, you said you did.”
For the first time, her confidence falters, a worried frown appearing on her face, but before I can press the issue, wood creaks in the corridor, steps thumping up the stairs. It feels like the entire house is shaking with their ascent.
“Just a tick,” she says, collecting the book from the counter. Only now do I realize it’s actually an artist’s sketchbook, the brown leather covers filled with sheets of loose-leaf paper, untidily bound by string. Hiding the book under the bed, she comes up instead with a shotgun. Pressing the butt against her shoulder, she stalks over to the door, opening it a crack to better hear the commotion outside.
“Oh hell,” says Anna, kicking the door closed with her foot. “It’s the doctor with your sedative. Quick, when’s Ravencourt going to be alone? I need to tell him to stop searching for me.”
“Why? Who’s—”
“We don’t have time, Aiden,” she says, sliding the shotgun back under the bed out of sight. “I’ll be here next time you wake up, and we can have a proper talk then, I promise, but for now, tell me about Ravencourt, every detail you can remember.”
She’s leaning over me, clutching my hand, her eyes pleading.
“He’ll be in his parlor at 1:15 p.m.,” I say. “You hand him a whiskey, have a chat, and then Millicent Derby arrives. You leave him a card introducing her.”
She squeezes her eyes shut, mouthing the time and name over and over again, carving them into her memory. Only now, her features smoothed by concentration, do I realize how young she is; no more than nineteen I’d guess, though hard labor’s added a few years to the pile.
“One more thing,” she hisses, cupping my cheek, her face so close to mine I can see the amber flecks in her brown eyes. “If you see me out there, pretend you don’t know me. Don’t even come near me if you can help it. There’s this footman… I’ll tell you about him later, or earlier. Point is, it’s dangerous for us to be seen together. Any talking needs doing, we’ll do it in here.”
She kisses me on the forehead quickly, offering the room a last glance to make sure everything’s in order.
The steps have reached the hall, two sets of voices jumbled up and rolling on ahead. I recognize Dickie, but not the second one. It’s deep, urgent, though I can’t quite make out what’s being said.
“Who’s with Dickie?” I ask.
“Lord Hardcastle, most like,” she says. “He’s been popping in and out all morning to check on you.”
That makes sense. Evelyn told me the butler was Lord Hardcastle’s batman during the war. Their closeness is the reason Gregory Gold is strung up in the room opposite.
“Are things always like this?” I ask. “The explanations arriving before the questions?”
“I wouldn’t know,” she says, standing up and smoothing her apron. “Two hours, I’ve been at this, and all I’ve had are orders.”
Doctor Dickie opens the door, his mustache just as preposterous as the first time I saw it. His gaze passes from Anna to myself and back again as he tries to stitch together the torn edges of our hastily severed conversation. No answers forthcoming, he places his black medical bag on the sideboard and comes to stand over me.
“Awake I see,” he says, rocking back and forth on his heels, fingers thrust into the watch pockets of his waistcoat.
“Leave us, girl,” he says to Anna, who curtsies before exiting the room, casting me a quick glance on her way out.
“So, how are you feeling?” he asks. “No worse for wear from the carriage journey, I hope.”
“Not bad—” I begin to say, but he lifts the covers, raising my arm to take my pulse. Even this gentle action is enough to cause spasms of pain, the rest of my response mangled by a wince.
“Little sore, hmmm,” he says, lowering my arm once more. “Hardly surprising given the beating you took. Any notion what this fellow Gregory Gold wanted from you?”
“I don’t. Must have mistook me for somebody else, sir.”
The “sir” isn’t my doing. It’s an old habit of the butler’s, and I’m surprised by how easily it arrived on my tongue.
The doctor’s shrewd gaze holds my explanation up to the light, poking a dozen different holes in it. The tight smile he flashes me is one of complicity, both reassuring and a touch threatening. Whatever happened in that hallway, the seemingly benign Doctor Dickie knows more about it than he’s letting on.
There’s a click as he opens his bag, withdrawing a brown bottle and a hypodermic syringe. Keeping his eyes on me, he pokes the needle through the bottle’s wax seal, filling the hypodermic with a clear liquid.
My hand clutches the sheets.
“I’m fine, Doctor. Honestly,” I say.
“Yes, that’s rather my concern,” he says, jabbing the needle into my neck before I have a chance to argue.
A warm liquid floods my veins, drowning my thoughts. The doctor melts, colors blossoming and fading into darkness.
“Sleep, Roger,” he says. “I’ll deal with Mr. Gold.”
22
DAY FIVE
Coughing up
a lungful of cigar smoke, I open a new pair of eyes to find myself almost fully clothed on wooden floorboards, one hand lying victorious on an untouched bed. My trousers are around my ankles, a bottle of brandy clutched to my stomach. Clearly an attempt was made at undressing last night, but such a course appears to have been beyond my new host, whose breath stinks like an old beer mat.
Groaning, I claw my way up the side of the bed, dislodging a throbbing headache that nearly knocks me to the floor again.
I’m in a similar bedroom to the one Bell was given, the embers of last night’s fire winking at me from the grate. The curtains are open, the sky sagging with early morning light.
Evelyn’s in the forest. You need to find her.
Hoisting my trousers up to my waist, I stumble over to the mirror to better inspect this fool I now inhabit.
I nearly run straight into it.
After being shackled to Ravencourt for so long, this new chap feels weightless, a leaf being blown about by a breeze. It’s not too surprising when I see him in the glass. He’s short and slight, somewhere in his late twenties, with longish brown hair and bloodshot blue eyes above a neatly trimmed beard. I try out his smile, discovering a row of slightly awkward white teeth.
It’s the face of a rascal.
My possessions are sitting in a pile on the bedside table, an invitation addressed to Jonathan Derby on top. At least I know who to curse for this hangover. I sift through the items with a fingertip, uncovering a pocketknife, a weathered hip flask, a wristwatch showing 8:43 a.m., and three brown vials with cork stoppers and no labels. Yanking a cork loose, I sniff the liquid within, my stomach twisting at the sickly sweet scent that drifts out.
This must be the laudanum Bell was selling.
I can see why it’s so popular. Simply sniffing the stuff has filled my mind with bright lights.
There’s a jug of cold water beside a small sink in the corner, and stripping naked, I wash off last night’s sweat and grime, digging out the person beneath. What’s left of the water I tip to my mouth, drinking until my belly sloshes. Unfortunately, my attempts to drown the hangover only dilute it, aches seeping into every bone and muscle.
It’s a foul morning, so I dress in the thickest clothes I can find: hunting tweeds and a heavy black coat that trails along the floor as I leave the bedroom.
Despite the early hour, a drunken couple is squabbling at the top of the stairs. They’re in last night’s evening wear, drinks still clutched in their hands, accusations passed back and forth in escalating voices, and I give their flailing arms a wide berth as I walk by. Their bickering chases me into the entrance hall, which has been upended by the previous evening’s escapades. Bow ties are dangling from the chandelier, leaves and shards of a smashed decanter littering the marble floor. Two maids are cleaning it up, leaving me to wonder what it must have looked like before they started.
I try asking them where Charlie Carver’s cottage is located, but they’re mute as sheep, lowering their eyes and shaking their heads in response to my questions.
Their silence is maddening.
If Lucy Harper’s gossip isn’t too far from the mark, Evelyn’s going to be somewhere near the cottage with her lady’s maid when she’s attacked. If I can discover who’s threatening her, perhaps I can save her life and escape this house all at the same time—though I have no clue as to how I’m going to help free Anna as well. She’s put aside her own schemes to aid me, believing I have some plan that will free us both. For the moment, I can’t see how that’s anything other than a hollow promise, and judging by her worried frown when we talked in the gatehouse, she’s beginning to suspect as much.
My only hope is that my future hosts are a great deal cleverer than my previous ones.
Further questioning of the maids drives them deeper into their silence, forcing me to look around for help. The rooms either side of the entrance hall are deathly quiet, the house still knee-deep in last night, and seeing no other option, I pick my way through the broken glass and head belowstairs toward the kitchen.
The passage to the kitchen is grimier than I remember, the clatter of dishes and smell of roasting meat knocking me sick. Servants eye me as they pass, turning their heads away whenever I open my mouth to ask a question. It’s clear they think I shouldn’t be here and just as clear they don’t know how to get rid of me. This is their place, a river of unguarded conversations and giggling gossip flowing beneath the house. I sully it with my presence.
Agitation rubs me up and down, blood thumping in my ears. I feel tired and raw, the air made of sandpaper.
“Can I help you?” says a voice behind me.
The words are rolled up and flung at my back.
I turn to find the cook, Mrs. Drudge, staring up at me, ample hands on ample hips. Through these eyes she looks like something a child might make out of clay, a small head on a misshapen body, her features pressed into her face by clumsy thumbs. She’s stern, no trace of the woman who’s going to give the butler a warm scone in a few hours’ time.
“I’m looking for Evelyn Hardcastle,” I say, meeting her fierce gaze. “She went for a walk in the forest with Madeline Aubert, her lady’s maid.”
“And what’s that to you?”
Her tone is so abrupt I almost recoil. Clenching my hands, I try to keep hold of my rising temper. The servants crane their necks as they scurry by, desperate for theater, but terrified of the star.
“Somebody means her harm,” I say through gritted teeth. “If you’ll point me toward Charlie Carver’s old cottage, I’ll be able to warn her.”
“Is that what you were doing with Madeline last night? Warning her? Is that how her blouse got torn? Is that why she was crying?”
A vein pulses in her forehead, indignation bubbling beneath every word. She takes a step forward, jabbing a finger into my chest as she speaks.
“I know what—” she says.
White-hot anger explodes out of me. Without thinking, I slap her across the face and shove her backward, advancing on her with the devil’s own wrath.
“Tell me where she’s gone!” I scream, spittle flying out of my mouth.
Squeezing her bloody lips together, Mrs. Drudge glowers at me.
My hands ball into fists.
Walk away.
Walk away now.
Summoning my will, I turn my back on Mrs. Drudge, stalking up the suddenly silent passage. Servants leap aside as I pass, but my rage can’t make sense of anything but itself.
Turning a corner, I slump against a wall and let out a long breath. My hands are trembling, the fog in my mind clearing. For those few terrifying seconds, Derby was utterly beyond my control. That was his poison spilling out of my mouth, his bile coursing through my veins. I can feel it still. Oil on my skin, needles in my bones, a yearning to do something dreadful. Whatever happens today, I need to keep tight hold of my temper or this creature is going to slip loose again, and goodness knows what he’ll do.
And that’s the truly scary part.
My hosts can fight back.
23
Mud sucks at my boots as I hurry into the gloom of the trees, desperation tugging me along by a leash. After my failure to glean any information in the kitchen, I’m striking out into the forest in hopes of stumbling upon Evelyn along one of the marked trails. I’m counting on endeavor succeeding where calculation has failed. Even if it doesn’t, I need to put some distance between Derby and the temptations of Blackheath.
I’ve not gone far when the red flags bring me to a stream, water surging around a large rock. A smashed wine bottle is half-encased in sludge, beside a thick black overcoat, Bell’s silver compass having fallen out of the pocket. Plucking it from the mud, I turn it over in my palm just as I did that first morning, my fingers tracing the initials SB engraved on the underside of the lid. Sebastian Bell’s initials. What a fool I felt when Daniel pointed that
out to me. Half a dozen cigarette butts lay discarded on the ground, suggesting Bell stood here for a little while, probably waiting for somebody. This must have been where he came after receiving the note at the dinner table, though what could have driven him into the rain and cold at such an hour I cannot fathom. Searching his discarded coat offers no clues, his pockets turning up nothing but a lonely silver key, probably to his trunk.
Wary of losing more time to my former host, I drop the key and compass into my pocket and set out in search of the next red flag, keeping my eyes open for any hint of the footman at my heels. This would be the perfect place for him to strike.
God only knows how long I walk before I finally stumble upon the ruins of what must be Charlie Carver’s old cottage. Fire has hollowed it out, consuming most of the roof, leaving only the four blackened walls. Debris crunches underfoot as I step inside, startling some rabbits who flee into the woods, their fur stained with wet ash. The skeletal remnants of an old bed are slumped in the corner, a solitary table leg on the floor, the detritus of a life interrupted. Evelyn told me the cottage burst into flames the day the police hanged Carver.
More likely Lord and Lady Hardcastle threw their memories onto the pyre and lit it themselves.
Who could blame them? Carver stole their son’s life by a lake. It seems only fitting they should rid themselves of him with fire.
A rotten fence marks out the garden around the back of the cottage, most of the slats having collapsed after years of neglect. Great piles of purple and yellow flowers run wild in every direction, red berries dangling from stems winding up the fence posts.
A maid emerges from the trees as I kneel to tie my shoelace.
Such terror I hope never to see again.
Color drains from her face, her basket dropping on the floor, spilling mushrooms in every direction.
“Are you Madeline?” I begin, but she’s already backing away, looking around for help. “I’m not here to hurt you. I’m trying to—”
The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle Page 15