Knuckles rap on the door, and she jumps. She slides the journal into the drawer like a secret and gets to her feet just as Hannah sweeps in like a gust of wind, a tea tray balanced on one hip.
“The house gets cold in the morning,” she says brightly. “Thought you could do with a little warming up.”
Olivia nods in thanks and steps aside as Hannah deposits the tray on the desk and reaches up to free the latch. The shutters fall open, filling the room with fresh air and streaks of sun. And then, Hannah draws the gold key from her pocket and sets it on the desk. Olivia winces at the sight of it, the reproach of the metal dropping onto wood.
“You mustn’t go out in the dark,” says Hannah, and the way she says it, it’s like she’s reciting a rule.
There were a great many rules back at Merilance. Most of them felt hollow, pointless, concocted just to show the matrons’ control. But there is real worry in Hannah’s eyes, so Olivia nods, even though she will not be here another night.
With the shutters thrown back, Olivia realizes her room is at the front of the house, the window looking out onto the drive, the ribbon of road and the distant iron arch proclaiming GALLANT. She looks down, but there is no car waiting to take her back to Merilance, only the fountain and the pale stone woman standing at its center.
Hannah’s gaze drops to the desk drawer, the hairpin still jutting from the lock. Olivia holds her breath, braced for the rebuke, but the woman only chuckles, soft and honest. “Your mother was a curious girl, too.”
Olivia remembers then, what Edgar said, that Hannah had been here the longest, and the woman must be able to see the question as it scrawls across Olivia’s face, because she nods and says, “Yes. I knew Grace.”
Grace, Grace, Grace. The name unravels through her mind.
“Matthew doesn’t remember her,” continues Hannah. “He was still a child when she left, but I was here when she was born. I was here when she ran away. The whole house, what was left of it, waited, but I knew she wasn’t coming back.”
Tell me, Olivia signs, hoping Hannah can read the longing in her eyes if not her hands. Tell me everything.
The woman sinks into the chair, looking suddenly tired. She runs a hand through her hair, and Olivia sees the threads of gray stealing through the mess of brown curls. She pours her a cup of tea, but Hannah only chuckles and nods for her to drink. Olivia brings it to her lips. It tastes like mint, and honey, and spring, and she wraps her fingers around the cup as Hannah speaks.
“When I first saw you, on the steps, I thought you were a ghost.”
Olivia gestures down at her pale limbs, but Hannah smiles and shakes her head. “No, not like that. It’s only, you look just like her. Your mother. Grace was a willful child. A clever girl. But she was always restless here.” Hannah laces her fingers in her lap. “Her own mother left when she was young, and her father took ill when she was just about your age, and died within the year. Her older brother, Arthur, was away, and that year, your mother and I, we had the whole house to ourselves. So much space, and yet, she was always looking for more. Always wandering. Always searching.”
I had a bird once. I kept it in a cage.
“She was such a handful, your mother, and the house was too big for the two of us, so I hired Edgar to help. And then Arthur came back with a lovely girl—Isabelle, that was her name—and they married in the garden. I made the cake myself. Matthew was born, and then Thomas was on the way and—”
She swallows suddenly, as if she can take those last words back.
“Well,” she says, “it was a happy time. But even then, Grace had one eye on the door.”
But one day someone let it go.
“Arthur was steady, but she was smoke, always looking for a way out.” Hannah’s gaze drifts around the room. “I came in here one morning, and she was gone. The shutters were thrown, and the window was open, as if she’d flown away.”
Olivia looks to the window.
Now I wonder if it was me.
Hannah clears her throat. “You may blame her for leaving, but I never could. This is not an easy place to live.”
Neither was Merilance, thinks Olivia darkly. She would have chosen Gallant any day, if anyone had asked. This place is a palace. This place is a dream.
Hannah looks up, studying Olivia’s face. “She wrote to me, once. Before you were born. Wouldn’t say where she was or where she was going. Wouldn’t say anything about your father, but I knew something was wrong. I could see it in the way she wrote.”
Hannah trails off, and Olivia can see a shine in her eyes, the warning of tears.
I grow wide, but you grow thinner by the day. I can see you withering. I am afraid tomorrow I will see straight through you. I am afraid the next, you will be gone.
“She didn’t say goodbye, but I saw the end in every word, and I knew—I just knew—something had happened.”
A single tear escapes down the woman’s weathered cheek.
“I worried, after, about you both. And when she didn’t write again, I feared the worst for Grace. But I had a feeling that you were out there. Perhaps it was just a hope. I began to make a list of places you might be, if you’d even been born, if she’d chosen to take you somewhere. But in the end, I couldn’t—that is, I never tried to find you.”
But someone did. Someone called her home.
“I think part of me hoped that you were somewhere safe.”
That word again—safe. But what is safe? Tombs are safe. Merilance was safe. Safe does not mean happy, does not mean well, does not mean kind.
“I’ve watched so many Priors wither here,” Hannah mutters to herself. “All to guard that blasted gate.”
Olivia frowns. She touches Hannah’s hand, and the woman startles, coming back to herself. “I’m so sorry,” she says, wiping the tears from her cheek and rising to her feet. “And here I just came to tell you there’s a pot of porridge on the stove.”
Olivia stares at Hannah as she hurries away, a hundred questions tangled in her head. Halfway to the door the woman stops, one hand diving back into her pocket. “Oh, I almost forgot,” she says, “I found this downstairs. I thought you might like it.”
She draws out a card the size of her palm and turns it toward Olivia, who stiffens at the image there. It is a portrait. A young woman’s face, looking off to one side. It could be a picture of her, in several years’ time, if the hair were darker, the chin a bit more pointed. But the look in the eyes is hers—all mischief—and she realizes two things.
That she’s looking at an image of her mother.
And that she’s seen her before.
Or rather, pieces of her, floating in the hall downstairs.
Which means that Hannah is right, and wrong. Her mother is never coming home.
She is already here.
Stay with me. Stay with me. Stay with me. I would write the words a thousand times if they’d be strong enough to hold you here.
Chapter Eight
Grace Prior is dead.
After all those years, Olivia knew her mother wasn’t coming back. And yet, there was always that narrow sliver of hope. Like a door left ajar. Now it swings shut.
She sinks onto the ottoman, the portrait in her hands.