Inside, a handful of loose paper, crisp and white, and a small black book. She peels it open and finds page after page of notes in a blocky hand. No, not notes. Places.
The Larimer School
50 Bellweather Place
Birmingham
Hollingwell Home
12 Idris Row
Manchester
Farrington Orphanage
5 Farrington Way
Bristol
Olivia turns past page after page, until she finds it, there, in the middle of the fourth.
Merilance School for Independent Girls
9 Windsor Road
Newcastle
Footsteps sound in the hall.
Years of raiding matrons’ rooms has trained her well, and in a moment the book is back and the drawer is shut and she is on the floor behind the grand old desk, tucked between the chair and the wood, heart fluttering even as her limbs go still.
She holds her breath and waits as the footsteps cross the threshold, as they cross from the bare wood onto the rug.
“How odd,” says Hannah, “I could have sworn this door was shut.”
Her voice is light and loud; she isn’t talking to herself.
“You’re not the first child to hide in this house,” she says. “But most of them were playing games. Come on out now. I’m too old to get down on the floor.”
Olivia sighs and rises to her feet. When Hannah reaches for her, she retreats a step, on instinct, her bandaged palm tucked like a secret behind her back.
Hannah’s hand falls, sadness dancing in her eyes.
“Goodness, girl, you’re not in trouble. If you want to look around, have at it. After all, this is your house.”
My house, thinks Olivia, the words tangling like hope inside her chest. Hannah’s gaze drifts to the sculpture on the desk, and her mood seems to sour at the sight of it.
“Come on,” she says, “it’s getting late.”
When the sun begins to set, they close the house up like a tomb.
Olivia follows Hannah from room to room, standing on chairs and stools to help pull the massive shutters in and slide the windows down. It seems such a waste, to shut themselves inside when the weather is so nice, but Hannah explains, “A place this wild, the outside is always trying to get in.”
They eat in the kitchen, gathered round a table scraped and dented with wear. No lines of loud girls. No matrons perched like crows around the room. Just Hannah and Edgar, chatting easily as he pulls a tray from the oven, a towel over one shoulder, as she scoops vegetables into a bowl, as Olivia lays out four plates, even though Matthew isn’t there, and it scares her, how good this feels. Like hot soup in winter, the warmth spreading with every sip.
“Here we are,” says Edgar, depositing a tray of beef medallions on the table.
“What happened to your hand?” asks Hannah, catching sight of the bandage wrapped around her palm.
“Field injury,” says Edgar. “Nothing I couldn’t handle.”
“You were a lucky find,” she says, kissing his cheek. The gesture is so simple, so chaste, and yet, there are years of warmth behind it. Olivia feels her cheeks flush.
“Just goes to show,” says Hannah, “I should put ads in the paper more often.”
An ad in the paper? Olivia asks, catching Edgar’s eye, but he only winks and rises.
“Put the right words into the world,” he says, “never know what you’ll catch.”
Olivia stills.
I have sent these letters to every corner of the country.
May this be the one that finds you.
“Besides,” says Edgar, taking his seat. “I thought our guest could use a proper meal.”
Guest. The word cuts through her like a cold wind. She tries not to wince as Hannah passes a bowl of roast potatoes and parsnips, seasoned with salt. “Eat up.”
It is a feast, and the day in the garden has left her famished. Olivia has never eaten so well. When she finally slows, Hannah asks about her life before the letter came. Olivia signs, and Edgar translates, and Hannah listens, one hand to her mouth as she explains how she was found on the steps of Merilance, how she has been there for nearly all her life.
Olivia does not tell them about the matrons, or the other girls, about the chalkboard or the garden shed or Anabelle. It is already beginning to feel like another life, a chapter in a book that she can simply close and leave. And she wants to. Because she wants to stay at Gallant. Even if Matthew does not want her there. She wants to stay and make this house a home. She wants to stay and learn its secrets, wants to know why they are so frightened of the dark, what happened to all the other Priors, what Matthew meant when he called this place cursed. But when she lifts her hands to ask, a shadow twitches in the doorway. She glances over, expecting a ghoul, but it’s Matthew. He goes to the sink, scrubbing the garden from his hands.
He glances at Olivia. “Still here,” he mutters, but Hannah only smiles and pats her bandaged hand.
“Nearest car’s in the shop,” she says. “Be a few days before it can come out.”
Olivia can see the glimmer in the woman’s eyes, a glint like mischief. Another lie. But Matthew only sighs and sets the soap aside.
“Sit and eat,” urges Edgar, but her cousin shakes his head, murmurs about not being hungry, even though his too-thin body is begging for a meal. He leaves, taking the air out of the room as he goes. Hannah and Edgar pick at their food, each trying to fill the space with easy talk, but it comes out stiff, awkward.
Olivia catches Edgar’s eye. Is he sick?
He flashes Hannah a look and then says, “Matthew’s tired. Tired can be a kind of sick, if it lasts long enough.”
He’s telling the truth, some version of it, but a draft runs through the words. There is so much they are not saying. It hangs in the air, and Olivia wishes they could go back to before Matthew came in. But their plates are empty now, and Hannah gets to her feet, saying she’ll make him a tray, if Edgar will take it up. And Edgar sees Olivia staring at him, hands raised to ask about Matthew and the house, but he stands and turns his back. She hates that he can do that, that all he has to do to silence her is look away.
She stifles a yawn, even though it’s not yet nine, and Hannah offers her a shortbread biscuit and tells her a hot bath and a warm bed will do her well before shooing her from the kitchen.
She takes the long way to the stairs, past the narrow foyer and the garden door. It must be a cloudy night. No moonlight streams in through the little window, but the hall isn’t empty. Her uncle’s ghoul stands like a watchman, its back to her and its eyes on the dark.
The master of the house is hungry.
He is worn thin with it, that hunger. It gnaws, like teeth on bone, until he cannot stand the ache. Until his fingers flex, stiff in their joints. It is unyielding. This place is unyielding.
He walks through the ruined garden.
Past the empty fountain and across the barren grounds, through the brittle land that rolls away from the house like a bolt of cloth left to rot in the cupboard. Moth-eaten. Threadbare.
The fruit is rotten. The ground is parched. The house is falling like sand through the glass. He has eaten every morsel, every scrap, and nothing is left. He is feasting on himself, now. Wasting a little more with every passing night.
He is a fire running out of air. But it is not over yet. He will burn, and burn, and burn until the house crumbles, until the world gives way.