The Iron Thorn - Caitlin Kittredge [107]
“Not Cal, I’m afraid.” Bethina’s copper curls crested the ladder, eyes roving over the unruly shelves, the dust, my cross-legged seat on the floor. Anywhere, I noticed, but my face. “May I come up, miss?”
I composed myself, running a hand over my face to erase the anger and fatigue. “It’s a free country,” I said. “ ’Less you’re a heretic.” Or a madwoman.
“I don’t talk so, you know.” Bethina hoisted herself over the hatch, puffing. “The gals from Arkham—the nice ones—don’t spit out whatever they’re thinking.”
“It’ll be the bane of my imaginary husband’s existence, I’m sure,” I said bitterly.
“I like it, actually.” Bethina ducked her head. “You’re frank, miss. Like a boy.”
I tucked the journal under my knee. I didn’t want anyone reading it, especially not an ordinary girl like Bethina. She wouldn’t understand and I didn’t have the words to explain.
“Truth is the only constant thing we have,” I said. “My mother used to say that.” Like Nerissa would know a real truth if it bit her. There were the things my father wrote about, and then there were my mother’s ramblings.
“She sounds like a whip-smart lady, miss,” Bethina said.
“She’s not.” My curt tone made me even more disgusted with myself. Useless to find my brother or my father, and now snooty on top.
“Mr. Cal speaks highly of her. He says that she did a fine job of raising you.”
I worried the edges of the journal, surprised that he’d actually said that out loud after our fight, and to Bethina, of all people. Cal thought girls were a different species. “Cal’s kind,” I said aloud. “He … he prefers to see things as they might be.”
“He’s got a shine for you, miss,” Bethina said. “And with the way you fight like cats and dogs, might I assume that it goes both ways?”
“You might not,” I sniffed. “And you’re being …” What was it the snooty characters in the lanterns said? “Entirely too familiar,” I finished, with the requisite disapproving eyebrow.
“Apologies, miss,” Bethina said, though she didn’t seem sorry. “I didn’t mean to jabber at you. I just wanted to give you this.”
She reached under her apron and drew a battered notebook from her dress pocket. It was small, the type that would be carried in my uniform were I at school to work problems and jot down notes while I walked to and fro from classes.
“What is this?” I said. The book’s black leather cover bore no marking.
“It was in Mr. Grayson’s personal things after he went away,” Bethina said. “I think he forgot to take it.”
I took the book and thumbed the dog-eared, coffee-stained pages. Something new. Something that could help me out of this mess. Bethina had actually come through. I tightened my grasp on the book. “I’m sorry I snapped at you,” I said.
“Don’t, miss.” Bethina shrugged. “Most city girls with your breeding, they’d take me for a bumpkin and boss me about. You just talk to me. I appreciate it.”
The notebook was nearly full, tight sentences almost too small to read. “Why not give it to Conrad?” I asked. “He was looking for the same things I was.”
Bethina’s smile fell away. “Mr. Conrad got taken before I could tell him any of this.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask …” I paused, wondering if I really wanted to know. “How did he seem before he left? Archibald … my dad?” The last words of his witch’s alphabet burned in my mind. Do not seek me. Save yourselves. Had he thought I might actually read those words, before he left? Had he thought of me ever, besides putting my name at the top of the entry?
“Like I told before, frantic,” Bethina said. “Never seen him scared before that. He was a gentleman but he weren’t no dandy, your pop.” She put her chin on her fist. “It was like he’d done something wrong, you follow? Like he were a heretic and the whole Bureau of Heresy was coming for him.”
“Worse,” I muttered, thinking of Tremaine.
“Maybe that will help,” Bethina said, tapping the notebook. “He were always scribbling in it, when he’d be up and about the house. I can’t make hide nor hair of the coding he put his words into, but you’re a bright one, miss. Good luck.”
She started back to the hatch