The Iron Thorn - Caitlin Kittredge [59]
Dean pulled down a tin of Ovaltine and a saucepan, while Cal helped Bethina to her chair by the fire. In the warm hearth glow of the oil lamp, I saw empty tins and boxes of food stacked on the drain board, dirty plates and mud-spattered petticoats laid across every surface of the kitchen.
“How long have you been living like this?” I said.
Bethina looked at her hands, twisted my handkerchief in a stranglehold. “Since they took your brother away.”
I felt the fear crawl back into my chest. “ ‘They,’ ” I said heavily. “Proctors? The Bureau of Heresy?”
Bethina looked at me mournfully. “Worse,” she said. “So much worse.”
The Chambermaid’s Tale
EVEN AS CAL worked to rekindle the kitchen fire, Bethina shivered. “This place … it was never a good place, miss, even before Mr. Conrad went missing.”
I paced from the table to the basin and back. I couldn’t seem to sit still. Bethina had seen my brother, spoken with him, held a rational-enough conversation to learn his name. His letter to me hadn’t been a fancy. “If you’re expecting me to believe in some far-fetched curse on this place, or some ridiculous heretic story …”
Bethina shook her head. “No, miss! It’s the Master Builder’s own truth. Graystone is built on burying ground, and that’s a fact. Puritans, I think Mr. Grayson said. The first Grayson here dug up the gravestones and planted them out in the oak grove, but they didn’t find all of the bodies. I know I ain’t supposed to believe in Spiritualism and things like that, but it’s a foul business. And during the heretic troubles some-odd decades ago, bootleggers dug passages in the cellars. There’s limestone caves about a mile on, down at the river. They left casks of money and liquor down there when the Revenue chased them out. And Mr. Grayson said the folks in Arkham have seen nightjars in the tunnels, too, and revenants—those glowing ghostish things that lead you off the path to drown in the underground pools.”
“What does this have to do with my brother?” I demanded. “Did he try to go into the caves?” The thought of Conrad trapped underground in some damp stony place, unable to call for help, seized me right about the heart.
Dean poured Ovaltine into a pair of chipped mugs with the flourish of a soda jerk. “Bethina.” He handed her a mug covered in ducks wearing glasses and smoking cigars. “Miss Aoife.” My mug was plain and blue, and Dean’s fingers whispered against mine.
Cal’s mouth turned down. “Where’s mine?”
“Only enough for two, and I think the girls need something to calm their nerves more than you do, cowboy.” Dean settled himself at the table again and lit a Lucky Strike, looking for all the world like he belonged in my father’s kitchen.
Cal stole Bethina’s chair by the fire and put his foot on the hob, grumbling. His ankle was returning to its normal size. At least that deceitful Alouette had been good for something.
Bethina blew on her mug. “Mr. Archibald hired my mother on when I was just a kid. I used to play in the front hall ’cause it had the slickest floors and I loved roller-skating. He was a nice man. Not cruel, but he had … strange habits.”
“I suppose wealthy folk often do,” I said curtly. I didn’t know why the urge to defend Archibald rushed words to my lips, but it felt right.
She puffed up like a banty hen. “I wouldn’t dream of questioning him. But all the same, miss, there was something not right about this house. I’d wake up from bad dreams and I’d have the most awful feeling that something was watching me, from the back gardens, staring up at my window.” She sipped her Ovaltine and made a face. “This milk is gone.”
“Working with what I have.” Dean waved his flask. “I think there’s a sip or two left, if you’d care to sweeten that.”
“Certainly not,” Bethina said primly, setting the mug down with a clack, as if the very idea of liquor were offensive.
“Someone watching you,” I prompted her to continue. I kept my irritation in check by tapping