Fiona (22 page)

Mrs. Drummond is waiting
for me at the front door. “Is everything all right?” she asks, her voice full of concern.

“Yes, fine,” I lie. “I just need to go.”

“Should I call Albert to come get you?” she asks softly.

I shake my head, the horror of Albert coming here and taking me right back to the hospital eclipsing the threat of tears. And Gareth is still out there somewhere, in the Fintair car. Will he come looking for me? Did Albert tell him I might come here? “No,” I croak out. “I—I don't want to bother him. Is there someone here who could drive me back to Fintair Castle?”

“I can,” Mrs. Drummond says, pulling a set of keys out of a drawer by the door.

“I don't want to mess up your day—” I begin, but she waves her hand at me.

“It's the least I can do,” she says, and in her expression, I see that she believes me. I know that she knows I'm truly Moira's daughter. “Wait here.”

She rushes out the door and pulls around a few moments later in a big black car with tinted windows. “Get in,” she calls.

I climb into the passenger seat, and we start driving away from Dunraven Manor. I look in the side mirror at it for a few moments as the estate fades away into the distance, a heavy sense of disappointment settling over me. I certainly didn't expect an unquestioningly warm welcome from my grandparents, but I would never have imagined them to be so cruel. To dismiss schizophrenia as some kind of weakness of character . . . my hands are still shaking with anger.

I have to focus on what I can do at the castle to prove that Blair isn't who she says she is. I have to do that for Charlie. And for Poppy, too.

He didn't believe you
, the nasty voice in my head says.
He left you in that hospital. Why should you do anything for him?

Of course he didn't believe me. There was overwhelming evidence that I was not trustworthy, that I was a danger. Evidence that Blair planted incredibly convincingly.

And then there is the fact that I love him.

I love him, no matter what he does or doesn't feel about me. I can't let him be with a girl evil and twisted enough to cook up
this plot against me. He deserves to be happy, not to give his life over to a psychopath.

And if she is the one who killed Copperfield, she's even more dangerous than I originally thought. Just thinking about it makes me feel sick to my stomach. I have to save Poppy and Charlie from her. I have to at least try.

That sickening feeling intensifies as we get closer and closer to the castle. I pick at the cuticle of my left index finger until it bleeds, trying to come up with some sort of plan. All I can think to do is sneak in and head straight for Lily's desk. I remember that tempting locked drawer, and I know that if Lily was hiding any secrets, that's where they would be. And I remember the time Blair came into the study, claiming to be looking for Charlie when Alice and I were in there cleaning. Was she really going for that drawer?

There have to be some answers in there. About why Lily never told my grandparents about me. About why Blair has been trying to drive me crazy. About
something
.

It's not much of a plan, but it's all I've got.

We reach the familiar landmarks leading up to the turnoff for the castle, and I can't keep still.

“Could you drop me off here?” I ask before we get to the turnoff.

Mrs. Drummond pulls the car over and stops. “Are you sure?” she asks. Her concern is growing.

“Yes, I—I just want to walk,” I say, trying to sound assuring. “I need to clear my head.”

“Okay.”

She's silent as I get out of the car, then she waves goodbye and drives off. I can only hope that she won't call Albert or Mabel and tell them that I'm on the property.

I take a deep breath, square my shoulders, then head for the low stone wall that surrounds the grounds. I hop over it quickly, dusting off my hands as I crash onward. There are no security cameras here like there are at Dunraven Manor, but I can't shake the nervous feeling that I'm being watched.

Dusk is falling, and the fog is rolling in. Soon it will be so thick that it'll swallow me whole. I hurry onward. I know the estate well enough to navigate it now, but the fog of the witching hour has a way of turning me around and tricking me. I have to get through a patch of woods before I reach the open lawn around the castle.

I start running, the bushes and tree trunks grasping for me, trying to trip me and scratch me up. Now I'll look even more like a wild animal than I already do.

I'm not quick enough. The fog enshrouds me before I'm halfway to the castle.

I slow to a walk, trying to catch my breath, which sounds much too loud in this small space that my world has become. I can barely see a foot in front of me, but I do my best not to panic, holding my hands out to feel my way through. The branches scratch at my skin, and I stumble over rocks every few steps.

Just when I'm sure I'm completely lost, I hear a noise to my left, something that sounds so much like a human sigh. All the breath evaporates from my body. Then another sound: the swish of a long skirt. Blair?

The Grey Lady?

Mom?

I force myself to keep moving, to keep putting one foot in front of the other in a straight line. I can do this. I have to do this.

Something nudges my left elbow, hard, and I scream. My wail is lost in the fog.

I finally stop screaming, and now there is nothing but silence. The nudge has pushed me slightly off course, to the right. Is someone trying to push me off the path? Or trying to guide me?

“Who are you?” I whisper into the silence.

No answer. I try to tell myself that I'm just imagining things, but there's no way I can actually believe that. Not right now, not
in this fog. There is someone—something—out here with me, I'm sure of it.

Strangely, though, I'm not frightened. I don't understand it, but there's something about the air around me that feels . . . comforting somehow. So do I return to the path I was on before, or do I follow the one the nudge suggested?

“I'm trusting you,” I whisper, setting off in the new direction.

I creep forward, slowly now, picking my way across the rocky soil and bracing myself at every moment for another nudge.

It never comes, though, and soon enough I'm out of the woods and onto the lawn. And a few minutes later, I find a gnarled tree in front of me. I recognize it—it's the old tree that stands only about thirty feet from the main entrance.

I praise the fog now as I skirt around the castle and head for the back door. I overshoot it by a few feet, but I find it easily enough. And there's no one around.

I open the door, quickly and soundlessly, and peek into the empty back hallway. I scurry down it toward the main staircase, but before I can reach it, two of Alice's fellow maids clatter out of a nearby room.

I dive for the nearest doorway, catapulting into one of the sitting rooms. I close the door behind me and hold my breath. The door is thick, and I can barely hear the brightly chirping voices of the girls as they pass by my hiding place. When I'm
sure they're gone, I try to even out my shaky breath and head back into the hallway.

I make it up the main staircase, and I'm pretty sure no one sees me. The servants will all be following Mabel's rules and sticking to the servants' area of the house.

Poppy's bedroom door is open. I try not to breathe as I creep toward it. I can't hear anything inside, and after a few quiet moments, I lean forward and peek in. I want to feel relieved when I see that it's empty, but I can't help but feel a pang of sadness as I take in the frilly pink room that's become so familiar and comfortable to me these past few months. I might never see this room again.

I shake my head and return my focus to my task, scurrying for the door to the master suite.

It's locked. Of course.

I realize I've only ever been here with Alice before. Alice, who has the key.

For one brief, awful moment, I consider seeking her out and asking for her help. But of course that's stupid and would only result in her turning me over to Blair or Mabel or the hospital. Even if she didn't already hate me, she thinks I killed Copperfield, just like everyone else. And begging her to help me break into the master suite will only make me seem crazier.

I dash back to Poppy's room, wishing I had paid more
attention to Hex's occasional lessons on breaking and entering. She considered picking locks a survival skill, though she swore up and down that it was one she hadn't used in years.

I scramble through Poppy's hair-accessory drawer, brushing aside headbands and sparkly hair clips until I find a few bobby pins. I grab them and rush back to the door, kneeling down in front of the lock and bending the pins into what I hope are the right shapes. I try to remember how to angle one pin and twist the other, like Hex taught me, but my hands are shaking. I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and try to feel my way.

Finally, the lock clicks, I open the door, and I'm in.

I hurry through the opulent room into the small office and repeat the process on the desk drawer lock.

As I fumble with the lock, I think about exactly how much trouble I'll be in if they catch me. I won't just be packed off to an asylum, I'll be charged with breaking and entering. Even Charlie won't have any sympathy for me if I'm found rummaging through his mother's private things.

But I have no choice. I have to know. I have to understand why this woman hid me from my grandparents. Why she brought me here.

I nearly crow when the lock clicks open, but I press my lips together and open the drawer.

I stare at the treasure inside. The drawer is filled with papers
and photos and all kinds of miscellaneous objects, including an old tape recorder. I reach for a glass perfume bottle in the back corner. Highland Heather. My mom's scent. The one that filled my room here that one night, as if my mother were passing through it. I set the bottle down and take out a few of the papers. They're emails, from my mom to Lily, printed out and marked up. Some of them are brief, only a few lines assuring Lily that she's fine. Some of them are longer, and I skim them through with tears in my eyes. She writes about my first words, my first day of kindergarten, the stories she tells me as I fall asleep each night. There's a sentence about the bluebird princess story, which Lily highlighted. Several passages have been highlighted, I realize, including the recipe for the “shortbread with a kick” that she used to make for me.

I click play on the tape recorder, and my mother's laugh rings out from the small speakers. Just like I knew it would. “Lily, what are you doing?” my mother says, and her voice sounds so young. So carefree. “What am I supposed to say?”

“Say your name, and what piece you're going to play,” a high-pitched voice answers.

“My name is Moira Cavendish, and I'll be playing Beethoven's
Moonlight Sonata
.”

Mom.
This drawer is full of her.

“You found her,” someone says, and I click off the tape recorder, slipping it into my coat pocket as I whirl around to see through my tears that Mabel is standing in the doorway of the office, and Blair is peeking over her right shoulder.

Mabel is holding a gun.

And she's pointing it right at me.

Mabel?

I stare at her, trying to blink away my tears to focus on the gun. I recognize it: It's one of a pair of antique dueling pistols that I saw in a spare bedroom once when I was following Alice around. “What are you doing?” I ask, more confused than frightened.

“What she wanted me to do,” Mabel says. There's something different about her voice. It almost reminds me of the dark times, when Mom was in the midst of one of her episodes, and her words would come out too fast. Unsettled. Unhinged.

“What Blair wants you to do?” I ask. I want to keep her talking. I spare a glance at Blair, who is standing silently behind Mabel, her face pale, her eyes piercing into me.

Mabel shakes her head, drawing my attention back to her. “Not Blair. My lady.”

“Lily?” I ask.

“Don't you dare speak her name,” Mabel spits out.

“She wanted you to kill me?”

“She wanted me to shut you up, put you somewhere no one could ever find you.”

Of course.
“Somewhere my grandparents could never find me, you mean. Why?”

Mabel doesn't answer. I look back at Blair, but her face doesn't offer me anything either.

“Money?” I say finally. “She wanted my grandparents' money, is that it?”

“And her children will get it,” Mabel says firmly. The strange darkness in her voice is gone now, and I finally feel a frisson of terror. She sounds determined.

I glance again at Blair, but she says nothing. She makes no move to help me, just stands there.

“Why does it matter so much to you? Why get so involved with her personal affairs?” I ask Mabel.

She blinks, as if she thinks the questions I've asked are absurd. “This is my
family
. Lillian—I knew her from when she was just a wee bairn. I raised her, better than her own mother
ever could have. I wanted the world for her. She deserved so much more than the life she was born into. She deserved this castle, and the old magic that keeps it safe.” Her voice falters for a moment, and for just that moment, she lowers the gun a fraction. But then it's right back up, level with the space between my eyes. “I should have paid more attention to the rituals. If I had, they would have protected her.”

I think of her disappearing into the darkness of the tree room, carrying the burning bundle of juniper branches through the house on New Year's Day. All because she thinks those strange rituals would keep this family—
her
family—safe.

I've been so blind. I've been so focused on Blair that I didn't recognize the larger enemy.

“I'm sorry,” I say softly. “I'm so sorry for your loss.”

She wraps her free arm around herself, as if she's trying to hold all that loss inside her. The gun is still shakily pointed at me. “I will not let her children lose any more than they already have.”

I spread my hands in front of me, trying to look as unthreatening as possible. “The inheritance is theirs. Even if the Cavendishes did offer it to me, I wouldn't take it. I'd refuse it. I want what's best for Poppy, too. And for Charlie.”

My voice catches on his name, and Blair finally reacts, her
eyes narrowing and snapping to mine. They are filled with venom.

“Charles is
mine
,” she hisses. “I won't let you take him from me.”

“Of course. I would
never
try to take him from you,” I vow, trying to ignore the sadness that curls through me as I say it. “I just want to go back to Texas, back home. I won't say anything to anyone. Please, just let me go home.”

“Blair, go make sure everyone is where they're supposed to be,” Mabel says. And, like a good little servant, Blair nods her head and hurries away.

Mabel's been in charge all along.

The two of us are now alone. Mabel raises the gun a little higher, pointing it right at my forehead. Her hand is steady, no longer shaking, and I can see the determination in her eyes. She knows I'm lying. She knows I'd never leave Poppy and Charlie here in the same house with a madwoman. With two madwomen. She's not going to let me go.

So, before she can say anything else, before she can pull the trigger and do what she thinks must be done, I act.

I run straight at her, pushing her to the floor, my terror making me strong. And there's a horrible explosion from the gun.

I suck in a breath, but I don't feel any pain. I must have
knocked the gun off course. I sprint down the hall, screaming for help.

But no one is answering me. Can't anyone hear me? Time seems to slow, and my legs feel impossibly heavy. I can't push them any faster. I wait to hear Mabel's footsteps right behind me, for the sound of the next gunshot.

Finally, I make it to the main staircase, leaping down the steps three at a time. I'm almost to the next landing when my feet slip from under me, and I'm rolling to the bottom.

I can't breathe. I can't even tell if I'm injured. For a moment, all I can do is lie there in a heap, stunned, the world spinning.

I have to move. I have to get up.

I hear footsteps above me, and, in a haze, I see Mabel hurrying down to me. There's no one to help me. I have to help myself.

I shove myself up, finally getting some good breath in my lungs but also feeling a sharp, searing pain shooting from my left ankle.

I keep running down the stairs, trying to ignore the pain that feels like lightning cracking up my leg.

I keep screaming.
Where is everyone?

There is another explosion, and something whizzes past my ear.

I push myself faster, my ankle now screaming in protest.

I turn and hurry to the back door, limping, my teeth gritted in sheer determination. She can't kill me. I won't die this way, right now.

I push open the back door and hurry out into the snow. I'm running toward Gareth's cabin, desperate to find someone, anyone, who might not want to kill me, but when I get there I see that there are no lights on inside. He's not home.
Where
is
everyone?

Another bullet rushes past my left ear, burying itself in the wood side of Gareth's cabin, and I instinctively veer right, my eyes landing on the large hedge maze. The fog envelops me as I find the entrance and run in.

It's only when I've made a few random turns and gone deeper inside that I realize what a mistake I've made. I've trapped myself in a disorienting, confining structure with just one entrance. This maze doesn't lead to an exit but to a fountain in the center, which means the way I came in is the only way out. I'm cornered.

Desperate, I try to scramble up the hedges, hoping I can climb over them and run out into the woods. But the shrubs aren't sturdy enough, and they collapse beneath my weight. They're too dense for me to push my way through, no matter how much I scrabble at the branches.

I clap a hand over my mouth to muffle a scream of terror and frustration.

I can hear faint footsteps now. Mabel. Stalking me. I creep away from them, making more random turns until I come to a dead end.

Her footsteps are closer now.

I'm going to die.