The Double Life of Incorporate Things (Magic Most Foul) (22 page)

He offered me a strained smile before shaking his head as if casting off something he didn’t wish to consider further. He continued. “Father had a device fitted here”—he gestured to a little open-faced dial with a needle—”that tells us if any of the gas lines have been turned anywhere in the house. The needle is down, so that indicates no lamps have been turned. And he had every room fitted, even the kitchens. Told no one but Mother and me about this little area, as we were the only ones to know about the passages themselves. I never dreamed I’d actually have cause to
use
them. So by the lamp theory, no one is here at this hour, as staff, if any were here to attend to anyone present, would always be awake at this time.”

I nodded. I nearly offered the critique that demons could likely act in the darkness, but I wasn’t sure if that would be helpful. My body seemed to know when they were present before my mind had any registry, and while I was tense, there were no telltale hairs rising on the back of my neck. Not yet.

“And now we listen,” he added, gesturing to a small phonograph-like bell. “There is a pipe from each room to carry any noise. It’s frighteningly sensitive. Father never made it a habit to hide here, he wasn’t mad about it, but he did threaten me never to keep secrets, as he said he’d hear everything like the ear of God.” He chuckled again, and this time didn’t bother to blink back a tear.

The poor man still had never had time to grieve. There had been no proper funeral for his parents. There had been no closure. My heart seized with an ache and a love so pure and raw. He hadn’t spoken of them much since we’d met. I could see now that was only because speaking of them was so fraught with melancholy and wistfulness for the time wrongfully stolen from their lives.

“Do keep quiet and your breathing shallow, friends,” Jonathon bid, “and let’s see if anything picks up.”

We listened. Only the occasional creak of an old house. No stirring of any presence, no footsteps, no words, snores, no rustling or shifting. An uncanny blanket of quiet.

“It would seem we are indeed alone, but I still say we proceed with caution. If anyone finds us, we play our parts. However, I’m not sure the bindings will be necessary. I’d rather do without them,” Jonathon said, and in a moment I was free once more.

“I’ll hold it in case,” I said, keeping the fabric clutched in one of my hands.

With my other hand, I pressed against the stays and laces of my corset and felt the ridge of the small, sharp scissors I’d been yearning for earlier. I undid one hook and eye of my bodice near my navel to allow for a quick plucking out of the blade. The small comforts were profound.

Nathaniel untied Lavinia’s wrists, and I wasn’t sure which of them lost control, but suddenly their lips were as locked as their arms were around one another. Perhaps the quiet tension simply had been too much for them. In unison, Jonathon and I turned away as if we didn’t notice.

But I thought I saw Jonathon smirk as he took my hand and led me forward, pressing his hand into the darkness. With the drop of a clunking lever, a panel swung forward into the library we’d been scouting. We left the panel open for the entwined couple; they’d see to it as they would.

I looked around in wonder at the dim library, rectangular and tall, with floor to ceiling books, lit only by the moonlight streaming in from behind the arched French windows curtained in lavish fabric. But Jonathon didn’t linger here. I think he was too concerned with getting to the heart of the estate to truly take stock, for he moved forward with specific intent. The library led into a grand corridor with chandeliers dropping down periodically throughout the length of it, sweeping out into an open area beyond, likely the main foyer.

Everything ahead was shadowed and glittering silver, all the finery, all the mirrored and crystalline surfaces, the golden frames around still lifes and landscape paintings and well-polished wood. It was the hallway of a palace, with arches marching forward, everything dim save for a wildly bright moon that sent light in at odd angles to bounce off any responsive surface and make the hall look as if it were enchanted. I was, certainly.

He looked back to me, to why I’d paused, and his furrowed brow eased. He bowed slightly and tried to hide the pain in his expression, but I was too accustomed to that beautiful face to miss it. “Allow me to welcome you to Rosecrest, my lady.”

As he righted himself, I curtseyed deeply. “My esteemed Lord Denbury, it is an honor to be here,” I replied with soft earnestness. He broke into a smile. A genuine smile like I’d not seen for some time, a flame of his pride returning, and it was as if one of the gas lamps had been lit in the room. But it was only his eyes. The moonlight did all the rest. “I love the name of it,” I added eagerly. “
Rosecrest
...”

“Dates back in something of our lineage to the War of the Roses. I’m not sure what’s fact and what’s familial aggrandizing.” He chuckled.

And at the mention of family, there again came the pain, like a veil being drawn over those seraphim features of his. He reached up to turn the key of a gas lamp before thinking better of it, keeping signs of activity at a minimum. There was moonlight enough.

We set to wandering the quiet, dark, enormous old house. To say it was eerie was perhaps the understatement of my life.

And yet it was so arrestingly exquisite. Eerie didn’t bother me. Eerie was enticing, the kind of setting where a soul could give over to romance, a place for passionate whispers and stolen clutches in dark corners, surrounded by shadowed beauty on all sides. Frightening was a different story, a shade darker on the palette. At the moment, we were firmly in the color of eerie, and I was content to stay in its entrancing hue.

Rosecrest was the kind of grand, palatial manor that would be its own character in a famous tale. Old and mid-eighteenth-century Gothic, it was everything a Brontë would have written about and that in any other case or company, I’d have unabashedly swooned over.

But I didn’t need to make a show of any of that here, as it would have been a bit much. For Lavinia soon caught up with us and took that particular helm, her black layers as slightly askew as her coiffure, Nathaniel looking a bit smug behind her. His long black coat swept the floor as he stalked into the main foyer, making him look like these surroundings were one of his stage sets.

As my far more theatrical compatriot, Lavinia did all the sighing and exclaiming over the manor for me. Nathaniel was quite used to the place but seemed to love seeing it through Lavinia’s eyes, and their impassioned, nearly childlike wonder was so refreshing against the anxieties that had my shoulders so tensed.

Allowing for momentary curiosity, I watched them. After that furious kiss of theirs in the underground corridor, I wondered if Nathaniel Veil, the Gothic Don Juan, was growing to favor Lavinia in the ways that I hoped, as I wanted her to be his foremost paramour. She was too much of his kindred spirit not to be, and her unbridled rapture at the estate was endearing and contagious. After a particularly rhapsodic ode where Lavinia exclaimed about the moonlight through the massive, arching window that illuminated the grand wood and marble staircase to upper floors “as a portal into the night court of the realms of faerie,” I did feel compelled to add my own compliments to her panoply.

“It
is
so very beautiful, Jonathon,” I murmured. “Breathtaking. All of it. And it
is
yours. That must not be in doubt. I know everyone involved will make sure justice is served for you and for this wondrous place,” I reassured with all the confidences I could muster. I was sobered by how hard this all had to be for him. I reached out and pressed his hand in mine as he took us through the length of the main foyer.

“Why would the Society just
abandon
this
treasure
?” Lavinia exclaimed.

“Oh, they haven’t abandoned it, it was overtaken by a nouveau riche family that fancied themselves landed and titled—or at least are trying to be—in a home they had no right to buy as it was stolen not sold, though they changed our family crests anyway,” Jonathon growled. “The Society acts as landlord. Per Brinkman’s exterior surveillance, it would seem that both the family and Society persons do come and go, but no one here has kept any permanent staff on retainer,” Jonathon replied. “Considering the Society’s penchant for experimentation, we need to be prepared for any number of things to be taking up space in my estate.” The grim resignation in his tone spoke again of his amazing resilience. I took his hand again, and this time I just didn’t let go of it as we continued the tour.

Thankfully, there were no obvious vials of “The Cure.” No apparent wires leading to reanimate corpses stowed away in any of the upstairs guest rooms, fine set after fine set as they were. It would seem the Society kept the grand home as it was, rather than using its great resources as another testing ground. At least we hoped. Jonathon and Nathaniel ran downstairs to the kitchens and cellars and came back up shrugging, the place empty. For Jonathon’s sake, I was so glad, though it continually felt like a calm before a storm. Like we were missing something.

I grew utterly overwhelmed by the vastness of the place, two long wings of bedrooms, studies and sitting rooms interrupted by the occasional alcove or balcony that looked down over the main foyer or the elegant ballroom, the whole of the house done up in a synthesis of dark, carved wood, archways, and stained-glass accents.

Eventually, we descended to the west wing and swept into the dining room. It was lavish, immense, full of dark woods and sparkling crystal, hard to take in at once for all the details and finery.

But it was all the portraits lining the walls, hung above the wooden paneling in grand, gilt frames that caught my eye.

It was a family, a well-heeled gentleman of middle age, two youths standing as if they were already adults to his left, a boy and a girl, bookended by a wide-eyed woman in lavish gown that seemed to be trying a bit too hard. The whole presentation was a bit too ostentatious to be tasteful, a sign of the striving classes I’d learned from one of Maggie Hathorn’s rambling monologues.

I blinked. And in that moment, my vision swam a bit, as everything went out of focus within the frames. My throat went dry.

“Oh no, Jonathon,” I said, suddenly dizzy with the further descent of dread that pitched my stomach. “The house isn’t empty.”

I pointed to the paintings. All of which had changed when I blinked. Each stoic form had suddenly shifted. All of them reached out their hands, open palms, desperate. Reaching out to me. Souls reaching out for help. Just as Jonathon had done when he was imprisoned in canvas. So the Society had brought its evil unto Rosecrest after all.

“This house isn’t empty at all,” I said in a choking whisper. “It’s full of trapped souls.”

The four of us, collectively, shuddered in that quiet, lavishly appointed dining room with those four tragic portraits.

“Is it...just me...” Lavinia began hesitantly, “or did the paintings...”

“Change,” I replied. “Yes. They are alive. In a way. The souls of those persons are trapped inside the canvass. Perhaps that’s the family that took over the estate?”

I asked Jonathon, but he had turned away, as if he couldn’t bear to look.

“It’s what happened to me,” he murmured bitterly. “My soul was trapped within while my body was overtaken by a demon. The family that the Society sold this place to were mere vessels. Cursed into servitude to the Society’s ungodly bidding.”

“But, Jonathon, my love, we know the countercurse,” I murmured, going to him, finding that looking away from the paintings was much better than looking at them. “Hope is not lost. The Society can’t know the basic weapons we have.”

“But we need their bodies,” Jonathon said mournfully. “To throw the demons into the frame and rip the souls back where they belong...”

“Then let’s be sure their demon-ridden selves are invited to our little dinner party,” Nathaniel replied.

“I suppose that is the only option we have,” Jonathon muttered. “Throw the counter-curses before the police make arrests. I just hope the spy Brinkman and my solicitor contact, Mr. Knowles, have evidence enough no matter what the devils may try.”

Jonathon stalked away. I gestured with a look to Lavinia and Nathaniel that it might be best if I went after him alone.

“We’ll be in the foyer,” Lavinia whispered. “As being here is just too...” She stared up again at the imprisoned family with an expression of horrified pity and shuddered once more, darting out in an opposite direction from Jonathon, Nathaniel behind her.

I took the route Jonathon took, listening to his footfalls, ignoring how much the corridors of his estate reminded me of my dreams. Dreams where something was always coming after us or keeping us apart. But unlike my dreams, here I could move. Here I could be active. Bold. Cross distances, be they physical or emotional.

I finally found him at the end of the next hall, as the door was open and I could see his silhouette near the doorway, a lamp lit in a small but grand little room...a study...

The
study.

This was the room that Jonathon had been painted in. The study whose likeness had been his prison.

I recognized every detail of the finely appointed room, the stately furniture, expensive Persian rugs, the desk with gold-plated implements, leather chair, towering bookcases, the mantel with fascinating instruments and treasures, the grand window looking out to the darkened lands beyond, I recognized every detail. He turned a lamp, and everything took on the hues I’d been accustomed to. So much... So much had happened in this place. In the
likeness
of this place... It was surreal to see it
real
...