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“But I wasn’t there.”
“No, you weren’t. Not until I was leaving.”
She thinks on this for a moment. “John had to come pull you out.”
“That’s right.”
“I like John. He tried to help me.”
“Yes, he did.” My breath catches as I wipe my eyes. “I like John too.”
Emeline touches my cheek with her cold little finger. “He’ll try to take you away someday,” she says forlornly. “The little boy told me he will.”
I catch her hand in my own and squeeze it. I want to tell her that a little hope has flared in my heart that maybe Mr. Barrett might see me the way I see him, that perhaps I won’t always be the younger, plainer version of the woman he actually admires. But even if he does return my feelings, there is no love worth more than the one I have for my little sister.
“No,” I say fiercely, pulling her closer to me. “No, I’ll never leave you. Not again.”
I’m afraid to go to sleep, to lose her again. We lie in silence for hours, one heartbeat shared between us, until finally I drift off. The next morning, sun streams in through the windows in piercing golden shafts. I roll over to an empty bed, the pillow damp, and the air smelling of stale pond water and weeds.
* * *
The next few days pass in a fog. I move automatically, dressing and eating, and occasionally finding my way into the library. More than once Catherine suspiciously asks me what I’m smiling about, but I just tell her it’s nothing. She wouldn’t understand how seeing Emeline, how holding her again, has left me dazed and with a renewed sense of hope. I hold my secret close, Emeline came to me, and me alone. I’ve wound her hair into a little braid, and coiled it inside a locket. I finger it constantly throughout the day, the metal warm and comforting against my chest.
At night I lie awake, tensed for the sound of approaching footsteps, sitting up every time a log shifts in the fire. But aside from Snip, I have no visitors, and after four nights of fitful sleep and increasingly tiring days, I begin to wonder if it was no more than a dream.
But on the fifth night, after having just resigned myself to falling asleep, a horrible sound wrenches me back awake. Heart racing, I bolt upright.
It’s not Emeline, but Mother again, that terrible wail in which she indulged our first night at Willow Hall. Just like that night, it starts low and plaintive, building into an unnatural keening. I’m about to put my head under my pillow to muffle the sound when I chastise myself. Here is my chance to comfort Mother, to make amends for my lack of judgment in going into the pond. I throw on my dressing gown and pad out into the hallway. The wailing is louder here, each sob clear and ringing; it’s a wonder that no one else has been awakened by it. When I reach Mother and Father’s bedchamber, I give a hesitant knock. There’s no answer, and the wailing continues. I’m just about to try a second time when my hand freezes in the air.
It’s not coming from behind their bedchamber door. It’s coming from the third floor.
My rational mind tells me to go back to bed, that Mother is probably upstairs in the nursery, mourning Emeline and in need of privacy. But something irrational and morbidly curious tells me that it’s not Mother, and that I ought to go upstairs and investigate.
Convincing my feet to obey me is another matter entirely. I move with small, hesitating steps, all the while the groaning sobs filling my ears, chilling me down to my bones. They grow louder as I near the stairs, and by the time I’m at the top I can almost make out distinct words.
Wiping my sweating palms on the sides of my dressing gown, I freeze again, teetering on the top step outside the ballroom. Cold seeps from the floor through the soles of my unslippered feet, but I’m knocked backward by the overwhelming smell of smoke. I don’t see any signs of a fire, but I press my mouth into my elbow to keep from choking, and move closer.
The voice, low and mournful, is not Mother’s.
“My boy,” groans the female voice. “Oh, my boy.” The timbre is achingly hopeless, and fills me with sadness as much as it does horror.
It can’t possibly be her, but I can’t stop myself from calling in a whisper, “Emeline, is that you?”
The cries continue as if I hadn’t said anything. The thick smell of smoke winds around me like an embrace, but the air is clear as ever.
Just as suddenly as it started, it stops. The words drop away, the cries evaporate, the smell of smoke recedes and a heaviness I hadn’t realized was pressing down on me lifts. I’m left alone with my thudding heart and dry mouth, and an uneasy sense that until this moment, I shared the company of something not quite of this world.
Slowly and quietly, my legs shaking, I make my way back downstairs and to my bed. No doors open, no one peers out to ask me what all the commotion was. The house is silent and everyone else sleeps on undisturbed.
* * *
When I awake dazed and tired to the light of day, it seems impossible that the hellish cries of last night had been anything more than a dream, a figment of my imagination. When I ask Catherine if she heard anything, she gives me a peevish look and informs me that the only thing making sleep difficult for her are the lumpy mattresses here. Even though I don’t think Mother would admit to such an outburst, I ask her anyway if she’s had bad nights recently. She just gives a weary sigh, and I drop the matter.
Over the course of the next few days I gradually I ease into a routine, tucking away the memories of my secret visit from Emeline, as well as the moans that apparently I alone heard in the night.
Mr. Barrett hasn’t come back since the day in my room, but if Father’s schedule is any indication, they’re both busy trying to tie up the land deal with Ezra Clarke to get the rights to the river that runs through his farm. I’m almost glad that Mr. Barrett hasn’t been round yet, as it gives me more time to emerge from my fog, more time to decide upon a book to recommend to him.
I’m happily curled up in the library with Snip at my feet and a quilt round my shoulders as I pull out every book I think he might like and sort them into piles. I’ve just movedThe Castle of Wolfenbachout of the Maybe pile for the third time when Catherine flounces in.