Page 48 of Blackwicket (Dark Hall #1)

I trudged upstairs to the linen closet to fetch a blanket for Jack, burdened by the grim realization that William and the Brom were exploiting him and possibly other children to create a refuge for the wealthy to gorge on magic free from the threat of Drudge.

Perhaps their plan involved cultivating a young army of guardians, using them until their magic ran dry.

Of course, it’d be practical for Nightglass to keep a Curse Eater to mitigate the side effects of this disgusting ambition, but it was unlikely William was focusing on me as a nurse for those who’d taken on more than they could handle.

He was after something else. I was beginning to believe he wanted me to uphold my sister’s legacy of abducting children.

In my ten-year absence, Fiona had evolved into someone I couldn’t recognize, and I was finding it increasingly difficult to justify what she’d become.

A wave of static tingled at the back of my neck as I shut the closet door, the cloying odor of overripe fruit disturbing me.

With the blackberry jam in the kitchen gone, I was confused by its presence.

Hinges creaked, and I turned to look the length of the hallway, toward the attic door, slightly ajar, revealing the monstrous face of Auntie peering at me.

So this was where she’d been hiding, locked where I couldn’t reach her without significant danger to myself.

She’d grown much more unpredictable and elusive than I remembered.

Once, she’d been an oft-present, almost docile entity who visited more and more as Isolde Blackwicket deteriorated, like a nanny stepping in to keep an eye on neglected children. The dark angel of Blackwicket House.

She’d transformed into a source of comfort, a reassurance. I’d fallen for the fables and romantic hues my mother had painted this house and its legacy in, an effort to make our childhood here seem easier, something special rather than the terrible thing it was.

I slammed the closet door, causing Auntie to retreat, bypassing the unsafe stairs to scuttle along the wall.

She was as much a monster as the others, with no heart beyond hurt, existing here because the alternative was worse—Dark Hall, where a shadowy leviathan that devoured curses roamed—curses that could never hope to be healed, trapped in an eternal hell.

I worried about Jack and any other children Fiona had brought here.

As I returned, quilt draped over my arm, I heard talking. Jack was awake, his voice strained and angry.

“I don’t want to eat curses anymore! It hurts, it makes my insides burn. I want to go home.”

“Where’s home?” Inspector Harrow asked, meeting Jack’s anger with assured calm, allowing the storm to rage while offering a safe harbor. I speculated he’d learned the technique from Barrick Harrow, a man who’d adopted a broken Brom child from the street.

“Nowhere,” Jack spat, and the tears constricted his vocal cords. He snuffled. “I hate crying!”

There was a faint breath from the Inspector, a laugh. “Why?”

“Crying never did nothing for nobody,” Jack said. “Just let’s people know you’re soft.”

“Who told you that? ”

“Coppe.”

My hatred for the man increased tenfold.

“Don’t let them take the tears from you, boy,” Inspector Harrow said. “They’re yours, something you need.”

“For what?”

“You’re a Curse Eater, aren’t you?”

“I guess. Don’t want to be.”

“Sometimes we don’t get to choose who we are, but a Curse Eater’s a fine thing if you’re a good one.

” The cadence of the Inspector’s voice was almost narcotic, a low-pitched rumble of words that never grew too loud, never varied too much in tone, encouraging you to remain still and listen closely to catch every syllable.

“To be a good one, you can’t keep the bad feelings bottled up.

That’s what creates the curses in the first place.

It’s the magic gone wrong with all the anger and fear you hold tight. That’s what the tears are for.”

“What do tears do?”

“I don’t know exactly how they work, but my best guess is they give somewhere for all the hurt to go.”

“I bet you don’t cry,” Jack grumbled, before breaking down, his soft sobs drifting to meet me in the hall.

My vision blurred, and I leaned forward enough to see that Jack had curled into a trembling ball, his knees tucked near to his face, while the Inspector sat close by in the chair he’d taken from the desk.

“No,” Inspector Harrow said, placing a hand on the child’s head. “But I’m a weak man, Jack. You don’t want to be like me.”

I waited a moment longer in the corridor so it wouldn’t appear I’d been listening.

When I entered, Inspector Harrow sat back, giving me room to drape the blanket over Jack, a modest bit of shelter from the world.

The boy stirred from his position, gazing at me with puffy eyes, his auburn hair a chaotic mess, sticking straight up at the crown of his head.

“When I was little.” I took a seat again on the edge of the bed, far enough so he wouldn’t feel crowded by a stranger. “My mother would weave her magic into my quilt to help me sleep. If you’d like, I’ll do the same for you.”

When Isolde had stopped being aware of us, I’d attempted to replace her magical comfort with my own, enchanting fibers of my quilt, only for the magic to escape. I’d become so disheartened, I’d stopped trying. I hoped I wouldn’t fail now.

“Guess so,” he said, wiping his face vigorously with his hands as though he could erase his sorrow with enough force.

I explained the importance of intention, giving direction to power so it knew what form to take, what task to perform. I repeated my mother’s words about how vital practicing magic to create beautiful, useful, comforting things was.

“Why?” Came Jack’s question, echoing the one I’d asked many years ago.

“If we show magic how important it is,” I said. “How much it means to us, maybe it’ll come back.”

I’d believed these things until my mother’s death, when my grip loosened on the hopes of childhood.

But for Jack’s sake, he needed to feel they were true.

It would give him a shield against the troubles awaiting him as a child of Dark Hall.

A flimsy one, perhaps, but far better than none.

My power was pliant from use, no longer rigid and difficult to control, and unlike in my youth, what I wove into the fabric, between each weave and weft of thread, remained secure, glinting like a field of fireflies in summer.

The joy on Jack’s face would be a lasting memory, but short-lived, quickly becoming forlorn.

“Fiona did this for me, too. I guess you both learned it from your mom.” Fresh tears filled his eyes.

“Did you spend a lot of time with Fiona?” I asked, struggling not to sound too desperate for the answer .

Jack nodded, “Are all the toys still upstairs?”

“They are.” I stopped, cleared my throat, “It’s a mess right now, but they are.”

“I liked coming here, but Mr. Nightglass stopped letting me.”

“Why?” I inquired, tucking the blanket around his shoulders to soften the difficult question.

“Fiona was sick, he didn’t want me to get sick too. Then she died.”

Instinctively, I rubbed his back, wishing I could ease the pain in his voice, knowing it would remain for a long time.

“Were there other kids, Jack?” Inspector Harrow asked, “Other children like you here at Blackwicket House?”

The question put him on his guard, his face growing slack, two spots of red forming on his cheeks. “Don’t know.”

A lie.

“Why don’t you try to sleep?” I replied before Inspector Harrow could ask anything else.

He didn’t reply as he tucked himself deep beneath the enchanted blanket, his eyes trained on the wall.

“Do you want someone to stay here?” I asked.

“No.” Came the sullen response.

We’d pushed too far.

“If you need anything…”

Before either of us could move, Jack spoke, words muffled by the sheet.

“I changed my mind. Stay ‘til I’m asleep? Both of you?”

We remained there in silence as the afternoon sun cast the room in a flaxen glow, punctuated by the twinkling of the magic, bright enough to shine even in daylight.

At last, Jack’s breaths grew long and even, and we left him to rest from his ordeal .

“I’m not returning him to William,” I told the Inspector as soon as the door was half shut.

“I didn’t expect you’d want to,” he replied, “But how do you plan to care for him here? William Nightglass controls this town, and if he can make sure you don’t get a train ticket out, he’ll make sure you can’t get necessities.

“I know. Grigori did that to us.”

“He tried to starve you?”

“He couldn’t. My mother was too smart. We had little gardens and grew everything we needed.”

Admittedly, I’d become tired of potatoes.

“And in the winter?”

I smiled at him, the upturn of my lips carrying both a fondness for the memory and a curdling resentment.

“Magic isn’t just good for sweet dreams.”

“Sounds like a lonely life.” The statement came with no sympathy. He’d simply acknowledged of the true shape of things.

“It was good for a while. My mother worked hard to make it seem we were the luckiest children in the world. I only realized later that the things that made it special here were actually hardships.” We were treading perilously close to memories I didn’t want to consider, so I deliberately changed focus. “You were a Brom boy?

Inspector Harrow glanced at the partially closed door, checking for young boys who snuck from of bed.

“I was,” he replied after a breath. “Until Chief Harrow.”

“Your name,” I said, and it wasn’t a question, more an acknowledgment. Victor Harrow only existed because a grizzled Authority chief took pity.

“Interested in my history suddenly?”

“Not suddenly,” I replied, “Besides, you know everything about me. ”

“Not everything,” he murmured.

All at once, the hallway was too narrow, and the internal panic I’d grown used to experiencing around the Inspector kindled, making it all the more difficult for me not to bare my soul.