Page 5 of The Deadliest Candidate (The Last Grand Archivist #1)
Chapter five
The Village
When Fern arrived in East Hemwick, the sun was setting and the village was half-sunk in mist. It was little more than a collection of buildings with moss-eaten wood and crooked roofs—the last village in the United Kingdom.
The ocean’s influence was everywhere: encrusted salt glittered on the surface of building walls and in the cracks of the cobblestone pavements, molluscs grew like gleaming black scales along the pillars supporting the jetties and stilt houses, and heaps of coiled rope lay amongst wooden crates and barrels like listless snakes.
The East Hemwick train station was not so much a station as an old wooden cabin with a bench next to it. It was so devoured by rot and moss that it seemed to defy the very laws of physics by still standing.
The crash of the ocean was deafening, and the brackish wind made Fern’s lips taste like salt. Suitcase in one hand, Inkwell’s wicker carrier in the other, she crossed the small wooden bridge to the other platform and climbed the rickety steps up to the street .
Though the sun was barely setting, the village was deserted.
Near the train station, the small town square was empty; even the newspaper and cigarette kiosk was closed. Pinching her salt-dried lips, Fern frowned to herself and considered her options. She could make her way by foot straight to Carthane, but this would require a long and unsteady climb up the cliffs through tangled, soggy moorland. Or she could stay the night in East Hemwick—but something about the village made her feel ill at ease.
A hand on her elbow startled her so much she almost dropped Inkwell’s carrier. She turned, taking hasty steps back, raking her mind for a helpful incantation, anything she might defend herself with since the dagger Oscar had given her was tucked away in her suitcase.
“Who are you? What business do you have here?”
A man stood, ankles in the swirling mist, holding a lantern high over Fern. His face was deeply marked by wind and sun, and both his beard and hair were long and grey. He wore a peaked cap and a heavy raincoat upon which a Brunswick star was embroidered, the threading loose at each of the star’s points. Despite the man’s shabby appearance and unfriendly expression, Fern sighed in relief.
“Good evening, constable.” Setting down her luggage, she reached into the pocket of her own coat and produced her papers. “My name is Fern Sullivan. I’m passing through on my way to the Carthane Athenaeum, where I’m seeking a position. Do you know if it might be possible to hire a hansom there? ”
The constable, after scrutinising Fern’s papers, lowered his lantern and shook his head.
“You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone around here who would dare venture up to the Library, Miss,” he said. “You’ll have to make your way on foot like the others, only nobody’s allowed to leave East Hemwick for now. Ostary’s orders.”
An uncomfortable shiver ran through Fern at his words.
“An ostary?” she asked before she could stop herself. “In East Hemwick? Why?”
Ostaries were the priest-enforcers of the Reformed Vatican. Their training was thorough, their faith close to zealotry. They were the symbols of the Reformed Vatican’s power, brandished like a flail over those who had dared to defy the church.
A small fishing village such as East Hemwick would be little more than a microscopic fleck to the eyes of the Reformed Vatican, so what could possibly have happened that they should send an ostary here, somewhere so remote and unimportant?
At her questions, the constable’s eyes narrowed. Fern sensed him closing against her as surely as if he’d slammed down iron shutters between them.
“Official business, Miss,” he said. “Nothing to concern yourself with unless the ostary wishes to speak with you.”
Fern recoiled slightly within the woollen confines of her coat. She had only dealt with an ostary once, and never wished to do so again.
The constable, without waiting for her to say anything else, pointed to his right .
“Head down there, past the church and up Isauld Road, overlooking the piers. You’ll find the inn there. You can’t miss it, it’ll be the biggest building you see after the church. Stay there, Addie’ll look after you until you’re allowed to leave.”
Fern nodded and turned to set off. As she walked away from the constable, he called after her, his voice echoing off the wet cobblestones through the wreathing mist.
“Better stay indoors until light, Miss. Who knows what lurks out in the dark these days.”
The inn, when she reached it, seemed no less intimidating to Fern than the darkness itself. Its exterior was a haphazard amalgamation of architectural styles, crumbling stone walls patched up with rusting metal fixtures and weather-beaten woodwork.
A flickering lamp above the entrance faintly lit the faded sign indicating this was The Squidshead Inn.
Inside, the place was slightly more hospitable. The main hall, a wide, low chamber, was dominated by an imposing hearth of time-smoothed rock. A generous fire crackled there, illuminating the mismatched furniture and dusty nautical instruments adorning the walls. The air was thick with the scent of sea spray, damp wood, and the acridity of aged tobacco.
An enormous bar lined one side of the hall, a thick slab of polished wood with fittings of brass. Behind it, shelves of murky liquor in dirty bottles formed a mosaic of green and amber glass. Though the hall itself was occupied by several patrons, nobody seemed to be tending the bar.
With her suitcase and wicker carrier in hand, Fern walked up to the bar and peered around the corner, where an open doorway seemed to lead into the smokey recesses of a kitchen. Behind her, a voice spoke.
“And who is it the mist’s spat out at my door now?”
She turned. An old woman sat by the fire, a small crowd gathered around her like a queen and her court. She wore a dress of plain wool and sturdy boots, and in her long bony fingers she held a pipe, a single ribbon of smoke curling from the end. The woman was old, thin and plain, but there was a sharpness to her ice-chip eyes, which were fixed on Fern.
“Fern Sullivan.” She gave the old woman a nod. “The constable sent me here, said you might have a room for me.”
“Addie’s telling a story,” said a little boy who sat on a stool by the fire, sharpening a set of crude kitchen knives with a whetstone.
“Oh?” Fern’s interest was piqued. She was a librarian, after all. “What story?”
“A story about sea-monsters and old gods,” the little boy answered.
“It’s a story about power and the cost of it,” said Addie herself, standing from her chair like a prophetess rising from amongst her flock of devotees.
“Like most stories,” said Fern with a slight smile.
“Mm.” Addie’s face seemed somehow too hard and weather-worn to smile, but there was a light in her eyes. “And yet we never learn. Come. ”
Fern followed Addie up a set of steep stairs that creaked and groaned with every step they took. By the time they reached the top floor of the building, Fern was out of breath, but Addie, despite her age, seemed completely unaffected. She walked to the end of a narrow corridor and opened the last door, leading Fern into a small bedroom tucked beneath the slanted rafters of the inn rooftop.
Despite the cold and wind outside, the room was warm and comfortable enough, furnished with a bed, a table, a chair and a wardrobe, a potbelly stove tucked in the corner near the foot of the bed.
“Bathroom’s behind this door,” Addie said, pointing. “There’s kindling in the basket over there, and I’ll send the boy up with some bread and soup.”
She turned to go, but Fern hastened to ask, “Do you know how long I’m likely to be kept in East Hemwick?”
Addie shrugged.
“Not long, I should wager. They can’t even identify the body, and no wonder. I’ve never seen one this damaged before—even the ostary’s eyes can’t see past what was done to that man.”
“Body?” said Fern.
So this was why an ostary had been sent here. Their eyes, as it was said, were sacrificed to god and enhanced by magic. They could not see what human eyes saw, but they could see far beyond.
“It washed up on shore two days ago,” said Addie. Her tone was blunt and devoid of emotion, as though this mysterious corpse were more of a nuisance than anything else. “The ostary arrived last night, but it’ll leave soon. It won’t have a choice: there’ll be no answer to his questions. Dead men can’t talk.” She gave Fern a smile that was more a baring of the teeth than anything else. “It would love to get its hands on your lot, of course, but you’re already in the grip of some greater predator.”
And with a cackle like the cracking of burning wood, she left, closing the door firmly behind her.
Fern set her suitcase down and removed her coat, her mind awhirl with questions. Whose body had washed up? Who had killed it? Why would the Reformed Vatican concern itself with a random isolated murder on the edges of the world? It could only be because of the village’s proximity to Carthane.
It was strange timing, all of this. The candidacy for the post of Grand Archivist, the body, the ostary. It made Fern remember Oscar’s warnings, the rumours he seemed so concerned about. It made Fern think, briefly, of her little apartment, her cosy office in Vestersted. The life she had left behind, everything she had given up to come here.
It would love to get its hands on your lot , Addie had said, but you’re already in the grip of some greater predator .
Addie did not strike Fern as the kind of woman to speak for the mere sake of speaking. But why had she chosen to say this, and what did she mean? Your lot —did she mean the candidates? Librarians? Carthane?
Fern did not think she was in the grip of any predator, but she now knew that someone had been killed and that the killer was still at large. There wasn’t a single part of her mind that believed for one moment the unknown person’s death could be accidental, not when an ostary had been sent to solve the mystery of that death .
And between the ostary and the killer, Fern was beginning to suspect there might be more than one predator stalking her path to Carthane.