Page 31

S he tried not to overthink her outfit. It seemed silly. She wasn’t meeting Sonder for a date, she was going as a scientific peer.

That’s what told herself anyway, as she dressed in black trousers and a loose, brown cable knit. This wasn’t a peculiar date with an unmasked man and it wasn’t her assisting a professor.

Taking one last look in the wardrobe mirror, she nodded resolutely and grabbed her satchel. She had just enough time to snag a cuppa from the coffee and tea cart on the green before Sonder met her.

But when she opened the door to her room, Domhnall was standing there, his fist poised to knock. Instinctively, backed up.

“Aw, fuck. I’m sorry, .”

“You look like shite.” She crossed her arms.

“I feel like it too. I keep getting glimpses from last night. I was an arse to you, wasn’t I?”

“You made a very determined pass at me, Dony. Even after I said no.”

He rubbed at the back of his neck. “Fuck. I’m so sorry.” His contrition seemed genuine, but that didn’t excuse him.

“You need to stop drinking if you can’t control yourself. You’re going to end up hurting someone.”

He looked at his bare toes, but she kept going.

“All it takes is one fuck up and you’ve destroyed not only someone else’s life but your own, too.”

“You’re right. I don’t want to hurt anyone. Least of all you.”

“Just”—she put a hand on his shoulder—“get a handle on it, yeah?”

“Ye’. Thanks, .”

She moved past him. “One and done or don’t drink at all, all right?”

“Deal.”

She smiled, but Dony didn’t.

“I have some glimpses of a masked man threatening me. Was that real?”

She should have lied. But it wasn’t her nature until recently it seemed, and she didn’t get a lie out fast enough.

“Are you mixed up in one of these secret societies?”

“No,” she said firmly and it was mostly true. “But I don’t answer to you, Dony. So drop it.”

He held up his hands in a show of surrender. “All right.”

grabbed her keys and rushed out the door, irritated she didn’t have time for coffee anymore.

Sonder was behind the Medical Building where they’d agreed to meet, leaning against his Capri and smoking a cigarillo. He hadn’t seen her approaching and she slowed to watch him a moment, unobserved. It was strange now, putting both men into one, the seamlessness with which she viewed them before she ever knew for certain that they were one and the same.

Professor Murdoch, with his intellect and Morbid Arts. Gold Stitch, with his brooding and secrecy. And yet they were both just Sonder to her—had been for some time, in many ways—smelling of parchment, cigar smoke and spice, talking of academia and the Plague, pissing her off and pulling her back in; sharply dressed, hands ever in his pockets.

Sonder turned then, still mostly in profile, but he saw her and his mouth broke into a smile. He moved toward the back door of the building and stubbed out his cigarillo. “Good morning.”

Two cups were on the bonnet of his car, one a porcelain teacup and one a takeaway cup. One empty, one full. He handed the latter, his face scrunching on one side as he thought aloud, “Dark roast, dash of cream, with brown sugar.”

took the coffee gratefully, hoping she wasn’t grinning like a fool. “Only in the autumn.”

“Ah. I’ll have to learn your winter order as well then, won’t I?”

“It’s just black coffee the rest of the year. Dark as it’ll come.”

“Much easier.”

“Thank you,” she smiled, lifting her cup.

“But of course.” He mocked a ridiculous bow and she laughed.

They climbed in the Capri and Sonder reached over her to open the glove compartment. Another laugh popped out of . “You have an entire stash of teacups!” She fished around in them. “Three fancy and two plain.”

He handed her the one he’d just used. “Three and three to make six. Uneven numbers are appalling.”

looked at him in astonishment, then back at the glove compartment. “It’s the only thing you have in here. What if you’re mugged? Pulled over? Where’s your torch?”

“I live in rotation between college, my home, Achilles House, and back. On occasion, the pub or the theatre. I haven’t much use for any of those items to be in my car because I don’t find myself in those situations. A useful cup, however, has proved invaluable in my daily life.” He opened the compartment between their seats to produce a flask and a cigar case. “Along with these.”

laughed. “You are so strange.”

“Says the woman who got in the car with a masked man in the middle of the night and went to a graveyard. On more than one occasion.” He set his face in a comical frown and shrugged, pointing between them. “Pot, kettle.”

“All right, all right,” she waved him off, closing the glove compartment of drinking vessels. “You’ve made your point. Now, where are we going?”

“You, darling, will find out when we get there.”

She wasn’t sure why he’d begun calling her that. Perhaps it was only something he typically said to his friends, but it made ’s knees weak every time. When he’d said it to her in Gaelic. . . She’d almost swooned.

The drive was long, and somewhere after Marlay Park, the city dropped away, the autumn trees shrouded in fog and mist. The road turned winding, and felt as if she were leaving the world as she knew it behind.

Eventually, they pulled onto a long gravel drive and drove through an ornate, wrought iron gate with a filigreed ‘M’ there in the middle.

had her fingers curled on the door, knuckles and nose pressed to the glass. Just about everything was dying, prepared to protect itself for winter, but the misty grounds were astounding.

She heard Sonder chuckle at her astonishment.

“Hawthorn trees,” she said, her breath fogging the glass. “A whole grove of them.” They were vibrant with dying leaves and blood-red berries.

“Yes,” Sonder said as the gravel turned to cobblestones. “They’ve been on these grounds since before the house. My grandmother didn’t believe in cutting down a hawthorn, nor did my mother after her. She said it was bad luck. That the?—”

“Faeries would be angry,” finished for him.

“Yes.” He was looking at her strangely. She could see his reflection in the window and she turned to face him. “I thought my matriarchs were just superstitious.”

“Superstitions and fairytales all originate from somewhere. Did you know that most supposed fairytales can be found in ancient civilisations that had no contact with one another and the tales have only minor variations?” She shrugged. “Same with religious stories.”

Sonder stopped the car. “I did know that. Again, from my mother. How did you know that?”

looked at her thumbnails. “My undergraduate studies were in Folklore and Religion. I did my thesis on the overlap between the two.” He looked surprised and she wasn’t sure why. “Didn’t you have that in my file?”

“I never read your file. It seemed an impersonal, gross oversight of a person’s character to shove highlights and lowlights in a folder and call it fact. I would, however, give my left arm to read that thesis.”

She heard his words, but they flitted away in the gloomy fog because she finally looked through the windscreen to see where they had stopped.

“Home, sweet home,” Sonder said, opening his door.

climbed out, eyes trained on the most stunning house she’d ever seen. A Gothic manor befitting a Bronte or Radcliffe novel, all dark, bloody stone and black spires. There was even a turret and a stone balcony. She could envision Emily St. Aubert leaning over the side to catch a glimpse of her beloved Valancourt. Any moment, Heathcliff would stomp through the hawthorns, materialising in the fog and calling out to Cathy.

“It’s a bit vintage,” Sonder broke into her thoughts, “but it’s home.”

The cobblestones leading up to the manor were broken, like jagged claws coming up from the ground. Sonder produced a set of keys strangely incongruous with the old house and unlocked the heavy front door. The moment her foot passed over the threshold, swore the house pulled in a breath, as if it were surprised to see her.

The feeling was mutual.

Sonder led her through the foyer of dark wood floors and wallpaper of midnight florals. He hung the keys on an antique brass hook by the door and took off his coat. Once it was hung on the rack, he offered to take ’s, and she slipped it off, making slow work for her marvelling.

Quietly, he led her into a room that took her breath away. One entire wall was made up of mullioned windows, interlocked with whorls of black ironwork. The rest of the sitting room was a masterpiece collection of art and oddities that would rival the Louvre or the Vatican’s archives. The walls were a charcoal so dark they were almost black, but there was almost no space between the shelves and paintings to see it.

stopped first at a painting of a woman from behind, standing alone on the beach in the light of the moon, then onto one of a man, blurred, his face buried in his hands. She could feel Sonder quietly watching her, letting her soak in his home.

She wondered vaguely if he let women do this often—see inside his inner sanctum.

But all those thoughts drifted away when she passed one of two floor-to-ceiling bookcases to pause at the portrait between them. It was almost as tall as she was and at least four times as wide. A stoic man, very nearly identical to Sonder, but younger, stood next to a lovely woman. The epitome of romance she was, in her olive dress, her auburn curls draped elegantly over one shoulder. Where he was stoic, she was radiant, her smile the kind that could light up any room, and Sonder had her captivating hazel eyes.

“Edmund and Olivia Murdoch,” Sonder said softly. “My parents.”

turned to face him, gauging the sadness in his voice. “They?—”

“Died of the Plague.”

’s heart cracked. “Sonder, I’m?—”

He held up his hand to stop her, a gentle smile on his face that didn’t reach his eyes. “It’s all right. I suppose my obsession with the Plague makes more sense to you now.”

She nodded, turning back to the portrait to give it another look before moving on. She came to a massive sculpture of a nude woman, her head thrown back in pleasure or agony, it was difficult to tell. Her arms were limp at her sides, a kneeling man holding onto her waist and shoulder with all his might, muscles straining, his head bowed against her abdomen as if he were holding her to the earth.

It moved to tears. “What is this?” she breathed.

“Ruperto Banterle’s Fleeing Soul . A replica.” Sonder came up next to her. “The true piece stands sentry over the Monumental Cemetery in Verona.” They stood in silence for a few moments, looking at the sculpture that felt as if it were alive.

After several moments, Sonder finally said quietly, “I like to think her soul was ascending, and he couldn’t bear the loss of her,”

“So he attempted to hold her here with him,” finished, feeling the same sentiment when she looked at it.

Sonder made a sound of acknowledgement deep in his throat and wandered off to the other side of the wide room of gilded baubles and ornate rugs in deep hues.

“Would you like some tea? It will give you more time to peruse while I make it.” He said it like a joke, and he was smiling when looked over her shoulder at him. She had the most peculiar feeling, looking in his eyes across the room, as if she was becoming the heroine of a Gothic novel.

It thrilled her, though a warning sounded in her heart that those never end without tragedy.

?μαρτ?α.

Hamartia.

To err, to have a tragic flaw.

With Sonder standing there in his childhood home, looking at her, she knew in her bones they were both hamartia embodied. The main ingredient for a tragic end.

“Tea sounds nice.”

As soon as he left the room, she felt cold, rubbing her hands up and down her arms.

With one last look at the sculpture, she followed the direction Sonder disappeared in, passing a room of deep green silks and an old, square grand piano, as well as a billiard room before finally locating the kitchen.

Sonder was lighting an ancient gas stove. “Did you tire of Banterle?”

“Never.”

“There are many more sculptures around the grounds. I’d be happy to show you. My mother had The Abduction of Persephone copied, quite illegally, and placed in the garden. It was always a crowd pleaser, though the artist obviously fell short of Bernini.”

He’d rolled his shirt sleeves up in her absence, the muscles in his forearms shifting as he filled a kettle with water and placed it over the blue flames.

As he pulled down a tea tin and filled two teacups with leaves, the earthy scent of it filled the space between them where sat at the butcher block island. “Why Folklore and Religion?” he asked her conversationally.

chewed on her lip, considering. “Part of me wanted to teach. Or write. But, I think really it was all because I know that the grieving need a new perspective, a different sort of hope.” A line formed between his brows as he listened intently. “There’s darkness found in hearth tales and the Church, but they all know that part already. They’ve seen it in the eyes of their dead. But there is also whimsy found in fairytales and hope found in the spiritual.”

Sonder took the kettle from the stove before it could give its full self-important whistle. “I’ve never looked at it that way,” he said, pouring the water into their teacups, his face obscured by the steam. “You have made me think outside of my normal reasoning on several occasions.”

The steam chose that moment to dissipate and the way he was looking at her sent a rush of heat up her neck.

He slid one of the cups across the island to her and she wrapped her fingers around it, relishing the warmth.

“Are you cold?” he asked, watching her hands. “This old manor is dreadfully drafty.”

“A little, but I’m all right.”

He lifted his tea and gestured to her with his other hand. “I’ll show you around while I light the hearths.”

He first took her back down the corridor that looked as if it belonged in a Victorian period drama and into the room she’d seen with the piano. It was a lovely thing, all old, carefully carved wood, and she was beside herself when Sonder set his teacup on the lid and sat on the bench.

“Any requests?” he said over his shoulder with a grin.

lifted her chin in challenge. “Requiem in D Minor, K. 626. ”

Sonder’s grin turned wicked and wolfish before he spun back to face the piano. His fingers moved over the piano effortlessly, the haunting notes a balm to her very soul. It felt like magic, like one of those ethereal moments that makes one feel simultaneously filled to the brim with joy and drowning in despair because you know there will never be a moment exactly like it ever again.

He stopped after just a minute as she knew he would. The piece had never been finished.

“A Requiem Mass. How fitting.” He smiled. “Thought you could throw me off with that suggestion, didn’t you?”

“Ye’, ye’. Toot your own horn later, Murdoch.”

His laugh made even her fingertips tingle. “Did you know it was never completed?”

“I did.”

His eyes squinted. “You never cease to surprise me, Ariatne Morrow.”

looked at her shoes as he rose and came toward her. “What’s next on our grand tour?”

“How about the library?”

She paused, and it took him a couple of seconds to realise she wasn’t following him out into the hall. “You have an actual library?”

“One thousand books constitutes an official library. We have three.”

“ Three thousand , you mean?”

Sonder chuckled and grabbed her hand to pull her along. “Come and see.”

Oh, he had not been exaggerating. “Jesus of little Nazareth,” she whispered, spinning in a small circle to try and soak it all up.

Sonder was watching her, leaning against the doorframe. “I take it you like it.”

“I could live here.” She craned her neck to look at the top row of books high up into the vaulted ceiling.

“Then you might enjoy this—” He pushed off the wall and strode to a corner where ’s gaping hadn’t reached yet.

“Are you kidding?”

He pulled a floor-to-ceiling ladder on a track across the rows of books. “I’m not much of a kidder, a stór .”

Her attention snapped to him with the endearment he’d taken to calling her. “Do you need a live-in librarian?”

Sonder laughed, a full, deep laugh and she thought her heart might explode.

They spent the next hour pulling down stacks of books to show one another and discuss them. It wasn’t until a grandfather clock in the corner tolled 1:00 that realised how hungry she was. She was about to mention they should find sustenance when a glass case of baubles caught her eye.

No, they were little filigreed glass vials in various shapes, colours, and sizes, danging off the end of dainty chains.

“What about this one?” she heard Sonder’s voice from across the room, then his shoes on the wood floor as he approached from behind. “ The Celtic Twilight .”

“On my shelf in Briseis,” she said over her shoulder.

“Ah.” His voice was nearly at her ear. “My mother’s collection.”

“What are they?” ran her finger over the wooden edge of the wide, velvet-lined case.

“Lachrymatories.”

looked at him. “Mourner’s tear bottles?”

“Clever woman. Yes, my mother said they were not only a way to remember the dead but a great form of protection. She set about collecting these over the years. Here.” He gently opened the lid to the case and selected one of the bottles, a deep amber one with filigreed vines crawling up from the bottom all the way to the ornate cap. The beautiful bottle swayed on its chain. “Turn around.”

Too stunned to argue, she put her back to him, moving her hair over her shoulder when he unfastened the clasp. His arms came around her, his proximity, the cloying scent of him and his chest so close to her back making her head spin. Gently, he fastened the necklace, his knuckles grazing the nape of the neck, and had never been so grateful she hadn’t worn a turtleneck in all her life.

“There,” he said and softly touched her shoulders to spin her around. “It suits you.” She looked up at him, at a loss for words, and he cleared his throat. “Well, I’d better show you why I brought you here, hm? We’ll need our coats.”

“Did your mother stay in the green room at Briseis House?” she asked as they walked back through the manor.

“Yes, she did. My parents both stayed at Briseis, as did I. My family has a long history in that building and the Society.”

He didn’t ask her how she knew, or why she asked, and was grateful.

Bundled up and huddled in their scarves against the cold Irish wind misting them with rain, they made their way across the grounds. The garden and grove were shrouded in a great deal of fog, too difficult to make out much, but off in the distance rose a massive, old hawthorn tree. Its branches bore no leaves, jutting like jagged arms into the mist, its trunk a mass of twisted wood, a hole gouged out of the centre like an open chest cavity.

“The hawthorn,” she said, voice raised against the wind.

Sonder looked to where she pointed, adjusting his scarf over his ears. “Ah, that one is the oldest on the grounds, but it’s not the one I brought you here to see.”

A moment later, was stunned speechless again. A structure of frosted glass and intricate black metalwork towered above them, nearly as tall as the manor itself. He opened the door that was truly a work of art itself and spotted . . . plants. So many plants.

“Is this a greenhouse?” she asked in disbelief.

“It is, indeed. Have a look.” He held open the door, and she stepped inside, forgetting the cold in the unnatural warmth, in the presence of wild flora she’d never seen. A veritable jungle of it. Vascular plants similar to ferns clustered on the ground, several different types of creeping plants crawled along the walls and glass roof, florals in inhuman colours dotted the beautiful chaos, and there, at the end of an overgrown path of stones, was the barest hint of a tree trunk visible, and a skeletal arm, held aloft by vines.