Unwept (24 page)

“Is there a bell jar in the hall downstairs?” Ellis asked with a gentle smile, her head cocked slightly to one side.

“The large one?” Finny asked. “The one displaying all those dead moths?”

“The very one.” Ellis nodded. “Would you bring it up and set it on my dresser? I'm tired of staring at the walls and long to see it.”

Finny opened her mouth but paused before she spoke. “Yes, miss.”

The nurse left the room for a few moments and then returned with the large bell jar carried awkwardly in front of her. The glass rattled on the base as she lifted it up onto the top of the dresser. At last she managed to slide it back into the center of the dresser's top, stepped back and straightened her dress before turning to face Ellis again.

“Miss, I don't think—”

“That will be all, Finny,” Ellis said, sipping her tea once more. “You should be off home while you can.”

“Yes, miss,” Finny said as she retreated quickly from the room. “I'll be back in the morning. Night, miss.”

Ellis waited, patiently sipping her tea until she heard the footsteps downstairs end with the closing of the front door. Then she set down the cup, picked up the tray and kicked off the covers. She set the tray carefully on the floor, hurrying over to the dresser, inspecting the interior of the bell jar carefully.

The vertical piece of driftwood in the center with the various leaves and mosses fixed to it was as she remembered it. The wings of the moths were carefully arranged into a beautiful presentation, but now the display had changed. Two more moths had been added.

“Ely and Alicia,” Ellis murmured.

The wings of the two new dead moths twitched slightly in the bright passing beam of the lighthouse.

“I'm not mad,” Ellis said as she stepped back. “The world is.”

She opened the closet cabinet, scanning its contents. She pulled out the dark green skirt and jacket of her traveling outfit. She frowned; it was still ugly in her eyes, but suddenly she felt as though it was the only thing among her clothes that was truly hers. She pulled out the rest of her traveling suit and quickly dressed, finishing with the buttons of her high kid boots.

She looked at herself in the mirror and adjudged herself as ready as she could be.

“You seem to be the only one here that knows what's going on,” she said to her reflection, “and you don't know a blessed thing. The only thing you
do
know is that no one is going to stop this except you.”

She turned to the French doors, released the latches and pulled them open wide. The light rain fell on the small balcony beyond. Through the veil of rain she barely made out the lighthouse. Its beam swung over her.

“You want me, Jonas!” she called into the rain. “I'm here! Come and get me!”

21

SNARES

The beam of the lighthouse swung around with clockwork regularity, cutting through the sheets of light rain over the harbor. Ellis waited, staring out toward Curtis Island with calm anticipation. She was tired of wondering, tired of feeling lost, tired of questioning her own mind and fleeing from fear. She stood facing the light. She was suddenly aware of how much her traveling suit looked like a uniform and she felt somehow that she was about to engage in her own private war.

They had told her she was sick and, believing them, she had been weak. They had told her she was mad and, believing them, she had accepted their madness.

But she no longer believed them.

She was strong.

She was sane.

And she could fight her monsters on her own.

The light swung again toward her, filling her vision as she stared toward it. But the brilliance did not fade as it had countless times before. It cut through the rain. The light remained constant across the threshold of the French doors, spilling across the small balcony and filling her room. Ellis held her hand up, shielding her eyes against the blinding light. Whether the lamp had stopped or time itself Ellis could not tell.

Something moved in the brilliance. Shadows incongruously fluttered away from the light, a thousand shades of darkness in paisley shapes flying toward her. Ellis took a single step back, then steeled herself for what she both hoped and feared was coming.

The moths exploded into the room around her, a whirlwind of dark wings. Ellis balled up her fists, holding still against the frightening onslaught. The cloud of moths around her suddenly collapsed into the shape of a man in front of her.

Time resumed and the beam of the lighthouse passed on.

Jonas stood before her, the distinctive paisley-shaped discoloration blemishing the skin of his forehead and right eye. He stood in his soldier's uniform—not a dress uniform but that of an infantryman as she had seen them pictured in Europe.

Ellis forced a smile to her lips.

“I came, Ellis,” Jonas said, taking her in his arms boldly, passionate with a warm familiarity that both shocked and comforted Ellis all at once. “You called me at last and I've come for you.”

“Yes, Jonas,” Ellis said with a lightness she did not feel. “You've come as I asked.”

“Come with me, Ellis,” Jonas said. “We must leave soon. So much depends on it—more than you know.”

“Go where, Jonas?” Ellis urged.

“To the gate, my darling,” Jonas said. “Once we pass through the gate everything will be right again.”

“The gate out of this world?” Ellis asked carefully.

“The gate into the next,” Jonas replied.

“Then we must hurry before they discover us.” Ellis nodded. “Come, Jonas; I know the way.”

Ellis took Jonas by the hand and led him from the room. From the landing at the top of the stairs the floor of the rotunda was dim under the light of the evening storm. They walked down the stairs carefully into the darkness below them.

“Where is the gate, Ellie?” Jonas asked.

“It took me a while before I realized it,” Ellis replied. “Ely told me that Merrick moved the gate after I left, but it wasn't until today that I realized just where he would have thought to move it.”

They came to the parquet floor with the inlaid compass design barely visible in the failing light. Ellis walked down the vestibule and into the dim music room with Jonas following close behind. She noted that the piano was gone entirely; a pair of high-back chairs with a small, round table between them had taken its place. She dismissed the mystery to the madness of the world, concentrating on leading Jonas on behind her. She stepped up to the bookcase at the back and found the vase on the shelf. Ellis pulled open the hidden door in the bookcase and beckoned Jonas to follow her.

“A secret room?” Jonas was surprised.

“Very secret indeed,” Ellis responded. “Where better to keep secrets?”

Ellis picked up the vase as she stepped into the workroom, holding the door open for Jonas as he followed.

“The gate is here?” Jonas asked.

“There, toward the far end,” Ellis said as she set the vase down on the workbench. “Beneath the window there's a catch.”

Jonas stepped down to the far end of the room. “I can't see it. It's too dark in here.”

“I'll fetch a lamp,” Ellis said easily.

She turned and pushed against the second hidden door.

It did not move.

Ellis's hands began to shake, but she pushed again.

This time the panel gave way, swinging open into the archway at the back of the rotunda. Ellis stepped through it, her hand reaching up for the second vase.

He's a monster,
Ellis reminded herself.
He's killed before … maybe he's killed Jenny. He has affected the minds of everyone in the town. It's up to me. I have to put an end to this.

Ellis pulled the vase from the bookcase in the archway. The hidden door swung quietly closed as she stepped clear. She heard the lock click shut with a dull thunk.

Ellis had trapped the monster, but she did not know for how long.

She fled from the house into the rain.

 

 

Her shoes were soaked and caked with mud. The hem of her skirt was stained and her jacket drenched with the rain. Her hair had become soaked as she ran and lay in short, wet tendrils about her head and face as she staggered up the steps of the Norembega. She pushed open the vestibule outer doors. She eyed the cord for the bell next to the inner door but laughed at the thought of waiting on custom at this moment of peril. She reached for the door latch and was surprised to find the door unsecured. It swung open in front of her.

“Mr. Bacchus!” she yelled. “Please! Merrick!”

She closed the door behind her, throwing home the bolt, and then staggered back away from the door. The oak stairs with their sitting-room landing were there as she remembered them on her right and the large front parlor through the doors to her left. There was a small fire burning in the fireplace at the far end of the parlor with the archway to the half-round office room just to its right. The rain pelted the high windows of the curved room beyond as well as the windows in their bays on the right side of the room. There were other doors leading in several other directions from the hall and on the left side of the parlor, but she hesitated to go through them. Ellis had not ventured farther into the house than this on her visit and suddenly realized that she would have no idea where to look for Merrick in the enormous mansion.

“Merrick!” Ellis screamed. “Help! Where are you? I need you!”

She stumbled wearily into the parlor. The statues of griffins on either side of the hearth seemed to watch her as she approached. She could see the glass bowl still on the mantelpiece, its silver key obscured by the etched surface. She slipped past the fireplace into the turret room beyond.

Much to her surprise, the desk that had previously occupied the space behind the fireplace was missing, as was its chair. Only the wooden books remained, filling the bookshelves with empty knowledge.

Ellis ran her fingers through her hair over her forehead, trying to think. Merrick said he had things to which he had to attend. Perhaps he was caught somewhere else when the rain came down in earnest. She gazed out the windows set high in the curved wall, her breath still labored from her flight from the house.

Across the south lawn she saw it.

There was a light flickering in the carriage house.

Merrick!

Ellis considered for a moment. Merrick had forbidden anyone to go into the carriage house. Perhaps it was his private retreat, a place where he could get away from the prying eyes and the wagging tongues of the town. A man of his position surely needed some place that was inviolate.

Surely, however, he would make an exception for this … for her.

Ellis hurried back into the parlor, quickly snatching the key from the bowl on the mantel.

Surely, he would make an exception.…

 

 

Ellis looked up at the carriage house, the rain washing down over her face. A spindly narrow turret rose above her, capped by a slate cone and a widow's walk around its crest. The main doors of the carriage house rose before her, light spilling out from beneath the doors.

Ellis stepped up to the door, intent on putting the key in the padlock, but discovered that it was hanging open. She slipped the key into her jacket pocket, swung the latch to the side and opened the door just enough to slip into the space beyond.

It was difficult for Ellis to see the extent of the large open space. The light was coming from an open trapdoor in the floor at the far end of the carriage stalls that ran nearly the length of the structure. Light glimmered off the finish of a pair of carriages, but Merrick's automobile was not here.

“Merrick?” Ellis called out toward the lit patch in the floor.

She plunged through the dark space toward the light.

A ladder led down through the trapdoor to the storage space beneath.

“Merrick!” Ellis called out. “Please, I need your help!”

Frustrated at receiving no answer, Ellis slipped quickly down the ladder.

The wooden walls were unfinished and rough. The room was wide though not as wide as the carriage space above and felt cramped. There was a hallway with a series of closed doors on either side that ran down into the darkness beyond.

In the center of the room, however, was the desk from Merrick's study, gleaming beneath the light of a well-trimmed lamp. His chair was set behind it as though he had only recently abandoned it. There was an ink and quill set as well as a number of pencils.

All of these were set around a pale green book with an embossed cover.

He must have only just left,
Ellis thought as she stepped around the desk.
He'll be back in a moment and find me.

The writing on the cover of the book caught her eye.

Gamin.

Merrick's scrapbook?
Ellis's brow furrowed.
Jenny said that they all kept them, but Merrick hardly seems like the type that would gather scraps of anything.

She reached out for the book and turned open the cover. She took in a startled breath.

A crude sketch of her face stared back at her. Beneath it was written: “The Book of Our Day.”

Ellis began turning the pages. Most were filled with notations and terribly small writing that was difficult to read in the lamplight. Some of the larger notations, however, she could read.

Rules of the Day …

Outsiders …

Gamin …

Soldiers …

Demons …

All of these writings, however, were surrounding sketches and scraps cut from pictures. Here was the Norembega drawn in careful detail although the proportions were strangely off, drawings of Summersend, the Nightbirds Literary Society House and other places in the town.

She caught her breath.

A sketch of a gate.

“Alicia! Come on; I think I can see something on the other side!”