Installment I
in which our Heroine begins a new life on a most mysterious Estate!

Miss Josephine Harlow had not always intended to be a governess. She’d not ever been destined for wealth untold, neither was she a lady of such particularly high standing that her future had been heavily bespeckled with grand opportunities. But when her family’s fortunes, such as they were, had reversed suddenly and drastically, employment had been her only option.

She reminded herself of the necessity of providing for herself as she made the long and lonely journey to Tullybridge. No one she had spoken with had ever heard of the estate or the resident family. While that had struck her as odd, she’d acknowledged to herself that the offer of employment had noted that the family she would be working for kept very much to themselves. That they were not widely known ought to be seen as confirmation that she had been told the truth, not reason to be suspicious.

And, yet, she was.

The coachman had fetched her from the posting inn where she’d been instructed to report. When she had asked him how long the journey was to her new place of employment, he’d responded with “not far enough.” The only person she had yet encountered with any knowledge of Tullybridge, and that had been his response. It certainly had not bolstered her confidence.

A heavy fog hung over the countryside as the carriage crested and dipped over the rolling hills. The sounds of distant, unseen animals offered both the reassurance and concern that she was not alone.

The carriage began to slow. She strained her eyes, attempting to spot anything at all. Fog and more fog. And in the distance . . . a shadow moved.

Josephine pulled back from the window with sharp movements, more startled than she would have guessed. She’d heard animals and knew they must have been out on hills. To see a shadow should not have been alarming or unexpected. Yet, it felt almost threatening.

She took a breath, one made surprisingly difficult by the seemingly heavy air. Fog had never affected her in such a way before. What was different this time? Was she merely nervous, having had so much of her life upended so quickly?

Before she could determine the answer, the carriage came to an abrupt stop, nearly unseating her. She had only just snatched her carpetbag from the carriage floor when the door snapped open. So thick was the fog that she could not even see the footman or stablehand or whoever it was that had opened the door. She couldn’t even see the house, though it must have been mere feet in front of her.

She swallowed. Breathed. Set her shoulders.

Earthbound clouds swirled around her, clinging to her feet and dress and face. She could see only the vaguest of shapes in front of her: a person she assumed she was meant to follow, what looked like steps leading up, what might have been the indistinct outline of a large and imposing house.

She climbed steps she could barely see and crossed a threshold into a dimly lit entryway. Behind her, heavy doors snapped closed. Josephine turned in a slow circle but saw no other person. It was customary for a governess to be met upon arrival by the family, or at the very least, the housekeeper.

She was met by no one.

The tall entryway windows flanking the heavy wooden door offered a view of the front drive. The fog that had obscured seemingly all of creation was quickly dissipating. So quickly, in fact, she found the change both fascinating and unnerving.

She moved to the nearest window and watched as the billows of thick, low-lying clouds retreated. So fast did it happen, she could see the movement, almost like a flock of sheep rushing away from the house.

“Best hurry, Miss Harlow,” a rasping, high-pitched voice implored. “It don’t do to keep the young master waiting. He’s a right horror when he’s upset.”

Josephine turned to find a stooped, angular-featured woman watching her from the base of the stairs. A thick ring of at least a dozen iron keys hung from a chain at her waist, suggesting her position as the housekeeper. Her ruffled cap was stiffly starched but dingy in a way that spoke of age rather than neglect. Indeed, the woman’s entire appearance could be described that way.

“I don’t wish to keep anyone waiting,” Josephine insisted, “but I haven’t the first idea where I am meant to go or with whom I am meant to meet.”

“To the nursery wing, miss. But hurry. The young master’s growing impatient.”

Impatient? She’d not been in the house more than a minute or two.

“Come along. Come along.” There was something more than impatience in the woman’s voice and mannerisms. There seemed to be fear.

Josephine followed, surprised at how quickly the older woman moved. “Is Mr. Northrup a particularly fearsome employer?”

“It ain’t the father you need to be appeasing, miss,” the woman insisted.

“His son, then?” Josephine had heard of governesses whose charges were difficult, but the anxiety with which the woman spoke of the little boy was unexpected.

“He’s no ordinary boy, Miss Harlow.” The housekeeper didn’t even look back at her as they rushed up yet another flight of stairs. “Others have learned, to their cost, what happens when he grows cross.”

“What happens?”

That brought their hasty climb to a sudden halt. The housekeeper turned to face her, a look of warning in her steely eyes. “Strange things happen at Tullybridge, Miss Harlow. Strange and dreadful things. He makes them happen, miss. We all know he does. Makes the wind howl. Makes the fog come. Makes people disappear.”

Josephine couldn’t help taking a step backward any more than she could prevent the sharp intake of breath that accompanied her involuntary retreat.

“Don’t make him angry, miss. Lands’ sake, don’t make him angry.”

With that plea ringing in her ears, Josephine followed the housekeeper to the door of the nursery. She held her breath as the sharply angled woman turned the handle and pushed the door open.

Josephine’s heart pounded a rhythm of trepidation as she willed her feet to step inside. Don’t make him angry. She half expected to find a monster, a horror of some kind. Strange and dreadful things. He makes them happen. She swept the room with her gaze and found not a creature of darkest magic but a little boy.

He sat in a tiny rocking chair, a book open on his lap. He looked up at her, his tiny pink lips forming a half smile.

The tension slid from her posture as relief wrapped itself around her as fully and completely as had the fog outside Tullybridge.

“You must be Silas Northrup,” she said.

“I must be.” His expression did not change. Not at all. “You are Miss Harlow.”

“I am,” she confirmed. “I am to be your governess.”

“And you will stay here,” he said. “That is what governesses do.”

He had a very direct way of speaking, which she found odd, but she had encountered other children who adopted a formality beyond their young years. His unchanging expression could not help but be noticed, though perhaps he was merely nervous to meet someone new. Perhaps it was his uniqueness of manners that made the housekeeper view him the way she did. Perhaps all the hiccups of heart Josephine had felt arose from unfamiliarity rather than truly sensing something that required caution and worry.

The door to the nursery closed behind her, the housekeeper having stepped out of the room.

Josephine set her carpetbag on the floor. “What ought we to do first, Silas?”

“You are not to call me Silas.” He made the observation quite calmly, yet the declaration sent a sliver of ice right through her. “I am Mr. Northrup.”

Ah. Some young boys did take pride in more grown-up names. She could oblige him in that. “Mr. Northrup,” she corrected with a dip of her head. In time they would come to know each other better and might find more familiar footing. “What ought we to do first?”

“You will put your bag away,” he said. His expression hadn’t changed, neither had his tone, yet Josephine heard a warning in it.

“I would be happy to do so,” she said, “but I do not yet know where my bedchamber is.”

He did not move from the rocking chair, but behind him, a door opened, squeaking in protest as if objecting.

“There,” he said. “Your bag goes in there.”

Strange and dreadful things.

She forced herself to be calm. “You can open doors?”

“Can you not open doors?” His tone betrayed nothing of his thoughts, whether he asked out of actual curiosity or if he did so sarcastically.

“I can,” she said, “but I have to use my hands.”

“Do you think I do not?” The same sweet expression, the same posture, the same tone.

“That door just opened on its own,” she pointed out.

“Wind, perhaps?”

“Perhaps.”

Trepidation began quickly replacing the momentary relief she’d felt. Something in him did not match. He was answering her questions, yet he wasn’t. He looked content, yet he didn’t. He sounded perfectly at ease, yet he didn’t.

“The people here would seem to think it was not the wind,” Josephine said.

“There are few people here. I don’t think you’ve talked to more than one of them.”

That was true. “Did you open the door?”

“I do what I wish,” he said. “And I wish for your bag to be in your room.”

Still, nothing had changed, but she felt the threat in his words. A boy of no more than five, yet he felt intimidating. And she felt herself on thin ice.

“I have not yet met with your parents,” she said. “Do you know when they might speak with me?”

“They will not,” he said. “Put your bag away, or I will grow very cross.”

Others have learned, to their cost, what happens when he grows cross.

And, for reasons she could not explain or define, she knew in that moment that the housekeeper had not been exaggerating or lying. Strange things happened in this house. Strange and dreadful things.

The hills surrounding Tullybridge were far from silent, though the sound was undetectable by most. Some would sense movement in the shadows. Some would think, for a fleeting moment, that they heard a rustling. Some would even feel a ripple of curiosity mingled with apprehension, the reaction of a heart attuned to the movements of the faerie world when tiptoeing a bit too close to the thinner partitions separating the human world and the magical realm.

And in those shadows and rustlings and heart ripples, a rift was torn in the heretofore impenetrable grasp the world of faeries and creatures and magic claimed on the hills of Tullybridge. A rift. A break. A moment’s hope.

Installment II
in which a Mysterious Stranger arrives at Tullybridge, bringing Dangers untold!

Josephine didn’t know how long she’d been at Tullybridge. She felt as though she’d spent months there, but also like she’d passed a mere few days. She could remember coming to the estate, yet the life she’d known before her arrival seemed to have existed an age ago. She’d whispered of her confusion to Mrs. Chester, the housekeeper, and had received a knowing nod in return.

“Strange and dreadful things happen at Tullybridge” had been the entirety of that lady’s response.

At some point, Josephine had begun to count the people at the estate. It was so large a place, yet so empty. Her first count had been five, excluding herself and Silas, or rather Mr. Northrup, as he insisted on being called: Mrs. Chester and her ever-present ring of keys; Mrs. Green, the cook, whom Josephine had never seen without her apron on; the coachman, a skeletal man who kept to the stables; the gardener, who was as burly as the coachman was haggard; and a footman named Peter, whose thick black hair seemed to perpetually stand on end.

Mr. Northrup’s parents were never seen or spoken of. As near as Josephine could tell, they were entirely absent from their child’s life, and he was not the least bothered by it. She’d asked Peter once if he knew why the senior Mr. Northrup and Mrs. Northrup were never spoken of.

Peter had paled. “They disappeared.”

“What?”

“The child’s parents,” he’d whispered in reply. “People are always disappearing from Tullybridge, and none of us knows where they go.”

“Does no one find that odd?”

“’Course we do. But we don’t talk of it. He don’t like when we talk about the people who’ve disappeared. It makes him cross.”

Josephine had nodded. “We mustn’t make him cross.” It was the most oft-repeated rule. The one everyone adhered to.

“We mustn’t,” Peter had repeated.

Two days later, Peter was gone.

When Josephine had wondered aloud where he might have gone, Mr. Northrup had said in the calm, measured voice and with the unwavering, contented smile he always wore, “Peter made me cross.”

The gardener was gone now too. The coachman, housekeeper, and cook moved about in terrified tiptoes, desperate to please their tyrannical master, a child of no more than five.

Josephine sat in the nursery of the home that had become her prison, reading yet again the only book Mr. Northrup ever permitted her to read to him. She was careful not to stumble over any words and to read at precisely the pace he preferred. And every time she read, she had the most unnerving sense that the story was different than it had been the previous time she’d read it.

The book had colorful illustrations, yet Mr. Northrup never looked at the pages. He sat in his little rocking chair, wearing his permanent staid expression, listening.

She finished the book and closed it on her lap. “What would you like to do now?”

“The story is done today,” he said. “I will have my tea now.”

Josephine nodded and rose. She knew this ritual well. When he was ready to eat, she would walk with him to the formal dining room. She did so again now. There, they were met by the housekeeper, who saw him seated. The cook entered the room to deliver the food he had earlier dictated be made. Josephine had one hour before she was required to return and fetch him.

Precisely one hour.

On that day, she chose to spend the hour outdoors. The fog that so often surrounded the house had not wrapped itself over the countryside today. Mr. Northrup was in good spirits, after all.

She did not remain on the grounds. The gardener’s disappearance had not yet rendered the gardens or lawns unkempt, but she felt sad walking the paths he had once trod, especially not knowing what, precisely, had happened to him. She also felt uneasy, following footsteps that had led that man to his mysterious fate.

Instead, she slipped through a stile in a stone wall at the back of the eastern lawn and out onto the hillside. The feeling of heaviness that followed her inside Tullybridge didn’t dissipate. Not entirely. The estate could not be escaped. She knew instinctively that should she try to run, try to flee away over the hills, Mr. Northrup would still, somehow, be able to stop her, to punish her. She suspected that as long as she remained within reach of the fog that so often gripped the area, he could still make her disappear.

But on the hills, she breathed the tiniest bit easier. For an hour, she could feel as close to safe as she had since her arrival at Tullybridge, whenever that was.

Mere steps from the stile, however, she spotted a shadow ahead. A shadow that moved toward her, staggering and stumbling. Drawing closer. Ever closer!

Josephine took a step backward, watching its approach through widened eyes. Another step and her back pressed against the stone wall. She felt along its face, trying to locate the stile without taking her eyes off the approaching figure.

Before she found the opening, though, the shadow revealed itself. It was a person. A man, likely her age. He lurched, tottering as if in pain, and walked hunched like one who had almost no strength remaining.

She ought to have been afraid, but she wasn’t. She felt drawn to him instead. Her feet even moved toward him, bringing her closer.

“Please,” he pleaded in a strained whisper. “Please, help me.” His legs trembled beneath him, and he began to sink.

Josephine reached out and grabbed hold of him, steadying him as he regained his strength once more. He was worryingly cold to the touch. Clearly, he’d been in the elements too long.

“Please,” he repeated. “I mustn’t remain out on the hills. Please, it is too dangerous.”

“Tullybridge is dangerous too,” she warned him.

“I’ve reached Tullybridge?” That seemed to strike him as significant.

“You know of it?” She’d not met anyone who did, beyond those who lived there.

His legs weakened, and he nearly buckled.

Josephine set an arm firmly around him. “Were I in a position to do so, I would instantly offer you a warm bed and food at Tullybridge. Sadly, I am not.” Seeing the fear grow in his careworn face, she quickly said, “But I could hide you. Though you would have to stay hidden. No one could know you were there other than me.”

He nodded. “I would not endanger my guardian angel for all the world.”

To Mr. Northrup, she was a prisoner, one held under threat of unthinkable punishment. She far preferred being a guardian angel.

“We must hurry,” she implored him. “I have not all of my hour’s respite remaining. Should we not have you hidden and situated by the end of my hour, we shall be done for.”

Over the stile they climbed, he leaning against her as his own strength proved insufficient. Only as they slipped through a ne’er-used back door did Josephine spy in his hand a loop of branches.

“What are you carrying?” she asked in a strained whisper. Though the house was all but empty, she dared not risk drawing the attention of those few who remained.

“A rowan loop. An amulet. Protection against magical harms.”

Josephine shook inwardly. Protection against magical harms. Had he any idea how needed that was at Tullybridge? “It will protect you if you hold it?” That might help prevent him from being found.

“We can hang it. Above whatever doorway I am placed behind. It will . . . safeguard . . . the room.” He was struggling to speak.

“Conserve your strength,” she instructed. “We must get you to the nursery wing.”

“Why there?” he asked.

“I am nursemaid here. That is where I am most of the day. I cannot look after you nor see to your recovery if you are elsewhere.”

He did not object. He likely lacked the strength to do so.

“But it is so very important that you not be found there,” she added as they carefully climbed the servants’ stairs toward the nursery wing. “Strange and dreadful things happen in this house, sir. Magical harms, as you have called them.”

“You must hang the rowan loop,” he said. “Above the door of the room I am placed in. Above, but inside—out of sight of anyone glancing into the room from beyond.”

She nodded her understanding.

They reached the nursery, empty of its tyrannical overseer. Mr. Northrup’s tea would be complete soon enough.

Josephine guided the injured stranger through the nursery and into the room that was her own; she knew not where else to place him!

He rested on the edge of the mattress while she prepared a place for him to sleep on the floor, hidden from view by her own bed.

“This will not be the most comfortable place to recover your strength,” she warned. “But it is imperative that you not be seen. Crucial.”

“I am grateful for whatever shelter you can offer me.” The man handed her the rowan loop, then dropped to his knees on the ground. With a sigh of heart-deep relief, he laid himself on the floor and pulled the blanket she’d provided for him over his shoulders, resting his head on the thin pillow she had provided.

Josephine pulled a chair to the door and climbed atop it. A nail in the molding above the door stuck out just enough for her to hang the loop from it. She wedged the loop as tightly as she could manage into the space. She did not wish it to come loose.

With swift but careful movements, she climbed down and replaced the chair, then rushed to the side of the poor, weak stranger, lying so helplessly on the floor. The man must have been plagued with the worst sort of luck to have found himself seeking refuge in a place such as Tullybridge.

“I will do all I can for you,” she promised him.

“Thank you, Miss—?”

“Miss Harlow,” she said. “Josephine Harlow.”

“You are indeed an angel, Miss Josephine Harlow.”

“Might this angel ask what your name is?”

He nodded, his eyelids heavy with the burden of approaching sleep. He took a single breath before he spoke. “I am Silas Northrup.”

Installment III
in which Terrifying and Dangerous Secrets are uncovered!

I am Silas Northrup.

Though Josephine couldn’t confidently recall the given name of Mr. Northrup’s absent father, she did not think it was also Silas. Indeed, she recalled that, upon receiving the offer of employment, she thought that the little boy she was charged with tending had a more unique name than his father did. Or was she remembering that incorrectly?

Perhaps this Silas Northrup was a cousin of some sort to the one who ruled at Tullybridge. Or an uncle for whom the boy was named.

“Did you know you share a name with—?”

But he was asleep, exhaustion pulling at his features. The poor man looked as though he’d been through a mighty struggle. Bruises and scratches marred his face. His right hand, peeking out from beneath the blanket, was in a similar state.

How very many questions she had for him! Who was he? Where had he come from? Why had he been wandering the hills?

But it was not merely his exhausted state that prevented her from asking them. Her hour of respite was all but gone. Mr. Northrup required her to be in the dining room when he finished his tea. She had mere minutes to be there.

She left the door to her bedchamber open the tiniest bit; that was how she always left it, and she didn’t want anything to draw Mr. Northrup’s attention. For precisely the same reason, she slowed her steps as she approached the dining room and smoothed her expression. She didn’t want to give any indication that she was returning to her post in a state of mind that was at all different from the one she’d left in.

When she stepped inside the room—at precisely one hour after she had left—Mr. Northrup was seated at the table. The tea things had already been cleared. Mrs. Green and Mrs. Chester stood to one side of the room, as still and quiet as stones. That they were desperate for Josephine to leave with the boy was painfully obvious. They would be in less danger momentarily; she, however, would be in far more.

“I will return to the nursery now.” Mr. Northrup stood as he made the declaration. When he turned toward Josephine, the hair on the back of her neck stood on end. A child’s smile ought not do that to a person, but his did. “I wish to read my book again.”

She dipped the small curtsey she always did. “Yes, Mr. Northrup.”

Josephine walked beside him. His posture remained precisely perfect. His little smile and placid expression didn’t change. It never did. To her utter relief, his gaze didn’t linger overly long on the doorway to her bedchamber. His eyes betrayed no curiosity or suspiciousness. But, then, they never did.

Mr. Northrup sat in his rocking chair, staring straight ahead.

Josephine collected the book and sat in the chair he’d declared was where she must sit when reading to him. She read carefully despite her mind being continually drawn to the slightly ajar doorway and the stranger hiding inside. Even as she repeated the familiar, yet seemingly changed story, she also watched Mr. Northrup. The repetition and monotony of her time spent with the demanding child had often been unnerving. That afternoon, however, it was reassuring. He hadn’t, it seemed, noticed anything unusual.

Josephine finished the story. She closed the book on her lap and waited for instructions.

“Mrs. Green did not have figgy pudding at tea like I wished for.” Mr. Northrup didn’t sound upset, neither did he look it, yet Josephine could tell he was. The boy’s perpetually frozen expression was rather like looking at a painting. But she’d never been afraid of a painting.

“I am sorry you did not have the figgy pudding you wished for,” Josephine said.

“Do you think Mrs. Chester knows how to make figgy pudding?” Mr. Northrup asked.

“I don’t know. Most housekeepers do not know how to do such things.”

Still wearing his vague smile, Mr. Northrup nodded. “Do governesses know how to make figgy pudding?”

She swallowed quickly. “No, Mr. Northrup. Governesses do not know how to do such things.”

“Mrs. Green said there would be figgy pudding at supper. And she said she will not neglect it again. I thought she would have to disappear for that. I am still very cross about it. But there will be no one to make figgy pudding if she is disappeared.”

“It would be a shame if you were to miss your figgy pudding while she was disappeared.” Josephine’s heart pounded at the unnerving topic. So many had disappeared. And Mr. Northrup always spoke of them in that way: someone being disappeared, as if it were a state of being rather than an occurrence. There was an everlastingness to it that grasped her heart with icy tentacles.

“She also said she will have fewer fruits and vegetables now that there is no gardener.” Mr. Northrup’s statement struck Josephine as both a question and a source of curiosity. “But the gardener made me very cross. He needed to be disappeared.”

Such conversations were how she knew he wasn’t a child who merely struggled with expressing and showing his emotions or whose interactions were sometimes labeled odd or uncomfortable. This was much different. This was dangerous.

Over the hours that followed, she did as he bid. She fetched toys as he asked for them, and then he sat in his chair, his expression unchanging, holding the items without playing with them, until she was required to switch them for others. Through it all, he asked about the cook and the pudding and how he was to have pudding if Mrs. Green were disappeared.

By the time she had him dressed for supper and walked with him to the dining room, she was nearly at the end of her endurance. If he would cause the cook to disappear for neglecting his dessert, he would most certainly make Josephine disappear for bringing a stranger into the house, no matter that the man’s condition was fragile.

But Mr. Northrup hadn’t discovered the man who called himself Silas Northrup, and Josephine had precisely one hour in which to discover precisely who “Silas” was and how he’d come to be at Tullybridge.

She rushed back to the nursery and into her bedchamber.

Silas was awake, still lying on the floor on the far side of her bed.

“The child is having his supper,” she explained. “I have only one hour.”

“The rowan loop kept his attention away from this room?” he asked, his voice weak but firmer than it had been when he’d first arrived.

Josephine nodded. “He seemed to have no interest in this room.”

A look of relief swept over him, and she felt it too.

“I heard you call him ‘Mr. Northrup,’” he said.

“That is the name he requires us to use. It is so very important that we never make him cross.”

Silas sat up, though doing so took a great deal of effort. “But that is not his name.” He didn’t state it as a question.

“His name is Silas Northrup.” She watched this Silas for signs of surprise, but she saw none.

“Did you ask him if his name was Silas Northrup?” His deep brown eyes settled on her, questioning and earnest.

Josephine sat on the floor near him and thought back on her earliest moments in the house. “I believe what I said to him was ‘You must be Silas Northrup.’ And he indicated he was.”

“Did he, though? Did he truly?”

She thought harder. “He said, ‘I must be.’”

Silas nodded. “You were not receiving confirmation, Miss Harlow. You were being told what is being required of him. He was acknowledging, in rather misleading ways, the role he is playing.”

“The role?”

He leaned closer. “As I told you in our earliest moments in this room, I am Silas Northrup. I am the son of this house. I am the child he pretends to be.”

That made no sense. “You are not a child.”

“I was when he took my place. ‘Mr. Northrup’ is not a child, though he has done his best to appear to be one. He has done well enough to fool most everyone, but his true nature seeps through the cracks.”

“Strange and dreadful things,” she whispered.

“The hills surrounding Tullybridge are no ordinary hills. They are dotted with faerie rings and cavernous portals, with unseen crossroads and traps for the unwary.”

“The shadows I’ve seen.” She was beginning to understand.

“I stepped inside a faerie ring when I was five years old,” he said. “Rather than enchant me with a deadly spell, as is so often their punishment, the faeries chose to spirit me to their realm, meaning to keep me there forever. And they left in my place—”

“A changeling.” Josephine pressed a palm to her heart. “How has it not been obvious before now?”

“Because Mr. Northrup is powerful, made even more so by his proximity to these hills.”

“But surely someone would have noticed that a child had not aged in what must have been twenty years.”

“Time in the faerie world is different,” Silas said. “Though decades passed there, mere months might have passed here, perhaps only weeks.”

“Then Mr. Northrup has only been at Tullybridge a short time?”

Silas nodded. “But those of the faerie realm do not need much time to cause great harm if they choose.”

“He makes people disappear. We don’t know how nor what happens to them, but if someone crosses him or displeases him, he causes them to vanish, and they are never seen nor heard from again. Magical harm, as you called it.”

His dark brows pulled together in thought. “Does time seem odd here?”

“Yes. I cannot say with any certainty how long I have been here. I am nearly certain it has only been a fortnight at most, but sometimes it feels like far longer.”

“He is no ordinary changeling, Miss Harlow.”

“Josephine, please.”

He indicated his acquiescence with a dip of his head. “If Mr. Northrup is not removed, Tullybridge will soon become part of the faerie realm, and all within the estate will be doomed to remain there.”

“What can possibly be done, Silas? If he so much as suspected someone was attempting to disobey him, let alone trying to stop him, that person would vanish like all the others.”

Silas set his hand atop hers. There was reassurance and comfort in the simple touch. “He must be made to reveal himself. That is the only way to rid the house of him.”

“If he saw you, he would have to do so, would he not? You, after all, are the person he is pretending to be.”

But Silas shook his head. “He would not merely deny that truth, he would likely disappear us all in an instant. Trickery is our only hope.”

“I will do what I can,” she vowed.

“You, unfortunately, will have to do most. The rowan hoop protects more than this room from Mr. Northrup’s notice. It keeps me safe from the faeries who I know are attempting to find me and drag me back to their home. I mustn’t leave this room until it is safe to do so.”

“What am I to do, then?”

He held her gaze. “When it is safe to do so, I need to take a look at the book you have been reading him.”

“It is significant?”

“I believe it must be. I know every book that was in this nursery when it was mine, but that book is unknown to me.”

That was a bit suspicious, but it did not seem outside the realm of possibility that it had been obtained before his disappearance and simply not revealed to him. But, then again, she herself had noticed there was something odd about it.

“I have thought since I first began reading it to him that the book was strange. Though I cannot pinpoint in precisely what way, I am absolutely certain the story changes.”

“It is magical, Josephine. And in that magic, we may just find the answers we so desperately need.”

Installment IV
in which Risks are taken and Danger approaches!

Over the following days, Josephine ran herself nearly ragged. During Mr. Northrup’s three meals, she used the hour she had to secretly bring her own meals back to her room to share with Silas. Then she hurried to the grounds to gather as many rowan branches as she could and gave them to her co-conspirator. Together, they created rowan hoops according to the lore Silas had learned from listening to the various tales of woe those in the faerie realms had shared regarding their encounters with the protective amulets. Careful not to be seen doing so, Josephine had begun placing them throughout Tullybridge in places where Mr. Northrup was unlikely to see them.

“I do wish we could place one of these in the nursery,” Josephine said, sitting beside Silas as they created yet another rowan hoop. “I would feel so much safer.”

“I wish you were safer.” Silas had grown stronger in the time since he’d emerged from the hills, but that meant he’d also grown more frustrated. He knew the faeries were searching for him, so he dared not leave the protection of this room, lest he draw in more creatures that would threaten the safety of the home he’d fought so long and so hard to return to. “You are taking so many risks. It is too much to ask of you.”

“Without risks, there is no hope of escape. If I do nothing, I will be a prisoner here until Mr. Northrup inevitably disappears me as well. I cannot simply resign myself to that.”

How brave she was! But she didn’t feel overly brave.

Silas paused a moment in his work with the rowan branches. Hesitantly, he asked, “Do you know what became of my parents? They were at Tullybridge when I was taken by the faeries, but you have not mentioned them.”

Josephine’s heart broke to have to tell him what would, undoubtedly, be a painful revelation. “I do not know any details, only that they are not here and have not been for some time. Mr. Northrup grows cross if they are mentioned, so everyone is quite careful not to do so.”

“The faeries had hinted that my parents were gone, and not merely from Tullybridge.” He released a shaky breath, disappointment tugging at his features. “I had held out hope that they were wrong.”

She set her hand atop his. “I am sorry, Silas. How much you must have missed them these past years.”

He adjusted his hand so he was holding hers. “The magic I was surrounded by preserved my memories of them. Without it, I am certain I would have no recollection of them at all, being only five years old when I was stolen away.”

“If you would like,” she said, “you could tell me about them. Then they will be remembered by both of us.”

“I would like that very much indeed. And I would also enjoy hearing about your family.”

She smiled at him, a smile nothing like the one affixed to Mr. Northrup’s face. Hers was sincere, pleased, happy, inviting.

They resumed the making of rowan hoops, talking as they worked. They shared stories of their childhoods and parents, spoke of their hopes for their futures. They found in each other a kinship that went beyond their currently shared difficulties, a companionship they grew increasingly reluctant to even imagine losing.

That connection between them grew with each meal hour they spent creating protections for Tullybridge. The promise of Silas’s company saw Josephine through the difficult times she had to spend in Mr. Northrup’s presence. And for Silas, the sound of Josephine’s voice just beyond the bedchamber door offered him reassurance that he was not alone.

One evening, upon making her way to the dining room to retrieve Mr. Northrup after his supper, Josephine crossed paths with Mrs. Chester, who was pale and shaking.

“What’s happened?” Josephine asked, concerned by the usually stalwart woman’s distress.

“Mrs. Green,” she whispered. “He disappeared her. I saw it happen. I saw it.”

Josephine’s heart froze inside her. He disappeared her. Even with all the risks she was taking to help create the rowan hoops, she hadn’t felt as vulnerable or endangered as she once had. Time with Silas and their work safeguarding the house had allowed her to momentarily forget the reality of her situation.

He disappeared her.

She wanted to take a moment to grieve with Mrs. Chester over the loss of their friend, to acknowledge the horrible circumstances they were all in. “Does Mr. Northrup know you saw it happen?”

Mrs. Chester shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

“It is likely best if he does not know.” She motioned the housekeeper in the direction of the dining room. “You are meant to be in there when I arrive. Quickly. To your post.”

Josephine remained where she was as Mrs. Chester rushed to the dining room. He disappeared her. She’d not managed to get a rowan hoop into the kitchen, and it wasn’t safe to put one in the dining room since Mr. Northrup spent so much time there. All her and Silas’s efforts to protect the house—and those who remained inside it—had failed poor Mrs. Green.

Do not let him know you are upset, she silently reminded herself as she followed the housekeeper’s path into the dining room.

As soon as she entered, Mr. Northrup stood, wearing his unnerving smile. “I will return to the nursery now. I wish to read my book.”

“Of course, Mr. Northrup,” Josephine said.

Mrs. Chester stood stoically against the wall where she always positioned herself. For the first time since Josephine’s arrival at Tullybridge, the woman stood there alone.

As Josephine walked at Mr. Northrup’s side toward the nursery, he said, “You will have to learn to cook. I wish for you to do so.”

“Of course, Mr. Northrup.” That was the response that always seemed most acceptable to him.

“Mrs. Chester will cook my supper tomorrow. The coachman will prepare my tea. You will cook my breakfast.”

She was not versed in cooking, but she knew that would not excuse her. “I will search the library for any books I can find on cooking.” And she would hang a rowan hoop in the room at the same time. “That will mean I will not be in the nursery in the morning while you prepare for the day.”

“I will allow that,” he said.

Mr. Northrup moved directly to his rocking chair upon arriving in the nursery, and Josephine crossed to the shelf where his book was kept. The shelf sat beside a window, and while she ordinarily paid no heed to the land stretching out beyond the glass, something caught her attention just then. Shadows were moving upon the hills. So very many shadows, moving in ways that did not make sense. All were drawing nearer the house, but so slowly. Achingly slowly.

“Why have you stopped?” Mr. Northrup asked.

“I thought I saw something through the window.” She took up the book and turned to face him once more, making certain her expression revealed nothing of her concern. “It was merely a trick of the light.”

“You are meant to be reading my book, not looking out the window.”

“Of course, Mr. Northrup.”

She sat in her chair and opened the book. She read the story and knew it was different, but she did not know in what way it had changed. Silas had looked through the book the first day he had been in the house, but they’d been unable to determine what magic it contained. Knowing the story had changed, knowing it was now different, this was likely Josephine’s best opportunity to sort out what was different.

Josephine was very careful not to look out the windows. It was not merely a matter of Mr. Northrup’s disapproval, though heaven knew that was a strong motivation. She was also willing to admit to herself that the shadows had unnerved her. She suspected she knew what they were—creatures from the faerie realm searching for Silas—and their approach was terrifying.

Somehow she managed to make it through the evening without upsetting the tyrant of Tullybridge. She saw him settled in his bed, his expression unchanging even in sleep. She closed his door, and then moved quickly and quietly through the nursery to the shelf where the book was kept. She took the volume with her into her own bedchamber, closing that door as well.

She and Silas had hung rowan hoops over the window of her room and on the mantel of the tiny fireplace. It was as safe as it could be, and she felt relief every time she closed herself inside her room.

Silas sat beside her on the foot of the bed, and she opened the enchanted book. They flipped through one page at a time, searching for words that were different, for anything unfamiliar.

On a page near the end, she spotted something she knew hadn’t been there before. “This illustration is different.” She motioned to the corner of the image, which depicted a gathering of people. “This woman was not in it before.”

“You’re right.” Silas leaned closer, just as she did.

Josephine gasped. “Mrs. Green.” She pressed her hand to her heart. “Heavens, that is Mrs. Green.”

“Mrs. Green was the name of the cook here at Tullybridge when I was taken.”

Josephine nodded. “She still is. Or was. Mr. Northrup disappeared her just today.”

And with that realization, a murkiness seemed to be lifted from their minds. Josephine recognized Peter, the dark-haired footman, and Mr. Jones, the burly gardener. Silas recognized members of the staff he’d known before his abduction.

This was where Mr. Northrup sent them.

“How did we not realize this sooner?” Josephine wondered aloud, though she kept her voice soft, worried Mr. Northrup would hear despite the closed doors and the rowan hoops that surrounded her.

“The book is enchanted. It, no doubt, protects itself from discovery.” Silas continued flipping through the pages. “The rowan hoops in this room offer some protection from magic. Bringing the book in here lessened its ability to hide the truth from us.”

“But it does not offer protection strong enough for these poor souls to escape the pages?” She looked once more at the sad expressions on the faces of those depicted in the horrid book.

“I don’t know if they are able to, regardless of the presence of amulets.” His search of the illustrations grew more intent, more focused.

“Are you looking for a clue as to how we might free them?”

He looked up at her, his expression both desperate and forlorn. “I am looking for my parents.”

How could she have forgotten? Josephine set her arms around him, her heart breaking for him as he searched a third and fourth time. She rested her head on his shoulder, still embracing him, as he undertook a fifth search.

“Oh, Silas.”

He closed the book. “I already suspected they hadn’t been spirited away but had departed this life entirely.” He put one arm around her in return, offering comfort and connection. “If we are to have any chance of freeing the people trapped in these pages, we must defeat Mr. Northrup and prevent the faeries from reaching this house.”

“There are shadows on the hills,” she told him from within his embrace. “I saw them. They are coming this way.”

“I can feel their approach. We haven’t a lot of time.”

Though she found solace in his arms, she knew there was not time for such things. Josephine rose and squared her shoulders. “You know more of the laws of the faeries than I do. What do we need to do?”

He fished from his pocket a length of twine with a tiny hoop of rowan twigs hanging on it. “Wear this around your neck. I will wear one as well. And there are two more, one each for the housekeeper and the coachman if we can manage to secretly give it to them. They are not enough to entirely thwart Mr. Northrup’s magic, but it will slow his propensity to use it against the person wearing it.”

“Will he not sense it? That is the reason we did not place a talisman in the nursery.”

“They are small enough that all he will feel is a little disinclination to punish the wearer. And, I hope, large enough to allow me to move through the house without drawing the notice of those pursuing me.”

Her heart dropped to her feet. “You mustn’t leave this room. You’re safe in here. I do not want anything horrid to happen to you.”

He took her hand in his and held it tenderly. “None of us are safe. The faeries will reach Tullybridge in the morning. We must trick Mr. Northrup into revealing himself, and I must find the one object in this house that will thwart those wishing to recapture me—a fugitive from the faerie realm.”

She didn’t know what object Silas was referring to, but she trusted that he did. “While you search for what you need, what ought I to be doing?”

“Now that you have the protection of the rowan hoop on your person, it is time to attempt to force Mr. Northrup’s hand.”

The prospect frightened her more than she could express, yet the coming of the faeries did as well. This was their one, fleeting opportunity. “I am cooking his breakfast in the morning, on his orders. That gives me a bit more freedom and a bit more time than I am usually granted.”

“You are cooking a meal for him?” Silas repeated, the smallest flicker of hope in the question.

“I am.”

His eyes lit. “Perfect.”

Installment V
in which our Hero and Heroine face treacherous Foes!

Before the sun rose the next morning, Silas slipped around his neck a length of twine holding a tiny rowan hoop and sneaked out of the nursery in search of the item they needed to defeat the faeries. He’d lived twenty years in their realm, though likely no more than six months had passed in the world he’d left behind. Those two decades had taught him a lot about their ways.

It also made him keenly aware of their movements, and he could sense them nearby. They had nearly breached the grounds of Tullybridge in their search for him. He would wager the house itself would be invaded in an hour’s time. There was something horribly disquieting about a slow invasion one had no hope of preventing. The anticipation added another layer of fear.

The rowan hoop Josephine wore would not be enough to protect her if she did not force Mr. Northrup to admit his true identity, and even that would not be sufficient if Silas failed to complete his part of the plan they had hatched the night before.

To that end, Josephine made her way to the kitchens after opening the door to Mr. Northrup’s room. She had excused herself, reminding him of her assignment to make his breakfast. He had watched her more closely than usual, which she suspected was due to him sensing the rowan hoop but not fully identifying it, the protection it offered dampening his suspicions.

She’d not crossed paths with Mrs. Chester and, thus, was unable to give the housekeeper a talisman of her own. There was not time to find her. Silas had written out specific instructions for the meal Josephine must cook and present to Mr. Northrup.

Josephine was careful and precise as she prepared a breakfast of barley pottage that she cooked inside an eggshell. She made several, in fact, wanting to make certain that, should she drop one, there would yet be an eggshell meal to place in front of the changeling.

While she toiled in the kitchen, Silas made his way to the room that had belonged to his mother. It was just as he remembered it, unchanged, unweathered. Only the lightest film of dust touched the furnishings, a testament to how short his absence had been, and how recently his mother had been lost.

He opened the jewelry casket atop her dressing table. He needed something small and easily concealed. But it also needed to have personal value to him beyond the monetary. Almost immediately, his eyes fell upon a wooden brooch carved to resemble a rose. He remembered it well. His mother had always worn it to church on Sundays. He would sit on her lap and run his fingers over the wooden petals. The memory was a strong one, which made him reluctant to use the adornment to thwart the faeries. Doing so meant he would lose it; he would never see it again. The very thought pierced his heart.

But that made it perfect for his purpose.

Silas could feel the faeries closing in on the house. They would be inside soon enough. Time was running worryingly short. He made his way toward the dining room.

Josephine had left the kitchen with a tray of eggshell pottages in her hands. She’d chosen a tray with high sides to conceal what she was bringing. Mr. Northrup had to be caught unawares for the strategy to work. Should he sense she was approaching with this particular food, he might manage to avoid its impact.

He sat at the table alone, though Mrs. Chester was meant to have fetched him. Had he disappeared her? If only Josephine had managed to give the poor woman a rowan hoop. If only she’d found her in time.

“I will eat my breakfast now,” Mr. Northrup said.

“Of course, Mr. Northrup.” Careful to reveal nothing, she set the tray directly in front of him, holding her breath.

“Though I have seen acorns grow into oaks, never have I seen a meal such as this.” It was precisely what the meal forced from the mouths of changelings, the admission made in surprise.

For the first time since Josephine had met Mr. Northrup, his expression changed. Shock, anger, fear.

“A child of five has seen no acorns grow into oaks,” Josephine declared, “yet you have admitted to such. You have revealed yourself to me, changeling.”

He began to transform before her very eyes into the form of an ancient and grizzled faerie.

“You told me your secret, therefore I have charge over you.” She repeated what Silas had told her to say. “I command you to take the form of Silas Northrup once more, but as he appears now.”

“I know not what shape he takes,” the faerie spat.

“Look upon him yourself.” Josephine motioned to the doorway where the true Silas stood. “But mind, I further command you to use no more magic in this house against those of this world.”

Mr. Northrup glared at the man whose life he had stolen. “This is your doing. You know the world of faeries.”

“I know it against my will,” Silas said, stepping inside the room. “And you are required by the law of your realm to obey this lady’s commands.”

With a growl, the faerie took the form of Silas as he appeared now, whilst the true Silas moved to stand beside Josephine.

“Did you find the item?” she asked her Silas.

“I did, and not a moment too soon.”

Josephine nodded. To Mr. Northrup, she said, “I have five remaining demands of you, and you are required to fulfill them all faithfully.”

Though the faerie looked indistinguishable from her Silas, the anger that flashed in his eyes differentiated him. Even when recounting the years of his captivity and the mistreatment he had endured there, Silas’s eyes had never held the violent fury Mr. Northrup’s did.

“My first demand is that you restore to Tullybridge all the people you disappeared into your book.”

Mr. Northrup didn’t look away, but she knew he could not refuse.

“The second is that when the faeries breach this house, as they will momentarily, you will convince them that you are the fugitive they seek and will do nothing to disabuse them of that belief until after they have carried you back to the faerie realm.”

Silas set his wooden rose in her hand.

“The third,” she continued, “is that you keep this on your person, concealed from view, and do nothing to make the faeries aware of it until after your identity is revealed upon returning to the faerie realm.”

She set the brooch in his hand. The changeling pinned it inside his jacket, then buttoned the jacket closed. All the while, he watched her with anger. She did not let him see the fear that still plagued her.

“Fourth, you will use your magic to disguise the real Silas such that the faeries will not even suspect who he is—a disguise that will remain in place until you have been taken back to the faerie realm.”

The furious faerie did not look away from her, yet out of the corner of Josephine’s eyes, she could see the true Silas’s appearance transform. No longer a man of twenty-five, his dark hair thick and waving, he now appeared to be in at least his eighth decade, with close-cropped hair of snowy white and a face lined with a lifetime of experiences.

“My fifth requirement of you is this: that you will never again, so long as you exist, act as a changeling.” Josephine had added that requirement herself to the list she and Silas had compiled the night before. She could not bear the thought of another family and household suffering as this one had.

“It will be done as you demand,” the changeling said.

Silas took the tray of eggshell pottage and tossed the contents into the fire. It wouldn’t do for the faeries to see it when they arrived, as that would tell them in an instant what had happened.

No sooner had the last remnants of the revelatory breakfast been rendered ash when a harsh wind whipped through the house.

“They are here,” Silas whispered, returning to her side.

A moment later, the room was filled with otherworldly creatures, their keen eyes taking in everything. Some among them were skeletal, with sparse strips of torn leathery hide and skulls adorned with horns or beaks. Others were blue-skinned faeries, built not unlike people but smaller, more angular, and moving with a fluidness that did not match what was seen on this mortal clime. Still others were dark, furry rats as tall as a man and standing upright on two feet.

Silas pointed to the Mr. Northrop. “This man has forced his way into the house, claiming to be Silas Northrup, whom we know to be a child.”

The faeries turned to look at the changeling, who so perfectly resembled the grown Silas who had escaped their realm. His face no longer betrayed his anger at having been caught out and being under obligation to Josephine. Indeed, if she did not know for a fact that the disguised man beside her was the actual Silas, she would have believed she was looking at him.

“Do not make me go back,” the changeling said. “This is my home; I should be permitted to stay.”

He sounded so convincing that Josephine, for a moment, thought he was violating his obligation to her. She quickly realized, however, that he was merely speaking the words the real Silas would have said.

“There is already a Silas here,” someone among the faeries said. “He will remain, and you will return with us.”

They, of course, referred to the changeling they had placed in this house.

“You are claiming him?” Silas asked, managing to sound merely curious. It was a crucial question though.

“Him and all” came the answer.

Him and all. That was the phrase they were waiting for.

The faeries took hold of the changeling, being convinced he was the actual human they’d come to claim. They carried him from the house, aloft in their hands. Beyond the garden they went and over the hills, the fog giving way behind them.

Josephine and Silas followed at a distance.

The faeries and their claimed fugitive reached the edge of a faerie circle. They carried the changeling inside—

And vanished.

Josephine looked to Silas, watching with relief as his appearance changed back to his true form and self. She breathed more easily.

“Did it work, do you suppose?”

Silas put his arms around her. “We will know shortly.”

She leaned into his embrace, and, their eyes on the very same faerie portal that had stolen away twenty years of Silas’s life, the two of them watched and waited.

Installment VI
in which the Future of our brave Hero and Heroine and of Tullybridge is made clear!

From within Silas’s embrace, Josephine pressed her tiny rowan hoop to her heart. The two of them watched the faerie circle, knowing the true identity of the changeling would soon be revealed. Inviting the anger of the faerie world was a dangerous thing, indeed. But it was also Tullybridge’s only hope.

As if summoned by Josephine touching her talisman, disordered shadows appeared inside the faerie circle. Silas and Josephine kept their distance, careful that not even the tiniest bit of their clothing passed the threshold.

In a flurry of tiny flashes of lightning, a creature not even a quarter the size of a grown person and with skin the shade of a summer sky appeared in the center of the faerie circle. Upon its head rested a crown of flowers, untouched and unharmed by its hair that looked like a flame.

“The queen of this faerie band,” Silas whispered to Josephine. This was the moment when all they had done and all they had risked would prove either efficacious or woefully insufficient.

“You have played us a trick, Silas Northrup.” Its voice was small yet filled the hills.

“Do not speak to me of ill turns,” Silas replied. “You have claimed for your own something of mine, the value of which is found not in its monetary worth but in the treasure of memory and sentiment.”

That gave the horrid creature great pause. “What do you accuse us of stealing?”

“Inside the coat of the changeling you took with you is a simple wooden brooch.”

“We claimed no brooch,” the faerie queen insisted, jutting a pointed chin defiantly.

“You did,” Josephine said. “When you took the changeling from the house, you said you were claiming ‘him and all.’”

Though her knowledge of the faerie world did not equal Silas’s, she knew that claim for what it was. The faeries had taken for their own both the disguised faerie they believed to be the fugitive they sought and all attached to him. That included the brooch secreted on his person.

The faerie queen could make no denial, for that was the declaration her band had made.

“You have stolen a heart item from me,” Silas said, “and by your laws, you are forever indebted to me.”

Though the creature’s expression remained defiant, she no longer argued nor faced them with a threatening posture. “We ought not to have allowed you to learn so much, Silas Northrup.”

“Having committed this thievery, you are now forbidden from harming or doing mischief to me or anyone or anything connected to me,” he declared aloud, knowing that would seal the faeries’ indebtedness to him. “And this will be true forever more.”

“It is as you say, Silas Northrup.” And with that admission, the creature disappeared.

Josephine looked to Silas. “We are free?”

A smile pulled at his lips, and the tension that had permanently resided in his eyes since his escape from the faerie realm eased at last. “We are,” he said. “At long last.”

Hand in hand, they walked over the hills and back toward Tullybridge.

As the house came fully into view, Silas sighed. “It feels like home again. It feels like home.”

The house was far from empty when they stepped inside. All the staff had returned, released from their literary imprisonment. Expressions of delight were plentiful. The house was filled with celebration.

“We are free,” Josephine told them. “All connected to Tullybridge are forever free of the faeries’ mischief and harm.”

Shouts of delight accompanied embraces and handshakes. Silas, though older than any of them expected, was not a stranger to anyone. They knew him, recognized him, welcomed him.

As he had said, Tullybridge was once again home.

But it was not home to Josephine. And, with no child in residence, she had no employment in the house.

Only when the celebrations had lulled and the household sought rest was Silas granted a quiet moment in which to ask why her spirits seemed so low.

“I will miss Tullybridge,” she said.

“Miss it?” He shook his head. “Why should you miss it?”

“I was brought here to be a governess, but there are no children at Tullybridge.”

Silas took her hand in his. “Would you not consider remaining? At least for a time?”

“What would I do?” was the question she spoke, but in her eyes was the question “Might this be home to me as well?” For Tullybridge, which had until that very day been a place of fear and struggle, had become quite suddenly precious to her. Silas had become quite precious.

“You could do whatever you pleased,” Silas said. “And, if I am very fortunate, I hope you would be willing to spend some time with me, granting me the chance to know you better.”

“And I you.”

He raised her hand to his lips, gently kissing her fingers. “I would like that very much, Josephine Harlow.”

“And I like you very much, Silas Northrup.”

She did remain, and they did, indeed, come to know one another better. The fondness they felt grew with time. Free of both the fear “Mr. Northrup” had inflicted and the threat of the faeries, Josephine and Silas found in one another . . . a home.