‘Asher?’
I don’t know how many times I’ve been called, but it’s clear from the impatient tone it’s been more than once. I shake my head then my whole body as if to settle back into shape, into the place I’ve made in this house, this world. I still my fluttering hands, clench them into fists so they’re not betraying my discombobulation before Leonora, and turn.
‘Are you quite well, Miss Todd?’ She’s frowning, standing a few feet away, come out of the library to look for me, no doubt, when I failed to reappear as expected. Her face seems to have gotten younger even in the short while I’ve been away from her.
I smile, clasp my fingers together. ‘Quite well, Mrs Morwood.’
‘Who was that man?’ She nods towards the open door even though Archie O’Sullivan has long disappeared from view. I should have known Leonora would not miss a thing.
‘An old friend of my mother’s. Kindly come to check on my wellbeing.’
‘He did not stay long to do so,’ she observes, then heads back to the library, expecting no answer for it was not a question. I follow.
‘I asked him to leave, Mrs Morwood. I’m here to work for you, not to socialise.’
‘What a good girl you are,’ she throws over her shoulder.
‘My mother raised me to be so,’ I reply. But Heloise didn’t really, merely to be obedient, and those are two different things.
‘Do you have my paperwork from Mistress Taverell?’ Leonora returns to her seat.
‘Oh. Yes.’ I draw it from my pocket, the wax seal intact. She takes it without haste, her movements confident as if she’s got no doubts about what she will do, about what is contained therein. She rests it on her lap, fingers laced over the top.
‘Excellent. Now: I wish to spend part of each day training Albertine.’
I blink, search for something appropriate to say, settle on, ‘Afternoons would be best. I teach in the mornings and their afternoons will be free of the time they would spend with their mother, at least for the next month.’
She nods. ‘That will be satisfactory. We will begin the day after tomorrow – I will have ordered my thoughts by then.’ And because I did not ask anything, she seems to decide to reward me. ‘The girl must learn how to manage an estate. This estate.’
‘Not your son? Not Connell?’ And because you did not get the chance to pass all your knowledge on to Heloise? Is this your next chance? What if you knew I existed? Would it be me, next in line?
‘Connell’s a nice enough child but Albertine is the oldest.’ She does not mention Luther, does not acknowledge that part of my question.
I nod. Does she mean Albertine will inherit? Does Leonora think the girl will stay here, and any husband she might have will take her last name (as Leonora’s did) and be content to sit by the lady of the manor as she makes decisions? That worked so well for Leonora and Donnell, after all. ‘I will tell her, Mrs Morwood.’
* * *
It’s only when I finally retire to my room in the evening after overseeing a cold supper left by Mrs Charlton, supervising the children’s bath and bedtime, then collapsing into the chair by the fire, that I allow Archie O’Sullivan to creep back into my thoughts.
He was one of the doctors I sought out in the early days of Heloise’s illness; he was not the last but he was always the gentlest. It was only later that I heard his own wife was ill and suffering an ailment neither he nor any of the clever doctor-professors could cure – any more than anyone (myself included) could cure my mother. Later still that I learned Meliora had died not long after Heloise.
He was kind, too, which struck me when I’d had so little kindness in my life. He remained kind even when he discovered me in the Whitebarrow university after dark, resurrecting a dead wolf cub that had been brought in for the classes. I got to it before it was given to the students for dissection practice – it would have been no good to me after they’d done their worst with it – and he watched from the shadows as I, all unaware of his presence, worked a spell I’d found in a book. There were notes in the margins in a blocky hand, an untidy script seemingly written in haste to get things down as they were done, observations with the unalloyed enthusiasm of a mind curious about cause and effect, about making things happen that perhaps should not. A mind untroubled by any sort of moral compass or fear of consequence – someone who would do something simply because they could exert their power thus, and never question whether they should. The name on the front was faded but I could make out A Manual for the Students of the Tintern Dollmakers’ Academy.
I wondered what other feats the author of those notations had managed, where they’d gone, when they’d died. A long time ago, I assumed, from the book’s publication date. Copious notes about how to bring an animal back to life but nothing about a human. No matter. Somewhere in that library, in the depths of the proscribed section – to which I had, of course, acquired a key – I was sure there was the means to do so. Instructions in another’s hand – or perhaps the same hand, older, wiser, even more filled with a thirst for knowledge – and I would find it. It was only a matter of time.
I never did – find it, I mean – but I found something… greater. Worse. Better. Stranger.
That night, Archie made no sound as I worked, no sound until he saw what I’d done: brought the tiny wolf back by a mix of words and herbs, blood and breath. Its eyes opened, red, and it rolled to its feet, snarling and snapping. I stared at it, fascinated by what I’d wrought – horrified, terrified without a doubt, but not enough to stop. I’d probably have stayed that way until the creature attacked me, but for the gasp from the shadows. I clutched at a scalpel; the undead wolf turned too, growling, towards the source of the noise.
‘Who’s there?’ I asked and I cannot recall ever feeling more afraid either before or after that moment. Discovery meant my own death. I imagined the dungeons, the torture the god-hounds would inflict on me even if I confessed immediately to witchcraft. I imagined the flames, searing, burning, dead before I could do what I had promised Heloise. I whispered Mekham and the little pup fell, back into its death.
But it was Archie O’Sullivan who stepped from the gloom, his face lit by fear and strange hope.
‘Can you do that to a person?’ he asked, breathless.
I shook my head. ‘Not yet.’
Heloise was three months dead, but I had what I needed of her. Had everything except the key, the formula, the way. I had nothing of his wife, doubted he did either. And certainly not the right things.
‘Meliora,’ he said, and the name caught in his throat. I recalled too late that his wife had died. Remembered I had heard the other doctor-professors gossiping about her death, about how hard he’d taken it, and how he should buck up and find a replacement. ‘Will you be able to…’
And I should have said No then and there. Should have told the truth and simply said No, not now, not ever; it is beyond me or Not for you or anyone else but I did not. I’d learned from my mother that honesty often led to the closing of doors, the loss of opportunities, and I thought of all the resources Archie might supply if I told a lie. So I said, ‘I will.’
‘I want my Meliora once more. I will give you whatever you want, need, I will keep you safe. I will tell no one what I have seen here tonight’ – and in that moment I imagined I could smell the cooking of my own flesh, the smoking of me like a side of bacon, but he did not notice my fear – ‘but return my wife to me and everything I have is yours.’
I thought how much easier it would be to not sneak around and steal things, materials and knowledge, how nice it would be not to have to scrape for a pittance of a salary to survive, to not have to make myself invisible every waking moment. How nice not to live in that room in the boarding house, not to sleep across from the bed where my mother had died. If and when I found out how to resurrect a person, I would only do it once then disappear from his life, for I had no desire to become a mistress of souls. It was easy to lie to him – and so I did.
And I stayed under his roof for not quite two years; I wanted for nothing. I had an allowance for my personal use, and an account for whatever research items I needed; he gave me keys (more keys!) to the university and he called me his assistant – I went where I wanted and no one questioned me. I was able to do as I wished in the daylight hours, although admittedly some activities were best reserved for night. Perhaps I’d have stayed there forever in his house, gradually losing faith in what I was trying to do, and instead growing content to settle into a life beside him. Perhaps I’d have kept trying despite all signs that I would never succeed, and go a little mad in the process; perhaps he’d have let me. Perhaps he’d have forgotten his Meliora after a while and decided I would do in her place.
But there came the day when I found what I needed and remaining with Archie O’Sullivan was no longer an option.
* * *
Standing outside my mother’s room, I notice some few salt crystals have crept beneath the door. I wonder if she’s been trying to remove them so she might escape, wonder if she’s been down on her ghostly knees blowing with all her might with breath she doesn’t have, and this is what she managed to dislodge. Or perhaps it’s simply from the breeze that creeps in under the sash of that cold, cold room.
Should I go in there? Speak with her? Recount how things are progressing? That’s why I left my own chamber, isn’t it? To see her? But she’ll simply look at me with that burning blue gaze, and wordless though she is I’ll know she’s demanding why I’ve not yet fulfilled my promise. Letting me know in no uncertain terms that I have failed her in the past and will doubtless continue to do so forever.
I push away and turn, back to my room, take up my winter coat, and leave the house entirely. My feet move, but I do not think and it seems no time at all before I’m standing in front of his cottage, entering without knocking, then he’s staring at me, one eyebrow cocked and quizzical.
‘It means nothing,’ I say for the second time, and reach for him, and he for me, and for a while I do not have to think of anything else that might be required of me.