9
Adria
“Shutter the windows!” Mrs. St. John’s cry from the hallway shattered the night. Adria launched from her bed, bare feet connecting with the cold wooden floor. How she had slept through the howling wind was beyond her comprehension, but Adria flew to the windows to close the shutters. She froze, mesmerized by the power outside Foxglove Manor.
The wind whipped not only the trees until their tops drew circles against the night sky, but it also pushed the whitecap waves into giant monsters. Broiling and frenetic, Superior boasted its name as the waters rose high and seemingly in different directions. Like a freshwater ocean in the precursor of a hurricane, the cliff on which the manor stood seemed more like a small mound in the storm. Barely a foundation on which they could be assured of their safety.
Adria’s attention was yanked from the scene as a crash sounded on the floor above her. She grabbed at the shutters and slammed them into place over the window. Bolting across the floor, Adria was hardly aware of her thin cotton nightdress or the way her hair tangled about her shoulders. She opened her bedroom door and almost collided with Mrs. St. John, who glowed eerily by the light cascading from the candle in her hand. Her narrow nose appeared longer, her eyes deeper set and hollow.
“What are you doing, Miss Fontaine? Go back to your room!”
She hadn’t expected the venomous confrontation from the older woman. “Is it a tornado?” Adria asked, breathless, unsure if she was more frightened by the storm’s vehemence or Mrs. St. John.
“We don’t get tornados here,” Mrs. St. John spat. Whether it was truthful or not, Adria had no desire to press the issue. “It’s a fearsome storm, that is all.”
“I heard a crash. Shouldn’t we check? It could be a broken window in the turret.”
“Diggery will check in the morning.” Mrs. St. John shooed Adria back into the bedroom. Adria retreated a few steps until she was fully embraced by the shadows of her room. “You can service me by remaining here as I’ve requested.”
“But—”
A black glare speared Adria. “As your father would demand of you.”
The bedroom door was shut in her face, a swoop of wind from the motion sending a strand of Adria’s hair to brush her nose.
Waters roared, a pounding cadence like a line of soldiers on the battlefield, the drums preceding them in their march. Her room was cast into a nighttime darkness as teal tones washed over her white bedding, glistened off the polished floors, and reflected on her gown.
Another crash sent Adria flying to her bed. She launched into the middle of the mattress, her feet tangling in the covers. Lightning must have sparked across the sky. Adria saw flashes through the gaps in the shutters, followed by a rumble and then a sharp crack as thunder broke the sky with its terrific bass. It shook the room. The gauzy tapestries hanging from her canopy blew as though the wind had pushed through the stone walls to breathe its frigidity on Adria.
A man shouted. It was distant but strong, and filled with urgency. Adria stiffened in the bed.
Again. Not unlike the cry of a man charging into battle, thrusting his bayonet into the midsection of his enemy.
“Cease!” It was Mrs. St. John. Her voice carried through the floor vent, the iron scrolling vibrating against its frame.
Footsteps. Running.
“That’s it, that’s it.” That voice had to be Diggery. Soothing but laced with a nervous energy that catapulted Adria from her position in the bed.
She jammed her feet into her slippers and reached for the bedroom door. Opening it a crack, she peeked out, both directions. The hallway was long and dark, its floor uncarpeted, its walls unadorned, and it included three doors to other bedrooms. A strange hallway with little purpose other than the function of getting somewhere. It wasn’t a gallery of portraits, nor were there any potted ferns on stands in the corners. The lamps in their sconces were dark, unlit, and served no real purpose.
Adria knew to go right meant to eventually find the stairs that led to the first floor. To go left was to explore areas of the manor she’d not bothered with before. She questioned the vision she’d had of the man in the turret window. She remembered Diggery’s denial that he existed. She heard Mrs. St. John denying any concern that Adria explore the manor. It had not been lofted as any great mystery. No orders of avoidance had been issued. It was simply . . . well, it was the attic. The turret’s room. A floor where, were Mrs. St. John in a larger metropolis, service staff would most likely lodge. Instead, here in the remote north of the Upper Peninsula, it was only Mrs. St. John, Diggery, and a housemaid whom Adria had yet to formally meet—not that one ever formally met a servant.
Her weight made the floor creak beneath her footsteps. Adria’s fingers trailed along the plaster wall, moving over small bumps and bruises in its old finishing. She should have thought to light a candle. She should have thought to wear a wrapper. All the should-haves pounded in her head in echo to another pounding clap of thunder and another bit-off cry from Mrs. St. John.
The hallway twisted to the left, and Adria followed it. At the end, a door was open, and beyond it a steep flight of narrow stairs. They were enclosed stairs with wood paneling on either side. They were shadowed and dark, but Adria could hear the voice now, even louder and more intense.
“Hold! Hold!” Diggery commanded.
“I’ll get a strip of linen!” was Mrs. St. John’s response.
Adria’s foot positioned on the bottom step, and she peered up into the darkness that embraced the soft glow of lamplight. She continued to climb, hesitation clawing at her ankles, feeling weighted. Something cursed at her from inside her mind, telling her she should obey Mrs. St. John. Reminding Adria of her worthlessness and how she had no business snooping into Foxglove Manor’s business.
She was almost to the top of the stairwell. Light stretched and touched her bare toes as she landed her right foot at the top of the stairs.
“Why are you here!” The voice came out of the darkness and assaulted her. A large frame, dark with rigor and intensity.
Adria’s eyes widened. A scream caught in her throat.
His eyes were blazing with fury. Empty, cold eyes that fisted her face with aggression. She knew she shouldn’t have come. She cursed her curiosity. She cursed this place. Adria felt her footing slip as she fell backward, gravity pulling her down the steps like a demon clawing at a soul to pull it into the lake of fire.
“A curse is yours, along with the others here who lay among the dead . . .”
Words that sliced her dreams as consciousness wasted away into the thunderous depths of blackness.
“Hold steady, miss.” A hand pressed against Adria as she struggled to rise. Opening her eyes meant increasing the throbbing headache, and the bright sunlight cascading through her bedroom window was enough to blind a person.
“Where is he?” Adria couldn’t help but struggle against the hand.
“Who, miss?”
Adria squeezed her eyes shut and then opened them, willing the blurry film to dissipate from her eyes and for the form of the woman beside her to come into view. It wasn’t Mrs. St. John—this must be the nameless housemaid of Foxglove Manor. Lifting her hand to her pounding head, Adria squinted.
Brown eyes.
Brown hair.
Fine features.
Petite.
The maid couldn’t be over fifteen years of age.
“Where is he?” Adria asked again.
The woman—girl, really—gave a firmer push against Adria’s shoulder. “Sit back, miss. You’ll be the death of yourself and then me too, for certain, once Mrs. St. John catches wind that you passed on. Then where will I be but walking the shores of Gitche Gumee and waiting for the lake mermaids to curse me further.”
Adria was intrigued. “There are lake mermaids?”
“More like a manitou,” the girl mumbled under her breath. “A great spirit who rules the lake and protects his people.”
“From what?” Adria breathed, somehow captivated by the story in the fogginess of the moment.
The girl’s dark eyes lifted. “From the demons. Lake demons.”
“I’ve never heard of a manitou before,” Adria admitted.
“And you’ve never seen one of the people either.” There was an edge to the girl’s voice that distracted Adria. Nervousness, maybe. Shifty. Or perhaps she was purposely diverting Adria’s attention. Regardless, Adria pushed against the mattress so she could sit up further. The girl wasted no time in plumping a pillow behind her back.
“You rolled down the stairs like a marble on a holiday.”
The memory came back in a rush. His deep face and eyes. The bulk of the man looming over her.
“Who is he?” Adria asked, glancing at the side table for a glass of water.
The girl must have read her thoughts, for she moved from the bed to the bureau and tipped a pitcher adorned with hand-painted purple roses. Water made its sloshing sound as it hit the glass. “Who’s who, miss?”
“The man. At the top of the stairs.”
The girl chuckled and returned the pitcher to a ceramic platter that caught excess drips. “What man at the top of the stairs?”
Adria frowned as she took the offered glass of water. “I’m not losing my mind.” She didn’t state it forcefully. In fact, doubts rushed in fast enough to make her question herself.
You’re a silly, stupid one. Margot had always made sure her younger sister was well aware of her inadequacies.
Adria shivered and drank the cold water. She watched the housemaid over the rim of the glass. “I know there was a man. I saw him with my own eyes. I heard him crashing and shouting during the storm.”
“Perhaps, miss, you heard Diggery running into the ladder upstairs. My room is up there, and I did find a mouse nest on the top shelf of the wardrobe. He brought the ladder yesterday afternoon to clean it out. Ran into the ladder last night in the dark as he was trying to take it back downstairs.”
“During a wicked thunderstorm that had Mrs. St. John shouting for the shutters to be closed?” Adria challenged.
The housemaid’s eyes flickered, and her shoulders straightened. “Could be you took a greater knock to the head with that fall than you think?”
“Doubtful.”
“Likely.”
They were at a standoff. There was no part of Adria that wished to argue with the persnickety housemaid. She knew what she’d seen, and yet . . . even Diggery denied there had been a man upstairs.
“I’m Lula.” The maid straightened the blankets at the end of Adria’s bed. “I’ve lived here since I was ten. Mrs. St. John took me in and here I be.”
The age of ten? A child couldn’t have been of much assistance to Mrs. St. John, yet Mrs. St. John hardly seemed one prone to charity without some reciprocating benefit.
Lula didn’t bother to wait for Adria to ask more questions. She was chatty—mouthy, really—and was juxtaposed to any of the etiquette Adria had been accustomed to from her father’s staff.
“Mrs. St. John came here a bit over six years ago. Just before the calendar flipped the page into the eighties. Before that, Dr. Miranda lived here. Strange man, they say. ’Course, I never knew him. And before that, it was Captain Cartier, who built Foxglove Manor. Mrs. St. John’s daughter had just passed on when she arrived.”
“How did you both meet?” Adria watched Lula hang Adria’s dress from the day before in the wardrobe. A shadow fluttered across Lula’s face.
“I was an orphan. Sent me to the poorhouse, they did, over near Harbor Towne. Mrs. St. John needed maid service, and I was sitting on a bench there when she came in all haughty-like asking if any of the ‘decrepit women’ were capable of housework and were above ‘ill repute.’ ’Course, I stood up and offered myself at her service.” Lula paused to half curtsy, half bow. Her brown eyes twinkled. “Mrs. St. John just stared at me, and I took that as a yes and hiked myself out to her carriage.” At Adria’s stunned silence, Lula added, “It tough up here, in the Peninsula. Copper mines, and before that fur trading . . . that’s about all you’ve got outside of the railway and shipping. Home services are hard to come by, so a lady’s gotta jump at the chance when she can.”
“But you were only a child!” Adria shoved away the recollections from when she was of younger age.
Lula looked surprised as she tucked a tendril of dark brown hair behind her ear. “I was almost eleven. Old enough to do the dishes, dust a mantel, and spit-shine a floor. Better than starving in the poorhouse with no ma or pa to look after me.”
Adria didn’t counter Lula’s argument with her own. That having no father would have been a blessing. That being independent and headstrong enough to escape by your own wits and an older lady’s compunction to deal with the impertinence . . . well, it was better than other circumstances. Ones that made dying seem like a fairy-tale ending, and where the weight of a parent’s threats didn’t make your shoulders bend so low it was as if your wrists were shackled to the floor.