Chapter 5 #2
“Oh, he’s collected plants from all over the world, he has.” Agnes relaxed, the relief of a comfortable topic settling over her features. “He pays collectors handsomely to send him rare specimens. Spends a fortune on it, truth be told.”
She shook her head with a mixture of pride and concern. “I’ve told him time and again that he should be more mindful, but does he listen? Of course not.”
“You mean with the toxic plants?”
“Indeed.” She buttered a slice of bread and handed it to me. “As I’m sure you know, there are some that cause unusual effects even without ingestion. He handles them safely enough, mind you, but it still makes me nervous having such things so close to where we live.”
I thought of the beautiful specimens I had cataloged that afternoon. The casual proximity to danger had never bothered me, but I understood why it might worry someone who lacked the familiarity.
We ate in comfortable silence for a while after that. The soup gave way to roasted chicken with potatoes and winter vegetables, expertly prepared. Agnes clearly took pride in her cooking, and it showed in every perfectly seasoned bite.
“This is delicious,” I said sincerely. “Thank you for going to such trouble.”
“Oh, it’s no trouble at all. It’s nice to have someone to cook for besides Dr. Ambrose.
He barely tastes his food half the time, too busy thinking.
” She refilled my water glass. “And it’s lovely to have another woman in the house.
It gets lonely around here, to be honest. He’s not much for conversation when he’s deep in his work, and Hawthorne—well. ”
“How long have you worked here?” I asked, genuinely curious.
“Oh, it must be nearly six years now.” She sat back in her chair with a thoughtful expression, her eyes growing distant as she tapped her chin with one finger.
“I came about a year after Dr. Ambrose moved into this house. It was in quite a state when I arrived, I can tell you—dust everywhere, and dishes piled along every surface. He may be a brilliant man, but that intelligence doesn’t extend to keeping himself fed or his floors swept. ”
“He was not married then?”
Agnes frowned, her lips pressing into a thin line, and I regretted the question immediately.
“No,” she answered, her voice softer now. “His wife came about two years later.”
“I am sorry, I did not mean to bring up such a delicate subject.”
Agnes shrugged, though the gesture was thin. “You’re curious. It's understandable.”
She rose then to clear our plates, and the conversation folded away with the meal.
“You should get some rest. Tomorrow will be another long day, I expect.”
She strode toward the kitchen, then paused at the door. “And don’t let him overwork you tomorrow. You come find me if he does, and I’ll sort him out properly.”
I smiled at the image of Agnes bearing down on Dr. Ambrose like a governess reclaiming a wayward student from his laboratory, prepared to be entirely unmoved by his objections.
“Thank you, Agnes. For dinner and for being so kind to me.”
“Oh it’s nothing special, just basic human decency.” She waved the gratitude away, though her cheeks went pleasantly pink with it.
I contemplated how long it would take for that color to leave her face if she were to stop breathing. My fingers itched to find out, inching toward the knife resting beside my plate.
I blinked and dragged my twitching hand into my lap.
My companion laughed, then withdrew just as smoothly as it had emerged.
I glanced once more at Hawthorne as I rose. He was still watching me, tracking my movement toward the door—perhaps cataloging information about me for a purpose I could not yet fathom.
Just before I crossed the threshold, I might have sworn recognition moved through that blank stare, as though he knew something about me that I did not.
The thought followed me out of the room.
I climbed the stairs, then paused at the landing.
The corridor was dimly lit by a single oil lamp at the far end, its uncertain flame sending shadows across wallpaper patterned with climbing vines that seemed to shift in the flickering light.
The house had good bones, as my father would have said, but it carried the atmosphere of a place that had absorbed both joy and grief, and grown accustomed to holding them simultaneously.
I was nearly past the rose door when I heard a noise.
A gentle susurrus echoed through the hall, barely audible over the house’s settling—like fabric shifting, or a breath drawn very close to the other side of the door.
I froze, listening.
It came again, barely there. It was possibly nothing at all… or possibly exactly what it sounded like.
A woman’s voice.
My heart began to pound, thudding painfully within my chest.
You are exhausted, I told myself firmly. You are imagining things. There is no one in there.
My feet carried me back toward the door anyway, pulled by an invisible thread even as my mind objected.
The brass rose gleamed in the lamplight, revealing slight ridges on each petal where the metal had been worked—the infinitesimal imperfections that proved it had been made by hand rather than cast in a mold.
My palm rested on it before I had fully consented to the motion. It was cool against my skin, fitting the curve of my hand with an exactness that made the hairs on the back of my neck prickle.
I pressed my ear against the wood.
Silence greeted me.
I held my breath and stood there in the dark, listening to my own pulse mark the seconds, waiting for the sound to come again or to reveal itself as nothing.
Open it, the voice encouraged, its attention sharpening. Perhaps you'll discover what's left of Mrs. Ambrose—preserved and suspended, kept like one of the specimens in the study.
I straightened, exhaling a shaky breath.
My hand dropped from the handle, and I stood for a moment with the cold of the corridor settling around me, breathing deeply.
"Stop it," I said, to myself or to it—I was becoming uncertain the distinction mattered. "There is nothing behind that door. There is no such thing as ghosts.”
Roses for the dead, it replied, as I turned and walked—faster than I cared to admit. Red roses for love, white roses for death. Brass roses for the one who will never wilt.
I reached my room, turning the lock behind me with a firmness that was perhaps excessive given that what I was locking out was already inside my own skull.
I stood with my back against the door, breathing in the dark, waiting for the spectral form of Dr. Ambrose’s dead wife to burst through.
Which, obviously, did not happen.