In the Leaves
“Mina?”
I jumped. Jack had come up behind me from around the side of the house. I had bolted the front door, and he’d probably been knocking.
“What are you doing out here?” he said.
“I . . .” I glanced back to the heath, straining to see as the mist drifted. The thing I’d glimpsed—or thought I’d glimpsed—hadn’t seemed to be a person. It had moved in a low, rolling way, almost like a hare, though it had been much larger.
“Mina.”
I turned to Jack, pressing a hand against the pocket where I’d tucked Mr. Tregarrick’s letter. “Just—just getting some air. Where have you been? Mrs. Moyle made dinner, but I didn’t know when you’d come back, so we ate already.”
I was practiced at knowing how much he’d drunk by his eyes and his speech. He was more sober than I’d seen him in a while, if you didn’t count mornings, when he was peaked and ill-tempered from the previous night’s drinking.
“At church,” he mumbled.
I stared, thinking he must be joking. But he looked troubled. “What were you doing at church?”
He frowned. “It’s the Sabbath, an’t it?”
Now I knew he wasn’t serious. When our parents were alive, we went every Sunday.
Since then, I’d made it to services only once or twice a month, and really only to visit our parents’ graves.
But Jack never went. He said he “could sleep through the morning at home and be more comfortable, too, thank you very much.”
“Fine,” I muttered, “don’t tell me.”
Opening the back door, he said, “You come on in. It’s not safe for you to be out here alone.”
His voice was gentle enough, but I felt the distance between us more keenly than ever.
I followed him inside—with one glance back to the heath—and then went to reheat his supper. As I set it before him, he took a bottle of gin from his coat pocket. I knew he was sober because he actually poured it into a glass.
After waking rested and stronger the next morning, I baked pasties for Jack’s lunch and for Mrs. Moyle, since she had promised a visit.
When she came, she drank a cup of tea and stayed long enough to look me over.
Declaring me much improved (“The color is back in your freckles”), she returned to open The Magpie.
Once she’d left, I curled in a chair with the mending while my thoughts spun in circles.
In bed last night, I had all but convinced myself the thing I’d seen on the heath had simply been a deer that the twilight, the fog, and my imagination had turned into something else.
Yet this morning my mind kept returning to it.
I’d read Mr. Tregarrick’s letter again and again.
Until I am able to secure the village of Roche against the present threat, he’d said.
He was still searching for the other vampire. Might that be what I had seen?
With every passing moment, it became plainer that I wouldn’t be able to tolerate sitting quietly inside all day, as Jack had admonished.
I could see through the window that the weather was fine.
I could rest outdoors as well as in. And I could keep an eye out for the creature from last night.
If I saw it again, I would find a way to get word to Mr. Tregarrick.
Mrs. Moyle might know Roger Carew, and if she didn’t, she might be able to ask around.
Just as I was putting away my sewing things, there came a knock at the door, and my heart bounced. Had Mr. Carew come back? I called through the door, but the voice that answered belonged to Mr. Hilliard.
My da once told me that only people who had something to hide were afraid of the constable. I supposed I was one of those people now, because I had to wipe sweat from my palms before I opened the door.
“Happy to see you so recovered, Miss Penrose,” he said, removing his hat. His gaze lowered to the bandage around my neck. “May I come in?”
“Yes, sir,” I replied, stepping back to admit him.
I invited him to sit at the table, and I put on the kettle for tea. Mainly to have something to do so he wouldn’t notice how nervous I was.
“No need for that,” he said. “Come and sit down. I just have a few questions for you.”
I took off the kettle and joined him.
He set his diary on the table and took out a pencil. His brows lifted. “I hate that this has happened, lass. Especially when I told you I thought the danger had passed. I want to apologize for my mistake.”
“You aren’t to blame, sir. It’s a strange case.”
“That it is.” He studied me more closely, and I swallowed. “Jack tells me that when you woke, you couldn’t remember what happened to you. Have you remembered anything since then?”
My fingers knotted in my lap. This was the moment.
I could choose to tell him the truth, or from this point on, I’d be heaping lie on top of lie.
I shuddered to think someone else might die because I didn’t speak when I had the chance.
Yet unless I told the constable all of Mr. Tregarrick’s story, he wouldn’t understand.
Even understanding, he wasn’t likely to believe.
Flattening my palms on my skirt, I said, “No, sir. I’m sorry.”
He sighed. “Are you able to tell me where you were when it happened? If not, the last place you do remember.”
“Last I remember, I was walking to the village.” As something I did often, this seemed the least likely to raise an eyebrow.
“On the road between Roche and Carbis, like Mr. Roscoe.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you see anyone else on the road?”
I shook my head. “Not that I recall.”
He wrote in his diary, and I reached, absently, to touch the bandage at my neck.
His gaze darted up. “Does it pain you?”
“Hardly at all.”
“The wound is very clean compared to Mr. Roscoe’s. It’s the damnedest thing.” He frowned. “Begging your pardon.”
I nodded and held my tongue. More talking could only get me into trouble at this point.
“We now think it most likely a man attacked both you and Mr. Roscoe.”
“Yes, sir, Jack told me.”
“What do you think, Miss Penrose?”
Steady, now. “I guess that makes sense, though I can’t imagine why a man would do such a thing.”
“Nor can I. I don’t think any sane man would. I think we’re looking for a man who’s not well. Maybe even a medical man, by the efficiency with which he went about his business.”
I shifted in my chair. “And Mr. Roscoe?”
The constable grunted. “That’s the question. Maybe our killer was in more of a hurry the first time.”
“I wish there was more I could tell you, Mr. Hilliard.” That at least was not a lie, unlike almost everything else I’d said to him.
“There is another question you might be able to shed some light on.” I nodded faintly, heart thumping.
“I arrived here after you were brought home, while Mrs. Moyle and the surgeon were in with you. I tried to speak to Jack, but . . .” He hesitated.
“Well, the truth of it is he smelled of gin and had his temper up. I had trouble following his reasoning, but he seemed to believe it was Mr. Tregarrick that attacked you. Do you know what would make him think that?”
Heat blooming in my cheeks, I replied, “I’m not sure reasoning has much to do with it, sir. Jack has been listening to gossip at the tavern. Since Mr. Roscoe, people have been telling the old stories about a Wolf of Roche Rock.”
The constable’s brow clouded. “I’ve heard some of that gossip myself. It’s the opposite of helpful.”
“Yes, sir.”
I took a slow breath as he made a few more notes, thinking we must surely be coming to the end of the interview. I was unprepared when he looked up and said, “You don’t seem very rattled, Miss Penrose.”
“Rattled, sir?” I knew what he meant, but I gained a moment to think by pretending that I didn’t.
“Someone tried to kill you. Aren’t you frightened?”
“Yes, sir. I certainly am.” And that was no more or less than the truth. I was afraid of this other vampire, and I was afraid of Mr. Tregarrick being blamed for his crimes.
“I also wonder about your coming and going as usual after finding a man murdered next to the road. Though I know it was likely due, in part, to my faulty counsel, I won’t lie to you—I find it surprising.”
I sat a moment, considering my words. There were reasons that I could share with the constable.
“Well, sir, I have a job, just as you do. Jack has been after me to give it up, but the cottage is lonely with my parents gone. And ever since the night I found Mr. Roscoe, unwelcome thoughts come into my head when I’m alone.”
Mr. Hilliard’s features softened, and he nodded. “All right, Miss Penrose. One last question and I’ll let you rest.”
He set down his pencil, reached into his waistcoat pocket, and drew out something that glittered in his fingers. Mum’s cross!
Placing it on the table, he said, “You were holding this when they found you. The surgeon had to pry it from your fingers. Do you know where it came from?”
“Aye, sir. It was my mother’s.”
“I see.” He looked disappointed, if not surprised, and it occurred to me he might have hoped it belonged to my attacker. “I didn’t notice you wearing it the last two times we spoke.”
My heart skipped. “I took to wearing it after . . . after Mr. Roscoe.”
His brows knit. “For protection?”
I began to feel Mr. Hilliard was rather good at his job, saving his trickiest questions until he was about to take his leave.
“You’ll think me foolish.”
“I think no such thing, Miss Penrose. It seems that it worked. The clasp is broken, as if you yanked at the chain. Do you remember doing that?”
“I don’t, sir.”
I recalled how Mr. Tregarrick had suddenly let me go, bounding back, hand flying to his neck where the cross had touched him. Did it mean a vampire was a kind of demon?
Does a demon tell you his weakness and then thank you for using it?
Whatever else he was, I didn’t believe for a moment Mr. Tregarrick was evil.
Mr. Hilliard now closed his diary and slipped it back into his coat pocket. “I’ll leave you now. I thank you for your time.”