Chapter Six. A Mourning Caller #3
Ruan sniffed, picking up one of the long-forgotten tea sandwiches, and took a bite. “Death usually. Why do you ask?”
I swallowed hard, pushing the image of the creature illuminated by the gaslight from my mind. “No reason.”
He narrowed his gaze but let my lie pass. There had been a time not so long ago when Ruan could scarcely keep from being close to me. The casual brush of his hand. A soothing hug. A touch of my cheek. But now he kept a full room’s length between us.
I closed my eyes, regretting every single minute of my conversation with Leona. She had known something. Her concern for Mr. Mueller was beyond friendship.
I cannot let him suffer for my …
For my what?
I should never have spoken to her like that. She had every right to be worried and to ask my assistance, and here I was suspecting her motives.
I opened my eyes to see Ruan standing before me, waiting on me to speak. “What do you think?”
“That she’s hiding something.”
As do I.
Drumming my fingers on my hips, I paced around the darkened kitchen. “I don’t for one moment believe she was at the Ashmolean as she said—but she seemed shocked that Reaver had not returned to Harker’s Curiosity Museum. So if not there, then where were they?”
Ruan raked his hands through his dark curls, resting his palms atop his head. “Harker was put into the box before the exhibition. It doesn’t matter where they were at the time of the discovery—what matters is where they were at the time of death.”
My mind raced trying to add up the pieces, not at all liking the cursory answer I reached.
“Harker hadn’t been seen for at least two days before he was discovered.
The body”—I winced at the recollection—“might have been dead that long. I didn’t get a good chance to examine him, but I am pretty certain he was put in there alive.
Someone removed his tongue and sealed him inside. ”
Ruan made a low growl in his chest, keeping stubbornly to the other side of the room.
“But why not kill him first? Why stick him in there to suffer?”
Ruan shifted, cocking his head to one side. “To send a message.”
“It does seem that way—but Leona is right on one thing. Mr. Mueller certainly did not kill him. That box was airtight. If Mr. Mueller had done it, he could have left him in a storeroom and Harker’s body would have turned to dust before anyone ever thought to open it.
No one would have ever wondered upon his disappearance, assuming that he’d simply run off due to debts or some other scandal. ”
“Unless whoever it was who killed him wanted Mueller out of the way too. It would tie things up neatly and send a message to anyone connected to them to not ask questions.”
“From stitching up injured children to pondering motivations for murder. I truly wonder at how your mind works.”
“I could say the same.” That deep divot of worry formed between Ruan’s dark brows. “I hate to say this…”
“We have another murder to solve, don’t we?”
“Indeed, and I don’t for one moment believe that this is a straightforward matter.
” He took a step closer. Near enough that I caught the heady green scent of him.
The warmth of his skin that I’d once had the privilege of sharing.
But no more. He folded his arms across his chest, palms tucked against his body. I struggled to swallow.
If Ruan sensed the discord in my thoughts, his expression did not betray him. “I know you have your doubts about the other world. About my world.”
I let out a huff of air and turned away before I did something absurd like touch him. “I will grant you that witches exist, and perhaps ghosts—”
“Perhaps ghosts,” he said with a dry laugh.
My brows rose. “I admit there may be some truth to your and Mr. Owen’s otherworld, but I am not a part of that world. I’m not like you, and despite the macabre display of Julius Harker’s body, this is not a curse or a haunting. This is murder, plain and simple.”
He wet his lips wanting to say something, but held his tongue, not wanting to belabor the point.
“Perhaps, but I felt the lure of that world at the museum. It pulsed strong enough that I’d convinced myself it was simply your nearness that made me feel things that weren’t real. Surely you sensed it too?”
I shivered at his words, my mind returning to how uneasy I’d been inside the museum.
How hot my body was, the panic that grew each time I allowed my mind to wander.
I’d ascribed it to the crowd, but what if Ruan was right and there was something else at play here?
Add that to the uncanny dog at the end of the lane.
An omen of death. I tugged my dressing gown tighter around my body.
Not that the thin material stood a prayer of protecting me from what we were about to do.
“Leona said there were rumors that Harker was involved in the occult.”
Ruan grunted in agreement. “There were rumors about him researching the otherworld when I was in school here. It’s my understanding he was interested in my kind. Those of us who live between the borders of the two worlds.”
“Witches?” I furrowed my brow, scarcely believing I was having this conversation at all.
“And … ah … other things.” He shifted awkwardly.
Ah. Right. As if this were normal pre-dawn conversation. “Do you think that has to do with why he was removed from his post?”
Ruan shrugged. “Whatever it was he was studying, he’d gotten in some sort of trouble over it and it was covered up. Be it the otherworld or simply a radical intellectual position. He’d crossed someone at the University, that’s for certain.”
“Did he show an interest in you … know what you can do?”
Ruan’s expression darkened. “No, Owen made sure no one was told what I was. He was concerned what might happen if someone found out the truth. He worried they’d use me, keep me for their own curiosity.
I’m grateful now that he took me away from Cornwall, even if I wasn’t at the time.
It wasn’t long after the first mine collapse when he arrived in Lothlel Green and told my mother what he intended for my future.
By that time people had begun whispering about my abilities.
Strangers would come bringing their sick and dying to our village expecting me to do something about it.
It wasn’t long after when he sent me away to school, and then on to Oxford to finish my education.
I was a boy then, with no idea what I was doing or how to control it.
Gods, I scarcely know what to do with it now or even what I can do. ”
My heart ached for him each time he mentioned his childhood. Of how hard it was to be so very different, without anyone to confide in.
“It was for the best I had a chance to grow into a man away from that world—away from people who knew what I was. So, no. Harker could not have known the truth about me, and he certainly never treated me with any interest. I was beneath him.”
It was for the best that he escaped notice of such a horrible person. “Do you think whatever Harker was involved in back then has to do with his death?”
“I don’t know. But I sense we are going to find out, aren’t we?”
“I suppose it’s good I’ve summoned the Pellar then.”
The lines at the edges of his eyes creased with a faint smile and I could have sworn he started to move closer to me, but I should have known better.
Ruan was a far stronger soul than I. He allowed the moment to end, turned, and went back to bed.
And with that, I took another bite of my sandwich, sat down at the table, and plotted out my next course of action.