Chapter 2 #3
Insects rattled. Danielle’s attention snapped sideways, and Elsa followed it. A chickadee had landed on the edge of the fountain. He dipped in and out of the water and shook his wings.
The girl mumbled something, and Elsa asked her to repeat it.
“Oh! Poecile atricapillus. That’s right!
” Elsa corrected Danielle’s pronunciation, but the child had gotten the scientific name right.
She’d probably read it in a book and had to guess at how to say the Latin.
“You’re a girl after my own heart. I’ve loved birds since I was your age, and younger, too. ”
Another bird cheeped, and then another. Without looking for either, Danielle said, “Cardinalis cardinalis. Agelaius phoeniceus.” She had identified a northern cardinal and red-winged blackbird based on their sounds alone. Remarkable.
At last, the girl took the rake back from Elsa, her gaze swiveling to the mansion.
“Those are Miss Birdie’s birds. You can’t take Miss Birdie’s birds.
They don’t belong to you. They stay here, like me.
We stay.” She thumped her palm to her chest as she said this, then pointed to Elsa and motioned toward the road.
Rain began to fall. Danielle took her rake, climbed onto a bench and hopped from one to another, careful not to disturb the pebbles, then leapt from courtyard to lawn and dashed away.
———
Elsa slipped back inside the mansion and closed the door on the strengthening rain and wind.
After drying her glasses and replacing them, everything came back into focus.
Silver braided streams ran down the windows and poured from gargoyle downspouts.
The grooves Danielle had traced into the pebbles shone with collected water.
The girl had left a trail of questions in Elsa’s mind.
How well had she known Birdie? If she lived here, where were her parents?
She was clearly determined to stay, but what would they do once the county took over the estate?
Regardless, Elsa hoped she would see Danielle again.
Chafing her arms, Elsa sneezed, and the sound bounced off the vaulted ceiling. She reminded herself she wasn’t alone here. It only felt that way.
It was not a feeling she cared for. At the museum, she often worked on her own, but she could always take a break and stroll through the galleries. Mingling with patrons always eased the tension in her shoulders. Interacting with them refueled her before she returned to her office.
“No offense,” she muttered to the yellow birds in the parlor. “But you aren’t much for conversation.”
In truth, she wasn’t convinced that Mr. Dupont would be much better. But if he was tearing the mansion apart, he might have seen more field guides. She couldn’t begin tagging birds without the details within those pages.
Leaving the parlor through the rear hall, she crossed into the adjacent room and found herself in a dark, wood-paneled library.
Floor-to-ceiling cases held leather-bound volumes, and crown molding rimmed the ceiling.
On a table between two wingback chairs was a camera, a floorplan drawing of the room, a notebook, and two of the largest tape measures she’d ever seen. But there was no sign of man or beast.
Exiting the library, Elsa followed a marble hallway through the empty dining hall and into the four-story stair tower. Her leg ached just looking at the winding steps.
“Mr. Dupont?”
No answer.
She summoned her strength. She had climbed stairs before, for goodness’ sake. She could take it slowly.
By the time she reached the second floor, however, her lungs bothered her as much as her leg. Anger flared, but it wasn’t strong enough to mask the dread that sparked it. This was ridiculous. She couldn’t be getting worse.
After a few moments to regain her composure, she continued her search on the second floor, determined to focus only on finding another human being. “Hello? Is anyone up here?” Still slightly out of breath, her voice didn’t carry like she wanted it to, but she resolved to ignore that fact.
Through one grand bedroom after another—each with its own color theme and matching birds—Elsa searched. It felt like a game of hide-and-seek, with a niggling suspicion that she was the only one playing.
When she reached the art gallery, she rested on a bench and stared at the stained-glass windows, if only to anchor herself in the present time and place.
She was no longer the child she’d been at boarding school, trying to keep up with the other girls and failing, laughter ringing in her ears.
She had been playing hide-and-seek with her classmates, only to realize they’d broken the rules and left the agreed-upon boundaries.
They left her alone to wander in vain until her weak leg collapsed.
The matron had sent her to bed, where she’d stayed for three days to recover.
Three more days alone when she desperately longed for companionship.
Her parents, who lived less than five miles from the school, did not come to visit her, either.
Elsa would search no more today. Drawing a fortifying breath, she stood and went back to the stairs. Going down would be easier.
Wind buffeted the stone tower. Beyond the windows, lightning forked. Thunder clapped, and she took the stairs a little faster.
“Mr. Dupont? Barney?” Boy, she must be really desperate to want to locate a dog. But having a friendly canine at her side had its charms right about now.
She tried a light switch, but nothing happened. Either the power had gone out from the storm, or Mr. Spalding had already had the electricity shut off. She normally enjoyed a good summer storm. But being here alone when she hadn’t expected to be . . . It was all too Gothic for her taste.
Her mind played tricks. Was that a person or the wind? Then the moaning stopped, and shouting took its place. The tone held not anger but fear. Urgency. Someone was in distress.
At the bottom of the tower, she hurried along the corridor as much as she dared, looking and finding no one.
Then a flash of lightning illuminated the silhouettes of two men outside on the covered veranda.
One smoked a cigarette between words frayed with shredded nerves.
The other voice held steady. She’d heard him speak this morning, but barely.
She must have been so preoccupied with the scars and the dog that she hadn’t noticed how rich the sound was.
She couldn’t see their faces with their backs turned to the window. But as Mr. Dupont soothed the other man, he didn’t sound scary. He sounded like . . . well, like someone you’d want by your side in a storm, whether it raged in the sky or in one’s soul. Clearly he’d weathered his own.
Thunder rolled, and rain blew sideways, spraying the windows. Baskets of ferns swung wildly from the veranda’s ceiling.
The man with the cigarette was shaking. “I want to go inside,” Elsa heard him say.
“That’s a good idea, but you can’t smoke in the house,” Mr. Dupont told him. “So you either stay out here and get wet or come inside out of the storm. It is just a storm, Tom. It’s 1926, this is New York, and we’re on a job. You’re safe now. You’re safe.”
“No.” Tom shook his head. Thunder boomed again, and he sank to the floor, covering his head with crossed arms.
In a flash of fur, Barney bounded onto the veranda, ran to Tom, and nudged under his arms to lick his face.
Mr. Dupont waited until Tom buried his fingers in Barney’s fur, returning the affection.
“Come on.” Mr. Dupont took the cigarette and smashed it in a planter. “You don’t need that.” With a hand to his elbow, he helped him up. Barney placed his head beneath Tom’s palm. This time, the dog’s tail wasn’t wagging.
Elsa backed away from the windows and watched the trio walk toward the door. When they came inside, she was waiting by one of the fireplaces in the library.
Both men stood straighter when they saw her. Barney pressed against Tom’s side.
“Hello again,” she said to Mr. Dupont. “I’m afraid we didn’t have a proper introduction this morning. I’m Elsa Reisner,” she added for Tom’s sake, then explained why she was here. “Mr. Spalding told me you’re salvaging some of the architecture for Dupont & Son, correct?”
“That’s right. I’m the son in that equation—Luke Dupont—and this is Tom Lightfoot, assisting me.” He rolled down sleeves that had been pushed to his elbows and buttoned the cuffs.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Dupont, Mr. Lightfoot.”
“Oh, please, none of that for me. Tom’ll do fine.” A dimple appeared as a smile formed and then faded. Dark blond hair was pomaded back from a smooth face that would seem boyish if not for the sunken cheeks.
“And just Luke,” added the man whose voice ran deep. He was only an inch or so taller than Tom, but his presence felt far more solid. Tom held his shoulders slightly forward, creating a hollow in front of his chest.
Elsa smiled, happy to shed the stiff high-society manners with which she’d grown up. “All right, then. Let’s dispense with formalities all around, or at least between the three of us. Mr. Spalding mentioned something about you working in here, but he hasn’t told me much else.”
“Anything we can help with?” Luke asked.
“Possibly. I’m looking for something you may have come across.”
“Is this about the aviary?” Tom asked. “Mr. Spalding already mentioned it. He thought it would be here in the library, but we never saw what he described.”
“Ah. He asked me to keep an eye out for that, too, but I’m on my own search for field notebooks. They are basically journals or logs kept on expeditions to collect birds. Have you found anything like that?” She explained why she needed them to complete her assignment.
They said they hadn’t but promised to let her know if that changed.
That settled, Elsa mentioned encountering Danielle in the courtyard. “Do you happen to know who she is, where she lives?”