Chapter 7
Fear skittered down my spine, erasing my thoughts and weakening my knees. As I stared in horror at the boy, the black of the crypt yawned around him, threatening to pull me into darkness along with him.
My sluggish legs stumbled as I backed away. Panic urged me into action, and when I gained better control of my body, I fled the crypt as fast as I could.
As I rounded the corner and headed back up the steps to the main level of the house, I listened anxiously for signs that he was chasing.
But I didn’t dare look back. I just ran outside the copper railing that guarded the crypt’s stairs and quickly slammed the gate, and jumped when its metallic clank reverberated through the marble entry hall.
I spun around and ran straight into Filomena.
The lantern slipped from my hand, hit the floor with a terrible crash, and slid several feet away. Its candle went out.
Both of us cried out. Then Filomena berated me. “We told you to stay out of the basement!”
“You’re holding a boy hostage down there!” I snapped back. “What is going on in this house?”
Filomena visibly flinched; then her gaze flicked toward the balcony of the grand staircase. “Hush now,” she said in a loud whisper. “You’ll wake the master.”
“I hope that I do just that,” I said, flustered and angry while continuing to battle the effects of the drug I’d been given. “He needs to know what kinds of deviants he employs—kidnappers and assaulters!”
My words upset Filomena, that much I could tell. When she struggled to answer, I repeated my previous inquiry. “Who is downstairs, and why is he chained?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Filomena flicked another glance upstairs before she looked up at the Artemis and Apollo statues in the foyer, a quiet terror in her eyes. “There’s no boy in the basement.”
She’s frightened. I just couldn’t figure out why.
And I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
I couldn’t think straight. Panic emptied my head of rational thoughts. All I knew was that I didn’t trust Filomena.
Or any of them.
But when I tried to run away from Filomena, I tripped on my own skirts and went down hard. For a brief moment, it felt like I was falling through the earth.
Falling through space and time itself.
Until the manor disappeared and darkness embraced me.
I don’t know how long I was out.
The next conscious thought I had was the realization that I was on my back and being pulled across the floor.
My head throbbed something fierce. I couldn’t see anything and had no control over my own muscles.
I was just a bag of meat. And several pairs of hands were tugging me roughly.
A memory briefly resurfaced of Mr. Hoffmann’s strange behavior when we’d arrived, and I’d dragged him through the iron gates with Filomena.
Now they were dragging me.
I was vaguely aware of being stood upright and carried along though the darkness, but I was too dizzy to care.
“Molly!” Bethany’s ghost bobbed into view briefly. “Where did you go?”
I couldn’t even be happy that she was still here with me. My head throbbed, and my thoughts were hazy. Every movement felt heavy, like my legs were stuck in syrup.
I closed my eyes for a moment and tried to listen to all the heated whispers around me.
But the next thing I knew was a feeling of warmth.
I awoke again as the servants carried me into the staff dining room, where they propped me up in one of several rickety wooden chairs that circled a utilitarian dining table.
“Ugh,” I muttered, touching the side of my head.
Was I bleeding? I’d hit my head, that much I knew.
I took a shaky breath and looked around.
The cozy room was bare-bones. Other than the dining table, a servants’ bellpull system lined one wall—several rows of brass bells labeled with small plaques, such as MASTER or PARLOR; a bell would ring here to alert the servants when a lever was pulled in the corresponding rooms. A fire roared in a fireplace, helping to lessen the waves of uncontrollable shivers that were cresting over me.
My own nursing lantern sat nearby with one of its panes of glass broken.
I tried to talk, but my tongue felt thick. I closed my eyes to concentrate.
“She’s coming to.”
“How much time do we have?”
“Minutes, probably. Fetch her some water.”
“She needs a dram of whisky.”
“Molly! Wake up! What’s wrong with you?”
The last voice was Bethany’s, I knew that much. I blinked at the faces of the three servants and one ghost who all stared down at me with wide eyes. Filomena came toward me with a tin cup. I sloppily slapped it away. “Not drinking anything y-you villains hand me.”
“Allow the girl time to get her strength back,” Mr. Hoffmann said, looking awfully concerned for a villain. When he tried to touch my face, I flinched away.
“Keep your hands off me!” I shouted.
“My dear—”
“You drugged me! And why does my neck ache? Is my head bleeding?” I asked as I tried to stand.
“Nuse Molly, please calm yourself.”
“Animals! Stay away! You won’t chain me up in that crypt! Not like you did that boy!”
I suddenly remembered Filomena denying his existence before I’d blacked out.
And the way they all gawked at me now in confusion, I began to question whether I’d even seen him at all.
Maybe he wasn’t alive. Maybe he was… a ghost?
I tried to recall if I’d gotten a decent look at his eyes to see if there was a glint reflected there.
And I should’ve looked for his shadow. I needed to check. I needed…
“Whoa, whoa!”
“Agh!”
“Help me hold her!”
A scuffle ensued. I frantically fought their hands, but I was too weak. They easily wrestled me back into my seat, where I slumped in defeat and caught my breath.
They all stared at me, chests pumping while they held down my arms. I debated kicking Mr. Hoffmann, to try for another escape, but Mrs. Culpepper pulled up a seat next to me, blocking any chance I had.
“Listen to me, Nurse Molly. You’ve had a terrible fall, and I think it’s affecting your thinking. No one has drugged or abused you.”
“You fell asleep while drinking your tea,” Mr. Hoffmann said. “I assumed you were merely bone-tired after training at the hospital all night, then the train journey.”
“We tried to wake you,” Filomena said. “Do you remember me shaking you? I offered to help you get into the bed, but you were practically unconscious.”
“The master wanted to take you on a tour of the manor, but we couldn’t rouse you,” Mrs. Culpepper said. “Poor thing, so confused. I don’t blame you one bit. It’s disorienting, waking in a strange place.”
“I thought maybe you were allergic to something in the tea,” Filomena said. “You didn’t drink much of it at all, though.”
I looked into the servants’ earnest faces. They were lying! I mean… weren’t they? I’d been training at the hospital with little sleep for months and had never once felt like I had when I’d woken in my room. And what about my neck? Why did it hurt?
Mr. Hoffmann shook his head when I asked. “I don’t know, Schwester Molly, but a reasonable guess might be that you developed a crick in your neck after sleeping upright in the chair.”
I knew what a stiff neck felt like. This was something different.
Wasn’t it?
It was so hard to judge now because the pain in my neck had been eclipsed by a rather large knot that was forming on top of my head. I gingerly touched it and winced.
“There, there,” Mrs. Culpepper said. “Let us take care of you. Perhaps—”
“What about the boy?” I blurted.
“Boy?” Mrs. Culpepper said.
“The one in the basement. Don’t tell me he isn’t there, because he spoke to me. Who is he, and why is he being held down there in the dark?”
They all peered down at me with concern, as if they were trying to judge my sanity.
Mrs. Culpepper’s nose scrunched. “A boy? My dear, there is nothing in that crypt but bones buried in coffins inside the wall. Master Voss doesn’t want anyone down there out of respect for Agnes. It is his personal space for grieving his sister.”
I knew what I’d seen. I’d heard the boy—he’d addressed me by name.
He even knew my mother’s name. I hadn’t imagined any of that.
Bethany had been there! She’d seen him. I sought confirmation in her face as she stood behind the servants, but she just gave me a pitiful look in return. Did she feel sorry for me too?
Was I going mad?
Was there something wrong with me?
Maybe the servants truly didn’t know about the boy in the crypt.
Logically that would mean that either I’d imagined the boy…
or I hadn’t, and he was a ghost. Funny that I’d much rather it be the latter than the former.
I mean, this certainly wasn’t the first time I’d been told I was imagining things I knew damn well that I’d seen.
When I’d begun seeing ghosts, at first Mammy had thought I was playing a joke on her.
Then she’d thought I was lying to get attention.
I hadn’t been lying then, and I wasn’t now. Where did that leave me?
“My dear,” Mr. Hoffmann said, placing a gentle hand on my shoulder. “I think you’ve been through a great change in your life, leaving the city hospital to come here to the countryside. Anyone in your shoes might be in a state of shock.”
“You’re so pale, and your breathing is too fast,” Filomena said, looking concerned.
Could that be it? I was merely… in a state of shock? So shocked that I’d dreamed up the boy in the crypt? My mind flicked back to patients I’d seen that had been in various states of shock. They sometimes insisted on things that weren’t true… and saw things that weren’t there.
My cheeks warmed in humiliation as a low layer of panic bubbled up. Nurses had to be strong and steady and clearheaded, and here I was, questioning my mental health. And unsure of the answer.
Everything the servants had been telling me finally began to sink in. Had I truly just embarrassed myself in front of the staff? And Mr. Voss—I’d missed the home tour? What must he think of me?