Chapter 8
I didn’t need to consider it anymore. I knew it was him as well as I knew my own name. I just didn’t know why he was down there.
Scared and confused, I pushed the chair in my room against the door to block it and sat up in bed, watching and waiting.
Yet, despite my best intentions, I ended up dozing off while sitting guard.
Filomena’s knock woke me the next morning, when the light in my quarters was gray and diffused, and the air was chillier than a butcher’s icehouse.
“I’m awake,” I answered thickly, rubbing my hands together to get them warm. The knot on my head hurt so much that it felt like my brain had shriveled inside my skull to get away from the pain. At least my neck no longer bothered me.
“Breakfast will be served within the hour downstairs,” Filomena’s voice said through my room’s door. “In the meantime, Mr. Hoffmann would like you to get ready and meet him outside the master’s quarters, where you’ll begin your nursing duties.”
“Fine,” I said through the door.
I paused there, waiting until the sound of her footsteps was weaker than my pounding heartbeat.
Then I removed the chair I’d wedged under the handle, crossed the room, and peered out the window to find the sun shining as wind rustled colorful leaves clinging to tree branches.
The curtains on Master Voss’s balcony were closed.
If I’d thought that a night’s sleep might give me insight into the terrors I’d experienced last night, I was wrong.
I was still unsure about trusting the servants and didn’t understand how I’d ended up working in a manor where a ghost I’d been seeing half my life was somehow chained.
How do you chain a bloody ghost?
I had no clue. And what’s more, I wasn’t sure how I’d find out.
The servants were of no use, which only left Voss.
But I had no idea how to bring any of this up.
Sir, are you aware you have a ghost chained up in your crypt?
Probably not the best tactic. Maybe a less direct conversation with him would clarify things.
“Bethany?” I called in a low voice, glancing around the room. I found her stretching in the unmade bed, as if she’d slept there all night.
“Is it time for our shift?” she asked lazily. When she sat up, she wore a surprised look on her face. “Oh! We’re not at the hospital, I forgot,” she said sheepishly. “How wonderful!”
“I need to use the lavatory. You coming? I could use a lookout.”
“Sure thing. Is it as fancy as the rest of the house?”
“Let’s find out…”
After poking my head out of my room and finding the long corridor empty, I quickly made use of the nearby lavatory and cleaned myself up.
When I felt put together enough to be presentable, I grabbed the medical bag out of my room and told Bethany, “I need you to stay here for a little bit. I need to go see Voss in his quarters—”
She jumped up and down. “Ooh! Oh! I want to come!”
“No,” I told her firmly. “Not yet. Not until…” Well, not until I could make a sound judgement about Voss.
At this point, I was even beginning to doubt whether Voss had actually seen Bethany that night in the hospital.
“He doesn’t know you’re here with me. Let me feel things out before you show yourself to the master of the house, yeah? ”
With a pout, Bethany finally agreed not to follow me. I’d call for her when I was done.
Steeling myself, I warily headed down the passage and turned onto the Menagerie Hall. All the way at the end, outside Master Voss’s room, Mr. Hoffman sat in a wingback chair, reading a book.
My heart thudded nervously.
“Good morning,” he said in a cheerful tone that sounded a little forced. “Hope you were able to rest? How is your head?”
It hurt enough to make me wish I’d taken an aspirin. “I’m fair, thank you.”
“I’m glad to hear that. Oh! I have something that may brighten your mood.” He bent down and pulled out something from behind the wingback chair.
My nursing lantern.
“I repaired the glass this morning,” he said, holding it out for me to take.
Our gazes connected, and I spotted anxiety behind the cheer in his eyes. Was he nervous that I was going to demand answers from his employer about what had happened to me yesterday—and what I’d seen in the basement? Well, maybe I would.
“Thank you,” I said coolly, accepting the lantern.
“Take care not to drop it again.” A hint of warning lingered beneath his words, and that put me on edge.
But, like an actor entering a spotlight, Mr. Hoffmann brightened considerably, flashing me a smile, and gestured toward the golden doors in front of us.
“All right, then. Master Voss is eager to see you.” In a hushed voice, he added, “His health is fragile. Please don’t cause additional stress by mentioning anything… unnecessary.”
Oh, he was referring to last night, was he? A little anger flared inside my chest, and I started to open my mouth and argue, but a glance at the golden doors made me hesitate. It probably wasn’t the best idea to debate Mr. Hoffmann right outside the master’s quarters.
“How are you doing today?” I asked him quizzically. “You seem to have completely recovered from your earlier illness when we were traveling here.”
“Being at the manor is therapeutic,” he said, softly smiling as if that logically explained his condition or the miraculous recovery he’d made overnight.
But I wasn’t going to argue with him. So I just nodded politely before patting my medical bag. “Okay, then. Guess I’m ready to work.”
“Very good,” he said, sounding genuinely relieved. “Come inside, please…”
Nerves rattling, I took a deep breath and followed him through the golden doors into Master Voss’s quarters.
A narrow entrance area created a bottleneck near the door.
It opened into a large multiroom suite that was draped in red velvet and framed in rosewood.
Clove-scented smoke rose from sticks of incense that burned in several small bows around the room.
The smoke stung my eyes, and to make it worse, his rooms were extremely warm.
No wonder the rest of the house was chilly; all the gas seemed to be flowing into this suite.
In addition to the gas wall sconces, all turned up high, and the incense, there was a fire blazing in a fancy fireplace and countless beeswax candles burning in small candelabras, all adding to the smoky haze in the room.
Overlapping Moroccan rugs with bold geometric designs were scattered over the floor.
And as we made our way further into the suite, through an arched doorway and into the area with the bed, I spied the curtained balcony that I could see from my quarters.
A sunken area contained a rolling chalkboard on wheels and a messy desk piled with old books, and hundreds more lining tall shelves on the back wall.
In the center of all this was the enormous canopied bed I’d seen from the window of my room. And nearby, sitting in a wingback chair in front of the fireplace, was Mr. Voss, wearing a silk brocade dressing gown of gold and black.
Lounging near his feet were two monstrous beasts—ferocious-looking dogs with brindled brown coats and black faces—wearing heavy chains for collars. Both of them barked at me so aggressively, I retreated a step, half terrified that they would lunge.
“Kokki! Peppi! Down, you goblins!” Voss said.
The dogs obeyed, and after a few extra barks for good measure, they settled back down.
“Miss O’Rinn,” Voss said in a cheer-filled voice, waving for me to approach. “Please ignore Peppi and Kokki. They haven’t been the same since Agnes passed.”
The pair of hounds that were in the painting of Agnes… “These are her hunting dogs? Impressive. What breed of dog is this?”
“Dutch shepherds, from very fine stock. They prefer women to men, so you don’t need to worry.”
“Oh, okay.” They looked like they were considering the best way to eat my face.
“They were better behaved for Agnes…,” he said as a brief darkness clouded his eyes.
He shook it away and smiled at me. “Never mind them. Good morning, my dear. I was informed that you had quite the reaction to the house tea yesterday. Feeling better today? Rested now? How is your head? You aren’t thinking of going back to the city, are you?
Because I can assure you that what you’ve experienced is very irregular, and that I will go to any lengths to ensure that you feel comfortable in my home. ”
“Uh…” I didn’t know how to answer all his questions. His upbeat mood and knowledge about yesterday’s events took me by surprise. The servants had told him everything?
Had they told him I’d seen the boy in the basement?
My ghost.
The way he was calmly waiting for an answer, eyes wide with expectation, made me feel silly. Like he was the reasonable one and I was the dummy. What was I going to do here, confront him about a chained-up ghost? I couldn’t say the g-word in front of a rich gentleman like this.
Then again, no other rich gentleman had ever been able to see Bethany. I recalled the shock I’d felt in the hospital exam room a month ago when he was waiting for Mr. Hoffmann to get stitched. Maybe I’d imagined that, too?
After last night, I really didn’t know anymore.
“I’m better today,” I told him, warily eying the big dogs as they watched me. “Though, I’m still hazy about the tea…”
“I really do believe it may have been the hibiscus,” Mr. Hoffmann said. “Mrs. Culpepper said that one of the former staff broke out in hives after drinking the house tea. Maybe we should have a new blend made up.”
“Splendid idea, Hoffmann,” the master said. “Perhaps we’ll go into town this week. In the meantime, maybe you should only drink plain Ceylon tea, Miss O’Rinn?”