Chapter 23
Nin didn’t stay in my room much longer. I was saddened to see him go.
Saddened to even let go of his hand, and then I felt silly for caring.
But should I have? He had talked to his sister about me—me!
For all he’d told me that night, I wasn’t sure why that was sticking in my head. And warming my heart.
He thanked me again for stitching up his shoulder, and I asked him to return the next night so that I could reattach the sleeve of his shirt.
Such a trivial thing, considering everything I’d just learned.
But I didn’t know how to sort it all out, and mending his shirt was the one thing I could actually do.
“You must not let on that you know Voss is actually dead,” he told me before he left. “Not to anyone. Especially not Kesh. I don’t know what the occultist will do to you if he suspects that you know, but I do know what Kesh is capable of, and you shouldn’t test it.”
I didn’t plan to.
After Nin left, I considered calling for Bethany, but Nin’s warning to stay quiet about what I’d learned was stuck in my mind. Maybe he hadn’t meant for me to stay silent in front of Bethany. I wasn’t sure. It was only one of a thousand worries crowding my head.
I had trouble getting to sleep but finally woke for good around dawn, immediately dreading my morning visit to the master’s chambers.
I was tired and anxious, and even in the light of morning, nothing made sense.
But I managed to get myself going and headed downstairs for breakfast, keeping to myself as best I could. Until it was time for the vitals check.
“You look a fright,” Mrs. Culpepper commented as she accompanied me upstairs to the master’s rooms. “A girl as young as you shouldn’t have dark bags under her eyes. Did you not sleep?”
“I had a queasy stomach last night,” I told her. “Kept me up.”
Mrs. Culpepper shook her head in sympathy. “I wonder why? We all ate the same food.”
“Sometimes these things are mysteries,” I said, and she agreed, accepting my lie as truth. All I had to do was act naturally, and I’d get through this.
But my cool composure vanished as soon as the housekeeper opened the golden doors. The headache-causing scent of incense floated out of the master’s quarters alongside the aggressive barking of his hounds.
“Peppi! Kokki! Calm down, you beasts.”
I caught a glimpse of the master’s silk dressing gown, and my pulse rocketed.
“Good morning, Master Voss,” the housekeeper said cheerfully. “Hope you slept well. I brought your nurse to see you.”
Voss sat at his desk with a new stack of books in front of him. He lifted his head toward me and smiled softly. “Ah, Nurse Molly. My savior.”
“You’re looking…” In truth, he looked pink-cheeked and full of optimism. “Quite well. You must feel better since your coughing attack.”
“Oh, I do. So much better. That was just a blip. Today is a new day. Isn’t that right, Mrs. Culpepper?”
The housekeeper was making the rounds through his rooms, picking up discarded clothing and straightening books. “Every day is a chance to start again, sir,” she told him.
“Precisely,” he said, rapping his knuckles atop the book he was reading.
“In fact, I feel too good to stay inside. Look out there.” He swiveled in his chair to stare out his balcony doors.
“It’s a lovely day, not too cool. Gorgeous sunshine.
I think I’ll spend some time outside doing some shooting. ”
Everything inside me shriveled. At the mention of “shooting” all I could see in my head was the bloodied arrow shaft I’d pulled out of Nin’s shoulder. Maybe the master didn’t mean that, because he continued to talk about the rabbits he could shoot for dinner.
“I’ll bet I can get us four or five before noon,” he said confidently.
“Perhaps you should take it easy today,” I told him. “So you won’t have a relapse.”
He gave me a dismissive gesture. “Weren’t you the one saying how important fresh air is for my condition?”
I nodded as I took out my stethoscope. “Let’s check your breathing first, yes?”
“Please do, Nurse Molly. Please do…” He scooted his chair away from the desk to allow me access.
Why was he so cheerful? Was this an excessive amount of cheer for him?
I felt paranoid and skittish around him, and no matter how many times I told myself to stay calm, I couldn’t stop my fingers from trembling.
Please don’t let him notice.
Whoever you are inside there…
It struck me for the first time since talking with Nin last night that if an occultist really had killed Charles Voss and taken over his body, they’d done more than that. They’d “inherited” his wealth. This estate. Everything.
Was that truly possible?
I banished the thought. I couldn’t allow him to think I was onto him. But if he suspected anything unusual in my mood, I certainly couldn’t tell. He continued to remain jovial while I took his temperature, checked his pulse, and listened to his lungs.
“All good?” he asked, hopeful.
“Your lungs make a snuffling sound, which means they haven’t recovered completely,” I said honestly. “But everything else seems fine. Let’s go ahead and give you your morning dose of cough medicine, and once that’s kicked in, if you still feel ready for shooting outside, then you may do so.”
He clapped his hands and rubbed them together enthusiastically. “Wonderful. Spoon me up, Nurse Molly.”
How easily he said my name, but I didn’t know his. I knew I shouldn’t trust a word coming out of his mouth. If he said he was going to shoot rabbits, I needed to assume that he was going to shoot Nin, and act accordingly.
I suppose that’s why I gave him a bigger dose of the boozy syrup, even though he wasn’t experiencing a coughing attack. I truly hadn’t meant to fill up the spoon, but now that the red liquid shimmered far above the dosage measuring line, I didn’t want to dump it back into the bottle.
“Open wide,” I murmured, and fed him the liquid.
“Woo!” he exclaimed upon swallowing it down. “That’s the ticket. Culpepper, tell Hoffmann to get up here and help me get dressed. And I’d like some hot tea. Get what’s-her-name up here with a cup.”
“Filomena,” I provided, packing up my tools.
He ignored me and spoke to Mrs. Culpepper. “I might even feel like eggs. Tell the kitchen girl that.”
“Yes, sir.” Mrs. Culpepper rushed to finish her chores, and as I stood to leave, she handed me two metal wastebaskets, whispering, “Can you take these to the dumbwaiter and send them down?”
I had to juggle my medical bag to accommodate the wastebaskets, but I didn’t mind helping if it got me out of the master’s rooms faster.
So I quietly left while the housekeeper went over the master’s schedule with him, and I lugged the trash down the Menagerie Hall.
The dumbwaiter was built into the wall, and it looked the same as any other one I’d seen—just a metal door with a latch that, when opened, revealed a small platform inside a vertical shaft.
Crank the handwheel, and a system of pullies made the platform descend into the shaft.
However, there wasn’t enough space inside to fit both wastebaskets, so I emptied one into the other to save space.
As I did, shaking the wastebasket, a piece of paper fell to the floor. I bent to pick it up and started to shove it back into the trash can. Until I saw the handwriting on the envelope.
It was mine. My letter to Sister Helen! I quickly flipped the envelope over to find that it had already been opened.
And was empty.
There was also no postmark, so that must’ve meant that the master had retrieved my letter before it could be mailed. How, I didn’t know, but here it was. He’d procured it somehow, with money or magic, and he knew what I’d written about him.
The carpet below my feet seemed to melt away as panic raged inside my chest.
But when I heard Mrs. Culpepper’s voice from somewhere behind me, I quickly shoved the envelope into my skirt pocket and cranked the handwheel to send the dumbwaiter down.
He now knows that I’m aware of Nin. I recalled what I’d written about Nin in the letter—I hadn’t known his name then, so I’d just written that there was a boy in the basement.
But surely the master had put two and two together.
After all, he’d accused the servants of going down there just yesterday.
Did he now suspect that it actually had been me, visiting Nin?
Apart from that, I’d written Sister Helen about the master’s occult books, so he now knew I didn’t trust him.
Not good. Not good at all.
Was that the true reason for his jovial mood today—he thought he’d beaten me at chess? The only advantage I had now was that he probably didn’t know that I’d found the envelope in his trash.
As my heart raced, I watched Mrs. Culpepper leave the master’s rooms and head down the grand staircase.
When I’d finished with the dumbwaiter, I strode back to my room and tossed my medical bag onto the bed, trying to control my panic.
I could either sit here and spin my wheels, waiting for the master to take action against me, or I could do something.
And the only thing helpful I knew was to find Charles Voss’s ghost. I just had to now.
That’s all there was to it. And there was only one person right now who I could ask for help.
“Bethany!” I called out in a loud whisper.
“No need to yell,” she replied from behind me.
I whipped around, a little relieved to see her. A little unsure of how much to tell her.
“What’s going on?” she asked, eyes wide.
I blew out a hard breath. “Too long a story to tell you right now. But I need to know something. Remember when you told me about that No-Face Man you saw?”
She made herself smaller. “What about him? I haven’t seen him since I told you.”
“Okay, but this is really important. Where did you see him?”