Chapter 6 Maeve
Maeve
As one day of travel bled into the next, Maeve had quickly realized that the thrill of leaving the Abbey hadn’t been all it was cracked up to be. In the last hour, as she urged the horse up one hill and down another, she’d had to stop twice to vomit.
The unforgiving scenery hadn’t helped. Not the heather whipping at her calves nor the headache cropping up somewhere between crossing a frigid mountain stream and skirting beside a darkly forested valley that she swore she felt eyes watching her from.
To distract herself, she’d tried to picture the Goddenwood lurking just between the folds of the hills.
How she would crest one rocky foothill and see the fabled village like a pearl, all gleaming roofs and tidy streets.
Though she wasn’t a saint, a warm bed would be waiting for her surely – wouldn’t it?
There would be bakeries and bookshops and expansive windows she could paint in front of.
Every wish would be answered. Every secret prayer a reality.
She’d find a sense of home in the Goddenwood that over a decade at the Abbey hadn’t been able to provide.
Somewhere to belong. Fully and truly. Finally.
But even her strongest imaginings couldn’t free the weight from her belly, as much as she tried.
The Abbey was counting on her skill and abilities to fulfil her assignment. Failing wasn’t an option, not if she ever wanted to see her home again.
Maeve had never considered herself particularly courageous, but as she crossed through the open gate onto Jude’s property, she couldn’t help but feel her anchor had been pulled away, leaving her to face the storm alone without Ezra to guide her.
She had to be brave.
No other option remained.
Her foot sank into the mud as she slid off the horse, suctioning her right boot straight off. ‘Oh, by the saints—’ she grumbled, reaching for the gate to the imposing house, no more than a shadow silhouetted against the bruised plum sky.
A name was etched into a plaque – áNHAGA. An unfamiliar word in a language long forgotten.
The horse trailed behind, nosing between her shoulder blades as she tied him to the fence. Maeve shivered as the wind slapped the exposed skin of her neck and wrists. She tilted her head back to face the house. She had to see what was waiting out here in the middle of nowhere.
ánhaga stared down in greeting, dark but for a single candle flickering in a downstairs window.
A blackbird launched off eaves into the sky.
It hovered in place, suspended by wind and rain, before changing course for the roll of the moors barely visible through the mist. The only hopeful sight in the otherwise desolate, foreboding image introducing itself to Maeve as her new home.
The sooner she finished her painting, the sooner she could leave.
Months, the storm seemed to howl. It could be months before the paint was dry enough to travel, longer if she factored in the sketching time. And who knew how long it would take to deliver the Abbey Jude’s secrets… or what she might find in the process.
Fear burned up, hot and bright.
She shoved a hand into her pocket. The smooth contour of a coin greeted her.
An icon, though she wasn’t sure of what saint.
She ran her fingers over it, working a prayer into the motion.
Strength, guidance. A shoulder to lean on.
She had to believe it would be answered, even here in this forgotten place.
She approached the steps leading towards the door. Stopped.
A silhouette waited in the shadows.
Silence pulsed like the hum of energy before lightning struck. An animal fear launched her heart into her throat as she took one step closer, then another. For a moment, she could have sworn she’d met him before.
The intensity in his knife-sharp features sent a curl of fear racing up her spine. This stranger couldn’t be Jude. A saint, even one such as him, wouldn’t come out to greet her like this, in an ill-fitting coat and mud-scuffed boots. Didn’t Ezra mention someone else living here? A housekeeper?
‘Get inside.’ His voice was a low grate. ‘I’ll take care of the horse later.’
The blackness lingering behind the half-open door swallowed him as he disappeared into the house.
Maeve forced herself to follow, tracking mud on the rug spread over the hall as she shrugged off her waterlogged cloak and single remaining boot, leaving them crumpled by the door.
She was too off-balanced by his animosity to do anything else with them.
Her fingers trembled with a mixture of cold and pounding, tremulous energy.
He reappeared like a spectral figure in the corner, carrying an oil lamp and a blanket.
‘Thank you,’ she murmured, wrapping the blanket around her shoulders. ‘It was a long journey. I’m a bit… damp.’ She tried for a laugh. Anything to dispel the horrible tension. ‘As you can see.’
The housekeeper ignored her, his gaze fixed just over her left shoulder. Hostility radiated from him. ‘Your room’s this way.’
She prickled. Not that she’d expected a warm welcome, but the barely leashed fury in his eyes was unwarranted and entirely unwelcome.
Gritting her teeth, Maeve followed him towards a staircase tucked in the corner.
Like its exterior, the inside of the house was cold, draughty, and reeking of neglect.
Her breath fogged in the frigid air. Why didn’t the housekeeper do something about the state of the home? Wasn’t that what he was here for?
And where was Jude?
She hadn’t expected him to greet her at the door with biscuits and tea, but surely he was curious about who the Abbey had sent to his home. Though hopefully not too curious, given her task.
‘Will I be meeting the saint soon?’ Maeve asked as the housekeeper led her up another flight of stairs. His steps faltered for a heartbeat before he continued. Silently.
She scowled.
Another staircase, several dark-panelled halls and shut doors later, and the housekeeper stopped, shoving open the door to a small, sparse room.
A window between a wardrobe and the wall let in a weak flash of moonlight as the clouds shifted across the sky.
He placed the oil lamp on the bedside table, illuminating the space as Maeve stepped inside.
It wasn’t dissimilar to her room back at the Abbey.
The rough-hewn floorboards and bare plaster walls were a little foreboding, but nothing she couldn’t work with.
A faded blue quilt covered the bed, reminding her of the sea.
The endless ebb and flow of the waves she could hear from her room were gone, replaced by a whistle of the wind and a creak of floorboards.
Maeve peeled the blanket off her damp skin before it could soak through, grimacing at the heavy weight of the dress plastered to her skin.
Her hair hung in a matted rope down her back.
She didn’t think she’d ever been so cold and miserable.
She pulled at the dress’s collar as she considered asking the housekeeper if he could help her draw a bath.
Exhaustion hazed her senses. Sleep first, bath later.
Somewhere behind her, she heard a wooden scrape – the housekeeper opening a drawer, or maybe shutting the door. She decided she didn’t care. The dress needed to come off. Now.
She wrenched at the buttons, loosening just enough to scrape the dress over her head, dropping it in a puddle at her feet. Her stockings came next. The damp slide of the wool against her saddle-sore legs was unbearable. Her chemise wasn’t much drier, but at least she was free from the dress.
‘Do you mind?’
Maeve whirled.
The housekeeper stood wild-eyed before he schooled his face. ‘At least wait until I leave before disrobing. Self-awareness is clearly a difficult concept for you, but I implore you to try.’
She crossed her arms over her chest, half in embarrassment, half in defiance.
Darkness from the hall swept over his frame, coaxing the blackness of his clothing into something deeper as he levelled her gaze.
The light from the oil lamp swelled, expanding around him. Her tongue felt unwieldy in her mouth.
‘I don’t—’ she tried. ‘The dress…’
The light spread wider, like sun through widening curtains. Gold flickered at her peripherals.
‘Go to bed,’ the housekeeper said. His voice was muffled and far away.
The edge of the bed hit her thighs. It welcomed her down, feather pillows pooling around her face as exhaustion consumed her senses.
Far above, higher than she thought possible, the wooden slats of the ceiling expanded and condensed.
They curved, forming a circle. Hands. A sun.
As Maeve closed her eyes and let sleep claim her, the image settled over her like a heavy blanket. Stifling and comforting all at once.
The morning dawned even greyer than the day before.
Maeve stared up at the ceiling with her palms flat on the mattress, her heartbeat in her fingertips.
The linen was soft with age and warm from her body.
She wasn’t sure where her bag had gone. Perhaps the housekeeper had left it sitting outside in the mud.
Her paints would be ruined, a fact that was more concerning than everything else put together.
She sat up.
The quilt wasn’t fully blue as she’d thought last night.
Squares of cobalt and cerulean bordered emerald and olive, each patterned with a subtle white fleck.
Idly, Maeve considered the blackbird she had seen last night.
Oil-slick feathers had featured in her dreams. She’d dip her brush in black iron oxide to mark its shadows if she painted it. She’d use the same for the housekeeper.
Overnight, her chemise had dried in sticky patches against her sternum and between her shoulders. Mildew filled her nose when she brought the neck of it to her face. She’d need to find her bag and bathe, which meant leaving the fragile safety of her room.
Her memory of the previous night was hazy with exhaustion and embarrassment over how brazenly she’d shed her clothes, but she somewhat recognized the dim hallway and the staircase at the end as she stepped from the room.
Silence lingered like a vapour. Unlit sconces were placed at even intervals down the walls, one between each closed door.
More bedrooms? A washroom? Closets? The house was far larger than it had looked from the outside; too much space for just a saint and his housekeeper.
She stopped at the last one and tried the handle.
It held fast. When she crouched to peer through the keyhole, only a long stretch of empty floorboards greeted her.
Moving on, she took the stairs down a level, stopping when they tapered off to a wide expanse of checker-boarded tile.
Paintings of the surrounding moors and other pastoral scenes hung on the walls.
They were rudimentary in style, but something calming lingered in the desolate depictions.
A door in the middle of the far wall caught her attention, urging her closer.
There was no sign of the housekeeper. She was alone.
Anticipation slicked her palms. Perhaps this was a good place to begin her prying. Slowly, she knelt, wrapping her fingers around the brass handle. It was warm to the touch.
Eight years ago, she’d knelt beside another closed door like this one, hadn’t she?
She’d been alone in her wing of the Abbey, the other students off attending their designated areas of study.
She hadn’t been feeling well and had been given special permission to rest, a rare treat in her regimented life.
She remembered smoke seeping under her closed bedroom door.
The door handle had been hot enough to make her flinch back and inspect her palm before she’d put two and two together and screamed fire.
Shuddering now, she ran her hand up her forearm, knowing the skin there was unmarked despite her memory of burning flesh.
Either her injuries hadn’t been as bad as she remembered, or the burning flesh had been a nightmare.
She tried to turn the handle again. Locked. She looked closer.
Was it glowing?
Something hummed in the back of her skull, a begging to open the door.
If only she could turn the handle; if only it weren’t locked. She needed to get inside, she must—
Hands shoved her from the door. ‘Get back.’
Maeve gasped as someone pulled her upright and pushed her against the wall so hard her teeth knocked together. She closed her eyes against the light that marred her vision with streaks of black and blue. Hands held her against the wall as she fought to peel open her lids, finally succeeding.
The housekeeper stared back, eyes wild.
‘What the fuck are you doing?’