Chapter 9 #2
I’m not sure why I’m writing this to you, since I can’t imagine a circumstance in which you’ll ever read it, but you know I’ve never been one for introspection. It feels easier, somehow, to “talk” to you instead.
I miss you. I even miss Arbenhaw, if you can believe it. I thought it would feel good to escape to somewhere new, even if a tough job awaited me there, but this place…it’s hard not to feel trapped out here. And the people—well, you know how I feel about the Hundred.
I probably shouldn’t have written that last part.
I so wish I could talk about everything I want to, but I worry about this “journal” being discovered and then being forced to translate its contents.
Rexim Shearwater seems like the type to do that.
I can already tell he, and his eldest daughter, don’t like me.
But it’s not just the fact that I don’t feel welcome, and how cut off we are out here. It’s that I can’t seem to shake the feeling that everyone on this island knows something I don’t.
I can see up to the castle in the early hours from here, and sometimes I make out lights in odd places. Like the culverhouse, where they keep crows to send their letters, and one of the towers in the curtain wall, which Miss Haney says aren’t used for anything anymore.
Anyway, like I said, I shouldn’t be writing this, and it’s probably nothing—maybe the isolation is getting to me.
I really just wanted to say that I miss you. And actually, I think I already feel better for it.
Your friend, always,
Z
I read the journal entry again, then a third time, eyes burning with the beginnings of tears.
I flipped it over, hoping to find more, but there was nothing, only a couple of scrawled dates.
Maybe Zennia had intended to write more, but she’d never gotten around to it or she’d been interrupted…
and then the accident had happened. A shiver passed through me.
“Everyone on this island knows something I don’t. ”
Abruptly, footfalls sounded outside, and I shoved the paper deep into my pocket. Mawre, coming past my room. Time for chores.
On my way down the steps, I paused to stare out a window that faced west, to the castle. The curtain wall had countless towers; there was no way to tell which one Zennia had meant. And maybe she had been seeing things: the gleam of gold-tinged moonslight on glass…
But whoever had invited me to the meeting at the Veil seemed certain there was something I ought to know. And now, after reading Zennia’s letter, I was more sure than ever that I needed to be there.
—
Miss Haney had a small office on the western side of the inner ward. From there, it seemed, she helmed the running of the entire household and oversaw all the servants, including us Orha.
As I’d sped through the gardens, I’d seen Tigo, bent backed, furrowing ditches for autumn seedlings. He’d been walking slowly alongside the beds, speaking quietly, the earth churning gently. A little way off, great stones stood piled by the circular foundations of a folly he was building.
Mawre had vanished before I could greet her, no doubt to blast more laundry on a clifftop somewhere. Rhianne was likely down in the kitchens, getting an earful from Cook for being late. So I turned up at Miss Haney’s door alone, adrenaline still pumping from discovering Zennia’s letter.
“There’ll be little for you to do out in the bay until pallwater,” said the housekeeper, leading me on a brisk tour through the labyrinthine corridors. “Has anyone explained the tides to you yet?”
“Briefly,” I said, trying to remember Tigo’s “lesson.”
“Pallwater is the period of the month when the sea comes in and settles in the bay. The family take boats sometimes, and they’ll need you to propel them. Or clear part of the causeway if the sea’s shallow enough.”
I swallowed and nodded. If it ever decides to listen to me…
“No one takes boats out at archwater, of course. But our Floodmouth always accompanies the family on crossings, in case anything happens to their horses on the way.” She pursed her lips. “Well, the siblings are supposed to take you, anyway…”
Sweat broke out across my shoulders. “And if that does happen,” I said breathlessly, hurrying to keep up with her, “what exactly am I expected to do?”
She turned to me, looked down her long nose through her spectacles. “Why,” she said, “keep them alive, of course.”
I blinked rapidly as she turned down another passage. Was that why Zennia had died out there? She’d put her all into saving Emment and had nothing left to save herself?
“This is one of the libraries,” said Miss Haney, beckoning me past a series of doors. “And the Master’s study…”
I paused, glancing in. Rexim wasn’t there, but I glimpsed ceiling-high bookshelves, a vast, shining desk, a leather-covered chair. Pamphlets and parchments were strewn across the desktop. Letters. Accounts. Perhaps a diary.
I knew one son was a profligate gambler. What else might I learn from that desk, from those papers? Something more about Zennia, perhaps? I was certain Tigo and Rhianne had been hiding something…
“Do keep up,” Miss Haney prompted, and I started, then trailed her to another door.
“Until pallwater,” she continued, “nearly all your duties will be here in the castle or out on the grounds.” We exited into a wide, muddy courtyard, overlooked by four stories of mullioned windows.
There was a well at its center, a huge wooden vat, barrels and buckets stacked in wonky piles.
“Tigo will need your help with irrigation. We need water from the well at all hours of the day. The latrines, of course…” She broke off, looking apologetic.
“Then there’s the laundry, and a lot of it, I’m afraid.
” She seemed harried, a few strands of hair coming loose.
“You Orha…well, you’re gods-sent, in my eyes.
We’re all very pleased to have a Floodmouth again. ”
I looked at her. Of all the people on Bower Island, here was the one it was perhaps most vital to please.
Miss Haney would no doubt report back to Rexim.
If I was going to impress enough to see out this week—to be able to get to my meeting in Port Rhorstin—I would need the housekeeper’s trust above anyone’s.
I drew myself up, surveying the courtyard. “I’ll get started right away. A barrel of water to last the morning. And I’ll fetch the breakfast dishes for washing, and speak to the maids and valets about the family’s clothes.”
She looked at me, relief softening her stiff shoulders. “Very good,” she said. “And…thank you, Corith. The work is long and tiring here, but I’m sure you’ll find it as rewarding as the others do.”
I forced as genuine a smile as I could. “I’m so grateful for this opportunity. It’s a placement my classmates could only dream of.” Parroting Instructor Caerig was galling, but it was worth it to see the approval in Miss Haney’s eyes.
She hesitated, flicking her gaze to the windows. “The Master of the House has asked me to pay special attention to your performance these first few weeks.”
“I won’t disappoint you,” I said firmly. “Nor him.”
She nodded, gratified, and turned to leave.
“Is there a Mistress of the House?” I ventured before she could disappear.
She turned to me in astonishment. “Has no one told you?”
When I shook my head, she stepped closer, lowered her voice.
“Belisama Shearwater died after having Miss Catua. Childbed fever. Never mention her name. It hit the three eldest very hard indeed. Master Llir was but four years old, Miss Vercha six. And Master Emment…well, he hasn’t been the same since.
” Her gaze wandered; she pressed her lips together.
“A very great shame. The heir to the Brigancy…”
With a shudder, I tried to imagine being raised solely by Rexim Shearwater. He had probably palmed off most of his offspring’s care onto his servants.
Miss Haney swept away through a narrow door, and I approached the well, gazing down into its depths.
This water was glass clear, sitting lazily at the bottom, and though it took a few tries, it responded to my entreaties.
Miss Haney’s confidence in me had calmed my rattled nerves, and this was a task we’d practiced hundreds of times at Arbenhaw.
This water, drawn from the rock below, was far closer to the cold springs I’d worked with for a decade than the violence, the frenzy, of those archwater waves.
When the groundwater rose, spilling into my waiting bucket, hot relief sparked briefly in my chest before I tamped it down and concentrated on my chores.
My muscles still burned from my climb, and my palms stung where they gripped the handles of the buckets, but before long I found a kind of rhythm in the work.
As I coaxed water into the vat, preparing to churn laundry, I caught movement behind a window on the second floor. A figure was passing, and they paused, glancing down at me. It was Llir, his smooth features distorted by the leaded glass.
I forced myself not to be the first to break the stare. To give every impression that this morning’s test hadn’t bothered me. And after a few long seconds, he turned and disappeared.