Chapter 3 The Groundskeeper
The Groundskeeper
Iwake before the sun. Or rather, before the light—because in this latitude, in this season, the sun barely wakes at all.
I dress in silence, pulling on the same black slacks as yesterday, the same sweater only a different color—cream, instead of pale pink—and the same boots.
I’m misguidedly hoping repetition can conjure a sense of order or control, because right now, I feel none.
This house is overwhelming. I live in a one bedroom apartment back in the city, I take public transportation and get cheap takeout on the way home most nights.
A five-course meal served on fine china and drinks in the library, and an escort to my bedroom because I might get lost . . . all of that seems absurd.
And then Larkin. I have no idea what to make of him.
I hadn’t even known he existed and now it seems I’m stuck with him for the time being.
It took me about one second to clock his annoyance that I inherited the estate and not him.
And he clearly doesn’t have any plans on leaving any time soon.
But will he cause actual problems for me, or just be a spoiled nuisance? That remains to be seen.
I refuse to think about the way his hand brushed me, or the look in his eyes when he said good night. I would absolutely not think about the jolt of electricity I felt when he smirked and I could feel his breath on my face.
I was drunk. That’s all it was. Anything else is a complication I don’t need. Or worse. Sabotage? I wouldn’t put it past him. The man was smarmy as all get out.
I look in the mirror and wince. My face looks pale, eyes ghosted with fatigue, lips pressed thin. I swipe on some tinted lip balm, hoping that makes me look less dead. The air in the Blue Room is too warm and too still. I crack the window and inhale a brief shock of frost before heading out.
I navigate the empty house by memory and guesswork.
Every board remembers my footfall. The grand staircase exhales a cold draft against my ankles, as if disapproving of my early departure.
In the vestibule, the lantern from last night is sputtering, a single burst of flame trapped in glass.
I don’t bother with a coat—just grab my scarf, wrap it around my neck, and step into the cold.
Outside, the sky is a gray, the horizon cinched shut by a band of cloud. Hemlock House rises behind me, its gables and chimneys serrating the bruise-colored dawn.
Ahead is the garden, or what passes for it in winter. The first crunch of gravel under my boots sounds indecently loud. I keep walking, hands thrust in my pockets, pulse echoing in the unyielding air.
Beyond the drive, the formal gardens extend in a geometry of paths and terraces, all scored with ice and tangled with the corpses of last summer’s annuals.
The boxwoods are clipped but brittle, their leaves fracture at my touch.
The flower beds are scabbed over with frost, and the only color comes from a few sullen hellebores, their faces drooping toward the frozen mulch.
It’s a catalog of absence, a museum of dead things. Now this is where I feel at home.
The path leads me toward the old stone wall at the garden’s edge. There, I find a half-hearted border of perennials—foxglove spires, dry as parchment, and clumps of something that might have been lily of the valley, now bleached bone-white by the cold.
But there are other, less savory things, too. A stand of monkshood, its stalks rattling in the wind, and clusters of belladonna berries shriveled but persistent, cling to their stems like beads of old blood.
Hemlock itself—yes, actual hemlock, I note with an interior snort—thrives in the shelter of the wall, white and green and feathery . . . and deeply poisonous.
I wonder if Aunt Maeve had this all planted herself, or if some ancestral sadist designed this garden as a warning or a dare.
I run my fingers over the brittle leaves, remembering stories of Socrates and poisonings and women in capes harvesting roots by moonlight.
The air is so cold it burns the lining of my nose. I feel sharp, awake, adrenalized.
A movement, sudden and deliberate, interrupts my cataloguing, startling me half to death.
From between two yews emerges a man. Not Larkin—this one is even taller, broader, I can tell even with his body crouched.
His head brushes the arch of a trellis that even I have to duck beneath and I wonder how he managed to make himself compact enough to walk through it.
He wears a waxed canvas jacket and work pants, the cuffs stiff with mud and rime. His face is as battered as the stone wall behind him, all planes and scars and dark beard. His eyes, when they fix on me, are a shade of gray so pale they look feral. Wolfish.
I freeze. Not out of fear anymore, but because his presence is so utterly at odds with the dead calm of the garden. He stares at me, then at the stalk of hemlock I’m holding, then back at me. His hands are gloveless, big as spades, the knuckles scarred and red from cold.
I realize I’ve been holding my breath.
“Out early,” he says, his deep voice the sound of gravel under boot.
I drop the hemlock. “Couldn’t sleep.”
He takes this in, unsmiling. “You shouldn’t touch that. Gets under the nails.”
I wipe my hand on my pants, embarrassed and defensive. “I restore paintings for a living. There’s worse stuff in oil pigment.”
He gives a noncommittal grunt, like he’s weighing the truth of that. I expect him to move on, but he just stands there, letting the cold pile up between us.
“You’re the new one,” he says.
I blink. “I guess.”
He scans my face, as if searching for something in particular—a resemblance, a flaw. “Thought you’d be taller,” he says.
I laugh at that. So unexpected. “Sorry to disappoint.”
A long silence. He doesn’t move, but I can feel the temperature drop another degree. I glance past him, looking for a way around, but he blocks the path without even trying.
“Lane Sullivan,” he says, after another beat.
I remember the name from Mrs. Whitby’s tour, the groundskeeper, the one who “knew every secret passage and crack in the walls.” Up close, he looks less like an employee and more like an engine someone left out in the weather for too long. Battered. Rusted. But still so solid.
“Nora Vale,” I say.
He nods, once. Then, abruptly, he turns away, as if I’ve already bored him. He begins to examine the yew branches, snapping off a few dead twigs and tossing them aside. I watch his hands, thick-fingered but oddly precise, stripping away debris with the same intent as a surgeon exposing a wound.
“Do you always work in the dark?” I ask, because I can’t bear the silence.
“Sun’s bad for some things out here,” he says. “Winter’s better for cutting.”
The yews look no healthier for his attention, but he keeps at it, methodical and relentless.
“How long have you worked here?”
“Grew up here. My father used to tend the grounds. I’ve been keeper about ten years or so.” He shrugs. “Haven’t set foot off the property in damn near four.”
Huh?
“You haven’t left the property in four years?” That can’t be right.
He grunts and nods.
I want to ask about . . . everything. Doctors appointments or family visits or going out to the pub. Picking up groceries or, I don’t know, seeing a movie. Anything normal people do.
I decide that surely he’s fucking with me, but when he looks up I sense nothing but honesty in his eyes.
Where Larkin’s vibes are all cunning and devious, Lane has an honesty about him. Like he doesn’t care enough to make up any kind of lie or put on any airs. As if he will simply grunt and move on if he has no inclination to speak about anything.
But I remind myself this is just my first impression and I could be deadly wrong. Though I’m rarely ever wrong when it comes to first impressions.
“Do you ever take a break?” I ask.
He glances at me, a flicker of amusement surfacing for a fraction of a second. “I did, once. Didn’t like it.”
I hide a giggle that attempted to burst out of my mouth and shuffle my feet. The cold has found its way into my boots. I look at my hands, half-expecting to see the hemlock staining them, some dark mark of contamination.
“What happens if you touch it too much?” I ask. I mean the plant, but also not.
He shrugs. “It weakens you. Gets in your blood. Not right away, though. Takes time.” His gaze rests on me, and I sense a double meaning, whether intended or not.
I want to laugh it off, but there’s something in the way he says it that makes my skin prick.
“Well, I’d like to explore the gardens more. I know it’s winter, but plants are a special interest of mine. I’ll be around for at least a few weeks. Perhaps if you have some time, you could show me more?”
Lane nods his head. Simple answer, requiring no vocal effort. I think that’s the end of the conversation, but then he speaks.
“House like this? It’ll keep you here longer than a few weeks.”
I want to argue, to assert control, but I remember I have no idea what I’m doing here, really. I look back at the mansion, looming over the gardens, and it occurs to me that every person I’ve met so far has warned me, in their own way, to get out.
“Why does everyone here speak in riddles?”
He chuckles at that. For just the briefest moment, but I saw it and for some reason it feels like a victory.
“Anyway, I just needed some air,” I say, softer than intended.
Lane stares at me a moment, then gestures toward a break in the wall, where the path disappears into the wood. “That way’s better. Less wind. Less of the house staring at you.”
I nod, and begin to walk. He follows, or maybe he just happens to be going the same way. We pass under a bough of blackthorn, the spikes catching on my sleeve. Lane reaches over and breaks off the offending twig with two fingers, careful not to touch me.
“Thanks,” I say.
He grunts again. Then, as if reconsidering, he says: “If you see the cat, don’t feed her.”