Chapter 5 Confrontation
Confrontation
The sun rises at some ungodly hour, but the clouds see fit to keep it a rumor rather than a promise.
I am up long before then, shaking off the tail of nightmares I’ll never forget.
The restlessness curdles into irritability.
I dress in yesterday’s jeans, my favorite threadbare gray T-shirt, complete with permanent paint flecks on the hem, and a soft navy cardigan, then drift down to the kitchen for coffee.
The house is preternaturally silent, as if it knows what happened in the night and has decided to conspire in my insomnia.
After a brief, savage struggle with the percolator, I settle in the library. My second home, or at least the only room where I feel more curiosity than dread. The fire is banked low from last night, but a poke with the iron and another log coaxes it back to life.
I wrap a blanket around my legs and haul a stack of books from the locked case behind the desk. Not for the first time, I notice how many of these volumes are about death, poison, or the slow, botanical violence of the natural world. The Vale family, it seems, did not believe in happy endings.
I select a treatise on toxicology, eighteenth-century, hand-bound in cracked calfskin.
The ink inside is a brown so dark it verges on black, and the margin notes—improbably neat, in a script characteristic of the time period—snakes through every page, annotating, correcting, sometimes arguing with the text.
I get lost in the plates: etchings of belladonna, foxglove, monkshood, each flower rendered with loving precision. Hemlock, too, sprouting fine as lace from a grave-shaped mound. My fingers stray over the paper, tracing the lines as if I could feel the plant’s sting through the page.
The house is so quiet that the click of the library door is less a sound than a statement. I glance up, expecting Mrs. Whitby. Instead, it’s Larkin.
He closes the door behind him with a deliberation that is, itself, a message. He’s wearing the same dark suit from yesterday, no tie, shirt open at the collar, sleeves rolled to the elbow as if he intends to get his hands dirty.
His hair—light brown, always slightly too long—hangs damply over his eyes, and he looks both exhausted and electrically awake. I hate that it all looks good on him, the rumpled party boy look.
He doesn’t say anything at first, just leans against the paneling and observes me as if trying to place a species.
“Morning,” I say, voice hoarse with sleep and unpracticed civility.
He inclines his head, but doesn’t return the greeting. Instead, he lets the silence accumulate, stares at the stack of books next to me.
“Maeve never let anyone touch the Vale papers,” he says at last. His tone is glass: smooth, sharp, and ready to cut.
“I’m not just anyone,” I reply, tucking my hands into my sleeves.
He snorts, a brief flash of contempt, then drifts closer to the fire, hands thrust deep in his pockets. He looks at the book in my lap, then at the glass of whiskey I poured with breakfast because the day already seemed impossible.
“Up early,” he says, as if it’s an accusation.
“Couldn’t sleep,” I answer.
He circles the reading chair, deliberately, like a crow sizing up a dead thing. The fire flickers up and catches the edge of his irises—green, brighter than should be legal, even in a house with stained glass and gas lighting.
“Bad dreams?” he asks, mouth twitching.
I don’t want to talk about dreams. Or about the sensation of being watched from inside the walls. Or the voices I heard, the whispers of the house.
I want, very much, for him to leave me the hell alone.
Instead, I say, “Nightmares are supposed to go away after childhood.”
He sits on the ottoman across from me, which puts him too close for comfort, and studies my face with an intensity that would be flattering if it weren’t so obviously calculated to unsettle me.
“They don’t,” he says.
I close the book, set it on the side table. “Did you need something, or are you just here to glower at me?”
He offers a thin smile. “You’re quick for a Vale. Most of them couldn’t form a sentence before lunch.”
“You seem to know a lot about the Vales,” I say, the words out before I can temper them.
He cocks his head. “I suppose I do. You look like her, you know.” He glances at the scar in my eyebrow, then away, as if remembering something he would rather not.
The compliment, if it is one, lands sideways. “If you came here to fight about the will, you’re late. I already signed the paperwork. The house is mine, for whatever it’s worth.”
He leans back, stretching long legs toward the fire. “I don’t care about the house,” he lies, badly. “It’s a mausoleum. I just find it interesting that Maeve left it to you. Someone she hasn’t spoken to in a decade.”
I find it strange too, but I’m not about to admit that to him. “Blood is blood,” I say instead.
He laughs, and the sound is so dry it nearly shatters. “She hated blood. Spent her whole life trying to bleach it out of the carpet.”
I want to ask what he means, but I’m not sure I want the answer.
He picks up the toxicology book, flips it open to a random page, runs a thumb over the hand-colored plate of wolfsbane. “This is a first edition, extremely rare,” he says. “You know what that means, in money?”
“Probably enough to buy my apartment in the city, but it’s not for sale,” I say, trying to take the book back. He doesn’t let go.
“More than a life’s worth, if you know who to sell it to.” He meets my eyes, and for a second the mask drops, and there’s something behind it. Anger, yes, but also grief, naked and unpolished. “Maeve collected poisons the way other people collect friends. Or children.”
I pull the blanket tighter around me. “Maybe she had her reasons.”
He looks at me for a long moment, then stands abruptly and paces to the window. He stares out into the garden, where the snow is already erasing the tracks from yesterday.
“Do you know why you’re really here?” he asks, not turning.
I grip the arms of the chair until my knuckles ache. “To sign some papers. To box up the things no one else wants. To pay inheritance tax, I suppose.”
He laughs again, but this time there’s something almost wild in it.
“You think this is about paperwork?” He turns, and now he’s right up close, the fire catching the planes of his face, the sharp angle of jaw and cheekbone. “She called you back here for a reason, Nora. You’re not just a loose end. You’re the last thread holding this place together.”
The heat of the fire is suddenly oppressive. I stand, meaning to leave, but he blocks the way. We are nearly chest-to-chest, and for the first time I notice the scent of him: gin, smoke, and something far more enticing, a musky note.
He drops the book on the table, hard enough to make the glass jump. “What did she tell you?” he demands.
“Nothing,” I say, and it’s the truth. “She never told me anything. Not even why she stopped writing.”
His jaw clenches. “Of course she didn’t. She couldn’t even admit it to herself.”
The anger between us is physical now, thick as humidity, and I wonder, for a fleeting second, if he’s going to hit me, or kiss me, or both.
He steps closer, and I brace, but instead of violence, he just breathes. “You know what I think?” he whispers.
“I don’t care,” I whisper back, but my voice cracks on the last word.
He leans in, so close I can see the flecks of gold in the green of his eyes. “I think you’re afraid you’re exactly like her. That the house will eat you up and spit out whatever’s left.”
His breath is warm, and I realize I’m shaking—not from fear, but from something electric and unfamiliar.
He grins, slow and predatory. “You should be. It will, if you’re not careful.”
I move to the door, twisting the knob, but he’s right behind me, slamming it shut with one hand. The sound reverberates up my bones. He grabs my wrist, hard enough to bruise.
“Let me go,” I say, but it’s barely a whisper.
Instead, he traps me between the door and his body, the firelight flickering behind him. He touches my face, just under the scar, his thumb brushing the skin as if memorizing it for later.
“What spell did you cast to make her choose you?” he murmurs, lips so close I can feel the ghost of them.
My breath is jagged, and I hate that my first instinct is to lean closer, to close the infinitesimal gap. I want to break him, or be broken by him . . . or both at once.
He presses forward, pinning me to the wood.
The pressure is not gentle, but not cruel, either—more like a dare than a threat.
I realize, suddenly and with a sick, euphoric clarity, that I want him to touch me.
That I want to claw at his perfect face, to leave marks that will rival the scar on my brow.
Instead, I push him, hard, and he lets me go. The sudden absence of his body is like stepping off a cliff.
I open the door and walk out, not looking back, my heart pounding like an alarm in my chest. The corridor is cold, and I welcome the chill, hoping it will banish whatever has gotten into me.
But the warmth lingers, under my skin, in the spot where his hand brushed my cheek. I make it halfway up the stairs before I realize I am smiling, feral and unhinged.
This house is going to ruin me, I think, and for the first time, the thought doesn’t feel like a curse.
By evening, the snow falls so heavily it blots out the world beyond the house. I pace the upper corridor, unable to sit, unable to read, unable to do anything except replay the morning’s confrontation in the library.
Every time I pass a window, I pause, pressing my fingers to the freezing pane and watching the wind convulse the hedges below. The dark outside is total; the only light is the yellowish flicker of the wall sconces, reflected in each piece of glass like the eye of some patient animal.
I stop at the end of the hall, forehead resting against a strip of cold stone between the window casements. My pulse hammers in my throat, and the skin of my face is still over-sensitized, as if the echo of his touch hasn’t faded. I try to will it away. I fail.
“You’ll catch cold,” says a voice behind me.
I don’t jump, because Mrs. Whitby’s voice is the one thing in this house that never surprises me. She is a master of materializing, of deploying her presence at the precise moment it’s least wanted but most needed.
She stands in the center of the corridor, face composed into the same practiced blankness as always. In her hand she carries a small crystal glass, filled to the rim with dark, amber brandy.
She offers it, and I accept without a word. The glass is warm from her palm, the liquid inside catching the flicker from the wall light and scattering it in every direction. I stare at the drink for a moment, then take a cautious sip. It burns, and the heat radiates out along my ribs.
Mrs. Whitby studies me, gaze as cool as the glass. “Did Mr. Hughes upset you?” she asks, as if the answer is not already written on my face.
“He’s very—” I struggle for the word. “Intense.”
A ghost of a smile, then gone. “He’s a creature of habit. Many years in this house can do that.” She tilts her head. “Are you?” The question is ambiguous—upset, a creature of habit, or both.
I don’t know how to answer. I drink instead, then stare at the snow, which now billows against the glass in urgent, erratic bursts. I imagine the house from outside. The strength of the spires, the vastness of the stone, the gothic beauty of every detail.
But that’s just aesthetics.
Mrs. Whitby stands closer now, just behind my shoulder. I smell her lavender perfume. Her voice softens, the words more for herself than for me. “You see now what the house breeds.”
She says nothing else. Just lingers until my shivering stops, then collects the empty glass from my hand and slips away, leaving me alone with the storm.
I don’t see, though. I don’t understand any of this, only that it feels like I’m slowly losing my mind but discovering it all over again at the same time.
That night, I lie in bed, arms folded tight over my chest. The radiator has lost its battle with the cold and my breath clouds in the air above me. So much for the cozy warm Blue Room.
I hear nothing but the wind and the restless creaks of the old timbers. Every time I close my eyes, I see the green of Larkin’s irises, the bright, animal intelligence in them, and I remember the way my body answered his—before my mind could intercede.
I replay it, over and over. The pressure of his hand, the scrape of his sleeve, the impossible lightness of his touch under my scar. I remember the words—What spell did you cast to make her choose you?—and I wish I knew the answer. I wish I could believe it was magic and not a death sentence.
I wonder if this is what Aunt Maeve felt, alone in the house, with barely anyone but herself and the ghosts to talk to. I wonder if that’s why she closed off so many rooms, sealed up so many doors. To keep out the weather, or to keep in something worse.
I reach for the glass of water on the nightstand, but my hands are still unsteady, and I nearly knock it over.
The cold from the window seeps into my bones.
The blue walls press in, closer and closer, as if the room itself is leaning over the bed, intent on learning every secret I’ve brought with me.
Sleep comes in fits, broken by images I can’t control. Hands on my body, lips at my ear, a library of burning books.
I wake, gasping, convinced that someone is in the room with me, but there is only the house and the wind, and the certainty that the house is no longer content to be an observer.
It is in me now, under my skin, seeded in every synapse. I can’t tell if I am being watched or remade, if the thing growing inside me is a warning or a wish.
I close my eyes, and this time, I do not resist.