Chapter Ten
CHAPTER
TEN
THEY EMERGED FROM a brick wall in a little town called Sunnyside.
It looked to be about six o’clock in the evening, though one would hardly know it in this sleepy suburb.
Warham would have been teeming with bankers and lawyers and their clerks heading home from the office, but Sunnyside was as empty as if it had been the early hours of the morning.
Lyssa checked the position of the setting sun and went north, walking up and down identical streets until she found the one she was looking for.
The sight of the house was always jarring, at first—the exterior a dull gray instead of the soft blue her mother had loved so much, the white fence that had replaced the wrought iron her father had installed himself, the hedges that now lined the short path to the door.
She wondered if the roses had been too much work for the new owner, with winters this cold.
Few had the patience—or the green thumb—that her mother had been blessed with.
The ash tree was still towering over the back fence, though, same as always, and that was all that mattered for their current purposes.
Brandy whined, and Lyssa tightened her hold on his collar. The bullmastiff strained against her grip, his entire body wagging with excitement at the sight of their old home.
“What’s gotten into him?” Alderic asked, and Lyssa flinched. She had been so lost in memory that she’d forgotten he was there.
“I don’t know,” she lied. “There must be rodents around. He only gets like this when there are rats to chase.”
“Too bad we can’t use a gnawed-on rat as one of our items.” He turned to look at her. “What ash wood are you going to use?”
“A branch from that tree across the street,” she said, pointing with her chin since she was still wrestling with a dog who wanted very much to visit the house where he had spent his puppyhood.
“Ah. What significance does it have? Did one of the victims live here? Or is it a place you—”
“You don’t need to know its significance.”
“I suppose I don’t,” he said, but he sounded hurt. “What’s the plan, then?”
Lyssa studied the house, the empty streets. “I’ll hop the fence and take a branch before anyone notices. You stay here with Brandy and act as lookout. If you see anyone, make a bird noise or something.”
“That’s a terrible plan,” Alderic said. “Someone will certainly notice a gargantuan woman climbing over the neighbor’s fence and alert the authorities.”
She glared at him. “Do you have a better idea?”
“As a matter of fact, I think I do.”
And to her horror, he strode briskly across the street toward the house.
Brandy whined and lurched forward with such fervor that Lyssa almost lost her grip on his collar.
“Al, wait! What are you doing?” she hissed, but it was too late.
He had already knocked on the door. “Ungharad’s flaming sword,” she swore, then took off after him, still hanging on to Brandy’s collar as best she could.
A girl in servants’ dress answered. “I’ll fetch Mrs. Jensen,” she told Alderic with a broad smile and a curtsy, vanishing back into the house.
It wasn’t long before she was replaced on the threshold by a small-statured woman with graying curls framing her face and a prominent birthmark on her cheek.
“What do you want?” Her tone was clipped, impatient. She clearly did not have time for them.
“Hello, madam,” Alderic said with a little bow. “My name is Al, and I’m from A and L Arboreal Health Services. I’m here to speak to you about the tree in your backyard.”
“What about it?” Her gaze darted past him, to where Lyssa was struggling to keep Brandy from barging into the house, and her eyes narrowed. “I’ve seen her before. Always lurking about, staring at my house. I don’t know who you lot are, but—”
“A and L Arboreal Health Services,” Alderic repeated. “Or AHS, if you prefer abbreviations. We simply—”
“Whatever it is you want, we are not interested.”
But Alderic wasn’t deterred in the slightest—maybe because Mrs. Jensen hadn’t slammed the door in his face yet. “My companion here has been ‘lurking about’ because it is her job to monitor the health of the trees in this town, and she has grave concerns about the ash in your yard.”
That seemed to give Mrs. Jensen pause, despite her harried attitude. “What kind of concerns?”
“We’re not certain yet,” he said. “In fact, I was wondering if we might take a sample. A twig or a small branch would be sufficient. You’ll hardly notice it missing. That way we can bring it back to our laboratory and test it for wood lice, termites, things of that nature.”
“It looks fine to me,” Mrs. Jensen said sharply. “Been here since we bought the house, over a decade ago. Doesn’t look any different than it did then.”
“Infestations, infections, and arboreal influenza are all invisible to the untrained eye,” Alderic said.
He gestured to Brandy, who was straining so hard against Lyssa’s hold that his front legs were in the air, his collar pressing against his windpipe in such a way that his panting sounded like hoarse coughs.
“The dog has been trained to detect such things by smell alone, and as you can see, he is quite agitated. If the tree is not treated soon, it’s possible that it might come down at the slightest provocation.
You wouldn’t want a tree falling on your house the next time the breeze picks up, I’m sure. ”
“Of course not,” she snapped, “but we simply don’t have the money to spare for—”
“Oh, it’s free of charge, madam,” Alderic said. “I should have mentioned that before. Our only concern is the health and safety of this neighborhood and the trees and people populating it.”
For some reason, that seemed to upset her further. “If only everyone were so concerned about our health as to provide services free of charge,” she said bitterly. “Come back in a month or two. I’ll deal with the tree then. I’ve more important concerns right now.”
“But—”
There was a crash of glassware from somewhere inside the house.
Lyssa startled, reaching instinctively for her pistol with one hand, and in that moment Brandy finally tore free of her grip and bolted through the front door, nearly knocking Mrs. Jensen over.
Alderic caught the woman before she fell, apologizing profusely, as Lyssa ran in after the bullmastiff.
“Brandy!” she called. She could hear a maid muttering to herself in the kitchen about canted countertops, but there was no sign of the dog. “Brandy, come back here!”
She checked the parlor to see if he had snuck in to roll on the rug or something, and the sight of it made her throat tighten.
The walls had been freshly papered, but the furniture was largely the same.
The bank had taken all of it, along with the house, though that still hadn’t been enough to cover her father’s debts.
He had fled Ibyrnika to escape the rest, leaving his children behind.
“What are you doing in here?” Mrs. Jensen huffed as she burst into the parlor, her cheeks flushed and her hair escaping its pins, Alderic on her heels.
“Looking for the dog,” Lyssa said, her voice sounding distracted and far away as she ran her hand along the back of one of the chairs, her fingers finding the scratches she had dug into the wood with a penknife one rainy afternoon when she was bored.
It was clear now that Brandy was not in here, but she couldn’t bring herself to leave just yet.
Her roaming gaze snagged on the piano angled beside the large picture window, where her mother had practiced every single day, Lyssa and Eddie sprawled out on the floor at her feet, their games accompanied by faltering scales and discordant compositions.
Some of Lyssa’s most colorful swears were ones she had first heard during her mother’s piano sessions.
There was a weak little laugh from upstairs, and a child’s voice said, “Where did you come from?”
Mrs. Jensen blanched and started out of the room. “If that animal hurts my daughter, I swear I will—”
“I’ll go get him,” Lyssa said, hurrying past her and down the hall, taking the stairs two at a time. Behind her, Alderic was talking rapidly in an attempt to smooth things over. So much for nobody calling the authorities.
The door to Lyssa’s old room was ajar; she pushed it open and peered inside.
The walls were no longer the pale pink she had hated, and the curtains were heavy brocade instead of gauzy lace, but it smelled like her mother’s bedroom had in those last, horrible months—the astringent smell of a sickroom.
The child tucked into the bed was painfully frail, with brittle hair plastered to her sweaty forehead and eyes bright with fever.
But her smile was even brighter as she ran a fragile-looking hand over Brandy’s ear.
He had leapt up onto the bed and was curled up beside her.
Lyssa approached the bed and smiled at the girl.
“I’m sorry he barged in like that,” she said gently, reaching out to grab Brandy’s collar.
He whined at her, his eyes big and worried; he knew he was in trouble, but he didn’t want to leave.
“He used to sleep here when he was a puppy, and he doesn’t understand that it belongs to someone else now. ”
The little girl’s face lit up. “Really?”
“Yep.” Lyssa looked over her shoulder at Mrs. Jensen and Alderic, hovering in the doorway. Mrs. Jensen’s face had softened a little, and Alderic looked confused. “Your mother wants you to get some rest now, though, okay?”
“Okay.” The little girl wrapped her arms around Brandy’s neck, giggling when he snuffled her cheek with his nose. “Bye,” she said as he reluctantly jumped down from the bed and followed Lyssa out into the hall.
“I’ll come check on you in a minute, sweetheart,” Mrs. Jensen said, before closing the door.
“I’m sorry,” Lyssa told her as they went back downstairs. “I really am. It’s like I said, he doesn’t understand that this isn’t home anymore.”