Chapter 7
What little light the sky had offered was fading when Agnes appeared in the greenhouse doorway, wringing her hands in her apron with uncharacteristic agitation.
I looked up from the final seedling I had been cataloging—Veratrum album, white hellebore from the Austrian Alps.
I had been thinking, as I documented it, about the strange tenderness with which poison presented itself—the plant was beautiful, its leaves broad and architectural, the sort of thing one might arrange in a vase without knowing what it was.
Most of the dangerous things here were like that.
They did not announce themselves. They simply waited, patient and lovely, for someone to make the wrong assumption.
Agnes’s expression drove the thought from my mind entirely.
Her gaze swept over me first—sharp and assessing—before she stalked toward Dr. Ambrose’s workbench, her usual grace replaced by jerky, anxious movements.
He was still absorbed in his extraction, measuring drops of liquid into a test tube, when she reached his side. She leaned close, speaking in a voice too low for me to hear, her words rapid and urgent.
Dr. Ambrose went very still.
The dropper hovered midair for a fraction too long before he set it down and turned to glance at me, before returning his attention to Agnes with a terse nod.
She wrung her hands once more, cast the same worried frown in my direction, and hurried from the greenhouse with a haste I had never seen from her.
Dr. Ambrose was already at the door, shrugging into his jacket with movements that were controlled on the surface but carried an urgency beneath.
“Finish up, then you may go in for supper,” he said, without looking at me, already fastening the buttons.
I straightened from my work, frowning at the sudden tension radiating from him. “Where are you going? Is everything alright?”
He paused with his hand on the door and turned to give me a smile that was neither reassuring nor convincing. “Of course. Just a matter that must be attended to.”
“What kind of matter?”
The amusement deepened, revealing dimples in his cheeks. “I had not realized my whereabouts might distress you so much, Miss Reed. Do not worry, I will be back before you have time to miss me.”
Heat crept up my cheeks. I opened my mouth to retort, but before I could gather the words to defend myself, he disappeared through the door, leaving me stunned and speechless.
The brilliant scoundrel had flustered me on purpose.
I straightened quickly, brushing soil from my hands and untying my apron before hanging it on the hook by the door.
I hurried through the study and out into the corridor, but found only Agnes in the entrance hall.
She stood very still, staring at the front door where it had just closed behind Dr. Ambrose.
Through the window beside it, I watched his tall figure striding down the path toward the gates, already half-swallowed by the growing rainfall.
“Agnes,” I said, and she startled as though I had shouted. “What happened? Where is he going?”
“Hmm?” She turned to me with a calmness that was too arranged. “Nothing to worry about… just a patient who needs tending.”
“A patient?” I frowned. I had not considered that he practiced medicine in an active capacity. “I thought Dr. Ambrose focused on research.”
“Well… that is true enough, but he does still see the occasional patient if needed,” she said, her hands fluttering nervously as she gestured toward the dining room. “Now come, you must be famished after such a long day. I’ve prepared a lovely supper, and it won’t stay warm forever.”
I wanted to press further—to demand something more than these careful evasions—but she had already turned, moving toward the dining room.
I sighed, following as expected.
It was not my concern, I reminded myself firmly. Whatever emergency had called Dr. Ambrose away was his business, not mine.
Agnes had prepared a roast that deserved better than the sparsely occupied table she brought it to.
She set the plate before me, but ate nothing herself, claiming to have managed something earlier in the kitchen.
She watched me with a tight restless attention that made the food sit heavy in my mouth, her hands twisting a napkin until her knuckles went white.
I made myself take each bite. I chewed and swallowed, and tried very hard to avert my gaze elsewhere. The dining room seemed larger than usual in the silence—or perhaps I felt smaller in it, more aware of the emptiness pressing in. It took several moments for me to realize why.
“Where is Hawthorne?” I asked.
Her hands stilled on the napkin she had been destroying. “Hmm?”
“Hawthorne.” I repeated, setting down my fork. “He is usually somewhere nearby.”
“He’s…” she hesitated. “He’s resting… he seemed terribly tired today, so I sent him to bed early.”
I studied her.
Agnes’s pulse fluttered visibly at the side of her throat when she became nervous.
A delicate little thing. A trapped moth beneath skin.
I had understood from the moment I met her that she was not a dishonest woman—from the way she navigated the things she could not tell me to the partial truths and redirections.
She did not like to lie outright, and so she managed information in a way that, at least to her, felt like less of one.
She was a good person, with a wholesomeness I wondered if I had ever possessed—before the rot had spread through the roots of my body, before it had wrapped around my mind until no amount of light could heal the withered flower I had become.
“Agnes.” I said gently, leaning forward. “It is obvious that you are worried about something. You can barely sit still, and if you twist that napkin any further, I fear the threads will come loose.”
“I’m not—” She stopped, inhaled deeply, and smoothed her expression. “I simply worry about Dr. Ambrose being out in this weather. It’s gotten quite bad.”
She inclined her head toward the dining room window, and I followed her gaze. The rain had thickened considerably. The glass was nearly opaque now, the grounds beyond reduced to shifting darkness and the faint golden smear of the greenhouse lights.
I considered her explanation for a long moment. It was plausible, I supposed. I told myself this firmly, though unease remained, crawling just beneath the surface of my thoughts.
“I am sure he will be fine, Agnes,” I said. “He did not have to go far, did he?”
She shook her head. “No, not far. Perhaps you’re right. I shouldn’t worry as much as I do, but—“ She cut herself off, then sighed. “Never mind that. Eat your food before it grows cold.”
We finished the meal in silence.
When I finally set down my fork, she practically leaped to her feet, gathering my plate with obvious relief.
“Why don’t you retire early tonight, dear?” she suggested, her voice overly bright. “You’ve worked so hard today. You must be exhausted.”
I was, in fact, exhausted.
The fatigue had settled deep into my bones, and my vision blurred at the edges. The discoloration in my hands had deepened, creeping further up my arms. I caught her staring at them now, a frown creasing her forehead.
“You are probably right,” I agreed, standing with effort and tucking my hands behind my back. “Thank you for supper, Agnes.”
“Sleep well, dear,” she said, already moving through the kitchen door.
I stared after her for a moment, then turned and made my way toward the stairs.
The house, I was learning, felt different in the evening.
The darkness altered the proportions of the place, stretching the corridors until they breathed around me, expanding and contracting like the lungs of a patient, hungry beast. My footsteps echoed against the wooden floors as I climbed, each creak unnaturally loud in the silence.
I was halfway up the staircase when the voice spoke, so clear and distinct that I actually paused mid-step.
She lied to you.
The thought arrived with the certainty of something that had observed the evidence and drawn a conclusion, wearing the shape of my own reasoning but moving through my mind in that voice that was not quite mine.
I tightened my grip on the bannister and kept climbing. I had reached the landing and taken perhaps three steps down the hallway when the voice came again.
Hawthorne isn’t here. See for yourself.
I stopped walking.
The corridor stretched before me, its closed doors standing sentinel on either side, none containing anything I had any right to know about—each one a locked compartment of a life I had been employed to exist adjacent to, not within.
This was not my concern, I chided myself silently. Wherever Hawthorne was supposedly resting, was none of my business.
Unfortunately, curiosity had always been my defining vice. When I was a child, my father said it would get me into trouble one day—that my need to understand, to investigate, to uncover hidden truths would lead me somewhere I should not go.
And he had been right about so many things.
I glanced down the corridor toward my room, then back toward the other closed doors. Checking would not hurt anything, just a quick look to satisfy this gnawing uncertainty. Then I could retire with a clear conscience, knowing I had not ignored something potentially important.
The rationalization was thin, but I was willing to accept it.
The first room was a guest bedroom—the bed made, the washstand empty, and the curtains drawn against the night. It held the stillness of a room that had not been occupied in some time. I closed it gently.
The second was much the same. Furniture was positioned neatly, the surfaces were clean. It revealed the maintenance of a space that was ready to receive someone and had been ready, perhaps, for a very long time.
My footsteps sounded too loud in the corridor as I crept through the hall, each creak of the floorboards announcing my presence to anyone who cared to listen. I told myself no one was listening, though I was not entirely convinced.