Chapter 38
“We’ll take our dessert in the sitting room,” Lady Bell told Max when he arrived to clear their plates. “And tea? Coffee?” She looked to Harper.
“Tea, please,” Harper replied.
“Yes, two of those,” Lady Bell said as Max nodded and left the room. “Come, last time we got cut off, but I really do want you to experience the sitting room, it is lovely.”
They crossed the dining room and the broad passageway to the formal sitting room.
Lady Bell made a dramatic show of throwing open the double doors to reveal a stunningly preserved room that actually looked livable.
The floors were the same dark wood with an intricate brocade rug marking the center.
A ruby-colored Queen Anne sofa and matching love seat faced a stone fireplace with emerald green marbling lining the edges.
A small bar was tucked into the corner by the grand floor-to-ceiling vaulted windows.
The cream and lace curtains were pulled back to show a courtyard that was currently being flooded with the rainfall.
Embedded bookshelves lined the walls filled with what looked to be antique books interspaced with small brass toned statues of quirky, monstrous creatures.
Harper stepped closer to examine a particular brass creature with a trumpet for a horn on his pointed head.
His mouth was open and a musical note was escaping from his open maw.
His body was that of a snake, but two tiny arms emerged, tiny claws spread wide.
“This is really the best,” Harper said with amused awe. “The whole room is beautiful, really.”
“Aren’t those little fellows amazing?” Lady Bell joined her by the bookshelf and admired the trumpet monster with her. “There was a young man by the name of John on the island for a time. He created these monsters, and I collected as many as he would let me have. I find them delightful.”
“They really are.” Harper looked around the room. A fire was burning in the fireplace, and the room was warm and inviting.
“Come, sit.” Lady Bell indicated the love seat; she sat on the end of the sofa and then looked down at her ruby sweater and then at the fabric. “Oh, look at me! I match!” She chuckled.
Harper smiled. “And you said earlier that the historically preserved rooms weren’t comfortable.”
Lady Bell gave her a conciliatory nod. “I did say that. And generally it’s true, but this is an exception. The library is also a bit of an exception; it is historically true to its roots for the most part, and it is my favorite space in Bell Manor.”
Max entered with a tray carrying two delicate pieces of a fruit and cream pie, and two teacups and saucers. He set them down on the elaborately carved end tables next to Lady Bell and Harper.
“Will there be anything else, ladies?” he asked courteously.
“Not for now, thank you for everything this evening, Max,” Lady Bell replied, and Max, once again, disappeared. “I like him. He’s new. Grew up in the village, used to come to the manor with his father, who works with the grounds crew. I feel like he was just a little boy yesterday, and here he is.”
“How long will he work here?” Harper asked, and then rephrased. “I mean, do most of your staff stay for a long time, or do the young people generally leave the island at some point?”
Lady Bell took a sip of her tea. “Some do, most leave at some point or another, most come back eventually. Max will likely leave us after a while. He wants to go to culinary school, and working with Kaitlyn in the kitchen is a great start for him. But as you can see, he also does some of the scut work around the house.” She smiled.
“Try the pie, it’s one of Kaitlyn’s specialties. ”
Harper took a bite of the cream and berry pie and was again silenced by the food. It was sweet and tart, with a fluffiness that belied the heaviness of the cream. “It’s delicious. I’m going to be pretty ruined on any other food after this experience.”
Lady Bell laughed. “She was awarded a Michelin Star, you know. For her restaurant in Roxbury. She’ll never tell you that, and neither will her father, they are a humble crew that family.”
“And she came back to Bell,” Harper said and then stopped herself. “I don’t mean that …”
Lady Bell waved off her explanation. “I know what you mean, dear. She could go anywhere and do anything and she came back to Bell Manor to cook for all us chickens and the occasional guest.” She paused and looked at Harper.
“Bell has a way of calling its own back, even if it’s been a lifetime away. ”
“But you never left?” Harper asked, enjoying the warmth of the tea and the fire.
“Very sneaky, Harper Hafdóttir,” Lady Bell said with a grin. “You owe me a story, not the other way around.”
“Fair,” Harper said. The anxiety she would normally be feeling melted into comfort. She found that she wanted to tell this woman everything, to see her dark eyes absorb her past, to be heard and seen by her. “What do you want to know?”
“What did you see on the boat?” Lady Bell asked bluntly. “When you fell into the water, the wave that hit you, what did you see?”
Harper blinked back surprise. She had been expecting questions about her family, her parents, she had been steeling herself for them, and this was so unexpected that she snorted a laugh.
“How … how did you know about that?” Harper asked, and shook her head. The only people that should have known were the team and Okeanos. Even the fishermen on the dock didn’t know anything other than she’d been knocked off deck by a rogue wave.
Lady Bell leaned back and prepared a perfect bite of pie on her fork. “I have my ways, the huldufólk like to chatter.” Harper’s eyes grew wide and Lady Bell laughed. “Or, I was given a copy of the report by BSI.” Harper shook her head, her eyes still wide.
“Why? I mean, I know you are invested in the university, and truly, I don’t care if you’ve seen it, but it’s not protocol with any field team I’ve worked with,” Harper said.
“No, it’s not. But Bell is a special case.
I told you when we first met that we vetted you, chose you for this job.
There were others they could have sent if it were just about science, but we, specifically I, wanted you.
So, as mayor, I made a deal with your lab to see the research findings.
” Lady Bell wiped her lips delicately with a lacy napkin.
“Please don’t be alarmed. I am just an observer. ”
Harper set her teacup down on the side table.
“It’s not that at all, apart from wondering how anyone outside of us scientists would ever find those reports interesting …
I was just surprised. What I saw was not very scientific.
In fact, Okeanos told me I didn’t see it at all, they said I was hypoxic and hallucinating. ”
“Were you?” Lady Bell asked in a direct tone.
“No, I wasn’t. I should have been maybe, but I was fully aware, hyperaware,” Harper responded, and reached for her empty teacup, set it back down.
“You’re empty. Can I get you a gin? Or would you like more tea?” Lady Bell asked as she stood.
“Gin would be wonderful,” Harper said. “I can get it, though … the bar?” She pointed to the corner.
“Yes, that’s the place.” Lady Bell sat back down. “One for me too, ice and a lime, please. The good stuff is in the freezer.”
Harper crossed to the little wooden bar and made the drinks.
The bar was fully stocked, just waiting for someone to use it.
The house just seemed to stand at attention, ready for use at any time; there were no dusty, unused corners or neglected space.
She crossed back to the sofa and handed Lady Bell her drink.
“Thank you, dear.” She took a sip and smiled. “Perfect. Now, I read your report, so I know what you wrote, but what did you see? I want to hear about it from your heart, not your science brain.”
Harper took a drink and stared into the fire.
“I saw Thalassa,” she said quietly. “I was drowning, being pushed down by the wave, the current. My life vest didn’t inflate, I felt everything going numb, it was quiet, calm even.
I could feel my parents. I wasn’t even scared, or upset; I didn’t fight it, I was dying and I was glad. ”
Lady Bell didn’t respond, just nodded, her dark eyes locked on Harper.
“Then as I was ready to finally release, the boat overhead was getting farther away, darker, harder to see … I felt something around me, like a snake, but it wasn’t.
It was a tentacle, but was luminescent. It glowed with all the colors, like the inside of a shell.
And then another and another, and then I was looking right at it, Thalassa, its eyes were on mine, its body shifting color and shape, it lit up the darkness.
It stared at me and we drifted up to the surface.
But before it released me, it held me there for just a moment, those eyes on mine, like it saw everything, it knew me, it saved me, especially me, and if someone else had fallen into the water, it wouldn’t have done so.
Not because it was cruel, it was the opposite, but because they weren’t the one it was looking for.
It was me it wanted to find. That was why the wave hit, it was why the equipment broke and we were stranded here, it was why everything.
It wants me here.” Harper’s words poured out of her in a rush.
They were thoughts she had never vocalized, never even allowed her brain to flesh out.
When they had crept in, she had shut them down immediately.
But here in this place, in the warmth of the fire and bite of Lady Bell’s gin on her tongue, with those kind, wide, dark eyes watching her, she allowed the thoughts to take flight.
They hung on the air, creating an atmosphere of their own.
Harper looked at Lady Bell. There was a version of herself that would have been embarrassed, but the one that was present in this space and time felt nothing but release.
“That’s certainly better than what was in your report,” Lady Bell said.