Chapter 30
Beth
Ileaped out onto the gravel in front of Raven Hall, and I forced myself to dip my head to say something to Jonas before slamming the door on him.
“Thanks for bringing me back,” I said. “But please, just go now. I’ll explain everything later.”
“Well, when?” he said. “Tonight? Will you ring me?”
The prospect of trying to explain any of this on the phone from Raven Hall, where I might be overheard, made me shake my head quickly.
But I was afraid Jonas would refuse to leave if I didn’t suggest an alternative, and I feared it would make everything worse if I burst back into Raven Hall with an inquisitive Jonas hard on my heels.
“Tomorrow,” I said. “Wait for Markus’s dad to get back to the B and B after he visits us, and then”—I glanced at the frozen lake—“just—park up on the road, so they don’t know you’re here, okay? Walk across the ice to the island, and I’ll sneak out and meet you there.”
Jonas muttered a few words of annoyance, clearly thinking my caution was over-the-top, but he put the car into gear and left me to it.
I was more than a little relieved to find the front door of Raven Hall wasn’t locked against me.
I hurried inside, straining my ears for any sound of the family’s whereabouts.
The drawing room and dining room were empty, but in the kitchen, I found Nina, perched on a breakfast stool and finishing off a mince pie, with an empty mug beside her.
Enticing savory aromas drifted from the oven—they hadn’t eaten lunch yet.
“Back already?” she said, sounding more wounded than hostile. “Didn’t you like the food at Jonas’s?” Then her tone sharpened. “Hey, what are you doing?”
I grabbed her mug and tilted it toward the feeble light from the window, but there was nothing unusual to be seen. Just tea dregs. No oily residue. I eyed her plate, my pulse still jumping.
“How many mince pies have you had?”
She opened her mouth, but it took her several seconds to answer. “What the hell’s got into you?”
“Nina, seriously. How many have you had?”
“Two—I was starving, and lunch’ll be another half hour. Is that okay with you?”
“Are they—” I snatched the remnant from her fingers and examined it in the palm of my hand. “Are these the ones your mum made? Who gave them to you?”
“Beth, you’re scaring me.” She slipped off the stool, gazing at me, wide-eyed. “Mum gave them to me, just a few minutes ago. She warmed some up for all three of us. Why are you being so dramatic about it?”
“I think—” But suddenly, I didn’t know what to say.
What if the substance in the hot chocolate really was something innocuous?
How could I blurt out the word poison without making my position here completely impossible?
How could I expect Nina to ever forgive me if I wrongly accused her mother of deliberately making her ill?
I set the fragment of pastry back on the plate, thinking frantically.
“How are you feeling?” I asked her. “Do you feel sick? Do you feel okay?”
Nina glanced over my shoulder toward the door, and I heard light footsteps come in behind me.
“Ah, Beth,” Leonora said. “Back already?” She hesitated, glancing at Nina and back to me. “Is something wrong?”
I shook my head stiffly.
Leonora smiled. “Well, not to worry. You can eat with us, then, after all.” She gestured to the oven. “Would you like me to warm you up a mince pie?”
I shook my head and circled around her, stumbling backward toward the door. “Thanks, no, I’m—did Jonas’s mum ring, while I was out?”
Markus’s voice behind me made me jump. “Stephanie? Yeah, she did, but it wasn’t about you. Why, did you and Jonas have an argument or something?”
All three of them watched me with frowns on their faces.
“No, I—” I raised a trembling hand to my cheek. “Actually, I’m just very tired. I’m going to go and have a . . .” I made a vague gesture.
“Nap?” Leonora suggested, after a moment of silence. “Don’t you want any lunch?”
“No. Thanks.” I escaped from the room, and none of them followed me, but even after I’d shut myself in my bedroom, my skin still prickled from their bemused stares, and I pressed my fingers to my burning cheeks. What must they think of me?
I forced myself to take several deep breaths.
Concentrate on the facts. Nina’s grandfather is coming back to Raven Hall tomorrow, for a third visit.
Stephanie Blake did ring a little while ago, almost certainly to warn Leonora and Markus about the visit.
In which case, Leonora will ask me to pretend to be Nina again. Of course she will. She has no choice.
I am the powerful one in this situation, I tried to insist to myself. But it didn’t feel like it. I sank onto my bed and waited for Leonora to knock.
But when the knock eventually came, I knew straightaway it wasn’t Leonora’s. Nina slipped into my room, and she hovered by my bed, her face painfully, distressingly pale.
“I don’t feel very well,” she whispered. “What’s going on? You’ve got to tell me.”
All those months of worrying, yet I had no idea how I could possibly articulate what my fear was. In the end, I patted the bed and waited for her to sit down beside me, and my heart wouldn’t stop drumming.
“First of all,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper, “I don’t have any answers. And you’re not going to like what I’m going to say. So you can change your mind right now, if you want to, and walk away. I wouldn’t blame you.”
“You’re scaring me, Beth.”
“I’m scared myself. That’s the trouble.”
She thought for a moment. “Okay. You have to tell me. Just say it.”
“You know I don’t want to hurt you?”
She nodded. “Just say it, whatever it is.”
“How many times have you felt sick like this, since I started living here?”
She barely paused. “This is the third time.”
“And what happened the first and second time—who came to visit?”
Her voice was quiet. “My grandfather.”
I swallowed hard and nodded. “Well, Jonas just told me your grandfather’s flying back for a third visit. He’s on his way right now. I’d guess he’s likely to turn up here tomorrow afternoon, if what Jonas says is true.”
“That’s what Stephanie was ringing Mum about?”
I jerked my shoulders stiffly. “That’s what I’m guessing. Jonas said she would.”
Nina frowned. “But why did you—how did you know I was going to be—what were you looking for in my mug?”
I ground my teeth, hoping she’d work it out herself. But her frown only deepened.
“Tell me, Beth, for God’s sake. What were you looking for in my mug and my mince pie?”
“Okay. The thing is, I saw something odd, in your hot-chocolate mug, after your grandfather’s last visit. You must have drunk it just a few hours before he arrived, and it had a—like an oily substance at the bottom. And you felt sick after drinking it.”
She gazed at me. “And . . . ?”
“Well, I don’t know, Nina.” I felt angry with her suddenly. “You tell me. Why would you get sick every time, if it isn’t just some weird, huge coincidence?”
Her eyes were enormous. “I don’t know.”
“Well, maybe—maybe—” I had to force the words out. “Maybe someone put something in your drink. Or your food. To make you sick. That’s all I’m saying.”
Nina shook her head slowly. “No, that can’t be it. Who would? And why would they? You’re making this up. I don’t believe you.”
“How are you feeling right now?”
She frowned down at her lap, and when she eventually replied, her voice was small.
“Sick. Nauseated. Like I want to throw up, but I can’t.”
“Well, let’s go and see a doctor. They’ll know . . .”
“No!” She looked horrified. “I’m not allowed. Mum would never . . .”
I leaned forward. “Come on, Nina. You can do it if you want to. I’ll ring Jonas. He’ll pick us up, take us to the surgery in the village . . .”
“I’m not allowed,” she repeated, but this time her tone was blank, and I sensed she wasn’t to be persuaded.
Slowly, I leaned back against my headboard. My muscles were already aching from the morning’s skating, and a wave of tiredness crashed over me.
“I told you I didn’t have any answers,” I said.
She gave me one last, long look, and then she left, closing the door softly behind her. I curled into a ball on my bedspread and waited for another knock. Whether it came this afternoon, or tomorrow morning, I knew Leonora would seek me out and ask me to play the role of Nina again.
* * *
I was sure it wasn’t my imagination. Leonora seemed much warier of me as we waited for Markus’s father to arrive this time than she had on the previous visits.
“Don’t forget,” she said, “you can be short with him. Make it clear there’s no question of you ever wanting to join him in America.”
I nodded stiffly.
“Tell him again what you said the first time,” Leonora said, “about never wanting to leave Raven Hall or it would break your heart.”
“Got it,” I said. “I’ll remember. Don’t worry.”
I twisted my bracelet around my wrist, squeezing each charm in turn between finger and thumb.
“Flag iris,” I whispered. “Greylag goose. Reed warbler.” As if the chanted words might somehow bring me luck.
Leonora watched me from the corner of her eye, and I wished she’d focus on the driveway like she had on the previous visits.
Did she know what I’d said to Nina yesterday afternoon?
An image of Leonora eavesdropping on that conversation sprang up in my mind, and my skin felt cold.
I had to concentrate on getting through this visit, and making sure Nina recovered properly.
What else could I do? If I told anyone outside the family that I was worried Nina had been poisoned, they’d never believe me.
I wasn’t sure I even believed it myself.
The whole thing seemed so unlikely. I was beginning to think it more likely there was something wrong with me.
“Here he comes,” Leonora said, finally.