Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
Minerva joined Kitty and Nessa in the kitchen, the morning light splashing across the table as they sat.
She gestured for Nessa to join them. The girl’s brows rose and she hesitated before gingerly settling herself on the edge of the bench, twisting her hands in her lap.
She looked about, wary and uncertain. Her light brown hair was neatly combed, her fair skin dusted with freckles beneath the constellation of fading bruises.
Thom had not exaggerated; her father’s hand was heavy indeed.
Minerva exchanged a glance with Kitty, then said gently, “Nessa, I find myself in need of a maid of all work. Have you been in service before?”
The girl looked up, then dropped her gaze to her lap once more.
“No, Miss. I cook and clean and do laundry and such for my Da. And I help the washerwoman when she has a need. I take extra chores in town when they’re available.
But they aren’t always.” Again, she glanced around, her gaze lingering on the cellar door.
“I require a maid of all work to take on this household,” Minerva said. “There will be cleaning and cooking, fetching water from the well out back, lighting fires, doing the wash, making beds—”
“Me?” Nessa said, mouth agape. “You mean to hire me?”
Minerva’s heart twisted at the mix of incredulity and hope in the girl’s expression, but she betrayed nothing as she said, “You will have your own room here, on the main floor. I can offer twenty pounds per year.”
Kitty lifted a brow at the amount, but Minerva had calculated her offer with care. Twenty pounds was enough to outweigh whatever qualms Nessa carried about Cliff Cottage and enough that leaving for another position would represent a real loss. It was an investment in a long-term relationship.
Nessa stared at her. “Twenty pounds?” Then her expression fell. “But I’m to live here?”
“Yes,” Minerva said.
Nessa chewed on her lip. “I—”
The wind rattled the window, and Nessa jumped, her hands flying up in dismay.
“What is it?” Kitty asked gently.
Nessa’s gaze drifted once more to the cellar door. “They say it’s not right, this place.” She shivered. “Folks hear things after dark. See a light when the house stands empty. Most won’t come here after the sun sets. Not unless they’ve no choice.”
“We slept here last night,” Kitty said. “Slept like a kitten, I did.” She leaned closer, as though imparting a secret. “I salted the thresholds and the sills. You’ve nothing to worry about.”
Nessa looked at her, clearly trying to hide her scepticism. “Salt,” she said.
“Salt,” Kitty confirmed.
Nessa glanced back at Minerva. She hesitated, her teeth worrying her lower lip. “Salt is one thing,” she said carefully. “What’s in this house is another.”
“And what is in this house?” Minerva asked.
The girl’s gaze flicked to the cellar door, as though drawn there against her will. “There’s them who say it’s the brothers who died on the cliff, but my nan said the house was wrong before the brothers. That there are things in this world older than stories. Terrible things.”
Minerva wanted to ask her who the brothers were and what things were older than stories. But more than that, she wanted to hire a maid of all work. So she swallowed her curiosity and pointed out in a gentle tone, “Mrs. Todd lived here for almost forty years.”
Nessa frowned. “I suppose she did.”
“And even knowing all that people say about this house, you came here to clean it for us,” Kitty said.
“I needed the work,” Nessa said, her chin lifting a fraction. “And being here for a day isn’t the same as being here at night.”
Minerva held her silence. After a long moment, Kitty said softly, “You still need the work.” She let the words settle between them before she continued. “And you need to be somewhere that your father is not.”
Again, Nessa’s gaze skidded to the cellar door.
“I will not require you to go down there,” Minerva said.
The girl stared down at her lap for a long moment. Minerva was almost convinced she would decline the offer when Nessa finally whispered, “Will you—” She cleared her throat. “Will you beat me?”
The simplicity of the question stripped the moment bare.
“No,” Minerva said at once. She did not soften the word, or the strength of her tone.
Nessa exhaled in a rush. “Then… I will not be afraid,” she said quickly, fiercely, as though convincing herself as much as them. “Truth is, I think I’d rather face the ghosts than go back to my Da when he’s in his cups.” She gave a decisive nod and lifted her chin. “I accept.”
“Excellent,” Minerva said, allowing herself a small smile. “Can you gather your things and return this afternoon?”
“I…” Nessa’s fingers twined together, released, twined again.
Kitty’s gaze sharpened. “Is your Da home now?”
“Yes, Miss.” Again, Nessa worried her lower lip between her teeth. “He was still sleeping when I left…”
“But he’ll be awake by the time you walk back home,” Minerva said, understanding the situation.
Nessa’s shoulders slumped. “Yes, Miss. And he won’t likely leave until evening.”
Again, the wind rattled the window, sharp and sudden. Nessa flinched at the sound, her head turning instinctively before she caught herself.
“Then you will begin your work here now,” Minerva said. “You will collect your belongings later, after your father has gone out.”
Nessa’s eyes widened, then filled, tears trembling on her lower lashes. She dashed them away with the back of her hand before they could fall. “Yes, Miss.”
Kitty reached across the table and squeezed her hand.
Nessa made to rise. “I’ll start now.”
“Not yet. You’ll have some breakfast first,” Minerva said, and went to heat the kettle.
“Here?” Nessa asked. “With you, the mistress of the house?”
“We are not a large household,” Minerva said. “We will all take our meals together in the kitchen.”
Nessa stared at her, wide-eyed. “Is that…proper, Miss?”
Kitty laughed. “Since, as you put it, Minerva is the mistress of the house, she decides what is proper.”
Nessa stared at her.
Kitty reached over and patted her hand. “If Minerva says we all eat together then we all eat together.”
Once the girl had eaten, they showed her where the wood was stacked, how the scullery drained, which shelves were for crockery, and which were for dry goods.
“I’ll tidy the bedchambers first,” Nessa said, and headed for the stairs, a spring in her step.
Kitty turned to Minerva and said, “We should check the cellar for damp.”
“And for vermin.” Minerva wrinkled her nose.
“We’ve lived with worse,” Kitty pointed out with a shrug.
Neither of them said that Nessa’s wariness had made them curious, that they were checking for more than damp and vermin.
Minerva opened the cellar door to find a small landing and narrow stone steps that led down into darkness. A faint smell carried upward, damp stone and decaying leaves, a sour undertone staining the air.
“It’s very dark,” Kitty pointed out.
“I’ll fetch a candle,” Minerva said.
She descended first, the flickering flame illuminating but a small circle of the stone steps. The air grew heavy the deeper she went, close and stale. She touched the wall and found it damp and slick beneath her fingertips.
At the bottom of the stairs, she paused and Kitty bumped up against her back.
“There’ll be spiders,” Kitty whispered. “Big ones.”
Minerva grimaced. Perhaps they should explore the cellar another day…or not at all.
No. This was her home now. She would not allow her anxious nature to rob her of any part of it. She could not stop fear from speaking, but she would not let it decide.
Steeling herself against the uneasiness that pricked her, she lifted the candle and forced herself to step forward. Kitty did not follow. A glance back revealed her standing close to the steps, half in shadow, half in the rectangle of light that filtered down from above.
There were no windows down here and the darkness felt cloying and thick. The ceiling was low, but Minerva had the impression that the space was large. She trailed her fingertip along the wall and lifted the candle to get a better look. The stone was rough and dark, older than the cottage above.
She took another step. Something shifted. A change in the air, the way it smelled, the way it tasted on her tongue. Sweet and wrong, like old roses tinged with rot.
“Min,” Kitty said softly.
The candle guttered.
Pulse jumping, Minerva froze. She tapped her fingertips against her thigh, counting each tap.
It is only a cellar, an old cellar in an old house. Just stone and damp and neglect.
Her grip tightened on the candle as a chill crawled across the floor and slithered under her skirts. The flame bent sideways, straining, as though drawn toward the unseen.
A cold finger scraped down her spine.
The flame jumped once, then snuffed, leaving Minerva trapped beneath the smothering weight of the darkness. Fear was a living thing, crawling through her veins.
Kitty squeaked and fled up the stairs, her retreat a rush of breath and footfalls. Halfway up, she stopped and bleated Minerva’s name, then fell silent.
The pendant grew warm at her throat. An uncomfortable prickling crawled across the back of her neck, pinpricks spreading down her back to the base of her spine, down her legs, along her arms. Sounds came at her, too loud, too close, a breath at her ear, the raw rasp of a talon against stone.
Minerva clutched the pendant, hot now against her skin as the air pressed in on her, cold and weighty as earth in a grave. She turned left. Right.
Someone… something… watched her. Something ancient and dark. Something…
The temperature plummeted as though a door had opened to a winter storm. The cold gouged her skin, needle sharp, deep into her bones. Her ears rang. Her head spun.
A flicker slithered through her thoughts, a memory not her own.
The stink of old roses, neglected in a vase. The smell of blood, copper sharp. Darkness. A narrow stair. A whisper summoning her, luring her—
Minerva.
Something stood in the far corner. She could not see it in the darkness, not clearly. But she could hear it breathing, slow and deliberate, as though whatever stood in that corner had been breathing in the dark for a very long while.
The pendant flared hotter now, sparking sudden and savage.
Something whispered against her ear. She felt a stroke at her nape, slow, deliberate, the sensation eerie and wrong, piercing skin and muscle, icing the marrow of her bones.
The urge to flee tore at her. She stumbled back, skirts gathered in one hand, useless candle clutched in the other.
“Min!” Kitty’s voice from the top of the stairs.
Heart hammering, Minerva spun and ran for the pale rectangle of light eking down, her steps loud as she clattered up the stairs. She did not look back, understanding with absolute certainty that was the one thing she must not do.
She careened into Kitty’s waiting arms, and they stumbled together into the kitchen. Minerva fell back against the wall beside the cellar door, her breath coming in shallow rasps. She could not speak, could not move.
After a long moment, Kitty said, very quietly, “That was…”
“I know,” Minerva whispered, though she could not say what it was she claimed knowledge of. Only that something in her knew.
She stood with her back against the kitchen wall and worked to summon a reasonable explanation.
She tried to tell herself that the candle had gone out as candles were wont to do, especially in a drafty place.
That the breathing she had heard was a product of a low ceiling and ancient stone magnifying the sound of her own breaths, her unease compounding the issue.
That she had not actually seen anything in the dark, had only believed she saw it.
Determined not to allow her anxious nature to rule, she built her rational explanation carefully, brick by brick, but it was unsteady, ready to crumble at the smallest challenge. Deep inside, the suspicion bloomed that she had neither imagined nor amplified any of it.
“We’ve faced far worse than a dark cellar,” Kitty said, voice trembling. After a long pause, she continued, “Next time, we take two candles.”
Minerva glanced at the open cellar door. She forced herself to walk back and close it, sealing in whatever lingered in the shadows.
The latch caught with a solid click.
Exhaustion tugged at her, leaving the room spinning and her limbs trembling.
She was going to spend her life in this house, just as Catherine had. Whatever lurked in the dark below was going to be her neighbor for the duration of that life. Catherine had managed it for nearly forty years. Minerva would learn to do the same.
She rested her forehead against the cellar door and closed her eyes.
On the other side, a stair creaked.