Chapter 22 #2
Another drawer held more bundles of letters.
Thanks to the many nuisance forms she insisted Anthony complete, she recognized his handwriting on a thick stack.
It was strange to be confronted with the obvious evidence of his personal life.
Of course he had written to his cousin. She wrote to Mira frequently; why should Anthony doing the same be surprising?
In the bottom drawer was a battered book with a dark leather cover. The pages were impossibly thin. Gold gilding, now worn away, had once decorated the edges. The title, likely also printed in gold, was long gone but the imprint remained in the leather.
Nina recognized the book as a precolonial family Bible and from Earth. The paper had that smooth, refined feel that early printing efforts on Nexus failed to replicate.
She found the pages recording the family births, marriages, and deaths in the middle. There was nothing enlightening in the list of names. However, underneath the book was another list of names, this one with a vivid red line drawn through every name except Roderick and Anthony.
Nina compared the two lists and determined that the sheet contained names of living relations. Presumably living. Or recently living, if the line through the name signified death.
She returned the objects to the bottom drawer. It didn’t have to be nefarious. It could simply be a holiday card list or invitations sent for a family reunion. Without context, it was impossible to know.
The remaining drawers held nothing of interest; a few bills and the other detritus of running an estate.
In the hall, she met Mary, carrying the necessary supplies to light fires in the bedrooms.
“Good morning, miss. Breakfast won’t be ready until nine, I’m afraid, but I could fetch you some tea if you like.” The poor girl looked exhausted and the day had barely started.
“I’m looking for Anthony,” Nina said, closing the door to the empty drawing room. “Have you seen him?”
The color left the girl’s already pale face. “I’m sorry, miss, no. He went to speak with Mister Roderick.”
“That was last night. What about Roderick? Where is he?”
“The master likes to sleep in.”
“Then wake him up.” Nina marched back up the stairs. She didn’t know which room was Roderick’s but she’d open every door if need be.
“No, miss, please—” Mary grabbed her hand.
Nina shook her off. She opened a random door. The room was as forlorn and damp as the room she had been given, complete with stains on the wallpaper. The furniture in the next three rooms was covered in heavy sheets to protect against dust.
The fifth room was clearly in use. The surfaces were free of dust, the carpet fresh, and the furniture polished. A pleasant lemon scent lingered in the air. The bed had not been slept in, however.
“I’m sorry, but you can’t be in here, miss.” Mary squeezed past her and blocked her entrance into the room.
Just as well. She wasn’t going to track down the missing men from what she’d find in Roderick’s bedroom. She asked again, “Do you have any idea where they could be? Tell me or I will tear this house down brick by brick.”
Mary’s gaze slid to the side, as if refusing to look at Nina as she answered. “I think you should speak to my grandmother. She’s in the kitchen.”
Interesting.
“I think I shall,” she said.
Thanks to Anthony’s tour yesterday, she had an inkling where to locate the kitchens.
She took a back staircase down and followed the sounds and aroma of breakfast preparation.
One woman standing over a stove shouted orders at another younger woman, presumably a kitchen maid, who rolled dough on a workbench.
“Can I help you, miss?” A young woman paused her work, wiping her hands on her apron.
“I need to speak with Mary’s grandmother.” She should have asked for a name.
“Mrs. Marsh is at the servant’s table having her breakfast.” The woman pointed to a door off to the side and returned to her task.
An elderly woman was the lone occupant at a long table.
Her snowy white hair was tied loose at the nape of her neck.
She wore a black uniform with a high collar and the keys to the house dangled from her belt.
She sipped a steaming brew from a plain white cup, her hand skeletal thin and spotted with the discoloration of age.
Nina knocked on the open door. “Pardon me. Are you Mrs. Marsh?”
“I’m not pretending to be anyone else. Come in and tell me who you are,” she said in a wavering voice, turned unseeing foggy eyes in Nina’s direction.
Anthony had conveyed Mrs. Marsh’s advanced age. He hadn’t mentioned that she was a witch.
Recognition of the void of Nexus energy rang through her. Nexus energy passed through most people and objects without effect. Monsters absorbed the energy. They were warm, for lack of a better description. Even relics had a trace of this warmth from the energy infused into them.
Witches experienced the opposite. The Nexus energy bounced off them, creating a void. When two witches met, the hair stood on the back of her neck. While she was quite accustomed to this sensation with her family, it was always unsettling to have it happen with a stranger.
Mrs. Marsh’s posture perked up; presumably she had the same reaction. “Who are you?”
“Nina Navarre.”
The elderly woman nodded her head, as if recognizing the name. “Well, Miss Navarre, have a cup of tea. We have some things to discuss.”
Nina took a seat at the table and poured herself a cup, adding a spoon of sugar. The first sip was bitter, prompting her to add another spoonful.
“You’ve come to hunt the family,” Mrs. Marsh said.
“That wasn’t my intention. Anthony brought me.”
“Anthony came back?” She shook her head. “He should have stayed away. Shame. I know I should have doted on the boy, but it was hard. The family ignored him and he was desperate for attention.”
“You know about the family’s curse.” A statement, not a question.
“Of course I know, girl,” she said. “The Marshes have been watching over this shoal for generations.”
“The relics—” Nina had so many questions.
“My family’s handiwork.” Her milky eyes stared in Nina’s direction. “Useless now. I’m not strong enough to keep them powered up anymore, and my granddaughter doesn’t have the touch.”
“They were powerful enough for me to detect.”
She shook her head. “That’s the call to come home. It’s an echo of what it once was.”
“And what was that?”
“A cage.”
Nina took another sip of tea. She took that to mean that Anthony was locked up somewhere. For clarity, she said, “I need you to explain that.”
The woman pushed her cup in Nina’s direction, silently commanding a refill. “This family is monstrous. Vicious killers. They’ll tear themselves apart until only one is left standing.”
“Not every person who has been bitten?—”
“For this family, yes.” Her voice grew steady.
“Saltwick used to be prosperous. When the fishing trade left for safer harbors, they deliberately lured ships to crash into the rocks.
They picked over the wrecks, scavenging what they could and not caring for the lives they took.
So many drowned because of those greedy creatures.
“The village scraped together what they could and found themselves a witch. There were too many of the creatures to eliminate. Containment was the better choice. Saltwick House is a trap.”
The rhetoric was old-fashioned and extreme, not unlike some passages from the older grimoires in her family’s collection. Nina would like to believe that the world had moved on to be more accepting, but she knew that far too many people believed that the only good monster was a dead monster.
“Anthony was bitten,” Nina said simply.
“Poor soul. I have to confess, when he escaped, I was glad to see him go. I hoped he could avoid this fate.”
“And what fate is that?”
Milky white eyes stared at her. “Has he gone missing? Are you searching for him?”
“Yes,” she said. “Where is he? Do you know?”
Mary came in and cleared the table.
“I’m the last, you know. For so long I thought I failed my duty. So many had slipped the net,” she said, sounding genuinely mournful. “I tried to find another to teach the ways to, but you see what I have to work with.”
She swatted Mary’s hand, causing the younger woman to yelp and to drop the tea pot, spilling lukewarm tea on the table.
“Clumsy girl,” she said as if she had not caused the mess.
“Is it just you two in the house?”
“Cook makes three. The house is not as grand as it once was, but Mister Roderick seldom entertains. We make do with the small staff.”
Mary snorted at that and muttered about being the one to do all the scrubbing and dusting.
“And Madeline?” Nina asked, suspecting the answer.
“Dead longer than you’ve been alive.”
“Where is Anthony?” Nina asked again.
“Roderick has him, of course.” Mrs. Marsh folded her hands on the table. “You know, I had resigned myself to being a failure, but then a miracle happened. Roderick called the strays home. One by one, he took them.”
“What does that mean?” She had an idea and it was gruesome.
“Locked them away and did my work for me. I thought, it’ll end with us, and that gave me peace.” Her mouth tugged downward. “Now you’ve ruined that.”
“Let me get this straight…” The list she found in Roderick’s desk haunted her. “Roderick has been luring his family here and killing them? Why?”
“I find I do not care for the specifics. It is done and that is enough.”
Yes. It was indeed as gruesome as she feared. Saltwick harbored more than one kind of monster.
“The crypt. It’s a relic,” Nina said, understanding exactly where Roderick was storing his murdered family and where to find Anthony.
“The ultimate trap. Lure them in with whatever promises they need and seal the door. No one can open it.” Again, those milky white eyes seemed to bore a hole right through her. “No one. If Roderick has Anthony, it is too late. Shame. Like I said, I was fond of the boy.”
Nina stood. “If anything has happened to Anthony… well, I suggest you not be here.”