Castle & Key, page 23
She opened the door for Janet and followed after the bride to find that although the air wasn’t as cold as it could have been, there were still threads of mist clinging to the trees further away from the manor.
“You arrived just in time,” she said to Janet in a low voice, once the door was closed. “Mrs. Carmichael was just coming in to see what she could snap at me for.”
“I don’t know why he keeps her around,” Janet said as she slipped her boots on, and then winced a little. “Oh, that sounds awful! If she wasn’t here, someone else from the town would have to be here.”
“I didn’t fancy you were wishing death on her,” said Susan soothingly. “And speaking of death, if there’s anything good about what happened yesterday, it’s not having to worry where the gardeners are or what they’re going to be up to in the mist now that they’re being footmen inside the house.”
She heard the little sigh that Janet let out. “Oh, I forgot about that! What a relief not to have to worry about them for a little while at least! I don’t think it would be so bad if they didn’t just stare at one.”
“Even if they didn’t, they’d still be doing everything in concert,” Susan said gloomily. “And answering as though they’ve had to process everything through ten layers of fog themselves.”
“At least we won’t have to worry about anyone else coming in now,” Janet said, and Susan had the idea it was more to herself than to Susan. The bride’s fingers tangled with her long, gold necklace, and Susan wondered if she knew that now the story was begun, no one else would be replaced from the town until she had escaped or was dead and the story curse reset itself or was fulfilled.
“You’re always wearing that,” Susan said, to take the bride’s mind off the unpleasant thoughts that were no doubt flowing fast through her brain. “I wondered why. Did someone special give it to you? The protection spell on it isn’t very strong, you know.”
Janet’s small hands closed around the pendant, and her eyes darted to Susan. “This? Yes; my older sister gave it to me a long time ago. I promised her that I’d always wear it.”
That was something of a relief: if it had been a memento from a lover, Susan wouldn’t have been surprised to find the curse using it against Janet when it came to the master. Seeing how much it had already figured out—or known outright—when it came to herself and Emmett, she wouldn’t have been surprised to find the curse using that against Janet. It was more than enough that the curse had set her up against Janet, and Emmett against the master.
That tickled up a small curiosity within her, and she asked, “Did you tell the master so?”
“Yes; he said he’d get me some oil of rose and violet to put in it,” said Janet, her eyes dropping to the pendant with a small frown between her eyebrows.
“Did he ask first, or did you…?” Susan let the question drop delicately.
Janet seemed to pull in a breath and recollect herself. She let go of the pendant and said, “Oh, he asked. I think he thought—”
“I can imagine what he might have thought,” Susan said, with a wry smile. A stray, unkind thought suggested that she ask Janet what she thought the master might say about her clinging to Emmett’s arm and gazing up at him with trusting eyes, but she already knew enough of what she thought about it to answer the question herself. So she asked again the question she had already asked that morning. “Did you talk to him about Helfer and the new footmen last night?”
One of Janet’s shoulders went up and down very slightly. “We didn’t have time to discuss it. We talked about it this morning, though: he says he had no idea that something like that was going to happen, but that it’s happened many times before. If a main character in the curse is killed and that part is more important than the part they were playing, they have to move up.”
“I wonder if the gardeners knew that.”
“So do I,” Janet said, her shoulders hunching a little. “Susan—about the book—”
“I thought you might see that,” Susan said cheerfully. “I left it out so that you would, at any rate. When did you find it for the first time?”
“Only yesterday—I really was going to tell you!”
“I’m delighted to hear it,” said Susan. Since she didn’t know any better, perhaps it was just as well to believe Janet—it was too easy to disbelieve others in this cursed manor. “Where did you find it, by the way?”
Janet’s eyes met hers briefly and then dropped again. “The master very carefully told me where I shouldn’t be looking and what I shouldn’t be looking at.”
“Did he so?” Susan said, much amused. “What a clever boy! So he made it clear that it was something you shouldn’t be looking into and also clarified in which direction you shouldn’t be looking. You think it’s true that the first owner was the one who began the curse?”
Janet nodded. “I’m sure of it. I don’t know how it helps me to know, and maybe I’m just grasping at straws, but—”
“Maybe we both are,” Susan said, and this time she heard the grimness in her own voice. “But Helfer died the day after he told me about the original master and the current one, so I think it’s more important than we suspect. Be careful about reading it or talking about it, all right?”
“He said that, too,” Janet said. “I think we’re safer talking about things when we’re away from him, but—”
“—but there are the servants,” agreed Susan. “Yes. I’d say to watch out for Mrs. Carmichael in particular, but it was Mr. Oswald that I saw watching Helfer and me the other day, and even Regan—”
“Talking outside feels safer, anyway.”
Susan glanced over at the bride. “Yes, that worries me a little, I have to say! I don’t trust things that feel safer. Do you think we should be putting the book away somewhere hidden, by the way?”
“No,” said Janet. “I think we ought to read it as quickly and thoroughly as possible. I have the feeling that it’s the key to getting out of here. It wasn’t easy to find, even with the master’s help, and I don’t think it was meant for me to find. I mean, I think he put himself in danger by telling me—or not telling me, I suppose.”
Susan’s sharp eyes didn’t miss the movement of Janet’s wrist as she pinched her fingers around her pendant and twisted it back and forth. “Someone told you where to find the book before you got here, didn’t they?”
Janet’s shoulders stiffened. “You might as well know,” she said at last, letting out a faint sigh. “We get…information every now and then. Sometimes the servants make it through one whole storyline and get away free—not many, just one or two. Someone who knew my sister made it in with her, but he was the only one who came back out.”
“I see,” Susan said. “And he told you everything he knew to make sure you could beat the curse and make it out alive?”
Janet’s eyes didn’t meet hers. “Yes,” she said. “That’s also why I need to get into that little room the master didn’t want me in—really didn’t want me in, not just pretending for effect. There’s something for me in there. I can’t…I can’t tell you what it is, but I need to get in there.”
“That’s another thing I don’t understand,” Susan said thoughtfully. “I know you’re here for your own reasons, but I don’t see how finding things within the manor is going to get you out safely. If playing the game the curse wants you to play is what gets you out alive, then all the information in the world on how to escape won’t help, will it?”
“Oh!” Janet said, her gaze lighting on Susan’s face. “There’s meant to be a way to escape the manor, once everything and everyone is where they’re meant to be. Didn’t you see the notes in the margin of the book?”
“Not a one.”
“Some of the other brides must have found it before me; I found notes all the way through from the part where the writer starts to talk about the original owner’s disappearance—there are at least two different types of handwriting.”
Susan felt a little bubble of delight form in her throat. “I don’t suppose any of them mention what sort of things might need to be done to push the curse into a certain direction?”
Janet gazed at her in astonishment. “How did you know?”
“Well, it’s a story curse,” Susan said, gesturing back toward the manor. “And by now we’ve passed through nearly two parts, I should suppose. If something is needed to happen before we can get to the next part, or if something needs to happen to open up a way to escape, we need to move the story on to that part. If any of the brides think like me, I’m certain they would have been wondering how to go on to the next section of the story, or how to push it on. I’ve got the feeling that the brides are each given a chance to escape—or maybe just a chance to make the story go along the Perfect Result lines—but the story changes based on decisions. If it was me, I would want to know what decision to make to bring about the best chance to escape the manor.”
Janet, with bright eyes, said eagerly, “One of them mentions the key, and it does talk about trying to find the right way to push the right storyline.”
“Dear me!” said Susan. “Perhaps you could show me those notes when we get back to the manor. We’d probably better be careful talking about it within the manor, but I shouldn’t think the curse will know if we’re simply reading it.”
“I remember one,” Janet said promptly. “The heart of the manor doesn’t reveal itself until the key is with the bride, nor will the doors open. There’s no way out without the key. At all costs keep the key.”
“Yes,” said Susan thoughtfully. She still remembered the raw magic that ran through what must be the inner manor, and the sprawling confusion of it. Something like a key that had been pre-set for an escape door would do a lot of good there. “A lot of it does seem to come back to the key.”
Janet’s eyes fastened on her. “You’ve heard about it before, haven’t you? What do you know about it?”
“The master said something about a key a day or so ago,” Susan admitted. “I wasn’t sure if you knew about it or not, and I didn’t know how much of what the master told me would be useful and how much would be dangerous.”
“He doesn’t lie,” said Janet, and her voice was very slightly resentful. “He can’t help it if the curse pulls what he says out of shape or does odd things with it.”
“I daresay he can’t,” said Susan. The ridiculousness of Janet being annoyed at Susan speaking in anything but glowing tones of her husband while at the same time clinging to Emmett’s arm should have amused her, but it seared her heart with annoyance instead.
Janet lifted her chin a little as if Susan had said outright that she didn’t trust the master. “He probably didn’t tell me yet because it wasn’t the right time.”
“You said you didn’t have time to discuss Helfer or the gardeners with the master when you met last night—what did you discuss?” Susan glanced sideways at Janet and added, “Since he didn’t give you anything like a key, I mean.”
“I was—I was too busy doing something else, so we only had a few minutes together to make sure that we were both alive and well.”
Something else, Susan was rather sure, was meeting with Emmett. “I see,” she said stiffly. “You were busy in the halls on your own business.”
Janet, her fingers tightly clasped around her pendant, seemed to have deflated. She said unhappily, “Yes, I suppose that’s about it.”
“Yes, I rather thought so.”
“I don’t—” Janet stopped, her fingers white and tight, and finished jerkily, “I don’t want to do it. I didn’t know it would be like this, and I don’t know how to get through it all.”
“I suppose not,” Susan said, and she found that she couldn’t help the coldness to her voice. “But it’s a little bit late to be worrying about that at this stage, I’m afraid. You came here, and now you’re stuck here, just like me.”
“Yes, it looks like it,” said Janet quietly. “I just thought there might be another way.”
“There’s always another way,” Susan said. “It just depends on whether you want to pay the price for going that way.”
She was short with Janet’s subsequent sallies and replies, and when the other woman reluctantly suggested returning to the manor not half an hour later, Susan was glad to go. Perhaps Brennan would have some insight into what Janet had been doing last night, and with whom.
A vague echo of the malicious commlink entity’s words, Teetering on the brink of disaster came to her mind, along with, Make sure that you do everything to win him.
Thirteen
Susan would have gone straight to Brennan when she returned to the manor, but she didn’t get the chance. Immediately when she returned, she was set upon by Mrs. Carmichael, who didn’t know where Mr. Oswald had gone and didn’t seem to care, so long as Susan did the jobs she had prepared for him to do instead.
When she was finally free of selecting wines and setting tables, Susan found that she still couldn’t get back into the main foyer without being observed: the footmen, dogged and slow, had gone back to dusting the portraits along the hall and were slowly making their way into the foyer to dust the suits of armour there, as though it was their default setting. Much to her irritation, she had still not been able to get back to see Brennan by the time the suns set, and when she and Janet finally returned to their suite, she stopped only long enough to suggest very strongly that Janet and the hound should both remain in the suite and left to find Emmett.
It wasn’t until Susan was well into the right wing that she realised she had left the suite far earlier than usual. Softly stalking around the corner was Mr. Oswald, who was looking around nervously, but not, fortunately for Susan, in the right direction to see her. She ducked quickly behind a suit of armour that she was quite certain had been in a different part of the wing last time she had visited, and waited.
Mr. Oswald, still looking around like a particularly nervous pigeon, dodged and darted his way down the hallways, and took a left-hand turn that Susan had never seen before. The manor had begun to open out again.
Rather more carefully this time, Susan followed Mr. Oswald down a shadowy and tile-lined passage that seemed to swim with shadows that made sense when she finally caught up and found herself in an elaborate bathing chamber. Lined with potted plants and decorated with milky pillars, it was an easy room to slip into without being seen by the person she was following.
She was no longer sure that there was any reason to be following Mr. Oswald who, after all, had every right to come and bathe late at night, in secret or otherwise. Even the fact that he had come to a part of the manor that was running with a bit too much magic to be part of the regular manor wasn’t necessarily pertinent.
Susan took a moment to feel the magic that ran beneath her feet, and reflected that it was only ever here, in the secret parts of the manor, that she felt as if the manor was a magical something existing in the real world. The outer part of the manor was more akin to a stage that was presented to the audience, with nothing that could be seen or grasped that wasn’t meant to be seen and grasped—with all the mechanisms and practical magic hidden away out of sight to enhance the effect of the magic on stage.
This was the truly meaty part of the manor, and could she and Emmett bring Janet safely into it while possessing the key the master was supposed to give to Janet, Susan rather thought that there was a good chance of all three of them escaping the manor whole. It would do very little to help the master, however, who likely couldn’t leave without his Perfect Result.
Treading lightly across the tiles, Susan heard a light splashing, as if someone had dipped a toe into the water to check the temperature. She peeked around the edge of a colonnade and saw a barefoot Mr. Oswald stripping off his shirt.
Susan, who had no pretensions to becoming a peeping tom, was about to make a swift and silent about-face to leave the bathing room as silently as she might, when she realised that Mr. Oswald, far from being completely bare-torsoed, was wrapped from the upper waist to just below the armpits in a few layers of what looked like bandage.
It was something she had worn often enough herself to recognise instantly: Mr. Oswald had been banding himself about the breast, and as he unwrapped himself, she could see that it was in order to flatten a chest that was absolutely not that of a man.
Mr. Oswald was, in fact, obviously a woman.
Susan, wide-eyed, saw the last of the bandages drop and let out a breath that mingled understanding with surprise. It didn’t seem much better to be peeping on a woman unawares than a man, so she took the swiftest way around the potted palms she had been behind and came out slightly behind Mr. Oswald in order to give her the chance to do any covering she might want to do when Susan said amiably, “Nice night to bathe, I suppose!”
Mr. Oswald didn’t even try to cover herself in the moment. She simply turned, and there was a hopelessness to the set of her shoulders that Susan couldn’t miss.
“You shouldn’t be here,” said Mr. Oswald, her voice flat and emotionless. Despite that, there was a flush of colour in her cheeks. “And you should learn how to forget things you shouldn’t have seen.”
“I suppose the old butler died,” Susan said thoughtfully, sitting down slowly on the edge of the bathing pool to dip her feet into the water and give the butler a chance to recover herself. “But I don’t understand why you had to pretend to be a man to take over. Couldn’t there have been two housekeepers? At the very least, I’ve seen more than one woman buttle!”
Mr. Oswald sat down on the tiled floor as if too numb to stand. “There’s only ever one housekeeper, and there needs to be a butler. The butler is always a man.”
“That’s all very well to say, but you’re obviously a woman.”
“I always liked trousers and queued hair,” said Mr. Oswald. Her eyes flickered to Susan and away again. “You can’t like that sort of thing if you’re a woman. It’s not fitting. The story just helped me to understand what I really am. If I was meant to be a woman, it wouldn’t have done that. I’m happier now that I know what I am.”
