Castle & Key, page 27
Janet woke as Susan was laying out her clothes, and seemed to stare at the ceiling for quite some time in an aimless sort of way before she sat up. Susan waited for her to do so before she passed her a cup of tea and enquired placidly, “Any news on the key?”
“Oh, that,” said Janet, shrugging one shoulder and looking away. “I don’t think that’s a real thing after all. The comments in the book must have been talking about a meeting of several different circumstances that open up the manor for everyone to escape.”
Susan said, “Ah. The master didn’t give you anything over the last few nights, then?”
“The master,” Janet said fiercely, “is an idiot and a madman.”
“Undoubtedly. But that wouldn’t necessarily prevent him giving you a key.”
“I told you that the key isn’t real!” said Janet, hunching her shoulders. “He can’t give me something that’s not real.”
“I see,” said Susan, with a small but growing dread. “I wonder what would be the key to opening up the manor, in that case? If the notes are correct, there’s no way out of the manor without going through it with the key.”
Janet’s eyes met hers, briefly. “I suppose it would have to be something like trust, or faithfulness. Something to make the curse think we’re worthy of escape before it opens up to let us in.”
“There is that,” Susan said, nodding.
She didn’t for a moment believe Janet, and she wasn’t sure if the feelings she was struggling with were disappointment or a certain sour, vindicated certainty. One thing she was certain of was that when the manor opened, it was for no good purpose. She was quite certain that she had been in what the book referred to as the “heart of the manor”, and it had always been a bad situation when it did happen. If the manor opened to them while pretending it was a way out, Susan had no doubt it was merely in order to test—or perhaps break—the bride. And it seemed that Janet had already made her decision.
That decision, at present, seemed to be to exclude both Susan and the master from any part in her plans; if last night’s tableau with Emmett was any indicator, Janet was now making plans of quite a different kind of escape.
Janet, it would seem, was not a terribly good liar—and that, thought Susan suddenly, was very interesting.
“Trust as the key to escape really would be a novel idea,” she said meditatively. She had no real desire to trust Janet, and no real reason to, either. But if it came to a choice between trusting Janet and trusting the manor, there was really no other choice to be made. “That gets everyone together in the same place and working together, even if not everyone knows the right way through the situation. Then if there’s only a few minutes to get out once the manor opens, everyone is all together and ready.”
“Not everyone likes to work together,” Janet said, rather sombrely. “No matter how hard you try—even if one of you knows the right doors to go through to get where you’re going.”
“Well,” said Susan, with a voice that couldn’t have been sharper if she’d tried to make it so, “I suppose you’ll just have to make sure that you’re with the right person when the manor opens up, won’t you?”
Janet’s eyes dropped, and Susan wondered if she’d mistaken the sudden glow of understanding that lit them. She hoped not.
“I see,” the bride said quietly. “I suppose I will.”
Fifteen
The key was exactly where Susan expected it to be—wedged between two of the little phials that Janet had hidden outside the window of the water chamber and wrapped in a handkerchief to prevent the shininess of it being too attractive to a passing bird. She stole it that morning while Janet was with the master in the breakfast room, and found herself hoping that Janet had left it where it was for the very purpose of being pinched. That was probably too much to hope for, even if Janet had understood her this morning, but the manor was certainly feeling loose and somewhat unravelled that morning as she took the servants stairway back down to the lower level.
Whether or not Janet had left the key for her, the giving of it a couple of nights ago and the stealing of it this morning had evidently had an effect on both the story and the condition of the manor. The hallways felt soft and pliable around her, and as Susan walked, she could hear the rustling of things—or ghosts—within the walls. Even the light seemed to have dimmed into a soft patina over the façade that the manor presented to its players.
All Susan had to do today was survive—and tip the fluid uncertainty of the manor over into the last part of the story: the escape attempt. At the very least, Emmett should be safe. Janet would be sure to bring him along with her when she knew that it was time. Susan was less sure about the master, but there would be time, she thought anxiously, to let him know that he needed to be with the others when everything began. At least, she hoped there would be time—time, in fact, would have to be made. Since he was also a victim of the curse and not its perpetrator, he shouldn’t be left behind to his fate any more than Janet ought to be.
The ticklish question was, was the master just as likely to try and keep the status quo as the staff were? Susan didn’t think so, but she had no guarantee that he wasn’t. That meant that she would have to keep him in the dark until the actual moment of escape. Emmett, on the other hand, undoubtedly needed to be given as much of a warning as could be given without informing the manor that he had been given it. And since the manor, so obviously intent on offering the most damaging solutions to the problems it presented, was unlikely to be satisfied with something so benign as a simple conversation, Susan would have to offer something more sensational.
In furtherance of that goal, Susan was particularly wary of both stairs and being too close to Emmett for the entire morning. She narrowly escaped falling down the stairs when one of the boards was unaccountably loose, and narrowly avoided being alone in the kitchen with Emmett by the simple expedient of popping her head through the door and, finding him there, immediately withdrawing it and swiftly making herself scarce. By the time the bell rang for her to attend Janet back to her suite—or to wherever it was that she wished to go—Susan had successfully avoided an increasingly dogged Emmett a number of times and avoided disaster several more times.
She wended her way carefully back down the hallways, avoiding suits of armour with far-too-sharp weapons and anything that could possibly fall down and injure her as she walked, and arrived at the breakfast room just in time to see Mrs. Carmichael removing herself from that room with an empty tray tucked tidily against her apron.
She nodded a small curtsey, and the housekeeper sniffed and bustled away, leaving Susan to enter the room alone. She found Janet within, looking rather small and frozen, her hands clutched in her lap around the pendant of her necklace.
“It’s all gotten quite messy, hasn’t it?” said Janet, as she approached.
“Night time roamings will do that,” Susan said, for the benefit of the manor and anyone else listening. “Sometimes it’s better to stay in your suite to avoid the mess—not to mention people you shouldn’t be meeting with when you’re married.”
Janet gazed up at her with enough blankness to make Susan feel distinctly uncomfortable. “Is it?”
“Yes,” she said. “In fact, I should think it’s going to get very messy as soon as you get back to the suite.”
“It’s not as…messy as it needs to be,” Janet said. She seemed to have woken up now, her eyes sharp and present.
“Not yet,” Susan agreed.
She had the key instead of Janet, and no doubt that was what had stopped the manor from opening entirely, but as soon as she allowed Emmett to catch up with her again, she suspected that things would begin to move very swiftly indeed.
“I really do think that it’ll be best if you’re in your suite today,” she added. Carefully malicious, she added, “You’ll only be in the way down here. Oh, and be careful what doors you go through on the way back up, if the hound isn’t with you. You never know how messy things are going to get.”
“If things get messier, I’ll come and find you,” Janet said. She hesitated, and added, “I’ll bring the others. Later; when it’s messier. We should probably stay together if it’s going to get more dangerous.”
“All right,” said Susan. If she was going to play the part of the jealous maid, she might as well do it whole hog. “But don’t expect me to dance attendance to you there and back. You seem to have enough people escorting you through the hallways as it is.”
“Oh,” said Janet, in a small voice. “Yes, I suppose so.”
She rose as she spoke, and although she didn’t quite meet Susan’s eyes, she didn’t seem to be able to stop herself looking over her shoulder as the hound followed her out of the room.
Dear me! thought Susan, irritated and impressed in equal measure. It was almost terrifying how easily the manor still prompted her to care for the bride, and how easy it would have been to fall back into that. Perhaps being the jealous maid was just as necessary for her own performance as it was for subterfuge.
She left the room shortly after Janet and fancied that the door to the morning room across the hall was slightly ajar, as if someone had been in the process of exiting and had pushed the door nearly shut once again to escape notice. She didn’t allow her eyes to linger, and when Emmett’s voice said, “Susan!” from very near by, she felt the delightful prickle of the world coming into the right place around her.
Susan turned her face toward the sound of his voice, and was caught by the arms as Emmett sighed out a breath of either satisfaction or relief. She heard the door to the morning room move just slightly behind her, and caught the faint scent of rosemary and lemon. How delightful! The manor was certainly paying attention—and so, it would seem, was Mrs. Carmichael.
She looked enquiringly up at Emmett, and this time he didn’t ask the question; he simply said, “You’ve been avoiding me.” The line between his brows was more curious than it was sorrowful, and as the silence drew out and Susan failed to reply, a certain determination seemed to settle over his face.
Susan would have liked to have replied at once, but she had just then, while looking up into his face, discovered the exact reason she had been putting off this particular part of her day’s work until the last moment. Once she did what she had to do here, that would be the end of it. One way or another, everything after this moment wasn’t her and Emmett together as a possibility. Whether they lived or died, escaped or were lost within the manor, there was no more us, no more disturbingly heart-fluttering kisses in corners. There was no more of the lover Emmett, only the friend Emmett.
The Emmett that she didn’t want to lose gazed down at her for just a moment longer and then drew her toward himself.
Susan, breaking herself out of the spell in sheer desperation, said, “I suppose the manor has been playing tricks again.”
“Likely,” said Emmett, his eyes searching her face. He couldn’t have missed the way the manor felt this morning; it was probably why he had been so determined to find her again. “But why now? I don’t think I did anything to make it happen.”
“Perhaps the curse doesn’t like you sneaking around the halls and kissing girls at midnight?” suggested Susan, removing herself from a grip that had suddenly loosened.
Emmett, his colour heightened, rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “I didn’t see you last night.”
“Yes, that much was very obvious,” Susan said, and she found that she didn’t have to act out any of the dryness in her voice. “I was coming to tell you that I was still alive, by the by; you were a bit preoccupied at the time, so I went away again and had a word with the master instead.”
Emmett looked up swiftly. “What did he say?”
“Nothing that you need to worry about,” Susan said. “He just fell asleep on me.”
“Don’t let other men fall asleep on your shoulder,” said Emmett, as though he couldn’t help it.
“Don’t go kissing other girls in the hallways,” she said to him.
Emmett’s breath drew in and out swiftly. “I didn’t…I didn’t kiss her.”
“Don’t let other girls kiss you in the hallways, either,” she said, with a flash of anger that was far too real for comfort. “I didn’t think I’d have to say it, but if you’re free enough to tell me what to do, you might like to think about what you’ve allowed yourself to do!”
“Susan—” He caught at her arm, pulling her gently back toward himself
She hadn’t expected to be shaking when it happened. That was the problem about really caring for people who should only ever be fairytale loves—it made things much harder when it came to ending things, because one really cared.
“Don’t touch me,” she said, pulling away. “You said—we said that we wouldn’t get too deep into our parts. That was rule number four. You can’t tell me you’re not getting too deep into the part when you’re taking kisses from the bride in the hallways!”
“It’s the manor,” he said, the bewilderment in his voice far too raw. “It gets into my head and I find myself doing things and allowing things I shouldn’t allow.”
Some of those things, thought Susan with a pang, were certainly things she had done.
“I’m tired,” she said, and she didn’t have to pretend to that, either. “I’m tired, and I don’t want to do this anymore. Meet whoever you like in the hallways at night—just make sure you’re with them when everything falls apart and it’s time to get out, because I won’t be coming for you.”
She pushed past him and left him where he was without daring to look at his face or listen to anything that he might have said below his breath. Mrs. Carmichael—and hopefully the manor—had heard their fill.
* * *
There was a mere blink between pushing past Emmett and another step through the hall, much later in the day. The manor, dark and dangerous around her, seemed to spiral away in all directions with loose threads, and Susan wasn’t sure if it was terrifying or exciting. She looked around her and found that she was still in much the same place she had been earlier, but now she was no longer alone in the hall: ahead of her, Mrs. Carmichael stood and watched as the footmen carried trays of plate and utensils into the formal dining room in the left wing.
Susan wasn’t sure where the housekeeper had come from—but then, she had only the slightest of recollections of how she herself had come to be exactly here. Time had again started moving more swiftly within the manor. She felt as though the housekeeper, in some indefinable way, was just waiting for her. Never one to step back from a challenge, Susan continued down the hall and stopped beside the woman.
“It will be a big dinner tonight,” said Mrs. Carmichael significantly, nodding toward the left wing of the manor and the footmen with their trays.
“So I see,” she said. “The master must have something planned.”
“There’s always a plan,” said Mrs. Carmichael, with an unpleasant smile. “We’ll see what happens.”
“If you’re out here, who’s cooking the dinner?” enquired Susan, reacting instinctively to the smile. “Shouldn’t you be watching your pots?”
“My pots are none of your concern,” the housekeeper said. “And I could ask what you’re doing out and about the manor at this time of day, when you should be helping your mistress to dress, but I’ll save myself the trouble. You’d best come and sit down with me for a cup of tea, Miss Susan; there are some things you need to hear.”
“How delightful!” said Susan promptly. The manor seemed to move and groan around her, and the halls, which had once been entirely absent of magic, now seemed to be threaded with it.
She expected the housekeeper to lead the way into the kitchen; instead, she turned on her heel and headed back into the morning room that looked out on the orchard on the left side of the manor.
A pre-prepared meeting, then, thought Susan, now very much awake and aware. She would have to be very careful. Still, she followed Mrs. Carmichael into the room willingly enough, throwing a glance over at the long windows, which were cloudy and white with far too much mist. The sight of it gave her a chill that the swirling uncertainty of the manor hadn’t, and when she sat down at the small table that was set with a tea tray, there was a prickle of exhilaration to her skin.
“Tea?” asked the housekeeper, sitting down firmly opposite her.
It was a question, but it was said with such heavy finality that Susan didn’t think it really was one; nor was the teacup that was thrust in her direction given in a way that suggested she was allowed to refuse it.
Susan took it and, without so much as moving her hands, used the teeming threads of magic about the place and promptly switched teacups with Mrs. Carmichael while the woman was cutting cake.
There was no saying that Mrs. Carmichael would try to drug her, of course, but Susan wasn’t one to forget the master falling asleep on her with the suggestion of lilly-pilly oil on his breath. She had no desire to end up the same way, especially since the use of such oil was also well-known to be a truth-producing serum in smaller doses.
She accepted a piece of cake from Mrs. Carmichael as well, and fancied that the cake, as much as it had been a screen for Susan in swapping the teacups, had also been a screen for Mrs. Carmichael to try and formulate what she would like to say.
“You’d probably better just come out and say it,” she advised, into the heavy silence that fell. “I always do; it’s so much better for the digestion!”
“You’re making trouble here, and you need to stop before you break things,” said Mrs. Carmichael, pleasingly obedient to the challenge. “If you want me to be as honest as that.”
