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doorways leading into darkness

Ravenscourt Manor (Part 3)

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The Housekeeper seemed just as pleased as we were. She was pale and bulging, with heavily-lidded eyes, a wide mouth, and very little neck, which rather made her look like the unfortunate result of a misguided prince kissing a toad and turning it into a Housekeeper. As soon as Mother and Uncle Edward had disappeared into the house, she stalked toward a door on the other side of the hall and pulled it open. A dust-dark hallway lay beyond –  I’d met closets that looked more inviting.

‘Well?’ said the Housekeeper, her voice a low, rasping croak. ‘Are you coming or not?’

William and I exchanged a look. My first instinct was to turn around, get back in the carriage, and catch the first train back to Caledonia, but that, unfortunately, did not seem like an option. So, with a deep breath, I made my way to the door, William still clinging to my coat. The Housekeeper nearly shoved us through, before slamming the door behind us, and pushing past to take the lead.

The house was a dizzying labyrinth of tight corridors and high-ceilinged galleries, and hall after hall after hall of locked doors. As the housekeeper led us down passages and up stairs and through windowless rooms, the keys at her belt jangling with every step, I tried to keep track of our route, counting rooms and paces and turns, but it was impossible. Past a set of double doors, we turned down a side hall, and at last, the Housekeeper unhooked the keys from her belt, unlocking the door to a small, dreary parlour.

A cloud of dust rose into the air as we entered, and William tried to wave it away – but before I could do much more than glance at the room (all I noticed was that the walls were painted a most disagreeable shade of grey), the Housekeeper spun us both to face her.

‘These are your rooms,’ she said shortly. ‘The main bedroom is through the door on your left, while the second door on the right leads to the other. The maid will bring you dinner in an hour. I hope you’re not picky.’

William coughed.

‘Now, before you get too comfortable,’ continued the Housekeeper, ‘there are some rules you are expected to obey during your stay here. First of all, locked doors are locked for a reason. You are well advised to keep your snotty little noses where they belong.’

Fair enough, I thought.

‘Secondly, though the woods and gardens are free for you to explore, you may not leave the grounds without an adult or express permission. And of course, if you are not back inside before nightfall, the doors will be locked, and you will not be allowed admittance,’ her face broke into a cruel grin. ‘The grounds are rather… unpleasant at night.’

I looked to William, who raised his eyebrows. Neither of us wanted to know what sort of unpleasant she meant.

‘Finally,’ said the Housekeeper. ‘Remember that you are here by the goodwill and charity of Doctor Crowe. If he asks you to do something, you are to do it immediately and without question. Is that clear?’ When neither William nor I responded, the Housekeeper gave a little sniff. ‘Of course,’ she said, ‘if you wish to be obstinate, there will be punishments.’

‘What sort of punishments, ma’am?’ asked William.

But the Housekeeper didn’t answer. Instead, she gave us one last heavy-lidded scowl and stepped back into the hall. ‘Welcome to Ravenscourt,’ she said, before slamming the door on us.

Her exit raised another cloud of dust, which set William coughing while I pulled off my boots, shook the water out of my coat, and took a moment to look at the room properly. My first impression hadn’t been wrong: a crumbly fire smouldered in the fireplace, a vase of wilting flowers drooped on the mantle. The warped shadow of iron bars darkened the windows, and the couch and the cushioned chairs had become a feast for moths. I’d never seen a more disagreeable room in my life – up to and including the sitting room of our neighbour, Mrs. Evans, who owned a dozen smelly cats.

Dad would have had choice things to say about all of it. Perhaps he would’ve tried to identify the mould growing on the walls: P. Creeperserus or something like that – or made jokes about the paintings and the strange statues. The Housekeeper would’ve found it impossible to be so sour to him: he would’ve laughed it away, or perhaps even charmed a smile out of her. And Uncle Edward–

I wondered what he would’ve said to Uncle Edward. After all, they were brothers: they’d grown up here together, once. But now I’d never know what they would’ve said to each other, because of course, the only reason we were here at all was because Dad was gone–

He was gone.

It still didn’t feel completely real. Half of me still expected him to walk through the door with a smile and a laugh, saying it had all been a marvellous joke. Part of me even wanted to believe he was here – just waiting behind one of those locked doors.

But of course, that couldn’t be true. He’d left all of this behind long, long ago, and he’d never wanted to think about it again. How Mother could have ever thought of bringing us here, to this unfamiliar house among strangers, I still couldn’t fathom.

‘I hope we won’t be staying very long,’ said William.

‘I guess we’ll have to wait and see.’

Dinner was a sorry plate of cold meat and soggy potatoes, and Mother had tucked a note under one of the forks to let us know that her room was ‘just down the hall’ though she’d conveniently left out exactly which way and exactly which hall. Afterward, I busied myself unpacking our suitcases, and William tried, with little success, to coax the fire back to life – but with our suitcases being so small, the entire thing didn’t take very long, and so I tucked myself into the lumpy sheets of my lumpy bed for lack of anything better to do. The day had made me tired, but I still couldn’t sink into sleep.  So I took deep breaths and tried running my defences, Dad’s words echoing in my head:

The First Defence is always with you, but this ring will help you remember it.

The Second Defence is self-control, and you must master your breath to maintain it.

The Third Defence is your heart and your sanctuary. Know how to find it and you will never be deceived for long.

I twisted my ring and counted my breaths and coiled the warmth of those defences into my chest, but no matter how I tried, I couldn’t find my way back to my sanctuary: the Third Defence wouldn’t work.

The rain pounded against the windows and the wind howled over the stones and I could hear the hallways creaking. Without my sanctuary, there was no escape from the strange, discomforting darkness of this unfamiliar room, and my mind couldn’t stop questioning what it meant, that the Third Defence wouldn’t work. Was I simply tired – or did it have something to do with the Ward? Or with Dad? Still, I must’ve slept a bit because I dreamed about a woman with ice for eyes and a pale face and somewhere a boy was screaming. But then I opened my eyes, and there was a face hovering above me: white and flickering with a strange, orange glow.

I screamed, and then hit it with my pillow.

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A Most Dismal Prospect (Part 2)

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The priest whispered harshly at the undertaker, and I knew, even without looking, that Mother’s eyes were following me as I stalked away, but I didn’t care. I didn’t stop, didn’t look back – not until I’d reached the other side of the graveyard, hidden beyond one of the mausoleums.

Still, I wasn’t alone. A man stood at the gate with a cane at his side, wearing a black suit and a frown that seemed severe even by graveyard standards. As I slowed to a stop next to a granite headstone (Maeve Finche, beloved wife and mother, 1823-1862), the man nodded at me and tipped his hat. I could’ve sworn I’d never seen the man before – he didn’t look like any of the people in town, and my parents had never been too keen on visitors or friends, so it was unlikely that he knew them. As much as I tried to place him, he didn’t fit anywhere in my memory, yet…

There was something about him – about the way he stood, the way he moved, the fact that he’d tipped his hat at me – that held a threat of recognition.

He slipped into the cemetery, stepping through the boundary of the Graveward without even the smallest flinch of discomfort. He had to lean heavily on his cane as he crossed the cemetery, but he barely looked down: if he’d come to visit someone, he didn’t waste time looking for them among the graves. I marked his halting walk across the grounds, and just as he was about to turn the corner of the mausoleum, I made to follow him–

He shot a glare over his shoulder, and our eyes met, his severe frown as clear a warning as any. I froze. He shook his head, once – a small gesture, almost invisible – and the next moment, he’d continued on, to disappear among the stones.

I was left standing with Maeve Finche’s femurs somewhere below my feet, wondering if there was any point in trying to find out what was going on with Dad’s service.

Before I could convince myself that there was, William wandered over, picking his way carefully around the graves to avoid stepping on the dead. With a huff, I sank down into the grass sprouting above Maeve’s skull, and waited for my brother to join me.

‘Mum’s in a fit,’ said William. ‘The priest went to fetch an Inquisitor.’

‘Well, they have to report the missing spirit, don’t they?’ I said, trying to keep my voice light. But the truth was that Inquisitors were bad news. The Inquisitorial Order was the humourless group of men and women who made sure that everyone was suitably afraid of magic, which was supposed to prevent us from trying to hire magicians to Curse our enemies, or from studying to become magicians so we could Curse our enemies ourselves. Of course, if any of the Inquisitors’ scare tactics actually worked, they’d all have been out of a job, because really, their main purpose was to hunt down magicians and make a big show of burning them alive – or hanging them, though burnings tended to be more popular.

In their endless quest to stamp out magic, the Inquisitors were naturally interested in any spiritual anomalies, which apparently included botched Resting services.

‘The priest insisted,’ said William. ‘I bet they’ll pin it on the undertaker and arrest him for magic. I mean, who else could they blame?’

Part of me felt sorry for the undertaker. If the Inquisitors did decide to blame him for a stolen spirit, there’d be very little he could do besides burn for it. But I hadn’t gotten to Rest my dad, and there was another part of me that wanted someone to burn for that. ‘Would serve him right,’ I said.

William frowned. ‘What if Dad just managed to pass on without their help?’ he said.

‘He’s still gone.’

‘So you don’t think there’s a heaven?’ asked William.

‘No.’

‘No eternal life?’

‘He’s quite dead.’

‘So you think the spirit just… disappears, after everything?’

I gave him another look – his second one this morning. ‘I didn’t say that.’

He went silent for a minute, the way he does when he’s trying to sort out a math problem in his head. And then:

‘What’s it like to be dead then, I wonder?’

And because that was a question with no easy answer, I said: ‘Don’t ask stupid questions,’ and held out my hand so that he’d help me up from the grass.

We wandered back toward Dad’s grave as a light drizzle began to fall, to find Mother talking to an Inquisitor. His silver-trimmed cloak flapped in the breeze.

‘They’re quick,’ said William.

Too quick, I thought. I went to join Mother next to the grave.

‘…in any case,’ the Inquisitor was saying, ‘we would like to ask you some questions to get to the bottom of this regrettable incident. First things first: did your husband have any enemies, Mrs. Crowe?’

‘Enemies, Sir Inquisitor?’ echoed Mother, her face pinching into a frown. ‘Surely you aren’t suggesting–’

‘Murderers often find it useful to cover their steps with magic,’ said the Inquisitor with a shrug.

Mother’s voice was chilly as she informed the Inquisitor that, no, Dad didn’t have enemies, which was the single truest thing I’d heard today. There was absolutely no reason why anyone would’ve wanted to hurt Dad, much less kill him. He’d always kept to himself, more interested in plants and flowers than making trouble. The very thought of Dad having enemies was absurd, at best. And yet–

And yet, he’d dropped dead one night for no reason. There was no explanation for it that made sense.

A blotch of shadow shifted at the other side of the graveyard, and I looked away from the Inquisitor to find the stranger from the gate standing there, hat pulled low over his face, watching. He leaned against one of the gravestones and lit a pipe while the Inquisitor continued to ask questions:

‘Is it possible that he ran afoul of someone in town?’

‘Any neighbours who might have had a grudge?’

‘Could Lewis have been involved in any sort of magic himself?’

‘Sir Inquisitor,’ said Mother sharply. ‘I don’t know what you’re hoping to discover. I’ve already told you what everyone already knows, and if you honestly believe–’

‘My apologies, Mrs. Crowe,’ said the Inquisitor. He shifted, suddenly uncomfortable. Mother had a way of doing that to people. ‘I suppose that this must be a difficult situation for everyone involved, so I want to assure you, once more, that we will do our utmost to uncover the culprit.’ He coughed. ‘If there’s nothing else, I think I’m done here–’

‘But you haven’t told us when we’ll be able to Rest him,’ I said before the Inquisitor could make his easy exit. ‘You’re going to find out who took his spirit, and you’re going to get it back, right? That’s what you’re supposed to do.’

For the first time, the Inquisitor set his eyes on me. I refused to look away, scowling right back at him until he shook his head. ‘Unfortunately,’ he said, ‘in cases like these, it’s rare that a spirit is stolen intact. I’m sorry to say that, whether lost by accident or foul play, it’s unlikely we will be able to recover Mr. Crowe’s spirit.’ He gave one last nod to Mother, before walking away into the drizzle.

Mother let him. She wasn’t watching the Inquisitor; she was staring at the other side of the graveyard, where the stranger had been smoking while the Inquisitor talked. I looked to see if he’d seen her–

But the stranger was already gone.

We were alone.

Keep Reading.

Thanks for reading A Murder of Crows! If you like what you’ve seen so far, don’t forget to follow us and get email or WPReader updates of new chapters as soon as they’re published:

And if you happen to be feeling particularly generous, we’d all appreciate your support via Buy Me A Coffee through the button below.

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In any case, until next time — Farewell from the Ladies at Ravenscourt.