Charlotte Markham and the House of Darkling (10 page)

“Father, I will not offer you the baubles and trifles of my brothers, but the thing you want most.”

This caught the king's attention, and his temper abated. “And what would that be, my son?”

“Sleep.”

The youngest prince ripped his heart from his chest and opened it. The spark within became the moon in the sky, and the land darkened with moonlight and shadows. Instead of the dusty lands and the sprawling sea that had formerly surrounded the castle, there was now a black-green hill overlooking an empty moor. The subjects of the kingdom were nowhere to be found. The young prince went back to his place beneath the balcony.

The king was much impressed, but did not fully understand what had happened. “What have you done?”

“I have given you a place to end, my father. Sleep here, for while we are immortal and may never die, you will now know peace until Everything has run its course.”

The king said nothing, and the youngest prince was unsure whether he had done something very wise or very foolish, but then his father began to cry. He left his balcony and threw open the doors to the castle. The king embraced his son for a long while, and when he was finished he set the young prince upon his throne. There were banquets and celebrations. The newly created subjects of the kingdom were invited, and the other princes even returned home for a brief while to begrudgingly join in the festivities. But when it was over, the old king returned to his chamber and went to sleep for the rest of eternity. The young prince governed in his stead and remains in his castle at The Ending of All Things, beloved by his people as the wisest and most generous creature in the land.

The boys were already fast asleep by the time Lily finished the story and set the book back on the nightstand. She kissed them both on the cheek and disentangled herself from between the children.

“Sleep well, my darlings.”

She turned and left the room. I observed the boys one last time and followed her into my own quarters for the evening, which were decorated in muted blues and deep purples. A single four-poster bed sat at the center of the room, adrift in a sea of azure floor coverings.

“That was quite a story,” I said.

“And somewhat strange, even for creation myths. But I thought it prudent to share as you'll be spending more time here. The people of this place have a different view of life and death.”

“I'm afraid I'm unclear as to which they prefer.”

“A perceptive observation. It would most certainly depend upon whom you ask.” Lily lingered silently for a moment before going back to the doorway. “Breakfast is at nine.”

“How can you tell when it's morning?”

“You can't. I—” She stopped herself. “I'll fetch you and the children when it's time.”

Lily Darrow left and closed the door behind her, leaving me alone to wonder why someone who purported to be the lady of the house was showing her guests to their rooms.

CHAPTER 8

Interrupted Moonlight

I
dressed for bed, but couldn't sleep. The House of Darkling was flush with ambient noises: creaking floorboards, raspy breathing from down the hall, a scuttling sound just beyond the door to my room. These, combined with the occasional smell of ammonia, were enough to keep anyone awake. I wondered if the children were having any trouble sleeping. At least they had each other.

The wall opposite my bed was made up of wardrobes from different eras, all of them carpentered together into an oversized curiosity chest with half-moon handles on each of the little doors. I opened them one by one and explored the many novelties of Mr. Whatley's collection. There was a hand mirror that sapped what light there was from my room and used it to illuminate the world beheld in the reflection, a glass eye that rolled in one continuous figure eight, something mysterious in a velvet purse that pulsed like a human heart, a pedestal of crystal phials glittering with liquid light, and a wax dollhouse in a constant state of melting as its tiny wax occupants were crowned in flames instead of hair. I paused at this last compartment and they seemed to notice that I was staring at them, for the largest one, whom I assumed to be the patriarch of the house, leapt down from the opened alcove and onto the floor. Four other candle people followed, and they marched in a single-file line to the door of my room, waiting patiently for me to open it.

I wondered at Lily's comment about the house knowing what its inhabitants wanted most, for I found that the natural urges of the body required me to turn away from the dollhouse and leave my room in search of a lavatory. If there was one thing I had not wanted to do, it was to traipse through the house at night (whenever that might be) without Lily Darrow at my side. She had assured us that it was safe, but the strange noises emanating from every nook and shadow told a different tale altogether. There was an elaborate beauty about the place, but it was so bombastic that I could not shake the suspicion that it hid something more sinister. Lily was not being entirely forthcoming about how she had found her way here, to say nothing of the enigmatic Mr. Whatley, who had yet to introduce himself. I made up my mind to take the children back to Everton as soon as they'd had breakfast, but for the immediate future, I had to find the lavatory. I pulled on a housecoat from the wardrobe and opened the door.

The wax men stuck their flaming heads around the lip of the door and looked in both directions before jumping out into the corridor. They waved me onward. The hallways were empty but filled with the same noises that had disturbed my sleep. Trailing behind in the shadows of my new acquaintances, I went from one door to another, attempting to recall which of them led into the lavatory. The first one I tried opened into what appeared to be a small earthen burrow, the kind dug out by rabbits and voles. But this room was nearly as large as my own, and I crossed myself, thankful that it had been unoccupied. The next door was the correct one, and when I was finished I found myself to be quite awake.

Normally in such a situation I would read until I fell asleep, but as it was I had not thought to bring along a book. I remembered the large, impressive library at the other end of the mansion. Surely I could find my way there without any trouble? While it was true that the house was eerie and strange, it had so far only proved itself to be odd, rather than dangerous. Besides, what better way to uncover the true nature of the place than to explore it alone? I would simply collect a volume or two from the library and return to my room.

“Could you please take me to the library?” I whispered to the lead candle man. He nodded briskly and took off down the grand staircase.

I could not ignore the number of small sounds that seemed to come from all corners of the house. Dripping water, something heavy dragging along uneven floorboards, the clanking of dishware; none of them were very loud, but taken altogether they sounded as if there were a great deal of activity occurring just beyond whatever closed door I happened to stand next to. The sounds followed me down the hallway with the large oval windows looking out over the estate. The metal gate at the entrance was barely visible in the mist, but still closed. I pushed open the doors at the end of the corridor and entered the library. The wax men stayed behind in the hallway, obviously sensitive to the realities of vast quantities of paper.

I wasn't exactly sure what I was looking for. The book titles I had examined in the parlor weren't even in English, but then I supposed that if Lily could read them, then so could I. The first circle of the library was by far the largest, and I started there. Each of the shelves was labeled with a small silver plaque, some of them with familiar subjects, like agriculture, astrology, and astronomy, and others with more abstract areas of interest, such as death, demagogy, and demonology. I stopped at one of the larger sections in the Es, labeled “Every Place There Is,” which I interpreted as Travel, and took away a book entitled
Balthazar.

I opened the front cover, looking for some sort of description, but found only lines of elaborate calligraphy in a language I could not understand. But that did not seem to matter. The library disappeared completely, and I found myself on a low sea cliff overlooking a smooth, sandy beach, book still in hand. I nearly stumbled over the precipice in shock and wonderment, but quickly caught myself. Lily had warned me about the cunning nature of Darkling's literature. As I regained my composure, I turned around and saw a magnificent scarlet-colored castle, or perhaps a fortress, clinging to the edge of the rock. Women paraded along the walkways with pastel parasols, while the men wore expensive-looking suits and black top hats. There was a breeze coming in from the ocean, and the calls of seagulls overhead. I closed the book, and the scene at the beach disappeared with it. I turned around to observe the library, but it was the same as it had been the moment before. I placed the book under my arm, careful not to open it, and removed another book from the shelf, this one entitled
India.
The candle men were still waiting for me when I returned to the hallway.

“Back to my room, please,” I said. They took me through the House of Darkling a different way than we had come, into an indoor forest with branches made of bone, past a bar whose walls were built out of packing crates, and into a room so dark I began to feel claustrophobic, staying close enough to my guides that I nearly stepped on them when they came to a sudden halt. They huddled together and extinguished themselves, leaving me alone and anxious in the chamber until another light appeared before us.

A candelabra lit with quivering flames hovered in the emptiness, revealing nothing until it crept closer and a small hand appeared wrapped around its brass base, followed by the mischievous face of the boy, Duncan. For a moment I was sure that he had seen me, but he continued forward without a word. A stranger followed behind him. Even in the gloom I could tell that it was a large man, and he held a hat in front of his chest.

I followed them. The candle men grabbed hold of my robe in an effort to stop me, but I shook them off. If I was going to protect the children, then there were secrets here that I had to learn.

Duncan strode slowly through the house and paused before a marble bas-relief sculpture set into the wall, which depicted a litany of faces (human and otherwise) agape in agony.

“Oh yes, please. Please . . .” said the man with a hint of desperation. His eyes were small and watery, set too deeply in a fat, chinless face, with a wattle that trembled as his body shook with excitement. Duncan's expression of bemusement never changed as he pressed a finger into the eye socket of one of the smaller characters from the sculpture, pushing it back until it clicked into place. The wall swung open slowly, heavy with the weight of the marble, and the boy stepped aside. He looked back in my direction and brought a finger to his lips before joining the stranger in the secret room, leaving the door open for me to follow. I accepted this rather blatant invitation and trailed behind them.

I entered a circular chamber enveloped in concentric rings of billowing silk veils. They turned slowly in place, so that instead of walls there were only spinning layers of gauzy partitions, with gaps at random intervals in the fabric. To move from one ring to the next I had to step quickly through the openings until I stood just beyond the center of the room, where Duncan was strapping the large man into a metal chair. A wheeled table stood beside them, and on it a silver tray that held a smoky-colored phial with a white label I could not make out, a syringe, a set of forceps, and what looked to be a single lump of sugar.

“Yes, yes . . . I've been waiting so long.” The man closed his eyes. Tears streamed down his corpulent cheeks as he relaxed into the chair, and the boy removed the stopper from the phial to extract the contents with the syringe. He injected a black liquid into the center of the sugar cube and set the needle aside, using the forceps to place the modified confection into the open, eager mouth of the stranger.

The man bit down with a crunch and immediately strained against the chair's straps as his entire body began to convulse. Duncan ignored this and tidied up the tray, sealing the phial and capping the syringe before glancing once again in my direction with a sly, knowing look. The man in the chair had stopped moving. The boy initiated the process of releasing him as I backed out of the room to find the candle men still waiting for me, their flames reignited and beckoning me from the darkness.

I could not be sure of what I had just seen, but it was most certainly sordid and secretive. Why Duncan had allowed me to witness such a thing was even more vexing than the fact that such a room existed within the confines of Darkling. I was being toyed with, and I was not pleased.

We soon reached the wing where the children and I were to spend the night. Moonlight streamed through the window at the end of the corridor. I had opened the door to my room when a shadow passed over the wall. The flames of the wax men sputtered out, and they ran back to their alcove.

I spun around, but there was nothing behind me. It happened again, and this time I noticed something moving beyond the window, interrupting the moonlight. Curiosity got the better of my fear, and I padded quietly to the end of the hallway to investigate.

Below the window was the pond, and an elderly man whom I could only assume to be the groundskeeper was shoveling wet, viscous slabs of something that looked like meat from a wheelbarrow into the pond. For a moment nothing happened. The meat plunked into the water and sank immediately. But then something bubbled and bulged beneath the water as it had during our tour of the estate, and a tentacle emerged like a headless snake, and then another, and another, until a half dozen of them swayed in the water, twisting and curling, finally snapping at the hunks of meat already in the pond. The old man wiped his brow with his shirtsleeve and continued emptying the contents of his wheelbarrow. The limbs of the creature submerged in the depths of the water shuddered hungrily.

I backed away from the window, my heart beating against the silver cross I still wore. I did not scream. I did not swoon. But I felt with complete certainty that I had to get the children out of the house as soon as possible.

“Don't be frightened.” A voice came from behind me. I whipped around.

Lily Darrow stood at the other end of the hallway, staring at me with calm reserve.

“How could you invite your children to such a terrible place?”

“I'll admit that it is strange, but terrible . . . no.”

“The thing in the pond—”

“Was eating.” She approached the window and looked out over the estate. “Just because it does not look or behave as we do is not enough to make it evil. It would never harm you or the children.” The shadows of the tentacles in the pond passed over us, and she observed the books under my arm. “I see that you've been to the library.”

“Among other places,” I said with a small measure of disdain, but I would not reveal to her what I had seen. Perhaps Lily herself was unaware of the kind of business that this Mr. Whatley trafficked in. “I couldn't sleep.”

“Neither could I. I've been worried about the children.”

“As have I.”

“I would never let anything happen to them, you must realize that.”

“And how would you protect them from things I can scarcely find the words to describe?” I gestured to the window.

“I cannot, but the master of this house is perfectly suited to do so.”

“I find myself growing exceedingly suspicious over the arrangement you've made with this Mr. Whatley, who, I might point out, has yet to introduce himself.”

“He's a very busy man. But he'll be at breakfast tomorrow. When you meet him, you'll understand why I agreed to stay. Please, if you still don't trust me after tomorrow morning, you can take the children and never bring them back.” She gently touched my arm and looked into my eyes. She was a cipher of a woman, an odd amalgamation of strength and fragility, and I hoped that would be enough to keep whatever lived in the House of Darkling at bay.

“Then why do you worry?”

“They've grown.” She softened a little, and I could not keep myself from doing the same.

“Children have a tendency to do that when you're not looking.”

“So much time has passed. Perhaps I should have let them go. I've been terribly selfish.”

“Nonsense.” I put my hand over hers and smiled in sadness. “Any chance for them to know you is too important to ignore. I wish I had known my mother a little better, before she died.”

We stood facing one another in silence, the other woman's head tilted to one side, as if she were deciding something. Then she embraced me softly.

“Until tomorrow.”

She turned and left the hallway. I realized that I had no idea where she slept, and I wondered again what she had been doing up while the rest of us were in bed.