Nooks & Crannies (27 page)

Noticing their soaked legs and shoes, the Countess sneered. “Been outside, have you? I wonder if your friends are all out there as well.
Phillips!
Check the back garden and the shed and the stables and the barn.”

“I've checked.”

“Check again, since you're useless with doors. Cook, you and Agnes watch young Oliver while I deposit Tabitha in her room and see to a matter in my study. I'll be back for you during the dinner hour, Mr. Appleby.” Yanking Tabitha out the door, the Countess marched down the hallway. “Hurry up,” she ordered. “Why is your shoe off and why are you dragging your leg?”

“It's injured.”

“Good. No running away from the Countess for you, then.”

Up the staircase they went, the Countess huffing and dragging Tabitha with surprising strength. Tabitha's ankle screamed in protest as it bumped a stair. She tried to hop but was being flung forward in a jerky manner, quite independent of her own power. “You're not the Countess at all. You're an imposter! You're the maid, and the frozen woman in the shed is—”

“Shut up,” was the answer. “Shut up, shut up, shut up. Me, a
maid
? Idiot girl! I'm no maid, and you know
nothing
of imposters.”

But Tabitha knew plenty about imposters. Entire plots had been dedicated to the detection, unveiling, and punishment of them in at least four Inspector Pensive novels. And imposters, like all criminals, were always after something of value.
One-hundred-thousand-pound trust fund that will be released to the family on the twelfth birthday . . .

“This is all about the money,” Tabitha said, in an Inspectorish voice that came out sounding much more confident than she felt. “You found that note, written by the real Countess, didn't you? And now you're planning on keeping her grandchild under false pretenses, so that when the trust is released, as legal guardian you can snatch it up along with the rest of the Countess's money. Were you planning to dispose of the child immediately or wait a few months to avoid suspicion? Whatever your plan, it'll never work! There are six of us, and the papers will find out what's going on and you'll be ruined and—”

“Enough!” The Countess was wild-eyed and breathing hard. She stopped at the top of the stairs. Removing the butcher knife from her handbag, she began tossing it in the air, neatly catching the handle each time. Seeing Tabitha's expression, she winked. “Learned to do it over the years. It relaxes my wrists for chopping.”

Dear God, perhaps this faux Countess did all the murders in those terrible files. And she's invaded the house to get back at the real Countess, who was so shocked by her appearance that she had a stroke. And now there will be a file on me with—

Oh, stop! You're hysterical and making wild claims!

She's going to chop me to pieces.

Well, that one actually seems spot-on.

“Phillips!” Tabitha cried. “Phillips will stop you!”

For the love of Pensive, stop antagonizing her!

I can't help it! I'm a nervous talker.

A nervous thinker, you mean.

Oh, do shut up!

“Phillips will do whatever I tell him to,” the faux Countess assured her. But she stopped flipping the blade and seemed content to let Tabitha remain in one piece. “He will hunt the rest of you horrible children down, and you will all stay here until I have what I want. And nobody will be talking to the papers. Now,
move
.”

They arrived at the east wing's short hallway, and the Countess halted at the sight of a chair firmly jammed under Tabitha's bedroom door. “The chair's still in place. Put it back after Oliver snuck you out, did you? Clever beasts. Unfortunately for you, I know how to jam a door properly, and nobody's left to fetch you.” Her eyes darted up and down the hallway. “Nobody at all.” She moved the chair and opened the door, quivering a bit.

No amount of money can save you from fear or madness,
Tabitha thought. “She'll haunt you, you know—the ghost of the real Countess. Ghosts always haunt those who wrong them.”

The faux Countess's eyes searched the midsize room, narrowing at each corner. “That's poppycock. Vermin plop. Baker's piss-pot pie.” She was breathing even harder now, bits of spittle spraying with every word she spoke. “She wasn't humble a day in her life, do you know why?” Her hands gripped Tabitha's sweater, shaking her. “I asked if you knew
why
she wasn't humble?”

Tabitha shook her head.

“Because,” the Countess spat, “you can't be humble
and
rich, not when—aaagh! My God, there it is!”

Expecting to see a spirit floating in the air, Tabitha was even more shocked to see a glint of light flashing on the floor. Pemberley charged at Tabitha's captor, the jeweled ring around his neck once more, courage and loyalty bursting from his tiny eyes as he leaped onto the woman's ankle and sank his teeth in.

The Countess shrieked. Tabitha knew this because of the hideous woman's openmouthed expression, but sound had temporarily stopped. Seconds turned to hours as the Countess kicked her leg out with ferocity. Time came to a near halt as Tabitha watched in slow motion while Pemberley (her
dear, dear
Pemberley) was flung into the air.

Was smacked onto the floor with the Countess's gloved hand.

Was crushed underneath the Countess's awaiting boot.

Was kicked to the wall, where his body lay quite still.

Quite motionless.

Quite dead.

Suddenly eager to leave, the Countess thrust a candle and a set of matches into Tabitha's hands. “Don't get taken,” she advised, and slammed the door. A low grunting and scraping noise followed, the sound of the Countess jamming the chair underneath the knob.

The force of the slammed door had sent a shock of cold air into the room. Along with the sound of the door closing and the sight of the room being plunged into darkness, Tabitha felt the blow of that frigid air both outside and within herself.

Not bothering to mentally consult Pensive novels about what action to take, she lit the candle and searched the wardrobe until she found the right handkerchief to fashion into a blanket. “Oh, friend,” she whispered to Pemberley. “Oh, my dear friend.”

No
squeak
or movement answered, and Tabitha placed the cloth over the mouse, a few tears slipping silently off her cheek and dropping onto the floor. The makeshift blanket was a rich mulberry. A book she'd read said that mice were color-blind, but Tabitha knew that Pemberley preferred mulberry.

She picked up the soap dish he'd used for water, tracing its outline with a finger before blowing out the candle and setting its stand beside the bed. Then Tabitha's own body became stiff and frozen, first by despair, then by anger, then by a thick emptiness, a heavy and draping sadness that enveloped her completely, covering and flattening her to the floor.

An hour later, or perhaps two, something scratched near the wall. Tabitha groaned and lifted herself to a sitting position. “Pemberley?” she whispered, though the sound had come from the wall opposite the one where her friend's lifeless body lay. “Do you hear that scratching?”

The lump of him beneath the mulberry covering looked smaller. Deflated. Almost disappeared, as though his spirit had been such a large part of him that when it was released, his physical form became quite insignificant. Tabitha felt that a piece of her spirit was gone as well.

The sound repeated.

“The house is settling, Pemberley,” she said, rising. She wiped at the crusted bits of salt that tears had left on her cheeks. “Don't be frightened. It's not as though it's a . . .”

A ghost.

The shuffling moved farther down the wall, and Tabitha recalled the ghostly stream of invisible air that had whooshed around her in the passage.

Ghost. Ghosty. Ghost, ghosty, ghost, ghost.

“Oh hush, Tabitha, there's no such thing,” she scolded herself. “However, Pemberley, if that's
your
ghost, do come over.” Hastily, she relit the bedside candle. In the process, she dropped the soap dish that she'd been cradling.

“Blast,” Tabitha whimpered as it rolled under the bed.

She bent, bringing the candle as close to the bed frame as she dared before sticking her head underneath. And there, beside Pemberley's overturned dish, was a curious and tiny drawer, built right into the wall. “How funny,” she said, and opened it.

Inside were a series of pictures. Drawings. Crude pencil sketches of faces and flowers and birds, and one that appeared to be a pony with a beak. At the bottom of each one, the same names were carefully written in the hand of a child.

For Thomas, from your Elizabeth.

Something happened then. A prickle, but not from the bed or the candle flame or one of Pemberley's tiny claws. It was an instinctual prickle that caused Tabitha to stand up. She studied the wall, following the progress of a fresh shuffling noise.

Slowly, with some dread, she saw exactly what that small prickle had been telling her to look for. The door to the hidden passage began to jiggle.

And then, as though a scene was unfolding in one of her very worst nightmares after reading a particularly suspenseful bit in an Inspector Pensive novel, the hidden door began to move.

Though she jumped up and ran to the bedroom door, freshly twisting her ankle in the process, Tabitha knew very well what she would find. It was, of course, still blocked. There was nowhere to hide. She had no choice but to turn and watch in horror as the hidden door moved again.

As the hidden door pushed open.

As a very ghostly figure entered the room.

Stressful situations cause alterations in behavior that reveal true character, Tibbs. If a person gradually begins acting like someone else altogether, you may very well find that they
are
someone else altogether.

—Inspector Percival Pensive,

The Case of the Picklemouthed Priest

T
abitha hadn't even the breath to gasp. Inspector Pensive was mistaken. Ghosts clearly existed, and directly before her was the proof. Ever so slightly thinner in the afterlife, the form of Mary Pettigrew stood dimly in the candlelight. Death had been kind, and the droop of her face and slump of her shoulder were noticeably absent. The ghost seemed shocked to see Tabitha as well, and then looked . . . relieved. And then there was the same heartache, the same desperation in her eyes that had been present when Tabitha met her living counterpart only a day before.

“Oh my, child,” the ghost whispered. It set down the lamp it was holding, placing it neatly on the dressing table. Its eyes looked misty, but that might have been a trick of the light.

Having never dealt with spirits before, Tabitha thought it wise to address intentions, even while trembling uncontrollably. “Are you here to harm or haunt me?”