Blackmoore(21)

Dear Katherine,

I found this box sitting on a shelf in a shop in London. It called to me from across the shop space, beckoning me to come nearer and discover its secrets. I did, and discovered a secret of my own: a dream I did not know lived within me until I held this box in my hands.

Katherine, I know that you, and perhaps only you, will be able to appreciate what this box represents: adventure! I invite you to take a journey with me for a moment—a journey of imagination.

Imagine standing on board a sailing ship, with nothing but ocean and sky around you. Imagine being pushed by the wind for months at a time. Pushed by a force both primal and controllable. A force of nature working to whisk you from one life to another. Imagine sailing along the African coast! Imagine 60



the jungles, the beaches, the desert. Imagine dipping far south, to round the Cape of Good Hope, and then turning north and east. Toward India! Imagine a territory where all is new and unknown, where every day can be a discovery. Imagine a life where one may be whatever one desires to be. Imagine a country of endless beginnings, where the old you can be thrown off like a snake shedding its skin. Imagine a hot wind, and deep, vibrant colors, and strange new scents. Imagine with me, Katherine, a chance to be reborn and remade. Imagine the power of having your future in your own hands, far from the limitations of our culture’s expectations.

Would this not be the trip of a lifetime? Would this not change you forever?

Now, Katherine, if this journey of imagination has enticed you to the least degree, pay close heed! I have been saving the inheritance I received from my Uncle Stafford. I have saved it for many years and invested it as well. Now I have quite a nice sum, and I have finally decided what I wish to do with it. I want to embark on an adventure of a lifetime. I want to go to India. And I want you to go with me!

I await your response with much eagerness and, as always, my most sincere affection.

Love,

Aunt Charlotte

I folded the letter and let hope enter my heart once more. Aunt Charlotte wanted me. She included me. And she was someone I could model my life after. She was unmarried and independent and happy to be so. I would fulfill my bargain with Mama and go on adventures with my aunt and learn how to be happy alone. Yes. That was my plan. And I was here, in this place, to achieve my future dreams. Slipping the letter back 61



J u l i a n n e D o n a l D s o n

inside the ivory-inlaid box, I sat and looked around me, trying to buoy up my spirits.

But as I looked around me, I realized that I had done this same thing just three days earlier at my own house. I had sat in a room that I was trapped in and dreamed of escape. Blackmoore was supposed to be that escape. But I was just as trapped in this room of stone and glass as I had been in my room at my own home.

After I had waited half an hour with growing impatience, my dinner was brought by the same housemaid who had started the fire. I ate my meal in silence, the clock on the mantel ticking away the long, heavy minutes of my isolation. I tried not to think of Miss St. Claire with her wide-set eyes and auburn hair. I tried not to think of Henry smiling at her and hearing her whispers. And then, abruptly, I could take no more. I pushed the food away, stood, and grabbed a candle. I might not have been invited to the drawing room, but I certainly did not have to stay in this room all evening, no matter what Mrs. Delafield or Sylvia said.

Slipping from the room, I closed the door softly behind me and waited for my eyes to adjust to the dim light of the hallway. Looking left to the way we had come, I chose to go right instead. The candle did little against the dark here, providing only a small space of light in which to explore and examine. The floor creaked under my feet, and a rogue breeze slipped through the wall and made the flame flicker, causing shadows to dance and loom. I shivered and turned to my right and the unknown things that awaited me.

The hall stood thick with silence. I walked slowly, placing my feet carefully on the uncarpeted floor, which was warped and sloped. I hugged the right-hand side of the corridor, lifting my candle to see the wall. The problem was that I did not know what I was looking for. I stopped at a portrait and lifted the frame away from the wall, peering into the space behind it while trying not to singe my eyebrows with the flame of the candle.

Reaching my hand behind the frame, I felt the wall behind the painting.

But it felt as smooth as the other sections of the wall I had touched.

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I moved on, pausing before a closed door. Setting my hand to the door handle, I considered entering the empty room. But I could not. The hall was dark and chill, but at least it was an open space. I could not sum-mon the courage to put myself into a dark, closed room.

I continued down the hall, checking behind every painting I came across, until I reached the end of the hall where a window stretched from floor to ceiling. I peered through it but could see nothing in the darkness beyond the glass. Turning, I moved to the other side of the corridor and followed the same pattern, my hand trailing along the wall, stopping at anything that might possibly hide an entrance to a secret passageway.

I moved beyond my room, and kept going, passing another window.

Directly past the window, I reached a large tapestry covering the wall.

This would be the perfect spot for hiding a secret door.

I held the candle aloft. My heart quickened its speed, pounding in my chest as I thought that I had finally found what I had dreamed of for so many years. I touched the edge of the tapestry, then slipped my fingers behind it, reaching for the opening, the latch, the crack that would signal that I had indeed found what I’d been looking for. I stretched farther, reaching, running my palm over the surface of the wall, my heart pounding. The tapestry was large. I slipped behind it, holding my candle next to the stone of the wall, away from the tapestry at my back, looking for anything that might hint at an opening.