Blackmoore(47)

The library, though, proved to be a disappointment, as did the large 138



entry hall and the corridors leading off it on both sides. Finally there was only one room left: the second music room. The bird room.

I stopped in front of a painting hanging on a wall covered in dark wood paneling. I stared at it, amazed that I had not noticed it before. It must have been the bird and the pianoforte that had caught my attention before to make me overlook this work of art.

It was Icarus. I knew it immediately. His father was tying on the wings he had created for him and pointing toward the sky with a look of disapproval, as though warning Icarus not to fly too high. It was a beauti-ful rendering—an original, it appeared, by Anthony Van Dyck, according to the signature in the corner.

I touched the frame and felt still for the first time all day. And then the frame moved, and the wall swung out toward me, revealing the secret passageway.

139







Chapter 18


I stole out of my room at ten minutes before midnight, using a candle to light my way down the back stairs to the bird room. It was dark and empty, the bird quiet in its cage. I sat on the bench in front of the piano-forte and nervously waited, straining to hear footsteps. Finally, when my heart had begun to race with nervousness that he was not coming, the door silently swung open and Henry walked into the room.

“You found it,” he said in a low voice, quiet for this quiet, dark night.

“Of course.” I could not keep the pride from my voice. I stood and looked up at Henry, taking in what I could see of him in the candlelight.

It was enough to see his dark hair and the flash of his smile and a hint of excitement in his eyes.

He held up a shuttered lantern. “We won’t need the candle.” I followed him to the Icarus painting and watched as he slid his hand behind the frame and pressed the switch I had accidentally triggered earlier.

The wall swung open, revealing a dark emptiness. Henry lifted the lantern and moved a shutter so that a ray of light shone, and with another grin and a gleam of excitement in his eyes, he led the way into the darkness.

I had not explored the passageway at all earlier, afraid I would get dirty and have to explain my appearance to another guest or—heaven 140



forbid—to Mrs. Delafield. Now, though, I followed Henry and the light he carried, ducking when he warned me to, easing around a tight corner, feeling the walls change from stone to earth as we climbed down a tight spiral staircase for what felt like a long time. I forgot to count the steps, but I thought it was not quite so far as the climb down to the beach had been.

The passageway had taken us through the house, and now we were in an underground tunnel that was shored up by wooden support beams, the walls and floor earthen, the walls occasionally holding a bracket for a torch. I touched a few of the torches, thinking of Alice and smuggling.

But the torches all felt as cold as the walls around us. Unused, then, at least recently.

We must have walked half a mile underground when we came to another stairway. Henry took me up the stone stairs. I followed the light he carried low so that it illuminated his steps, for me to see. The stairs carried us up and up. He turned his head and whispered, “We’re almost there.” I was panting, feeling the burn in my leg muscles from the climb. And then he paused, boots still on the steps before me, and I heard a dusty, protest-ing creak. A breeze chilled me, and then Henry’s boots moved again, until they disappeared into a square of starlight.

I paused, my head at the opening of what must have been a trapdoor.

Above me stretched the night sky streaked with starlight. I grasped at the sides of the opening and was surprised to feel grass beneath my fin-gers. Surely we had climbed higher than mere ground level. Then Henry reached down to me. I put my hand in his, and he pulled me up the remaining steps. I emerged, wide-eyed. It was certainly grass beneath my feet. But we were encircled by a crumbling stone wall, and there was nothing but the sky to see beyond it. No trees. No ocean. No moors. I looked at Henry in confusion and saw the strangest expression on his face, which was half-lit by the lantern he held aloft. He seemed both excited and nervous. I had seldom seen Henry nervous. His lips were closed tight, and his eyes were too darkened by the flickering shadows of the lantern for me to see them clearly.

141



J u l i a n n e D o n a l D s o n “What is this place?” I asked him, walking cautiously forward, not sure if the ground would hold me, for this place seemed to defy the rules of nature.

“Come see,” he said, walking toward the stone wall. I followed him.

The wall came to a crumbling stop at my chest level. I peered down and quickly gripped the stones in front of me as my head swam. We were very high. I knew those trees. I knew how tall they grew. And now I could see their tops below us. I turned, looking to my right—a sea of trees swaying in the breeze below us. To my left—the crashing of distant waves, frothy white in the moonlight. The ocean.

I looked up and saw again the stretch of sky without a tree to block my view. And then, suddenly, there was a raucous cry and dark shadows fluttered, filling the air. The haunting cry of the rooks pierced the darkness. The birds were loud and their cries scratched at my soul like an etching on glass.

“It’s the ruined abbey,” I breathed.

“It is the highest tower of the ruined abbey, to be exact.” I heard the smile in his voice. “Do you like it?”