Gallant(23)

“Here we are,” says Edgar, depositing a tray of beef medallions on the table.

“What happened to your hand?” asks Hannah, catching sight of the bandage wrapped around her palm.

“Field injury,” says Edgar. “Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

“You were a lucky find,” she says, kissing his cheek. The gesture is so simple, so chaste, and yet, there are years of warmth behind it. Olivia feels her cheeks flush.

“Just goes to show,” says Hannah, “I should put ads in the paper more often.”

An ad in the paper? Olivia asks, catching Edgar’s eye, but he only winks and rises.

“Put the right words into the world,” he says, “never know what you’ll catch.”

Olivia stills.

I have sent these letters to every corner of the country.

May this be the one that finds you.

“Besides,” says Edgar, taking his seat. “I thought our guest could use a proper meal.”

Guest. The word cuts through her like a cold wind. She tries not to wince as Hannah passes a bowl of roast potatoes and parsnips, seasoned with salt. “Eat up.”

It is a feast, and the day in the garden has left her famished. Olivia has never eaten so well. When she finally slows, Hannah asks about her life before the letter came. Olivia signs, and Edgar translates, and Hannah listens, one hand to her mouth as she explains how she was found on the steps of Merilance, how she has been there for nearly all her life.

Olivia does not tell them about the matrons, or the other girls, about the chalkboard or the garden shed or Anabelle. It is already beginning to feel like another life, a chapter in a book that she can simply close and leave. And she wants to. Because she wants to stay at Gallant. Even if Matthew does not want her there. She wants to stay and make this house a home. She wants to stay and learn its secrets, wants to know why they are so frightened of the dark, what happened to all the other Priors, what Matthew meant when he called this place cursed. But when she lifts her hands to ask, a shadow twitches in the doorway. She glances over, expecting a ghoul, but it’s Matthew. He goes to the sink, scrubbing the garden from his hands.

He glances at Olivia. “Still here,” he mutters, but Hannah only smiles and pats her bandaged hand.

“Nearest car’s in the shop,” she says. “Be a few days before it can come out.”

Olivia can see the glimmer in the woman’s eyes, a glint like mischief. Another lie. But Matthew only sighs and sets the soap aside.

“Sit and eat,” urges Edgar, but her cousin shakes his head, murmurs about not being hungry, even though his too-thin body is begging for a meal. He leaves, taking the air out of the room as he goes. Hannah and Edgar pick at their food, each trying to fill the space with easy talk, but it comes out stiff, awkward.

Olivia catches Edgar’s eye. Is he sick?

He flashes Hannah a look and then says, “Matthew’s tired. Tired can be a kind of sick, if it lasts long enough.”

He’s telling the truth, some version of it, but a draft runs through the words. There is so much they are not saying. It hangs in the air, and Olivia wishes they could go back to before Matthew came in. But their plates are empty now, and Hannah gets to her feet, saying she’ll make him a tray, if Edgar will take it up. And Edgar sees Olivia staring at him, hands raised to ask about Matthew and the house, but he stands and turns his back. She hates that he can do that, that all he has to do to silence her is look away.

She stifles a yawn, even though it’s not yet nine, and Hannah offers her a shortbread biscuit and tells her a hot bath and a warm bed will do her well before shooing her from the kitchen.

She takes the long way to the stairs, past the narrow foyer and the garden door. It must be a cloudy night. No moonlight streams in through the little window, but the hall isn’t empty. Her uncle’s ghoul stands like a watchman, its back to her and its eyes on the dark.





The master of the house is hungry.

He is worn thin with it, that hunger. It gnaws, like teeth on bone, until he cannot stand the ache. Until his fingers flex, stiff in their joints. It is unyielding. This place is unyielding.

He walks through the ruined garden.

Past the empty fountain and across the barren grounds, through the brittle land that rolls away from the house like a bolt of cloth left to rot in the cupboard. Moth-eaten. Threadbare.

The fruit is rotten. The ground is parched. The house is falling like sand through the glass. He has eaten every morsel, every scrap, and nothing is left. He is feasting on himself, now. Wasting a little more with every passing night.

He is a fire running out of air. But it is not over yet. He will burn, and burn, and burn until the house crumbles, until the world gives way.

All he needs is a breath.

All he needs is a drop.

All he needs is her.

And so he sits back in his throne and closes his eyes and dreams.





Part Three


Things Unsaid





Chapter Eleven




Olivia is so tired, and yet, again, she cannot sleep.

Her limbs sink into the bed, heavy from the fresh air and the garden’s work, but her mind is tangled up in questions. She tosses and turns, feeling the hours tick past as she watches the candle drip and gutter on her bedside table, and she is about to give up and throw the covers off when she hears it.