Keeper of Enchanted Rooms(52)

She sniffed. “It literally is my fault.” She paused. “I rarely guess wrong.”

“But”—he gently prodded her with an elbow—“now you’ll get to stay long enough to try Baptiste’s venison.”

She pulled back from him, and the change of shadows made her cheeks look ruddy. Not wishing to cause her discomfort, Merritt pocketed the stone and said, “If you’ll excuse me, I have a scene to finish.”

Snatching his manuscript, he tucked it under his arm and ventured upstairs.

He wasn’t sure how much the wizard in residence really wanted to stay, because the ceiling dripped on him the entire way to his office.



After breakfast the next morning, Beth and Baptiste set out to find more gravestones, leaving Merritt to draft a letter to his editor and Hulda to organize . . . whatever it was that housekeepers organized. He’d begun to fear she’d gotten very bored with Whimbrel House since it was one of the smaller abodes she’d been assigned to. Which led Merritt to imagine what it would be like to have a new housekeeper. His mind instantly pictured Mrs. Culdwell from his old apartment, and he shuddered. Truthfully, though, when the house was only just a house, he might not need staff at all. There was only himself to pick up after, himself to cook for . . .

There was something invigorating about living alone. A . . . lack of rules, so to speak. Merritt could wash his socks wherever he wanted. He could work at night and sleep during the day. He could pace the hallway and talk to himself out loud, which not only helped him sort out stories, but also helped him understand his own flights of fancy. Being able to talk aloud to someone who always agreed with you could do wonders for the soul.

But there was a sort of hollowness to quiet rooms. One that had been much easier to ignore in a small apartment. Whimbrel House would feel very empty for a lone bachelor. And he feared that if he parted ways with Hulda, Beth, and Baptiste, he might never see them again. That sentiment panged sour in his chest, reminiscent of the barely healed scars that lingered there.

Once his letter was penned and addressed, Merritt listened for sounds of company and found none. He peered out his window, seeing Baptiste’s shadow in the distance. Moving into the hallway to another window, he spied Hulda clad in boots and a hat, venturing out to do her specialty. She’d likely run herself ragged looking for more graves. Perhaps the bloke in question really was under the floorboards, although he’d seen no sign of a body while he was under the house.

He eyed the floor warily before venturing down the stairs. Halfway through the steps, the stairs suddenly flattened themselves, sending him careening into the reception area on a giant slide. He swayed, stumbled, and fell hard onto his rump.

Wincing, he mumbled, “I suppose I should thank you for not doing that in front of the others.”

The stairs righted themselves.

Rubbing his tailbone, Merritt slipped outside and quickly forgot his worries about the house. The weather was utterly perfect. A flush autumn day. The elms were turning golden, and the maples gleamed red. The sun was high, the clouds were few, the sky was a miraculous shade of cerulean that no painter could ever hope to replicate. The temperature was just right for not having a jacket, though once he got moving, he’d surely be overwarm.

Merritt did not have a goal when he started walking, taking first the easy path toward the boat, then wandering in the direction of the weeping cherries, spiraling around clusters of golden aster. He heard the annoyed thump of a hare near some woodland goosefoot, as Beth called them, but didn’t see the creature. He stepped carefully where the wild grass thinned, for the ground had loosened with last night’s rain. A tantalizing breeze swept through his hair, as though to comment on the unkemptness of it. It carried whispers of salt, and Merritt breathed in deeply, filling his lungs with the scent.

The breeze swept on, rustling the grass and grape fern, filling his head with visions of the Mansels’ graves. In his mind’s eye, he saw their weathered faces and chipped edges. In his palms, he felt the weight of each stone. Tasted the age on the back of his tongue. His feet changed direction of their own volition, until he found himself standing where he, Hulda, and Beth had cleared out grass.

The Mansels seemed to look at him with distaste. Like he wasn’t good enough for them, either.

He crouched before them, hands on knees. “Well? Who is it, then? I’d like to see you sleuth it out.”

The graves didn’t answer.

Frowning, Merritt inched back a bit. “Probably stepping on your heads or something. Sorry.”

His gaze shifted from Horace to Evelyn, Dorcas, and finally Helen.

Look.

He felt tugged southward. Holding his breath at the strange, faint sensation, he stood and shifted that way, peering into the untouched weeds, stepping on a tail of morning glory.

Reaching out, he parted grass one way and then another. Took a step, parted. Stepped, parted. Saw a glimmer of gray against the earth.

Crouching again so his knees would hold back some of the flora, he ran his hand over the unmarked stone. It was small, about the length of his head. Unassuming, dull, flat.

He curled his hands around it and lifted it. A centipede wriggled out from below, along with some beetles.

Merritt swept damp earth from the underside of the rock and saw beneath it the faintest carving of an O.

His pulse sped. Kneeling for better balance, he scrubbed his palm over the stone, uncovering a birth date that had broken apart midcentury, leaving just the bottom of a six. Grasping a clump of grass, he gingerly worked away grime, then pressed into the grooves with his fingers to help him read what time had worn away.