Maplecroft (The Borden Dispatches #1)(59)

“Nance found it.” I offered it up as a whisper. I couldn’t bring myself to say it any louder. “She’d put it on. I took it away from her.”

Excitedly, he shifted to face me. “But you knew—you knew it was the necklace. And in time, you learned it was the stones themselves, and there were others like it.”

“Yes, but I don’t know what they mean, or where they come from. I don’t know how they call, or . . . or . . . Doctor, I’ve tried everything. That’s what’s in the cellar: my laboratory, where I’ve performed what experiments my limited knowledge and resources have contrived.”

“I must see it. You must show it to me,” he said eagerly, and I wasn’t sure if I was thrilled or worried by the enthusiasm. I didn’t have time to decide, for it was in that narrow space between the two that Nance began to speak.

I knelt down next to her and collected one of her hands, squeezing it between my own. Doctor Seabury stood aside so I could reach her more easily, I could stroke her face, I could kiss her forehead and breathe the smell of her hair.

“Nance, darling, what is it? Are you there? Can you hear me?”

One word she puffed softly, over and over. At first I didn’t hear it, she said it with so little force, just half a breath and the puckering shape of her lips to send it along.

“Out . . . out . . . out . . .”

Doctor Seabury inhaled slowly, deeply, in the hard reverse of a sigh.

“What’s she saying?” asked Emma, who was seated a little farther away.

“Out?” I replied uncertainly, for it almost sounded like a soft cry of pain instead. “Doctor, have you ever heard anything like it?”

He nodded, but I knew he would. I could see it in his face when the word first became loud enough to understand.

His obvious concern left me flustered. I floundered. “What does it mean? Does she want to go out? Or is she warning us that something . . . something’s coming out? From the cellar?” I was grasping at straws.

His certainty was terrifying when he said calmly, “She wants out.”

“We should, we could . . . turn her loose and see where she goes,” Emma suggested, and for the second time that night, I would’ve dearly loved to slap her.

“We aren’t turning her loose!” I snapped. “She’s not even standing yet. She’s not going anywhere.”

But the doctor said grimly, “She will stand. She will rise, and find a way out.”

“And then what?”

“Then . . . ?” He shrugged tiredly, with his hands up and his shoulders sagging. “Then she’s gone, one way or another. I’ve seen it once before. Twice, I suppose. I witnessed it once myself, and heard that it was said of Matthew, but he never spoke in my presence, to cry ‘out’ or anything else. By the time I was summoned to check on him, whatever had him in its grip . . . it’d rendered him mute.”

“Then she’s not so far gone,” I said to reassure myself. “Not beyond hope or help. There’s time to investigate, still. Time to figure out what’s wrong with her, and do something about it. Did you hear that, Nance? There’s time,” I said, crushing her fingers in my own.

“Lizzie.” Emma called my name like a warning.

“Oh, hush,” I spit back at her. “She’ll be fine, soon enough. And even if she won’t, let me say it out loud in case words mean something, and can make a thing true.”

“Lizzie,” she said again, and this time it was more dire. “Do you hear that?”

I sat up straight, and released Nance’s limp fingers. I didn’t hear anything, but Emma’s ears were sometimes keener than mine. “Where? What?”

My sister’s eyes tracked around the room, seeking to pinpoint whatever had snagged her attention. Her ears settled on a corner back on the other side of the kitchen, if I read her correctly, and assumed she wasn’t hearing rats in the walls between here and there.

“What are we . . . ?” the doctor began, wondering what we were listening for, or to, or what on earth we were going on about. But he was kind enough to keep from saying so, at least not without leading in gently.

I spared him the trouble by cutting in. “There’s something outside the house,” I said quietly. “You must stay here.”

He rose to his feet. “I’ll do no such thing.”

“Doctor, I really must ask you . . .” Now it was my turn to half finish a thought. I heard it. I was confident, yes—the scratching, scritching, fussing noise of something nasty feeling its way around the walls outside. “Stay right here,” I commanded him, having no idea whether he’d obey or not. “I’ll take care of this. Please, stay with Emma and Nance.”

“Out . . . out . . . out . . . ,” whispered Nance, with something closer to urgency than idle directing.

“Miss O’Neil, wishing to go outside. And something outside, wanting to come in?” he guessed. “These two things must be related.”

“Yes,” I admitted. “But you must stay here!”

I decided to take the front door. I could surprise it, if I came around the far side of the house, for yes, my ears told me it was tracking to the east.

I raced back upstairs to the best of my ability. My legs were still wobbly beneath me—but the drugs were wearing off, burned out of my bloodstream by the terror of Nance’s condition. And now we’d see how much terror I could muster anew, because something walked outside, and I needed to be at my sharpest.