A Stitch in Time

by Kelley Armstrong

  This is why secret passages work so much better in basements. Up here, they’re restricted to the flow of the building. This particular one sticks to the interior walls for most of the way, but here it passes along the outside, past a small, deep-set high window in what is now the bathroom. Easy enough for a child to pass. Not so easy at my age.

  I wonder whether that window was added later, and I imagine the renovators cursing at such a thick wall, even thicker than was the norm for the period, wondering why this blasted one had well over a foot-wide gap. I chuckle at the thought and squeeze under the window. Then I’m rounding the next corner, shining the light . . .

  There’s no sign of Enigma.

  That isn’t possible. This is the last leg of the passage with the door that once led into the master bedroom. That door has been boarded up for two hundred years. Where could Enigma . . . ?

  That’s when I see the hole in the floor, and I remember the very first time William and I came this far along the passage. We’d been four or five, William clutching a candle to lead the way. He’d been pointing out that boarded-up door ahead . . . when I’d seen a gaping hole right in front of him. I’d leaped forward and yanked him back, the candle sputtering to the bottom.

  The next time we visited, we laid boards over the hole for safety. One of those boards now lies askew, the others gone. Crashed through the hole.

  I remember the clatter from earlier.

  The board crashing through . . . with my kitten on it.

  I race forward, calling her name, and drop to my knees at the edge. The flashlight beam ricochets off the walls as my hands tremble. All I see are two rotted and broken boards lying atop a pile of rags at the bottom. I swing the beam over them.

  “Enigma? Where are—?”

  A mew answers but from underneath me. An orange tail flicks, no more than a couple feet below. Putting the flashlight aside, I stretch out on my stomach. Then, I ease my head and shoulders over the hole. And there she is, sitting on a thin plank of framework just under the hole. She must have caught herself while falling and scrambled up there. Now, she looks at me, completely unperturbed by her predicament. Trusting that I’ll rescue her.

  I take a deep breath and try not to panic. I also try not to calculate how far she’ll fall, though my treacherous brain still throws back, At least fifteen feet. Another deep breath, and I remind myself of the pile of rags below, which would cushion her fall.

  Pile of rags? Why would there be . . . ? I shine the light down and freeze, staring at what looks like—

  Enigma mews. I lean as far as I dare so she can see me.

  “I’m going to get you out of there,” I say. “Let me grab a ladder and—”

  She jumps. Before I can freak out, she’s clinging to my shirt. And then I do freak out, her weight jolting me so hard I start to fall. I frantically grab for the side of the hole while my other hand grabs the kitten hanging by her claws from my shirt. Enigma settles in against me, as unconcerned as ever.

  I get a handhold and then cradle her as I shimmy backward over the rough passage floor, ignoring the jab of splinters. Finally, I’m as secure as I can get, and I pull up from the hole, lifting Enigma with me. It’s a dangerous and tricky move, and when I’m finally sitting there, holding her in my lap, I shake from both nerves and exertion. The ungrateful feline chirps and attempts to inflict a second heart attack by scrambling up my shirt, out of my grip. Before I can grab her, she hops off my shoulder and trots back down the passage.

  As I twist, she disappears through a gap in the boards that I wouldn’t have thought big enough for a mouse. Then she turns and pokes one paw through, as if waving for me to join her. I grab the remaining plank covering the hole. The wood is soft in my hands, rotting. As I shove the board in to jam the mouse hole shut, Enigma yowls her disapproval.

  I return to the linen closet and make the rounds of every room adjoining the passage, turning on all the lights. Then, I return to the passage and walk through in the dark, looking for stray light to indicate holes. I don’t find any.

  When I turn the final corner, I stay at the end, not daring to get near the hole in the dark. That’s when I remember what I saw down that hole.

  I turn on my flashlight, return to the hole, kneel and shine the light down. The heap still looks like rags. Rags that weren’t there when William and I were children, exploring in his time.

  Back then, William and I made up endless stories about this hole. One day, we’d pulled back the boards and lowered a candle . . . to see nothing except the candle that we’d dropped when we first discovered the hole. It was empty then. It’s not empty now.

  I’m shining my light when a small silver circle reflects back. I twist the light and squint until I can make out a silver button on a dark shape that takes form as a boot.

  As I hold the light at arm’s length, something materializes under the pile of not-rags. White against the dark floor. Two white, jointed sticks, digging into the dirt.

  The bones of two small fingers.

  I pull back, breath seizing. I sit on my haunches, arms wrapped around my knees, so close to the edge that when I inhale a deep, ragged breath, I rock and then nearly fall as I scramble back. I crouch there, inhaling and exhaling. I want to tell myself I saw wrong, dash out and padlock the door, never to return.

  How long has that door been locked?

  Not long enough to blame whoever put a body in the hole. The clothing is too rotted, and that door wasn’t locked when I was little.

  I look back in the hole, and there’s no mistake. Fingers protrude from under cloth. A booted leg rests at an unnatural angle. More white peeks out where cloth has rotted away.

  I’m certain of what I see, and as I look at it, I remember a figure stepping from the linen closet door. The reason I’d first tried to open the passage. The boy in knickerbockers kept appearing through that door. I knew it meant something. Now, I stare down at what looks like the body of a child, broken at the bottom of the hole.

  I shine the light down, but I can’t make out what the skeletal remains are wearing.

  You’ll find out soon enough when you report this to the authorities and they remove the poor child’s bones from your wall.

  I shift the light, trying to see better.

  You are reporting it, aren’t you?

  I should be running for my phone right now. There’s a body in the walls of my house. I must report it immediately.

  Yet I’m crouching here, and I’m thinking of the boy in the knickerbockers. Of the veiled woman telling me to name her killer. Or name their killer? This boy didn’t tumble down the hole to a horrible, accidental death. If so, someone would have found the cubby open and gone looking. He didn’t fall through those boards like Enigma. The broken wood is on top of him.

  That hole was open when he fell . . . and then someone put the boards back in place.

  Freya thinks naming their killer will set them free. If I move his remains, would that change? His ghost is bound here, and it might have nothing to do with his bones being in the wall, but if I move them, and I can no longer communicate with him, I stand less chance of finding his killer.

  Two nights ago, I tried to speak to the boy. I’d seen him hesitantly step from the linen closet door. I’d heard his whisper. But I’d drawn the line at summoning him when he didn’t appear on his own.

  Now I need to try.

  27

  When Freya came to tea the day before last, she gave me ways to contact the dead. Some require ingredients and rituals. The simplest way, though, is to open myself up to them by stilling my mind and pulling them through to me, the same way I pull myself through to William’s world.

  I start at the top of the hole. I form the boy’s image in my mind, coaxing him from his world, telling him I need to talk to him. I can help him. I pour everything I have into the invocation, and I might as well be trying to call him on my cell phone for all the good it does.

  I repeat the process outside the linen closet door
. Still nothing.

  Finally, I sigh and head for the stairs. I’ll gather ingredients for a proper séance and . . .

  “He doesn’t mean any harm by it,” a young woman’s voice trills from below. “He’s actually very fond of you. But he’s terribly shy and a little awkward.”

  I freeze. There’s someone downstairs. Inside my house.

  Has Freya brought a friend to visit, and when I didn’t hear the knocker, they walked in?

  The voice that answers, though, is much younger than Freya’s.

  “He does not seem shy at all. He seems disinterested.”

  “Perhaps shy is not the correct word. William is not timid, but he is overly fond of his own company.”

  William? I freeze.

  The second woman replies, “When August arrived, William was happy enough to speak to him. They’re in the barn now, chattering away . . . after I requested William’s company on a walk, and he said he must tend to his horses.”

  “And he is doing exactly that, is he not? Even August cannot pull him away from that task. August has been his friend since they were children. William is comfortable with him. As he will be with you once he gets to know you better.”

  “How can he do that when he barely speaks to me?”

  “The answer, I believe, is to try less. Our young Lord Thorne hates to be chased, but he does love a challenge. Pay him no heed. Better yet, make it clear you are having fun without him. That will catch his attention. I propose you and I take that walk without him. Then over dinner, we shall regale him with stories of the adventure we had.”

  “The adventure we had without him?” The second woman’s voice lightens in a soft laugh.

  “Precisely.”

  Two figures appear in the front doorway. They’re opaque, spotlighted only for a blink as the door opens, framing them. Two women, their arms linked companionably, both seen only from the back. One with fair hair. The other dark. A glimpse of Victorian dresses, too faint to make out details. The door shuts, and the women are gone.

  Instead of conjuring ghosts, I’ve called forth a sliver of the past. Except I have no idea why . . . or what it means.

  I run down and throw open the door. The women are gone. Or so I think until I catch a shimmer of them heading for the moor. I jog after them. Something moves to my side, and I spin to see the faint outline of another figure. A fair-haired man, as opaque as the women. He calls after them, and I recognize his voice. It’s August. There’s a teasing exchange between him and the women, and the light-haired one lays a hand on his arm.

  Then all three disappear, and I’m left standing in the yard, staring at the empty moors.

  I’d been trying to summon the boy, and instead, I got August and two women, one of them dark haired. Was that Cordelia? I know from her photograph that she was a brunette like her brother.

  So I’d seen Cordelia talking about William with another woman. A woman who was trying to catch William’s eye. A friend of Cordelia and August’s? Brought to Thorne Manor as a potential wife for William after his engagement ended and his sister married? But why show me that conversation?

  That’s what I’ll need to figure out. In less than an hour, though, I’m supposed to meet William again. Bookmark this place and return to it tomorrow when I can speak to Freya.

  William isn’t home yet. He’d expected to be back by five, so that’s when I arrive, but his room is empty, and a quick trip to the barn reveals Balios’s stall is also vacant. I grab some straw and weave a very lopsided heart, which I leave in William’s room to let him know where I am. It’s been a long time since I’ve let myself be silly with anyone, and the sensation bubbles through me like gloriously cheap champagne.

  It’s also been a long time since I dressed to catch a man’s eye. I took care with my lingerie choices yesterday. Today, I’ve gone further. A little less Victorian-friendly, shall we say.

  My sundress is also a deliberate choice. At our picnic, William had hinted about me wearing one of the more scandalous choices from my closet. It is, of course, only scandalous by his standards, but it’s the shortest one I have, falling to mid-thigh, with a scoop-neck bodice aided by a push-up bra. The sundress fabric is airy light, hugging and sliding against my thighs as I walk.

  I’ll fully admit how much I’m anticipating William’s reaction to my outfit. I’ve abandoned my sandals, and I’m working barefoot as I tidy the stables, and that too, I know will catch his eye.

  The smaller stable door bangs open with enough force to give me a start.

  His boots slap against the dirt as if at a hard run. He swerves into the stall section, sees me and stops short, his shoulders falling in a hard exhale.

  “You’re here,” he says.

  The dim lighting casts him into shadow, a tall figure with dark hair tumbling over his forehead, his jacket askew, broad shoulders quaking as he pants. Sweat trickles down the open neck of his shirt where he’s torn off his cravat.

  “Is everything okay?” I say, stepping toward him. “Where’s Bal—?”

  I don’t even get the word out before he’s catching me up in a crushing kiss. There’s need and desperation in that kiss, and I’m swept up in it, kissing him back. When we part for breath, I manage to croak. “Balios?”

  His brows knit, as if he doesn’t recognize the word. Then, breath ragged, he says, “Out front.” He kisses me again, brief and hungry, like a near-drowned man gasping for oxygen between words. “Finished late in Whitby.” Another kiss. “Bloody harbormaster.” Kiss. “Rode back as fast as I could.” The next kiss falls on my neck, hard enough to leave a mark before he murmurs, “Ran upstairs but . . .”

  A shiver, and I know the rest. He’d been late returning, rode hard to get here, leaving Balios out front as he raced up the stairs only to find his room empty.

  I open my mouth to say I left a message there, but he stops my words with a desperate kiss, pressing himself into me with a groan. Another shiver, as if he can’t relax even now, the grip of that panic so tight.

  I remember his light words this morning, joking about how he hadn’t leaped out of bed, certain I’d fled in the night. I remember the other day, watching him ride off in a frustrated temper when he thought I wasn’t coming. There is no logical reason for him to panic today when he’s barely an hour late. But this isn’t about logic.

  I hear August’s voice again.

  You’re the girl. The one who broke his heart.

  We need to talk about this, deal with it. Right now, though, he needs something else.

  As those kisses pour out his fear and worry, rough kisses turn into rough clutches. Before I know it, I’m lying in a pile of hay, my skirt around my waist, William fumbling with his trousers.

  He grabs my hips and then pauses, eyes going wide in a flash of consternation, as if he realizes he hasn’t taken a moment to be sure I agree to what he’s doing. I wrap my fingers in his hair and arch myself against him in answer, and he heaves a shuddering sigh of relief as he thrusts into me.

  Yesterday, even deep in the night, William never drifted off after sex. He’s the boy I remember, who liked touch, sometimes embracing or cuddling, but mostly just physical contact. Even when we were both deep in our books on a sunny afternoon, he’d have his hip against mine or his head on my shoulder, whatever form of touching could not be misconstrued as a prelude to something inappropriate for a fifteen-year-old Victorian girl.

  Last night, that restriction gone, I got all the caresses and kisses and touches, even after the sex was over. Hands on my hips, fingers stroking my sides, teasing kisses along my shoulders and neck, his body still entwined with mine as he got his fill of less ardent, but no less passionate exploration. It was quiet contemplation, drowsy and gentle, a shared reverie of skin against skin that only gradually lifted to include words, murmurs and soft conversation before we slid into sleep.

  Today, though, when we finish, he stays over me, his entire body rigid. When he lifts his head, guilt shadows his eyes.

 
; “That is not what I intended at all,” he says.

  I chuckle. “It was fine.”

  He shakes his head. “No, that was unacceptable.” He pulls up just enough to look me in the eye. He can’t hold my gaze, though, and shakes his head. “I planned to come back and sweep you off your feet with a romantic evening. Instead, I fall on you in the stable, ravage you like a selfish boor.”

  “That wasn’t ravaging,” I say as I prop onto my elbows. “I said yes.”

  He flushes. “I know. I would never— I mean that it was not the sort of lovemaking I intended, and I apologize.”

  “I enjoyed it perfectly well, and we have all night for you to show me something different.” I duck to meet his gaze. “I’m not a blushing maiden, William. If I don’t want something, I’ll stop you, and I know you will stop.”

  He nods.

  “I left a message in your room,” I say. “To tell you where I was.”

  He reddens again. “Instead of looking, I behaved like a raging idiot. I keep behaving like one. This is not the side I want to show you, Bronwyn. Not at all. I’m ashamed of myself, and I am so—”

  I kiss away the apology. “Don’t. Please. Twenty-three years ago, I left without a word. I wish to God I could undo that, William, but I can’t.”

  His mouth opens, consternation filling his eyes again. Before any denial comes, he shuts his mouth and meets my eyes. “I do not blame you. What’s happening with me now . . .” He glances away. “I do not know what this is, but I will deal with it. I don’t want you to indulge my fears.”

  “I’m not,” I say. “I’m acknowledging your right to them. I left you. Not after a fight. Not after anything that could have been construed as an excuse for parting. I disappeared, and you had no way of knowing why. That won’t happen again. I’m no longer a child who can be convinced you aren’t real. Yet that won’t stop you from worrying. What if something does happen? What if I’m sick or injured . . . or worse? What if I can’t get to you? What if we argue, and I don’t come back, and you can do nothing about that?”