The Rowanwood Curse (Hal Bishop Mysteries Book 1)

by Elizabeth O'Connell

“Have you?” Hal stuck his pipe in his mouth and folded his arms over his chest. “What do people say?”

  “Oh, that he did himself in, mostly,” she said. “He was a great gambler, I hear, and in all manner of debt. There’s some what says Sir Jasper did him in, too, but that’s nothing but gossip—no truth in it.”

  “But how do you know?” I said. “You weren’t here when it happened.”

  “No, but them as were say that Sir Jasper wasn’t at home when his brother died,” she said placidly. “So it can’t have been him. Though that didn’t stop Lady Marquardt from blaming him. She said he drove his brother to it.”

  “I take it that’s why she returned to her home country,” Hal said.

  “Oh, aye,” the cook said. “The way I hear it, she couldn’t bear to be one more minute in this house. Said it was evil.”

  We finished our tea and retired to the library, where Hal lit his pipe with an air of relief.

  “I will never understand the aversion women have to good pipe tobacco,” he said, leaning back in his chair.

  “I think they only mind it very much when you smoke in the kitchen.” I sat down on the sofa across from him. “What do you think of this love affair between Cecilia and her cousin?”

  The corner of his mouth quirked up in a half-smile, and he shook his head. “I should have known that would catch your interest.”

  I folded my arms over my chest and frowned stubbornly; I never liked it when Hal took a condescending attitude toward me. “Well, I think it’s worth looking at.”

  “Certainly.” Hal blew out a ring of smoke and closed his eyes meditatively. “Though it’s hardly curious that two young people in close proximity should find themselves attracted to each other. What is curious, if the cook is to be believed, is that it was the subject on which Cecilia and Sir Jasper quarreled.”

  “But why should that be curious? It’s certainly not so curious that Sir Jasper would disapprove of his daughter’s marriage to the nephew who reminds him of the brother he hated.”

  “If he did hate him, in fact—for we only have the word of the cook for that.” Hal shook his head. “And you’re thinking romantically, not practically—for the marriage of Cecilia to her cousin should have been everything a father could have wished for: his daughter allowed to remain in the home where she grew up, her inheritance staying with the estate. That is the first curiosity: why oppose such a marriage?”

  “Unless he knew something about his nephew that would have made the marriage unsuitable.” I chewed my lip a moment, thoughtfully. “What’s the other curiosity?”

  Hal smiled. “That Sir Jasper should have pretended that he forgot the subject on which he and his daughter quarreled.”

  I had not thought of it before, but once he said it, I could not help but agree. If the quarrel had been as serious as the cook had made it out to be, then it did not seem possible that Sir Jasper could have forgotten it.

  “But why should he lie about something like that?” I said.

  “Another puzzle.” Hal shrugged, sitting up. “We’re compiling quite a list of them.”

  There was the sound of voices in outside the door, and soon we were joined in the library by our host himself. He swept into the library, carrying with him cold air and the smell of coal dust, and bent over the fireplace, warming his hands, before turning and facing us.

  “I certainly hope your day has been more productive than mine has been.” He ran a hand through his hair. “When it rains, it pours—and I am presently flooded with troubles.”

  “We have made some little progress,” Hal said, and recounted for Sir Jasper our visit to the yarbwoman and the sheep farmer.

  When he had finished, Sir Jasper paced across the library with an air of agitation. “So you really don’t think that Gilley could have cast the curse?”

  “I haven’t eliminated anyone completely,” Hal said. “But I think it’s altogether unlikely. He certainly seemed sincere in his distaste for magic.”

  “Distaste?” Sir Jasper laughed bitterly. “More like fear. They’re a superstitious lot, those farmers, and don’t let them fool you. Half the reason they don’t like the mine is that they think I’ve angered the local spirits.”

  “Like the beldam?” I said, thinking of the yarbwoman.

  Sir Jasper shook his head, his face darkening. “That old woman mentioned it to me when she saw Cissy. It’s nothing but a fairy tale—a story meant to frighten children away from wandering on the moors.”

  Hal raised an eyebrow. “And yet it seems that Mr. Gilley’s fears are not unfounded—whatever has been at his sheep, it’s left a trace of magic on them. And you yourself consulted Mrs. Ogham.”

  “I needed someone who could sense magic.” Sir Jasper’s brows knitted. “And that woman has the knack, but she’s no more a magician than a witch doctor. Don’t tell me you’re listening to this superstitious rot—I thought a son of Charles Bishop would have better sense.”

  A muscle jumped in Hal’s jaw, and he closed his eyes. It was a long moment before he spoke. “My father did not know everything.”

  There was an uncomfortable knot in the pit of my stomach; the business with the sheep and the cook’s gossip had pushed Hal’s words about Father to the back of my mind, but now they came rushing back to me. I cleared my throat. “We’re only—we have to consider everything, you know.”

  Sir Jasper, who was looking at Hal as though he’d grown a second head, turned to me and blinked, as if startled to find that I was still there. “Of course,” he said, shaking his head. “But I hope you understand that there is no time to waste on gossip and fairy stories.”

  “I am not in the habit of wasting my time.” Hal had opened his eyes, but he did not look at Sir Jasper. He was staring into the fireplace. “I told you yesterday, you must trust that I know what I am doing and let me work, however strange it seems to you.”

  Sir Jasper sat down, pressing a hand over his clouded right eye. He seemed old and weary, suddenly; his great bulk bowed down by the weight of his troubles. “I meant no offense—I admired your father greatly.”

  Hal smiled thinly. “Many people did. But he made his share of mistakes.”

  I looked down at my hands, the pit in my stomach twisting. Father had been very much on my mind since we’d arrived in Rowanwood, and Hal’s bitterness about him troubled me—I had always thought of my father as a great man, a gifted magician, and I had thought my brother felt the same.

  “Well, you must do as you think best,” Sir Jasper said tiredly. “I have no energy to spare in quarreling about it. Things are going badly at the mine.”

  Reeves called us in for dinner, and we made our way into the dining room. I was glad for an excuse to change the subject away from Father, and turned to Sir Jasper as I took my seat. “What’s the trouble at the mine?”

  “Equipment malfunctions—we’ve had a few near misses lately,” he said. “We had an accident several years ago; a man was killed. I’ve been fanatical about safety since then, but I can’t do anything with faulty equipment. And there’s the illness.”

  “Illness?” Hal looked up from his soup. “What sort of illness?”

  Sir Jasper rubbed at his eye again. “A lung complaint. Several of the men and some of the people in the village are down with it. They seem to think it’s something to do with the mine.”

  Hal drummed his fingers upon the table. “What do you think?”

  “I suppose it’s possible.” Sir Jasper sighed. “But what am I to do about it? Close the mine? Do you know what would happen to this village if I did that?”

  “Hm.” Hal drummed his fingers more vigorously. “Has anyone died of it?”

  “Yes.” Sir Jasper ran a hand through his hair. “Last winter—a child. It was . . . her father took it very badly.”

  “He blamed you?” I sat up. “Why didn’t you mention this before?”

  He looked startled. “But he left, long before Cissy took ill. Months before.”

  “S
till,” Hal said, rubbing his chin. “That is a powerful motive. A child for a child. I shall want his name.”

  Sir Jasper’s face had gone very pale, and he looked up, in the direction of Cecilia’s room. “You shall have it,” he said quietly.

  The rest of the dinner passed silently, each of us wrapped in our own thoughts. When we had finished, Sir Jasper stood and announced that he would be retiring for the night.

  Just before he reached the door, he turned to Hal. “I want you to come and take a look at the mine tomorrow. The equipment—it’s enchanted. I think the spells are failing.”

  I expected Hal to turn him down flat; this was, after all, the hated industrial magic. To my surprise, Hal simply nodded.

  “So now you’re interested in machines again,” I said, a little bitterly, watching Sir Jasper leave.

  Hal looked surprised. “It’s all connected—the mine, the sheep, Cecilia. Of course I’m interested.”

  “That’s not what I meant.” I shook my head. “I’m tired, too. Goodnight, Hal.”

  I left him sitting at the dining room table, looking after me with a puzzled frown on his face.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I went up to my room, but though I was tired, I was in no mood to sleep. Too much had happened in the day, and my mind was crowded with thoughts. I wondered about Cecilia, and the sheep, and Sir Jasper’s brother—but at the back of everything, I was thinking about my father, and Hal. I lay awake in the dark, staring up at the ceiling, and listened to the wind wailing outside my window.

  I don’t know how long I lay awake, but I must have fallen asleep eventually, for at some point during the night I was startled awake. It took a moment for me to realize what had awakened me, but as I lay still and listened I realized that another sound had joined the wind. It was a low, undulating howl, like a dog baying at the moon—but it was deeper and clearer than any dog’s howl I had ever heard.

  I went to the window and looked out into the darkness, and saw nothing but the lights of the mine in the distance. The howl sounded again—and something answered it, from inside the house. A clear, echoing howl from down the hallway—not a dog’s howl, but the sound of a person imitating one. It sounded close. I froze at the window and listened as the exchange sounded again.

  The door to connecting my room to Hal’s opened, and my brother stepped through, candle in hand. “Did you hear that?”

  I nodded. “What is it?”

  Hal put a finger to his lips and motioned for me to follow him. We crept into the dark passageway. The howl sounded again, and the strange echo answered it. We followed it down to the end of the passage, where a girl stood silhouetted in shadow against a window. I could see that it was Cecilia, even in the darkness; her hair hung limply about her pale face and the moonlight showed her hollow eyes plainly. The maid, Jenny, stood nearby, holding a candle that cast strange shadows under her cheeks, making her eyes look larger than ever.

  Cecilia turned at our approach, a mocking smile on her face. “Oh! People out of bed this late—that’s very bad of them, Jenny.”

  “Yes, miss,” Jenny said, looking distraught.

  Cecilia laughed, a brittle sound, and turned back to the window, howling once more. Jenny crept over to where we stood. She looked over at Cecilia, then leaned forward.

  “She walks at night, sometimes,” she said, her voice so low I could scarcely hear it. “I’m to watch her and see that she doesn’t come to harm. But I’ve never seen her do anything like this.”

  Her voice quavered as she spoke, and she looked back over at Cecilia. “I don’t know what I’ll do if the master wakes. He’s troubled enough as it is.”

  I felt for the poor girl; it was hard on her that she had to tend hand and foot to this creature. I looked back at the strange tableau that Cecilia made, leaning against the glass and howling, with the occasional burst of laughter, and then again at the agitation on Jenny’s face.

  “What should we do, Hal?”

  He was watching Cecilia with an odd expression on his face; he didn’t seem troubled by the scene that was playing out before him—quite the contrary, in fact. It seemed as though he had almost expected something of this sort. He thrust the candle into my hands and then walked over to the window, bending down to Cecilia with his hands in his pockets.

  “Perhaps you’d care to enlighten us as to the purpose of this racket,” he said evenly. “Some of us are trying to sleep, you know.”

  She laughed her sharp, fragile laugh again. “Some of us are trying to sleep, he says! Well, some of us are dreaming.”

  “Dreaming?” Hal leaned against the casement. “What are you dreaming of?”

  “What an idiot you are!” She giggled. “I’m not dreaming. I never dream. But sometimes a man dreams of being a wolf—and sometimes a wolf dreams of being a man.”

  “What does that mean?” I said. I felt curiously as though I were dreaming, myself—standing here before the window and listening to this absurd exchange. Then, too, there was the sickening feel of the magic that followed Cecilia; something about it reminded me of having been very ill once as a child, and the fever-dreams I’d had.

  Cecilia looked at me, contempt burning in her blue eyes. “It’s a riddle—if I told you what it meant where would the fun be?”

  “A riddle?” Hal took the pipe out of his pocket and stuck it in his mouth, though he didn’t light it. “Are you playing a game?”

  She sneered at him. “Are you? You asked me a question and I answered. Now go away. You’re not wanted.”

  “A riddle is not an answer.” Hal spoke in a chiding tone, the sort one would use on a stubborn child. “Perhaps you can try again.”

  “Oh, he didn’t like that riddle, Jenny.” She giggled again.

  Hal stood up. “Well, this is getting us nowhere. Perhaps we should all return to bed.”

  “I’m not done playing.” Cecilia’s tone sent a quiver through my stomach; all the laughter was gone from it, and it had turned low and sinister, as though something else were speaking through her mouth. The air in the passageway went suddenly cold; I could see my breath in the air. The maid shrank back next to me, fear written plainly on her features.

  Hal alone seemed unruffled by the sudden change in atmosphere. He moved away from the casement, his demeanor unaltered. “I am. There’s no time to waste in playing games.”

  Cecilia turned away from the window. In the dim moonlight, a scowl twisting her face, she looked scarcely human at all. I took an involuntary step back.

  She laughed, a high-pitched sound like metal scraping on stone. “Here’s another riddle for you, magician. What’s the king’s name?”

  Hal froze mid-step; his face went perfectly still. “What did you say?”

  “What’s the king’s name, Henry?” She laughed again. “That’s a better riddle, isn’t it?”

  Hal didn’t answer; he didn’t even move. His face had suddenly gone very white, and for a moment I was afraid that he would faint; but he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then moved past me without a word.

  “Hal?” I said uncertainly, but he did not turn.

  I looked back at Cecilia. She had gone back to staring out the window, her chin propped up on her hand. The unearthly air had gone away from her, and the chill was beginning to dissipate.

  She yawned. “I’m bored now, Jenny. Let’s go back to bed.”

  “Yes, miss.” Jenny went over to the window, still pale and wide-eyed, but gamely offering her mistress her arm. They vanished up the staircase, and I went in search of my brother.

  I found him sitting on his bed in the dark, and I went in with the candle and lit a lamp on the desk, to get a better look at his face. He was still very pale, and he had his pipe out, but his matches lay unheeded in his lap.

  “What’s wrong?” I had never seen him look like this, and it frightened me. “What did that mean, what she said to you?”

  He ran a hand over his face. “Nothing.”

  I stared at him. It
was his habit to avoid my questions, but this was beyond the pale. “You can’t be serious.”

  “No, I’m not putting you off. It doesn’t mean anything; at least, I don’t think it does.” He rested his forehead in his hand. “It’s—it’s something Father used to say. When he was ill.”

  It felt as though all the air had been pulled from the room; I sank down onto the desk chair and had to work to catch my breath. “I thought you said this had nothing to do with Father.”

  Hal looked up at me sharply. “It hasn’t. Cecilia—or the creature that has hold of her, rather—pulled that out of my brain. It was meant to be a distraction.”

  “But why would she say that?” My voice shook a little, and I cleared my throat. “Why would she pick something Father said?”

  He picked up the matches and lit his pipe. “I suppose because Father’s been on my mind of late.”

  I was quiet for a moment, watching him. I remembered the anger in his voice when he had called Father arrogant, the bitterness with which he spoke of him. I looked down at my hands. “Why do you hate him?”

  “Hate him?” There was surprise and hurt in his voice. “What makes you think that?”

  I shrugged. “You’re always so . . . disdainful, when people mention him. You have no interest in his work. What did you expect me to think?”

  “I never hated Father,” he said, quietly. “I hated to watch him destroy himself. I hated not understanding what was happening to him. But I never hated Father.”

  “But you never want to talk about him.” I looked up; the words were tumbling out of my mouth before I could stop them. “You never want to tell me anything about what happened.”

  He rubbed his forehead. “I don’t like to think about it, Jem. Can’t you understand that?”

  He looked very tired, all at once; he had always been tired, since Father’s illness began. I thought about poor Jenny, keeping her watch over Cecilia, and I realized that Hal had kept watch over our father in the same way, for years, while I was away at school.

  “I wish I had been there,” I said. “To help you.”

  “No.” Hal grimaced, shaking his head. “It’s better that you weren’t.”