by K C Norrie
I gave the staff the day off to mourn. Everyone pitched in to clean up the meal, and then they retired to their common rooms. Madame Anders took Gwendolyn to her own quarters with her before I had a chance to speak with her.
So now I sit here writing the account of the terrible events that have taken place in the last twenty-four hours. I imagine the Chateau will be closed up for good now. I will ask Lucas to go back to Paris with him. As I try to reconcile my leaving the Chateau for Paris, I find I've been fooling myself, because it's caught up with me sudden-like. I am tired beyond words, and I am cold, though the fire is lit.
I must write a note for Monsieur Lucas, so he will know why I did what I did! I must somehow get myself down to the dungeons without the notice of Ferguson. It will have to be later while the others are asleep. Surely, I have that much time. I should find some potion; it may prolong my life for a time. I will lock myself in the dungeon next to Monsieur Montrell and hopefully no one will look for me there. I wonder what it will be like. Will I be conscious? Will I have any memory at all? Will I suffer? I shuddered at my perverse thoughts.
So that is that. I must find some potion, write my note to Lucas, and get myself down to the dungeon. Should I light the lantern for Rafe and Sauli? I am so tired. Perhaps I waited too long after all.
Madame Anders
(Letter addressed to Madame Louise Montrell)
My Dear Madame Louise,
I had hoped to welcome you back as the new bride of Chateau de Riene with all the joy and celebration your arrival deserves, but it is not to be so. Instead you will be greeted at the door with the heartbreaking news that Monsieur Traver has been killed in a most tragic accident. I had a room done up beautifully for you two but now it matters nothing. I think Monsieur Lucas will not want to stay once the funeral and formalities are finished. We are a house of sorrow once again, and I have to wonder if the Chateau has ever been anything else. The years are plagued with sorrow and misfortune and this house has become a keeper of deadly secrets as well. When you arrive, you will no doubt hear from the other servants that it was Gwendolyn that pulled the trigger that shot her brother, but I assure you this was not done out of anger or malice. It was but a horrible accident.
I ask mercy for her. She is such an innocent. I love her like my own daughter. I never had any of my own, you see. When you and Lucas come, I request to go back to Paris with you. I would be happy to care for Mademoiselle Gwendolyn.
She has remained childlike though she is nearing forty-years-old now. I still remember when she was born. A tiny fairy creature, with pale white hair. Mademoiselle Gwendolyn has always been a high-spirited but unsocial child. She’s always had good days and bad. There were times when no one could reach her, so lost she was inside her own head. Other days she would dance and play make-believe with her dolls. Those were the good days. She could also be mischievous as she had been all this winter. Monsieur Traver brought her here because she had been so unruly in Paris that he feared for her safety.
"She keeps running away to come back to the Chateau. She points to the picture of it on the wall in the parlor and then points out the door. She packed a suitcase. We unpacked it and she packed it again. She cries all night. Once we found her boarding a train headed in the wrong direction. I felt I had no choice but to bring her here," he told me in confidence.
I'd always had a way with her. She listened to me, when no one else could reach her.
Most of the staff believe she became this way after the wolf-hunting accident all those years ago, but I knew different. She has always been this way. Her parents kept it secret. To hear them talk, she was no different from any other girl her age, but they never sent her to school. She had a tutor who they paid to go through the motions of teaching her and keep quiet like the rest of us. Chateau de Riene, as I have already said, is a house filled with many such secrets. Sometimes they make me cry.
We find too late, what she has been up to. She has been stealing the household keys and adding them to a great ring she found somewhere. She has been unlocking the locked doors of Madame Merena's room and the cellar and other places. She has been following people, spying on them.
I can only speculate how this tragedy occurred. Gwendolyn will not be able to tell us and there were no witnesses. Little Gwendolyn must have found a gun. It may have been locked away, but she had all the keys. When Monsieur Traver tried to take the gun away, it went off. By the time any of us realized what happened, it was too late. It seems no one escapes the Montrell curse
Respectfully yours,
Madame Josephine Anders
****
Dear Louisa,
It's been horrible here without you and every day gets worse; much worse. I think it all started when a new girl named Henrietta disappeared.
Now, more are missing. Henrietta, Ferguson, Bates, Madame Anders, and Mademoiselle Gwendolyn, have all disappeared and we are leaving despite the weather. Gerret says it gets warmer as you go down the mountain. (Do you remember Gerret? Tall, handsome, brown curly hair?) He thinks we can make it if we go now while the wind is calm.
But I must start at the beginning.
When you come back to Chateau de Riene, it will be empty; or it will appear to be empty. The trouble began weeks ago after another blizzard stranded us inside the Chateau for the winter. Just as bad as last year, remember? We couldn't see a thing out the windows. Suddenly the front door opened and Monsieur Traver and Gwendolyn swept in with the wind and snow. But Monsieur Traver is dead now and Gwendolyn is one of the missing.
Perhaps it began when Madame Anders key to Madame Merena's room was found missing from her key ring. We were lined up for daily inspection and waiting for our assignments, when she asked which one of us took it. No one spoke a word, so she punished us like children with bothersome chores like scrubbing the front entrance floor and polishing all the doorknobs. When we were finished, we were to start again. No one was happy about it.
A few days later Bates noticed the key to the back door, was not hanging up where it should have been. Again, we were lined up and asked who was responsible. I wondered if it wasn't this new girl Henrietta. Her face turned bright red, and she stared at the floor in embarrassment. Of course, that doesn't mean anything. I have a cousin who's face turns red, two or three times a day and it means nothing.
In a few days Rafe came in from the stable and told Bates he lost his set of keys to the Chateau. I was close enough to overhear and to watch Bates sputter and fume. He looked right at Henrietta who was wiping the walls in the gallery. I think he suspected her. From then on, keys kept disappearing. I heard Bates slept with his keys under his pillow.
Do you remember Margot from last winter? She had brown hair kept in a braid on top of her head. (she still does). She came running into the common room telling us the cellar door was left open. I went with her to look, and sure enough the door was wide open. We wouldn't go near. One of the men fetched Bates and he dutifully closed and locked it. Later on, it was found open again.
Over the next several days, the door to the dungeon was discovered open and unlocked a number of times. Margot confided to us that she thought Charmaine and Rondonna had come back to haunt the Chateau. The idea caught fire. Everything from spilled sugar, to mislaid tools was blamed on ghosts. One night a loud sound woke us up. We stayed in bed wide-awake, afraid to venture into the dark. Shortly after breakfast that morning Mademoiselle Gwendolyn was discovered missing. We searched for hours, fear rising, when Madame Anders found her huddling in a closet in Madame Merena's old room. We decided perhaps the loud noise frightened her. It was days before we found the true cause. The dungeon door continued tormenting us.
When Rafe and Sauli arrived from the carriage house for breakfast a few mornings later, Bates recruited Sauli to stay and guard the door. Henrietta kept finding excuses to talk to him and we quizzed her whenever she arrived back as to whether or not the door had opened of its own accord. It stayed closed and locked the entire time. I was slight
ly disappointed. Bates couldn't keep Sauli indefinitely, so he returned to the carriage house when Rafe came for him after dinner.
Margot and I decided we would guard it the next day. We hid in an alcove not visible from too many places and set to watching. We hoped Madame Anders would assume us working. It was dull uninteresting work. Gwendolyn found and joined us. She hid with us, thinking it great fun but her giggling kept giving us away to any passers-by. Eventually, we had to abandon our plan and find chores to keep us busy the rest of the day.
Some weeks later, Henrietta never came to bed. Several of us girls went searching for her when we should have been sleeping. Suddenly she appeared into the common room surprised to see us all still awake. She had sneaked away to the stable to be with Sauli. We let her know in no uncertain terms, what a fright she gave us, not to mention how dangerous it was to venture out into the night in the middle of winter. The weather could change at any time and we could wake to drifts of snow as high as our heads.
The next day the sky turned dark and the winter gales began. We gave Henrietta a look that said, look what could have happened, so many times, I fear she began to avoid us. She didn't come to the common room that night and we went to bed without her. We assumed she was off somewhere pouting and left her to it. She wouldn't dare go out into this weather. Another loud noise woke us in the night. These vexing ghosts seemed unworthy of losing sleep over, so none of us got up to check. When we woke in the morning, Henrietta's bed was still empty. It alarmed us. Perhaps the girl was foolish enough to go out into the weather. We notified Madame Anders at once.
Ferguson gathered up a search party. He woke Bates, while Madame Anders marched off to see Monsieur Traver.
That's when the scream rang out. That's when Monsieur Traver was found dead with Gwendolyn as his killer. That's when most of the story came out.
It was Mademoiselle Gwendolyn who had taken all the keys and unlocked and opened the cellar door so many times. That was why she giggled so, when she hid with us. At one point the keys must have unlocked a gun. That first night we had been awakened by that thunderous noise, must have been Gwendolyn accidentally shooting it! That was why she hid. But we didn't know. How could anyone have guessed such a thing?
Bates gave us the rest of the day off to mourn. Henrietta was still missing, but it didn't seem appropriate to bring this up. After helping clean up the meal, I went to the common room and worried about where she could have gone. I kept imagining her frozen to death in the storm raging outside. I wished I would have been kinder.
That was only terrible day number one.
The next day became terrible day number two.
Bates did not come to breakfast. Ferguson went to check on him and found his bed empty. We broke into groups and began another search. Once again, we found the door to the dungeons wide open.
Ferguson got up the courage to go down and check. He asked for help, but no one spoke up except for me begging him not to go. I remembered too clearly what happened to Rondonna before she and Charmaine disappeared.
He grabbed a lantern for light and disappeared down the steps. We heard him cry out from somewhere far inside.
"Ferguson! Are you alright?" I shouted. Nothing could persuade anyone from our small group of seven to venture down those stairs to check, so we all just stood there willing Ferguson come back unharmed.
Suddenly he came running up the stairs. He no longer held the lantern, but he held Bates ring of keys. His arm dripped blood.
"What happened?" we asked.
He never had the chance to answer. Madame Anders appeared from out of nowhere, her face white with fury. Without speaking a word, she reached for the keys and locked the cellar door. She took Ferguson away by his good arm. Mademoiselle Gwendolyn followed.
When I tried to follow, Gerret held me back. "Let them go," he said.
But I wanted answers. I waited for Madame Anders all the rest of the day. I had questions ready. Where is Ferguson, is he going to be okay? Where is Bates? Where is Henrietta? What happened to Rondonna and Charmaine? What do you keep down there in the dungeon that bites?
When I finally met up with her (and Gwendolyn) later that evening, she looked so tired and worn, that I hadn't the heart to ask her anything.
Terrible day number three.
Madame Anders did not come to breakfast. She was not in her quarters. Neither was Gwendolyn. We searched as one group this time. All twenty-two of us. Every floor, every room, every hiding place. Then we came to the turret. You know the turret with the winding crumbling steps. We looked up to the closed door at the top. We shouted for Madame Anders or Ferguson. The outside wind sounded very loud in the turret, but some of us thought we heard something come from the other side of the door.
Gerret volunteered to go up. He asked the rest of us to wait. No one argued, though I questioned the safety of the steps.
"If Ferguson can do it and Madame Anders and Gwendolyn, then so can I."
"But we know don't know if they are up there," I argued.
"Where else would they be?"
As the rest of us pondered the answer to that question, Gerret began to climb. Twice, fragments of stone tippled down, and we held our breaths that Gerret stay in place. Why would Madame Anders come up here? Did she lock Ferguson away in that room? Why?
Gerret reached the top. He knocked on the door and tried the latch.
"Is anyone in there?"
No one answered.
A loud scratching sound came from behind the door and I think I heard a raspy growl. Then the door began to bang. Something was trying to get out. The sound of breaking glass and added pounding suggested more than one something was trying to get out. Margot and Marianne both screamed, and more bits of steps crumbled to the ground as Gerret hurried back. The assault from the other side of the door continued for another minute, and then stopped.
"We are not safe here," Gerret said. "As soon as the winds die, we must try to make it to Saint Ange no matter what. Until then, I think we should all move down to the kitchen area. We have to stay together. We can't lose anyone else. Let's pair up. Twenty-two may be too large a number to keep track of, but if we have partners to look after..."
I was going to pair up with Margot, but Gerret chose me.
The men waited at our common room door while we gathered our things. Then we waited for them while they gathered theirs.
The kitchen was large and warm. We had easy access to the woodpile and the food pantry (and a privy, but you know). We grabbed chairs and divans from other rooms to sleep on. We made a big pot of stew and prepared bread. It all tasted like nothing.
We made plans. We decided to use a shortcut that some of the men and women use, when they need to go to the village, and don’t want to take the long path. Gerret says it's steep. It's a ravine with a lot of brush. Over the years a tunnel of sorts has been created beneath the brush, and everyone agreed it was possible not much snow had entered.
We made lists that night of what to wear, what to bring. When the list was done, we went together to locate the items. It gave us strength and courage. We found two old toboggans. We packed food and matches and lanterns and firewood and found a few shovels for digging in case we had to.
"We will do it together," said Gerret. "We'll be on foot and it will be cold. We'll wrap our feet in wool before putting on boots. Without the wind, we should be able to start a fire for warmth if needed. As soon as the wind dies…"
Our wait lasted three days and at last the wind has died. It is silent without its incessant howl, but now we imagine we hear menacing house noises. The kitchen is barricaded. Nothing can come in. We have not ventured out since gathering our supplies. We don't know the state of the mysterious dungeon door. We don't know if the turret door has given way. We are ready to leave and need only to wait for daylight. Some sleep like Gerret, while others are up like me writing, whispering, focused on tomorrow. Everything depends on tomorrow. But today, right now, we are safely together.
; I am placing my letter next to the one from Madame Anders. Perhaps she'll tell you where she went.
I pray you find this before you start opening doors. Remember to stay out of the dungeons and the turret room. Hopefully when you find this, all twenty-two of us will be safe and warm in Saint Ange.
Love to you and Lucas,
Your friend always,
Aubrina
Chapter 41
We removed the barricade from the kitchen doors and searched the rest of the Chateau room by room. One by one they turned up empty. We made our way to the turret room last. I strained my ears but heard nothing. It was Lucas who climbed the decrepit steps ordering us to wait below. He looked through the keyhole for several minutes and came back down.
"I need rope," he told Rafe, who turned to leave.
"We stay together!" I could give orders too. So, we went together to fetch a rope from the carriage house.
We didn't ask Lucas what he saw. We had already seen the dungeon and read Aubrina's account, so we already knew. Back at the turret room, Lucas once again climbed the steps. He tied the rope firmly to the door handle, and then threw the rope to Sauli, while Rafe readied his gun. Lucas had me wait in the doorway leading back out to the Chateau, refusing to proceed until I was in place. Then he quietly unlocked the door stepping down several stairs and readied his gun before motioning Sauli to pull the rope. Sauli pulled the rope, and the door flew open. Madame Anders was first out the door, followed, by Ferguson and then the little Mademoiselle. The stair held no railings, so they tumbled off to the floor below and were stilled with the guns. We prayed for their souls before leaving them, great sorrow for what had become of these special people who had made places in our hearts.
