The House of Hidden Wonders

by Sharon Gosling

  Mrs Collins opened the door to 73 Grove Street, pausing to look Zinnie up and down with her usual expression of slight disgust before letting her in.

  “I’m not staying long,” Zinnie said. “I just want to see my sisters.”

  The matron didn’t respond but walked with Zinnie to the door of Nell’s sickroom, as if convinced that she’d take off somewhere else in the house given half a chance. Zinnie wondered if she followed Sadie about in the same fashion. She could imagine Sadie putting up with it, but there’s no way that Zinnie would. Bitter old bat! What would the Mrs Collinses of the world have to say about the doctor’s idea of Sadie training alongside her? Zinnie almost laughed out loud. It’d be worth it just to see the look on the sour old goat’s face.

  “Zinnie!”

  It was Nell’s voice that greeted her – weak and hoarse but there. The little girl was lying propped up in a cloud of pillows with Sadie at her side.

  “Nell!” Zinnie ran to the bed and scooped her into a hug, horribly aware of how thin her sister was. “You’re awake!”

  “She’s doing well,” Sadie said with a tired smile. “We were worried for a bit but now it looks as if she’s really on the mend.”

  “The doctor and Sadie say I can’t get out of bed yet,” Nell said, her voice muffled against Zinnie’s neck. “But soon I’ll be up and about and then we can all go home. Can’t we?”

  Zinnie glanced at Sadie over Nell’s head. Sadie looked away, smoothing the rumpled blanket instead of meeting her eye.

  “Just you keep getting better, pippin. Don’t think of anything else yet,” Zinnie said, settling the girl back against her pillows and tucking her in before kissing her forehead. It was cooler now, without that horrible heat running beneath the skin. “Now I’m going to talk to Sadie for a little while, all right?” She watched as Nell nodded sleepily.

  “Zinnie—” Sadie began as the two sisters went out into the corridor. She hesitated, stopping herself.

  “What?” Zinnie asked. “What is it?”

  Sadie hesitated and then nodded towards the door of Nell’s room. “Do you really think we can go back to the way we’ve been living? We nearly lost Nell. She’s still not as strong as she was, and she won’t be for a long time. If she goes back to living in the same way, she’s going to get sick again. Maybe next time we won’t be so lucky.”

  “Then what are you saying?” Zinnie asked. “That you want her to go to an orphanage?”

  “Would that really be so bad?” Sadie asked. “She’d be in a clean, safe place.”

  “Safe!” Zinnie repeated. She stared at her sister. “She wouldn’t be safe! You know what it was like for me there! Do you really want Nell to go through the same?”

  Sadie winced and looked away. Zinnie rarely spoke about how she’d grown up. She’d never known her ma or her pa – she’d been just a baby when she’d been left on the steps of a ‘school’ that said it took care of children with nowhere else to go. It was supposed to be a good place, a safe place, but all the owners were interested in was raising girls until they were old enough to be sent to homes that wanted servants. Even when a girl found a place to take her, she didn’t escape the orphanage because it was then that the owners started to take payment for her ‘care’. Her wages were never her own. They always went back to the ‘home’. It was in that place that Zinnie had learned to do without much to eat, to sleep on hard surfaces in cold, damp rooms. It was there she promised herself that she would never owe anyone anything, and that adults were not to be trusted.

  “I know you had a terrible time,” her sister said quietly. “But Doctor Jex-Blake promises that we can find a good place for her – a decent place with people who care. I could stay here, to train, and you can go to Lady Sarah’s. We won’t have to go back to the closes, ever.”

  “But we’d be apart,” Zinnie said. “Is that really what you want?”

  “Of course it isn’t, but it wouldn’t be forever. If we’re both working, we can save, can’t we? We could find enough to rent a place – a proper place – together. And then we can bring Nell home to that. It’d be a real home, Zinnie, clean and warm.”

  “Even if all that really were a thing we could hope for,” Zinnie said, “you’re forgetting one thing. What about Aelfine? We can’t just leave her on her own.”

  Sadie twined her fingers together, not looking Zinnie in the eye. “There are places she could go. Places that would know how to look after her properly.”

  Zinnie recoiled. “You mean … an asylum?”

  “They’re not bad places, Zinnie,” Sadie said desperately. “I found a book about them, in the doctor’s library.”

  “They’re for mad people, Sadie! People who can’t look after themselves, people who need to be locked up all day, every day! Aelfine ran away because she didn’t want to be in a cage – how can we even think about letting anyone put her back in one? She’s not mad or stupid. She’s just different, that’s all. Can’t you see that?”

  “Of course I can! But we can’t help everyone, Zinnie. Look at us! We can’t even help ourselves. With Talbot and MacDuff looking for her, she’d be safer there, wouldn’t she? And then we can … we can…”

  “We can what?” Zinnie asked sharply.

  Sadie looked at Zinnie with tears in her eyes. Then she hung her head, wisps of her unruly red hair – cleaner than Zinnie had ever seen it; she must have had a bath since she’d been in the clinic – slipped down to hide her face.

  “Am I wrong?” Sadie asked, her words clogged with tears. “Am I wrong to want this, instead of what we’ve got?”

  Zinnie’s heart clenched. They were standing in a whitewashed hallway so clean she could still smell the vinegar with which it had been scrubbed. Sadie would sleep that night in a bed set beside their little sister’s, something they had only done once before, when Zinnie had saved up enough for them all to rent a single hostel bed to share in Grassmarket. That had felt like they’d fallen into riches, even though it had been little more than straw on a pallet and they were as crammed in together as they were in Mary King’s Close.

  Here, in the doctor’s clinic, they’d get up and wash with clean water, dress in clean clothes and eat a breakfast that wasn’t too rotten to sell to richer people. Sadie had been given a chance to have that every day: she’d been given a chance at a future that few girls like them ever even dreamed of, it was so unlikely. How could Zinnie begrudge her that?

  She pulled Sadie into a hug. “Of course you aren’t,” Zinnie said, resting her chin on her sister’s head. “I’ve just got to find a way to keep everyone safe, Aelfine as well. But I know how to do that now.”

  Sadie pulled back and looked up at Zinnie with a tearstained face. “What do you mean?”

  By the time Zinnie was making her way back towards the Old Town, it was dark and the rain was lashing out of the sky in wind-blown torrents. Cold and wet, she went first to Writers’ Court.

  Constance McQuirter had a smoking fire burning in her dirty grate, the wind and rain battering in through the rotten gaps around her windowpane.

  “Well, well,” she said, pulling open the door no more than a crack. “Look what not even the cat would drag in. Be off with you – you’ve got all the help you’re going to get from me.”

  “Help?” Zinnie repeated, as rainwater dripped from her hair and ran down her nose. “That wasn’t help, Constance, that was just repayment. Now you’re going to help me.” She put her foot in the open doorway before Constance could push it shut. “Or have you forgotten what I know?”

  “Two can play at that game,” the woman warned her. “I’ve seen your pinched little face on posters, so I have. All it takes is a word in the right copper’s ear and off you’ll go, ragamuffin thief.”

  Zinnie tried another tack. She removed her foot and turned to leave. “All right, all right. Look, all I wanted was to put some money your way. Figured it might as well come to you as old Mother Goodwynd. But if you’re not interested…”

&n
bsp; The door opened quickly. “Hold on. Mother Goodwynd? What would you want with that old trollop?”

  “For the seance, of course.”

  “What seance?”

  “The one Lady Sarah wants to hold down in Mary King’s Close. She’s got a mind to find out who the ghost is haunting down there. You heard that it’s back?”

  “Lady Sarah?” Constance said, paling. “But she’s one of my regulars!”

  “Aye, I know,” said Zinnie, making as if to turn away. “That’s why she told me to ask you first. But you said no, so—”

  “Wait! That was before I knew what it was all about,” Constance said, grabbing her arm and pulling Zinnie back round to face her. “Of course I’ll do it for Lady Sarah.”

  Zinnie smiled. “That’s good then. This Friday, ten o’clock sharp. All right? Everyone else will be arriving at eleven.”

  “This Friday?” Constance repeated. “But that’s—”

  “No bother if you can’t,” Zinnie said chirpily. “It’s short notice, I know. I’ll just go and knock on Mother Goodwynd’s door—”

  “No,” Constance said, through gritted teeth. “This Friday it is. Ten o’clock.”

  Zinnie grinned. “Her ladyship will be pleased.”

  Constance gave her a look that was as laced with suspicion as Conan Doyle’s had been. “Are you up to something? You going to lure a punnet of fine folk down there and then rob them blind?”

  “Oh, I’d never dream of that,” Zinnie said, heading for the stairs. “I’ll leave the robbery to you, Constance. You’re an old hand at it, after all.”

  Outside, the night sky was still spearing the earth with rain. There were no stars to be seen at all. The alley had been swallowed by shadows, thick and dark. If not for the echo, Zinnie would have walked straight into the path of the men coming her way. As it was, she recognized the harsh brag of Bartholomew Talbot’s voice. She ducked back into Writers’ Court with barely a second to spare as he and his men barrelled past, talking loudly, the potential for violence in every move they made. Her heart pounded in her chest, the healing bruises on her throat ached with remembered pain and Zinnie hated, hated, hated it, the hold the fear of him had over her.

  She waited a moment or two, until they had vanished into the broken underworld of Mary King’s Close. Then she slipped back out into the alley, very nearly colliding with the dark silhouette of a figure that stood head and shoulders over her. She leaped back with a short cry.

  “Watch it,” growled a quiet voice, as the moon sparked from behind the monotonous grey cloud just long enough for her to see the outline of a man. He had a wide-brimmed hat pulled low over one ear, the gleam of a gold ring in the other and an angry glint in his dark eyes.

  The moon slipped away again and the figure went on, quickly swallowed by shadows. She couldn’t tell whether he’d gone down into the close or continued on. Had he been following Talbot?

  Zinnie left enough time to be sure of a good distance between her and Talbot’s men. She kept her eyes peeled as she made for the close and then down its rain-slicked flags to where Aelfine and Ruby were hidden.

  She waited in the darkness of the ruined room for a few minutes before giving the whistle they had agreed on. A little longer still and Zinnie heard a soft scuffling sound. Then there were Aelfine and Ruby, standing in front of her.

  “All right?” she whispered. Aelfine nodded. “Good. It’s time for you to show me everything. OK?”

  Aelfine and Ruby shared a brief look, and then Aelfine reached out and took the candle stub from Zinnie and blew it out. She gripped Zinnie’s hand and silently began to lead her towards the abyss that dominated the room. Zinnie’s stomach turned over, her heart beginning to race. She’d tried and tried to find a way round the hole. She’d never made it, not once.

  “Don’t worry,” said Aelfine’s voice, so quietly that it was barely there. “Ruby will help you. You have to trust us.”

  Ruby gave a tiny chitter that came from somewhere near Zinnie’s left foot. A second later, she felt tiny paws against her ankle and faint pressure as the monkey pushed her foot in a particular direction.

  “Just do as Ruby tells you,” Aelfine said, and then let go of Zinnie’s hand. Zinnie almost flailed, convinced she was going to fall into the void below, but Ruby pushed at her foot again and, when she moved it, Zinnie felt those little hands pulling and then pressing down. Zinnie took the step, and her foot landed on something solid in the darkness. She wobbled, but a second later Ruby’s paws were against her other foot, guiding it in the same way. Zinnie stretched out her arms, feeling for something to grip. The fingers of her left hand brushed against the wall, dislodging dust and flakes of brick.

  Zinnie knew that, although the floor had almost completely gone, there were still remnants of broken floorboards jutting out over the hole. When she’d tried to get round the void before, she’d always been too afraid to risk putting all her weight on one after the other, because if one broke there would be no way to stop herself falling. But it was clear that Aelfine and Ruby had worked out which ones were still strong enough to bear a person’s weight. These were what Ruby was guiding her feet towards, one by one. Zinnie gave in to the idea that all she had to do was move exactly when and where the monkey told her to, and everything would be fine. After all, what else could she do?

  Step by agonizing step, Zinnie let herself be drawn across the void. Sometimes she reached out her questing fingers to brush against the wall, which at least gave her an idea that there was something solid around her somewhere. The bells of St Giles clanged, as distant from Mary King’s Close as the moon itself. Midnight it was, and as dark as Zinnie had ever known.

  Beyond the broken floor was a space that might once have had a door fitted to it, but now stood open like a missing tooth. Inside was another small room, just as ruined as every other in Mary King’s Close. The ceiling here had fallen in too, but the floor, though littered with debris, seemed to be sound. Aelfine didn’t stop, instead leading Zinnie to the left, into another room without a door.

  “Mind,” Aelfine warned, and Zinnie looked down to see many candle stubs on the floor, standing upright amid more rubble.

  “Where did all these come from?” Zinnie asked, as she stepped over them. She could just make out Aelfine’s shrug in the gloom.

  “Ruby got them,” she said.

  “Right,” Zinnie said, imagining the little creature with armfuls of pilfered candles. “Useful.”

  Aelfine picked one up and lit it. The light revealed, pushed against the wall, the pile of blankets that they had taken from their corner, along with a half-eaten loaf of bread and a pitcher of milk – Ruby again, Zinnie surmised, although how the little monkey had managed to carry the milk across that void was anyone’s guess. As Zinnie looked around, something caught her eye. It flickered in the dark room they had passed through first – a dancing flame, floating in mid-air. She jumped.

  “Cripes!” she said. “What’s that? Who’s there?”

  Aelfine laughed and blew out the candle she held. The one in the other room vanished too.

  “What – how did you do that?” Zinnie asked, mystified.

  Aelfine led her back across the floor to the doorway of the room and lit the candle again, holding it out beneath Zinnie’s chin. This time Zinnie was shocked to see a version of her own face looking back at her, shadows pooling round her eyes and under her nose. Aelfine pulled the candle back towards her own face and a mirror image of it flickered before them, disembodied and strange, for all the world a ghost from beyond the veil.

  “Come see,” Aelfine said, and walked back into the first room, still holding her candle in her outstretched hand.

  The other candle flame grew larger as Aelfine got closer to it, the rest of her head and shoulders coming into view too, until she stopped, reached out and tapped the candle she held to the one in front of her. They met with a tiny knocking sound, and Zinnie realized that she was looking at a glass panel that was standing
at an angle, just inside the empty doorway. Now that she knew what to look for, she could see the edges of the oblong pane.

  “A reflection!” she said, amazed. “It’s just a reflection!”

  “That’s how we make the ghost,” Aelfine said, as if she were simply saying, ‘Here is my handkerchief.’ “And then Ruby goes up and –” she gestured with her hand to the crumbling walls – “makes noises.”

  Zinnie went to the pane of glass. It had been propped up between pieces of the broken ceiling and was all but invisible in the heavy darkness of the room. It looked like the panels she had seen stacked up in MacDuff’s House of Wonders, waiting to be fitted into one of his cabinets.

  “Where did you get the glass?” she asked.

  Aelfine looked away and bit her lip. “Borrowed it.”

  “From MacDuff?”

  Aelfine nodded, a guilty look on her face.

  “It’s all right,” Zinnie said. “I don’t care that you took it. But – how the devil did you get it all the way from George Street? And then down here, across that floor over there?”

  Aelfine shrugged. “It was very dark. I borrowed a barrow. I had my cloak. And Ruby helped.”

  “But—”

  “I took the barrow back,” Aelfine said defensively. “I didn’t steal. Only borrowed.”

  “Well,” Zinnie said, still flummoxed, “that’s good. But … how did you get it over that hole out there?”

  “There’s another way in.” Aelfine turned and pointed up to the broken ceiling.

  “Another…” Zinnie gaped at her. “Then why on earth did you make me climb over that hellhole to get here?”

  “You wanted us to show you exactly how we did it!”