The Plague Diaries Read online

  Her straightforwardness discomfited me, but I had no reason to withhold what happened at our graduation party. “You and Muriel were off dancing with the others, and I was sitting alone, with Michael nearby. He asked me a question and we started an innocuous conversation about cats—disappointing, I know, yes, cats—and then Nikolas appeared and asked me to follow him. He told me his father said he must attend a meeting about some dispute, which required them to depart the next morning. Nikolas thought he’d have the summer here before he left for his goodwill visits, but no. Once the dispute was settled, he went straight on to the first kingdom on his itinerary.”

  “The longsheets and newsboxes mentioned his departure. I had no idea it was so abrupt,” Muriel said.

  “Have you received word?” Charlotte asked.

  “A few letters. He’s well, and not yet travel weary. You know his sense of humor. Among his more memorable quips, he said he’s ‘on a diplomatic mission with a vague promise of adventure and constant threat of cholera.’ ”

  We finished another pot of tea, then said our good-byes, knowing it would be some time before we saw one another again. The farewell was proper, clasped hands and tears held. Charlotte offered a seat on her cart—her driver was waiting—but I chose to walk home. Their company had cheered me, but the sadness at their leaving, and Nikolas’s absence, weighed heavy once I reached my room.

  I sat on my bed and, on my night table, placed the ancient coin next to the carved wooden stag Nikolas had given me years before. His eighteenth birthday was in three days. I planned to send the coin although it would reach him too late for the occasion. He’d appreciate the nostalgic reminder of the ancient stag who stepped from the trees the day I showed him the way to the woods, with Cyril the Squirrel as our escort. I still remembered when we returned to our schoolmates in Old Wheel, clapping at the end of a troupe’s performance, and Nikolas splayed his hands above his blond head and bowed.

  Why did I, should I, miss him so when I knew once we finished school, our ways would inevitably part? He’d have his duty as the prince of Ailliath, and I’d do as I planned—attend high academy, find some suitable employment, and live on my own.

  The bruised ache in my chest flared as I thought of how he called me away from the party, led me to a vestibule, and said he was departing the next day. No warning at all, at his father’s command. With no mind to propriety, Nikolas took me in his arms. We clung like heartbroken children until I pulled away and felt as if a piece of me had been torn out. My best friend since I was seven years old—here, then gone.

  When would the raw feelings scar and the pain become a memory? I wondered.

  AUGUST /35

  DURING THOSE INITIAL WEEKS, I sent letters to private and high academy libraries requesting information on their organizing systems. What Fewmany wanted had been accomplished before, and I thought it best to consider the sum of functional options. As it was, most of his library was grouped in broad categories with little distinction among individual subjects. He might have remembered where each title among the thousands was placed, but I suspected even he had forgotten what he possessed.

  As I walked among the shelves, annotating the map he’d provided, I observed Fewmany hadn’t exaggerated his collection’s diversity. Many of the volumes were what one might expect of a person of his station—the writings of famous men who put order to matters of the world and imagination. The definitive works by great historians, philosophers, and scholars.

  Then there were the texts I couldn’t account for then, specifically,

  • Bestiaries and histories, popular in times past, which described with absolute conviction fanciful creatures and distant lands that either never existed or were greatly exaggerated, with two shelves dedicated to dracology alone;

  • Volumes on lost civilizations, those verified by archeology and those speculated by legend, as well as books on obsolete religions, the beliefs, traditions, and rites no longer—or still rarely—practiced; and

  • Esoterica and alchemy texts, most of which were manuscripts, and all distinguished themselves by the images within—drawings of recurring symbols, geometric shapes, vessels and hearths, beasts real and imagined, representations of the elements, and human forms.

  As to the rest, I was unsure what appealed to him. Perhaps the rarity or reputation motived his acquisition if the topics didn’t. There is, of course, prestige in ownership regardless of whether one has genuine interest in the thing owned. Although many books were clearly valuable, others seemed meant for reference rather than investment.

  By now, I was content in my duties. Not only did my constitution suit me for the position, but also I was accustomed to spending vast hours alone. So often had I been left to myself—an only child with a mother who required my silence, hissing if I made a sound, as she bent over tattered books; a girl, then a young woman, with a father who traveled away for his work. In my last two years of secondary school, I became an apprentice at Fewmany Incorporated. I didn’t mind the solitude in the apprentice’s room, although I had Leo Gray’s occasional patient company as he corrected my translation assignments.

  At the manor, I rarely saw anyone but Naughton. He greeted me each day when he opened the front door. He was silent when he set a carafe of water on the table after I began to work and served morning and afternoon tea. Sometimes, I glimpsed another servant scurrying in the halls and near the lower-level stairs, which were below the west stair’s rise. It was, after all, a proper manor, where servants were to be neither seen nor heard.

  Not once was there a hint or mention of a spouse or children, brother or sister, cousin or elderly relative. My only contact with Fewmany was through letters, my questions promptly answered on his personal stationery—From the Desk of the Magnate—and waiting on the library’s table when I returned in the mornings.

  Then—an encounter.

  I’d lost myself browsing the shelves again, but never had I lingered so late. I’d rung for Naughton to see me out, and I was halfway across the first-floor hall when the front door opened.

  He was a shadow with a top hat against a rectangle of light.

  I froze.

  “Good evening, sir,” I heard behind me. Naughton was suddenly at my side.

  “Good evening, Naughton,” Fewmany said. “And to you, Miss Riven.”

  “Thank you, sir,” I said. My feet moved forward to match Naughton’s pace as Fewmany approached.

  With a pinch at the brim, Fewmany lowered his hat, and with his other hand, brushed his gray-streaked hair smooth against his head. Because of the sconces’ dim light, what otherwise would have sharply glinted instead shone weakly—his amber eyes, the Tell-a-Bell at his ear, the ring on his right hand, the timepiece at his hip. As always, one of his coat pockets appeared stuffed full, its edge revealing a handkerchief. His coat, vest, and trousers were a dark gray wool, impeccably tailored. In contrast, the scarlet cravat at his neck almost seemed to throb.

  “I trust your assessment of the collection continues to be engaging,” he said.

  “It does, sir,” I said.

  “And what of the inquiries made?”

  “There are two replies outstanding. I’ve begun to compare the systems.”

  “Very well. We’ll meet to confer when all is accounted. By the way, your messages regarding what you have borrowed are appreciated, but it will suffice to make a note and leave it on the supply cabinet.”

  “I will, and I apologize if the correspondence has been excessive.”

  “ ’Tis an indication of your honesty.” The corners of his mouth twitched upward as his eyebrows lifted.

  We bid cordial good-byes. The heels of his boots tapped against the floor, a whistled tune meeting the time of his step, as Naughton walked at my side then let me out.

  I stood with my back to the door. In the distance, the castle’s towers rose jagged into the pastel sky. Fewmany had neither said nor done a thing to provoke me, but my arteries pulsed as if he had. I’d been unprepar
ed for the sight of him, not quite on my guard, although I had no reason of late, nor for years, to fear him. With squared shoulders, I walked into the twilight, crossed through the unsettling ward, and entered my house in the dark.

  DIARY ENTRY 10 AUGUST /35

  Dead, but the odor resurrects her.

  The emanation was so keen, I pulled myself away from reading to investigate.

  Father’s bedroom door gaped wide as the billow threatened to choke me. What has he done? I thought as I held my breath and lifted the lamp. As expected, her wardrobe’s bottom drawer was partially open. The dressing table still held the brush, mirror, comb, jewelry box, wedding ring, bottles. There was a dark blotch on the wood’s surface. I remembered I’d heard him cry out, assumed he’d lost a button or noticed a raveling hem, but no—he’d spilled some of her precious essence, hadn’t he?

  He thinks I don’t know he dabs a drop of perfume on one of her handkerchiefs and tucks it into his evening coat pocket. He doesn’t perform this ritual every time he attends a performance, but it is why I rarely accompany him no matter how much I’d like to see the play or hear the orchestra.

  Dead four years come October, but his room suggests she’s away for a while, coming back.

  His mawkishness is beyond tiresome.

  Today, I received a letter from Nikolas. Obviously, mine to him are delayed because only now do I have his response to my decision to work in the library. I expected him to be quite heated, considering his antipathy for—that might be too strong—his long-held suspicions about Fewmany. I could tell Nikolas didn’t like him the very first night I met them both at the castle, at the summer grand ball.2 How long ago . . . twelve years! Since then, Nikolas has had encounters with him, however brief, and hears about the meetings Fewmany and his men have taken with the Council. His opinion has never softened.

  Regardless, his reply was, well, polite. He congratulated me, stating I was sure to do a fine job while I was there, but expressed full confidence I’d be on my way to high academy. (Still waiting.) No word from Charlotte or Muriel yet.

  Confound it! Knocked half a bottle of ink on my desk. Father and I, both clumsy tonight. Now, no reason really, the memory of the dinner after I was so sick with the fever, my hair sprouting silver, her words when she tipped the salt cellar, “Mind what is spilled, girl, and watch it doesn’t spread.”

  Dead, but she is not gone.

  BY THE MIDDLE OF AUGUST, I explored what I could of the manor, outside and in.

  The exterior was a testament to balance, symmetry, and proportion. On the front facade, every window was perfectly spaced and aligned. There were forty-eight on the lower story and sixteen on the second, all grouped in sets of two. I couldn’t account for why the library’s south windows were missing from the interior, but there they were on the exterior, covered with drapes like all the rest. Across the basement level, small windows caught the light like narrowed eyes.

  Along the back facade, on the first floor, two glass doors opened to the courtyard and on the second floor, one huge central window allowed in northern light. As with the front, there were multiple windows, but also four doors. Two led into the west wing, for deliveries and servant comings and goings; the ones to the east wing remained a mystery.

  The courtyard had gold-toned tiles—the same kind as the plaza in the front of Fewmany Incorporated—and a grid of planters filled with shrubs and flowers. Stepping off to the west, one approached the carriage house and stables, where four carriages and seven stallions had shelter. To the east of the courtyard were the formal gardens, fastidiously groomed, dazzling with color and texture. Among the flora were detailed sculptures of animals and stone pathways without the creep of weeds or moss. At the center, made of juniper, with walls too high for a giant to peer over, not a maze but a labyrinth.

  Beyond the house and courtyard was an expanse of green, the sod cut to a plush cover. Three archer’s targets at different distances, marred with holes, stood in the open, yards from a wooded area. I walked across the green and approached close enough to see what was beyond was a wild place. An urgency welled up in me—go, enter—but I resisted, determined not to be the girl I had been. Even if I’d heeded the impulse, I couldn’t have entered. In time I’d see for myself that a locked gate and iron fence surrounded the acres of old trees.

  As for the interior, the manor was a silent place with an irregular pulse. Elegant; in some ways simply, in others sensually. Fierce with beauty and light, and dark. Mysterious, where what was revealed only hinted at the maze of what was hidden.

  The first- and second-floor halls had mirrored proportions, the same width and length, the same high vaulted ceilings. On either side of each main corridor, there were six doors, evenly spaced. Flawless white plaster covered the walls, crystal sconces lit the way, and art filled the space between the doorways, statues on the first floor and paintings on the second.

  On the second floor, only the charred door near the west stair allowed entry into the library. The rest were locked. I suspected the last gave access to a hidden room; I’d counted my steps, and the library came forty paces short of the hall’s distance. On the opposite side, I could enter only two rooms, one with glass display tables filled with brooches, bracelets, and rings and one with landscape paintings. The last door at the far end always smelled of an animal, dank and pungent.

  As for the first floor, to the west, I found a ballroom two rooms wide, three locked doors, then a dining room. Across the hall was a chamber of mechanisms, another room filled with sculptures, and yet another, which seemed to be a split parlor, a wall separating the two sides.

  But what of the wings, which flanked each side of the first floor?

  At the time, they were a puzzle. From the second-story windows, which faced sunrise and sunset, I saw the long rooftops without a single chimney. An opaque glass pavilion connected each wing to the main house. In the first-floor rooms I could enter, there were windows with views of mosaic murals, ferns, and ivy, but I found no doors leading across.

  Not yet.

  Curious as I was about what I couldn’t see, there was enough to explore among what I was allowed.

  My favorite, the one I visited most often, was the chamber of moving marvels. Hundreds of mechanisms were displayed on tables and stored in cabinets. Some of the contraptions had exposed gears, pins, springs, and wheels. I studied scientific machines—orreries, engines, magneto-electric shock devices—and many toys, including animals familiar and fantastic, carts that moved without horses, human figures waiting to be animated. Here, like in the other rooms, each item bore a descriptive tag, stating its approximate age, place of acquisition, and typically an anecdote.

  One day after my midday meal, I played with a homunculus, which pounded a rock with a pickax, and the caged bird whose cheerful notes fluttered like its wings. I noticed two new acquisitions, or perhaps old ones moved from other locations. There was one of a woman who danced round and round on her tiptoes. The other was a boy who ran in circles chasing a dog, or with a shift in perspective, the dog chasing the boy.

  As I was leaving the room, I saw Naughton approach the grand stair with a package in his arms. He stopped to look back when he heard the latch click.

  “One of the most whimsical rooms,” he said.

  “A visit there always cheers me,” I said.

  “And him as well. He adores his automatons. With a little care and shelter, they do exactly as they were made to do. My favorite is the gilded bird,” Naughton said.

  “I like that one, too. There’s a device I’m curious about, though. The tag is missing. It’s a small metal box with concentric dials, and several metal arms pointing from the center.”

  “The Prognosticator, he calls it. Allegedly, it’s a mechanical calendar of an ancient civilization. That’s what his best minds told him. If one knows how to set it, the machine determines astronomical cycles.”

  “How fascinating. You’ve spent considerable time in there, I suppose. I didn’t know
the staff was allowed such entertainment,” I said.

  “We staff find beauty and joy where we can, do we not, Miss?” There was no harshness in his eyes, so very brown, but a gentle watching, like that of a deer. He turned to climb.

  “Yes, indeed,” I said behind him, smoothing the bristle in my tone.

  I’d been put in my place. My service was different, but I was still among them.

  THE MEETING WITH FEWMANY WAS scheduled for nine o’clock. I arrived at my table early, reviewed my notes, and made three nervous visits to the water closet. As I returned from the last trip, I heard a high-pitched yap. I turned around on the stairs’ landing. The beast froze, then darted at me. A whistle pierced through the hall. “Mutt!” Naughton shouted. I’d never heard him raise his voice.

  Unlike any I’d seen, the dog was no larger than a squirrel, with short fur, nubby legs, curved tail, pointed ears, and blunt muzzle. He leapt at my legs, barking as if alarmed.

  When I scratched his head, he gazed at me imploringly. I withdrew the instant a twinge pierced through my forehead. He knew he could reach me. I could feel the pressure mounting, the force of his will and the haze of the image he wanted me to see.

  “I no longer speak to your kind,” I said aloud, my human speech unintelligible to him.

  He barked again, frustrated, I could tell from his tone. His dumb noise filled me with relief. Throughout the years, I had learned to control the ability I’d had since I was a child, which was to communicate with creatures and plants.3 By then, I wanted no part of that strangeness anymore, and I was determined to keep it at bay.

  I returned to the library. Minutes later, I heard footsteps, then a firm rap-rap, rap-rap on the door. I stood next to my chair as Fewmany entered. He was shaved and shined, his coat pocket stuffed as always, top hat tucked under his arm, his red silk vest a flash of fire.

  The dog whipped past his legs and dashed toward me. I scowled at Mutt but stretched my hand down in a friendly gesture. He licked my fingers.