“Parts of the house have burned before,” McKenna said, standing beside me. “When my mother was a girl, a fire started in the southern tower and took the entire wing. There’ll be demolition to do, plenty of wreckage and cleaning, but the walls have stood for hundreds of years, and look—they’re still standing. We’ll rebuild. In a few years it’ll be good as new. We can wire electric lights properly, as Elizabeth always wanted. And we can expand the servants’ rooms to bring more girls here. So many of them have nowhere else to go, you know. It’ll be grand.” She clasped her hands. I stared at the wreckage. Whatever lofty vision she saw there, I saw only ashes and smoke.
At my silence, she wrung her hands. “Of course, you’re the mistress now. It’s entirely your decision how we rebuild. I’d be grateful to offer some advice, just because I’ve spent my whole life here. Was born in a guest room on the second floor, as a matter of fact. And my mother before me, and her father. This is my home, mistress, but it’s your estate. You let me know your plans, and I’ll see them carried out.”
I squinted at the manor, trying to see the potential there. Elizabeth had entrusted this all to me, along with the secrets the walls held. Ballentyne had been her dream—but was it mine?
“No,” I whispered.
McKenna’s eyes went wide. “You don’t want to rebuild? But mistress, surely you understand—it’s useless as ruins. . . .”
“That’s not what I meant,” I said gently. “I mean I don’t want to rebuild. Ballentyne has never been my home, not like it was Elizabeth’s, and not like it’s yours. You should rebuild it, McKenna. I’d like to give it to you. The building—what’s left of it—the land, responsibility for the staff.”
She stared at me like I was speaking some foreign language, then shook her head emphatically. “I couldn’t. Not in a thousand years.”
“Why not? Elizabeth told me you knew this place better than she did. She said she couldn’t run it without you.”
“But it isn’t my inheritance,” she pressed. “My family’s always been the caretakers. The von Stein family has always owned it. It’s passed down from generation to generation. I’m not of that family. You are. You’re related by marriage.” She wrung her hands harder. My offer truly troubled her.
“Sometimes inheritance has nothing to do with family ties. It’s about what’s best for Ballentyne, and that’s you.”
She gaped at me. “Are you certain, miss?”
I thought of Jack Serra, flipping his fortune-telling cards in the light of a lantern, talking to me about finding my fate. I pressed a hand against the charm around my neck. I didn’t know what my fate was now, but I knew Ballentyne wasn’t it.
“I am.” I smiled, looking at the building. Now I was starting to see how it could thrive again, but under McKenna’s care. “But first, I need to say my good-byes.”
FORTY-ONE
THE RUINS WERE SURROUNDED by a deep quiet. Most of the stone walls still stood, giving the manor its iconic shape. I imagined that from a distance a traveler wouldn’t even know it was ruined. It wouldn’t be until he came closer and saw the sunlight glinting through gaps in the stone that he’d realize it was only a shell.
Elizabeth. Hensley. Lucy. I wasn’t sure I believed in the idea of souls, but if they did exist, I was glad they had such a place to wander.
I traced my fingers along the walls as I entered the gaping hole that had once been the thick front door. Not but a few weeks ago I was knocking on it, desperate for refuge. Had I brought about its destruction the minute I set foot here?
No, I thought as I stepped through the foyer. The science within these halls was never meant to exist.
The ancient tapestries had burned, revealing more entrances to the secret passageways. The passages seemed less mysterious with the light of day pouring through the roofless ceiling. I stepped inside, heedless of the soot staining my dress. The rubble shifted and a little pink nose poked out. One of Hensley’s white rats, alive and well except for a small burned patch on its tail. I knelt down.
“Come here, little fellow.” I held out my hand as Hensley and Elizabeth used to do. But the rat shied away, sensing that I wasn’t one of its masters. I didn’t mind. I liked thinking that some of the rats had survived the fire. Life still thrived in Ballentyne, even in ruins. Something still remembered Hensley and Elizabeth.
I followed the passageway slowly, having to climb over fallen beams and collapsed walls. McKenna had quite a task ahead of her, but I was confident she’d succeed. I liked thinking of Ballentyne as a sanctuary for girls who didn’t have anywhere else to go. When I’d been alone and on my own, I would have loved calling this place home.
But it wasn’t my home, not really. Neither was London, which was the site of so much loss, the place where the professor had died and where scandal had befallen my family, and where Lucy’s mother waited for a daughter and a husband who would never return.
I closed my eyes, resting my fingers on the walls. When the wind blew, I thought I could smell a little of Lucy’s perfume, and it made me miss her all the more.
Was it fair that I survived and she didn’t?