Silly. I just imagined it. She found a path back across the debris-riddled bed to the lawn. Dawn glared at the vine.
“Ava.” She still kept her voice low in case someone overheard. Once again, the vine twisted and tightened its hold on the hedge a fraction more. A branch broke with a snap under the attack, and a piece of yew slumped, defeated. Mouse nudged her side and whined nervously as though asking her to stop it.
“All right, boy.” She patted his head and ruffled his ears.
Having challenged the vine with Ava’s name, Dawn headed for the maze. As she approached, a raven took flight and soared over her head, straight toward the middle. Dawn watched the bird with envy. Since she couldn’t fly, they would need to formulate a plan of attack to find their way inside.
She stopped next to Hector and examined the vine. Mouse padded to a shady spot and threw himself to the ground. Now was Dawn’s opportunity to ask the old retainer a few questions while it was just the two of them. “Do you remember when Nurse Hatton came to work for the family?”
“Oh yes.” He took the boater off his head and stared at it in his hands for a moment. “I thought a fairy had come to live among us. She was such a delicate, wee thing, with fiery red hair and vivid blue eyes. I thought she had drifted down from a sunflower.”
The look on his face made Dawn wonder what obstacle kept the two apart. They should have had a life together. She supposed they had in a way, just not as man and wife. “She said you cut quite the impressive figure, and girls used to swoon as you walked by.”
“Well, did she now?” The boater went back on his head and the toothless grin lit his face. “Quite true, too. Terribly inconvenient having to step over all them fainted women littering my way.”
He winked and Dawn burst into laughter. She could well imagine him as a handsome rogue beguiling the local women. Later she might ask if there were old photographs, but for now she needed to steer the conversation to a more delicate topic.
“Was Lady Letitia so terribly broken when Nurse Hatton came to care for her?” She almost held her breath, waiting for his reply. She glanced at the leaves on the grass, trying to spot another leaf from the mythical Ravensblood tree.
His shoulders slumped as a silent sigh deflated his chest. “Poor mite. She took it terribly seeing her brother die.”
Dawn breathed in a gasp at both his revelation and the realisation it was this Lettie the journal spoke of in the entry from the 1830s. “Lady Letitia saw him die?”
Hector nodded and laid a hand on the vine where the men had managed to scrape off the thorns. He stood for a long moment, lost in memories best buried and left to rest. “From her very first day here, Marjory took Lady Lettie under her fairy wings. Then the babe fell into her care when he was born a few months later. Helping care for Master Elijah gave Lettie something to grasp in those dark days. We were all concerned she would do harm to herself, but she was ever so gentle around the baby.”
As impossible as it sounded, the young Nurse Hatton took charge of both Lady Letitia and Master Elijah forty years ago. Yet her charges had barely aged with the passage of four decades, unlike their nurse. Did it prove something not of this earth touched the noble family? Dawn wrapped a hand around a bare width of vine. She gripped it tight to anchor herself in this world, lest she get sucked into a tale unfolding in a book.
As events played out in her mind, Dawn fought a tight wedge of grief that formed within her. Her pain at losing her parents was still raw, and she only had a second-hand account of what had happened. How would it have altered her mind if she had stood by the railway tracks and watched the tragedy unfold? How would it impact a person to watch a loved one suffer and die and yet be powerless to do anything to help them?
“How did he die?” The question slipped out before she could call it back.
“I guess you’re part of this family now.” Hector patted the branch. “There’s another family, Hamilton, who are a pack of evil bastards, if you’ll excuse my language, Miss Uxbridge. They own a textile factory in the next village, and there has long been rivalry and bad blood between the two families. Lady Letitia and Lord Julian were riding to the family mill to see Jasper when the Hamiltons attacked them. She barely survived, and he didn’t.”
“How terrible! Did the authorities bring the culprits to justice?”
Hector’s hands tightened into fists and his knuckles turned white. “No. The other family denied all knowledge, and Lady Letitia wasn’t a fit witness. I’m sure it eats Lord Seton up that he can’t avenge his brother and sister. Mayhap one day the truth will be revealed.” He rolled his shoulders and dispelled the tension in his body. “Let’s concentrate on today’s problem and this damned vine.”
“Yes. Let us bring a little joy back to Alysblud and restore the grounds to their former glory. So sad they deteriorated under Ava’s touch.” It was a risk, a casually thrown last comment to see if the name elicited any response from either man or vine.
One gasped, and the other made a clicking rattle like a snake issuing a warning before it struck. Mouse’s head dropped to his paws and he closed his eyes.
Hector glanced at the vine and then glared at her. “Don’t mention her name. Not here and never aloud. She is always listening.”
Dawn opened her mouth, but so many questions rushed that she tripped over her tongue.
“No.” Hector shook his head, his eyes wide and startled. That conversation was over.
Dawn swallowed her words and nearly choked on the unvoiced concerns. The old retainer looked genuinely afraid, and she would not cause him further distress. She had enough to keep her curious mind occupied.
She waved at the monstrous vine, so unlike the delicate one that sprouted from her skin. “How do you propose we tackle this monster? Do we don armour and wield swords? Enlist a fire-breathing dragon, perhaps?”
The grin returned. “You’re close. I’ve been giving it some thought, and we could try a controlled burn. If we brush kerosene along the branches, set fire to it, and then douse it before it catches on the yew, we might make the vine brittle enough to smash it free.”
“How would we ensure the fire didn’t spread?” Dawn asked.
There was a sufficient quantity of dead wood to send the entire thing up in a bonfire to rival Guy Fawkes. Lord Seton had suggested burning the estate to the ground, tilling the soil, and starting again, but Dawn didn’t want to do that. The estate was sick, but not yet fatally so. Instead of a Viking burial, they simply needed a way to expunge the sickness from its body.
Ava. She had cast some curse over the garden, and it was connected to the vine that knew her name. Did the plant do her bidding like a witch commanded a snake familiar?
“Blankets,” Hector said.
“What?” Dawn lost track of the conversation.
“We’ll give the men wool blankets to beat out the flames once the vine becomes charred.”
Dawn stared at the impenetrable fortress. Hedge shears and machetes weren’t working. Time to try heavy artillery. “All right, let’s try. But we do a small section at a time. I don’t want this getting out of hand, especially if it decides to fight back.”
“In all my years here, I’ve not seen the blasted plant pick up a weapon yet, but it does grow awfully fast behind your back,” Hector muttered.
They fetched the men from the vegetable garden and allocated new tasks. They were set to work hauling carts laden with buckets of water. Old tin baths were lined up in a row by the hedge and filled up, as an emergency measure. Or for bath time after they finished work for the day.
Then each man was given a woollen blanket.
“What do you think we’ll find inside, miss?” Teddy asked, clutching his blanket in leather-gloved hands.
“Answers,” she replied.