This venture out would serve only to survey. If, by some stroke of luck, Lee’s driver was about and going to town on a stagecoach when the post approached, I would seize the opportunity. First, I needed to test the word of Mr. Morningside.
The grass outside was thin, scraggly. Trees grew on the perimeter of the grounds, and there only tentatively. The house itself was the only thing allowed to be tall and imposing. The barn stood off to my left, the gardens farther beyond that, and more behind the manor. I walked straight out from the door, feeling completely exposed. There was no bush or tree to hide behind, and anyone enterprising enough to glance out a window would see me striding out toward the fence at the far edge of the property.
I call it a fence, but in truth it was merely a few withered planks that seemed to be held aloft by sheer coincidence. The thought made my heart clench. If Mr. Morningside and his merry band of murderers really worried about escapees, they might bother to build a proper fence, tall enough to keep people in and trespassers out. Instead, it looked like a stiff wind might topple the whole structure, and anyone in moderate physical health could scale the beams and hop right over.
Six crows sat on the fence, regarding me, then scattering and reconvening on the roof of the house behind me.
A greater barrier than the fence was the unbelievable number of holes dotting the ground. They were bigger than any field animal might make, everywhere and of varying depth. One, obscured by a clump of grass, nearly made me fall flat on my face. I picked my way across the field, wary now of all the pits. What on earth had torn up the ground so? It was almost as if someone had shoveled down a foot or two, searching frantically for something. . . .
At last I reached the fence, noticing that as I neared it the scars on my fingertips began to ache. Initially I thought little of it, chalking it up to a sort of phantom pain, but the discomfort persisted and intensified. It was like hearing a voice in a faraway room, and then hearing the person who spoke move closer and closer, their voice amplifying. The pain amplified that way, and with it, a voice.
It was just a whisper at first, in that same unknown language I’d heard when I’d passed the green door and found the book. This time, however, I knew it was not the fence calling to me; nor was it the door or even the book.
This voice, this whisper, came from inside me.
The pain and the voice reached their peak as I laid my hand upon the bleached timbers of the fence. I clenched my teeth through it, determined to endure. If this was all that kept me from freedom, I would be stronger. But strength meant nothing when I pushed my hand out a little farther, beyond the fence, and felt a heat like lightning scream from my fingertips to the base of my skull. It brought me crashing to my knees with a scream, the voice echoing in my head almost more painful than the raw flames searing up my arm.
A pair of strong hands closed around my shoulders and helped lift me back to my feet.
“Easy now.” It was Chijioke, steadying me until I had the ability to stand on my own. I wrenched out of his grip, taking a huge step away from the fence. The pain in my head and body dulled at once. “Ach, come now,” he added, frowning. “I’ve no designs on ye. I won’t hurt you, only you looked in distress.”
“I was,” I whispered. “I am.”
After lurching away from the fence, I had stuck my foot in one of the hundreds of holes in the yard. Muttering, I shifted onto more solid ground. Chijioke leaned against the fence, apparently unaffected by it the way I had been. He rested a large shovel against the barrier and ran his hand over his face. Despite the cold, he perspired, the front of his white shirt damp with sweat. He otherwise wore simple workman’s attire: black braces and sturdy breeches tucked into mud-flecked boots.
“Poppy’s mutt is a damned menace. I try to fill in the holes as best I can, but the little blighter digs six for each one I patch.”
“Perhaps you should be digging a grave instead,” I said darkly. “Won’t there soon be a body to bury?”
His expression hardly changed, but I saw a tension in his jaw that hadn’t been there before. “So you’ve heard. I thought as much. Mrs. Haylam mentioned you suffered quite the fright last night. You’re taking it surprisingly well. First time I met a Resident, I ran out of the house screaming like a banshee.”
Taking it well? I didn’t think I was. “So why do you stay?”
It was an earnest question. Chijioke had been nothing but kind toward me, and with his sweet, friendly eyes staring back at me, it was nigh impossible to imagine him participating in the crimes of Coldthistle. I felt edgy and crazed, as if I had wandered out of reality and through some veil, stepping into another world altogether, one where up was down and bad was good.
“It just fits for some,” he replied with a shrug of his huge shoulders. “I’ve no big speech for ye. I came and didn’t want to leave. I didn’t think the guests here could be as bad as Mr. Morningside said; then I met a few and had my mind changed right quick. All I know is, life isn’t fair for some of us, and he makes it fairer, mm?”
I shook my head, turning to look out across the fields beyond the fence. White blobs moved on the horizon, coming closer. Sheep. If there were sheep, then a shepherd couldn’t be far behind. Even so, who would believe my story? What country shepherd would hear the madness spilling out of my mouth and move a finger to help?
“I think it would be better if I left,” I said softly. After I lift a few choice shiny objects to sell. “If that’s even possible.”
Chijioke studied me, then turned and faced the fields. He dangled his forearms over the wooden beam and rested one foot on a lower slat. “Do you know your Bible?”
I snorted. “I’m Irish.”
Laughing, he said, “Then you know Leviticus. ‘And he that killeth any man shall surely be put to death.’ It’s that ‘surely’ in there that’s the rub. How many men really get what they deserve in this life? Particularly the nasty ones. . . .”
“And what about Romans?” I asked. “‘Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men.’”
He sighed, glancing down at the grass and then up at the clouds. “I should know better than to talk the Bible with an Irish girl,” he said. “But I’ll give you one more, also Romans: Leave room for the wrath of God, aye? Vengeance is mine, I will repay and all that?”
It was close enough. I nodded, convinced he had simply made my own point for me.
“I will repay,” he repeated in a whisper, squinting toward the blob of sheep. “But when, I ask you? When?”