Drip. Drip. The sound kept mocking me, in my bathroom, in the morning room, in the halls. The dankness seemed to have settled into my very bones, and my throat grew raspy from a cough I couldn’t shake. Lakecrest was a Frankenstein’s monster of architectural castoffs, and the miserable weather seemed to bring it to life. The windows rattled and groaned with the wind, and steam hissed from the bedroom radiators in a steady, eerie shriek. The house’s damp, moldy odor, as inescapable as the leaking water, added to the overall impression of decay, as if the building was rotting away from the inside.
The gloomy library was one of my least favorite places in the house, but at least it was warm. There were no windows to let in a draft, just shelf after shelf of dusty books. Though I’d never felt like curling up and reading on its moth-eaten couch, I found myself lingering there one afternoon, as I searched for another book of Lemont family lore to read with Hannah.
The library was one of the least-used rooms in the house, so it was a surprise to hear footsteps approaching as I was crouched in a corner, examining a shelf near the floor. I’d just pulled out an intriguing volume titled The Ways of Madness, written by Dr. Martin Rieger himself, when I looked up to see who’d come in. Edna was halfway through the room before she saw me. She stopped abruptly, sending dishes clattering on the tray in her hands. I stared, eyebrows raised.
“Mrs. Lemont.” She said the name crisply when she spoke to Hannah, but with me, she dragged it out grudgingly. As if I didn’t deserve it.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“It’s nothing to do with you,” Edna muttered.
“Oh no?” I usually bent over backward to be polite to the servants, as people who haven’t been raised with help often do. But not that day. My voice was terse. “I do live here.”
“You’d better speak to the senior Mrs. Lemont,” Edna said, turning aside.
I reached out and put my hand against the tray to stop her. “It’s Mr. Matthew you should be worried about, not her. If he were to find out you were up to any funny business . . .”
It was enough. Edna had been raised in the real world, just like me. She knew when alliances needed to shift.
“All right, then,” she said gruffly. “But she doesn’t need to know I’ve told you.”
I slipped the book into my sweater and cinched my belt tight to secure it, watching as Edna walked around the couch to the back of the room. She tapped a foot against the bottom of a bookshelf, and it swung outward with a creak, revealing a set of wooden steps. Of course, I thought. Obadiah would have insisted his mansion be built with a hidden room or two.
Edna clicked a switch at the top of the stairs, and a dim light filtered upward. I walked down into a narrow, cramped chamber that smelled of wet dirt; the only thing I could see was a dark-gray metal door. A root cellar? Edna nudged past me and pulled a key from her apron pocket. She unlocked the door and pushed it open, then stepped back so I could enter first.
It was a prison cell, or what I’d always imaged one would look like. A single bed sat lengthwise against the wall, with a porcelain chamber pot peeking out from underneath. A wooden chair had been tipped sideways onto the floor. Next to the door was a small table covered with bottles that gave off a tangy, medicinal smell. I saw a figure on the bed, nearly covered by a thin gray blanket. Not moving. I took a step forward, then two. That’s when I realized the person lying in front of me was Marjorie.
She seemed to have aged a dozen years. Matted chunks of hair clung to her cheeks, and her skin had a sick, grayish tint. Her eyes stared at me, blank.
“Kate,” she said. No emotion.
It took me a few seconds to find my voice. “What happened?”
Marjorie erupted with a sharp, barking laugh that echoed against the walls.
I turned around to look at Edna, standing in the doorway. “What’s going on?”
She walked past me without answering. She picked up the knocked-over chair and retrieved a bowl and cup from the floor. Both tin, I noted. Unbreakable. She set down a fresh, identical set of dishes next to the bed, then poured out a spoonful of dark-pink liquid from one of the dozen bottles clustered on the table. Marjorie gulped the medicine down with a wince.
Her duty completed, Edna said she’d wait outside. After she’d closed the door forcefully behind her, I pulled the chair over to the bed and sat down.
“I don’t understand. Your mother told me you were in Palm Beach.”
“Did she? How clever.” At least the tart sarcasm was recognizably Marjorie.
I held out a hand. “Would you like to sit up?”
“No. Makes my head swim.”
The stink of urine and sweat hung in the stale air. I took a deep breath—through my mouth, not my nose—and tried to keep from gagging.
“Marjorie, what are you doing here?”
She rolled onto her back and pulled one leg out from under the covers. A thick leather band was strapped around her ankle; she shook her foot, and I heard the rattle of a chain. Twisted coils of steel ran to an anchor in the wall.
“Your mother did this?”
“For my own good. I believe it’s referred to as ‘drying out.’ You didn’t hear about my latest escapade?”
I shook my head.
“Nearly killed myself with a mix of cocaine and home-brewed bourbon at Ramsay’s. Can you imagine le scandale?” She looked pleased at the thought of causing a fuss. “I guess Mum paid the right people to keep it out of the papers. Not for my sake, of course. For hers. Saving what’s left of her precious reputation.”
“So she’s locked you up? That’s absurd!”
“Isn’t it?”
The Marjorie I knew would be furious. Raging. The woman lying listlessly on the bed in front of me was a pale imitation of my sister-in-law, drained of the fire that made Marjorie so captivating.
“You’d think Mum would understand,” Marjorie said. “After all the pills and potions she’s forced on me. There was this horrible paste I had to spread all over my face to fade my freckles. Another cream to whiten my complexion—that one stung horribly. Syrup to help me sleep after Cecily left and I was afraid the devil was coming to snatch me in the night. It worked; it really did. I wish I still had some, but Mum cut me off.
“Isn’t it funny how Mum would love to get the whole country swallowing Lemont Industries’ magic pills, but she sneers at me for trying out anything else? Cocaine’s not nearly as bad as they’d have you believe. Hard to find these days; you have to make friends with real lowlifes to get the good stuff, and that’s what gets me in trouble. Oh, I have stories. I only wish I could remember half of them.”
“Marjorie,” I said abruptly. “This is crazy! You have to get out of here!”
“Crazy?” Her words had started to sound slurred. “We’re all crazy. This entire damned family.” She stared at me, eyes dulled of all feeling. “You’ll go crazy, too, if you stay.”
I felt sick.
“Get out,” she mumbled. “Leave me alone.”
My hands were shaking as I walked out of the room. Edna locked the door behind me, and we walked back upstairs.
“That room,” I said, as we emerged into the library. “Marjorie. It’s not right.”
“Mrs. Lemont decides what’s right,” Edna said. “She’s who I take my orders from.”
Not forever. I flashed Edna a look, and she was sharp enough to understand what I meant.
“You agreed not to tell,” Edna said. Defiant, to cover up her fear.